text:
Q: java.lang.RuntimeException: Handler sending message to a Handler on a dead thread I'm using Google Cloud Message to send a message to my phone from a server. When I include Toast.makeText() inside of onHandleIntent, it gave me an handler error:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Handler (android.os.Handler) sending message to a Handler on a dead thread
protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {
    Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
    GoogleCloudMessaging gcm = GoogleCloudMessaging.getInstance(this);
    String messageType = gcm.getMessageType(intent);

    if (!extras.isEmpty()) { // has effect of unparcelling Bundle
        mes = extras.getString("text");
        //**********this works***********
        //showToast();
        Log.i("GCM",
                "Received : (" + messageType + ")  "
                        + extras.getString("iCal"));
        //**********doesn't work***********
        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), mes, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
    }
    // Release the wake lock provided by the WakefulBroadcastReceiver.
    GcmBroadcastReceiver.completeWakefulIntent(intent);
}

public void showToast() {
    handler.post(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), mes, Toast.LENGTH_LONG)
                    .show();
        }
    });

}

But when I tried having showToast() function defined on the bottom of onHandleIntent function in onHandleIntent(), toast showed up fine. I know this is a handler problem from reading this java.lang.RuntimeException: Handler (android.os.Handler) sending message to a Handler on a dead thread
but I don't fully understand that answer. Could anyone explain more in detail so I can understand?
Thank you for your help in advance!


Run, sausage! As a delicious food we all like, sausage always want to fight back and give us some lessons, but now he first need to escape from this dangerous place. Can you help him avoid all those deadly obstacles and start his new life? Enjoy our new game, Run Sausage Run!


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Life exploded on Earth after slow rise of oxygen
It took 100 million years for oxygen levels in the oceans and atmosphere to increase to the level that allowed the explosion of animal life on Earth about 600 million years ago, according to a UCL-led study funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.
Before now it was not known how quickly Earth's oceans and atmosphere became oxygenated and if animal life expanded before or after oxygen levels rose. The new study, published today in Nature Communications, shows the increase began significantly earlier than previously thought and occurred in fits and starts spread over a vast period. It is therefore likely that early animal evolution was kick-started by increased amounts of oxygen, rather than a change in animal behaviour leading to oxygenation.
Lead researcher, Dr Philip Pogge von Strandmann (UCL Earth Sciences), said: "We want to find out how the evolution of life links to the evolution of our climate. The question on how strongly life has actively modified Earth's climate, and why the Earth has been habitable for so long is extremely important for understanding both the climate system, and why life is on Earth in the first place."
Researchers from UCL, Birkbeck, Bristol University, University of Washington, University of Leeds, Utah State University and University of Southern Denmark tracked what was happening with oxygen levels globally 770 - 520 million years ago (Ma) using new tracers in rocks across the US, Canada and China.
Samples of rocks that were laid down under the sea at different times were taken from different locations to piece together the global picture of the oxygen levels of Earth's oceans and atmosphere. By measuring selenium isotopes in the rocks, the team revealed that it took 100 million years for the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere to climb from less than 1% to over 10% of today's current level. This was arguably the most significant oxygenation event in Earth history because it ushered in an age of animal life that continues to this day.
Dr Pogge von Strandmann, said: "We took a new approach by using selenium isotope tracers to analyse marine shales which gave us more information about the gradual changes in oxygen levels than is possible using the more conventional techniques used previously. We were surprised to see how long it took Earth to produce oxygen and our findings dispel theories that it was a quick process caused by a change in animal behaviour."
During the period studied, three big 'snowball Earth' glaciations - Sturtian (~716Ma), Marinoan (~635Ma) and Gaskiers (~580Ma) - occurred whereby the Earth's land was covered in ice and most of the oceans were frozen from the poles to the tropics. During these periods, temperatures plummeted and rose again, causing glacial melting and an influx of nutrients into the ocean, which researchers think caused oxygen levels to rise deep in the oceans.
Increased nutrients means more ocean plankton, which will bury organic carbon in seafloor sediments when they die. Burying carbon results in oxygen increasing, dramatically changing conditions on Earth. Until now, oxygenation was thought to have occurred after the relatively small Gaskiers glaciation melted. The findings from this study pushes it much earlier, to the Marinoan glaciation, after which animals began to flourish in the improved conditions, leading to the first big expansion of animal life.
Co-author Professor David Catling (University of Washington Earth and Space Sciences), added: "Oxygen was like a slow fuse to the explosion of animal life. Around 635 Ma, enough oxygen probably existed to support tiny sponges. Then, after 580 Ma, strange creatures, as thin as crêpes, lived on a lightly oxygenated seafloor. Fifty million years later, vertebrate ancestors were gliding through oxygen-rich seawater. Tracking how oxygen increased is the first step towards understanding why it took so long. Ultimately, a grasp of geologic controls on oxygen levels can help us understand whether animal-like life might exist or not on Earth-like planets elsewhere."
Rebecca Caygill
r.caygill@ucl.ac.uk
@uclnews
http://www.ucl.ac.uk
Natural Environment Research Council
ECOLOGY/ENVIRONMENT
FISHERIES/AQUACULTURE
TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT PHENOMENA
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCOMMS10157
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


After three years, I finally bought a new pair of running shoes (I know, my orthopedist is cringes with you). When I broke them out of their box, their bright reds and oranges erupted fresh soles to create in me a burst of athletic energy. It was like the sun was rising out of my cardboard box, like I held the horizon in my hands. They were perfect.
With my glowing holy grail in hand, I turned to look out the window, where I saw rain. Pouring rain. It does that here. And, when it does that here, that means one of two things: mud or puddles (the combined antichrists of new shoes).
But I had to run. My sport/eating habits/happiness demanded it. I waited for the rain to relax and made it out onto the trail. A few minutes into the run, feet still dry and happy in their colorful sanctuaries, I approached a wetland portion where I proceeded to bounce and bob from side to side, slowing, speeding, ducking and diving to avoid the viscous Vermont puddle works. I summoned whatever agility U14 soccer had once taught me, and twinkle toed, spin moved and laterally slid across the boggy path.
"Quick feet! Quick feet!" I chanted to myself, as I closed the gap between the muddy way and dry road. I've done it, I thought, I've walked on water. Granted, it had taken me five minutes to cover a 400 meter stretch, but dry socks were worth it.
Just as I was getting complacent, I hit a boardwalk that, rather than standing above water, was simply floating on it. My right foot dipped into the claws of the stagnant spring water, and with it my illusions of dry, agile superiority shattered.
You know, there are few things more unnerving than getting your shoes wet. The water infiltrates your soles, closing the gap between your shoe and sock with an icy cement wall. It separates your toes and shocks your entire system, shooting warning signals up your ankles, through your knees, all the way to your heart and brain that react with a sudden fight or flight instinct. It just feels completely unnatural. At first.
Once the seal has been broken, though, once your socks expand and your toes relax and the water warms up to match your body, wet shoes aren't so bad. On the run, I mourned my submerged shoe for a moment, but continued on to have an excellent day on the trail, splashing through puddles and slipping through mud, it just took a little discomfort to get me there (I feel an extended metaphor coming on).
A couple of weeks ago, I drove down to Stratton for an uphill running time trail (why, yes, I DID bring my new shoes). It was the earliest I'd ever done such a hard effort, but that didn't phase me much. I was racing five weeks ago, I thought, I'll pick it up again no problem.
Um. Problem. I'll spare you the nasty details, but we'll just say the experience was somewhat akin to my right foot hitting water, except centered in my entire cardiovascular system and rather than cold, it was all kinds of twisting, pulling, aching hot. It was a brutal, distressingly uncomfortable experience, one that I was not ready for.
Fast forward three weeks and I'm standing at the bottom of a hill getting ready to double pole up it as fast as I can. It's been a while since I've double poled. It's going to hurt. Images of the uphill run flash before my eyes as I prepare my body for what's coming.
First interval: not bad. Second interval: better! Third interval: Ok that doesn't feel great. Fourth interval: why am I still going uphill? Fifth interval: What? I'm done!
Turns out, today's experience was unlike the uphill run. There was some discomfort, but nothing shocking. It was splashing through a puddle after already getting my shoes wet; I had already broken the seal.
We stand at the start of a long training season, one filled with challenges, adventures and (hopefully) rewards. For whatever minor difficulties we encounter now, we know that they won't necessarily make the path smoother (read: dryer), but attacking them now will certainly make it more fun. The best part, is that when we get to the other side, we realize how much faster we got there than the people who kept their shoes dry.


