Wjat's it like to viist John of God?
What's it like to visit John of God?
John of God (João de Deus) is a man who has spent most of his life as a channel for healing entities. He spends 3 days each weeks seeing thousands of people, performing physical and spiritual surgeries, prescribing herbs, treatments and advice. What he and his team do, both in body and in spirit, is amazing!
On the last day of our 2 weeks at the Casa (the place where this work is done), our group was asked to say how we each felt in one word. My word was grateful. I'm so grateful for my time at the Casa, grateful for the inconceivable and enormous shifts that occurred, grateful for the grace received, for the space held at the Casa and in Abadiânia Brazil, and for the love and support of our group.
Another word that dominated my time there is awe. I was constantly in awe of the process, of the people who travel thousands of miles to shift on every level. Awe at the incredibly ill people who visit the casa, people of all ages. Awe at the healings received and joy at seeing endless faces smiling!
For me personally, the shifts were, and continue to be amazing. I entered the Casa with a deep, deep fear of physical trauma, a fear that had held me back in so many areas, least of which being in my work as a healer. I would too easily tap into trauma held in other people's bodies and energy fields and it was often way too much for me. I had developed strategies to cope (and sometimes didn't cope, as some of you have witnessed first hand) but it was a burden. Once I agreed to take the trip to John of God, this pattern came to the surface, big time! The volume was turned way up, I could feel everyone's stuff. I knew it was part of a clearing process, I knew the work had started but I was dreading entering the Casa, being with people in physical pain, feeling that pain, and I was terrified of seeing surgery on stage. Absolutely terrified. But I knew it needed to be done.
The night before leaving Brasilia for Abadiânia, I felt a shift, I felt the deep primordial fear dissipate. What was left was the anticipation of the fear. I was so used to feeling people's stuff that I was in expectation. And off to Abadiania we went.
Our first day at the Casa was full of questions but also of smiles as we felt the loving energy and support of this amazing place. We waited in the morning to see John of God and missed the call for our line (there's a first time line a second time line, a revision line for after surgery and a specific line for if you've been asked to come back after prescribed treatments and these all happen each Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, morning and afternoon). We sat in the most tranquil garden and meditation spot overlooking the valleys of Abadiânia, and could feel deep healing taking place. We felt we were being prepared, it was all perfect. We were meant to be in the afternoon line.
And of course it was perfect for me… I needed to receive some healing before entering the main hall. And I then needed to be in the thick of things to show that I could do it. In the afternoon we entered the hall and waited for the lines to be called, we entered via the wheelchair entrance (of course!) and stood for what seemed like forever in the hallway as people with the most deliberating illnesses streamed past (of course!), we were there in the heat surrounded by physical trauma. Live surgeries were being done on stage in front of us (of course), and I looked, I didn't look much but enough, enough to know it was ok. And I didn't pass out. Yay!!! That was huge for me, enormous in fact. I was in awe and filled with relief.
Then it was time to enter the main halls to see John of God, set up much like a church with wooden benches and people meditating for hours, holding the space and receiving grace. We slowly and silently walked through one by one to see John of God. As you come close to him, you can feel the energy, you can feel that you're being checked out, worked on. And the meeting with him is brief, he held my hand momentarily, prescribed herbal pills and 3 crystal baths and said to come back in the morning. I was so relieved…most of our group were given spiritual surgeries, I didn't know I was being prepared for surgery but was relieved to have gotten through this stage.
The next morning I was in line again, after 3 heavenly and powerful crystal baths. And yes, I was scheduled for spiritual surgery that afternoon. So, here's a girl who hates hospitals, who would feel the trauma just walking past one…heading in for surgery. Another fear being faced… Yay… Yikes!!!
The spiritual surgeries are done on the etheric body but all are linked, and you can feel the shifts in the physical.
And my surgery was a big one, of course! I sat in the room where the spiritual surgeries are performed, we were told to close our eyes and to stay calm (hmm). At first I felt peaceful, I felt calm and thought, I can do this, it's easy. Then I felt a zoro style cut across my solar plexus, but if that was as 'bad' as it got, that would be ok (hah!), another zoro cut slightly lower and I felt my abdomen relax as if a large soft ball had been released, great. I was now a bit slumpy but ok.
Then, oh then, I felt a verticle cut from my heart chakra down to my public bone, and felt everything (everything) being removed, apart from my kidneys. Woah! I was sweating like there's no tomorrow, I felt there would be no tomorrow! I was slumped over on my legs facing the floor. I wanted to be on the floor, I just wanted to lie on those cooling tiles but I felt I was pinned to the bench, I was being held by an entity so that I wouldn't fall. I was doing some deep, panicy, deep breathing, tears were flowing, sweat was pouring, it all felt too much. It felt like an eternity!
Then I heard internally 'it's done'. Thank god!!!! I couldn't stand initially but everyone else was managing to so pulled myself together and out I went. Outside our lovely guide Ashamarae was waiting and was a site for the sorest of eyes (and body). I did it, I got through it, I was taken way past my perceived limits. If my limit was the next block, I was taken to the edge of the universe, and made it back (extremely shaken but in a far better place than before).
After a surgery you're asked to rest for at least a day, without speaking to anyone, I couldn't have done much else for a couple of days, it was intense, I was sore, I felt so open and sensitive, I felt dizzy and couldn't eat much. But I had the biggest smile on my face, I could feel it, so wide, wider than ever before. I was uncomfortable but I sensed the enormity of the clearing I received. Eons of crud were removed on all levels, lifetimes of stuff, gone. Of course there was lots of preparation leading up to the surgery, and lots of work done since but the actual surgery took maybe 20 minutes (or an eternity as it seemed). Amazing!!!
And I could feel the stitches, I had a lot of stitches! I needed to be very careful walking, bending, even getting into bed. I could feel the stitches pulling every time I moved. It was incredible. A few times I overdid it (sometimes just by turning over in bed) and asked for repairs while I relaxed in bed, and each time I felt the relief. Often I felt new work being done…my groin was stitched at the breakfast table, my liver was worked on while chatting with my room mate, my heart was worked on often, and so much more. The whole time my lungs were clearing, my sinuses were clearing, there was a lot of clearing. Endless work was done, and is still being done.
Now that my stitches are out, and I've left the casa, I feel amazing. I'm still tender and need to be careful, and I have pills to take for a few months (more clearing). I'm not able to connect with how different life will now be. I have no idea, but I know the work done was huge. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to attend the casa, grateful for being able to bring my new lighter energy into my work, grateful for all that I have learnt from the experience, grateful for my new connections with the entities who 'work' at the casa, to the people who work there and of course to John of God who had dedicated his life to do this amazing work.
There's so much more to tell of my time at The Casa but for now I'm digesting and integrating it all. More to share soon!
Would I go again? Absolutely… I see many visits in the future, it release more, to recharge and to deepen my 'everything'.
Would I recommend going with a guide? Yes, yes, yes! The support of a good guide is so important, someone who knows the drill, who can remind you of the things you need to do to support your healing, to cut through any confusion (you hear many different versions from many people of what to do and what not to do), someone who is kind, someone who has been there and done that. My trip was facilitated and guided by Ashamarae from 'Awakening From Within' who I highly recommend.
Is a trip to John of God for everyone? Deep work is done at the Casa, very deep. So if you have a willingness to go deep, to really face your stuff, to really let go, and to thrive, then go for it! But don't worry, not everyone's surgeries were as seemingly huge as mine. You'll be fine… better than fine, you'll feel amazing!!


text:
"At The Pulpit"— More than 50 discourses given by Latter-day Saint women over 185 years are now available online for free
Posted by Guest Author | Mar 1, 2018 | #LDSConf, books | 0 |
Selected Discourses by Mormon Women Available Online
SPECIAL THANKS TO MORMON NEWSROOM for this release!
More than 50 discourses given by Latter-day Saint women over 185 years are now available online for free. The talks were compiled by Church Historian's Press for publication in a book a year ago titled, "At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women." The Church Historian's Press is an imprint of the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The publication can also be found in the LDS Gospel Library app in the "Church History" section."At the Pulpit," authored by Church historians Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook, showcases 54 speeches given by Mormon women since the founding of the Church. The talks focus on doctrinal themes and were selected from every decade from 1831 to 2016.Reeder and Holbrook gathered the early talks by digging through old Relief Society minute books, newspapers, magazines, journals, conference reports and other resources. Two of the newspapers they searched through were the "Millennial Star" and the "Women's Exponent."
"At the Pulpit" editors Jennifer Reeder, left, and Kate Holbrook, right.
"'At the Pulpit' comes alive when people use it. While we know women gave great talks of doctrinal importance, we recognize the power and meaning of those words when we understand their lives that produced such testimony," said Reeder.
"I have felt strongly, while working on the book, while giving talks about the book and just while quietly reading from the book, that the words and the stories bring me closer to the power of God — the power to lead, to forgive and to persevere," said Holbrook.
Speakers include Emma Hale Smith, wife of Church prophet and founder Joseph Smith, as well as his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, who led the Saints from New York to Ohio. Other prominent pioneer women featured are Elizabeth Ann Whitney and Eliza R. Snow. The historians also selected talks from women they had never heard about before they started their research for the book.
International voices include Judy Brummer of South Africa and from Gladys Sitati of West Africa.
Discourses from contemporary Church leaders include Belle S. Spafford, Ardeth G. Kapp, Elaine L. Jack, Chieko N. Okazaki, Julie B. Beck, Bonnie D. Parkin, Sheri L. Dew, Virginia H. Pearce and former Relief Society general president Linda K. Burton.
In addition to the text, 22 original audio recordings allow listeners to hear the talks. Spanish and Portuguese translations will also be available later this summer.
PreviousLindsey Stirling — The Greatest Showman Medley smashes the charts!
NextMusic as a Missionary Tool — LDS MissionCast
Have a post idea? If you'd like to see about providing a guest post on MLH, contact us and tell us about it. We love to post articles that help people live fuller, more vibrant lives. Bonus if it speaks specifically to the uniqueness of living a faithful LDS lifestyle.
Free Audio Books for Children: Audible Stories Helps Us Get Through Quarantine Status
VIDEO: BOOK OF MORMON CENTRAL COME FOLLOW ME #GeneralConference edition #COMEFOLLOWME WITH TAYLOR AND TYLER
This Easter video from the Arizona Tempe Mission will make you feel grateful for your Savior!
Pillar of Light: New Graphic Novel Adaptation of Joseph Smith's First Vision Celebrates Bicentennial #HearHim
Get LDS Life-Hacks in Your Email
We'll send you an email with our latest posts & other useful information.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Contact Greater Houston Appliance Repair Services or call our office.
We are looking forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to contact us using the form below; we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Sugar Land-Missouri City-Houston Appliance Repair Service.
and now Serving The Greater Houston Area.
Furthermore, because we appreciate your business, the management team at Greater Houston Appliance Repair services would like to offer some saving coupons for added repair value.
The first Coupon is for your Refrigerator maintenance. Strangely enough most people find it unnecessary the majority of our clients may describe it as a waste of money. However, as professional technicians, we understand how important to maintain a cool running refrigerator. More than 60% of our repairs results from dirty coils and compressors low on freon, not to mention that over 10% of the refrigerators and freezers we service work twice as hard because of a broken rubber seal. At any rate, whether you take our advice or not we found out that it translates to a simple phrase, Pay now or pay later.
Secondly, is a coupon offer for our senior citizens, because we understand that most seniors live on a fixed budget and limited resources, so here we extend a little extra help and to say thank you as well.
extra help for all website users a small reduction in repair costs and little appreciation for putting their confidences in our company and all of our team.
Ultimately, you can only use one of these offers mentioned above, and you cannot combine any two these specials.


