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Internet of Things – an opportunity for Government?
March 1, 2015 jimpknightBarcelona, Government, IoT, Mobile 2 Comments
When the world's mobile telecoms movers and shakers gather in Barcelona next week they will inevitably be thinking about the next wave of the technology revolution. The Internet of Things and Machine to Machine have been talked about for a while and there will be an impatience for the commercial impact to really be felt.
Aside from commercial judgments, what about how governments should exploit the potential of digital to solve today's challenges. In Barcelona I will be discussing with ministers how we can realise the potential of this new technology across the public sector.
A starting point is the urgent need for governments to do things differently.
The old ways of delivering public services were forged in the post war industrial economy. They are no longer affordable. By contrast, communication with citizens has never been more affordable thanks to social technology. And the problems are now so complex that the only practical way to solve them is collaboratively with citizens.
So this is the right time to argue for a new mindset, learning from the commercial world and finding new models of service delivery. The Internet of Things offers some interesting examples.
I have been using wearable technology to monitor my health for 18 months and know it changes my health behaviour for the good. In doing so I am conscious of the trade off in terms of that health data also going to a third party. If we can find a way of building public trust in the use of their data there is huge potential in public health to save on care and on chronic diseases like diabetes.
There is plenty more. Driverless vehicles can help with congestion, and smart meters can help with affordable heating and tackling climate change. Prof Stephen Heppell has been doing very interesting analysis around the ideal learning environment – the right levels of light, heat, sound and air quality for learning – a smart school can deliver these things. There is also the great learning potential from analysing the huge amount of data created by the Internet of Things.
But I must also sound some warnings.
I have already touched on the growing concern about personal data. Connecting objects appears to be all about creating more data points. Some of that will be data about me that I may not want others to know. If my smart meter is hacked into, could thieves then surmise when my home is normally empty? How safe is my health data and my shopping data?
The technology revolution is creating economic growth but it is not evenly distributed. Recent reports suggests that the richest 1% now own 99% of the wealth. That is not sustainable. The rise of extreme politics and terrorism has to be related to a sense that the status quo is not delivering for many, and so people are looking for an alternative. Will this next technology wave of the Internet of Things lessen or exaggerate that problem?
As a schools minister in the UK, I was responsible for a huge spend on classroom technology. Unfortunately the element of the budget for training got stripped out and so we had a limited return on investment. We had become so be-dazzled by the potential of technology enhanced learning that we had forgotten about the people.
People must be at the heart of this new technology. And here I am impatient to see genuine attempts to design co-creation into public services.
In the commercial world we have seen the technology journey from producer efficiency to consumer personalisation, to now co-creation.
So the challenge is to combine the ability to connect things, with people generated design. Ministers in Barcelona would be wise not be too dazzled by the Machine to Machine technology until the loop is closed of people to machine to machine to people. Then they can get the consent and to harness technology to deliver what the people want from their public services – more for less.
Speech on Arsenal Fanshare scheme & fan involvement in football
October 30, 2014 jimpknightArsenal, fanshare 2 Comments
My Lords it is a pleasure to follow my friend the noble Lord Holmes, even though he plays in blue.
I declare an interest as a lifelong supporter and current Season Ticket holder at Arsenal Football Club.
I know only too well the unique bond that exists between a supporter and a club. Often it brings frustration and despair but also the greatest moments, such as winning the Cup at Wembley.
It is a commitment for life and the power of football in people's lives can bring many positive things including the focal point of community pride. But we must remember that without Fans football is nothing. For example at its most cynical, fans are vital wallpaper and ambient sound for lucrative TV coverage.
I was until recently a Director of the Arsenal Fanshare Scheme. This is a pioneering scheme that enabled Arsenal fans to buy a part share in Arsenal. As the price of one share is now £15,000 the scheme allowed fans to come together within the scheme to own an affordable part of a share – called a Fanshare.
The FSA regulated scheme was successful at its launch and hailed by many including the FA, the Premier League, Michel Platini of UEFA and Jeremy Hunt and Hugh Robertson who as Secretary of State and Minister for Sport respectively spoke positively of the scheme as a model for football clubs to follow in terms of supporter ownership engagement.
The scheme quickly secured almost 2,000 members and collectively they held 120 shares in Arsenal. That meant that 2000 more fans had a small share in Arsenal's ownership and there were 120 places to attend the Annual General Meeting and hold the Club's Directors to account. Fanshare holders received the Club's Report and Accounts and all the information that Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis sent to Arsenal's Supporters.
Arsenal has benefited greatly over many decades from maintaining stability in its ownership structure, and from having supporters who own shares and are actively involved in this structure. Plurality of ownership has served Arsenal well and is the best way to ensure the necessary checks and balances are in place to protect the club's long-term future.
Sadly for Fanshare there was a takeover of Arsenal Football Club by Stan Kroenke during the early days of the scheme. This changed everything. Despite many attempts to engage Mr Kroenke has refused to meet with anyone from the Scheme and he has refused to support it to develop. With him buying up all the shares during the takeover, the scheme has struggled to find new shares to buy and was unable to market itself to new members. It is now facing closure. A final plea for him to issue new shares to the scheme has been refused.
In this regard it is a great pity that the DCMS has taken so long to establish its Expert Group on Football Ownership as recommended to it by the Arsenal Supporters Trust. If it had done so it might have found ways to provide more support to schemes like Fanshare. While Ministers spoke highly of it they have regrettably offered no tangible support when it mattered.
As the Arsenal Supporters' Trust advised the Culture, Media and Sport Select Cttee, there are legislative barriers such as those contained in the Financial Markets and Services Act that made it more difficult to promote the scheme and I welcome that there is now finally a group to look at these barriers.
But we need to go further. We need to discuss how Supporters are given a greater say in the way that Clubs are run. That is why I welcome the proposals put forward by Clive Efford MP and my party to have Fans elected onto the Boards of Football Clubs.
In my opinion, and many other fans I meet, clubs like Arsenal are too important to be controlled solely by just one person and these measures would address that.
This could be achieved by legislation. It could also be achieved by the Premier League and the Football League making changes to their rulebooks.
The Arsenal Supporters' Trust has argued that these rules should reflect supporters at all Clubs being treated in the way they would if they held equity in the Club, even in cases where they do not:
Engagement would specifically cover:
1.	Providing a financial and reporting format similar to that required under the Companies Act.
2.	Twice yearly meetings between representatives of the supporters' trusts and directors and/or executives of the club, at which discussion can take place on the performance of the club and the views of the wider membership can be directly reported.
I hope that the Government can make progress with these issues in the recently announced Expert Working Group. And I also hope that they will correct their omission of not including any representatives from Premier League Clubs who face these engagement barriers.
But their track record to date isn't encouraging. For real change we have the proposals from Labour and that is why my advice would be to always support the team in Red!
Thanks to @timpayton
lords, Politics, Uncategorized
From the Ridiculous to the Sublime – the Lords Delivers!
October 21, 2014 jimpknight 3 Comments
I must confess.
Today I voted in one of the most bizarre elections in the world. And I voted for someone who was eligible to be a candidate because he is the great grandson of Herbert Asquith, the former British Prime Minister. I was also one of an exclusive electorate, as members of the House of Lords were the only people eligible to vote.
But the Lords are not elected, I hear you cry! That is mostly true but not when it comes to the ones that are there by birth. Yes, this was the by-election for a vacancy for a hereditary peer (see my earlier blog), and on this occasion the whole House was eligible to vote (with convention saying it ought to be a Liberal).
I voted because I thought I should, but clearly this is the Lords at its most ridiculous.
By contrast I also picked up a copy of the Lords internal newsletter the Red Benches. This included a story telling me that they were testing a new system of recording votes using iPads. This is so that they can record them more efficiently and publish the results more quickly.
This is a very good thing for accountability.
All Lords divisions are published and are easily searchable. The public can then see how we all voted, very soon after we did. We have nothing to hide.
The Lords have been doing this for some time. It begs the question as to why the Commons don't do the same…
on the drive up we stopped at the river Spey
the classic Skara Brae shot
Yesnaby near Skara Brae
More from Yesnaby
more coastal morphology
On top of Birsay
A fulmar flies over Birsay
Rousay & Westray seen from Birsay
Sanday beaches
Rainbow on Sanday
Stones of Stenness
Ring of Brodgar
Highlights from week at Orkneys
October 3, 2014 jimpknightHolidays, orkney, Scotland Leave a comment Gallery
Change the political paradigm
October 2, 2014 jimpknightdigital, elections 2 Comments
Six months ago I stood down from the Labour frontbench after nine years, to take up an exciting full time job in education. I still attend the Lords to vote and speak, but I have enjoyed having some distance to reflect on politics in this country.
Outside of Westminster and the media, most people say the same thing: "I'm not really interested in politics…they're all the same." I've heard that on doorsteps for over twenty years, accompanied by declining turnouts at elections, but I've rarely stopped to really drill into what people are saying.
