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Facebook Old Groups Migration to New Groups – What You Need To Know
Many businesses have been confused as to whether a Facebook Group or a Facebook Page is the best solution when it comes to marketing on the largest online social network.
I've always recommended Pages because they're the only feature on Facebook to get indexed on Google. (Whether someone has an account on Facebook or not, whether a user is logged on or not, they can search and find Facebook Pages on Google). Plus, the content you share on your Page goes out into the News Feed of your fans (depending on the "EdgeRank" score), and you can easily customize your Page with apps.
With Old Groups, the content didn't go into the News Feed of members and you couldn't add custom apps. One primary advantage of Old Groups was that Admins could send a message to all members in groups with up to 5,000 members, and the email would go right into members' main inbox (that is, before New Messages came along!). As soon as your group went over 5,000, it could keep growing but the feature to email all members disappeared. In addition, the option to have an Open, Closed or Secret group has its advantages.
Introducing New Groups
Then, in October last year, Facebook unveiled their vastly different "New Groups" because it seemed Old Groups had run their course and much confusion continued around whether to use a Page or a Group. The biggest change with the New Groups was that members could be added without their permission, which caused a lot of pushback in the blogosphere.
Facebook argued that you could only ever be added to a group by someone who was your Facebook friend – presumably, our friends on Facebook wouldn't add us to groups we didn't want to be in. And, if you don't want to be in a New Group? Just click the Remove button.
As Mark Zuckerberg stated in his own blog post about New Groups, this new product was designed for small groups of friends:
The biggest problem in social networking is helping you easily interact with your friends and share information in lots of different contexts.
For example, you might want to share photos from a family vacation with just your family, send a video from a party to just the people who were there, invite coworkers to an office event, play a game with a few friends, or use a running website with your friends who like jogging.
We've long heard that people would find Facebook more useful if it were easier to connect with smaller groups of their friends instead of always sharing with everyone they know. For some it's their immediate family and for others it's their fantasy football league, but the common concern is always some variant of, "I'd share this thing, but I don't want to bother 250 people. Or my grandmother. Or my boss."
Remember, the average number of friends Facebook users have is a mere 130. (Keep in mind the Dunbar 150). Those of us who choose to push up close to the 5,000 limit are an anomaly. So, Facebook's New Groups were designed to communicate with small groups… but that's not to say many marketers are using the New Groups for business purposes: focus groups, masterminds, networking, etc.
The advantage (or disadvantage, depending on how you look at it!) of these New Groups is the email notifications – much like a Google Group, Yahoo Group or LinkedIn Group. Any time a member makes a post, it goes out to all members as an email notification… unless and until they turn off these emails. (See question #8 below for how to edit these settings).
All owners of the old style Groups were basically left in the lurch; they couldn't upgrade and couldn't take advantage of the features of New Groups without starting all over.
Old Groups migrating to New Groups
Now, more change is happening with Groups and, again, there is some confusion and pushback. Basically, Facebook is now on a mission to eradicate all Old Groups and focus solely on New Groups for connecting in smaller groups of people you know (or want to get to know!) and Pages for business.
1. What is the difference between "archiving" and "upgrading" my Old Group?
If you are the owner (or a member) of an Old Group, you will see at the top one of two messages now: either the group is scheduled to be archived or you have the option of upgrading.
If your Old Group has sufficient recent activity then you'll be offered the choice to upgrade. Upgrading means that your Old Group basically morphs into the New Group format and pretty much everything remains intact, including content and members. Members will receive an email notification of the upgrade and begin to receive email notifications of group activity by their friends, unless they edit or turn this setting off.
In the Help Center on the Old to New Group upgrade, Facebook reminds us:
Keep in mind that the new groups format was designed to help you share with the small groups of people in your life. If you've been using your old group to promote your business, we recommend you create a page instead.
So far, one Old Group I'm a member of has been upgraded and it has over 700 members. Hm, not exactly what I'd call small!
If your Old Group has been inactive for a while, your only option is to allow Facebook to automatically archive your group. What this means is your Old Group will also morph into the New Group format and all your content will be migrated over. However, NO members will be migrated! You'll basically have an empty, dormant group. Pretty useless, if you ask me.
But then, Facebook figured you weren't really using the Group anyway and the migration is simply a way for you to retain your past content. You can add members back into an archived group, though, and get it going again. Keep in mind you can only add your Facebook friends as members of any groups.
2. Do I have a choice as to upgrading vs. archiving my Old Group?
No, unfortunately not. You're at the mercy of Facebook's algorithms. If you see the message that your group will be archived soon, you won't be given the option to upgrade. Only those groups with "enough recent activity to make it a good candidate for a new group" will see the message at the top of their Old Group that they can upgrade.