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HomeGlobal InsightReports: Research & InsightHere's why Dubai's education sector is focusing on early technology adoption
Covid-19 Economy Impact
Here's why Dubai's education sector is focusing on early technology adoption
Cavendish Maxwell | Apr 14, 2020
Rising Demand for Private Schools and E-Learning Spurs Growth in Dubai's Education Sector
At the end of 2019, Dubai's government green-lit its biggest-ever spending programme. Dubai's budget for 2020 was set at AED 66.4 billion, with over 30% segmented off for the social development of the emirate — a substantial portion of which would be channeled into the advancement of the education sector in Dubai.
Education lies at the core of the UAE Vision 2021, a strategic framework designed to graduate the nation to among the best in the world. The shift to a knowledge-based economy in the UAE is an integral element of the UAE National Agenda 2021 — the seven-year plan action plan to achieve the nation's vision, as well as to prop up the UAE's economic diversification strategy.
Another key aspect of the UAE National Agenda for education is to drive foreign investments into the education system in the UAE through direct and indirect channels. Owing to Dubai's expatriate population, the emirate is particularly well poised to attract foreign investments into the UAE's education sector. According to the annual Education Cost Index Dubai and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), Dubai schools registered significant increases to both, the number of private institutions as well as the students attending them.
Education is also expected to play a crucial role in making Dubai the smartest city in the world. The Ministry of Education has therefore kicked off several landmark initiatives to engender smart learning in Dubai, including the Madrasa e-learning platform, which offers free teacher workshops and educational videos to over 50 million students. The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation has also launched the Digital Knowledge Hub, a comprehensive, self-education online portal.
The UAE Ministry of Education e-learning initiatives proved crucial in maneuvering the Dubai schools COVID shut down — the proliferation of online learning in Dubai facilitated academic continuity as well as allowed for a smooth transition in a severely compressed time frame. Simultaneously, the KHDA also launched its remote learning platform, #InThisTogetherDubai, to support Dubai's distance education shift, through which private organisations provided free apps, websites, services and other resources to parents, students and educators.
In this paper, Cavendish Maxwell explores Dubai's education sector outlook and how its growth lines up with the UAE Vision 2021 National Agenda action plan, as well as how the UAE National Agenda for schools and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has fortified Dubai's e-learning objectives.
Click download to read the in-depth report.
TAGS: Proptech UAE Commercial whitepaper


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Trump court pick Neomi Rao 'regrets' blaming women for date rape
Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on a lower court has said she regrets past comments about date r**e.
Neomi Rao, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote a college op-ed claiming women could avoid r**e by staying sober.
In another opinion piece, Ms Rao wrote feminism was "dangerous" for teaching women that they are equal to men.
Facing scrutiny from both parties, Ms Rao said she had "matured" since then.
"To be honest, looking back at some of those writings, I cringe at some of the language I used," Ms Rao, 45, a nominee for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"I certainly regret any implication of blaming the victim."
Ms Rao's 1994 op-ed in the Yale Herald shows her reasoning that if a woman "drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice".
"It has always seemed self-evident to me that even if I drank a lot, I would still be responsible for my actions. A man who r***s a drunk girl should be prosecuted. At the same time, a good way to avoid a potential date r**e is to stay reasonably sober."
An earlier, 1993 article for the Yale Free Press detailed how feminist ideals led women to "develop an artificial, alternative world in which women are free from sexual danger and 'no always means no'".
"The same rules and practices which proscribed an ostensibly subordinate position for women in society also provided greater protection from horrors such as r**e," Ms Rao wrote.
Ms Rao's college rationale led many senators to question whether she was fit for a lifetime seat on the second highest US court.
Democrats grilled Ms Rao on her past views and pushed her to verbally reject those sentiments.
Senator Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who revealed last month she had been sexually assaulted in college, also said Ms Rao's articles "give me pause".
Mrs Ernst noted she was concerned about the "message that we are sending young women everywhere".
Ms Rao insisted she was not a proponent of victim blaming and had "matured as a thinker, writer and a person" since her college years in the 1990s.
That was sufficient for Republican Senator Mike Lee, of Utah, who said "judicial nominations have become a blood sport", referencing the acrimonious debate around Mr Kavanaugh's confirmation after Christine Blasey Ford accused him of sexually assaulting her in high school.
The controversy saw Mr Kavanaugh confirmed as a justice by a narrow 50-48 vote.
The Utah senator added: "People grow, they learn and we should allow those changes to be taken into account."
Texas Senator Ted Cruz also defended Ms Rao, and said he plans on advising his own daughters to avoid excessive drinking.
Ms Rao is one of a record number of judges Mr Trump has nominated to positions on federal courts during his presidency.
She graduated from Yale University in 1995, going on to receive her law degree from the University of Chicago and clerking for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She was also an associate counsel to President George W Bush.
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All of you crazy cat ladies out there need to purchase one of these: an Inflatable Unicorn Horn for Cats. Because, yes.
Sale Priced at just $4.95 — what a bargain! — waste no more time by picking one up now at This Link!
After an excruciatingly unbearable nine month hiatus, Anthony Jaffe is once again publishing his hilarious and deeply twisted short stories on the always compelling Electric Storytime Blogspot. Thank you Jesus! Of the 102 amazing stories on this fabulous blog, the one about an old lady and her pet whale is my favorite.


'Blended' as in 'mixed'. Many consider blended learning a simple mix of different educational content and learning elements. However, the course designers behind CREATE have the mindset that blended learning is a highly useful concept of learning that answers various questions and creates integrated solutions.
Who is your target audience? What are the specific properties of this target group?
What are the circumstances in which the target audience is learning? What is it learning and where (also informally)?
What digital service can the target group use? Computer, smartphone, documents?
What are the existing educational contents, possibilities and formats?
What gamification and motivational factors could play a role?
How is the learning success measured (KPIs)?
Blended learning is harmonised perfectly towards the learning goals and specific scenarios of the target audience, in which several formats, at different times but also intensity, come into play. The cBook provides CREATE customers with a suitable carrier and learning medium from learning to working that reaches beyond the initial program.
Traditional training, e-learning contents, and webinars that interplay at different levels but also connect types of learning with technologies. A blended learning concept has the potential to do much more. The final learning scenario shows where you want to go and what goals should be attained; this is often connected to changes, a new approach to learning, and potentially a general cultural change.
Think holistically and create sustainably!
Blended learning combines various types of learning like online elements and offline training. Both forms can integrate multiple technologies (cBook, Mr Fish, virtual reality, links) as well as learning elements (interactions, coaching, or skill questions).
Each suspense curve is divided into a beginning, a middle, and an end. Each beginning, like every other story, must pick up and motivate the learner. The middle brings the majority of the content to a turning point, that is most often the offline training. In the end, a transfer exercise will pick up the thread and tie in with the suspense curve.
Please contact us, and we will be happy to assist you in taking the first step toward your next blended learning project with the creation of a first project. We look forward to tackling your challenges.


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Lithornithidae é a única família de aves descrita na ordem Lithornithiformes. A família compreende aves fósseis do Terciário da América do Norte e Europa. É estreitamente próxima aos Tinamiformes, apresentando tamanho similar ou um pouco maior que os tinamídeos.

A posição filogenética dos membros desta família têm sido questionada desde os primeiros espécimes descoberos. Owen (1841) considerou estas aves como aparentadas a família Cathartidae, enquanto, Harrison e Walker (1977) colocou-as próximo a Musophagidae. Houde (1988) foi o primeiro a apresentar a hipótese que o Lithornis é um membro basal da superordem Paleognathae, baseado em observações osteológicas e comparação da estrutura da casca do ovo. Esta hipótese foi corroborada pelas observações de Mikhailov (1997) que reportou que a casca de ovo do gênero Lithornis era semelhante a das outras ratitas.

