As many of you may have read by now, Marriot has announced that their Starwood reservation database was hacked, putting upwards of 500 million records potentially compromised. Marriott (which acquired Starwood hotels in 2016) is one of the largest hotel chains in the world. Anyone who made a reservation for a Starwood property on or before September 18, 2018 may have been compromised. This includes names, credit card numbers, birth dates, arrival and check out dates, and potentially passport numbers.
This is a big deal. If your credit card gets compromised, that can be changed. Passport numbers, birth dates, and full names are MUCH harder to change. Like all major incidents, be prepared for the details to change over the coming days as new information is learned and shared. Events like these are a great opportunity to engage your workforce, help them out and reinforce key security behaviors. As you communicate here are two key points to keep in mind.
Stick to the Known Facts. There will be a growing number of guesses, finger pointing, and opinions in the coming days. Avoid sharing those details as most will be wrong and/or changing.
This is Not the Victim's Fault. Big incidents like this are a growing problem in the age of big data. Companies collect a huge amount of data about people, data that people have no control over nor can they do anything to protect it. That subject will be shelved for a whole different discussion.
So, what can you tell your people do to protect themselves? First, Marriott has created a website where people can educate themselves about the incident. One of the options they offer is people can register a free account at WebWatcher. This is a service that will notify people if their data has been compromised or is being used by cybercriminals.
reservation at a Starwood hotel (W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton Hotels & Resorts, Westin Hotels & Resorts, Element Hotels, Aloft Hotels, The Luxury Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts, Four Points by Sheraton, and Design Hotels).
Monitor Financial Accounts: Watch your credit card accounts carefully. Many of them have a service where they notify you (via text or email) if credit card charge is over a certain limit or can send you daily reports of your financial activity. We highly recommend you enable at least one of these. You are looking to make sure there are no unauthorized transactions in the coming weeks.
Marriott / Starwood Accounts. If you have an account on the Marriott/Starwood site, change your password. Even if your account has not been reported as compromised, play it safe. In addition, be sure to visit the Marriott website for information on how to setup for their free WebWatcher service.
Security Freeze: One of the risks with so much personal information compromised is that cybercriminals can use that information for identity fraud. A Security Freeze is one of the most effective steps you can take to protect yourself. Unfortunately, few people know about it. A security freeze locks your credit score so no one can access them. This means that while your credit score is frozen no bank or financial organization (such as a credit card company) can check what your credit score is, which means no one will give you (or a criminal pretending to be you) a loan or credit card. The challenge is you have to manually set up a security freeze with each of the four credit bureaus. In addition, if you want to get a new loan or credit card, you then have to manually unlock your credit service. Then again, how often do you apply for a new loan or credit card? Brian Krebs has an outstanding write-up of what a Security Freeze is and how to get one for free.
Social Engineering Attacks: Warn people that in the coming days/weeks, cyber attackers will take advantage of this incident and launch millions of phishing emails, phone calls or text messages trying to fool people. For example, Marriott will never ask you to provide your password by phone or email. A great source to keep people updated is the free OUCH! Security Awareness newsletter.
If you do get hit with Identity Fraud, the FTC has created a very impressive site to help you recover. The Marriott situation will be fluid, expect new updates and findings over the coming days. However, the behaviors we cover above apply regardless of how the situation changes, so we recommend you focus on those.
Use this incident as an opportunity to educate others on how to avoid these situations from happening again. Our SANS Security Awareness EndUser Training has been expertly crafted to instill learning principles to easily effect change at your organization.


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Geordie Shore Season 21 Episode 4
Serie: Geordie Shore
Guest Star: Charlotte Crosby, Chloe Ferry
Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man
While being trained by S.H.I.E.L.D., Spider-Man battles evil with a new team of teen colleagues.
Genre: Action, Action & Adventure, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Sci-Fi
The New Legends of Monkey
Follow a teenage girl and a trio of fallen gods on a perilous journey as they attempt to bring an end to a demonic reign of chaos and restore balance…
Country: Australia, New Zealand
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Girl Code Live
A contemporary British re-working of The Twilight Zone with stories that tap into the collective unease about our modern world. Over the last ten years, technology has transformed almost every…
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thriller
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama
An adaptation of Alex Haley's "Roots", chronicling the history of an African slave, Kunta Kinte sold to America and his descendants.
In a story that gained national attention with John Grisham's best-selling non-fiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, the six-part documentary series The Innocent Man…
Kicking & Screaming
A competition series that teams 10 expert survivalists with pampered partners to face the toughest challenges of their lives.
Genre: Game-Show, Reality, Reality-TV
Skin Wars
An hour-long competition show that seeks to find the most talented and versatile body painters in the country.
Backyard Bar Wars
A send-up of the classic home reno show based on the rising trend of DIY at-home bars. The series combines hilarious moments of comedian and host, Chris Distefano, roasting the…
Genre: Comedy, Game-Show, Reality
Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald Volume Two
DonaldDuckistheunluckiestduckintheworld,andhasthetemperofanenragedbull.Thisacollectionofclassictheatricalcartoonshortsfrom1942-1946.
Reno Rumble
The BIGGEST renovation knockout Australia has ever seen: Redbacks v Bluetongues! Who will be the last standing as teams renovate TWO Houses every week?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Buglasan is back! It's time to celebrate the Buglasan Festival 2018 in a colorful and merry way. With this year's theme: "Enhancing Initiatives Towards Eco-Tourism destination". The Buglasan Festival in Negros Oriental is the biggest and grandest celebration in the whole province! Six cities and 19 municipalities gather in Dumaguete City, capital of Negros Oriental, as one happy Negrense family. Celebrating the traditions, culture, and festivity with glee from September 12, 2018, till October 24, 2018.
Happy Buglasan 2018 Negros Oriental!!!
Where will the fireworks competition part 2 be held?


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US > Iowa > Appanoose County > Clarkdale
Clarkdale (in Appanoose County, IA) Populated Place Profile
Clarkdale: Basic Facts & Information
Clarkdale is a populated place located within the Township of Walnut, a minor civil division (MCD) of Appanoose County.
The elevation of Clarkdale is 955 feet. Clarkdale appears on the Mystic U.S. Geological Survey Map. Appanoose County is in the Central Time Zone (UTC -6 hours).
Appanoose County: Subdivisions (MCDs) | Cities & Towns | ZIP Codes | Features (airports, churches, hospitals, etc.)
Mapped Location of Clarkdale
BOUNDARY MAPS: Township of Walnut | Appanoose County
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Mystic Jobs