*NEWSFLASH: This comment just in from my fan page:
Sue Soucy Excellent post as always, Mari! I have a little trick that I tried (and it worked)… One of my old groups that I was planning to revive soon had the message up top that didn't include the ability to upgrade. So, I started to make a little activity on the page. I left a post… went back to it a day later and clicked "like" and then a couple days later, the option to upgrade showed up!
*Update to this post added 11:00pm PST May 10, 2011.
3. How do I delete my Old Group?
If you're the original Admin that created the group, the only way to fully delete an Old Group is to remove all members, then remove yourself and the group will vanish. Facebook automatically removes groups with no members. Obviously, if you have a large number of members, this isn't very practical. However, refer to question #1 and 2 above – most likely you'll either want to keep an active upgraded New Group or just let a dormant archived New Group sit there.
4. Can I message everyone in my New Group?
With the email notification feature, by default, all members receive an email any time any member who is a friend of theirs posts/comments on the group wall. In essence, New Groups are truly a group experience as opposed to one owner communicating with all members. Remember that group members can turn off email notifications, of course; however, they would still see activity in their groups directly on Facebook.
5. Will I suddenly start to get a bunch of spam email from upgraded groups?
The default email notification setting is to receive emails when a friend posts. So, unless you have a ton of friends who are very active in a group, your email should be manageable. However, you can change email notification settings in any of your groups – just click the Edit Settings button at the top right (and see question #8 below).
6. How do I see a list of all the Groups I've joined?
On your home page, look down the left side – if you're a member of any New Groups and have chosen to show them in your navigation, you'll see a list there plus a "See All" link at the bottom (you may need to click "More" first depending on how many New Groups you're in). Or, if you have Groups in your list of apps further down, just click that link to see all your groups.
7. How do I leave a Group?
To leave either an Old Group or New Group, go to your list of Groups (see #6 above) and just hover over any group name, then click the "x." Or, you can navigate to the group first and click the Leave Group link (bottom left on Old Groups, upper right on New Groups). I'm going through all 150+ groups that I joined over the years and am choosing to leave most of them. I've checked many of them and it seems very few will be upgraded anyway; most have the archive notice due to inactivity.
8. How do I change my email notification settings for New Groups?
Go to the group you wish to edit and look for the "Edit Settings" button at the top right of the group page. See screenshot below:
In the popup window, the first menu for notifications has four choices – you can receive an email when 1) A member posts or comments (maximum notifications), 2) A member posts (not comments), 3) A friend posts (my recommendation for groups with lots of active members), or 4) Only posts I am subscribed to (ideal for best control but you may miss some new posts).
You then check or uncheck the email box. You can choose to show the group in your home page navigation always, sometimes, or never; and opt to receive group chat messages or not.
In addition, be sure to go to your main email notifications settings here and scroll to the third section down for Groups where you can select the various default settings you'd like for all Groups:
I trust this was helpful whether you are an Old/New Group member or owner. I plan to write another blog post that goes into great detail about all the New Group settings, uses for these groups, and group etiquette.
Meantime, please let me know in the comments below if you have any questions about the topic of Old to New Group migration. Do you have an Old Group that is being archived? Or upgraded? If so, how are members responding to the upgrade? Will you be going through all the groups you joined some time ago and leaving most of them?
Related posts:
96 Comments
I just found a group with over 19000 members, I thought we were limited to 5000?
Hi I am a group admin who in error changed the group seting from open to closed. Please it says it is impossible to change. I need help as the purpose of the group is defeated if we cannot share. I need help please
Hi Mari, Hope you are well? By accident I migrated 1 of my groups with another. Now my group is part of a page that is supposed to be my competition
… How do I UN-migrate my group? is it possible at all?
I had a lot of content under the "Information" tab in my old group and now it all seems to be missing. Where is it? did it get transferred? Or is the hospital journey of my deceased baby not worth keeping?
i have a open group ..how i can make it closed
I'm a member of loads of old style groups, and many of them just have at the top "this group has been migrated" and I'm no longer receiving any messages from them and I can't find them or re-join them or anything, all FB does is take me to the old group.
Some of these groups are quite important – for example one of them is a group for the local Explorer Scout Unit which I'm an assistant at, and the other week they sent a message out on the Facebook group to tell people they where they were meeting after Easter, which I didn't get 'cos mine is just showing the old group.
So how do I join the new group?


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Bridge Street fa�ade. Houses of Parliament seen from across the River Thames, London. Architects: Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin. 1840-60.