Sistemática
Ordem Lithornithiformes Houde, 1988
Família Lithornithidae Houde, 1988
Gênero Lithornis Owen, 1841
Lithornis celetius Houde, 1988
Lithornis hookeri (Harrison, 1984)
Lithornis nasi Harrison, 1984
Lithornis plebius Houde, 1988
Lithornis promiscuus Houde, 1988
Lithornis vulturinus Owen, 1841
Gênero Paracathartes Harrison, 1979
Paracathartes howardae Emslie, 1988
Gênero Promusophaga Harrison & Walker, 1977Promusophaga magnifica Harrison & Walker, 1977
Gênero Pseudocrypturus Houde, 1988Pseudocrypturus cercanaxius Houde, 1988
Gênero Fissuravis Mayr, 2007 Incertae sedis Fissuravis weigelti'' Mayr, 2007

Referências

Paleognathae
Extinções no Eoceno

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


"We know people are anticipating the next giveaway," said Ortega when confronted on social media. "It's been crazy since Denise (Calkins-Weldon) won a Toyota Camry Hybrid on Facebook Live a couple of months ago." Over 25,000 watched 5 finalists spin a wheel.
Click on this post to submit your photo and your chance to in a $50 gift card. Also join their Valley Hi Toyota Friends group page for fun and random conversations.
Valley Hi Toyota is located in Victorville, Ca. They are constantly having contests and giveaways. Right now you can get great deals on new Toyotas, like the boldly redesigned 2018 Camry, or on the many brands of used vehicles, like a 2005 Mazda truck for $7,995.
Comment on this video for your chance to win.


Description: The Western Pacific region has seen significant success since 2012 with the development of a Regional Action Plan, a program of support with the World Health Organization funded by the Australian Government, a series of workshops and enhanced coordination and advocacy in several target countries.
Looking ahead, what can IAPB and members do collectively to have a better impact on eye health in the Western Pacific? Led by IAPB Regional Chair Amanda Davis, the session invites all interested delegates to a lunch to help determine directions and priorities for the run-up to 2020.


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The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse Paperback / softback
by Louise Erdrich
Less than 10 available - usually despatched within 48 hours
A powerfully involving novel from one of America's finest writers, and winner of America's prestigious National Book Award for Fiction 2012 Sister Cecilia lives for music, for those hours when she can play her beloved Chopin on the piano.
It isn't that she neglects her other duties, rather it is the playing itself - distilled of longing - that disturbs her sisters.
The very air of the convent thickens with the passion of her music, and the young girl is asked to leave. And so it is that Sister Cecilia appears before Berndt Vogel on his farm, destitute, looking for sanctuary. Decades later, old Father Damien lays down his pen and dresses for bed.
Slowly, he removes his heavy robes, undergarments and, at last, a bandage wound tightly around woman's breasts.
Having lived for so long as a man, he fears that the discovery of his true identity will undo all that he has accomplished... Moving and lyrical, 'The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse' is a powerful work from one of contemporary literature's brightest stars.
Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers
eAudiobook MP3 from £15.74
eAudiobook MP3 | Published 04/01/2005 | £15.74 | View now
Also by Louise Erdrich | View all
The Night Watchman
The Range Eternal


Fox 4 News in Dallas takes an in-depth look at the long-term impact of student loan debt. Annuity Watch USA Financial Planner, Cathy DeWitt Dunn contributes to this report.
Student loan debt in America has now surpassed a staggering $1-trillion and is still on the rise. Fox 4 News Investigator, Becky Oliver, shows the devastating effects that student loans can have, not only in the short term, but over years and even decades.
In bankruptcy, credit card debt and even gambling debt may be discharged, but that is not the case with student loans. Your IRS returns, social security payments, disability checks, and even your wages may be garnished to cover student loan payments.
Watch this must-see video for more information.


BROCKTON, Mass. ---- The Massasoit men's soccer team held the potent No. 4 Monroe College offense at bay in the opening half, but three second half goals proved to be the difference as the Mustangs topped the Warriors 3-0 on Saturday at Warrior Field.
Despite the 3-0 loss, Coach Rui Estrela was extremely pleased with the play of his freshman goalkeeper, Ollie Dagraca (Brockton).
"Ollie was a beast back there," head coach Rui Estrela said. "Today was his best game for us overall so far. His confidence level keeps going up. He really stepped up for us for sure."
Dagraca played stout in goal against the undefeated Mustangs (7-0), making eight saves in the loss as the Warriors dropped to 2-3-1 on the season.
In total, Monroe finished with 30 shots, 19 coming in the first half. Despite peppering the goal, Dagraca and the Warrior defense kept the game tied at the break.
"First half I thought we played well and really hard. Monroe is a very talented team," Estrela said. "I thought we played right with them in the first half, especially missing three starters for much of the half. But, I thought overall we moved the ball well."
In the 56th minute of action, a foul was called on a Warrior defender at the top of the box. Monroe's Jorge Paez rocketed the free kick to the back of the net, for what proved to be the game winner.
The Mustangs added insurance goals in the 67th and 79th minute.
"We just had three defensive breakdowns which they took advantage of," Estrela said. "There was the foul in front of the box and the kid made a great free kick. And then allowing guys to get around us on the endline, twice, which is something we work on at practice not to do. Monroe finished well. I told the guys that if you give a team like this good opportunities they will put them away, and they did."
Massasoit's best chance of scoring came in the 70th minute. A corner kick was lofted in the box but Sidney Cardoso's header went just wide.
"This is good for these guys to see (a team like Monroe), because this is what we are up against moving forward," Estrela said.
Estrela also pointed out the strong play of sophomore midfielder Edgar Lopez (Seekonk).
"Today was the first time we pushed Edgar to center mid and I thought he controlled the middle and worked hard," Estrela said. "One play that sticks out in my mind is that he made a 50-yard run chasing a guy down to our 6-yard box to clear a ball with his head. If he didn't do that, there was a Monroe guy standing there all by himself. Stuff like that is what we are looking for. Ruben (Almedia) also made a run like that, which is what we like to see."
Massasoit hosts MassBay on Monday at 4 PM.


With no stove and no way of cooking anything, I'm grateful for the few baked goods left in the freezer. These are tea biscuits I created while experimenting with vegan and sugar-free biscuits and scones.
These are light and surprisingly tasty, considering that they have no butter, eggs, or refined sugar. They're made with spelt flour and agave nectar, one of my favorite sweeteners. I use organic raisins and organic sunflower oil (just a touch). While I do use organic soy milk in these, I think they could just as easily be made with rice milk (and definitely with almond milk).
So, amid the boxes and newspaper, the cartons and garbage bags and two dogs miling about, I enjoyed a quick and easy breakfast of tea biscuits with organic peanut butter. ( "The peanut butter was particularly tasty, mum!").


Dlamini, R. & Mbatha, K. (2018). The discourse on ICT teacher professional development needs: The case of a South African teachers' union. International Journal of Education and Development using ICT, 14 (2),. Open Campus, The University of the West Indies, West Indies.