India's October retail inflation went down to 3.31 percent, while industrial output growth slipped to 4.5 percent in September from a rise of 4.66 percent in August, official data showed on Monday.
As per the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Consumer Price Index (CPI) eased to 3.31 percent from a rise of 3.70 percent in September.
The slow down in CPI was attributed to lower food prices, as the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) deflated (-) 0.86 percent in October from an expansion of 0.51 percent in September 2018.
On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the retail inflation in October 2018 was lower than in the corresponding period of last year. It had stood at 3.58 percent in October 2017.
Among non-food categories, the 'fuel and light' segment's inflation rate accelerated to 8.55 percent in October.
On the other hand, India's industrial output growth slipped to 4.5 percent in September from a rise of 4.66 percent in August.
The data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed that the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in September 2017 had grown at a slower rate of 4.1 percent.
"The cumulative growth for the period April-September 2018 over the corresponding period of the previous year stands at 5.1 percent," the 'Quick Estimates' of IIP released by the ministry said.
On the YoY basis, the output of manufacturing sector expanded by 4.6 percent, while mining production inched up by 0.2 percent and the sub-index of electricity generation increased by 8.2 percent.
Among the six use-based classification groups, the output of primary goods which has the highest weightage of 34.04 grew by 2.6 percent. The output of intermediate goods, which has the second highest weightage, inched up by 1.4 percent.
Similarly, consumer non-durables output rose during the month by 6.1 percent and that of consumer durables by 5.2 percent.
In addition, infrastructure or construction goods output increased by 9.5 percent and capital goods by 5.8 percent.
"The index of industrial production accelerated in September, 2018, mainly pulled up by strong performance in manufacturing, electricity, infrastructure or construction and consumer durable goods," the industry body said in a statement.
"We expect the IIP numbers to improve for the month of October 2018 vis-à-vis festive demand," Talwar was quoted as saying in a statement.
India Ratings and Research's (Ind-Ra) Chief Economist Devendra Kumar Pant said that while low headline inflation will provide some comfort to RBI in its forthcoming monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting, a sticky core-core inflation, which has remained in excess of 5.30 percent since November 2017 will make RBI's job difficult.
"Ind-Ra believes, the RBI may remain in pause mode in its forthcoming MPC meeting in view of conflicting trends of different segments of CPI," Pant said in a statement.


text:
Carsac-Aillac é uma comuna francesa na região administrativa da Nova Aquitânia, no departamento Dordonha. Estende-se por uma área de 17,41 km².

História
Em 1961 as comunas de Carsac-de-Carlux e Aillac fundiram-se sob o nome de Carsac-Aillac.

Personalidades ligadas à comuna
 François Bordes (1919-1981), pré-historiador.
 Marius Rossillon (1867-1946), criador do Bibendum Michelin, faleceu em Carsac-Aillac.

Comunas de Dordonha

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Shopper turnout hit record high over Black Friday weekend, retail trade group says
A record number of holiday shoppers – 196.7 million – flocked back to stores and hunted for deals from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation, which tracks the figure for in-person and online shopping.
The trade group did not estimate spending over the weekend, but said Tuesday that sales for the overall holiday shopping season are on track to meet its forecast. It anticipates that holiday sales will rise by 6% to 8% from last year to between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion. Some of that increase will come from nearly four-decade high inflation.
Here's what Black Friday sales tell us about the retail sector — and our top pick
Paulina Likos
Black Friday was better than feared for retail stocks — Two potential big winners
Michelle Fox
The National Retail Federation defines the holiday season as November 1 through December 31. The sales forecast excludes spending at automobile dealers, gasoline stations and restaurants.
Shoppers spent an average of about $325 on holiday-related purchases over the weekend. That's higher than last year's average of $301.
NRF CEO Matt Shay said the weekend's biggest takeaways are that Americans are eager to shop in-person again and that they're hungry for big bargains. More than 122.7 million people visited brick-and-mortar stores over the weekend, a jump of 17% from 2021.
A customer searches for shoe products inside a Macy's store during Black Friday sales on November 25, 2022 in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Kena Betancur | Getty Images
As inflation hits Americans' wallets, he said, promotions have become a important motivator.
"Consumers are out shopping, but they're out shopping when they see deals and when they get the promotions that meet what it is they're looking for, and so you can get them engaged, but you've got to deliver value and price," he said on a call with reporters.
Retailers have nevertheless been cautious about their holiday outlooks, particularly as families feel the pinch of inflation. Walmart
has spoken about customers skipping over discretionary items and trading down to cheaper proteins like hot dogs and peanut butter. Target
cut its forecast for the holiday quarter. And Best Buy
said customers have had a higher interest in shopping during sales events.
So far, though, figures from Adobe Analytics showed that online spending hit record highs on key days during the holiday shopping weekend. Black Friday sales rose 2.3% to hit $9.12 billion and Cyber Monday sales rose 5.8% to $11.3 billion, according to the company, which tracks sales on retailers' websites.
On average, consumers said in the NRF survey that they are about halfway done with holiday shopping. That means retailers can expect more purchases in the weeks ahead, Shay said.
NRF said Tuesday that its tally of shoppers over the holiday weekend topped last year's turnout of 179 million during the same period last year. The group, which began tracking the figure in 2017, had forecast a turnout of 166.3 million for this year.
A bigger turnout and record spending this holiday season could be a result of a variety of factors. It could indicate that consumers are willing to buy − but only if items are on deep discount. It could also signal a return to the pre-pandemic timetable of holiday shopping, with people concentrating their gift-buying around Black Friday and in the final sprint before Christmas Day.
Or it could portend a more challenging 2023. If Americans are funding shopping spree by slashing savings rates and tallying up big balances on credit cards or through 'Buy Now Pay Later,' that could leave them with less to spend in the months ahead.
The National Retail Federation, a major trade group, has taken a bullish stance on consumer spending — saying a strong job market has encouraged Americans to keep spending.
Shay also shook off concerns about a recession on Tuesday, but acknowledged another risk for retailers: the threat of a railway strike. While retailers may have most of their holiday merchandise, he said a work stoppage could be a blow to consumer confidence.
"We think that the holiday season would be the worst possible time," he said.
−CNBC's Annie Palmer contributed to this report.
Biden administration rolls out a blueprint for a 'renters bill of rights' – Here's what it includes
Meta and Amazon Stock: Buy These Beaten-Down Giants Before Earnings?


text:
The GAP & The MIX
Open later for events
The GAP Arts Project is a charity registered in England & Wales (no. 1156090).
Our registered office is The GAP Arts Project, 112 Rectory Road, Sutton Coldfield B75 7RS.
Trap Door with Léonore Boulanger & Howie Reeve
Tuesday 29th October 2019, 7:00pm - 11:00pm
An intimate evening of weird & wonderful sonic & visual treats.
With Léonore Boulanger, Howie Reeve & special guests to be announced.
Visual backdrop to the evening created by Dom MacMillan-Scott and Beth Bellis
Léonore Boulanger
https://youtu.be/5FQGrCwHunA
Léonore Boulanger studied drama, experimental jazz improvisation and Persian music in Paris. Her music reflects her wide interest in African folk and in composers such as George Crumb, Teiji Ito, Harry Partch and singer Meredith Monk.
After many tours in Europe she is back on stage with a 4th album "Practice Chanter » (label 'Le Saule'). It's a four-handed album with Jean-Daniel Botta who was the main composer of the previous albums. Léonore bring languages into corkscrew-shaped dances.
An organic music that flounders with the most serious childhoods, she sings french like a foreign language which becomes universal.
HOWIE REEVE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv9oitB2Mf0
New album 'Cracks' was co-released in May 2019 by three DIY labels - Red Wig (Germany), Et Mon Cul C'est Du Tofu? (France) and Bar Marfil (Spain). Past and present collaborators include G.W. Sok (The Ex) and Mike Watt (Minutemen).
"Life affirming...fragile, funny, oozing with empathy and above all fantastic songcraft." James T McKay (The Cosmic Dead)
"Howie Reeve is a unique and singular figure in the current British underground. Having spent over 20 years playing in a number of key Glasgow bands, since 2012 he has been performing solo on acoustic bass guitar, delivering a fragmented and dexterous music that takes in post-punk, avant-folk. Increasingly turning to songwriting, he further engages audiences with cryptic, intimate and unsettling lyrics. Resolutely DIY in his approach to music, he lives in Glasgow but appears to be perpetually on tour, whether in the UK, Europe or Japan." (Chris Joynes)
PLUS LOCAL SUPPORT
A brand new band coming into existence from some left-field Brum stalwarts of the Club Integral scene. Announcement coming soon.
£5 adv & otd
Ticket link:
Capacity is VERY limited.
**The venue space is fully accessible however we apologise but the toilet facilities currently are not**
The GAP creates space and time for young people
to make sense of the world through creative and cultural action
EVENTS PROGRAMME
THE MIX - CAFÉ