Photograph by George P. Landow. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Last modified 25 June 2015

subset: commoncrawl


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Computer Programming/Procedures and functions
Different terminology is used in different programming languages to mean different things. The same things in different languages can have different names. Programs, Procedures, Functions, Subroutines, Subprograms, Subqueries ... these words all have very similar meanings. The issues or differences are whether they can stand alone;
We can call an object, it executes and performs a complex process. Whether that object is called any one of the above list depends on what programming language it is written in, whether a human being can call it, or whether it has to be called by another program or one of the other names on the list.
Subroutines and functions[edit | edit source]
In general programming theory, when an institution using the programs can have libraries of millions of programs collectively with billions of lines of source code, we want to avoid duplication of having the same code in multiple places. Suppose something needs changing. There is a new error message to add to the collection. Customer numbers just went from being 6 digit #s to 8 digits. There is a new currency, such as the Euro, to be handled. If this stuff was referenced in every single program that worked with it, we could have tens of thousands of programs to have to update to handle the change. But if there are sub-programs to handle different scenarios, then when that scenario changes, the only update is to the relevant sub-program. Similarly, when we write a new program, many elements of what it needs are already in existence, such as accessing a particular file to get a particular kind of data, calculating on-hand inventory. Instead of writing many lines of source code to do that function, with that code replicated across millions of programs, we can call the standard sub-program that performs that function.
In some languages there are parameters to be passed from the calling program to the called program. The secondary program causes those values to be altered, then returns control to the primary program. This architecture, of one program calling a secondary program to do specialize work for it, can in fact go many levels deep. The different programs, that are calling each other, can be written in many different languages. This is done for two big reasons: organization of overall functions into logical manageable pieces; and different languages are better suited to different types of functions.
Subroutines and "sub contents" in RPG[edit | edit source]
RPG has sections of code to handle activities like file definition, tables & arrays defined, input, output, communications with other systems and other programs, various kinds of data structures defined, and calculations. The calculation section has a main routine and any number of subroutines which can be called from the main routine and from each other.
In RPG, a chunk of source code is called a subroutine if it has a defined begin point and end point and is embedded within the main program. Some point in the main program calls the subroutine. Control goes to the start of the subroutine which then has control until either it gets to the end point or prematurely hits an exit statement within the body of the subroutine. Here is an example:
Main calculations routine RPG statement RPG statement RPG statement EXSR $TOP RPG statement RPG statement End of main routine
The EXSR command means Execute Subroutine. Subroutine names can include letters, symbols, and numbers, but may not start with a number. Since a compilation includes a cross index of all elements used in the program, it is customary to use a special character at the start of certain kinds of functions, so that they all show up in a consistent location in the cross index, such as currency symbol for subroutines, and some other symbol for output to printer.
At the beginning of any subroutine it is good programming practice to place comments with a summary statement or explanation of what the function is of the $TOP subroutine, such as to handle what is to be printed at the top of the report.
Comments BEGSR RPG statement RPG statement RPG statement EXCPT @PAGE EXCPT @TITLE RPG statement RPG statement EXCPT @HEAD RPG statement RPG statement ENDSR
BEGSR is the begin subroutine statement, while ENDSR is the end subroutine statement. EXCPT is the statement that identifies some type of output to a printer or printer-like file. Data can be written to a log or other object that is in a format similar to printout, sequential lines of stuff.
When control is transferred from this program to another program, called by this one, then this one calls that other program a sub-program. Sub=programs contain other types of RPG content such as file definition, input output etc. A sub-program does not need to access any files. It can get all of its data from data structures populated by the calling program.
These subroutines and subprograms are merely a way to organize the program into logical chunks of the work to be done. We can think of them as being black boxes which are fed in various different standard pieces of information, only to return predictable results to the main program. Thus when a program needs to be maintained, we can effectively ignore that part of the program that has nothing to do with the maintenance effort. This is critical when we are maintaining programs whose collective source code, main routines and subroutines and subprogram contents, can run to hundreds of thousands of lines of code.
If you were to compare a listing of the actual source code of an RPG program, and what is there at time of compilation, you would probably see a lot of stuff in the compile that is not explicitly in the source code. This usually gets there one of two ways.
If using a standard externally described object, such as a file or data structure, the source code only needs to specify that object with a few lines of code, which one, and what changes are needed for its handling in this program. At compile time, the whole layout of the file, such as all columns of the table, is called into what gets compiled.
Another way, when using standard subroutines, or the code for calling standard subprograms, that are to be replicated in millions of other programs, is not to have that code within the source code of every one of the millions of programs, but to have a single line of code identifying what standard code is to be brought in here, and if in this program any of it is to be referenced by other names.
Very few other languages can be embedded within RPG source code, such as SQL/400. RPG programs can transfer control to other programs, which RPG calls sub-programs. Those other programs can be written in any language. Depending on language, those programs need to be written so as to expect to be called, and the code, associated with this handshake with the calling program, can make it impractical to run the program in some way other than being so called.