That changed last month when 85% of voters in Scotland showed they were deeply interested in politics. When politics became relevant to them. Whilst the Yes campaign lost, there was a strong sense that voters on both sides wanted politics to change significantly. I don't believe Scottish voters are unusual.
At one level "they're all the same" could be about people in politics. Too many private school and Oxbridge educated white males – like me. Too many who've never achieved anything outside politics, and too much over-promotion of intellect and under-promotion of empathy.
But reflect longer and there are perhaps two other aspects where it may look like "they're all the same".
they're all the same
First, is the appearance that they care more about winning power than using it. I know the vast majority of politicians are in it for the right reasons but the entire political culture is geared around Westminster elections and the positioning needed to win them.
The middle ground is where elections are won and so parties disproportionately focus on how to win votes and craft policies to appeal to the same few electors – leaving everyone else feeling irrelevant. It exposes politicians as being inauthentic; because what they feel is hidden behind what the middle ground tells them they want to hear.
To the disengaged this looks like a game. A game where negative campaigning wins. That dwells on image. That does so because political parties can't risk setting out a vision that describes doing anything profoundly different, in case it loses the election.
This is the second problem. The way politics is done hasn't changed much since the Empire. The debates for decades have been about the role of the state, and the balance of tax and spend. Now the main UK parties seem to agree on cuts and balancing the budget, but with a heated debate about which benefits to cut and how much tax to give away. But it all sounds very similar.
The old ways of doing things are now as useful as Stone Age tools in the Bronze Age
An ageing population, climate change, globalisation, technological change, indebtedness – all the great challenges facing us mean the current paradigm must change. The old ways of doing things are now as useful as Stone Age tools in the Bronze Age.
The case for wholesale change in the way representation, executive decision-making and law making is done has never been stronger. By happy coincidence the public are desperate for a new way of doing things too. Many politicians are starting to see it too but like music industry bosses waking up to Napster and iTunes a decade ago, they don't know what to do. Meanwhile the destructive populism of UKIP is allowed to thrive in the vacuum.
There are no easy prescriptions to the sickness sweeping our politics. But I would start with looking at what is going on in the new economy.
In their 2010 book Macrowikinomics, Dan Tapscott and Anthony Williams offer some clues.
They start with the story of how Ushahidi was used in the 2010 Haiti earthquake to massively improve the effectiveness of disaster response. This crisis mapping site was developed over a weekend by a Kenyan lawyer in 2008, following disputed elections. When the Haiti earthquake struck it took an hour for the same platform to start recruiting the global Haitian diaspora, from a basement in Boston, to translate, categorise and geo-locate thousands of text messages in real time. They used Skype to then relay information to search and rescue teams in Port-au-Prince and respond to requests from the World Food Program and the US military. This bottom up technology proved way more effective than observation on the ground.
This is a social application of the disruptive technology that is the heart of the sharing economy.
The Linux free open source software, that is now in everything from BMW cars to Android phones, has spawned a $50,000,000,000 Linux economy. There are many other examples where co-production of services by consumers is creating massive value and disrupting whole industries, most recently Airbnb. Many of these "prosumer" products are highly resource efficient, empowering of the public and are growing really fast.
What if these forces were embraced by government? What if the sharing economy was accompanied by a sharing society? Could we design public services to cut out the middle layer, the agents, the managers, the bureaucrats, and directly connect consumers and professionals?
There are signs that some are starting to do this.
Fix my Street, here in the UK, is a long standing example of changing the relationship between local people and local government.
I met a group from China last week who told me about their system of national care credits, where the care you give can be exchanged in the future for care you receive.
The US Patent Office has moved to using the public to check patent applications – the volumes became unmanageable and so they had to crowd source it to keep up with innovation (if patents can be effectively regulated by the public, why not replace the House of Lords with mechanisms for the public to improve legislation instead?).
TES Global operates a platform for teachers to share their teaching resources. The network has over 6.5 million members downloading over ten items per second.
digital mutualism
Truly designing digital mutualism for public services ought to be a no-brainer for progressive politicians. It is putting power wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many not the few. It is the co-operative movement re-born in a post-industrial age. But is does mean those with power and influence choosing to give it up – including at the top of the Labour movement.
Embracing a new political paradigm is a big ask. Are we ready for strong government but less active government? For public sector innovation, ending the cult of the policy expert, and being open, transparent and collaborative?
The prize is better services, more personal and at less cost. It depends on rebuilding trust out of the trust we have to share our homes on Airbnb, rather than out of the ashes of the expenses scandal.
This sharing socialism may not be the new paradigm. But I am convinced that the old paradigm is over. If we don't find a new one fast we will be left behind, and people will find a new politics.
Jim Knight is a member of the House of Lords and Managing Director of Online Learning at TES Global.
Reflections from 5,000 Years Ago
September 30, 2014 jimpknightneolitihic, orkney, skara brae, technological change 1 Comment
The sun is high and across the bay are the sandstone cliffs being battered by sea. You can just see the occasional wave coming through a great stone arch carved out of the coast on the southern edge of the bay.
Walk along the bay and you are at a remarkable set of grassy mounds and stone workings. This was home 5,000 years ago for Neolithic people at Skara Brae, a village exposed by the sea winds in 1850. The remains are remarkably intact. It almost looks like Hobbiton, with small door ways and turf roofs – Tolkein was a professor of Anglo Saxon at Oxford, maybe his interest in ancient history brought him here?
At the visitor centre there is a complete replica.
As you walk in, the first thing you see is a large stone dresser on the other side of the hearth. Either side of the dresser are small troughs for storing water and food. All around the room are compartments for curling up and sleeping.
People lived in this community for 600 years – from 3100 BC to 2500 BC. The sea was further away and the community had access to a fresh water loch, before getting to the beach. They were farmers of livestock, fishermen and cultivators of food in the fertile soil fed by warm Gulf Stream air. They made clay pots, and fashioned their tools from stone and bone. There was some local wood and other driftwood from the Atlantic.
In many ways they appear to have had a successful existence. There would have been reasonable supplies of food and energy. There was trade and enough interaction with others to avoid genetic in-breeding.
But then it stopped. There appears to be few clues as to why.
These Stone Age people would have witnessed gradual climate change. The erosion of the sea, eventually taking away their local water supply. The depletion of their natural wood resources and with it a main source of energy.
The threat of technological change was inevitable. Jim Crace's great novel The Gift of Stones tells the story of Stone Age craftsmen being made irrelevant by Bronze Age invaders. Seemingly technological change opening new ways of doing things and making the world smaller.
So why did the community at Skara Brae close? I suspect that their way of life became unsustainable despite their resourcefulness. After 600 years of stability, they would have had to change.
As we all do from time to time.
Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red
August 25, 2014 jimpknightanti-semitism, Israel, Poppies, Tower of London, World War One Leave a comment
A couple of weeks ago I met my Mum at Tower Hill tube station. She was in her raincoat and trying to make her phone work when I found her. We walked the few yards to get our first glimpse of the poppies at the Tower. This wonderful installation, by Paul Cummins and my good friend Tom Piper, is an extraordinary spectacle.
Even so early on in the work to plant 888,246 ceramic poppies, the scale moved me. Each poppy was a life lost and by November the moat at the Tower of London will be full. It is very beautiful and I will keep going back to see it unfold.
For my Mum it was particularly moving. Almost one hundred years ago to the day her father joined up. Unlike his brother George, he survived, but he never recovered his health following the gas attacks in the trenches.
A member of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women awaits the beginning of a Lights Out WWI remembrance ceremony at the Bevis Marks Synagogue (from The Guardian)
Then last week I met up with a friend for dinner. We had a lovely meal, I had yellow fish curry, at Granger & Co in Clerkenwell Green. We were talking about the centenary of WW1, and she told me that she had been involved in some of the events in the Jewish community. The Lights Out remembrance ceremony at Bevis Marks synagogue sounded particularly special.
Naturally our conversation went on to discuss the impact of the awful events in Gaza and Israel. Sadly too many people struggle to see the difference between the actions of the Israeli government and Jewish people generally. There is an awful rise in anti-semitic attacks in this country as a result.
That in turn reminded me of a conversation I had two weekends ago at a party on a boat in the Lagoon at Venice. I was a guest of the Kinnernet Italy conference organised by Yossi Vardi. Yossi and I were having a quiet chat in between the food, wine and dancing. He was encouraging me to come to Israel to visits some of the schools he supports for Israeli Arabs.
It is too long since I last visited Israel and Palestine, and saw for myself the dangers of taking sides in the conflicts there. Watching BBC2's wonderful The Honourable Woman this weekend also reminds me of the layers of complexity in the region, and the pitfalls for those who try to stay neutral.