text:
Canada-Sri Lanka Business Council - CSLBC
Promoting bilateral trade & investment between Canada & Sri Lanka
CSLBC
Board Member – Fiduciary Duties
July 16, 2017 cslbc CSLBC 0
CSLBC Masthead
Board Member 101: Fiduciary Duties
The foundation of a board member's service is their fiduciary duty to shareholders. Before we jump into what kinds of duties are involved, let's look more closely at the word fiduciary:
fiduciary (adjective): involving trust, especially with regard to the relationship between a trustee and a beneficiary.
It's a word that we hear a lot in the corporate world, but its basic meaning often gets overlooked. Simply put, the word fiduciary is all about trust, and that's exactly what's required of directors under corporate governance law.
The Three Types of Fiduciary Duties:
The Duty of Care
According to Investopedia, the duty of care "applies to the way the board makes decisions that affect the future of the business. The board has the duty to fully investigate all possible decisions and how they may impact the business. Because a company's board of directors is tasked with making very important decisions, it is necessary that each member takes each issue seriously and adequately considers all options."
Directors and officers meet their duty of care if they act:
With the care of a reasonable person in a like position
With reasonable belief their decisions are in the best interest of the corporation
The Duty of Loyality
This fiduciary duty is all about ensuring that board members never allow any outside interests or personal affiliations or allegiances to interfere with their responsibility to shareholders. In other words, "Board members must refrain from personal or professional dealings that put their own self-interest or that of another person or business above the interest of the company."
A corporate director can breach this duty of loyalty by:
Gaining secret profit belonging to the corporation
Competing with the corporation
Seizing corporate opportunity
Self-dealing with the corporation
The Duty of Good Faith
This duty insists that after board members have explored all of the options for a particular business decision, they must make the one that they believe best serves the interests of shareholders. According to Cornell Law School, "A violation of the duty of good faith may include an intentional derelict in the usual duties of a director or officer, intentionally acting for a purpose other than the benefit of the corporation, or intentionally violating the law."
Business Judgment Rule
When a director is alleged to be in breach of one of these duties, the courts apply the "business judgment rule, which assumes a board of directors acts in the business' best interest, unless proven otherwise." The courts understand that there is an inherent risk in all business decision-making. For that reason, a plaintiff who claims a board or board member has breached their fiduciary duties, must prove that they were neglectful in their decision making or purposefully failed to make the best choice for the company (for personal gain or for some other reason which would denote a breach of loyalty). If a director chose to follow a path that they truly believed was the best option for the business, the law protects them from liability.
What is Due diligence?
Sri Lanka, Bangladesh agree to finalise FTA
Click on images above..
SRI LANKA: Tourist arrivals up 4.7% in March
Monday, 8 April 2019.
Tourist arrivals in March have improved by 4.7% to 244,328, bringing the cumulative first quarter figure to 740,600, reflecting a 4.6% growth year-on-year.
The largest source market for tourists was India (up 5.6% to 34,812), followed by the United Kingdom (up 8.8% to 29,682), and China (up 12.6% to 23,759).
Arrivals from Germany and France were down 26% and 6%, respectively, to 18,134 and 13,957.
Almost 93% of tourists travelled by air to Sri Lanka. Last year, tourist arrivals amounted to 2.3 million, and the projection for 2019 is 2.8 million.
Europe became the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 49% of the total traffic received in March. Asia and accounted for 40% of the total traffic followed by America at 8%, Middle
East at 2%, and Africa at 1%.
India, United Kingdom, China, Germany and France were Sri Lanka's top five international generating markets in the month of March this year. India was the largest source of tourist traffic to Sri Lanka with 14% of the total traffic received in March. accounted for 12% of the total traffic while China, Germany and France accounted for 10%, 7%, and 6%, respectively.
H.E. (Mrs.) Chitranganee Wagiswara – Sri Lanka High Commissioner to India
High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to India Chitranganee Wagiswara presented credentials to the President of India Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapathi Bhawan in New Delhi on Monday 26 September 2016.
Sri Lanka High Commissioner to Canada H.E. Ahmed A. Jawad with CSLBC Directors
H.E. Ahmed A. Jawad with board of directors
CSLBC AGM 2016
The board of directors of Canada-Sri Lanka Business Council for 2016/2017 - Upali Obeyesekere (President); Ganesan Sugumar (Vice President), Mohan Perera (General Secretary), Nalaka Weerasinghe (Hony. Treasurer); Rohan Perera (Director); Lalith Wickramasinghe (Director); Roshan Navaratnam (Director); Ranier De Lambert (Director); Ms. Gaya Pathmanathan (Director); Elanko Ratnasabapathey (Director).
Dinesh Gunawardena appointed Sri Lanka's Minister of Foreign Affairs
Dinesh Gunawardena - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Shortly after Dinesh Gunawardena assumed duties as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he called on Foreign Ministry Officials to rise to new challenges
Minister of Foreign Relations Dinesh Gunawardena assumed duties at the Foreign Ministry on Monday 25 November 2019.
Minister Gunawardena was received by Foreign Secretary Ravinatha Aryasinha and other senior officials upon his arrival at the Ministry. Following religious observances, the Minister officially assumed duties.
Later, the Foreign Minister who addressed the staff, remarked that the Foreign Service is highly regarded. The Minister stressed that the entire country is looking towards the Foreign Ministry to find solutions for external pressures and challenges. Hence, it is necessary for the officers in the Ministry and the network of missions to work dedicatedly towards overcoming these challenges. He also stated that President Rajapaksa's vision is for Sri Lanka to be safe and secure; leading the country towards a prosperous future. He further stated that in achieving these objectives, a single agency cannot work alone, but must work in unison with other institutions, and hence the role of the Foreign Ministry is vital in this aspect.
Categories Select Category About Us (1) B2B (1) CANADA (26) Contact Us (1) CSLBC (19) FLASHBACK (1) MEDIA (2) MEMBERS (3) OUR PARTNERS (1) SRI LANKA (63) Uncategorized (1)
Archives Select Month December 2019 (1) November 2019 (4) September 2019 (2) April 2019 (4) March 2019 (1) January 2019 (1) November 2018 (2) October 2018 (3) September 2018 (2) August 2018 (1) April 2018 (1) March 2018 (6) February 2018 (1) January 2018 (2) November 2017 (1) October 2017 (2) August 2017 (1) July 2017 (6) May 2017 (3) March 2017 (1) February 2017 (2) January 2017 (6) December 2016 (2) October 2016 (5) September 2016 (3) August 2016 (2) July 2016 (13) June 2016 (5) May 2016 (7) April 2016 (8) February 2016 (3) November 2015 (1) October 2015 (3) September 2015 (5) April 2015 (2) August 2013 (1) November 2012 (1) June 2012 (1) October 2011 (1) July 2010 (1) October 2000 (1)
CSLBC 1990 – 2015
Canada-Sri Lanka Business Council
58 Sundial Crescent, Toronto.
Ontario. Canada M4A 2J8
President: Upali Obeyesekere
Vice President: Ganesan Sugumar
E-Mail: cslbcbiz@rogers.com
Website: www.cslbc.ca


Well, it's certainly been a busy time here at BlossomCo recently.
As well as adding new designs to our ever-popular range of fabulous handmade dog collars and leads, we've been hard at work on extending our range of gifts for dog lovers and owners!
….and now…. We're proud to present the first of our new additions!
For all those dog lovers who enjoy a cuppa and getting messy in the kitchen, we have the answer!
The first of our very own floral designs, "Lemon Drizzle" and "Cream Tea", are available on our new cotton drill Kitchen Aprons and fine bone china mugs.
Both designs are inspired by the ingredients for a traditional English afternoon tea – delicious cake, cream scones and jam!
And of course, being BlossomCo, you'll notice a subtle hint of dog running through them too!!
These new aprons and mugs make a fine addition to any dog lover's kitchen!
So if you're looking for a great gift for a dog lover, look no further than BlossomCo. From the most fabulous range of handmade, Made in England collars and leads to mugs and kitchen-wear, you'll find something lovely to give.
The Lemon Drizzle and Cream Tea product ranges were launched at the recent Harrogate Home and Gift show, and were very popular with both our existing and new retailers placing orders.
If you'd also like to stock the "Lemon Drizzle" and "Cream Tea" range – please contact us here.