Different kinds of error messages, with their associated help links, can be stored in different libraries based on the nature of the problem. A person, using this program, may have called for a record that does not exist, tried to get at values that are out of bounds. The most hours in one day is 25, which is only on the day that gets changed due to daylight savings. If someone tries to enter what activities occurred in a factory in one day, and the total time by one factory worker is more than 25 hours, this is an example of input that is out of bounds. The program needs to communicate back to the user what the problem is. Part of the message handling can use a sub-program that only knows what error message is involved by some reference code. The actual current error message is not explicitly referenced in the sub-program that handles error messages, so that it can handle any different error message. The only parameters it needs are those that define how to access the particular error message and its associated references, such as the manner in which a user may interact with it.


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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The U.S. Air Force has joined other military branches in suspending tuition assistance that thousands of active-duty airmen rely on to pay for college classes.
Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Laurel Tingley said airmen were notified in an email Tuesday that new applications for tuition assistance won't be accepted because of the $85 billion in federal spending cuts that went into effect March 1.
The U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard suspended their assistance programs last week. A decision by the U.S. Navy is pending.
The tuition assistance programs pay up to $250 per semester hour for active duty personnel, up to $4,500 per year. Military personnel may still qualify for aid under the G.I. Bill, which is not affected.


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Jeter gets back into the swing of things
Captain in batting practice, regular fielding drills for first time since ALCS
TAMPA, Fla. -- The last time Derek Jeter was spraying batting practice liners around a field, it was before Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, a contest that the Yankees shortstop would not be able to leave under his own power.
Jeter was back in the swing on Monday as the Yankees held their first full-squad workout of the spring. The captain showed off his cuts and went through defensive drills at shortstop, showing no grimaces or limping on his surgically repaired left ankle.
"I felt fine. I felt good," Jeter said. "[It was the] first time I was doing everything on the field in terms of hitting on the field and ground balls on the dirt. Everything went good."
Jeter had been taking grounders on grass only and hitting in the batting cages recently at the Yankees' Minor League complex in Tampa.
He did not run the bases on Monday and said that he has been told to take his progress slowly; Yankees head athletic trainer Steve Donohue has excused him from running drills and stretching on the field with the team for now.
"I thought he looked OK," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "From everything I've heard and everything I've seen, I thought he took his ground balls, he moved, he turned some double plays, and it's kind of what I expected to see right now.
"There's a plan that we'll increase a little bit each day and get stronger each day, and we'll get him in a game when we can."
Jeter said that he is "a couple of weeks behind" where he usually would be at this point of the spring, but is convinced his ankle will not be a problem. He did say that "everything else feels a little rough" as he knocks the winter rust off.
"Everything [is sore]. Where do you want to start?" Jeter said. "Neck. My shoulder. My back. My calf. My foot. I'm just talking about getting in shape in general. You talk to guys who worked out all offseason, the first week of Spring Training, they're sore -- so don't make a big deal out of this."


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"We believe the biggest challenges for engineering and construction firms are still months away and will be substantial."
RALEIGH, NC, September 10, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- FMI Corporation, the leading provider of consulting and investment banking services to the Built Environment, is pleased to announce the release of its third FMI Quarterly issue for 2020. In this publication (co-sponsored by Zurich), we share a collection of articles on how to continue leading through this time of complexity and uncertainty. Articles address topics such as agile leadership, business differentiation, strategic decision-making and optimization of fleet management, among others. We also present potential scenarios the heavy/civil construction market may face with the FAST Act expiring.
Chris Daum, CEO of FMI, states, "The damage wrought by COVID-19 is winding its way through the general economy and will certainly impact the Built Environment in both anticipated and surprising ways. We believe the biggest challenges for engineering and construction firms are still months away and will be substantial. On behalf of my FMI colleagues, we trust you will find the content of this edition of the Quarterly helpful, and we are ready to connect with you further on these―and any other issues―you and your team are dealing with during this truly extraordinary time."
To access the FMI Quarterly, please click here.
FMI is the leading provider of consulting and investment banking to the Built Environment. We provide services in the areas of strategy, leadership and organizational development, performance, technology and innovation, mergers and acquisitions, financial advisory and private equity financing.
For more information, please visit www.fminet.com.
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The integration of East Asia is a topic of perennial interest – whether it be monetary integration (much discussed in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis), trade integration (promoted via ever-expanding FTA areas) or even political integration. But what is not widely discussed (as yet) is actually the best hope for effective integration – and that is energy integration, via an Asian super grid linking the enhanced electric power systems of China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia and perhaps Russia.