This weekend I have also been dragged back into ancestry.co.uk. There I find more on the war records of my relatives. I have found out a little of what I think is my wife's grandfather who also fought and survived in the trenches. I think I have found his pension record showing an honourable discharge on health grounds from the Royal Sussex Regiment after three years service.
But there is another member of Anna's family I found out about through Ancestry. Marks Cohen was her great grandfather. He was born in Russia, the son of a rabbi. He escaped forced conscription into the Russian army aged 14 and arrived in London speaking only Hebrew and Russian. Fourteen years later he too signed up and was one of those many Jews who fought in the British army during the Great War.
All of these stories are reasons why I was so pleased when my friend Hannah asked me to help with the education programme for the Blood Swept Lands installation at the Tower. By researching our own family stories of the war we can reconnect and remember their sacrifice, but we can also remember what binds us together. The terrible conflict in the Middle East is so divisive, and yet commemoration of the Great War can also remind of us that however different each of us is, there are bigger things that bind us.
Hereditary Peers' By-election – Not a Silly Season Story!
August 4, 2014 jimpknight 3 Comments
On Friday, when I got home to Weymouth and opened the post, I found a House of Lords Notice. I ignored my usual irritation at the waste of money sending post rather than email, and extracted the green notice from its plastic wrapper. With great amusement I read the headline:
Hereditary Peers' By-election
To many this may be confusing. Many would only know the Lords as an undemocratic house of Parliament made up of political life appointees, like me. Others may also think the Blair government got rid of the hereditary peers fifteen years ago. So what is this by-election, and how come those who are there by birth are also elected?
The green notice opens by saying:
"The death of Lord Methuen on 9 July 2014 has created a vacancy among the expected hereditary peers who sit in the House of Lords. Under Standing Order 10, this vacancy is to be filled by means of a by-election."
This all goes back to the deal that was done under Lords reform back in 1999. The Labour government wanted to get rid of all the hereditary peers, but needed to persuade them to vote for their own abolition. The compromise was that 92 were allowed to remain, as long as the rest lost their seats.
Now you might think that was an elegant solution; that the Grim Reaper would then slowly reduce that number down over time until all the Hereditary Peers literally died out. But you would be wrong.
The compromise also included the deal whereby if one of the 92 passed away then their place would be filled by a by-election, hence this procedure to give someone the right to make law in this country.
So who can vote and who can stand?
"All Members of the House … are entitled to vote in this by-election."
So that is clear, the voters are the Lords themselves and polling day is on 21st October 2014.
On who can stand, there is some boring detail but in this case:
"Those eligible to stand are all those hereditary peers whose names are listed in the register of hereditary peers wishing to stand for election as members of the House of Lords."
So the hereditary peers were not abolished at all. The larger pool of hundreds lost their right to sit and vote but they, and their successors, are on stand by to get elected when there is a vacancy.
Which is why, in this eccentric country we know and love, the only people elected into our second house of Parliament are those that are there by birth!
PS There are also elections to Labour's NEC. For those that are interested, I have voted for Luke Akehurst, Johanna Baxter, Crispin Flintoff, Florence Nosegbe, Ellie Reeves and Peter Wheeler
lords, morality
Assisted Dying – my view
July 18, 2014 jimpknighteuthanasia, Lord Falconer, medical ethics, suicide 2 Comments
Today the Lords debates this very difficult moral question. There are over 125 speakers limited to 4 minutes each. Rather than take up more of my peers' time it seems more efficient to blog my views. One day maybe this approach will be embraced and such expression could be appended to the Hansard record.
This issue has generated a lot of correspondence – more than I have had for some time. Much is hand written, normally personal and very thoughtful. Opinion is evenly divided, although emailers seem more against and hand writers more for Charlie Falconer.
I am not religious. I note that Christian opinion is now split and I will say no more on the faith based arguments than to say that it seems we are happy to "play God" in preserving life, we "play God" when we put animals out of their misery, and in my irreligious state I don't see the logic which says assisted dying is any different.
I am also not a medical professional. This bill would ask a lot of them and I hear the difficult ethical arguments. Much as with abortion we should not require any doctors to make these difficult decisions to assist suicide, it should be something they are ethically comfortable with.
Given what I am not I must therefore start with what I believe, based on my own experience.
As I was growing up my father had cancer on a number of occasions. Over thirty years before he died he was given a 50:50 chance of survival, and the same ten years later. His desire to live through that sickness, I suspect largely for his family, combined with the NHS to keep him going for many years. I am therefore cautious about how we define terminal illness.
I have been deeply moved by those who also were given a few months, were very depressed, but are now still alive and enjoying a quality of life. With this bill some of those people may have felt too much of a burden and been helped to die.
I also remember well my grandmother's acute pain when she died and how grateful she seemed for her doctor being generous with the medication at the end. I strongly believe that this empathy is what most of us would want for ourselves in a similar position. That is why I support this bill, but I also know that this sympathetic use of potentially lethal pain relief is a treacherous place for doctors.
My own experience has therefore informed my thinking on Assisted Dying. This is a profoundly difficult issue where the balance between safeguarding the vulnerable and safeguarding the needs of the individual in tragic circumstances need to be weighed up very carefully.
I support the bill at second reading. However I will also want to see close scrutiny as it is improved by the parliamentary process, to ensure we learn from international experience and get the best safeguards in place that we can.
Image from http://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2010/jan/12/assisted-dying-doctors-terminally-ill
Data, digital, Politics, Security
Your Privacy at Risk – Your Security Enhanced?
July 16, 2014 jimpknightcivil liberties, digital, Lords, online, security Leave a comment
This is the text of my speech today in the Lords on the controversial Data Retention & Investigatory Powers Bill
My Lords, I have to start—like the noble Lord, Lord Butler, who made such an excellent contribution—by saying that the Government's handling of this Bill has been a disgrace. I cannot repeat any better why it is a disgrace, and it would be ridiculous of me to try to compete with the noble Lord's analysis. To have given Parliament three days when they have had three months to consider their response is a disgrace. Although my ministerial experience, at just five years, is much more limited than that of the previous speaker, whom I equally respect, particularly his experience as Home Secretary, I know that when there was the threat of a case in the European Court, Ministers would receive a risk analysis. I find it difficult to believe that no one in the Home Office had a plan B. If they were to lose that case, the thinking was not going on within government as to how they were going to handle losing the case and the uncertainty with which they would then have to deal with the RIPA powers. So I am afraid that that is my starting point.
I would also strongly agree with my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon and others when they say that there is a need for Parliament to be seen to address the very real public concerns over the balance of privacy and security and the desire for personalisation of digital services. Some of us use digital services very heavily and are only just becoming aware of how much our desire for all those personal services that come through on our phones and tablets generate metadata that are now the subject of this legislation. Given the need for Parliament to be seen to address and debate, and lead a debate in the wider public, on those concerns, it is an affront to see the legislation railroaded using the fast-track mechanism. The basis of my comments is to analyse whether some of that is justified.
Yesterday, as is my wont, I gave some friends and some of their family who are over from Canada a tour of the Palace of Westminster. Highlights of that tour are always things such as the Magna Carta; there is a copy in the Content Lobby, and we will enjoy celebrating its 800-year anniversary next year. Then there is the statue of Lord Falkland, where the sword was cut to allow a suffragette called Marjory Hume to be taken off to prison in 1909, and the plaque commemorating Nelson Mandela speaking in Westminster Hall. Best of all is the broom cupboard in the Crypt, where Emily Wilding Davison hid on the night of the 1911 census, and the phrase at the end that Tony Benn put there:
"By such means was democracy won for the people of Britain".
That tour contains in its highlights all those moments where we recognise hard-won civil liberties for us as individuals, both here and around the world. It is incumbent on us as a Parliament and those who serve at any given time in this Parliament to protect those liberties as strongly as we protect the safety and security of the people in this country.
We also need to remember that we have a different tolerance of our own privacy, because we agree to become public figures when we agree to come here, than do most people who live in our country. The information in Who's Who would probably allow anyone who wanted to steal some of my information to do so, because it has my mother's maiden name as well as my date of birth, which are the sort of questions that you get asked online. We understand that when we fill out the entry in Who's Who and we are aware of the risks that we take when we do so. I hope when we make up our security information online that we are also aware of it and are accordingly cautious.
We also need to be aware of the issue of metadata. When I sat in the audience in the Donmar Warehouse theatre a month or so ago, as a guest of my noble friend Lord Mitchell, watching the play "Privacy", we heard gasps from the audience when they found out how the default settings on an iPhone mean that Apple knows exactly where we are and exactly when at any given time, unless we change those settings. They were some of the greatest moments of theatre that I have seen in some years—it was my first profession— when I heard the gasps of the audience who saw the pictures of their houses flashed up on the back of the screen, because the researcher had researched them using metadata to show where they all lived. That is metadata, the subject of the Bill—and that is something that we have to be cautious about.