text:
Rob, Anybody & Dawn
That Damn Show
Latest from 98 Rock
Coronavirus from KCBS
Join The Rock Mob
Raising Kale
audio from 98 Rock
Ninety Eight Rock
This Kickstarter-funded heated jacket is a must-have this winter, and it's half-off
Skillet frontman John Cooper speaks on faith, blasts 'godless' and 'lawless' popular music
Bono reveals why he doesn't like the name U2
Slipknot reveal 'Knotfest Roadshow 2022' dates and special guests
Watch this Grandma crush a blink-182 drum cover, challenge Travis Barker
98 Rock Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin continue Hanukkah cover series with the Ramones
Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin continue Hanukkah cover series with the Ramones
GABBAI GABBAI HANUKKAH!
By Joe Cingrana, Audacy
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and GRAMMY-winning producer/musician Greg Kurstin (The Bird and the Bee) have returned with a brand new selection of cover songs for the Hanukkah season.
With the Festival of Lights now officially upon us, get ready for eight crazy new covers of Jewish musicians from Grohl and Kurstin to celebrate the season. While you're in the mood, be sure to favorite Audacy's exclusive Hanukkah-themed station to keep the party going.
Live On-Air
Festival Of Lights On Audacy
For the second night of Hanukkah, fans were given a version of The Ramones' 'Blitzkrieg Bop.' Providing a little explainer for those uninitiated, the caption on the clip reads: "Once upon a time, two nice Jewish boys from Queens named Jeffery Hyman and Thomas Erdelyi changed the world forever with their music….. as Joey and Tommy Ramone!"
This year's selection of covers also includes their Night 1 cover of "Stay," by Lisa Loeb. Last year, the duo's popular 2020 series of songs featured artists ranging from the Beastie Boys, to Peaches, Drake, The Velvet Underground, Elastica, and more.
"This project, which initially began as a silly idea, grew to represent something much more important to me," the Foo Fighters frontman explained at the end of last year's series. "It showed me that the simple gesture of spreading joy and happiness goes a long way, and as we look forward, we should all make an effort to do so, no matter how many candles are left to light on the menorah."
Foo Fighters team with Peloton to create music themed workouts
For those looking to sweat while rocking out to the Foos, Grohl and the band have also teamed with Peloton this year to create music-themed workouts for their Featured Artist Series. Oh, and there's also another full North American tour on the way in 2022! Happy Hanukkah!
A post shared by Foo Fighters (@foofighters)
Check out some of Audacy's all-new exclusive Rock stations like Rock N' Road, Freedom Rock, The Canyon, Arena Rock, Wake Up and Rock, and The Roots of Rock for those who crave the early days.
Foo Fighters Radio on Audacy
Foo Fighters Radio
One Day University offers live talks, lectures from professors at top colleges for only $42
Moon phases could influence shark attacks: study
These 10 e-learning courses are all $20 during massive New Year sale
Jonah Hill reveals his idea for a 'Superbad' sequel: 'That's the only way I would ever make it'
Celebrities we've lost in 2022
98 Rock |
California's Rock Station
Listen to 98 Rock
© 2022 Audacy, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PART OF AUDACY MUSIC.


text:
More Than A Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam
UPC: 978-1-932690-64-4
Brand: Modern History Press
A Conflict that Shaped A Generation
Four decades on, the legacy of American involvement in the Viet Nam War still looms large in the lives of the veterans who experienced it first hand. This new anthology of poems, stories, and essays looks at the war through the lens of both past and present perspectives.
Featuring the work of fifteen veteran writers, the scope of the book defines how modern warfare affects the lives of those who lived it and subsequently their own families after returning from the war. The men who have contributed to this volume each have played their own part whether medic, air cavalry, recon, forward observer, or just plain grunt. The pain they felt, witnessed, and buried can hopefully be released by the telling of their collective truths.
It is their hope that through this book you will be able to feel something of what they have felt and that it will inform you about the role that this conflict continues to play in the lives of those who served there. The words of William Faulkner still ring true: "The past is not dead, it's not even past."
Acclaim for More Than A Memory
"For those old hands wanting to see and hear how others have made some
sense of it in words--perhaps for inspiration to write some of their own--and
for those newbies wanting to understand and relate as much as possible to
that experience, I recommend this new volume wholeheartedly."
--Michael Gillen, PhD,
Professor, Vietnam and Modern America, Pace University
"Poignant and heartrending as it is, More Than A Memory is a work of great
courage and optimism, of triumph against all odds and amidst the horrors, of
resurrection and renewal. It is nothing short of uplifting."
--Sam Vaknin, PhD, author of Malignant Self-Love
"There seems to be no end to the stories veterans of the Vietnam War need
and want to tell and there should be no end to the readiness of the rest of us
to read, to listen, and more importantly, to learn. More Than A Memory is a welcome
addition to the literature of the war and its ongoing consequences."
--Marilyn B. Young, PhD, Dept. of History, NYU
"If you want to understand a conflict, look into the hearts of the men who
fought it. More than a Memory does that and reveals a legacy that should stand
as a warning to people who would remake the world in their own vision."
--Trish Wood, investigative journalist, and author of the critically acclaimed What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It
More from the contributors at www.ReflectionsOfVietnam.com
"More Than a Memory: Reflections of Viet Nam" is the newest book in the Reflections of America series from Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com