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Binance Users Can Buy Cryptos With Visa Cards Linked To ...
Binance Reveals Visa Debit Card in Push to Bring Bitcoin ...
Binance Launches VISA Cards for European Customers ...
Binance Launches New Virtual Crypto Debit Card Issued by ...
Binance Launches New Virtual Visa Crypto Debit Card
Elrond partners with Swipe to enable ERD spending at over 60 million merchants
https://preview.redd.it/06f3d5ds57c51.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5d76c6770b2fe1f98b96fae201030247a61e2920
We are thrilled to announce that Elrond has partnered with Swipe and will be integrated within the Swipe platforms. This will make the $ERD token directly available for onboarding by more than 500,000 new users.
Furthermore, $ERD will be spendable via Swipe Wallet and its associated Visa debit cards, in either digital or physical form, at 60 million merchants directly, as well as through services such as Google Pay, Apple Pay & Samsung Pay.
"Bringing our high throughput, low latency, and inexpensive transactional layer online is an important step for our launch. Convenience, ease of use, and utility for the ERD currency is another. We are thrilled to work with the Swipe team, on an integration which brings us closer to what will be a defining moment for the new internet economy." said Beniamin Mincu, Elrond CEO.
Recently acquired by Binance, Swipe is a multi-asset digital wallet and Visa card platform that allows users to buy, sell, convert, and spend cryptocurrencies. It offers direct access to more than 30 cryptocurrencies, buy, swap & sell options for credit or debit cards, and bank transfers.
Swipe Wallets have associated virtual Visa debit cards, which can also be obtained in physical form, to be used like any normal card. The payment process automatically converts the selected cryptocurrency into fiat to execute a seamless transaction at any of the 60 million merchants, or via Google, Apple, and Samsung payment services.
"Elrond's notable progress makes it seem like they have just recently appeared. We know ourselves that such success does not come overnight and is the result of hard work. We are excited to include them in our portfolio and be a part of their journey." said Joselito Lizarondo, Swipe CEO.
The integration is important for Elrond because it gets access to new users in 31 European countries, and soon launching in Asia and North America. It also offers existing Elrond users the possibility to spend $ERD directly as $EUR, $GBP, $USD and $KRW anywhere VISA cards are accepted, as well as through the major mobile payment services, with cashback options in Bitcoin.
About Swipe
Swipe is a multi-asset digital wallet and Visa debit card platform designed to let users buy, sell, and spend their cryptocurrencies. Swipe is headquartered in the Philippines with operations in the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, and Canada. The Swipe platform enables users to spend cryptocurrencies in real-time without having to manually convert the transactions prior. Users can also buy/sell cryptocurrencies with their linked bank accounts globally. For more information, visit: https://swipe.io
A General Overview of Crypto.com
https://preview.redd.it/9wfv3ma6pwp31.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c2cc9f692643e00764a9609b1bac55068bfc772
Monaco purchased Crypto.com in 2018 and carried out a successful rebrand and continued to thrive with the release of a new and exciting product. Crypto.com offers a seamless mobile wallet app and its prepaid MCO visa prepaid card is used by people to buy, sell, trade, and spend cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and fiat currencies like dollars, euros and yen.
Crypto.com MCO Platform
Crypto.com is building its services on the MCO platform. It seeks to solve the problem of accessibility and usability faced by the wider blockchain community. They do this with their standout product: the MCO Visa Card. This card fulfills the plan of Crypto.com to link a Visa card with cryptocurrency accounts, enabling users to make daily purchases with cryptocurrency at points where Visa is accepted.
Crypto.com not only offers the Visa card, they also have on offer the MCO wallet app and the MCO token. The most recent addition is Crypto Invest, which allows for easy crypto investments. Other products such as Crypto Credit gives users an MCO token- based credit line to hold as collateral and MCO private offers unique products and services for high net-worth individuals.
https://preview.redd.it/3jygudd9pwp31.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=41606e154341356d0ea99e42af75b2c82cde00c4
Crypto.com offers a portfolio of MCO Visa Cards ranging from Obsidian Black which requires a 50,000 MCO stake, to the Midnight Blue which does not have any staking requirement. Users can seamlessly spend cryptocurrency at over 40 million retailers accepting Visa globally by using their MCO Visa card and using their MCO wallet to settle the card balance.
Crypto.com started to ship its MCO Visa Card in Singapore in October 2018. In November 2018, they subsequently announced their partnership with the Metropolitan Commercial Bank to roll out the MCO Visa Card program in the United States.
The list of benefits for card holders is just as good as with some other Visa rewards cards. Users can enjoy using a Visa card without spending any annual fees, get free shipping, and receive up to 2% cashback on purchases. Select cards get unlimited access to airport lounges.
In addition, users can make expenditures overseas and receive interbank exchange rates. With their Platinum Reward Program, users can get up to $10,000 sign-on bonuses!
Crypto.com released its mobile wallet app on August 31, 2017 to a positive reception. By combining the Crypto.com Wallet with the Card app, users can purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Ether, Binance Coin, Ripple, MCO tokens and USDM to hold as investments or to use as forms of payment.
MCO Crypto Invest
Crypto.com launched Crypto Invest, a new service for eligible customers in October 2018. This is a cryptocurrency portfolio and trading tool that makes investing and trading in cryptocurrencies simpler. Users can create their own customized portfolios and trade automatically based on market signals.
Crypto Invest is different from other products in being not only a basket of cryptocurrencies but a set of trading strategies that perform in any market. It is great for those who have just started building their crypto investment portfolio, since users can get started with as little as $20.
MCO Credit Services
Another feature that will be released in the future is MCO Credit Services. This is a revolutionary product that allow you to get the credit you need by staking MCO tokens. A stake of MCO tokens worth $10,000 can get you a credit line of $6,000.
Unlike with traditional credit cards, there are no statements and zero minimum payments. Credit advances can be paid off as you like. If you are not able to do this or don't wish to, your debt will be paid off with your MCO tokens.
MCO Token
The ERC20 MCO is the utility token that powers the Crypto.com ecosystem . It was issued in an ICO crowd-sale that was held in June 2017. 26 million USD was raised by the first issue of the MCO tokens.
MCO is an ERC-20 token, which means it can be stored in any ERC20-compatible wallet. However, balance requirements to qualify for an MCO Visa card is based on how much is stored in the official Crypto.com mobile wallet.
In order to earn rewards on purchases, stake and pay for referrals, MCO is used in the ecosystem. MCO follows the rest of the market and peaked back in August 2017. Since that time, they have followed the rest of the market as 2018 entered bear territory.
MCO is accepted in a number of popular cryptocurrency exchanges which include Binance, Bit-Z, Bittrex, Cashierest, Bithumb, OKEx, Upbit, ABBC, and Huobi. Daily, an average 10 million USD worth of MCO tokens is traded with trading pairs including BTC, ETH, and USDT.
https://preview.redd.it/a4kzgc9ipwp31.png?width=1530&format=png&auto=webp&s=c433042f132dc822b40ba671f9e148c65d66397b
Crypto.com announced the launch of the Crypto.com Chain. This is a high performing native blockchain solution that allows merchants and users to complete transactions in crypto. The Crypto.com chain has its own token which is CRO. The Crypto.com chain supports the Crypto.com pay solution, which is a decentralized cryptocurrency payment solution that is built on blockchain.
Crypto.com announced in December 2018, that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Ledger, a crypto security and infrastructure solutions provider to become the first merchant to use Crypto.com Pay on their online store.
Crypto.com also announced it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in January 2019 with a sneaker e-marketplace called YSNEAKERS to implement Crypto.com Pay.
The rebrand of Crypto.com to Monaco has been more than just a name change. Although it's ERC-20 token still bears a reference to its predecessor and is duly named MCO, the company has sustained efforts at delivering MCO Visa Cards to different types of cardholders. They have followed this up with the introduction of initiatives such as the Crypto Invest product.
Their wallet is multi-functional and supports buying, selling and trading of fiat and virtual currencies. They plan on issuing prepaid debit cards linked to wallet balances which can be converted to currency inside the wallet before spending at a merchant. The wallet and the card app can be used on both Android and iOS devices and users can monitor crypto markets, engage in crypto coin trading and exchange fiat currencies at low fees.
Doing some digging on discord for the parsnip... I've ruled out PayPal, and Pornhub, Google, eBay, Facebook. I know I'm reaching on some of these, but I would try and think of it on a psychology level: NDA means he can't say who the partner is? Along with that, I would assume he wouldn't speak bad on the partner as well...
Things I think it could be that are household names already since sunerok kinda mentions that in his video:
Companies it definitely isn't: PayPal eBay Google Overstock Walmart. Facebook (Some Fiat) Not a Bank From the way its described , I doubt its pornhub or porn related. Why would porn be brought up in all main stream news that they are accepting a crypto currency.
Possible Companies: Jet.com
MasterCard Visa Sony Amazon Target? Not sure if this is a global company... Has any of these been verified that couldn't be them? Im sure there are many other options, but these were my main guesses...
some screenshots
Random Notes: Reaches people that aren't even in crypto, which will cause a big influx of people coming in. This will put is at the top. This is probably the largest adoption of a non-top 3 coin to ever happen it could be the single largest adoption of a currency or virtual currency to happen ever. "Do we want verge to sit on an exchange and be traded back and forth for bitcoin[or be something else]. The company will use verge as a currency (it doesn't use any crypto currently. The company shut down at 5:00 pm(duh), Major Corporation. Global Company(and will reach news around the world). High Traffic Website. Will be exclusive to verge for a long time. Not a Government. Their HQ is not in Florida. Binance helped them get the partnership. This partnership will keep us in the top 5. Deals with commerce.
and the one that gets me excited, "a lot of the guesses aren't anywhere near as big as the partner".
Edit2 Another thought I had was Western Union or MoneyGram
submitted by Pielo to vergecurrency [link] [comments]
Crypto News Recap for the week ending August 3rd
Decentralized security token exchange, DSTOQ, has launched a platform called its minimum viable product (MVP). MVP allows people to invest in real assets such as stocks, bonds, and commodities using cryptocurrencies. This platform runs using Stellar's blockchain testnet, and all transactions will happen completely on-chain.
Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), the world fourth largest bank by assets, announces it will making its first loan on a blockchain system. The loan, valued at USD$300k, is meant to support the local tea industry in the Guizhou province and is backed by a piece of agricultural land.
"Civilized blockchain"1 company Billon, has partnered with Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) to develop blockchain technology solutions. Billon implements blockchain solutions for the main purpose of processing fiat currencies. FIS will utilize Billon for document and identity management, the exploration of joint sales and product development opportunities, and smartphone micropayments among other services.
SBI Group, a Japanese financial services company, has announced plans to develop a platform to trade cryptocurrency derivatives. The platform would help crypto investors hedge their risk by offering cryptocurrency credit default swap (CDS) trading. SBI will accomplish this through its recent 12% purchase of North Carolina-based digital marketplace developer Clear Markets.
Equity research provider Fundstrat Global Advisors has announced that it will begin accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as payment for accessing research reports. Fundstrat is using payment operator BitPay, which has processed over USD$1 billion in Bitcoin payments CY2017, to process their new BTC payments accepted from institutional investors, high net-worth clients, and financial advisors.
The most popular cryptocurrency markets tracking platform, CoinMarketCap (CMC), has added a professional-grade API, and support for derivatives markets to its services. The API provides developers with access to aggregated data packages, providing everything from price and market cap, to trading pair data and conversions. CMC is marketing this product to those who need to back-test trading strategies, and run simulations more accurately.
Logos Network, a decentralized payments platform, successfully raised USD$3mm in seed funding. Logos is hoping to build a quick and scalable P2P payments network on a new blockchain. The payments network plans to be quick, scalable, and secure.
The Stuggart Börse, Germany's second largest stock exchange, has announced an initiative to construct a multilateral cryptocurrency trading platform, as well as an initial coin offering (ICO) platform. The exchange already launched in May a crypto trading app called Bison, which features zero-fee transactions.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), operator of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and 22 others, will develop a Microsoft cloud-based digital asset ecosystem. ICE is creating a new company for this, called Bakkt, which will work closely with companies including Starbucks and BCG. The ecosystem is planned to be a one-stop-shop for all consumers, from retail to institutional, to buy, hold, sell, and spend cryptocurrencies on a communal network. ICE will also launch physically-delivered BTC futures contracts.