There has been a breakdown of trust in recent years between the people of this country and the state, particularly those pursuing criminal investigations. This is because of Hillsborough and Savile; because of phone hacking, and plebgate. We must have an active debate on a regular basis because of PRISM and because of the powers that the private sector and, through it, the state and GCHQ have to access our data. As a Parliament we have been remiss in not debating Snowden as actively as we should have and as actively as they have done in the US. If we do not, I think we are failing the public
I am persuaded by the arguments that Clauses 1 to 3 are necessary. I believe that security and the ability to continue criminal investigations mean that we have no choice but to pass Clauses 1 to 3 of this Bill. This was well put by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. We need the status quo for criminal investigations.
I welcome the concessions that my right honourable friend the Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has won in getting the RIPA review and six-monthly reporting into the legislation. I worry that the thinking behind these reviews is through the prism—if that is not the wrong word—of security and law enforcement as the starting point, rather than the data privacy of individuals. I should also like to see a review of the operation of the Information Commissioner's Office. According to its website, it is:
"The UK's independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals".
That office needs to be the guardian of members of the public on these issues. I hope the Minister will be able to give an assurance from the Dispatch Box that the Information Commissioner's Office will be included in some of that review work.
Clause 4 concerns what I will call the new powers overseas because I cannot pronounce extraterritoriality very well. I struggle to see the emergency for this to be included in a fast-track Bill. In the report of the Constitution Committee, published today, paragraph 11 says:
"It is not clear why these provisions need to be fast-tracked".
It may not be fashionable to quote Liberty but it says that Clause 5 of DRIP, read together with Clause 4 (8), gives the Government "new, express powers" to go to foreign webmail providers and demand that they hand over or obtain communications data. The objectives of the snoopers' charter are therefore met via another route. That is their charge. If the Minister were able to respond to that, I think that supporters of Liberty would be pleased to hear it.
As I am sure your Lordships will all have done, I have received a letter from a list of highly credible legal experts on internet law. These are professors from a whole range of our best universities. They say that this clause,
"introduces powers that are not only completely novel in the United Kingdom, they are some of the first of their kind globally"
The letter continues,
"the proposed Bill arguably breaches EU law to the extent that it falls within the scope of EU law, since such mass surveillance would still fall foul of the criteria set out by the Court of Justice of the EU in the Digital Rights and Seitlinger judgment".
They would say that the reassurance which the Minister gave, following my intervention, is not true. I am sure that everything the Minister is saying is on good advice and in good faith. I know him to be a completely honourable and truthful man and I do not question what he is saying. However, I would value it if he were able to publish or circulate to Members of your Lordships' House the advice he has received that this legislation, particularly Clause 4, is not in further breach of EU law, and that it will not extend the legal rights—not the practice but the legal rights—of government in respect of these matters.
On balance, very reluctantly, I support the Second Reading of this Bill, but I question whether Clause 4 should continue to be in the Bill.
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text:
Hampton U. men and women confident heading into MEAC tournament
By Dave Fairbank
dfairbank@dailypress.com |
Ke'Ron Brown (21) and his teammates are confident going into the MEAC tournament (Kaitlin McKeown, Daily Press)
HAMPTON — Talk to the occupants of Hampton University's men's and women's locker rooms at the Convocation Center and it's difficult to tell which group enters next week's Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament atop the standings and which one is sliding.
Both teams are outwardly confident heading into the annual event, at the Norfolk Scope, though they face markedly different paths to tournament titles.
The Hampton U. women (18-11, 14-2 MEAC) won their fifth consecutive regular-season championship and again are the No. 1 seed as they aim for a sixth straight tournament title and NCAA berth. They open tournament play noon Wednesday against the winner of Tuesday's 8-9 game between Maryland Eastern Shore and N.C. Central.
The Pirates' men lost three of their last four regular-season games and are the No. 6 seed. They play a first-round game 9 p.m. Monday against No. 11 seed Morgan State, in hopes of making a Thursday quarterfinal against No. 3 seed UMES.
"We're very confident," Pirates guard Ke'Ron Brown said. "Even though the record doesn't look too good, but we're very confident. We're really looking forward to getting into the tournament. We're going to be an underdog, but we're going to shock a lot of people."
The Pirates (12-17, 8-8 MEAC) are confident because of their level of competitiveness, if not results. They swept Morgan State during the regular season, playing a nearly flawless first half three weeks ago in a 93-65 win in Baltimore.
HU had No. 1 seed North Carolina Central on the ropes before falling 59-52, part of a six-game January swoon it corrected. The Pirates played two tight games against second-seed and rival Norfolk State, losing the regular-season finale 80-69 last Thursday.
They defeated No. 3 seed UMES in their only meeting and swept fourth-seeded Howard. Though they must win four games, rather than three, if they get past Monday, they will have a couple of days to rest and regroup.
"I think that's a good thing for us actually to be playing Monday, and not to sulk about this loss," guard Reggie Johnson said after Thursday's game. "We can get right back into practice, get over it and it's just like another game, instead of taking that break and putting so much pressure on the (first tournament) game. I feel like going right into it, it'll be just like another game."
Hampton last won a MEAC tournament game in 2012 and hasn't advanced beyond the semifinals since it won the event in 2011.
Coach Ed Joyner Jr. said the emphasis since Thursday's loss was, "Pick up their confidence. Pick up their focus, their confidence, everything. Pick 'em up. Make sure they go in understanding that this is what the whole season comes down to. No matter what you did throughout these last couple of games, you can save your season by winning the tournament. Hopefully, that's what we can get them up for."
Though the Pirates lost three of four to conclude the season, that's a little misleading since two of the losses were to Delaware State, in a scheduling quirk, and the other to Norfolk State. The Hornets have two top-tier talents in Amere May and Kendall Gray — witness May's 40 points and Gray's 33-point, 30-rebound game in the season finale.
"I wouldn't say we took a step back," Johnson said. "Of course, we'd like to go into the MEAC tournament with some wins. Going in with two losses, two tough games, two good teams. Del State is a scary team, going into the MEAC, and of course Norfolk is No. 2. I wouldn't say we took a step back, but we're not where we'd like to be."
The Pirates possess a good deal of depth and can play multiple combinations and styles, but they've been plagued this season by inconsistent stretches at both ends of the floor and not enough scorers.
Leading scorer Dwight Meikle carried the load Thursday against Norfolk State with 24 points and eight rebounds. But when he went to the bench with his second foul midway through the first half, the offense stagnated and Norfolk State gained footing, turning a nine-point deficit into a seven-point halftime lead that it never relinquished.
"We've got to pull it all together and that's on me," Joyner said. "Hopefully, we can get it together by Monday."
Meanwhile, the Lady Pirates enter the tournament on a roll. They've won eight in a row, and though they showed themselves to be more vulnerable than the previous couple of seasons, they're almost a different team in the past three weeks.
Imagine a band wrapping up a five-month tour with several gigs at Carnegie Hall. Everybody's accustomed to their songs and roles and solo performances.
And then a couple weeks before the big shows, one of the backup singers suddenly becomes Audra McDonald. That's the Lady Pirates with Kaylah Lupoe.
Weekend Sports Review: Hampton to the CAA? NSU's strong MEAC start, ODU's ugly loss, a Norfolk Admirals knockout.
Former Hampton University AD, MEAC commissioner Dennis Thomas selected to College Football Hall of Fame for playing prowess
Weekend Sports Review: Heinicke goes out with a whimper, Tomlin's a winner, COVID crashes hoops and Admirals seasons
Gardner-Webb men spoil Hampton's Big South opener
'Everything on the schedule is just tentative.' NSU, ODU, Hampton all dealing with positive tests as COVID disrupts season.
The 6-foot-1 freshman forward has been a revelation, averaging 20 points and nine rebounds in the past four games, topping her totals for the first three-plus months of the season.
"She's a big help with rebounding, scoring also," HU guard Malia Tate-DeFreitas said. "It relieves a lot of pressure from me, knowing that if I pass the ball to her, she can get a layup."
Tate-DeFreitas concluded the season as the MEAC's top scorer at 22 points per game and leads a capable group of perimeter threats. But Lupoe's emergence means that defenses must play more honestly and cannot ignore the interior.
"I think there's a lot of parity," head coach David Sox said. "It's going to be tough. But I like our chances. I like the way we're playing defense right now. I like having 0 (Tate-DeFreitas) and 31 (Lupoe) on my team to score for me."
Fairbank can be reached by phone at 757-247-4637.
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Hampton Pirates
Maryland Eastern Shore Hawks
Delaware State Hornets
North Carolina Central Eagles
Reggie Johnson
Dave Fairbank
Dave Fairbank has been a sportswriter and columnist at the Daily Press since Sept. 1984, which means he either likes it here or his career is woefully stalled. He was born in Baltimore, Md., in Sept. 1958 and grew up near Annapolis, Md. He graduated from the University of Maryland (Class of 1980), where his degree came with a Terrapins belt buckle and Lefty Driesell's autograph. He and his wife, Suzanne, live in Newport News and often dream of the beach.
Latest Hampton University
Hampton University men's basketball team set to begin season with "whole new team"
O'Brien: Black national anthem provides a lift for the sports writer and fan in me