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How the American Friends Service Committee uses Organimi to help make a better world.
We needed an org chart solution that could capture not just employee names and titles, but a lot of other information as well.
Ryan Marcus
HR Coordinator, AFSC
AFSC's team needed a quick and easy to use org chart tool to capture employee information and facilitate "what if" situations.
Excel and other manual tools were slow and labor-intensive. These tools could not capture all the information that AFSC needed.
AFSC's team found Organimi significantly reduced the time it took to create and update their org chart, and it was always readily available to all stakeholders.
How Organimi helps the American Friends Service Committee manage its global team.
Company Highlights
An international non-profit that promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression
Works with communities and partners worldwide to challenge unjust systems and promote lasting peace
Focus areas include advanced peace-building, humane migration responses, healing justice, and just economies
Headquartered in Philadelphia, PA
To learn more, please visit www.afsc.org
Founded in 1917, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that works for peace and social justice worldwide. From the U.S. to Africa, South America, and the Middle East, AFSC's programs address wide-ranging issues, including racial and social injustice and equality for women.
With over 400 employees and countless volunteers active globally, AFCS needed an org chart solution to enable better communication and collaboration for all stakeholders and help leaders create a more dynamic, efficient, restructured organization.
Before adopting Organimi, the AFSC team used Excel and other manual tools to manage its org charts. Creating and updating charts was slow and labor-intensive, and the resulting charts couldn't incorporate all the information that AFSC needed.
"We needed an org chart solution that could capture not just employee names and titles, but a lot of other information as well," says Ryan Marcus, AFSC's HR Coordinator, AFSC. "That included department, employee ID and tenure, geographic location, and more."
Also, with an organization-wide reorganization underway, the AFSC leadership team required an org chart solution that could help them visualize the entire org structure and facilitate multiple 'what-if' scenarios.
We chose Organimi over other solutions largely due to its data importing and search capabilities.
AFSC evaluated several leading org chart tools before choosing Organimi. The HR team sought a cost-effective solution that combined ease of use with class-leading data management and search features. "We chose Organimi over other solutions largely due to its data importing and search capabilities," says Marcus.
With Organimi, AFSC could create a single, organization-wide chart and also departmental and geographic versions. They could easily import data from Excel and other applications, with the flexibility to add other elements (like photographs) in the future.
AFSC currently has over 400 employees in dozens of locations globally, and Organimi's powerful search capabilities saved the team time and effort. "We used to have to scroll through spreadsheets," explains Marcus. "Now it's much faster and easier to locate an individual or make any necessary changes."
With Organimi, the AFSC team significantly reduced the time it took to create and update their org charts. This helped ensure that the most current information was always available to all stakeholders.
The Organimi charts are also a boon to collaboration. Incorporating a wide range of data for each employee helps team members locate counterparts with similar skills, experiences, and responsibilities. New hires also benefit from the clear, detailed snapshot of the organization that the Organimi charts provide.
The comprehensive org charts have also been a valuable tool for the executive team during the reorganization. With Organimi, the leadership team has a clear snapshot of the entire organization. It can drill down into each department or geography to help make informed decisions about span of control and optimizing resources.
Overall, the feedback about Organimi has been very positive — especially from the AFSC HR team. Marcus looks forward to exploring and leveraging many of Organimi's advanced capabilities. "The team finds Organimi very user-friendly, and the themes are awesome," he says. "In the future, we'll incorporate our AFCS colors into our charts to promote our brand internally. And we'll be looking at importing even more employee information and linking to other data sources to make the Organimi experience even better."
The team finds Organimi very user-friendly, and the themes are awesome!
Curious to see how Organimi can help improve efficiencies in your org?
Reach out to us and we'd be happy to help!
Try Organimi Free
Other non profits using Organimi:


Mr. Reavis earned his Bachelor of Architecture with a minor in Education from Howard University where he was honored with the Alpha Rho Ci medal for his dedication of youth educating and mentoring the DC community. Prescott has over 15 years of experience of educating and mentoring all ages of students in the built environment and to facilitate more diversity into the profession of architecture and planning.
Cameron Clark, is a first-year under-graduate at Pratt University in NY.
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Our first edition came out in 1996 and now, 18 years later, The Big Issue has reached a milestone: our 450th edition. We've come a long way, baby. This issue, we look back at the way we were and ponder the things that have – and haven't – changed since Edition#1. One thing that remains the same is our purpose. The Big Issue exists for the people who sell it: our vendors.
Fiona Scott-Norman recounts her ill-fated experiments with FM radio; Peter Barry describes ditching the drink; Guy Davis investigates how Leonardo DiCaprio became Hollywood's go-to guy for playing very rich, very flawed characters; Doug Wallen talks to The National's Matt Berninger on the eve of the band's Australian tour; and, in 'Roving Eye', we present striking images from the 2013 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards.
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text:
Fidel Castro's musical impact
Five decades of international isolation allowed an antediluvian style to be conserved on the island.
Cuba's music was largely uncorrupted by commercialism.
V.Lind says:
Antediluvian? Hmmmm…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_lYoTvIQ3o
You don't actually pull that off without excellent grounding. But in case you are in doubt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov6hnQl6fOw&t=135s
This orchestra was one of the first things Castro did when he came to power — he founded it before 1959 was over. He was as quick in establishing the ballet — he hauled Alicia Alonso back from American Ballet Theatre, where she was a major star, and gave her money and support to found a company for Cuba. I first met this company in the early 70s and covered them in Canada, the US and Cuba for many years and, on their day, they were and are equal to anyone.
Castro wanted Cuba to stand tall in the world of serious arts, as well as, of course, their indigenous forms. Neither has been without international support — Canadian artists have been involved with Cuban artists for years, hosting them on Canada and going into Cuba to help them (the great Canadian jazz musician Jane Bunnett and her associates were the spearhead of programmes to bring instruments into Cuba during desperately poor periods). And of course everyone knows the influence of Ry Cooder, so at least one American thought the embargo was waste matter.
Re-evaluations of Castro will soon be starting. But it was clear from what achievements are inescapable in any summation — in the arts, in education, in health care — that Castro sought a good and vibrant Cuba. And, to some extent, saw it happen.
It was perhaps a mischance of history that he ran up against the demented anti-communism of the Americans in the 50s, coupled with the eternal preference of American politicians for what they regard as a stable government, however corrupt (see Middle East, Chile, Central America) over one that rocks the boat.
In the end, the American Dream is financial, not moral or ethical — as long as American business was raking off profits the Americans did not care that Cubans starved. A more enlightened view might have prevented the alliance with the Soviet Union and alignment with the communists during the Cold War. So it is all the more heroic that Castro and his financially strapped government managed to all but eradicate illiteracy and made free universal health care available to all — and of a quality that made the loan of Cuban medical staff welcome wherever they were called to assist. And in the midst of the political turmoil and the massive social objectives, he had time to establish the arts at the highest level.
I am well aware that Castro's Cuba has a lot to answer for in terms of free speech, freedom to dissent, and all the consequences that go with challenging a one-party, totalitarian state. His legacy will be at best mixed. But it might have been different if one of the superpowers could have extended a helping hand instead of a closed fist. The artistic legacy, along with health and education, is a sign of what could have been.
Alank says:
"Demented Anti-communism". Tell that to the surviving relatives of the millions of humans who perished in tge Soviiet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. Russia had terrific orchestras and ballet companies but strange why artists like Rostropovich failed to appreciate the paradise. BTW Castro did all he could to start a nuclear war and it was when Khrushchev realized how erratic he was he made the deal with Kennedy to remove the missiles
Your reply is nothing but childish nonsense. The typical demented, or – for a more positive spin – childlike world view that is typical for so many in the western world, who's material wealth is enormous, but their intellectual achievement is retarded, brainwashed, unable to differentiate. Black and white polarized. Several lost generations.
Yes you are right of course. We can all bask in the achievements of the great communist revolutions as evidenced by all those Nobel prizes in physics chemistry and medicine I suppose all of the millions who have fled or who died trying to flee to those materialistic societies were obviously misled and brainwashed and childlike in their ambitions
PaulD says:
Demented anti-Communism? I think Dmitri Shostakovich would differ with you.
Moreover, you can provide good healthcare and education without oppression. It's been done in many countries.
Holly Golightly says:
Name three.
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland: there that's four. Perhaps you've heard of them? Castro was a typical middle class fantasist like Mao, Lenin and Pol Pot who destroyed millions of lives in pursuit of their ideal societies: Stalin admittedly was a working class psychopath. They are still admired by the affluent "intelligentsia" who despise the country they live in and whose mental development stopped with their posters of the mass murderer Che Guevara.
Oh, OK, you meant the nations with staggeringly high taxation!! And not enough incentive to encourage them to actually build their own populations.
The rest of your comments I agree with.
Those nations rank highest and above the US in human development index and general quality of life.
I'm referring more to American "Reds under the bed" obsessions, and McCarthyite witch hunts and black lists of that period. Not commenting on the Soviet Union. If the US had been receptive to "regime change," as it wasn't called then, they might have made a friend of Castro, with decades less heartache for a lot of people.
It is in their genes — long after Castro's revolution, the US did everything it could to undermine Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, to the point of Iran-Contra, despite monitored elections deemed to be free and fair. Problem was, he unseated their stooge, Somoza, who was the Nicaraguan Batista. The US likes to support the fat cats, not the working classes.
Obama, a new generation and a different exposure, started the process of opening up relations with Cuba, partly in response to Cuba's own ventures, tentative though they might be, into a more open society. It remains to be seen whether The Unknown Quantity, whose eulogy for Castro remains one of the most shrilly hostile, will leave that to develop or put a spoke in it out of ideology.
The US does not "support the fat cats". That's a bad euphemism for the US simply supporting their corporate class and interest. The American subcontinent was considered as the de facto US colonies.
The US influence on the Americas is a clear example, how their intent is not driven to support freedom and democracy, but to loot the earth.
Wherever the people in Latin America democratically elected a government, which was not aligned with US corporate interest, the US intervened, openly or through their massive CIA operations on the subcontinent.
Henry Kissinger approved this message.
I suppose one could say the same for North Korea. It is more than despairing to read these type of remarks coming from affluent residents of countries where freedom of speech and travel are a given So quaint those Cubans driving 50 year old cars and harvesting sugar cane by hand and uncorrupted by American commercialism.
Malcolm James says:
Except that when I was in Cuba in 2011 everyone clearly had a roof over their head and was adequately clothed and fed. Life was clearly not easy in Cuba if you wanted more than the basics, but everyone seemed to have those.
YadaYada says:
As uncommercial and pure as the Buena Vista Social Club? Much too much is made of Cuba and things Cuban by ignorant and mid-century nostalgic anglo-saxons. But that is because these nostalgics have not have to live with the consequences of a regime they would never tolerate. Good riddance.
Richard Rosenberg says:
Havana was once the undisputed cultural center of the Western Hemisphere.
After a concert tour in the early 1860s, United States composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk left two operas, five orchestral works, at least one work for wind band, chamber music and solo piano works in Havana. He never returned to Cuba to collect those materials and so there those compositions remained.
I went to Cuba on a research grant from Yale University in 2010 specifically to collect those Gottschalk works. I scoured the crumbling libraries and interviewed dozens of musicians, musicologists and archivists. What I learned was that after the Bay of Pigs invasion, and along with all the other music, art and literature by the "Imperialistic Aggressors from the North," Fidel Castro had the materials bought to Havana from all over the Island where they were summarily burned.
No matter your political viewpoint as to who was in the "right," to politicize art is wrong.
A shameful act indeed.
I rolled about laughing: "uncorrupted by commercialism" – yep, that's right – little sewage, rubbish in the streets, slums, cars from the 1950s rusted out, no money, no luxuries.
Just what planet ARE you people living on?
Ellingtonia says:
Ah, the Jezza acolyte and sycophant rises again with a rose tinted view of good old "communism"………..as we say up North "get real love!" Did you know Ukraine has just commemorated the Holdomor famine when good old Uncler Jo starved millions of Ukrainians to death……….all in the name of communism.
cabbagejuice says:
Former Cuba president, Fidel Castro had an estimated net worth of $900 million. Too bad he can't take it with him. Probably he doesn't need warm clothing over there either.
It is difficult to estimate his actual victims, but 10,000 directly killed under his orders is a good place to start. "78,000 innocents may have died trying to flee the dictatorship. Another 5,300 are known to have lost their lives fighting communism in the Escambray Mountains (mostly peasant farmers and their children) and at the Bay of Pigs. An estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Fidel's revolutionary adventures abroad, most notably his dispatch of 50,000 soldiers to Angola in the 1980s to help the Soviet-backed regime fight off the Unita insurgency."
https://www.quora.com/How-many-deaths-was-Fidel-Castro-responsible-for
mario lutz says:
What do you mean by "Musical Impact"??
Some dissident who will beat his guitar to sing for freedom?
He would certainly feel immediately the violence of Castro's repressive impact.
I'm not going to celebrate like the Cuban immigrants in Miami, the death of a dictator.
In fact, his ideology has died since long time ago. Possessing the same national as the famous "CHE" and as anticommunist I am, that is enough for me.
I would have wished Norman a better job of research on your part, especially if Wikipedia is such an accessible medium today.
Buena Vista Social Club is the name of a very popular social club in Havana, Cuba, whose members practiced dancing and music. The Cuban revolution did not bring improvements of any kind to the unemployed musicians; on the contrary they lived in extreme poverty
Buena Vista Social Club It is also the name of a musical group created in the 1990s, almost 50 years after the club closed, which inspired a recording made by the Cuban musician Juan de Marcos González and the American guitarist Ry Cooder with traditional Cuban musicians, Many of them former members of the club where they performed when their popularity was at the top. But during
The recording, called Buena Vista Social Club, by that institution in Havana, was an international success, and the group performed with their full training in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1998.
German film director Wim Wenders recorded the presentation, Followed by a second concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, which was the summit of the documentary that resulted from the work of Wenders. The documentary also includes interviews with the musicians carried out in Havana. Wenders' film, also named Buena Vista Social Club, was acclaimed by critics and received an Oscar nomination for best long documentary and numerous awards, including Best Documentary at the European Film Awards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mGS8RDSD1k
Any of these should happen without "that thing" you call corrupted commercialism??
There is a thin but crucial red line between commerce and commercialism. The latter subjugates culture into a trade commodity only. The former can coexist and respectfully support the arts.
On this point I agree with you. It seems that Norman missed it.
Che was Argentinian.
Indeed, what's the point? My last name comes from Austrian family, the nationality of Hitler…
Anyone jumping on the anti-communist bandwagon must remember: Castro's revolution in Cuba was a reaction to the suffocating grip the US Corporations together with the CIA had on the American subcontinent.
Wherever democracy elected a socialist leaning government in Latin America, brutal intervention by the CIA and US government, instigated by their US corporate Lords, was the result.
One can not look at Castro in historical honesty without this context of a subcontinent trying to liberate itself from the US imperialist gridlock and gain sovereignty.
Could it be done without establishing a dictatorship and closing the government to CIA destabilization attempts through the "democratic" opposition?
The historical reality of that subcontinent clearly says: probably not.
This is not a site I would like to speak about political context, but your partial vision should be confronted with the reality to much people lived with, with the approval of self experience.
Throughout the twentieth century, Fidel Castro was a really central and significant actor of the so-called Cold War, which moved our own hemisphere. In fact, his dictatorial rule always depended on foreign aid. First of the Soviet Union, soon, of Venezuela.
In 1962, Fidel Castro contributed to the dangerous crisis of the missiles that settled in Cuba almost ended in an armed confrontation between the United States and the then Soviet Union.
After overthrowing the terrible dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, in addition to having contributed to install on the scene of politics the social question and the need to alleviate human inequalities from justice. In contrast, there appears the harsh and constant curtailment of human rights and the civil and political liberties of its own people. By 1965 he had openly acknowledged having in his squalid prisons no less than about 20,000 political prisoners. The vast majority of them for the unforgivable alleged sin of dissent. Extremely authoritarian, he deprived his people of the right to speak independently, as well as to publicly express their ideas through the press, and to meet to defend their ideals.
To what must be added that the standard of living of its people is today one of the lowest in the region. With food rations that have been in effect since 1961 and power cuts and scarcity of almost everything. To such an extent, that a country that exports medical services has incredibly its own hospitals in operating conditions of extreme precariousness.
Their clashes with the Catholic Church were diminishing. He was visited by three Pontiffs successively: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and, more recently, Pope Francis. Only in 1998 he reestablished the Christmas party, from which he had deprived his people.
Well stated Mr. Lutz. So many armchair revolutionaries pontificating on the evils of western capitalism from the the comforts of their abodes in the affluent neighborhoods of New York, Paris, London, Berkeley and stockholm. They probably have made their political pilgrimages on luxury tours that allowed them to meet up with some fine peasant poets. But I am sure they all drive hybrids or electric vehicles to save the earth so they canno be all bad
So you are basically saying in order to drive an electric car and live a middle class life, one must approve the bloody and brutal interventions by the US in e.g. the overthrow of Allende by Pinochet, or the support of the Death Squadrons in Middle America serving the Reagan admin. Is that so?
You have preconceived your own notion that one bad defines another good. That is not so. The US being a destructive and evil force in that part ofthe world doesn't mean their opponents e.g. Castro are good guys.
The infantile confusion in the Hollywood-Disney-Americanized primitive mindset sits deep.
They compulsively think if one party is the bad guys, the other must be the goid guys.
Because all their childhood movies and cartoons said so. As did the priest on Sunday.
Retarded. Thus now they have Trump.
Your infantile characterizations of America are truly revealing and justly deserve the sarcastic responses of my previous postings You clearly have a penchant for totalitarian regimes and despite your protestations clearly found favor in Castro and the like Well good for you I wish you happy journeys to places like Venezuela and North Korea I suppose America evil perpetuated on the world included saving Europe twice from self destruction though I suppose people of your ilk will give sole credit to Stalin
First of all I wasn't talking to you. Second of all what you write has nothing to do with me and all with your own preconceived concepts. "When all you (mentally) have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." You simply are incapable of thinking beyond the good-bad dualism. A concept that has been overcome by the intellectual elites for a few centuries by now. But it's not supposed to be understood by the masses, hence they would be much more difficult to control then.
The self destruction of Europe was btw bankrolled to a major part from the US. So they profited twice. Clever guys.
because in other place you have said to Alank, that you were not talking to him.
Are you talking to me? besides the impression you may received from my question in the "De Niro" way in Taxi Driver… I must point out that I have no preconceived ideas in the Hollywood-Disney-Americanized mindset, and about the communists being the "bad guys" in our history.
Claudio Abbado joined the communist party in Italy to fix his position against fascism.
In Germany National-Socialism was erected against communism and we have seen the terrible experience that has been.
Of course we found some examples in the history that the US internally also include "bad guys".
But when you made such a clearly statement as "The US being a destructive and evil force in that part of the world" …. well any exchange is imposible.
The history of US interventions in the Americas over the last century is a horrific reality. How can you deny that?
Hypocritical and cynical who call childish an elliptical mention of the dead in the war for freedom in Europe and wonder how I ignore interventions that have been condemned even in the US, with self-criticism a concept that are unknown to their detractors and overly indulgent with the worst crimes committed against humanism
Regarding your paragraph "The self destruction of Europe was btw bankrolled to a major part from the US. So they profited twice. Clever guys."
When President Trump will claim to Europe about NATO's military expenditures, you surely will ask him to paid the rental of land of Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial..
Well, he will not do that. Because the NATO is the US' effective tool to exercise their global hegemony agenda, in that specific case keeping Europe under US control.
Europe has no interest in putting more money on the table, unless Europe gets to define its own security policies. Which Washington will not allow. You will see.
As for the rest of your childish remark I refrain from further commenting it.
Dude, what utter claptrap. I'm guessing many, now starving, people in Venezuela would give a left testicle for some good ol" US intervention…
Very many of these comments are nothing less than just sad. They reveal the extent to which the bien pensant have been so comprehensively brainwashed that they think a murderous thug is OK because you need to turn around a nation once frequented by Americans for its lifestyle (and which was the home of Xavier Cougat and his particular kind of latin music) and sink it into a third world basket case. That you lock up and/or murder dissidents and then order your people to salute and cheer (North Korea, China)…distract them with classical ballet (bread and circuses) and condemn them to a life of destitution tells me how authoritarian a mindset many in the west – from the Left – now hold that they should want to airbrush all this away. And that mindset explains the reaction to Trump and scares the hell out of me.
about 6 million people were killed by the US' clandestine operations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
who is brainwashed here?
but don't you worry. Cuba will soon again be the brothel of the US.
authoritarian mindsets? It's much easier to deal with an openly authoritarian mindset, than with a deceptively lying one, that TALKs about freedom, and ACTs authoritarian and murderous like the US.
Estimated number of victims by "Communist regimes"
65 million in the People's Republic of China
20 million in the Soviet Union
2 million in Cambodia
2 million in North Korea
1.7 million in Ethiopia
1.5 million in Afghanistan
1 million in the Eastern Bloc
1 million in Vietnam
150,000 in Latin America
10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism documenting by Stéphane Courtois,with contributions by several European academic
So the US is third in this list. Without counting the genocide on the native Americans.
I thought we had this idea that we were the good guys and better?
Kike Daube says:
'Five decades of international isolation allowed an antediluvian style to be conserved on the island. Cuba's music was largely uncorrupted by commercialism.'
Wow, this must be a world record. Norman Lebrecht needed only two sentences to demonstrate he knows nothing about Cuban music.
Has he ever spoken to a folk musician in the island? For the last ten years they've been complaining about how Son and other genres are being deformed by reggaetón and other outside influences. And to be honest, this is something that has always happened with different outside influences. Cuban musicians tend to escape from that international isolation that affects many of their fellow citizens. And to include links to Buena Vista Social Club, as an example of conservation of folk music and Cuban music not being corrupted by commercialism is very ignorant — or was he just being ironic? Ry Cooder improvising on guitar? Really?
I am not a purist. Precisely, anyone that loves and understands Cuban music knows that it is the product of evolution and it continues to evolve every time it is played. The way Septeto Nacional performed Echale Salsita is very different to how the piece has been played by Roberto Torres, Omara Portuondo or Paquito D'Rivera. And that's not a bad thing.
But then could Mr Lebrecht refrain from saying that international isolation had a positive effect on Cuban music?
Here's what one of Cuba's best and most famous musicians had to say as Cban dictator ans mass murderer assumed room temperature:
Arturo Sandoval Reacts to Fidel Castro's Death: 'He Was Worse Than Evil'
http://xbizawards.xbiz.com/voting/W24.php