The Chamber of Digital Commerce, an American advocacy group promoting the blockchain industry, is producing new guidelines to aid the in the responsible growth of the initial coin offering (ICO) markets and cryptocurrency markets all together. These guidelines were released in a whitepaper detailing current and future regulations for investor reference, a set of principles for trading platforms and token sponsors to follow, and a general discussion about the growth of the cryptocurrency industry so far.
The South Korean government has proposed revisions to its tax law, affecting cryptocurrency exchanges. The proposition states that cryptocurrency exchanges will be exempt from the tax benefits given to startups and small-mid-sized businesses. It is important to note that new propositions might be made to change this before implementation, but the South Korean government doesn't believe that crypto transaction companies do not generate added value like other companies do.
Indian cryptocurrency traders are finding ways to circumvent the India government's decision to ban cryptocurrency trading. Traders are now making use of a Dabba trading which refers to making OTC trades that are off the books. Dabba traders execute trades through platforms at international banks in Dubbai, Europe and the UK. Indian stock traders have used this method for years, and has experienced an upsurge after the crypto ban.
The U.S. Consumer financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has created an Office of Innovation. The Office of innovation is responsible for the development of a regulatory framework surrounding new products and services in the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and microlending fields. This regulatory sandbox could give some guidance on creation of regulatory frameworks around innovative fintech companies.
South Korea Financial Supervisory Service is advising local regulators to work towards creating an integrated blockchain system for stocks transactions. The group finds the use of a centralized ledger to be inefficient and vulnerable to hacks.
It was recently reported that HTC will be releasing a new mobile phone utilizing decentralized ledger technology, but Litecoin (LTC) founder Charlie Lee announced July 29th that he will be one of HTC's advisors on the smartphone. The phone will be called Exodus and is expected to be the first blockchain phone. Exodus's built-in cryptocurrency wallet will now natively support LTC and the Lightning Network (LN), in addition to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
Cointelegraph.com reported that digital asset exchange Huobi will begin supporting trades in the Indian rupee (INR) on its over-the-counter (OTC) service. Huobi's peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platform will allow INR users free trading in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT). This comes at a good time for Indian cryptocurrency traders after the Reserve Bank of India banned banks from dealing with cryptocurrency-related companies in early July.
IOHK, the company behind the popular cryptocurrency Cardano (ADA), announced that it has launched the testnet for a new Cardano virtual machine. The virtual machine, called IELE, provides developers with a stronger and more reliable platform for developing smart contracts on Cardano's blockchain.
IoT and blockchain platform Ambrosus has announced the launch of its mainnet, called AMB-NET 1.0. Ambrosus improves pharmaceutical and food supply chains by allowing companies to record private and public supply chain data on its blockchain. Organizations can work with the Ambrosus Network through its native AMB token.
San Francisco-based platform, DCEX, will begin accepting registration applications for its new cryptocurrency exchange. DCEX's base currency, the currency participants use to exchange for other currencies, will be Ripple's XRP. This is a change from the cryptocurrency exchange norm of using Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) as base currencies. Not basing all transactions off of Bitcoin is a step in the right directions for pushing the market to be more independent from it.
Thomson Reuters, a Canadian mass-media and information company, has announced a partnership with CryptoCompare, a cryptocurrency data tracking resource. CryptoCompare will provide Thomson Reuters will trade and order book data on 50 cryptocurrencies.
Major Cineplex, the largest movie theater chain in Thailand, is integrating cryptocurrency payments to permits moviegoers to buy anything from tickets to popcorn. Major Cineplex is partnering with RapizPay to deploy the digital currency payment system. This comes a week after the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission began allowing cryptocurrency operators to file license applications.
Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency services in the world, has announced in a blog post that Jeff Horowitz, an ex-Pershing exec, has joined as company's new Chief Compliance Officer. Horowitz has ample background experience for this position, as he was Managing Director and Global Head of Compliance for Pershing, a banking regulator for the FDIC, and even led compliance and anti-money-laundering (AML) programs at Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Salomon Brothers.
Binance, the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchange, has made its first-ever acquisition, purchasing crypto wallet provider Trust Wallet. This move appeals to cryptocurrency investors wary of keeping their coins on centralized custodial services as Trust Wallet now introduces Binance users to decentralized custody. The decentralized wallet will be offered on mobile platforms, and supports coins built off of Ethereum's protocol. You can read more about decentralized exchanges in our latest Crypto Quant Shot: Atomic Swaps, Decentralized Exchanges, and the Future of Crypto Exchanges.
Google has announced that later this year, it will introduce open-source integrations of Ethereum and Hyperledger applications through its Google Cloud Product marketplace. This move pushes Google into the blockchain services industry, thereby joining others such as Amazon Web Services, IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft Azure.
U.S. lawmakers working with the Congressional Valley Fever Task Force are looking for blockchain applications to help fight infectious fungal diseases. The lawmakers have proposed a bill as a part of the FORWARD Act for the creation of a blockchain pilot hoping to improve the way doctors share information about endemic fungal diseases such as Valley Fever. If information could be exchanged between doctors quicker and more efficiently, they would be better equipped to treat these infectious diseases.
Mobile engagement firm MobileBridge, has launched a blockchain loyalty program called Momentum. Momentum will offer other companies many data-based insights, and consumers full custody of their earned cryptocurrency rewards. Consumers can earn loyalty cards and other rewards for simply shopping at their favorite stores. These rewards can be exchanged for Momentum tokens, and then other branded reward tokens to be used with other companies.
CoinMarketApp, a cryptocurrency news multi-use app, has released compatibility with iOS and Android smartphones. CoinMarketApp is not like typical cryptocurrency apps, in that it offers crypto historic data, prices, mining information, trustworthy news, and even portfolio services.
Northern Trust, an asset manager with USD$954bn in AUM announces plans to start a custody service for digital assets. Pete Cherecwich, Northern Trust's head of corporate and institutional business, explained that the firm plans to offer custodial services similar to others, but with lower fees.
Swissquote, a Switzerland-based online banking firm which recently added cryptocurrency investing to its services, has seen a 44% profit increase in this C1H2018 relative to C1H2017. Throughout the second half of CY2017, Swiss quote has allowed trading in Bitcoin (BTC) with the EUR and USD, as well as Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Ripple (XRP).
MINDOL is a blockchain platform aiming to disrupt the entertainment provider industry in Japan. MINDOL's whitepaper states a growing demand for and heavy government investing in spreading Japanese culture throughout the world, including animations, games, music, and movies. MINDOL hopes to regularly produce programs on TV. MINDOL's central network, called eMINDOL, lets consumers purchase products, watch content, and even invest in the projects and artists they like.
Telegram, a popular desktop and mobile app messenger, recently executed an ICO, raising USD$1.7 billion. However, US-based cybersecurity startup Virgil Security, praised the fact that Telegram published the application's API on an open source platform for developers to review, but has uncovered several security flaws with Telegram's ID verification app Passport. Virgil discovered issues with their encryption methods and the way they protect stored data. These issues are very important to fix if Telegram wishes to begin accepting payments on its platform.
Coinbase, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency trading services, has now allowed users in the UK to purchase cryptocurrencies with the British Pound. Before this announcement, users in the UK would have had to acquire Euros in order to purchase cryptos on Coinbase, which sometimes took multiple days.
The government of Queensland, Australia is giving USD$8.3mm to a crypto start-up as part of the state's innovation funding initiative. The start-up's goal is to increase the number of tourists to Central Queensland through selling travel offers based in different cryptocurrencies.
RandomCrypto, a fintech firm working with cryptocurrencies has released a Bitcoin (BTC) mining calculator, which improves upon the details given by competing products. Random Crypto CEO Josh Metnick says he developed this product after "many years of getting screwed… by mining companies," and that his goal is to "bring more truth, accuracy, and transparency to [proof-of-work] mining."1 The calculator shows that at today's current BTC prices, most bitcoin mining hardware on the markets is unprofitable.
Chinese company Seven Stars Cloud, has announced plans to build a USD$300 million crypto hub in Hartford, CT. Seven Stars Cloud is a fintech company hoping to create a community for itself and other fintech firms to collaborate on machine-learning, robotics, and crypto-related projects. The firm is also trying to launch a fintech college at schools near Hartford, CT such as Yale University, University of Hartford, University of New Haven, and University of Connecticut.
Canaan Creative, the world's second largest provider of Bitcoin mining components has announced a new product called the AvalonMiner Inside. The Avalon Miner Inside is essentially a television with built-in Bitcoin (BTC) mining capabilities. The TV will be powered by artificial intelligence and will also enable voice dictation. The mining components possess a 2.8 trillion hashes-per-second hash rate, and even includes a profitability calculator to measure performance.
Bitfi, a cryptocurrency hardware wallet manufacturer claiming it is "unhackable", denies claims that it was hacked. Bitfi and its official partner John McAfee offered a $100,000 bug bounty in July to try to get people to hack its wallet. But when one twitter user claimed to have done this, Bitfi CEO Daniel Khesin denied these claims amid no evidence of a hack, and because of the fact that the "hacker" refused the bounty reward.
Switzerland-based cryptocurrency platform MCO has added Litecoin (LTC) to its supported coins. MCO enables users to purchase, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies from its mobile app. Formerly known as Monaco, MCO has amassed over 180,000 downloads, and expects to widen its user base as it adds more coins to its platform. This app will soon integrate with a Visa card allowing international purchases.
Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange OKEx says it will have to claw back millions in USD$ following a single user's large bet on bitcoin futures (the user lost "the bet"). Each futures contract has a notional value of $100, and OKEx estimate the total value of the position was over $400 million. OKEx initiated a forced liquidation of the account but because of the size, the exchange has had to trigger "societal loss risk management" mechanisms because of the size of the order. After insurance coverage is considered, the aggregate loss to investors is around BTC$1,200 (USD$8.8mm), which will "split proportionately by all profited traders' realized + unrealized gains".
Coinbase Commerce, Coinbase's non-custodial merchant payment service, has launched a product integrating with e-commerce company WooCommerce. WooCommercie is currently used by between 21% and 28% of all web stores, and affiliated stores will now accept cryptocurrency payments from Coinbase Commerce users.
Binance is rolling out a new product that will allow crypto users to use digital assets to buy goods and services without needing to locate merchants that accept Bitcoin (BTC) and without having to exchange their cryptocurrencies into fiat. In a press release, the leading global crypto exchange reveals the release of its own Visa-powered […] You simply top-up your card with funds through the Binance Card App in the form of Bitcoin or BNB, and you're ready to go," read the Binance blog post. The Binance Card is issued by VISA and 46,000,000 offline and online merchants across 200 regions and territories. The new Binance VISA card is powered by the popular payment platform Swipe and supports Binance Coin (BNB), Bitcoin (BTC), Swipe (SXP), and Binance USD (BUSD). Both a physical and virtual card is available, so you can also use it to make NFC payments on your phone via platforms like ApplePay or GooglePay. The Binance debit card inks your Binance.com account allowing users to pay using crypto in seconds. The blog reads, "You simply top-up your card with funds through the Binance Card App in the form of Bitcoin or BNB, and you're ready to go. It's as simple as transferring BNB from one wallet to another." The card costs $15 for pre-orders with ... WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Cryptocurrency exchange Binance enabled support for the purchase of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) directly on Binance.com using Visa credit and debit cards that Binance Launches New Virtual Visa Crypto Debit Card – Physical Version Coming Major crypto exchange Binance has announced in a blog post that it will launch a new product, the Binance Card Visa Debit card, which aims to offer crypto payment services anywhere in the world to its users. According to Binance: "The Binance Card does everything a ...
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Q: Pandas: read head and middle of a file I just started with Pandas in Python and so far very good.
I have a big cvs file and I want to read only a portion of it. By the read_csv documentation (link) there's the option skiprows, which says:

skiprows : list-like or integer, default None
Line numbers to skip (0-indexed) or number of lines to skip (int) at the start of the file

At first I thought that I could use this to read a 1st portion of my cvs file, process it, then read the 2nd portion and so on. But, when I read the 2nd portion, the headers are not there (because the header line was skipped).
I tried header=0 but as the documentation states:

header=0 denotes the first line of data rather than the first line of the file.

Then I saw that it's possible to read chunks of file. Sounds great, however the documentation is not that clear to me, so here are my questions:

*

*For each chunk, does the line index continue from value of the previous chunk plus 1, or does it restart to zero?

*Is the header set for each chunk?

*Is it possible to use the read_csv command with the skiprows option, and still read the head in the first line of the file? (I could still open the file, read the first line and use it as header in the names option, but I don't really like this).

A: Answers:

*

*It's restart to zero with each chunk

*Yes

*No

For question 3 you could use following, to keep the first row for header:
pd.read_csv('test.csv', skiprows=range(1, 10))

As @iled pointed out in the comment take a look to the example with chunks. Example:
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from io import StringIO

np.random.seed(10)

df1 = pd.DataFrame(np.random.randn(10,5), columns=['a','b','c','d','e'])

In [29]: df1
Out[29]:
          a         b         c         d         e
0  1.331587  0.715279 -1.545400 -0.008384  0.621336
1 -0.720086  0.265512  0.108549  0.004291 -0.174600
2  0.433026  1.203037 -0.965066  1.028274  0.228630
3  0.445138 -1.136602  0.135137  1.484537 -1.079805
4 -1.977728 -1.743372  0.266070  2.384967  1.123691
5  1.672622  0.099149  1.397996 -0.271248  0.613204
6 -0.267317 -0.549309  0.132708 -0.476142  1.308473
7  0.195013  0.400210 -0.337632  1.256472 -0.731970
8  0.660232 -0.350872 -0.939433 -0.489337 -0.804591
9 -0.212698 -0.339140  0.312170  0.565153 -0.147420

data = df1.to_string(index=False)
# In your case you don't need sep because you are reading the ordinarily csv file
chunks = pd.read_csv(StringIO(data), sep='\s+', chunksize=3)

In [40]: for chunk in chunks:
   ....:     print(chunk)
   ....:
          a         b         c         d         e
0  1.331587  0.715279 -1.545400 -0.008384  0.621336
1 -0.720086  0.265512  0.108549  0.004291 -0.174600
2  0.433026  1.203037 -0.965066  1.028274  0.228630
          a         b         c         d         e
0  0.445138 -1.136602  0.135137  1.484537 -1.079805
1 -1.977728 -1.743372  0.266070  2.384967  1.123691
2  1.672622  0.099149  1.397996 -0.271248  0.613204
          a         b         c         d         e
0 -0.267317 -0.549309  0.132708 -0.476142  1.308473
1  0.195013  0.400210 -0.337632  1.256472 -0.731970
2  0.660232 -0.350872 -0.939433 -0.489337 -0.804591
          a        b        c         d        e
0 -0.212698 -0.33914  0.31217  0.565153 -0.14742