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Driven by old soul and rock n' roll, Northern California-based, Kingsborough has created a huge following with their modern twist on authentic American roots rock. This independent group of musicians reflects the old school "Working Band" mentality with a heavy focus on raw high-energy performances. BAM magazine describes their performance as "rocking it like the big boys used to…..in the same way that Springsteen has always done." Building a reputation for an incomparable live concert experience has lead Kingsborough to perform with Weezer, ZZ Top, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and many more.


Set just off the beautiful Folkestone Harbour area sits this lovely end of terrace house. With all the bedrooms being doubles there will be no fighting over who gets the largest room. Book a viewing today to avoid disappointment.


The Macarthur Cardinal Battalion is headed to nationals - again! After advancing through two phases of online competition, the Leadership Team from MacArthur Army JROTC has qualified for the national JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl, to be held June 21-25 at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. The team is comprised of students Cadet Corporal Asia Brito (Captain), Cadet Corporal Andrea Guzman, Cadet Staff Sergeant Erick Saldierna and Cadet Corporal Javier Valenzuela. This is the fourth time in five years, that MacArthur is among the qualifying 40 teams - out of more than 1,350 teams worldwide!


text:
Report on Sheveluch (Russia) — 21 September-27 September 2005
Smithsonian / US Geological Survey Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 21 September-27 September 2005
Managing Editor: Gari Mayberry
Global Volcanism Program, 2005. Report on Sheveluch (Russia). In: Mayberry, G (ed.), Weekly Volcanic Activity Report, 21 September-27 September 2005. Smithsonian Institution and US Geological Survey.
Volcano Profile | Weekly Report (21 September-27 September 2005)
KVERT raised the Concern Color Code at Shiveluch from Orange to Red (the highest level) on 22 September. According to interpretations of seismic data, on the 22nd at 1715 a strong eruption began, with ash plumes reaching ~7.5 km (24,600 ft) a.s.l. [corrected by KVERT to 6.5 km (21,300 ft) a.s.l.] and hot avalanches and pyroclastic flows descending the volcano's flanks. The pyroclastic flows extended 10-15 km. The strongest seismic signal of the eruption occurred on 22 September at 2259. Shallower signals recorded between 22 September at 2330 and 23 September at 1200 were possibly associated with ash emissions that rose to 3.5 km (11,500 ft) a.s.l. An ash plume was visible on satellite imagery at a height of ~3 km (9,850 ft) a.s.l. extending ~20 km SSW. The Concern Color Code was reduced to Orange on 23 September.


text:
Q: Using TFS Release Management, I need a task to rename a file I'm using TFS Release Management.  In my deployment, I want to replace tokens in a file, but first, I need a task to rename the file (overwriting the one that is there already).
Seems like it should be super obvious, but I can't seem to get it to work.
Thanks in advance for any help :)

A: Possibly duplicate with this question: Visual Studio Team Services Release Definition - Task to rename a file?
Try this method:

1) Add the "Inline Powershell" task from the marketplace
2) Enter
  the following Powershell in the text area
Param
(
 [string]$pathToFileToRename
)

Rename-Item $pathToFileToRename NewName.txt

3) Enter any required arguments in the arguments text box (you can
  use environment variables) e.g.
pathToFileToRename $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/somepath/CurrentName.txt

How to run the task please refer this blog: Using the Inline PowerShell VSTS task

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Hundreds of shop closures and thousands of jobs lost during crisis in North East retail
One piece of research has suggested that more than 9,000 shops in the North East would close by 2018
Jonathon Manning
Shops closed in North Tyneside, North Shields (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
Thousands of jobs have been lost during a crisis in the UK retail sector, with estimates suggesting that a quarter of shops have closed in the North East since 2012.
The growth of online shopping, rising wage costs and the burden of business rates have been blamed for a decline in high street shopping that is seeing more than 40 shops a week closing around the UK.
Retail experts believe the North East has been affected more than other parts of the country, with one organisation suggesting that more than 9,200 shops in the region - 25% of the total that existed in 2012 - will have shut during the last five years.
The loss of big name retailers like Woolworths and BHS has seen some of the biggest losses, but the last 12 months have also seen jobs going at Brantano, Greenwoods and Store Twenty One, all of which had sites in the North East.
Shops closed in North Tyneside (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
Early figures suggest both the period running up to Christmas and the days following the festive break have been disappointing for retailers, with speculation that some shops will not have made enough money to survive when quarterly rents are due for payment in the New Year.
A report by the Centre for Retail Research suggests that more than 9,200 North East shops will have closed by 2018, and also points to a North-South divide in the numbers of shops going out of business.
Imagine these 15 ambitious plans for Tyneside that never came to pass
Centre director Professor Joshua Bamfield warned that "historic forms of taxation are hobbling physical stores and giving the advantage to online retailers".
He said: "If we want to maintain a variety of forms of competitive retail enterprise, from small stores to large big box and department stores serving villages, towns and big cities, we need to ensure that property and company taxes do not consistently penalise physical shops in favour of e-commerce."
Shops closed in North Tyneside, McColls Whitley Bay (Image: Newcastle Chronicle)
High street footfall for the Boxing Day sales fell by 5.9% on last year, according to figures from monitoring service Springboard.
Average footfall across all UK shopping locations was down 4.5% on the same 24-hour period last year as retailers faced "challenging" trading conditions, Springboard said.
Research from the ratings adviser Altus Group show that 44 shops a week have either been demolished or converted into homes or other types of use.
Lost Newcastle
Nightclubs of the 80s and 90s
Lost pubs of Newcastle
Restaurants of the 80s and 90s
Shops you might remember
Alex Probyn, president of UK business rates at Altus, said: "An online sales tax might be used to level the playing field, but it does not belong within a system based largely on rental values.
"An online sales tax, for example, should not be seen as a generator of additional income, but revenue could be ring-fenced and used to provide additional relief for traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers."
Dogecoin price swings after Elon Musk reveals Tesla accepts the cryptocurrency
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Russia's central bank proposes ban on using cryptocurrency and mining it
Your MoneyThe plan is the latest in a worldwide shift to government crackdowns on crypto


text:
Abdi Bile (ur. 28 grudnia 1962 w Laas Caanood) – somalijski lekkoatleta specjalizujący się w biegach średniodystansowych, dwukrotny uczestnik letnich igrzysk olimpijskich (Los Angeles 1984, Atlanta 1996).

Pierwszy w historii Somalijczyk, który zdobył tytuł mistrza świata (Rzym 1987, w biegu na 1500 metrów). Dzięki temu sukcesowi został uznany w swoim kraju za bohatera narodowego.

W 1983 r. wyjechał do Stanów Zjednoczonych. Do Somalii powrócił w 2008 r. i pełni funkcję trenera somalijskich lekkoatletów.

Jest kuzynem Abdiego Abdirahmana, długodystansowca reprezentującego Stany Zjednoczone, trzykrotnego olimpijczyka (2000, 2004, 2008).

Sukcesy sportowe

Dwukrotne mistrzostwo NCAA w biegu na 1500 metrów (1985 i 1987).

Rekordy życiowe
 bieg na 800 metrów – 1:43,60 – Zurych 16/08/1989 (rekord Somalii)
 bieg na 1000 metrów – 2:14,50 – Jerez de la Frontera 13/09/1989
 bieg na 1500 metrów – 3:30,55 – Rieti 03/09/1989 (rekord Somalii)
 bieg na 1500 metrów (hala) – 3:38,50 – Fairfax 16/02/1986 (rekord Somalii)
 bieg na 1 milę – 3:49,40 – Oslo 02/07/1988
 bieg na 2000 metrów – 4:59,77 – Fürth 14/06/1987
 bieg na 3000 metrów – 7:42,18 – Kolonia 21/08/1994 (rekord Somalii)

Przypisy

Bibliografia

 OLYMPIC PROFILE: Abdi Bile; Running as a Nation Watches

Somalijscy lekkoatleci
Średniodystansowcy
Somalijscy olimpijczycy
Medaliści Mistrzostw Świata w Lekkoatletyce 1987
Urodzeni w 1962
Uczestnicy Letnich Igrzysk Olimpijskich 1984
Uczestnicy Letnich Igrzysk Olimpijskich 1996

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


From the director of The Sandlot comes the true story of an underdog coach and the team that must defend their legacy against insurmountable odds. In the small town of Norway, Iowa, the high school baseball team, led by legendary Coach Jim Van Scoyoc (Powers Boothe, TV's "Deadwood"), has won 19 State Championships. But the small town heroes are dealt a series of unexpected blows that threaten to rob them of their 20th championship win. When talk of a school merger gets serious and Coach Scoyoc is fired, then replaced by his 24-year-old assistant, Kent Stock (Sean Astin, Rudy and The Lord of the Rings trilogy), failure seems inevitable. Tom Arnold, Rachael Leigh Cook and Michael Angarano join an excellent ensemble cast in this inspirational family gem.
© 2007 The Final Season Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Critics Consensus: The Final Season recycles clich?s we've seen in countless other sports movies, making for an unoriginal and uninspiring addition to the genre.
An exciting family picture, worthy of viewing, if only for the warm-fuzzy feeling.
...manages to overcome the entirely underwhelming nature of its first act.
Heartwarming-but-trite drama for baseball fans.


More than 80,000 ATMs now run KAL software in China, a country well known for having one of the most demanding self-service banking environments in the world.
Statistics at the end of 2012 showed that 83,698 ATMs operated KAL's multivendor ATM software, including the ATM networks of the China Construction Bank (CCB), Bank of Communications (BOCOM), China Everbright Bank (CEB), and Shenzhen Development Bank (SDB).
KAL ATM software enables banks to run a single ATM software solution across their entire self-service networks, which is especially important for banks with massive ATM networks with many diverse models of ATM hardware from a large number of manufacturers. At present, KAL software runs on ATMs from 40 different global ATM manufacturers including more than ten manufacturers in China.
Large bank ATM networks around the world are similar to those in China, comprising multiple ATM vendors and a wide range of software and hardware components. Managing these types of networks without a standardized multivendor ATM software platform presents serious logistical difficulties for banks as the ATM software is typically 'siloed' by hardware vendor within the network. Updating and changing the software is a very complex and time-consuming process. Delivering a consistent customer experience, enhancing functionality, and integrating with other banking channels and systems is also extremely challenging for the banks to manage in a cost effective way.
In China, the scope and sophistication of the self-service channel made the challenge even bigger. More than 50% of Chinese ATMs are cash recycling systems that accept cash deposits and, in turn, dispense the same cash notes. CCB's ATM network of over 53,000 ATMs is believed to be the world's largest and most complex, with a wide range of hardware models from Wincor, Diebold, Hitachi and many other manufacturers.
The CCB rollout with KAL ATM software was the first deployment of multivendor ATM software in China and enabled CCB to offer a consistent and personalized customer user interface with across its entire network, greatly enhancing its brand and the overall customer experience.
The movement to support multivendor ATM software also streamlined the entire process of upgrading and troubleshooting hardware issues, while all information about hardware status, cash, captured cards and other relevant operational data was remotely monitored in real time.
The success of the CCB deployment prompted the country's other big banks to follow suit, with KAL expected to increase its presence even further in the country over the coming years.