text:
Archive for the 'UK parochial' Category
Update, 2019-12-14: In the text below, written before the election on 12 December, I wrote:
…the exit poll ought to be expected to predict with an error in roughly the 5–15 seats range (for the main parties). Sometimes the error will be smaller than that (as seen in 2005, 2010 and 2017)…
The 2019 election saw, for the Conservative party total, an exit-poll error of just 3 seats; and so in the statement quoted above we could now say instead "as seen in 2005, 2010, 2017 and 2019".
…the super-accurate predictions seen in 2005, 2010 and even 2017 were unwarrantably accurate…
and that can now be amended to "the super-accurate predictions seen in 2005, 2010, 2017 and 2019 were unwarrantably accurate". I still do believe this to be the case.
I look ahead a few days here, to 10pm on UK General Election day. Polling stations will have just closed, and major broadcasters (BBC, ITV and Sky) will simultaneously announce the findings of their jointly-commissioned exit poll — the headline being always the predicted number of seats for the (predicted) largest party in the newly elected House of Commons.
The exit poll is by now a big part of election day/night. The expense of it is justified by the fact that the broadcasters get their alltime largest current-affairs viewing, listening and website-visiting figures during the first couple of hours after polls close on a General Election night — but in that specific couple of hours, almost all of the votes remain uncounted still. So the broadcasters need something for TV/radio/web commentators and on-air politicians to talk about in that first couple of hours; and the exit poll is a major part of that.
The world's financial markets take notice of the exit poll too — in a big way, as evidenced by the substantial movements usually seen moments after 10pm on election day in currency rates and other markets.
But how accurate is the exit poll?
The answer since 2005 has mostly been: very accurate indeed! The 2005 General Election saw the full-scale introduction of a completely new set of methods for designing and analysing a UK exit poll — methods that had been tested first by the BBC at the 2001 election, and found to work so well that they were adopted jointly by BBC and ITV for 2005 (with Sky News joining to make a 3-way consortium by 2010). In 2005 Labour's reduced majority of 66 seats — which was surprisingly low to commentators who had all seen pre-election polls predicting a majority of over 100 seats — was predicted exactly by the exit poll. And then the same happened in 2010: the exit-poll prediction of 307 seats for the Conservatives, still some way short of an overall majority, turned out by the next day to be exactly correct. Especially when viewed against the historical backdrop of 1992, which will forever be remembered as the election where the BBC exit poll was quite spectacularly wrong, the "spot on" successes of 2005 and 2010 started to make the new exit-poll methods seem somehow magical!
But there is no magic — and I really can say this with some confidence, as co-inventor of the new methods (while working with John Curtice, for BBC election-night programmes in 1997, 2001 and 2005). The innovative use of statistical modelling is what transformed exit polling at UK general elections, from a rather hit-and-hope exercise (in the 1990s and earlier) to an activity whose on-the-night predictions are now much more likely to be fairly accurate. Still, any exact prediction of seats won by the largest party, such as seen in both 2005 and 2010, owes as much to luck as it does to sound statistical thinking. There is nothing in the new methods that guarantees such freakish accuracy! Indeed, even getting a prediction error as small as 4 seats — as seen at the most recent General Election in 2017 — has to be regarded as extraordinarily accurate.
More typically the exit poll ought to be expected to predict with an error in roughly the 5–15 seats range (for the main parties). Sometimes the error will be smaller than that (as seen in 2005, 2010 and 2017); and occasionally it might be larger.
For the full story of how well the exit poll has performed at successive UK general elections, and lots of background material: see the online exit poll explainer.
(And for a bit more insight into the history of my own involvement in the exit poll, see this recent Twitter thread.)
But the main point here is this: While better methodology has radically improved the chances of an accurate prediction from the exit poll at a UK General Election, the super-accurate predictions seen in 2005, 2010 and even 2017 were unwarrantably accurate. Such an astounding level of accuracy is not guaranteed by the statistical methods used, and it definitely should not be expected every time!
© David Firth, December 2019
Firth, D (2019). Why we should trust the exit poll — but not too much! Weblog entry at URL https://statgeek.net/2019/12/09/why-we-should-trust-the-exit-poll-but-not-too-much/
Posted in Politics, UK parochial | Leave a Comment »
Mathematical operations with the Normal distribution [a re-blog from corp.ling.stats]
Following a recent Twitter exchange with Ian Dryden, I was thinking I'd write something about the risk of default for the USS pension scheme. But then I came across this other new post at corp.ling.stats — which has already done what I was intending!
corp.ling.stats
This post is a little off-topic, as the exercise I am about to illustrate is not one that most corpus linguists will have to engage in.
However, I think it is a good example of why a mathematical approach to statistics (instead of the usual rote-learning of tests) is extremely valuable.
Case study: The declared 'deficit' in the USS pension scheme
At the time of writing nearly two hundred thousand university staff in the UK are active members of a pension scheme called USS. This scheme draws in income from these members and pays out to pensioners. Every three years the pension is valued, which is not a simple process. The valuation consists of two aspects, both uncertain:
to value the liabilities of the pension fund, which means the obligations to current pensioners and future pensioners (current active members), and
to value the future asset value of the pension fund…
Posted in UK parochial, USS | Leave a Comment »
Update on 16 March: After reading this post, you might perhaps be interested in some of these follow-ups:
In this post I'll follow up on the previous one, USS pension scheme and fairness, in the light of this week's UCU proposals (proposals which provide a basis for renewed talks with Universities UK about the future of USS).
My purpose here is to suggest that a fairer solution could also be more affordable — in that it would help fund the defined-benefit section of USS, but would also reduce (and might perhaps even eliminate?) the upward pressure on employer and employee contribution rates.
1. The current UCU proposals
The following summary excerpt is taken from https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/9364/Further-talks-agreed-in-universities-pensions-dispute:
The University and College Union (UCU) deserves all of the many congratulations it is currently getting, for having produced such a proposal this week — in particular, a proposal that has at last persuaded the employers (Universities UK) to take part in further talks about the future of USS.
That said: I should admit to feeling disappointed by the 3rd and 4th bullet points above! USS members would all be getting a slightly worse pension, in return for an appreciable increase in the contribution rates (both employee and employer contribution rates).
More crucially — if I have understood it correctly — the implied loss of pension (as a percentage of contributions paid) would be greatest for those USS members whose salary is £55k or lower. Higher-paid members of USS would be required to make a smaller sacrifice — substantially smaller, in the case of those with the very highest salaries — relative to the overall size of their pensions.
Recognising this unfair distribution of the pain, and thinking about how best to fix it, leads naturally to an additional device that could make the proposed changes fairer and more easily affordable.
2. Robin Hood to the rescue
The current USS setup has a slightly progressive aspect, which is that the 18% employer contribution for salary over the £55k threshold pays only 12% into the member's defined-contribution (DC) pension pot. The remaining 6% therefore helps to support the running costs of USS, and (mainly, it seems safe to presume) the defined-benefit part of USS.
The suggestion I want to make here is that future USS should become more progressive — that is, USS should move further in that same, progressive direction. (As mentioned in the previous post, the current USS proposal would increase that 12% figure to 13.25%, thereby making the scheme appreciably less progressive. And as I have argued in that previous post, that seems completely indefensible.)
The specific suggestion:
For salary between the current £55k threshold and some specified higher threshold, pay x% from the employer contribution into the employee's DC pot. The value of x could be left at 12, for example.
For salary above the higher of the two thresholds, pay y% from the employer contribution into the employee's DC pot, where y is smaller than x.
Even if x remains at 12, such a device would allow (through suitable choice of the higher threshold and the value of y) substantial savings to be made from the employer contributions on higher salaries — savings which could then be used directly to support the threatened, defined-benefit part of USS.
The precise arithmetic on this becomes possible only with detailed knowledge (not available to me) of the distribution of USS-member salaries over £55k. Some general considerations on the choice of the higher threshold, and of y, are:
The higher threshold clearly should not be so high as to make the resultant savings too small to be of much consequence.
The value of y probably needs to be at least as high as the employee contribution rate (currently 8%), otherwise it could become unattractive for those with the highest salaries to remain in USS.
Illustrative example:
Just to give a sense of what might be possible through this device. Let's suppose:
salary between £55k and £75k gets 12% into the DC pot, from the employer contribution — as now.
salary over £75 gets 8% (i.e., the current employee contribution rate) instead of 12%.
Then the amount saved, which could then be used to support the defined-benefit part of USS, would be 4% of all member salaries over £75k.
It is unclear to me, in absence of enough data to determine it, whether the 'Robin Hood' device just described would be enough to completely eliminate the need for a change in the accrual rate and/or increased contributions (as proposed by UCU in their points 3 and 4 above).
What is clear to me, though, is that such a device would help eliminate the unfairness described above. And it would, at least, reduce the need for any changes in accrual or contribution rates, even if such need is not completely eliminated.
Firth, D (2018). Future USS: Robin Hood can help? Weblog entry at URL https://statgeek.net/2018/03/01/future-uss-robin-hood-can-help/.
Postscript: about Robin Hood
The legend of Robin Hood, 'feared by the bad, loved by the good', will already be known to most people who have grown up in England. There are countless stories of Robin Hood 'persuading' the rich to part with their money, for the benefit of poorer folk.
For anyone interested, there's a lot to read about it here: http://www.robinhoodlegend.com/.
One aspect that I particularly like is that my home city of Wakefield is one of the (many!) places that lay claim to Robin Hood as one if its own townspeople. But then there's all that romantic Sherwood Forest nonsense…
The Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) is among the largest pension schemes in the UK. It provides pensions for academic and other staff in most of the UK's universities — and right now it is the subject of strike action in around 60 universities. The strike relates to substantial proposed changes to the pension scheme.
Most of the current arguments are about the long-term affordability of USS in its present form. I do not consider myself sufficiently expert to add much that would be useful on that (crucial) aspect of USS — so that's not the subject of this post. Instead, here I will take a look at the current USS scheme in regard to aspects of fairness; and I'll examine the new proposals and their implied direction of travel, in relation to fairness.
Why am I writing this? Well, I needed to find out enough about USS and the new proposals to be able to explain — to friends, family, colleagues in other countries, etc. — what all the current argument is about. One thing I found — quite separately from the arguments about affordability of a defined-benefit pension scheme — was that the new proposals seem to have the wrong direction of travel in relation to (at least my notions of) fairness.
At the end I'll make a specific suggestion towards improving the currently proposed changes to USS.
1. A bit of history
Back in the mists of time, when I first joined USS, the university that appointed me was (rightly) very keen to stress how great the pension scheme was. I would need to pay 6.35% of salary, and the university would contribute an additional 18.55% of my salary, to provide a guaranteed pension based on whatever salary level I had achieved at retirement. This was regarded as an important part of the deal: our salaries were considerably lower than we could be paid elsewhere, but the promise of a decent pension would compensate to some extent.
I remember well, a few years later in 1997, the widespread feeling of outrage and dismay when the universities collectively decided to reduce their contributions from 18.55% to 14%. In 1997 the USS pension fund was substantially in surplus, and the universities succumbed to the natural temptation of a 'contributions holiday'. (It turned out to be a very long holiday: the universities' contribution rate remained at 14% until 2011.)
Right now, in 2018, employer contribution is 18%, and USS members themselves pay 8% of salary into the scheme (with an option to increase that to 9% in return for a matching 1% increase of the employer contribution to the USS member's "defined contribution" account with USS).
In relation to this history, let me mention here two aspects relating to fairness:
The 'final salary' basis for determining the amount of pension payable was (in my opinion!) blatantly unfair. As someone who stands to benefit from it, I think I am in a good position to say this. Members' life-long contributions to USS were being used disproportionately to pay the pensions of those who were paid the highest salaries, and especially those whose salaries became high relatively late in their careers.
The long contributions holiday taken by universities between 1997 and 2011 is clearly connected with whatever problems USS has today. The universities ought to be prepared to substantially increase their contributions to the USS pot when the historic surplus has been run down partly as a result of the earlier (substantial!) 'holiday'. It would be completely unfair to expect future USS members to pay the cost of the 'holiday'.
2. Current USS
This excerpt from https://www.uss.co.uk/~/media/document-libraries/uss/member/member-guides/post-april-2016/a-new-employees-guide-to-joining-uss.pdf gives a very rough summary of the current USS setup:
In relation to fairness of the current setup, I want to note three things:
The unfair final salary aspect has now gone (following the changes to USS that were made in 2016). Instead, we now have 'Career Revalued Benefits' (CRB), based on contributions from annual salary up to the 'threshold' amount of around £55k. This results in lower pensions for many (perhaps most) USS members, especially those whose salaries increase substantially in mid-late career. But CRB does seem a fairer basis than 'final salary', for determining the relationship between life-long contributions and the level of pension ultimately provided. (The 1/75 multiplier is arguably not high enough; but that relates more to affordability than to fairness.)
The current USS setup has an appealing, progressive aspect: the employer contribution of 18% supports only a 12% contribution to the 'USS Investment Builder' pension pot that relates to to annual salary in excess of the £55k threshold. The implication of this is that some (maybe most?) of the remaining 6% of employer contribution, for salaries over £55k, gets used in support of the defined-benefit CRB scheme that applies to the first £55k of every member's salary. As a principle, this seems right and fair: a priority for USS should be to ensure that even the least well-paid members get a decent pension. Appropriateness of the precise details (12% versus perhaps some lower figure or a decreasing schedule for higher salaries; and the £55k level of the salary 'threshold') is of course open to debate, still.
The previous two points were about ways in which USS currently is fair. For balance, let me mention one aspect of current USS that does seem unfair, still. The USS scheme has always, as far as I know, included specific pension provision for the surviving spouse/partner and/or other dependants of a member who dies. While this clearly is a benefit to those members who have got such dependants, it implies some level of subsidy from the contributions — whether made directly, or by the employer — of any member without such dependants. (Again I write as someone who does benefit from this; but I don't regard it as fair!)
3. The USS proposals for change
The following excerpt is from https://www.uss.co.uk/how-uss-is-run/valuation/2017-valuation-updates/proposed-changes-to-future-uss-benefits:
My thoughts on the specific numbers there, in terms of fairness, are as follows. (The first item in the following list is by far the most important of the three; the other two are quite minor by comparison.)
For salary amounts over the current threshold of £55k, the proposal would actually increase the employers' pension-pot contributions (from the current 12%, to 13.25%). This runs counter to the 'progressive' aspect, mentioned above, of the current USS setup. Moreover, it implies that less of the employer contribution on salary amounts over £55k — that is to say, less than now — would actually be used to service the defined-benefit commitments of USS. This seems absurd. It represents a direction of travel that's completely unfair: it would systematically shift the future cost of those defined-benefit commitments, away from the higher-paid members, onto those whose salary is mostly or entirely below the current £55k threshold.
The suggested flexibility to adjust member contributions downwards to 4%, while still getting 13.25% employer contributions, looks good on the face of it. But who would it benefit most? Most members with low to middling incomes will probably want or need to contribute 8%, still, in order to (aim to) ensure that they have a decent pension at retirement. Probably the main beneficiaries of this flexibility would be those members with the highest salaries, who could use it to reduce or eliminate potential breaches of the HMRC allowances (either the Annual Allowance for pension contributions, or the Lifetime Allowance for total pension-pot size).
That last bullet-point in the above excerpt looks relatively minor. It suggests shifting some of the cost of USS death benefits away from employers, to members — if I have understood it correctly. The details of this are not yet clear, at least to me; but it could imply that the cost of pensions for widows/partners and other dependants — which I have argued above is already unfair — would be carried more directly than before by members, i.e., through their own direct contributions rather than their employers'.
My comments in this post really are quite separate from the on-going arguments about affordability of the defined-benefit part of USS. But…
If those arguments about affordability do result in substantial changes being made, then I really hope that considerations of fairness will play a major role. As things stand at present, the proposed USS changes would appear to be quite neutral or even beneficial to those members with the very highest salaries, but clearly detrimental to the majority.
A more positive take on the points made above would be that there is plenty of room for manoeuvre, towards the negotiation of a future USS that could work better for all. The universities plainly are not currently at the absolute limit of what is affordable. The proposal to contribute more to the pension pots of the highest paid, rather than less, makes this abundantly clear (as indeed does the USS history, as mentioned above). A future USS that's designed to be more progressive than the present version — i.e., with the highest paid receiving gradually lower marginal rates of employer contribution to their pension-pots — could perhaps make the defined-benefit component of USS work out to be (even more) clearly affordable?
Update (4 March 2018): The follow-up post Future USS: Robin Hood can help? formulates a concrete suggestion along the lines just indicated above — a simple device that would make USS both fairer and more affordable.
© David Firth, February 2018
Firth, D (2018). USS pension scheme and fairness. Weblog entry at URL https://statgeek.net/2018/02/26/uss-pension-scheme-and-fairness/.
Posted in UK parochial, USS | 3 Comments »
Exit poll for June 2017 election (UK)
It has been a while since I posted anything here, but I can't resist this one.
Let me just give three numbers. The first two are:
314, the number of seats predicted for the largest party (Conservatives) in the UK House of Commons, at 10pm in Thursday (i.e., before even a single vote had been counted) from the exit poll commissioned jointly by broadcasters BBC, ITV and Sky.
318, the actual number of seats that were won by the Conservatives, now that all the votes have been counted.
That highly accurate prediction changed the whole story on election night: most of the pre-election voting intention polls had predicted a substantial Conservative majority. (And certainly that's what Theresa May had expected to achieve when she made the mistake of calling a snap election, 3 years early.) But the exit poll prediction made it pretty clear that the Conservatives would either not achieve a majority (for which 326 seats would be needed), or at best would be returned with a very small majority such as the one they held before the election. Media commentary turned quickly to how a government might be formed in the seemingly likely event of a hung Parliament, and what the future might be for Mrs May. The financial markets moved quite substantially, too, in the moments after 10pm.
For more details on the exit poll, its history, and the methods used to achieve that kind of predictive accuracy, see Exit Polling Explained.
The third number I want to mention here is
That's the version of R that I had at the time of the 2005 General Election, when I completed the development of a fairly extensive set of R functions to use in connection with the exit poll (which at that time was done for BBC and ITV jointly). Amazingly (to me!) the code that I wrote back in 2001–2005 still works fine. My friend and former colleague Jouni Kuha, who stepped in as election-day statistician for the BBC when I gave it up after 2005, told me today that (with some tweaks, I presume!) it all works brilliantly still, as the basis for an extremely high-pressure data analysis on election day/night. Very pleasing indeed; and strong testimony to the heroic efforts of the R Core Development Team, to keep everything stable with a view to the long term.
As suggested by that kind tweet reproduced above from the RSS President, David Spiegelhalter: Thursday's performance was quite a triumph for the practical art and science of Statistics. [And I think I am allowed to say this, since on this occasion I was not even there! The credit for Thursday's work goes to Jouni Kuha, along with John Curtice, Steve Fisher and the rest of the academic team of analysts who worked in the secret exit-poll "bunker" on 8 June.]
Posted in Politics, R, UK parochial | 1 Comment »