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Home Culture and Society Amazon is the New Walmart of the Workplace – David Haggith (04/09/2021)
Amazon is the New Walmart of the Workplace – David Haggith (04/09/2021)
Amazon is beating its brick-and-mortar rival, Walmart, for subhuman work conditions. As happened with Walmart, the retail behemoth of virtual space is increasingly developing a monstrous reputation. Walmart had to make major changes as public scorn grew against it. Amazon will, too.
Is it Amazon's right to be greedy in order to maximize profits for stockholders? Of course it is! It is also everyone else's right to hate them for it. Increasingly, many do. That's part of being a world citizen. Plain and simple.
For years, most people (not me, but most) luuhved Walmart for having one of the biggest selections of merchandise at the lowest prices. Anything for a lower price on skivvies, even turning your soulful little town into a soulless strip mall. Over time, stories of Walmart's treatment of its workers continued to spread, though, until the Walton family became the slum-dog billionaires. Eventually, the company's reputation preceded it in the marketplace of human resources, making it difficult for the company to build new stores until, finally, it had to substantially up its game in terms of wages and benefits.
The amazing Amazon's rate of flow
Usually, I take the macroeconomic view from 40,000 feet. This time I'm going to take the micro view of just one greedy but highly successful company that is top in stocks and run by the richest man in the world to show how the richest treat the rest as expendable. If you don't fight for every cent you get, you get nothing.
We're going to take a look at corporate greed from a Petri dish where it is plentiful. Our opening shot starts so close in all you see is the character's hands flurrying about her business:
Dixon had to scan a new item every 11 seconds to hit her quota, she said, and Amazon always knew when she didn't. Dixon's scan rate – more than 300 items an hour, thousands of individual products a day – was being tracked constantly, the data flowing to managers in real time, then crunched by a proprietary software system called ADAPT.
Reveal News
(The camera dollies back to reveal a vast Amazon warehouse around her with hundreds of employees all doing the same thing until Dixon is a mere speck at the far end of the warehouse.)
Think of Amazon as being a large data stream filled with piranha where thousands of frenzied workers will devour other workers whose numbers are marginally slower. As a worker, you know the company literally watches over your shoulder every second, and, if your numbers fall a fraction behind the mainstream flow, you're gone in a gulp.
In two months, Dixon became one of the small fry who got fried. She no longer is able or allowed to perform her job. An Amazon-approved doctor concluded she blew her back out from the non-stop bending, twisting and lifting that one must perform in that manner in order to keep up with the data flow. So, she was culled from the stream.
Marc Wulfraat, president of the supply chain and logistics consulting firm MWPVL International, described Amazon as more aggressive than any other industry player in what the company expects from workers. "And they will not waste time hanging on to people who can't perform."
One disabled veteran who worked for Amazon injured his back and ankle on the job, so he was told he'd get lighter duty until he healed. However, the ADAPT system Amazon uses to track every single worker action failed to adapt to his needs and kept demanding a pace he couldn't maintain of 350 medium-weight items per hour. Because he fell a mere 1.55% behind ADAPT's set level due to his damaged back, he was fired.
Workers refer somewhat scornfully to this surveilled metric as "the rate," while they refer to some order-fulfillment centers as "the meat grinder."
Says one employee,
It's like a nightmare, all these machines telling you your rate is down…. Oh, we didn't fire you, the machine fired you because you are lower than the rate.
The moral is, don't be a sub-rate human.
One manager claims about the rapid firing process, there is no three-strikes-your-out rule. Firing, he says, "is a matter of conversations." Yeah, those conversations probably run something like, "Get your butt up to quota, or get your butt outa here."
Even though the company claims to have no quotas in its own defense, it wasn't hard for The Verge to find 300 former employees in Baltimore who were let go over the course of one year for failure to meet "the rate." That was 10% of their local workforce. Maybe you have to cull the bottom ten percentile somehow, but this rate is an intensely competitive, self-adjusting climb to maximum performance at minimum pay. A real slavedriver, "the rate" and quality standards (allowable mistakes) keep migrating upward.
In other words, the reward of benchmark success is that the "machine" raises your benchmark rate like the conveyor in the I Love Lucy candy-factory classic — individually and collectively. Employees were once allowed one error per 1,000 items. It's now migrated up to one per 2,200.
We are like a machine, like robots. The rate keeps increasing and increasing and increasing.
Amazon claims "the rate" doesn't exist. (And there is no such thing as the mafia either.) However, one of Amazon's own managers says, the rate is "supposed to set a cadence of expectation." What a lovely way to say it!
But I have to ask, how do you set a cadence with a non-existent metronome? Aside from that obvious self-contradiction, at a hypnotic "cadence" of one item every ten to twenty seconds, one can easily foresee the number of mistakes or injuries will increase as the day wanes. Your hand-held scanner is also your personal misery whip and tattle tale, tracking your performance and reporting it one beat at a time all day long, flaggin (or flagellating) your down performance. Get below that rhythm, and your scanner will flash you like a psychological taser, letting you know it's letting the big bosses know.
The plastic pistol near your pocket may even light up with a warning while you're in the bathroom, excoriating you for taking 2.1 more seconds to urinate than your average working colleague that day by letting you know you are now falling behind the rate. The solution, if you're an Amazon driver whose out on the road where bathroom stops take even longer, is to use your van as a mobile restroom and pee in a bottle. UK drivers also had to break speed limits in order to carve out sufficient "toilet time" to stay on rate.
Amazon recently lit into a member of congress for spreading the truth about the pee bottles:
After a public outcry from employees who knew better, however, Amazon recanted its false chastisement of the congressman, apologizing to Representative Pocan and admitting they were in error:
We're unhappy about it, and we owe an apology to Representative Pocan. First, the tweet was incorrect. It did not contemplate our large driver population and instead wrongly focused only on our fulfillment centers…."
Employees readily confirm how extreme the situation is:
"'They got right in your face when you're using the stall,' said Darryl Richardson, a worker at the warehouse who supports unionization. Another pro-union worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said of Amazon's toilet reading: 'I feel like I'm getting harassed.'"
The Washington Post (Bezos's own newspaper)
Thus, the rate, which doesn't exist, leads humans to dehydration because, drinking leads to needing to urinate, and needing to urinate leads to needing a bathroom break, which brings the rate down. So, do the math backward to reverse-engineer what you need to do, as an employee, to keep up with the company bots.
Amazon union busting and bullying
Amazon, which has avoided unions for 25 years, is accused of using worker surveillance on its 1.4-million employees to undermine unionizing efforts. It has advertised to hire professional intelligence analysts and has deployed union-sniffing software to monitor employee social media in order to keep its finger on the unionizing pulse.
Workers have claimed they were fired for discussing workplace conditions or were pulled off shifts to make it harder for them for them to engage in planned on-site activism. Part-time workers in Sacramento who wanted to take unpaid time off for a union meeting scheduled during the day were told Amazon's time-off rules don't apply to them since they are a specific subcategory of "class q" and "class m" logistics workers. (Neither apparently do labor laws.) Fine, but that was a distinction those workers had previously never heard of and for which they were given no explanation.
Does the richest man in the world, surrounded by a board of the world's wealthiest stockholders, really need to have sub-class Q workers to make ends meet? Amazon likes to claim workers don't unionize because they already get better pay and benefits than what a union could deliver. Why the need for strong-arm tactics if that is true?
One of Amazon's top lawyers, David Zapolsky, referred to one warehouse worker, who was fired for protesting company COVID policies, as "not smart, or articulate" and suggested in a memo that executives should use that characterization publicly to squelch unionization efforts. Needless to say, no one was impressed with the inarticulate, politically dim lawyer (obviously not the sharpest cheese in the fridge) — least of all the reviled man's coworkers. It galvanized their protest, and they managed to write much more articulately,
We are in a challenging and exceptional situation — but this type of behavior [by the lawyer] doesn't align with our [leadership principles] or the image and values we try to embody when working with customers and candidates…. If this isn't [a] situation where people should have backbone and insist on higher standards for our leadership then what are we even doing here?
Beat the bots before they beat you
The mental stress of being held to the mind-numbing standards of repetition that are comfortable home turf for an Amazon robot, which knows nothing but ones and zeroes all day anyway, can be its own kind of strain. It certainly increases the risk of injury.
An investigation by Reveal News from The Center for Investigative Reporting …
found that Amazon's obsession with speed has turned its warehouses into injury mills…. The rate of serious injuries for those facilities was more than double the national average for the warehousing industry.
In the case of our opening character who was fired for her injuries, Dixon's injury was just one of 422 injuries recorded in her warehouse alone that year, which had four times the national average for warehouse injuries due in good part to the mechanically obsessive need for speed.
One former Amazon safety manager says,
If you had an injury…there was no leniency, you were expected to keep that rate…. It was utterly ridiculous.
Amazon's Kent, WA, warehouse, billed as it's million-package-a-day "flagship of fulfillment," has seen more than 10% of its workers seriously injured. The addition of robots, ostensibly to help people, helped pick up the pace but resulted in higher injury rates for the remnant of humans. At some facilities, robots have quadrupled the injury rates of the remaining humans because the humans must scramble to keep up. One employee described the scrabble of flesh and machinery as "a fight that we just can't win."
The more humanly fragile you are, the less desirable you are in the cold eyes of the creatures that swim the Amazon hire-archy. The gel-eyed top-feeders at Amazon have even been known to require next-day work from an employee who just suffered a miscarriage or to put a woman being treated for breast cancer on a "performance-improvement plan" or to fire a worker for taking time off due to a death in the family.
One Amazonian warehouse managed to hit an ambitious attainment goal of 23 serious injuries per hundred employees (23%!). (One has to assume this is an actual goal because Amazon has a solid record of seeing the addition of robots raise the injury rates of the humans. Moreover, since Amazon assures the public it never opens a robotic facility until everything is "ready and safe for employees," that must mean the standard for "safe and ready" is a mere 23% of your employees going out the door with work-stopping injuries — Amazon's definition of a "serious injury.")
Between 2015 and 2018, OSHA reported 41 'severe' injuries resulting in hospitalization, including six amputations and 15 fractures, associated with Amazon delivery or fulfillment jobs. This data does not include state OSHA records.
A single day in 2019 saw 24 workers hospitalized at a facility because, if you don't feed the trailers fast enough, the robots start spilling a log jam of boxes around you. (Again think of that conveyor set to run faster and faster in I Love Lucy until it achieves the point of catastrophic human failure.)
Many employees are also afraid to use Amazon's in-house clinic for job-related injuries because it is known to be the first step out the door. One former employee with multiple chronic shoulder, neck and wrist injuries from work claimed she was pressed back to working the line several times by the clinic, adding injury to injury. She said Amazon "reminds me of an American-made sweatshop." When it comes to meeting the metrics, she added, "You get humiliated if you don't." She further claimed the only injuries Amazon took seriously were those that spilled blood because it might stain the merchandise.
Amazon replied in its defense that it is not the stain on the merchandise, nor even on the company's reputation, that it is concerned about, but the spread of infectious disease. Apparently, while customers want their merchandise now, they don't always want it in red. When you order a new arm chair, don't be totally surprised if it comes with an arm … or, at least, a finger.
Amazon, of course, also argued that its "serious injury" rate is only so high because it is obsessive about recording all injuries and giving injured employees mandatory time off. (Kind of like Trump's claim that Covid was only higher in the US due to the nation's obsession with testing for it.) Employees have complained they are forced to break the company's own rules on how to pick up a box in order to simultaneously lift and twist fast enough to maintain the mandatory metrics that Amazon obsesses over. Maybe Jeff needs to do a couple of months of line time.
When Amazon announced it was going to start using drones, customers thought they meant delivering packages by air, not that they were describing what they are going to turn their workers into. Instead of leading the world to a brighter and bolder future by making his corporation the force for social change that Jeff Bezos claims as his vision for Amazon, the company looks more like some robot dystopia.
Big Brother Bezos has even wired our homes with the listening ear of Alexa to know our needs and some say advertise to those needs as soon as we express them. One might even wonder if every Alexa has a bluetooth connection into Bezos' brain.
Cybersympathy
Unsurprisingly, injuries peak on Prime Day and Cyber Monday. Next time you order Prime delivery, you might want to think of it as pressing your knee into someone's spinal disk in order to get them to get you your package to you a little faster.
Amazon silenced employees seeking better coronavirus safety to "avoid causing a panic" and fired them when they didn't shut up according to CNN and a letter from the US Senate.
One former senior operations manager, who worked at multiple facilities, says the company "incentivizes you to be a heartless son of a bitch."
Amazon's cybertilt toward everything can even be seen in how it identifies its centers. While most companies would say in more human-like parlance, "This happened at our San-Bernardino facility," Amazon would simply say, like a router, it happened "at ONT2" or "at LGB3."
But you have to try to put a good human face on all the cybernetics publicly:
Externally, the company has launched a public relations campaign that includes TV commercials and a documentary TV series to drive home a message to customers that keeping the "retail heroes" in its warehouses safe is its top priority….
In public statements and internal meetings, the company seems to be treating the scrutiny of warehouse conditions like a PR problem rather than an opportunity to find and fix potential operational flaws.
Amazon, with its roots as a bookstore, has even been accused of taking such PR measures as delaying the shipments of books that are critical of its corporate operations.
Finally, there are those Chinese sweat shops where Amazon uses child labor to produce its robotic Alexa personal assistants. (Alexa, don't even get me started.)
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The force field of optical tweezers is commonly assumed to be conservative, neglecting the complex action of the scattering force. Using a novel method that extracts local forces from trajectories of an optically trapped particle, we measure the three-dimensional force field experienced by a Rayleigh particle with 10 nm spatial resolution and femtonewton precision in force. We find that the force field is nonconservative with the nonconservative component increasing radially away from the optical axis, in agreement with the Gaussian beam model of the optical trap.
 Pinyu Wu, Rongxin Huang, Christian Tischer, Alexandr Jonas, and Ernst-Ludwig Florin.
"Direct measurement of the nonconservative force field generated by optical tweezers".