Commision for an startup brand focused on esports inspired gifts and merchandising. The task at hand was to create two original artworks featuring two of the most popular League of Legends players at the moment: Bjergsen and DoubleLift, fusing both of them with their signature in-game champions. For this result, elements were taken from the chosen characters, from their weapons, to outfit choices, palettes and overall attitude so they would be clearly reflected on the players and easily recognizable by fans of the game.
Bjergsen is an esports player from Team Solo Mid. Syndra is his preffered in game champion. The chosen traits from this character that have been merged with the player are the champion's crown and it's signature weapon, dark energy spheres. Aside from those, Bjergsen's team outfit has been modified to fit the champion's aesthethic.
DoubleLift is an esports player who currently plays fro TeamLiquid. His preffered champion is Jinx. Both DoubleLift and Jinx have an over the top attitude, which was reflected on this artworks color palette and character pose. Traits taken from the character and applied to the esports player are: Weapons (Cannon, handgun, bullets and machinegun). Some parts of Jinx's outfit were also merged with DoubleLift's team uniform.


text:
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Home / health / technology / We Accidentally Created A New Wonder Material That Could Revolutionise Batteries And Electronics
We Accidentally Created A New Wonder Material That Could Revolutionise Batteries And Electronics
health, technology
Phosphorene nanoribbons. Oliver Payton/University of Bristol, Author provided
By Chris Howard
Associate Professor, UCL
Mitch Watts
PhD Candidate - Production, characterisation and simulation of few layer black phosphorus, UCL
Originally published on theconversation.com
Some of the most famous scientific discoveries happened by accident. From Teflon and the microwave oven to penicillin, scientists trying to solve a problem sometimes find unexpected things. This is exactly how we created phosphorene nanoribbons – a material made from one of the universe's basic building blocks, but that has the potential to revolutionise a wide range of technologies.
We'd been trying to separate layers of phosphorus crystals into two-dimensional sheets. Instead, our technique created tiny, tagliatelle-like ribbons one single atom thick and only 100 or so atoms across, but up to 100,000 atoms long. We spent three years honing the production process, before announcing our findings.
The two-dimensional ribbons have a number of remarkable properties. Their width to length ratio is similar to the cables that span the Golden Gate Bridge. Their incredibly uniform but manipulable width allows their properties, such as whether and how they conduct electricity, to be fine-tuned. They are also incredibly flexible, which means that they can follow the contours of any surfaces they're put on perfectly, and even be twisted.
Transformative potential
More than 100 scientific papers predicted the transformative potential of these nanoribbons, should it be possible to create them, across a range of technologies – some as many as five years prior to the publishing of our discovery in Nature.
Perhaps the most important of these is in the area of battery technology. The corrugated structure of phosphorene nanoribbons means that the charged ions that power batteries could soon move up to 1000 times faster than currently possible. This would mean a significant decrease in charging time, alongside an increase in capacity of approximately 50%. Such performance gains would provide massive boosts to the electric car and aircraft industries, and allow us to much better harness renewable energy to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels even on grey, calm days.
It also means that in future, batteries could use sodium ions instead of lithium ions. Known lithium reserves may not be able to meet huge projected increases in battery demand, and extraction of the metal can be environmentally harmful. Sodium, by contrast, is abundant and cheap.
The field of electronics may also be thankful for nanoribbons. Moore's law observes that computer processing power doubles every two years, but this rate is in danger of slowing down as the physical limits of materials are being fast approached. Using '2D' materials like ours could redefine these limits, allowing us to make ever-smaller and faster devices.
The ribbons could solve another major roadblock in this area – how to electrically connect nanomaterials without creating large resistance (and therefore energy loss) at the joins. Several-layer thick versions of phosphorene nanoribbons can be seamlessly split into ribbons with different heights and electrical properties, circumventing the usual engineering requirements of connections. Thanks to this, high-efficiency solar cells could now be much closer to entering into reality.
The phosphorene nanoribbons' flexibility and thermoelectric properties mean that they could also be embedded in wearable fabrics, and used to convert waste heat into useful electricity. For example, we could soon see thermoelectric t-shirts that function as heart and blood sugar level monitors, all powered by body heat alone.
A thick phosphorene ribbon splitting into two thinner ribbons.
Freddie Russell-Pavier/University of Bristol, Author provided
The technology could unlock the potential of hydrogen as an efficient and low-carbon fuel. The gas is abundantly available in water and only produces oxygen as a byproduct when extracted. However, finding a way to do this cheaply has thus far eluded scientists. Water molecules can be split through a process called photocatalysis, but the method requires a material that absorbs lots of light, and whose energy properties match up well with water. Nanoribbons are predicted to have exactly these qualities, as well as a high surface area that would maximise contact with water, making it a promising candidate to crack the hydrogen-production conundrum.
Encouragingly, phosphorene nanoribbons have already navigated major obstacles on the route to commercialisation. Finding a scalable production method like ours takes years for most new materials, and some never see the light of day. Added to this, phosphorus is a relatively abundant and easily extracted material in the Earth's crust. And since our ribbons are already formed in liquids, inks or paints can easily be produced to manipulate them at scale using low-cost methods such as spray-coating or ink-jet printing.
Producing these ribbons is however just the first step towards revolutionising the above technologies. Much research now needs to be carried out to test theoretical predictions, and investigate the extent to which the properties of the ribbons can be tailored for specific applications. As the 20-year plus journeys of Teflon, lithium batteries, and Velcro show us, the road from discovery to use can be long. But with society increasingly moving away from fossil fuels, we expect that road to soon be well-travelled.
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The novelist William Thackeray wrote: "A good laugh is sunshine in the house".
And you can be sure that there will be plenty of sunshine flooding into the 'house' at Coleraine's Riverside Theatre thanks to an exciting new aspect of programme planning from the new theatre manager, Roseanne Sturgeon.
Having worked in Dublin and Scotland and collaborated with Adam Turkington of Belfast Culture Night, Roseanne is keen to reach out to a younger audience on the north coast and to make the Riverside an 'incubator' for new vibrant talent.
One aspect of this aim is the programming of some fresh, new comedy talent beginning with the unique George Firehouse and 'The Complete History of the Beatles...sort of' which kickstarts the season on Wednesday, September 27.
After sell-out shows at the Belfast Comedy Festival and Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, one of Belfast's favourite comedians George brings a unique blend of nonsense, magic mayhem and wit.
Next up is the 'out there' Farmer Michael and Kathleen's Taepot Tour (yes, TAEpot!) on October 6.
With strong language and sexual references, Farmer Michael and Kathleen are internet sensations with their brand of comedy.
Later in October, 'hairy idiot man-child' Paul Currie takes on the Riverside stage fresh from Glastonbury and the Edinburgh Fringe.
Strap in for fun and nonsense as the entire audience is taken by the hand into a true circus of silly.
The hugely popular Mickey Bartlett is lined up for November with his unapologetic take on racism, sexism...and his doctor telling him to avoid dairy!
Don't miss Northern Ireland's favourite stand-up from BBC's Bad Language, Monumental and Radio 4's State of the Nations.
And finally, mentioning the C-word...Christmas....Further Ted (Joe Rooney and Pat McDonnell) rolls into the Coleraine venue in December. A night of comedy gold and a must for all Father Ted fans.
"I really want the Riverside to become the 'you saw it here first' venue outside of Belfast," added manager Roseanne.
Check out riversidetheatre.org.uk for details on this exciting new Comedy Club.


Police are looking for a 75-year-old man who is missing from the Ravenswood neighborhood on the North Side.
Jesus Guerrero was last seen Tuesday in the 2200 block of West Wilson Avenue, according to Chicago police.
Guerrero is described as a 5-foot-5 hispanic man weighing about 120 pounds with gray hair and brown eyes. He has a hearing impairment, police said.
He was last seen wearing a dark jacket and blue jeans, police said.