Just such an Asian Super Grid has been proposed – by the charismatic Softbank CEO Son Masayoshi, driver of Japan's post-Fukushima shift to a renewable energy pathway. The first steps towards the Asian Super Grid (ASG) were taken in October, when SB Renewables, Son's new subsidiary specializing in renewable energy, announced an agreement with a company in Mongolia, Newcom, to develop a site in the Gobi desert for a giant wind farm that would feed renewable power into the grid. (See 'Softbank plans to develop wind power in Mongolia with Newcom', by Chisake Watanabe, Bloomberg, Oct 24 2012)
By the end of 2012, it is anticipated that SB Renewables and Newcom will have identified the site for the first wind farm in the Gobi desert through a joint venture, Clean Energy Asia established in March 2012. The proposed wind farm would be rated at 300 MW (the equivalent of a thermal power plant), and could be operational as early as 2014. Feasibility studies for three other sites have already been commissioned, with power capacity of 7 GW – or the equivalent of seven nuclear power stations.
Newcom has already established a track record, building Mongolia's first wind farm in record time, and bringing it to fruition by the end of 2012. Mongolia is a classic instance of a latecomer country powering ahead through heavy utilization of its vast fossil fuel reserves (mainly coal). It is a country sharing major borders with China and Russia that has had unprecedented flows of inward foreign investment from companies like Rio Tinto to build its coal export industry – much of that coal going to power China's black industrial revolution. But at the same time, Mongolia is seeing the development of vast wind farms that promise a genuine green revolution. Newcom, led by its English-speaking CEO, Bayanjargal Byambasaikhan, has created a huge new wind farm at Salkhit, just outside the capital Ulan Bator, where 31 wind turbines are being brought into commission to generate 5% of the country's power needs (now totally dependent on coal). (See Kit Gillett, 'Wind farms in Mongolia could help minimize pollution, reliance on coal', Globalpost, Aug 13 2012.)
Salkit Wind Farm
But this is only the start. Newcom and Mr Byambasaikan see a future where Mongolia's wind resources can be harnessed to power not only its own development, but also power much of China's and Asia's electric grids as well, earning profits for Newcom and export earnings for Mongolia.
Japan Renewable Energy Foundation
Mr Son announced the Asian Super Grid as one of the first projects of his newly established Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (JREF), set up in May 2011 immediately after the Fukushima disaster. Mr Son recruited the former head of Sweden's National Energy Agency, Tomas Kåberger, to head up the JREF. At an important conference staged in Tokyo on the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, the JREF launched the proposal for an Asian Super Grid, in conjunction with the Desertec Foundation, that is backing a similar proposal linking renewable energy generating sites in North Africa with European power grids. (The proceedings of the conference, REVision 2012)
The breathtaking scope of the ASG proposal is of a piece with the other far-reaching initiatives taken by Mr Son's SB Renewables and the JREF – including a series of solar farms in Japan designed to take advantage of the new feed-in tariffs launched in Japan on July 1st 2012. Indeed the JREF and SB Renewables, have been driving the debate over the phase-out of nuclear and accelerated uptake of renewables. (See Andrew DeWit's articles such as 'Japan's new green political innovators respond to government attempts to restart nuclear power', Jun 13 2012, and DeWit, 'Japan's remarkable Renewable Energy drive – after Fukushima', Mar 11 2012. Dr Kåberger outlined the ASG proposal in further detail at a presentation in Mongolia in March (Fig. 1))
Fig. 1. Asia Super-grid proposal from Japan Renewable Energy Foundation
Source: Japan Renewable Energy Foundation
The core idea is that wind farms (and possibly solar farms as well) in the Gobi desert can be linked via high-tension transmission lines to Korea, Japan and possibly Russia; to China; and thence (more speculatively) to Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and even India. The costs of generating power in the desert locations would be low, and provided the transmission costs can be kept low enough through utilization of high-capacity HVDC lines (which China for example is installing under its plans for grid upgrading under the 12th Five year Plan), the power delivered in the various countries would be competitive with thermal or nuclear power.
Fig. 2 The Desertec proposalSource: Desertec Foundation
The same idea underpins the proposal from the Desertec Foundation to link European grids with solar power stations in the deserts of North Africa (Fig. 2). The Desertec proposal has been championed by German firms (despite some recent high-profile withdrawals), and other firms in Europe -- most of whom would envisage being involved in the building of any eventual interconnected grid utilizing renewable power. The proposal has received a significant boost since the Arab Spring uprisings, offering North African countries like Tunisia, Libya and Egypt new possibilities of generating energy to power their industrialization and to have a product to export as well. The basic idea behind Desertec is shown in Fig. 2.