With 2015 coming to an end, I'm compelled to look back upon our key milestones and successes as we begin planning for what's ahead.
Hundreds of users learned to do more with NetSuite via custom and public training courses.
Over 300 NetSuite users took in-depth, hands-on training during SuiteWorld 2015 Pre-Event Training.
Over 1,800 customers and partners joined the ranks of certified users via the NetSuite Certification program.
Multiple new offerings such as Training Packages and the Self-Study Annual Pass made it easier for customers to buy and take training.
Part of maintaining this momentum is to continue to develop new training courses to help our customers get the most value from NetSuite. Two of the courses we released in 2015 that I'm most excited about were specifically designed to help administrators and finance and accounting users become more proficient with NetSuite.
At SuiteWorld 2015 in May, we introduced NetSuite: Administrator Fundamentals. This course is designed for both newly-hired administrators who need to learn how to manage an existing NetSuite account and self-taught administrators who would like formal training on core tasks.
During this two-day course, attendees gain insight into the "day in the life" of a NetSuite Administrator by learning how to tailor, maintain and optimize NetSuite for their users' needs. Tasks taught include creating custom roles to enforce security, using NetSuite customization tools to add fields, control views, and create new tables, and importing data into NetSuite. By the end of the course, participants will be able to manage their NetSuite accounts like pros!
In November, we released NetSuite: Finance Fundamentals for finance professionals who are using NetSuite for the first time. We had seen huge demand for this training on an individual basis from our customers, so we packaged it into a two-day offering to provide new users everything they need to become experts on key accounting functions.
In this course, users explore NetSuite's enterprise resource planning (ERP) features and capabilities to control expenses, accelerate financial close, and ensure real-time visibility into financial performance, including how to tailor Home Dashboards to quickly access business intelligence and manage activities.
By continuing to add new training resources, new courses, and engaging with our customers at every skill level, we will continue to educate and inspire our NetSuite user base, empowering them to bring expertise to their career and employer, setting countless new milestones along the way.
Go to our Course Schedule for dates and times of upcoming classes. We'd also love to see you at SuiteWorld 2016 too, so check out the Pre-Event Certification and Training program. Lastly, stay on top of the latest Education Services news by following @SuiteTraining on Twitter for useful tips, new course announcements, special events, promotions, and upcoming webinars.


text:
Q: Color leak from multicols within a figure

The text at the bottom of page 2 is red, despite the fact that the color change in the code below originates from \color{red}\normalcolor within the multicols within the figure and should naively not have had such an impact. No effect is seen if either:

*

*one comments out the \begin{multicols} and \end{multicols} lines,

*one comments out the \begin{figure*} and \end{figure*} lines.
My question is why does this happen? (I expect to hear about some kind of whatsit subtlety).
and is there a work-around ?  (in my context I have \color{red} and later \normalcolor before the text, more or less as here, and I can not change that, so the solution should not change anything to the inside of the multicols and the only customizing possibility would be to add extra stuff either before or after the multicols environment or both).
Update David's proposal to add a group or brace pair inside the multicols cures the problem (I initially thought I had no access to these contents, but I had forgotten my own hooks) and another way is to add \normalcolor or even \color{green} (sic) inside the figure* environment before the multicols environment. This second medicine avoids to have to insert anything inside the multicols.
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[paperheight=6cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{color}
% COLOR LEAK IF COLOR WITHIN MULTICOLS WITHIN FIGURE
\begin{document}
Hello World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World
World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World
\begin{figure*}[ht!]
  \begin{multicols}{2}
    \color{red}\normalcolor
    Hello. World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World\par
  \end{multicols}
\end{figure*}
World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World
World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World
World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World World World World World World World
World I AM RED, WHY?

\end{document}

A: David's suspicion is correct: multicol is at fault here. When the environment detects that it is used inside a box (e.g., in a float in this case) it will collect its material inside a vertical box and then applies its balancing routine by splitt the box into columns. It does this by using \setbox in a way that is not "color safe".
As a result the first color change in the sequence \color{red}\normalcolor  (or more precisely the second last color change) will  be misinterpreted by the surrounding float environment as the outer color to be restored after the float as it remains on the "color stack".
A possible patch for this would look as follows:
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\mult@@cols}{\vbox\bgroup}{\vbox\bgroup\color@setgroup}{}{\PATCHerror}
\patchcmd{\endmulticols}{\egroup}{\color@endgroup\egroup}{}{\PATCHerror}
\makeatother

but obviously that should be properly integrated into the multicol package. A nice example of the fact that this part of the multicol code predates LaTeX2e and quite interesting that it took this bug 20 years to surface.
Update
Just for the record this patch has been integrated in multicol for a while so this problem should no longer happen.

A: Interesting:-)
As it's an interaction between color and multicol then it's probably something to do with some code of mine or Frank's. Obviously I suspect Frank:-)
No time to debug now but such problems are usually fixed by adding an extra group, and adding {} as here, fixes it in this case.
  \begin{multicols}{2}
    {\color{red}\normalcolor
    Hello. World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World World
    World World World World World\par}


The English term "bluestocking" meaning a literary woman evolved in the mid-to-late 1700s. Women of society were beginning to express their boredom with being sent off to do their embroidery, rather than being invited to engage in conversation with the men. In about 1750, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu (later called "the Queen of the Blues") and her friends founded the first official bluestocking society in England. They invited learned men to gather informally with them to talk about books, literature, art and architecture, as well as places and events that interested them.
The story goes that this literary salon "enjoyed society in undress" — that is, in their more practical country clothing, most notably their blue worsted stockings. Hence, the term "bluestocking." Perhaps to show off their knowledge of French, the members of the club often referred to themselves as "Bas Bleu." In 1769, Horace Walpole called Mrs. Montagu's original Bluestocking Society "the first public female club ever known" and added that most of the ladies were "of the greatest beauty, and most of the young men of fashion were of the club." Although many prominent men of letters frequented the early bluestocking gatherings — and, in fact, Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet is said to be the first person to have worn blue stockings to a meeting — Bluestocking came to be associated with women.
We owe a lot to these women!