Romania is home to no less than eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Ranging from natural sites, such as the Danube Delta and the Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians to cultural landmarks like the painted churches of Moldavia, these sites are places that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime.
With their elegant tall towers and massive roofs, the wooden churches of Maramureș stand out among neighboring buildings and embody an architectural style that has long since passed. Built between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, they were a solution for the followers of the Christian Orthodox faith, who were prohibited from building stone churches, a rule imposed by the Catholic Austro-Hungarian authorities. The churches' interiors are now adorned with beautiful biblical scenes painted by local artists, while the walls and windows highlight the craftsmanship of woodcarvers. Out of the approximately 100 churches still standing, eight were included on the world heritage list in 1999 and are open to visitors: They are Bârsana, Desești, Plopiș, Budești, Ieud, Rogoz, Poienile Izei and Șurdești.
The six Dacian Fortresses of the Orăștie Mountains, located in Transylvania's Hunedoara and Alba counties, were once the nucleus of the Dacian Kingdom. Built between the first century BC and first century AD, they formed a defensive ring around the Dacian capital, Sarmizegetusa Regia. Exhibiting an original mix of religious and military building techniques, they show a picture of a rich, vigorous and advanced civilisation that enjoyed a surprisingly high standard of living. For instance, despite living on a mountain plateau at an elevation of 1,200 metres (3,900 ft), the inhabitants of Sarmizegetusa Regia used a water distribution system built with ceramic pipes. At this particular site, archaeologists uncovered several spectacular Dacian gold bracelets with complex functions not yet fully understood. You can visit these sites and look at the findings at Bucharest's National Museum of Romanian History.
Built in the twelfth century by German merchants known as the Transylvanian Saxons, Sighișoara has played an important commercial and military role in the region for several centuries. One of the few medieval citadels in Europe that was continuously inhabited, it features a historic centre with high turret houses decorated in colourful facades and winding cobbled streets that haven't changed in 800 years. The birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, the historic figure associated with Dracula, it is a must-visit for fans of the count. Nearby, in Hoghilag, the locals celebrate the fragrant tuberose, traditionally grown by the Saxons, by throwing a yearly celebration in the summer.
Due to its outstanding biodiversity and complex history, the Danube Delta is nothing short of a world treasure. Home to over 300 bird species, the Danube Delta is the largest continuous marshland in Europe and features the greatest stretch of reed beds in the world. Lying on the Black Sea coast in Tulcea County in eastern Romania, the Danube Delta stretches between the rivers Chilia, Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe, as well as the Razelm-Sinoie system of lakes. It is the second largest delta on the continent, hosting 12 types of habitats. A true paradise for nature lovers, the Danube Delta is the best preserved delta in Europe and is home to charming villages like Sfântul Gheorghe (home of a famous film festival and a culinary hotspot).
The painted churches of Moldavia, in northern Romania, are considered unique masterpieces of Byzantine art. Their interior and exterior walls are covered in exquisite, brightly coloured frescos dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Depicting biblical scenes, such as portraits of saints, the life of Jesus and the final judgement, the paintings were meant to make the teachings of the bible more accessible to the village people, who did not have access to the bible. Also, due to the fact that the churches were too small to accommodate the large number of worshippers, patrons would congregate along the outer walls, and the paintings would keep them connected to the religious ceremony taking place inside. All eight painted churches, Arbore, Moldovița, Humor, Pătrăuți, Probota, Suceava, Voroneț and Sucevița, are open to visitors.
Romania's second natural site that received world heritage status is a shared one. Spanning over 12 European countries, the site celebrates the important natural heritage of the European beech tree, which spread across the continent in a matter of a few thousand years. The site is located in the Carpathians and includes ten massifs (compact groups of mountains) that start from the Rakhiv Mountains in Ukraine and end in the Vihorlat Mountains in Slovakia. In addition, the Primeval Beech sites in Germany are located in five different places throughout the country.
One of the most important religious sites in Romania, Horezu Monastery was built in 1690 in Vâlcea County by Prince of Wallachia Constantin Brâncoveanu. Brâncoveanu is considered an important historical figure and is remembered for the rich cultural relics he left behind, such as religious and laic (non-clerical) buildings. Featuring an original combination of local Neo-Byzantine architectural styles with influences of the Italian Renaissance, the monasteries are seen today as representatives of the Brâncovenesc style. The Horezu Monastery was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1993, due to the intricate craftsmanship of its works of art and sculptures, as well as the outstanding treatment of its religious compositions.
Another major symbol of the Saxon cultural heritage in Transylvania, The Villages with Fortified Churches were a unique result of very particular historic circumstances. Today they are an open-air medieval museum to teach visitors about architecture built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries by the Saxon community. At the time, the Saxons had a privileged status within the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Because they were built on various migration routes, the villages were constantly exposed to invaders searching for grains and other valuable goods. In response, the locals fortified the churches, usually built in the middle of the villages, with protective walls and dedicated chambers that would host a large number of villagers and their goods. Out of UNESCO's seven Villages with Fortified Churches, the most spectacular ones are in Biertan, Viscri, Prejmer and Valea Viilor. But the others in Câlnic, Dârjiu and Saschiz are equally worthy of a visit.


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Readings & Talks
On and Off the Avenue
January 23, 2012 Issue
350 West Broadway (646-669-9049)
By Patricia Marx
Illustration by Katie Turner
Virtue shopping comes to SoHo. You can be a giver—and, not to worry, also a taker—at the Nordstrom-owned emporium Treasure & Bond, which donates the entirety of its profits to children's charities, the selection of which changes every three months. (Proceeds are currently earmarked for the Children's Health Fund, as well as for a sleepaway camp and an after-school service program, both sponsored by the Coalition for the Homeless.) The twelve-thousand-square-foot, two-level loft is decorated in monastic chic, with gray painted concrete floors and exposed pipes overhead, and the space is minimally appointed, with shelving and tables constructed from shipping crates and display cases that have had previous lives at Nordstrom.
And the goods? Some have specific philanthropic tie-ins, such as the metal whistle necklaces, whose sales support a campaign to protect the children of Congo from warfare ($34), or the attractive tribal-looking jewelry in antiqued gold and brass, made by diverse artisans living in political strife and sold by a company called A Peace Treaty, whose founders, a Pakistani Muslim and a Libyan Jew, donate money to reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Less eleemosynarily, there is apparel for men, women, children, and dogs, as well as cable-knit blankets made from recycled cotton ($155); pebbled-leather fold-over clutches styled with artful slashes ($375); hand paper shredders ($28); whiskey stones, which, when frozen, can be used as non-diluting ice substitutes (nine soapstone cubes/$24); an assortment of chunky-knit wool scarves in different shapes (asymmetrical cowl, infinity scarf, bunting chain, etc.) ($160-$295); emerald-blue fake-fur hats ($160); Lafco candles in fragrances supposedly reminiscent of tree houses, lake houses, carriage houses, pool houses, and other houses ($55); an ingenious contraption called a shable, consisting of a set of wooden shelves that reversibly turns into a table (imagine shelves configured as a freestanding staircase; now imagine rotating a cast-iron crank to level this ziggurat so that it flattens into a single horizontal plane) ($1,245); bilingual Snow White picture books ($14.95); and a brand of nail polish called Strange Beautiful, which comes in colors inspired by menstrual blood, Benjamin Disraeli, the shell of a boiled lobster, the green veins of Roquefort cheese, and, issued specially for the holidays, a worn black Bible ($85 for a collection of ten). ♦
This article appears in the print edition of the January 23, 2012, issue.
Patricia Marx, a staff writer, has been contributing to The New Yorker since 1989. Her new book, "Why Don't You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?: A Mother's Suggestions," illustrated by Roz Chast, will be published in April.
Coalition for the Homeless


text:
Minerva Centers Call for proposals 2020
2020/2021 Call for proposals for Minerva Centers
In relation to the following topic: "Intelligence" (topic can be approached from different aspects)
Deadline 1st stage: 20th February 2020
Eligibility: Principal Investigators in a permanent position in the six universities and the Weizmann Institute1.
The Minerva Stiftung is collecting proposals for new Minerva Centers. It is intended to establish up to three Minerva Centers in 2020/2021.
I. What is a Minerva Center?
Minerva Centers are research groups located in the universities in Israel. They are under the directorship of a Principal Investigator, who has a permanent position in one of the six universities or the Weizmann Institute in Israel. Minerva Centers deal with topics that are innovative and of special interest to the science community in Israel. The centers carry out research in cooperation with German partners. The Minerva Centers program aims at bridging gaps, training young scientists and building networks in the respective field of research with partners in Israel. Centers will involve excellent researchers regardless of their institutional affiliation.
A Minerva Center is designed as a long-term effort of a number of scientists to concentrate on a certain field of research. A center may also involve scientists from other than the host university, such as to create an inter-university community in the field. A Minerva Center is not a project which could be funded by a grant or the university. A Minerva Center ideally is devoted to an emerging research field which is not yet well established in Israel and which does not yet attract grants and donations.
Requirements apply to the director of a center with regard to his/her scientific track record and experience in leading projects. The director will be an outstanding, experienced research figure and is responsible for bringing together the critical mass for the subject.
II. Funding Objectives
Minerva is seeking exciting topics for new centers which can be interdisciplinary in their approach. Proposals addressing the broad topic of "Intelligence" are welcome from all areas of science.
III. Two-stage Proposal Procedure
1st stage: Invitation of thematic proposals
In the first stage of the proposal procedure, researchers submit outlines of exciting/promising new topics that are suitable for being best elaborated by a center. The first stage is intended to be a collection of promising ideas. A proposal can be submitted by a scientist who applies to lead a Minerva Center; a proposal can also be submitted by a scientist who proposes another scientist as a director of a center. The proposals must include the names, the CVs and a list of not more than five publications of the potential PIs. Thematic proposals are to be sent to Minerva. The PIs are encouraged to inform their host university about the proposals and the university is free to comment on them before submission. The Minerva Centers Committee will then carry out a pre-selection of the proposals.
2nd stage: Invitation of thematic proposals
Those PIs/leading scientists who passed the first stage are invited to present a more elaborated and detailed proposal. The proposal must have the support of the host university, which it states in a letter of commitment. These applications will be submitted to evaluations by at least three external reviewers each. A number of PIs will then be invited for a personal presentation and a discussion with the evaluation panel (the Centers Committee and additional scientists).
IV. Funding Duration of the Center
The lifetime of a center is limited to an initial period of six years. After an evaluation during the 6th year, the lifetime of a center can be extended for another period depending on the recommendations of the evaluation committee. This period will not exceed another six years.
V. Budget of the Center
The center will be funded by Minerva. Minerva funds will be matched with the same amount by the host institution, partially contributed in kind. Both amounts will make up the budget of the center. The budget will comprise a sum of up to € 150,000 per year.
VI. Eligibility Requirements
Principal Investigators, who are in a permanent position in one of the five universities and the Weizmann Institute, are invited to submit proposals.
VII. Submission and Deadlines
Proposals for the 1st stage must reach the MINERVA office by 20th February 2020. Proposals must be submitted electronically and as one print copy by the Principle Investigator to:
Postbox 101062
michael.nagel@gv.mpg.de
Intended further procedures are:
Evaluation deadline 1st step: end of March/beginning of April 2020
2nd step:
invitation of complete applications with a deadline: end of June 2020
decision on the 2nd step proposals: November/December 2020
Interviews in Israel: early 2021 in Israel
VIII. Documents to be submitted
The following information are obligatory parts of the thematic proposal in the
1st stage2:
The signed proposal (outline). This proposal shall include a summary and an outline of the research and must not exceed 2-3 pages.
The proposal should be fully comprehensible without reference to cited or enclosed literature.
A short CV of the proposed director and, if necessary, CVs of other PIs as addendum. (CV must not exceed one page each).
A list of not more than 5 important publications per PI is required as addendum.
1Bar Ilan University, Ben Gurion University, Haifa University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, Techion TIIT, Weizmann Institute of Science
2To be noted: applications that do not adhere to these rules - f.i. exceed the number of pages - are not eligible
Michael Nagel
Programme Manager +49 89 2108-1258 +49 89 2108-1451 michael.nagel@gv.mpg.de Minerva Stiftung Gesellschaft für die Forschung mbH, Hofgartenstraße 8, D-80539 Munich
Minerva Centers - Application