Indeed there is already an initiative linking Tunisia with Italy, promoted by a consortium consisting of Nur Energie (a British firm with a French name) and Top Oilfield Services, an oil and gas engineering firm operating from Tunisia (the TuNur consortium). The Tunisian solar park would be rated at 2 GW, or equivalent to two nuclear power stations. The proposal calls for an undersea high-tension cable linking the Tunisian solar park with the Italian grid, as shown in Fig. 3. (See 'Oil firm's African solar farm will transmit sub-Med electricity to Italy', by Mark Helper, SmartPlanet, Jan 27 2012)
In short, the idea of the Asian Super grid in itself is not so far-fetched – and when I discussed the proposal with Mr Son at the Global Green Growth summit in Seoul in May this year (where we were both speakers), he was confident that the proposal is sound and can be implemented. He outlined to me the basic concept that drives it – free trade in electric power.
Fig. 3. TuNur proposal for a first electric power linkage between Italy and Tunisia
Source: Desertec Foundation
Basic concept of the ASG
The core driver of the Asian Super Grid is the proposal to link the electricity grids of China, Mongolia, Japan, Korea and possibly Russia into a vast interconnected power system. Such an IT-enhanced interconnected grid will be able to accommodate the fluctuating inputs from various renewable sources and match them to fluctuating demand – thereby enabling renewable sources to be scaled up to a level exceeding incumbent fossil-fuelled systems. As in Son's earlier ventures into IT, computing and telecommunications, his strategy is to tackle established monopolies and take advantage of liberalization to create effective competitors that sow the seeds of creative destruction. In the case of the ASG the established firms are the large electric power firms (like Tepco in Japan or Chinese giants like China Datang and China Southern Power Grid Co.) and the concept depends on being able to break their quasi-monopoly control over electricity markets by trading electricity as a commodity between the established (and enhanced) national grids.
Trading electricity!
Son put this revolutionary idea on the table in Japan in hearings before the Diet in April. "Let's connect Japan to other countries and make them compete", he said. "We import oil and gas. What's wrong with importing electricity?" (See 'First the iPhone; now renewables' by Mitsuro Obe, Wall Street Journal, 18 June 2012)
Indeed, what's wrong with the idea? When Son Masayoshi and I met in Seoul in April, he told me that he had asked METI officials whether it was 'illegal' to import electric power, in competition with the established monopolistic power generators like Tepco. He said they were nonplussed. They told him that it wasn't legal, in the sense that there were regulations covering it – but neither was it illegal. His intervention has evidently sparked a scramble at METI to deal with the prospect of a super-competitive electric power market able to import renewable power from sites such as Mongolian wind farms. This is meat and drink to Son, who sparked such scrambles in his earlier interventions via Softbank into the IT, PC and telecomms markets in Japan.
There is one immediate obstacle. Japan's Electricity Business Act has an article restricting foreign companies from supplying electricity in Japan – so that represents a legislative hurdle that would need to be cleared if the ASG is to become a reality.
Assuming Mr Son gets the go-ahead to import electric power, he foresees a relatively simple initial step as involving a link between Japan's southern island of Kyushu and Korea – calling for a 400 km high-tension cable embodying the latest 700 kV HVDC technology. This cable length is comparable to the existing link in Europe between Norway and the Netherlands (two of the rare countries that have actually interconnected their power grids), which is 580 km long and was completed in 2008 (14 years after the two countries agreed in principle to link their grids). Obviously Mr Son intends to move at a faster pace than that.
The way would then be open to build the infrastructure that would carry current at very high amperage levels from renewables hotspots like the Gobi desert to industrial centres in China, Korea and Japan. But just as important as the infrastructure would be the political agreement to allow free trade in electric power between these grids. This might be a (relatively) small step for the countries concerned, but it would be a giant leap for mankind. For it would bring a resolution to the logjam that has been holding back renewable energy, keeping it as a marginal player in individual countries with their powerful fossil fuel vested interests. Free trade in electric power would break that logjam very effectively – just as Mr Son's business models have broken incumbent oligarchies in IT, PCs and telecomms in Japan. The Asian Super grid would then open the way to similar grand proposals, linking North Africa and Europe, and the southwest of the US to the eastern seaboard.
The reason that this is such an important initiative is that the empowered grid, rendered 'smart' with IT to moderate intermittent power supplies with fluctuating demand and 'strong' through the deployment of new HVDC cables to carry renewable power long distances, is the backbone of any substantial push towards a renewable energy future. Over and above what can be done with individual renewable energy technologies and sources, the grid itself has to be enhanced and rendered competitive, so that a multitude of small power generators can be enabled to supply power to the grid, which would be able to accommodate them. Feed-in tariffs complement such a strategy perfectly – which is why they have been so effective in Germany, and should now prove their worth in Japan (since the new FiTs were introduced on July 1st) and in China (where provincial-level feed-in tariff experiments were introduced in 2012).