International students are on the rise at Concordia. Currently, there are more than 4,443, a 36 per cent increase in the past four years. Students from the United States, France, China and many other countries around the world now represent 12 per cent of the student body.
The university wants to increase that number. Enza De Cubellis, Director of Special Projects in Enrolment and Student Services, says prospective students have lots of questions about Canada and Concordia.
"But they want to hear about other students' experience, and they want it unedited and unmonitored." The Concordia International Students Association (CISA) helped establish a blog that's entertaining and informative. Here's a sample.
Monica Lafon is from Mexico. She vividly remembers arriving at Trudeau Airport.
Desirée Enderer is studying journalism, French and political science. She wrote about what it was like to go back to Germany for the holidays, and called her entry "What is home exactly?" Walking the streets of her hometown was oddly annoying.
Elie Chivi is Lebanese, but he grew up in Dubai. He's majoring in Human Relations and Creative Writing, and this is his fifth and final year. He's the current president of CISA.
Being an international student means spending years away from home, learning to think outside the box. "Then we come back home and the box is there for us to crawl back into.
Audrey Noeltner (Human Environment and Urban Planning) grew up half in Paris, half in Los Angeles. She has found in Montreal the best of both worlds — "friendly, cultured, safe and fun" — and has convinced her two brothers and her boyfriend to become Concordia students. Noeltner recently ventured out of Quebec for a vacation in Newfoundland.


text:
Home Competitions Coarse CompetitionsAngling Trust National Championships
Angling Trust National Championships
The National Championships are steeped in history and tradition and previous winners include some of the best anglers and teams this country has ever produced.
The Angling Trust would like to offer their appreciation and thanks to all the support we receive from our volunteers who give up their time to assist with our competitions. Without their help and support we would not be able to provide competitions on the scale that we do for our members. A big thank you must also go to all our sponsors and supporters who are absolutely vital to our competitions.
Division 1 National Championship
The oldest and most prestigious team fishing event in the UK. 50 teams and 500 anglers compete in a one day match to become National Champions
Division One National Championship
Teams of 10 anglers compete for this prestigious title and secure promotion to Division One
Division Two National Championship
Team Commercial Stillwater National Championship
Teams of 10 test their skills in this very popular team event held at Lindholme Lakes.
Team Commercial Stillwater National
Juniors & Youth National Championship
A chance for youngsters to shine and showcase their talents in the Junior or Youth categories.
Juniors & Youth National
Ladies National Championship
The Ladies National Championship provides female anglers with the opportunity to compete an individual and a team and add their name to an illustrious list of previous winners
Individual National Championship
Open to all Angling Trust members over the age 16, anglers compete in a one day match for the prestigious title of Individual National Champion.
Anglers with Disabilities National Championship
The National Championship for Anglers with Disabilities is open to all individual members of the Angling Trust The event is fished on an individual basis.
Veterans & Masters National Championship
This one day event is open to male and female members with anglers aged 55-65 competing in the Masters category and those aged 66 and over compete in the Veterans category.
Feeder & Float National Championships
Float & Feeder National Championships


Polyphonic Voices is set to close its inaugural year on the highest of notes with Magnificat!, a performance of J.S. Bach's Magnificat (BWV 243a). But what makes this group stand out from the other choirs in and around Melbourne?
Drawing predominantly from the wealth of talent in the College and Church choirs of Melbourne, Polyphonic Voices aims to perform the finest choral music at the highest standard. It's a professional-quality group, made up of 20 seasoned choristers who know all the ins and outs of the standard repertoire and are seeking to work at the next level.
Under Artistic Director Mr Michael Fulcher, the group performed to packed houses at both its major concerts this year. Furthermore, with each set of new repertoire the committee of Polyphonic Voices seeks to create a real event – something more than your average concert. "We've finished our planning for 2015 and are really excited about what we're putting on offer," says Tom.


text:
No Gender? Canadian Parent Wants First Birth Certificate Without Male Or Female Designation
By Harriet Sinclair On 7/3/17 at 6:02 PM EDT
Nicky Loh/Reuters
World LGBT rights
A parent in Canada is fighting a law that says a child's gender must be stated on their birth certificate, in order to keep their baby "genderless."
Kori Doty, who does not identify as male or female, wants their eight-month-old baby Searyl Atli to be able to choose their gender, but Canadian law states the baby will not be given a birth certificate without specifying its sex.
"I'm raising Searyl in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I'm recognizing them as a baby and trying to give them all the love and support to be the most whole person that they can be outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box," Doty, who prefers to use the pronoun 'they,' told CBC News.
However, Doty has been unable to secure a birth certificate for the baby, as authorities in British Columbia are refusing to hand one over until Doty confirms the gender of the child—something they claim is a violation of the baby's human rights.
"When I was born, doctors looked at my genitals and made assumptions about who I would be, and those assignments followed me and followed my identification throughout my life," Doty said.
"Those assumptions were incorrect, and I ended up having to do a lot of adjustments since then," they added.
Although no birth certificate has been issued for the baby, authorities in B.C. did send Doty a medical card for the baby with 'U', signifying unidentified gender, on it—something Doty wants to see replicated on the birth certificate.
Indeed, the parent, a member of the Gender-Free ID Coalition, is seeking a judicial review over the baby's birth certificate, and is among a group of eight people also fighting to change the gender of their own birth certificates.
"I want my kid to have all of the space to be the most whole and complete person that they can be," Doty added.
Is Money Behind Military Transgender Recruitment Delay?
Why Men Are Claiming the Skirt
Oregon and California are Making Gender Binary History


Keep up-to-date with the real estate market and local happenings in San Diego County with Jennifer Liebthal's Real Estate blog. Gain great insights from long-time insiders!
Below is my personal blog chronicling my quest to learn how to surf at age 46..
It was May of 2018 in San Diego and the water was still chilly. My first time out would be in a 3/2 wetsuit on a 9 ft West Coast long board..
I have been wanting to learn how to surf for a very long time..