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Fri July 3, 2020, 19:42
I've just started to re-watch the show and searched for a thread to praise it but found none - so here it is!
Why Women Kill is an American dark comedy-drama web television series created by Marc Cherry for CBS All Access. Set in multiple time periods, the series depicts the events leading to a death that occurs after the respective husbands of three married women commit adultery. It premiered on August 15, 2019, and its first season consisted of 10 episodes. Shortly before the first season concluded, the series was renewed for a second season.
Why Women Kill follows three women from different decades who are connected through having all lived in the same Pasadena mansion and experiencing infidelity in their marriages. Beth Ann Stanton (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) remains content as a housewife in 1963 until she learns of her husband's unfaithfulness, socialite Simone Grove (played by Lucy Liu) discovers her third husband's homosexuality and begins her own affair with a younger man in 1984, and although in an open marriage in 2019, attorney Taylor Harding (played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste) finds her relationship tested when she and her husband become attracted to the same woman. The infidelity in each marriage sets off a chain of events that ends with a woman taking the life of another person.
My YouTube Channel - The best songs of the 80s, 90s and 2000s
It's such a great show, I loved all three timelines equally. Simone, Beth Ann, her neighbour Sheila and Eli are my favourite characters.
Sat July 4, 2020, 02:04
This show is something else.
Absolutely loved it.
Simone >
The merging of the three eras during the last episode was brilliant.
5.05.2009 / 6.22.2011 / 4.24.2013 / 4.25.2013 / 3.1.2014 / 9.13.2014 / 7.21.2016 / 7.14.2018 / 7.15.2018
Sat August 1, 2020, 19:13
I finished re-watching the show and loved it even more than the first time. I think that both JSparksFan and Spartan would love it as well (if they haven't already watched it).
It's on my lockdown TV list. Will definitely watch it at some point.
Sun August 2, 2020, 18:47
Originally posted by Spartan View Post
Nice to see that you plan to watch it, hopefull you'll like it as much as I do!
Susanarscott
You know, I think it's quite similar to "Desperate Housewives"
So, when I started to watch this one I didn't pin my hopes on that.
But I was attratcted to this movie!
Every character is different and the end of the film.. it was fantastic! How all times meet in one house, it was the most breath-taking moment during all film for me!
Ewokguy15
Glad everyone seems to be liking the show, gonna give it a go as Desperate Housewives and Devious Maids were great.
This was great for me. Loved Lucy Liu's story the most. The "modern day" story was the least good one for me, but they all tied well at the end.
I hope we get another batch of stories.
LJC123
Thu August 27, 2020, 20:25
Just started watching. Lucy Liu is ICONIC in this.
LJC--->>
Sat September 12, 2020, 17:13
Lucy Liu is the clear highlight in this. Ginnifer Goodwin is good, but I don't like the modern day woman very much, love her partner though (Reid Scott was great on Veep too).
The modern day woman is also my least favourite of the three. Eli on the other hand is adorable.
Colbie
Sun September 13, 2020, 11:26
Nah, i didnt like Eli that much. Taylor was a boss though, but she is my least fav from the 3 as well. i liked their storyline the least.
Finished this tonight ... at last. Adored the whole thing, I loved seeing the characters evolve and the storylines go off on the different tangents. Simone could've easily been a one-dimensional caricature but the last few episodes made me really care for her, and Lucy Liu is flawless.
I was really happy with the ending for all the characters. The tango scene in the last episode where all three eras merged into one was beautiful. Surprised the show didn't get more recognition.
'Why Women Kill' Adds Lana Parrilla, B.K. Cannon, Jordane Christie, Matthew Daddario & Veronica Falcón For Season 2
CBS All Access is rounding out the cast for Season 2 of its original anthology series Why Women Kill. Lana Parrilla (The Tax Collector), B.K. Cannon (Sin City Saints) Jordane Christie (The Haunting of Hill House), Matthew Daddario (Shadowhunters) and Veronica Falcón (Queen of the South) join previously announced Allison Tolman and Nick Frost in the series that hails from Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry, Imagine Television Studios and CBS Studios.
This season of the dark comedy features a new ensemble cast and storylines set in 1949 that will explore what it means to be beautiful, the hidden truth behind the facades people present to the world, the effects of being ignored and overlooked by society, and finally, the lengths one woman will go in order to finally belong.
Parrilla will play Rita, the sardonic wife to the wealthy and evil Carlo Castillo. As she waits for her elderly husband to die, Rita runs the garden club with an iron fist and spends much of her time engaging in an affair with a younger lover.
Cannon will portray Dee, Alma's wry and brassy daughter who works as a waitress in a local diner. Though self-deprecating, Dee can be vulnerable under her emotional armor and finds her illicit affair with a secret lover to be both exciting and humiliating.
Christie is Vern, a tough, rugged private detective. Vern is intrigued and suspicious when he's hired to investigate Rita's younger lover, whom she suspects is cheating on her.
Daddario will play Scooter, Rita's gorgeous, sexy and not-so-bright lover. A charming would-be actor, Scooter is well kept by Rita but pursues a secret relationship elsewhere.
Falcón will play Catherine, Carlo Castillo's spinster daughter. Prim and proper, Catherine detests her father's gorgeous wife, Rita, and returns to town after a mysterious accident, seeking a way to destroy her.
Cherry serves as executive producer alongside Imagine's Brian Grazer and Samie Kim Falvey; Acme Productions' Michael Hanel and Mindy Schultheis; Marc Webb and Francie Calfo. The series is produced by Imagine Television Studios and CBS Studios.
Parrilla can be seen in David Ayer's indie thriller The Tax Collector and is also known for starring on Once Upon a Time in the roles of Regina Mills and the Evil Queen. Parrilla's other previous credits include Prior Boomtown, Windfall, Swingtown, Miami Medical, as well as Spin City and 24.
https://deadline.com/2020/10/why-wom...-2-1234605346/
NoAngels
I loved season one. Dow we know when the second one is premiering??
Don't Worry, Cause You're Really Not That Hard to Replace.


Networking 101: How to Network!
Learn how to NETWORK like a professional and build authentic relationships for career advancement.
Architecting TALKS, is where students can join an informal gathering and take part in a fluid conversation to share ideas, discuss related topics and learn things that are beyond the university classroom, with Rashan and other practicing professionals.
This special edition talk is all about NETWORKING 101: HOW TO NETWORK.
RSVP ONLY IF YOU ARE SERIOUS! It's time to walk the walk, not just talk the talk!
For Students/graduates who are interested in gaining a better education from all disciplines and backgrounds.
Networking models that you can start right away!
IS IT FREE? Yes - hard to believe it!
IS IT A UNIVERSITY EVENT? DO I HAVE TO ATTEND? No, it is an obligation free event for students wanting to elevate their careers beyond the classroom. There is no affiliation to any university in Australia.
CAN I BRING A FRIEND? Yes - feel free! Make sure they register in time!
DO I NEED TO BRING ANYTHING? Laptop or something to take lots of notes!
DO I HAVE TO TALK? Nope, but the more you interact the more you can gain from it!
WHAT HAPPENS IF MISS THIS EVENT? This is a Special Edition Architecting Talk... so try not to miss it, if it is something that interest you!