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The Last Rites of Ransom Pride (2010)
The Last Rites of Ransom Pride
Director: Tiller Russell
Writer: Tiller Russell, Ray Wylie Hubbard
Cast: Lizzy Caplan, Cote de Pablo, Peter Dinklage, Scott Speedman, Jason Priestley, Kris Kristofferson, Jon Foster, Dwight Yoakam, Alfonso Quijada
Video archive for the film The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, which has a domestic theatrical release in the year of 2010. There are currently three videos available for the film, of which three are trailers, as listed below. Happy viewing!
Apr 28, 2011 International Trailer
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unto cosmic consciousness? Retrieved Per Kvaerne 1975:. . Welcome to Part 5 of the Cosmic Cal Last week we started to branch out in a different direction again, and this week in part 5 our Sunbursts. It is the exponent of all paths. Western psychological interpretations edit According to art therapist and mental health counselor Susanne. It is a consciousness of the cosmos, that is, of the life and order of the universe and the interconnectedness and unity of all things. Only now, we are talking not about the psychology of individuals, but about planetary psychology and the transformation of the global mind into a new age of harmony, wholeness, health, peace, and cooperation amongst all peoples and all life. These two mandalas are engaged in the abhiseka initiation rituals for new Shingon students, more commonly known as the Kechien Kanj. People near death, or having a low-grade mystical experience, will see the Cosmic Mandala in, and limited by, the plane of the brain.
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text:
package org.zstack.header.core.workflow;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;

/**
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public interface FlowChain {
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    FlowChain insert(int pos, Flow flow);

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    FlowChain then(Flow flow);

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}

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The Hunger Games Mall Tour came to Seattle this past Saturday. The stars of the film Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, and Josh Hutcherson made an appearance to meet and greet some very eager Hunger Games fans. I made the trip down to University Village to take in the fandom and mania surrounding The Hunger Games.
9:56AM – The parking lot is packed and the doors don't open until 12:00PM. By doors, I think they mean the parking lot in front of the Microsoft Store that's been fenced/gated off. So far there's a lot of coffee, Top 40 music, parents, kids, and not nearly enough security.
10:04AM – Looks like you need VIP bracelets to get in the fenced section. Reminds me of Vegas. Kids without bracelets are standing outside. HA! It looks like they're getting prepared for when they turn 21.
10:08AM – Just witnessed my first tweener meltdown. This girl's friends said they wanted to leave and she snapped on them with a bunch of high pitched screaming. That was awesome.
10:37AM – My trip to a crowded Starbucks involved a mash-up of people waiting in line and people waiting to use the bathroom. The employees were surprisingly efficient. There was one poor guy trying to study. He'd have better luck concentrating at the Apple Store.
11:21AM – A false Josh/Liam/Jennifer sighting turned out the biggest buzz of the day so far. Two kids walking outside the VIP remind me of 2012 version of Ricky and Alfonso from Silver Spoons. If "hating" outside of VIP was a sport, those two would be Olympic Gold Medalist. They just keep doing laps talking trash about people with bracelets.
11:36AM – One problem with planning an outdoor event in Seattle is trying to plan around the rain. The rain starts and not one kid runs. These fans are serious.
12:00PM – They've played Adele's Set Fire to the Rain eleventeenhundred times already today. Every time, all the kids sing along. They're programmed like little Cylons.
12:26PM – I talked to this guy who told me he woke up at 3:00AM, left his house at 4:30AM and has been waiting in line since 6:00AM. We were interrupted by a woman who was turned away at the gate. She said she's been here since 3:00AM. Didn't get in and made fake bracelets to try to get in. HA! These Hunger Games fans are serious.
12:56PM – A contest to win a new Microsoft Hunger Games laptop has everybody texting. Starting to see more shirts, posters, and fan made signs.
1:15PM – Having a discussion about what sort of fan stuff I would wait all day to see. I decided it would be The Dark Knight Rises with Nolan, Bale, Hardy, moderated/hosted by Rosario Dawson and Paula Patton, and a one-on-one Q&A. I'd wait all day for that.
1:30PM – Press time is crazy trying to maneuver through screening fans. More security has shown up and this female security guard who's 4'5" is doing some amazing crowd control. Props to her.
1:40PM – Inside the velvet rope and these kids are giving me the look of death. This girl gave me the how-did-he-get-back-there-face. A few of them are eyeballing my Hunger Games lament. I think I'm going to tuck mine in.
1:50PM – The store meet and greet line is moving swiftly. The kids from the meeting greeting are coming into VIP with a glazed look on their face.
2:00PM – They're giving away some meet and greets to people in the crowd. These girls are going crazy. If that barrier falls, I'm afraid for my life. It's awesome seeing some of these kids who win. They're so hype. It's why I love fandom so much.
The Q&A went well. The cast members answered questions from the crowd. I recorded the Q&A but all that came out was AHHHAAAAAAA and WILL YOU MARY MEEEEEEEEEEEE! I think every cast member was asked to prom.
The Hungers Games looks like the next big thing. If this event is an indication of what the theater turnout will be like, it might be the biggest tweener book turned movie yet.