I also have a wish for a bigger arcade starfighter maps plus the ability to give orders to wing men, like : cover my six, or attack this, or protect that. Like when Vader issues orders to his Tie Fighters: form up on me.
Please add more maps like Umbara as a battlefield. Please add more different units of Clones, Battledroids like droid dekars. Do not hold back because people here thirst for more content in the game.


text: Q: Broadcast Receivers - Whatsapp and similar services I can't find an answer anywhere. I need to know if there is a broadcast receiver for Whatsapp message just like SMS and Phone calls broadcast receivers. If not, is there a way to perform certain action when messages are received on applications like Whatsapp?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I am available directly as a private instructor for customized lessons in the metropolitan Washington DC area — or through Skaters Quest, an excellent skate school in Northern Virginia which also provides a structured group lesson program throughout the outdoor skating season.
My background includes outdoor street and distance skating, organizing skating events, and helping inline skaters develop their outdoor skating skills, both in Washington DC and Manhattan. I've been involved with this sport since the 90s.


text:
Gas station owners throw support behind self-service legislation – KOIN.com
Those in Oregon's gas station industry expect HB 4151 will help them with their staffing shortages
by: Amanda Arden
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – An Oregon House bill that would allow people in the state the option to pump their own gas had its first hearing among lawmakers Tuesday and gas station industry owners and managers shared testimony explaining their strong support of the bill.
HB 4151 would grant customers at gas stations in Oregon the choice to pump their own gas or have an attendant pump it for them. The bill would require the number of self-service pumps to not exceed the number of attended pumps at stations. It would also increase the fine the Oregon State Fire Marshal could issue to gas stations that violate the law from $500 to $5,000.
Bill sponsors say this bill will help gas stations as they struggle to fill open positions. They hope it will prevent customers from waiting in long lines, but still maintain jobs by keeping attendants and offering attendant service to those who want or need it.
Haseeb Shojai, who owns gas stations in Central Oregon testified to the Joint Committee on Transportation at the hearing Tuesday. He said as a business owner and operator of gas stations, the last two years have been challenging.
He said between employee absences and the struggle to hire people, his gas stations haven't been able to have a set schedule of when they'll have attendants to pump gas.
"Every week, I see scores of people that stop by one of our gas stations and say this is their third or fourth stop before they found a gas station that was open," he said.
Shojai said even when they do make it to his gas stations, they're sometimes waiting 20 to 30 minutes in line before they can get gas, because the attendants are busy.
HB 4151 would also allow the Oregon State Fire Marshal to allow self-service dispensing at gas stations during statewide emergencies. Shojai said this would also be helpful to his business. Sometimes his employees are standing outside for hours in heavy smoke and other times they're out in freezing temperatures.
He said he does not believe the bill would result in job loss. He said there are other jobs station attendants can take on if they aren't needed to assist people with gas, like keep store items stocked, make sure filters are cleaned and take out the garbage.
The Oregon Fuels Association, which considers itself the "voice of Oregon's locally-owned gas stations" also provided testimony stating how helpful this bill would be during the labor shortage.
"From a global pandemic to intense wildfire smoke to a seismic shift in employment, our members' ability to operate normally is no longer an option and we do not see this situation changing anytime soon. Nearly all businesses have a 'now hiring' sign near the front door and yet few, if any, submit applications," said Gabriel Zirkle, president of the Oregon Fuels Association.
He said allowing self service could keep businesses operating and said Oregon gas stations are in a dire situation and need lawmakers' help.
Shawn Miller from the Northwest Grocery Association also spoke in favor of the bill. He said the bill will not result in a loss of jobs. It will not require customers to pay more for an attendant and said he is not concerned about fuel spills or an increased risk of accidents because 48 other states allow customers to pump their own gas and do not have regular issues with spills or accidents.
Everyone who provided verbal testimony Tuesday spoke in favor of passing HB 4151. In addition to mentioning how self-serve pumping works well in other states, they also cited counties in Eastern Oregon and on the Oregon coast that have been allowed to let customers pump their own gas since 2015, if they do not have the staff available to offer the service.
Sen. Lew Frederick was the only person to raise concerns about the bill at the hearing. He said while getting gas in other states, he's seen his elderly relatives struggle to get an attendant to help them pump their gas. He said he's concerned the penalty that could be imposed on gas stations if they don't have an adequate number of station attendants relies entirely on complaints. He believes stations will need to be monitored more closely to make sure they're providing the required service.
In written testimony submitted to the Oregon legislature, the majority say they would like the bill to pass. Those who don't say Oregonians have voted down the option to pump their own gas in the past. They are afraid lawmakers will alter the bill so that there will be a price difference between self-service and attendant-service and they're concerned about the effect this change will have on disabled individuals.
Steve Lancaster submitted written testimony opposing the bill. He said he's disabled and explained he already sometimes has a hard time receiving proper service from attendants at a gas station. He's worried this bill will leave him to pump his own gas. He said sometimes wheelchair lifts can block traffic in a gas station when it's lowered from a van and he's worried what would happen if he dropped his gas cap while fueling his vehicle or the inconvenience of readjusting his vehicle if he doesn't park in the right spot on the first try.
"You have no idea what it is like, being disabled, alone, after dark, on a cold winter night, and running low on gasoline. You end up planning your whole 'trip' around making sure you have enough gas to get to someplace safe with the gas you already have," he wrote.
Lawmakers who support the bill said they hope having the option of gas pumped by an attendant will still allow elderly people and disabled people equal access to service.
UFCW 555, a union that represents grocery store and gas station employees, along with other workers in Oregon, submitted written testimony saying it is "deeply concerned about the ramifications of this bill for our members and for Oregonians who — due to age or ability — have difficulty pumping their own gasoline."
The union says that while the bill proposes maintaining a certain level of staffing at gas stations, it represents the first cut in what the union believes is a pathway to the reduction and disappearance of jobs, and a higher risk of spills and accidents. It is also concerned about the potential increased spread of COVID-19 and other viruses that could occur from more people touching the gas pump handles and that this change could allow people to stockpile gas during times of natural disaster or a pandemic.
"Gas attendants are one of many front-line job sectors designated as 'essential' during the COVID-19 pandemic. They showed up to work to continue serving our communities at great personal risk. Let's not ignore their sacrifice by ripping away that designation," Madison Walters, political liaison of UFCW 555, wrote in submitted testimony.
HB 4151 would require gas stations to clearly label which pumps are self-service and which pumps will provide fuel from an attendant. It also requires the price of fuel for both services to remain the same.
The Oregon State Legislature has not said when the next hearing or session to discuss HB 4151 will take place.
The Portland Tribune is a KOIN 6 media partner
PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) — Ricky Gomez was one of the 960 Oregon restaurateurs who benefited last year from federal grants spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer — and Gomez supports the Democrat's push for more money this year.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A woman was rescued from a burning Vancouver home late Tuesday night, according to fire officials.
Shortly after 10 p.m., the Vancouver Fire Department received a report of a structure fire on SE 5th Avenue.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The future of work in the Pacific Northwest will be largely determined by the great resignation, employee well-being and the return to the office, according to a new report by Washington State University.
Labor shortages, hybrid work and the pandemic continue to pose new challenges for employers.
Fusion Enertech: Lithium Industry's Crown Jewel Leading the Rise of DLE Technology – Business Wire
خدمات ایران رادیاتور صیادشیرازی


Network attached storage (NAS) provides campus researchers with a cost-effective way to store, share, and back up their work securely, but it should be part of a multi-tier storage and recovery strategy.
How many researchers have mislaid a USB hard drive and had that sinking feeling that months—or years—of work had simply evaporated? Yet, despite the risks, USB drives remain a primary storage mechanism for many campus researchers who often want to maintain physical possession of their work. Fortunately, the days of such a laissez-faire approach may be numbered given the enormous improvements in the reliability, ease of use, and security of network attached storage.
NAS comes in two flavors: desktop appliances and rack-mounted systems. Both are scalable and capable of holding close to 100 TB of data. The smaller systems are often for personal use, but the range of available NAS is staggering, capable of meeting the storage needs of departments, campuses, and even as backup for an entire university's SAN. The smaller desktop systems are generally easy to install and manage without expert IT support, and they connect to an existing network—wireless or otherwise—via an Ethernet cable. Computers and other devices on the network can then be set to automatically back up their contents to the NAS.
Because they're on a desktop or mounted in a rack, NAS don't go walk-about like USB drives sometimes do. Further, NAS can be configured in a RAID to provide built-in redundancy. "In contrast, the reliability of an external USB drive is relatively low, especially if you move it around a lot," said Brian Chee, an IT specialist in the dean's office of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which has implemented NAS from Taiwan-based Synology.
But the advantages of a NAS over a USB drive extend well beyond reliability. With a NAS, users can establish both private and public storage areas, in much the same way that Dropbox allows files and folders to be shared or restricted. While a computer with an external hard drive can also be configured to allow sharing, performance tends to take a significant hit, especially when the amount of data is large.
This was the problem facing the Department of Materials at Oxford University, for example, where a single experiment often generates 100 GB of data. As a solution, the department installed a rack-mounted Synology DS3612xs NAS connected to four HPC workstations.
While Chee uses a complex archiving and storage system that involves Linux machines, a Synology NAS, a Primera Bravo Blu-ray disc publisher, and Amazon Glacier cloud storage, he advises schools at minimum to ensure that they have redundant offsite storage. "I'm trying to get people to do a combination of NAS—for backup, higher reliability, and high-access backup so you can get into archives easily—with offsite storage, either in the cloud or an offsite data center," he said.
With these systems in place, Chee now sees researchers' insistence on backing up their data to a USB drive as icing on the cake, although it's not a wise strategy if the data is sensitive or a likely target of theft. Indeed, in light of recent stories about Chinese hacking of university systems, more and more researchers are giving the sophisticated encryption capabilities of some NAS a second look.
Given the benefits of NAS within a multi-tier storage and archiving strategy, it may seem surprising that their use is not more widespread among university research departments. The reason, says Chee, is that NAS is only now recovering its reputation after early teething pains.