Pele will have an operation to remove a 'ureteral stone,' his doctors said Wednesday.
Vertebroplasty and Kyphoplasty For Compression Fractures Of The Spine - Manipal Hospitals - Продолжительность: 4:46 Manipal Hospitals 30 272 просмотра. PELÉ - Documental 'EL PARTIDO DEL SIGLO' - Продолжительность: 29:49 Carlos Navio 721 374 просмотра.
Brazil legend Pele has left hospital after undergoing prostate surgery . The 74-year-old was admitted to the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paolo on Tuesday for the second time in six months.
Brazil legend Pele joked that he's "ready to play again" after responding positively to treatment for a urinary infection.
Pele was discharged from hospital after undergoing a successful spinal surgery . Pele "was discharged. The patient left the hospital at 4:00 pm," the Albert Einstein hospital in Brazil 's financial capital said in a statement.
Mick Jagger posts pic following heart surgery.
Mick's picture comes a few days after saying he was "on the mend."
The 44-year-old son of soccer legend Pele was arrested in Brazil on Tuesday after losing an appeal in a money laundering case involving a drug gang.
Pele leaves hospital after successful spinal surgery .
Pelé has been released from a Brazilian hospital after having back surgery . Doctors said Pelé , 74, left the Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo on Monday after a procedure to alleviate discomfort in his back and hip.


text:
"""
COHORTE debug servlet, to visualize the state of the framework in a browser

:author: Thomas Calmant
:license: Apache Software License 2.0

..

    Copyright 2014 isandlaTech

    Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
    You may obtain a copy of the License at

        http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
    limitations under the License.
"""

# Python standard library
import logging
import sys
import threading
import traceback

# Pelix framework
from pelix.ipopo.decorators import ComponentFactory, Provides, \
    Validate, Invalidate, Property, Requires
import pelix.constants
import pelix.framework
import pelix.http
import pelix.ipopo.constants
import pelix.shell
from pelix.shell.ipopo import ipopo_state_to_str

# Cohorte
import cohorte

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Bundle version
import cohorte.version
__version__=cohorte.version.__version__

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

DEFAULT_DEBUG_PATH = '/debug'
""" Default servlet path """

CSS_STYLE = """
body {
    font-family: sans;
}

h1 {
    text-align: center;
}

h2 {
    margin-top: 2em;
}

dt {
    font-style: italic;
}

dd {
    margin-bottom: 1em;
}

table {
    font-size: 80%;
}

table tr th {
    background: #DDD;
}

table tr td {
    vertical-align: top;
}

table tr:nth-child(odd) td {
    background: #EFF;
}

table tr:nth-child(even) td {
    background: #CFF;
}

table tr td pre {
    font-family: courier;
    font-size: 100%;
}
"""

# ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@ComponentFactory('cohorte-debug-servlet-factory')
@Provides(pelix.http.HTTP_SERVLET)
@Requires("_ipopo", pelix.ipopo.constants.SERVICE_IPOPO)
@Requires("_utils", pelix.shell.SERVICE_SHELL_UTILS)
@Property('_path', pelix.http.HTTP_SERVLET_PATH, DEFAULT_DEBUG_PATH)
class DebugServlet(object):
    """
    COHORTE HTTP Signals receiver servlet
    """
    def __init__(self):
        """
        Constructor
        """
        # Servlet path
        self._path = DEFAULT_DEBUG_PATH

        # Injected services
        self._ipopo = None
        self._utils = None

        # Bundle context
        self._context = None

    def make_all(self, request):
        """
        Aggregates all content makers

        :param request: The HTTP request
        :return: The aggregation of the result of all other make_* methods
        """
        # Get the list of makers
        makers = sorted(member for member in dir(self)
                        if member.startswith('make') and member != 'make_all')

        lines = []
        errors = []
        for maker_name in makers:
            maker = getattr(self, maker_name)
            try:
                # Store the result of the maker, if any
                content = maker(request)
                if content:
                    lines.append(content)
            except Exception as ex:
                errors.append('
Error calling {0}: {1}
'
                              .format(maker_name, ex))

        if errors:
            # Add the errors part only if needed
            lines.append("
Page generation errors
\n
"
                         "\n{errors}\n
".format(errors=errors))

        return '\n'.join(lines)

    def make_basic(self, request):
        """
        Prints basic isolate information
        """
        lines = ['
']
        for prop_var in sorted(dir(cohorte)):
            if prop_var.startswith('PROP'):
                key = getattr(cohorte, prop_var)
                lines.append('
{0}
\n
{1}
'
                             .format(key, self._context.get_property(key)))
        lines.append('
')

        return "
Isolate information
\n{body}\n" \
            .format(body='\n'.join(lines))

    def make_instances(self, request):
        """
        Prints iPOPO components instances details
        """
        headers = ('Name', 'Factory', 'State')

        instances = self._ipopo.get_instances()

        # Lines are already sorted
        lines = ((name, factory, ipopo_state_to_str(state))
                 for name, factory, state in instances)

        table = self._utils.make_table(headers, lines)
        return '
iPOPO Instances

' + table + '
'

    def make_bundles(self, request):
        """
        Lists the bundles installed
        """
        lines = ['
',
                 '
',
                 'Bundle ID	',
                 'Bundle Name	',
                 'Bundle State	',
                 '
']

        states = {pelix.framework.Bundle.ACTIVE: 'ACTIVE',
                  pelix.framework.Bundle.INSTALLED: 'INSTALLED',
                  pelix.framework.Bundle.RESOLVED: 'RESOLVED',
                  pelix.framework.Bundle.STARTING: 'STARTING',
                  pelix.framework.Bundle.STOPPING: 'STOPPING',
                  pelix.framework.Bundle.UNINSTALLED: 'UNINSTALLED'}

        for bundle in self._context.get_bundles():
            # New line
            lines.append('
')
            lines.append('{0}	'.format(bundle.get_bundle_id()))
            lines.append('{0}	'.format(bundle.get_symbolic_name()))
            lines.append('{0}	'.format(
                states.get(bundle.get_state(), '<UNKNOWN>')))
            lines.append('
')

        lines.append('
\n')
        return "
Pelix bundles
\n{table}\n" \
            .format(table='\n'.join(lines))

    def make_services(self, request):
        """
        Lists the services registered
        """
        lines = ['
',
                 '
',
                 'Service ID	',
                 'Service Ranking	',
                 'Specifications	',
                 'Bundle	',
                 'Properties	',
                 '
']

        for svc_ref in self._context.get_all_service_references(None, None):
            # New line
            lines.append('
')

            # Important properties
            for name in (pelix.constants.SERVICE_ID,
                         pelix.constants.SERVICE_RANKING,
                         pelix.constants.OBJECTCLASS):
                lines.append('{0}	'.format(svc_ref.get_property(name)))

            # Bundle
            bundle = svc_ref.get_bundle()
            lines.append('{0} ({1})	'.format(
                bundle.get_symbolic_name(), bundle.get_bundle_id()))

            # All properties
            lines.append('
')
            for key, value in svc_ref.get_properties().items():
                lines.append('
{0}
\n
{1}
'.format(key, value))
            lines.append('
	')

            lines.append('
')

        lines.append('
\n')
        return "
Pelix services
\n{table}\n" \
            .format(table='\n'.join(lines))

    @staticmethod
    def make_threads(request):
        """
        Prepares the section about process threads
        """
        # Get the current thread ID
        current_id = threading.current_thread().ident

        lines = ['
',
                 '
',
                 'Thread ID	',
                 'Thread Stack	',
                 '
']

        for thread_id, stack in sys._current_frames().items():
            # New line
            lines.append('
')

            # Prepare the thread ID string
            if thread_id == current_id:
                suffix = " (current)"
            else:
                suffix = ""

            # Thread ID
            lines.append('')
            lines.append("{0}{1}".format(thread_id, suffix))
            lines.append('	')

            # Prepare the stack string
            lines.append('
')
            for filename, lineno, name, line in traceback.extract_stack(stack):
                # Line position
                stack_line = '
{0}@{1}'.format(filename, lineno)
                if name:
                    stack_line += ' :: {0}(...)'.format(name)
                stack_line += '
\n
'

                if line:
                    # Line content
                    stack_line += '
{0}
'.format(line.strip())

                lines.append(stack_line + '
')

            lines.append('

')

        lines.append('
')
        return "
Threads
\n{table}\n".format(table='\n'.join(lines))

    def do_GET(self, request, response):
        """
        Handles a GET request

        :param request: The HTTP request bean
        :param request: The HTTP response handler
        """
        query = request.get_path()[len(self._path) + 1:].split('/')
        action = query[0].lower()

        # To complete the page title
        subtitle = ""

        # Make the body
        if not action:
            content = self.make_all(request)
        else:
            maker = getattr(self, 'make_' + action, None)
            if not maker:
                content = self.make_all(request)
            else:
                subtitle = " - {0}".format(action)
                content = maker(request)

        # Make the HTML result
        page = """

<title>COHORTE Debug{title_suffix}</title>

COHORTE Debug{title_suffix}

{body}

""".format(title_suffix=subtitle, css=CSS_STYLE, body=content)

        # Send the result
        response.send_content(200, page)

    @Validate
    def validate(self, context):
        """
        Component validated

        :param context: The bundle context
        """
        # Store the framework access
        self._context = context
        _logger.info("Debug servlet Ready")

    @Invalidate
    def invalidate(self, context):
        """
        Component invalidated

        :param context: The bundle context
        """
        # Clear the framework access
        self._context = None
        _logger.info("Debug servlet Gone")

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


In 2009, we developed one of the first rich media ad builders. Adventive is known for providing digital ad products that meet the needs of even the most demanding workflows, and today, we're doing the same for HTML5. We've finally reached a tipping point in cross-platform advertising. eMarketer estimates that, by 2016, mobile will be the third-largest ad channel in the US. Device proliferation is exploding, multi-screen media consumption is the status quo, and a majority of browsers now supporting HTML5. Adventive is excited to announce the release of our HTML5 Ad Builder, a powerful and intuitive creative toolkit that gives agencies, publishers and marketers the ability to create high impact HTML5 ads – that run across all screens and devices – in minutes.
As with all Adventive ad units, ads built with the HTML5 Ad Builder can be updated in real-time, without retrafficking or updates to tags. Adventive's HTML5 Ad Builder also enables user-centric design by eliminating the complexity of creative production and removing the need to worry about multiple devices and browsers. And, as with all of our ad products, our HTML5 Ad Builder is powerful, yet easy to use. Ready to try it out? Get in touch to learn more.


Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin, the co-discoverer of one of the greatest scientific explanations in history: why life is so complex, so wondrous and so diverse. Why life can survive against all manner of odds, and why some forms of life die off, never to be heard of again.
Darwin's theory, properly called the theory of Evolution through Natural Selection, has not remained constant since it's publication 150 years ago. Advances in our understanding of heredity, of genetics and of sexual selection have acted to improve our understanding of the ways in which living organisms adjust to the vagaries of nature and each other. The theory is being constantly refined and improved, but one thing is absolutely certain: The supporting evidence continues to flow in. For biologists, geologists, biochemists and a whole class of scientists, it acts like a map, allowing them to better understand what is going on, providing great clues as to the underlying reasons for particular phenomena, and governing the course of research worldwide.
To some, the theory may seem harsh, hopeless and random. It is too far an intellectual leap, directly challenging the core of their beliefs. This is a huge pity, because it's explanatory power reveals so much about our origins and the diversity in nature that we see every day. It is no more a moral codebook than the theory of gravity. It provides us with an understanding of the world as it is, not how we would like it to be. When we strive to make the world a better place for all of us, surely we are enrichened by this knowledge rather than denying it outright?
So today I celebrate Darwin Day, remembering not just Darwin, but also Wallace and all the scientists who came after him. Thank you for all the efforts you have made.
Hi dragonqueen, I hope you enjoy your read. Can you imagine what this argument would have felt like to a Victorian mind? Electrifying.
I like this clear, easily understood explanation. I find it sad and hard to understand how people can be so blinded by faith that they still don't understand anything about science and believe impossible things like a 6000 year old planet.
We celebrated Darwin day here too.
Hi Sharon, I just looked at your blog entry. It would want to be some boat alright – the current estimate of speciation is that there is between 5 million and 100 million different species of living things on the planet!
What I find with the Origin (I recently read Steve Jones' modern update of it, Almost like a Whale) is the clarity and logic with which he puts his case together. The logic is unassailable. To deny evolution as a reality you might as well reject logic too, unless of course you don't read his case for evolution or don't bother to understand it. If that is the case you can say all sorts of rubbish.


Syracuse is going into tonight's game with a lot of confidence, but the odds are with Michigan and the powerhouse that is Trey Burke.
The winner will face Louisville on Monday night. They won against Wichita State 72 to 68. It was a super close game. According to ESPN, "Louisville will try to become 8th school to win at least 3 Division I men's basketball championships"


2015-05-06: Publication of advices when buying a house in Spain in the British online guide of Worldfirst.
2014-09-29: Article in Dutch online magazine Grenzenloos about the necessity to hire a lawyer when buying a Spanish property (page 11, Dutch).
2014-03-28: C&D was present at the Dutch Second Home Fair in Utrecht with a stand and a daily well-attended seminar about the Spanish purchase process.
2014-02-04: Gustavo Calero during a Partido Popular conference in Sevilla concerning ´Solutions for the 300.000 families with illegal houses´.
2014-02-01: Publication of article in Dutch Emigreer magazine ´The buying of a house on the Spanish countryside´ (page 10, Dutch).
2013-11-20: Publication on the Spanish legal website Legal Today ´The demolition of houses on non-developable land in Almeria´ (Spanish).
2013-11-01: Dutch publication in Kosta magazine ´The buying of a house on the Spanish countryside´ (p32, Dutch).
2013-08-27: Publication on the Spanish legal website Legal Today ´Important judgement in Spain for home buyers that bought from a developer without bank guarantee´ (Spanish).
2013-04-12: Publication on the Spanish legal website Legal Today ´The invalidity of Spanish building permits: concerned holders and third parties in good faith´.
2013-02-05: Publication on the legal blog of the Bar Association of Malaga (ICAM) ´New obligations for fiscal residents in Spain´.
2013-01-29: Publication on the legal blog of the Bar Association of Malaga (ICAM) ´Legal advice: how cheap can be expensive´.
2012-12-18: Publication on the Spanish legal website Legal Today concerning ´The recent fires on the Costa del Sol and their effect on houses on non-developable land´.
2012-11-28: In collaboration with the Town Council of Frigiliana, a lecture to explain the difference between resident and non-resident taxation focusing on Inheritance Tax and capital gains.
2012-09-20: Lecture about different tax matters with our friends from U3A (University of Third Age) at their annual meeting.
I accept the terms and conditions I would like to stay informed about Spanish legal news and taxes through the newsletter of C&D Solicitors (max. 1x per month).


text:
Mel Gibson finally opens up, sort of
Sean O'Neal
Because man has yet to build a beaver puppet big enough to talk to the whole wide world, it stands to reason that Mel Gibson will have to negotiate his own way back into the public trust. Today marked Day One of those tentative talks, as Gibson submitted to the first interview (published here at Deadline) since those wildly experimental basement tapes were released, and his name quickly became synonymous with blowjobs, Jacuzzis, and house fires. Not that Gibson believes that was a fair assessment: Looking back on those infamous phone calls where he violently threatened ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva and dropped random racial epithets, Gibson termed it "one terribly awful moment in time, said to one person in the span of one day, and doesn't represent what I truly believe or how I've treated people my entire life." (It's true: Gibson's other incidents of racist remarks—the drunken anti-Semitic rants to cops in 2006, the whole "oven dodgers" thing—well, those were about the Jews.)
In keeping with that, while Gibson admits that while he regrets what he said, his general feeling seems to be that his privacy was invaded, and thus the experience has made him more or less fed up with the business of being a celebrity: "I don't care if I don't act anymore," Gibson says, adding "I could easily not act again. It's not a problem." Though in the same breath, he confirms that he will, in fact, act again, most immediately on a movie he describes as "like Alexander Dumas… total bodice-ripping swashbuckling stuff, but it's funny" for Braveheart screenwriter Randy Wallace. Throughout his tone seems to waver like this, vacillating between jaded and defiant, and championing the people who still believe in him one minute while also saying he won't be hurt if audiences turn their backs on him because "I'm way beyond that."
The rest of the interview is more or less Gibson evading any discussion of his legal battle with Grigorieva (due to pending custody decisions, he says), diplomatically dismissing the job he lost on The Hangover II ("You have to let that go"), giving shout-outs to Whoopi Goldberg and Jodie Foster for their support ("I'd give [Foster] a pedicure every day of the week if I could"—sorry, Whoopi), and doing the usual celebrity thing of wondering aloud why anyone would ever be so fascinated with his personal life. "Why is that of interest to anyone?" Gibson asks when the subject of his relationship with Grigorieva is brought up. "It always baffles me. Why is that of interest to anyone?" Well, it could be those years that Gibson spent trying to make Grigorieva a pop star, thus making his private life very public, and practically forcing the press to take notice of her for his own investment's sake. Or it could be the whole "blow me before the Jacuzzi" thing, which you have to admit—you don't hear that every day.
Not that Gibson is pressed much on these matters: Interviewer Allison Hope Weiner lends a very sympathetic ear, shying away from asking pointed follow-ups (like whether or not he actually hit Grigorieva, as he pled guilty to doing) and often framing things as though Gibson is weathering some sort of storm—like when she links his current problems to his 2006 DUI arrest and asks whether he has to "compartmentalize things so you can keep working when you're at the center of something like this?"—without ever suggesting that said storm was whipped up entirely by his own huffing and puffing. Thus, it's a "candid" interview where its subject doesn't really admit to much, other than feeling slightly victimized. As we've been following Gibson's arc from the manic expressionism of those early demo tapes to his current output in terms of jazz, I suppose you could compare this to Miles Davis' You're Under Arrest—a smoothed-out pop effort that doesn't quite fit with the rest of his discography, and even though it comes from an honest place, it still leaves the listener a little cold.