Indeed the free-market approach being championed by Son Masayoshi in Japan complements the approach to market expansion favoured by feed-in tariffs, in that both envisage market expansion as stemming from the cumulative and aggregate effect of thousands and eventually millions of decentralized decisions over what to connect to the grid and how to do so. China's huge investments in the smart grid are needed to accommodate such decentralized power generation – while its promotion of vast quasi-monopolies in power generation (such as the State Grid Corporation of China) will eventually work against such a process. For now, the SGCC plays a positive role in upgrading China's grid and equipping it to accommodate varying renewable inputs – including those from new sources such as wind farms in Mongolia.
Cost advantages will drive the ASG
The key to the Asian Super grid living up to its potential lies in costs, and its capacity to exchange power between countries at costs below those currently obtaining for thermal and nuclear power. In Japan the official Commission into costs of different energy sources (a post-Fukushima initiative) found that nuclear power cost at a minimum 8.9 Yen per kWh (against wind power as low as 9.9 Yen and coal-burning thermal power at 9.5 Yen (noting that the costs for thermal and nuclear are in practice much higher than had previously been used in planning documents). (See 'Nuclear power generation costs surge', The Japan Times, Dec 15 2011)
Now Son Masayoshi reckons that costs to generate wind power in the Gobi desert would be far below these levels, at around 3 to 4 Yen per kWh, assuming that land for the wind farms could be leased virtually rent-free. The transmission costs from Mongolia to Japan he reckons at around 2 Yen per kWh, making the total of 5 to 6 Yen per kWh -- much less than current Japanese power costs. (These costs are quoted in the Wall Street Journal by Mitsuru Obe)
It is this cost differential that will drive the scheme. But it would also ensure massive savings in carbon emissions, which would be utilized by all the countries sharing in the ASG to bolster their positions in international global warming mitigation negotiations. This is veritably a win-win solution for all, and potentially a major step towards reducing tensions between the East Asian countries.
Towards free trade in cleantech goods and services
The other aspect of the Asian Super Grid that has yet to attract public discussion is the boost that it would give to an East Asian Free Trade Agreement in Cleantech goods and services. There is no such proposal on the table at the moment. But in March this year, Matthew Slaughter argued in the Wall Street Journal that the best way of avoiding an all-out trade war involving wind and solar power devices would be to create a Clean Tech Agreement (CTA) within the institutional setting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and modelled on the very successful Information Technology Agreement that was first signed and entered into effect in 1996. Since then the ITA has ensured that trade in IT products has been largely free of trade barriers, and has boosted the uptake of IT products and services in developing countries, accelerating the development of China, India and other emerging giants. The ITA is so far the only such agreement of its kind endorsed by the WTO. (See 'How to avoid a wind and solar trade war' by Matthew Slaughter, Wall Street Journal, March 13 2012) The idea has received enthusiastic endorsement from no less an entrepreneur than Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech, the world's largest solar panel producer. (See his guest post 'Solar energy trade wars – enough is enough' in Financial Times, Sep 11 2012).
The case for a similar Clean Tech Agreement (CTA) to counter the protectionist tendencies evident in the imposition of tariffs against solar modules by the US (and threatened action from the EU) is powerful. (See my article on the US and EU trade sanctions on solar PV panels from China, and their likely boomerang effects, at European Energy Review: 'US and EU trade sanctions against Chinese solar PV cells: A blow for solar power and sustainability', 1 November 2012). But in the current trade environment, with hostilities in the air, it is unlikely that a push for a WTO-endorsed CTA would be successful.
This is where the Asian Super Grid and its foundation in free trade in clean electric power comes in. If Mr Son and the JREF are successful in promoting the idea (and the initial agreement with Newcom to develop huge wind farms in the Gobi is a strong pointer to its viability), then free trade in the fundamental clean technology – green electric power – would be established for the East Asian region. If free trade in green electric power proves its worth in promoting the transition to a clean energy and economic future (as well as boosting the clean development of countries like Mongolia), then it is a short step to realizing the benefits of free trade in cleantech goods and services generally – thus giving advanced countries like Japan and Korea a vast market for their cleantech goods and services, and promoting China's cleantech development over its black, fossil-fuelled rival. Such an agreement would establish the Inner Asian-East Asian cleantech region as world leader in the emerging clean technologies of the 21st century – so that the EU, the US and other emerging regions will also wish to join or emulate it. Thereby lies the path to a global CTA that could be presented to and endorsed by the WTO – helping to prevent the trade spats that already threaten to derail the cleantech revolution.