text:
The Key to our success was a simple unwavering commitment to excellence despite reality, practicality and the more obvious signs of failure: Los York
Los York is a "hyphenate" in a lot of ways. Its name, of course, points to its dual locations in Los Angeles and New York – though as founders Dexton Deboree and Seth Epstein put it, the name was derived more from a state of mind, an ethereal destination, a common zip-code inhabited by citizens of a like-minded pursuit of creative excellence. Its 30-person staff, which develops campaigns for the Jordan Brand, various categories of Nike, Motorola, Fitbit and range of today's best brands—including a recent content campaign with Jordan and NBA star Carmelo Anthony—comes with hyphenates as well. "By nature, everyone has a hyphenated skill set: Our creative directors do strategy, write and direct, and some of them DP, edit and design. Our Account Director's EP and contributes to the creative process. It lets us work with a really lean, but incredibly impactful team," explained Deboree. "We work directly with brands, but also collaborate with other social agencies, digital agencies and advertising agencies," added Epstein. "It's one thing to say you're collaborative, and it's another to actually do it and be it. We envision ourselves as a new model, a hyphenate, where we're taking the best of what there is in the creative production side and agency side and blending them into one seamless process." The new model has no doubt contributed to the agency's success.
Los York – In a flash; in Dex Deboree, and Seth Epstein's words
The way Dex Deboree, co-founder and co-CCO tells it, he was brought into a fledgling production company back in 2012 to turn the business around. In a few short months, it was clear the company had issues beyond repair under the company's existing ownership.
Amid the precipice of collapse Deboree and Epstein, who strangers to each other before, serendipitously came together on a project Epstein was brought in to direct for the company.
As the company was falling further apart, with the changes Deboree implemented not able to surmount the ownership philosophy and infrastructure, closure was imminent. Deboree and Epstein had a very brief conversation on a Friday night about whether the two virtual strangers with a guttural sense of synergy between them, might want to take a big change by taking on almost a million dollars of debt, a whole host of angry freelancers and vendors the company owed money to and jump into a blind partnership overnight and figure it all out.
The pair slept on the consideration, woke early Saturday, called each other and, based on pure instinct said – let's go for it. By that Monday morning at 8AM, they owned the company and all it's challenges with no real business plan, no financial backing, and no clear way out of the mess they were now in.
That same afternoon, the two sat down, discussed the practicalities of what could be done and decided on the fly to focus only on the next 30 days, honesty, integrity and sincere effort – the very basics of any business. However, according to Deboree & Epstein the most significant moment for the two was when they paused to have a conversation about the philosophical and spiritual space that they wanted to hold. Beyond what had to be done, they agreed the most important ingredient to their success or failure is the way the two chose to BE. Despite the massive debt and headwinds upon them they were going to be selective about the type, quality and context of the work, discretionary about the people they chose to work with and unwavering in their commitment to pushing the company to a world class level of work, talent, company operations and the work produced. They did not know how, when or what they would do to make it all happen, but they were both crystal clear on where they intended to end up.
And end up, there they did. This very commitment and the synergy between them would lend to their success. The two relative strangers turned out to be pretty good business partners. In 2015, thanks to partnerships with brands like Jordan, Nike, Motorola, Sonos, Fitbit and WeChat, Los York pulled in almost $16 million in revenue, up from just over $100,000 in 2012. And had effectively shifted their business model away from the single-source of revenue, solely doing production for advertising agencies into a multi-faceted creative juggernaut that serves brands, collaborates with a range of old and new types of agencies, develops long form entertainment properties and is even about to launch a product of their own – an all organic protein bar called Index that embodies their core values and personal and professional missions in life.
The two offer that it's all about that original intention and unwavering commitment. If you stay true to who you are, the words you speak and the actions you take, the rest will fall into place.
At a whopping 14,405 percent, that growth landed the company at No. 8 on this year's Inc.5000. According to Deboree, they also erased approximately $1 million of debt left to them by the previous company's owner in just six months.
"That's a huge number for a company that was basically starting from scratch, that had five employees and no runway," Deboree says. "We didn't come with an infusion of cash. We weren't backed in any way. And we had no real game plan for how we were going to get out of it."
When Epstein and Deboree–who co-lead the company as executive partners, with neither officially opting for the title of CEO–first assumed ownership, there was no grand rescue plan. There wasn't enough time to put one together. They ran the business 30 days at a time, checking in monthly to see if they were still alive. They still do that now, four years later.
Instead of focusing on the numbers, Los York makes producing quality content its primary concern. Most traditional ad agencies come up with the ideas, and then flip them over to a production company to turn them into reality. Los York does both, with an emphasis on quality storytelling rather than glitzy style. It's leaner, meaner, and cheaper. A two-minute commercial for the shoe company Deckers was Epstein and Deboree's "aha!" moment. It was their first attempt to do everything themselves, and it came in significantly under budget. The ad was high quality; it won a few awards.
"Huh," the pair thought to themselves. "That's interesting."
From there, they've almost been lucky: Every brand with which they've worked has come to them by word of mouth. And once they get a foot in the door, they tend to stay there.
"They were my SWAT team," says Harsh Sisodia, who worked with Los York on Nike's Jordan brand before becoming the sports-apparel company's global brand digital director.
"They're the type of guys whom I could call at midnight and say, 'Look, I need someone to get on a plane tomorrow and shoot this thing.' And what I end up getting the next day is as good as something that took six months to do."
It's a constant reminder that if you concentrate on the fundamentals–a quality culture and a quality product–the rest will fall into place.
"It feels rewarding," Deboree says. "Because we had lofty philosophical goals – that had no basis in reality – from the moment we took on the company to really, really do something extraordinary. And the growth is sort of an indication and a result of that goal and really guttural and heart-based commitment."
Candid Q&A with the co-founders Dexton Deboree and Seth Epstein
Why was the company set up? How did you select the vertical and decide to be a part of the global platform?
Initially to save a failing business. And then our evolution came out of a desire to do things differently, to make quality films more efficiently, to approach brand strategy and creative development more holistically and true to the solution and then to collapse the layers of advertising to address the challenges faced in our modern world.
Tell us about your first product that was launched?
It was a film for AHNU. A very low budget film we developed the strategy for, wrote the script for and then executed which spawned our current content model.
How successful was your first project roll on? Share the experience?
The project was very small. It won a few awards. And made the client happy. But the exponential value was the insight it delivered us on how to collapse the process of advertising and production and break the old model of big teams, slow process, expensive methods, and broken communication.
What kind of mixed responses have you received from your consumers over the years?
Mainly around perhaps our definition. Who we are and what we do. People are generally used to and far more comfortable with specified and singular definitions – for businesses and services. But what we do and how we do it is far more of a complex, multi-faceted, multi-hyphenated, grey area of overlap type thing and we are okay if we don't fit the box that everyone struggles to fit us in.
What were the grounds on which you have expanded your company and its offerings over the years?
We've evolved into more strategy, conceptual development, technology driven experiential projects, our first feature film and a forthcoming product – an organic protein bar. But it all stems from the core desire to deliver holy shit experiences to the world. The vehicle through which that experience is delivered just keeps evolving and we keep remaining open to what shows up in our space.
What challenges did you face in your initial years? What can your peers learn from it?
Time and money. We took on a company with massive debt. And had no time to develop a plan. The key for us was short, often and concise check-ins on immediate, and long term plans that we just kept refining, iterating, testing in the field and followed what worked and dropped what didn't.
If you have to list five factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?
People. Commitment. People. Commitment. People.
It is difficult to start a venture. But far more difficult to maintain it' – How would you and your team interpret this saying?
When you start out you have less to lose and no past by which to really measure yourself. You also generally have more energy and a lot more freedom – mainly in all the things you're totally naive to in the unknowing. With time, experience, maturity and wisdom, you now have those things to argue against your pure instinct and intuition.
Are there any trigger factors/events/individuals that have played key roles in shaping your organization's road map?
Michael Jordan and Phil Knight. Inspiration and dedication to excellence from MJ and an anchor in a core belief and commitment to sticking to it no matter what from Mr. Knight – both of which we've had the honor and privileged to meet and work directly with.
How do you and your company contribute to the global IT platform and society at large?
We're constantly pushing boundaries of what can be done with technology and communication. And the results end up affecting all industry worldwide. We also stick to helping the right brands, with products that benefit society, communicate
What is a typical day in your office like?
Group morning meeting to talk about the day. Set up by a gong. A series of phone calls and meetings. Creative time. Companywide "Brainstorm" sessions talking about what food we have in the cupboards to how we might come together to change the world. And as much focused time as I can to actually ideate, write and visualize projects and the state of our world.
Do you have any new products ready to be/getting ready to be rolled out into the market?
A documentary feature film that will show a side to a legendary athlete, sport and surprising hero character that should change the way people think about some highly popular subjects and life.And a Protein bar called Index – made for both elite athletes and everyday life warriors – completely organic, yet built to meet premium nutritional standards not common of whole food products and far healthier for your body then synthetic performance products.
"We work with the world's best brands to create culture-defining content to meet the growing demands of storytelling across all screens."


View cart "Puzzle – Captain Kidd" has been added to your cart.
Redbeard was one of four brothers born to a Turkish renegade and a Christian mother on the island of Lesbos, a stronghold for the Mediterranean pirates. His real name was Aruj or Oruc Reis but became known s Father Aruj when he transported large numbers of refugees from Spain to North Africa; in the Christian countries of the Mediterranean this became "Barbarossa", or Redbeard in Italian.
Redbeard was a very successful seaman. He learned to speak Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, Arabic early in his career. Over the years, he managed to capture large number of vessels along the Barbary Coast and became very rich and powerful.
In 1512, Redbeard was invited by the Moors to assist them in an attempt to retake the town and port of Bougie from the Spaniards. Redbeard lost his left arm in battle and earned the nickname "Silver Arm" in reference to the prosthetic device now in place of his missing limb.
Eventually, in 1518, Charles V. of Spain sent an army of 10,000 troops to North Africa, defeated Redbeard and two of his brothers in battle. The last remaining brother, Hizir Reis, inherited his brother's place , his name Barbarossa and his mission.


Take a look at the market updates for the day. Share market slips and Sensex runs flat. Watch the video here. Zee Business, India's first 24-hour Hindi business channel, was conceived to offer 'information' and 'insight' and bring business and economy coverage to you in your own language.


Read the Latest Sprinkler Pump Reviews at Water Pumps Direct.
Compare Sprinkler Pump Ratings or Write Your Own Review.
Water Pumps Direct has a wide assortment of sprinkler pump reviews and sprinkler pump rating. Compare sprinkler pump consumer reports and rate sprinkler pumps. Read product reviews and comparisons to find the Sprinkler Pump that's right for you.