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Africa poised to be axis of Christianity
Christine Mungai 04 Dec 2015 00:00
Pope Francis visits Nairobi. (Thomas Mukoya, Reuters)
Pope Francis's six-day trip to Africa, taking him to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic, was more than papal outreach to the Vatican's scattered global flock. It was also, implicitly, a sign of recognition that the future of Christianity and Roman Catholicism may lie on the African continent.
The silent processes of demographic change have the potential to reshape both Christianity and Islam fundamentally.
Africa is set to experience the fastest overall population growth over the next 40 years, rising from 12% of global numbers in 2010 to about 20% in 2050. Research indicates the continent's population will surge, while the rest of the world has fewer children and, on average, becomes older.
That means that, a mere two generations away, more than 50% of the world's Christians will live in Africa.
This is partly a function of the decline of Christianity in its traditional strongholds. As of 2010, it was the world's largest religion, with an estimated 2.2-billion adherents, nearly a third of the world's population. Islam came in second, with 1.6-billion adherents, or 23%.
But Islam is growing faster than Christianity globally and Christianity is losing adherents, particularly in the developed world, mostly to the ranks of the "unaffiliated".
By 2050, possibly for the first time in history, there will be near parity, with 2.8-billion Muslims (30% of the global population) and 2.9-million Christians (31%).
All things being equal, Muslims will surpass Christians numerically after 2070. At that point, Africa will be the world's Christian epicentre – the home of the majority of the faith's adherents.
The geographical centre of the faith has been shifting since Christianity first struck root. By the year 300, the centre of the fledgling faith had moved from Jerusalem to Armenia. Two hundred years later, with the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine and the institutionalisation of Christianity as the state religion, it had moved to Rome.
Over the next millennium, with European migration into the Americas, the centre of Christianity moved further west. But in the past four decades, the centre of gravity has moved southwards. By the end of the century, it may be in Nigeria.
Christianity's 21st-century challenge will be to bridge this divide: although the centre of religious power, money and theological capital remains entrenched in the Global, secularised, North, the energy and expansion of the church will be in the Global South.
Much the same applies to Islam. The Muslim population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to surge by nearly 60% in the next 20 years, from 242-million in 2010 to 386-million in 2030. Sub-Saharan Muslims will account for a growing share of the Ummah, or collective community of Islamic peoples. By 2030, 17.6% of the world's Muslims are expected to be living in sub-Saharan Africa, up from 15% in 2010.
This is largely the result of high fertility rates in the continent's Muslim-majority countries. Although reproductivity is falling worldwide, by 2030 women in Muslim-majority countries in Africa will still produce an average of 3.8 children, one of the highest rates on the planet.
Pope Francis's African pilgrimage may perhaps be a step towards the election of the first black pope. Historically, at least three popes came from North Africa – Victor I (189-199), Miltiades (311-314) and Gelasius I (492-496). But this would be the first time an African would have ascended to St Peter's Chair in nearly 1 500 years.
Another possible consequence of growing African influence in the Catholic Church could be a return to a more conservative theological position on certain issues, particularly gay rights.
Francis trod carefully on this issue during his visit, disappointing gays and lesbians in fiercely homophobic Uganda by not explicitly calling for tolerance.
By 2050, half of the world's Christians will live in Africa. But Islam is tipped to overtake Christianity in numbers by 2070. (Mike Hutchings, Reuters)
The growing influence of African conservatives is likely to deepen existing doctrinal conflicts between the northern and southern components of Christian congregations –for example, African Catholics and liberal Episcopalians in the United States – which could result in a parting of ways.
Another issue on which a shift is possible is priestly marriage, given the traditional emphasis on children and the wider extended family in African culture.
Journalist and deacon Greg Kandra, based in the New York diocese of Brooklyn, argues that priestly celibacy is not an essential part of the Catholic belief and that the church "will not have a good reason to keep saying no".
"Celibacy is discipline, not dogma … it's not set in stone. Even the most steadfast traditionalists understand that. As John XIII … put it: we're tending a garden, not a museum," Kandra argues.
When Christianity becomes majority African, will traditional centres of the faith such Rome and Canterbury retain their centrality?
Both are in retreat across the developed world: the proportion of Catholics in Europe in 2010 was just 23.8%; in the United States, only 24% of adherents attend mass on an average Sunday, down from 55% in 1965.
Recent research by the Pew Research Centre found that if current trends continue, the proportion of Britons who identify as Christian will fall from 64% in 2010 to 45% in 2050.
The proportion of the population identifying itself as "unaffiliated" will rise sharply over the same period, from 28% to 39%. British Muslims, incidentally, will rise from 5% to 11% of the total.
Is it conceivable that a future pope could sit in Africa – perhaps in the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire, the largest church in the world, controversially built by former president Félix Houphouët-Boigny as a replica of St Peter's Basilica in Rome at a cost of $300-million?
Will the archbishop of Canterbury still lead the world's Anglicans, or will the titular head of the church be the archbishop of Lagos?
Europe itself is likely to become "browner" through migration from Asia, the Middle East and Africa, so it also conceivable that these migrants will have an effect on the European churches from within.
As societies become more affluent, the ranks of the unaffiliated grow and defectors do not pass on the traditions of the faith to their children – or do so in a less intense and binding way.
The implication is that, over time, "religion will no longer win simply by cranking out a surplus of indoctrinated babies and will have to compete on an intellectual footing", writes cultural critic Bob Seidensticker.
Which religion, then, is likely to dominate the intellectual agenda in the 21st century?
Although the reality of climate change has not yet fully dawned on the world, one could argue that it is likely to burgeon into the most pressing challenge of the coming decades.
The hope is that organised religion will start responding to this threat, and that the creed that presents a more constructive relationship with the natural environment will win out in the end.
In this respect, the Catholic Church under its current leadership is seizing the initiative. Francis has already cast himself as a climate change- crusader, and is increasingly framing the protection of the planet as a moral concern.
Blessed Benedict leads growth of the faithful
In September, South African schoolteacher Benedict Daswa was beatified, becoming the first person in Southern Africa to be declared "Blessed", a key step towards sainthood.
Daswa, a devout Catholic who rejected traditional practices, was martyred 25 years ago – beaten to death by fellow villagers near Thohoyandou in Limpopo.
Almost unknown when he died, Daswa's fame grew throughout South Africa's Catholic community, which is estimated at 3.6-million strong.
That is relatively small by South African standards – just 8% of the population is Catholic.
The majority – more than 70% – is Protestant, with a small minority of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and other religions. The unaffiliated are also a significant proportion – nearly 14.7% of the population – making them the second largest self-identifying group in South Africa.
Protestantism in South Africa tends to be of the dynamic, charismatic kind. In the Pew Research Forum's 2006 Pentecostal survey, about one in 10 urban respondents said they belonged to a Pentecostal denomination, and more than one in five identified themselves as charismatic, bringing the total to roughly one-third of the urban population.
Africa's surging demographics means that in the next 70 years most of the world's Christians will be African, but South Africa's low population growth means it will contribute only modestly to this trend, according to Pew.
The number of Christians in South Africa is expected to increase by 20% in the next 35 years, from 40.7-million to 48.5-million in 2050. The number of religiously unaffiliated is expected to grow faster over the same period – by 25%, from 7.4-million to 9.3-million.
Hindus, Buddhists and Jews are expected to decrease slightly over the same period. Jews will experience the most precipitous decline, falling by more than 50%, from 70 000 to about 30 000.
The fastest growth will be in the Muslim population, according to Pew's projections, because of natural population increase, immigration and religious conversion. They are expected to increase by 75%, from 860?000 in 2010, to nearly 1.5-million in 2050.
Christine Mungai
Christine Mungai is a writer and journalist, in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work has recently appeared in the Boston Globe, CNN Opinions and Popula.com. She was a 2018 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Read more from Christine Mungai
@chris_mungai
ChristianityIslamAfricaPope Francis I
Now let the pope show some love
Pope Francis embarks on first Africa trip


text:
The Allison TF32 was a turbofan engine proposed by the Allison Division of General Motors in the 1960s. It was named as a finalist for the U.S. Navy's VSX aircraft for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) in January 1967, but lost the competition to the General Electric TF34 in early 1968.

Specifications (TF32-A-2)

See also

References

1960s turbofan engines
Allison aircraft engines


text:
US to slap tariffs on extra $200 billion of Chinese imports
by Emilio Sims
in Money
— Jul 11, 2018
Last Friday, the US imposed 25 per cent tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products, and Beijing responded by hitting the same amount of USA imports.
"Consumers, businesses and the American jobs dependent on trade are left in the crosshairs of an escalating global trade war".
The list could be released as soon as Tuesday, and likely this week, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter isn't public.
The United States has made a decision to impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China after efforts to negotiate a solution to the trade dispute failed to reach an agreement, senior administration officials said on Tuesday. "This action falls short of a strategy that will give the administration negotiating leverage with China while maintaining the long-term health and prosperity of the American economy".
Consumer-goods companies have been bracing for months as the Trump administration steadily ramped up its rhetoric on trade with China and other major trade partners.
On Tuesday, the Office of the US Trade Representative proposed 10 percent tariffs on a list of 6,031 Chinese product lines.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, responded to Lighthizer's announcement with dismay.
Chinese officials are expected to retaliate in other ways, hitting US firms in China with unplanned inspections, delays in approving financial transactions and other administrative headaches.
The move comes just days after the United States and China imposed tit-for-tat tariffs of $34bn on the other countries' goods. He said one has shifted final assembly of goods from China to a newly created American unit.
In addition, the USA is considering separate duties on a further US$16 billion in Chinese goods, after a public hearing later this month.
The United States complains that China uses predatory practices in a push to challenge American technological dominance.
Beijing, meanwhile, has unveiled measures to help Chinese companies absorb the US trade blows, pledging to funnel money collected from its own import levies to firms and workers tangled in the escalating trade war.
Updates with market reaction in third paragraph.
Trump says China derailing North Korea talks
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EU Braces for No-Deal Brexit if Johnson Becomes UK Prime Minister 7/18/2019
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In the streets around Red Square, fans from Peru, Mexico and Argentina were a vibrant presence from days before the World Cup started.
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Wimbledon set for 'Manic Monday' as 4th round starts
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Trump admin releases names of children under 5 separated at border
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Angelique Kerber opens up on Wimbledon shock and Serena Williams
Still, Williams said she's not getting too excited as she's still adjusting to tennis after returning from maternity leave. Both two-time Grand Slam champion Kerber and 21-year-old Kasatkina reached the quarterfinals at last month's French Open.
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Discover the darkly alluring aesthetic of Alexander McQueen in the latest collection. Theatrical designs feature intricate, opulent detailing and gothic motifs. This black leather studded charm bracelet from Alexander McQueen features a buckle fastening, gold-tone hardware, stud embellishments and a skull charm detail.


What would you do, if you knew everything? Where is the line, the limit to how far you can go? That is the idea of the movie, and then the TV show, Limitless. Many people talk in forums and gaming magazines and even in tabletop groups about turning movies into RPG adventures, and I think Limitless has the potential to be such an example, best seen by the fact it even got a TV series, which shows it has continuing stories to tell.
The first thing is that this movie is a perfect example on what you can do with knowledge skills. In the movie, the protagonist goes from being a socially handicapped slob unable to finish a book skating through life all the way to a socially well adjusted, multi-lingual, rich, best selling author and political figure who seems to know everything. He is no stronger, no faster and likely no handsomer than we was before, just his mental attributes increased and he becomes essentially a social chameleon. In the TV show, the first episode has a similar down on his luck nobody who then with the same drug becomes able to prove his innocence by the connections of various points he is able to make.
The first time the pill kicks in in the movie shows it shows how it pulls various bits that he had seen from anywhere in time and serves it to him for immediate use. The combat scene in the movie shows how his combat skill isn't an enhancement to hi physical being, but instead his understanding of how to fight has changed. The TV series uses an example of 'What if you knew exactly how much strength you had in your hands' as a way to calculate an escape route, as seen in the trailer, not to mention calculating a safe path to run across the street or exactly where a subway train would stop as part of an escape. These things are sometimes things players will bring to the table, trying to use their knowledge of how things work in the real life as a way to approximate their working in your game world. Sometimes you decide that it works for them, other times, you may want to judge them as not the same because the PC does not possess the skills to make the decisions.
Other examples of this sort of power can be seen in other sorts of media. One is in William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy, with a character who has a mental ability to see connections and how those connections fit together and lead to certain outcomes, predicting the future by the shadows left in the past choices. Sherlock shows this trait in all his stories but especially in combat in the movies, predicting how opponents will react and the outcome. It is almost like Action Man in the animated tv series, predicting things by analyzing the scene for the best outcome. The Pretender was a show where a person would pretend to be someone to correct some injustice like someone getting away with murder by using his talents to fit in anywhere, and then there's John Doe who knows everything about everything except himself. Various sorts of stories you can see about how knowing everything can be.
To challenge the skill-monkey sort can be hard, especially if they are the type to sacrifice combat abilities for more utility options. You can make a number of various challenges like fallen bridges, lost trails, or even having to get out of a situation with nothing but a paperclip, and if the player comes up with a reasonable use of the skills to fix the problem, let it have a chance. Also, there can be combats but it would be groups that are focused on other things in most cases. Stopping the player is more of a delaying tactic while they solve a goal somewhere else, like if you look at Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc, they had a few quickly resolved fights in the marketplace as their goal was to get the items and get away. That way, if the player is losing the fight, they can use delaying tactics to survive until the enemy goal is complete.
One type of plot these characters are great for is mysteries. Listen to their theories and adapt them to your story, since they may be more complex than what you had and the player will feel special for having guessed beyond their means. You can use this in different ways from the standard theft or murder detective stories all the way up to massive conspiracies. These give the players ways to investigate, try to figure out various things and how they relate to their predicament.
The key to running for someone who is skill based is to have some idea as to how all their skills work and be willing to work with the player as to making them work in game. Have them use science to deduce where a specific patch of dirt came from, as Sherlock Holmes could identify them on sight. There are all sorts of skill usage that can be fitted investigating or examining the situation, if given enough thought. If you need help, just ask.


>> With Zika cases rising by the day in South Florida, money to fight the threat running desperately short. The Centers for Disease Control say they're down to their last $20 million to battle the virus. An amount the Pentagon spends in about 20 minutes. But reporter Andy Sullivan says law makers brawling over a billion dollar Zika bill could be headed toward another government shut down rather than a compromise.
>> Now, congress has faced calls for months to act on Zika but they haven't been able to pass any additional money. Republicans are eager to show their supporters that they are doing everything they can, but it comes with an important condition. None of that money can go to Planned Parenthood, because the Women's Health Network provides abortion along with other services.
Democrats say this is a no-go. They see this as another attack on the Women's Health Network and they're not about to go along with it.>> If Congress can't pass the bill by the end of the month, it could be lights out on Capitol Hill.>> Federal funding is gonna run out at the end of the fiscal year on September 30th.
If Congress can't pass a stand-alone Zika bill, they'll try to attach this money to their broader budget bill. That runs the risk of another federal government shutdown like we had back in 2013. This post is enormous with for Republicans they control both the house and the senate. If the government shuts down with a month to go before the elections this obviously could blow up in their faces.
Democrats are at political risk here too. So if Democrats are seen as stopping this effort just to stand up for this one women's healthcare provider that could hurt them as well.>> Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly, a severe birth defect resulting in an undersized head and brain.
Health officials saying Zika's reached in South Florida now totaling 47 cases.