Indeed the APEC countries have already taken the first steps towards such a comprehensive CTA, in their historic step of committing to reduce all tariffs on 'environmental goods' to a maximum of 5% by 2015. This step, announced at the Leaders' Summit in Vladivostok in September, creates an expanded market for goods such as solar cells and wind turbines, and thereby expands the market for exports from Japan, the US and Australia, as well as China and Korea, thereby reducing costs of importing cleantech products for the rapidly developing countries of Southeast Asia. (See 'APEC closes historic trade deal on environmental goods', 12 Sep 2012, USTR).
The final point worth noting is that many of the sources of tension within and linked to East Asia – such as the disputes over territorial claims to the sea around remote islands involving China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia – involve access to fossil fuels. These are international disputes that stem from the 'business as usual' model of industrialization and its assumption that access to fossil fuels is the critical factor in successful transition to modernity. But the cleantech paradigm represents a sharp break with this thinking – and with it, reduces the potential for such disputes. There is therefore much at stake in the success of the free trade approach to clean technology being championed by business leaders such as Son Masayoshi from Japan and Shi Zhengrong of China.
John A. Mathews is Professor of Management, Macquarie University, Australia, and Eni Chair of Competitive Dynamics and Global Strategy at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. His research focuses on the competitive dynamics of international business, the evolution of technologies and their strategic management, and the rise of new high technology industries. He researches the development of the institutional capacities of firms and governments in the Asia-Pacific, internationalisation processes of firms and the theoretical explanations for latecomer firms' success. His work has focused in recent years on the emergence of the 'green economy' and the transition to renewable energies, and the institutional changes needed to provide industrial capitalism with genuine long-term sustainability. He is the author of Strategizing, Disequilibrium, and Profit. Recent articles include "Knowledge flows in the solar photovoltaic industry : insights from patenting by Taiwan, Korea, and China," (with C.Y. Wu) Research Policy, 2012, 41(3); and "Fast-follower industrial dynamics : the case of Taiwan's emergent solar photovoltaic industry (with M.C. Hu and C.Y. Wu). Industry and Innovation," 2011, 18(2), 177-202.
Recommended citation: John A. Mathews, "The Asian Super Grid," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 48, No. 1, November 26, 2012.
Articles on related subjects
• Andrew DeWit, Japan's Energy Policy at a Crossroads: A Renewable Energy Future?
• Jeff Kingston, Japan's Nuclear Village
• Andrew Dewit, Japan's Remarkable Energy Drive
• Andrew DeWit, Megasolar Japan: The Prospects for Green Alternatives to Nuclear Power
•Peter Lynch and Andrew DeWit, Feed-in Tariffs the Way Forward for Renewable Energy
• Andrew DeWit, Fallout From the Fukushima Shock: Japan's Emerging Energy Policy
• Sun-Jin YUN, Myung-Rae Cho and David von Hippel, The Current Status of Green Growth in Korea: Energy and Urban Security
• Son Masayoshi and Andrew DeWit, Creating a Solar Belt in East Japan: The Energy Future
• Kaneko Masaru, The Plan to Rebuild Japan: When You Can't Go Back, You Move Forward. Outline of an Environmental Sound Energy Policy
• Andrew DeWit, The Earthquake in Japanese Energy Policy
• Andrew DeWit and Sven Saaler, Political and Policy Repercussions of Japan's Nuclear and Natural Disasters in Germany
• Andrew DeWit and Iida Tetsunari, The "Power Elite" and Environmental-Energy Policy in Japan
to our monthly Newsletter to learn and link to the content of each issue.


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The Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), Abyssinian Development Corporation (ADC), and Community Playthings today cut ribbons to officially open Harlem's first Bright Space center for homeless children at Abyssinian House, a Tier II transitional residence serving the families of Harlem. Bright Space centers are designed to provide homeless children with a dedicated warm, enriching area to play and learn.
"We are inspired and energized by this partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Abyssinian Development Corporation, and Community Playthings, which will provide some of Harlem's neediest children with engaging educational places to play, learn, and find security and warmth," said David Lissy, CEO, Bright Horizons Family Solutions and Member of the Board of the Bright Horizons Foundation for Children. "It is our mission to raise the bar for the quality of care and early education for young children across this country. This partnership helps ensure that Harlem's neediest children will get an early start and opportunity to begin a never-ending journey of success in school and life."
Bright Space Centers Enable Homeless Children to Discover the Magic of Childhood
Studies have shown that children of all ages thrive when they have a safe place in which to explore the world around them, filled with books, toys, and activities that are developmentally appropriate. However, the reality for homeless children is that they do not have access to the space and equipment necessary to develop social, cognitive, gross motor, and language skills, which are so critical for success later in life.
At homeless shelters, it is a challenge simply to find a room to sleep in, never mind toys to play with, comfortable chairs to sit on, or books to stimulate the imagination. When children are in a homeless shelter, it is a challenge for them to discover the magic of childhood.
"Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center is proud to participate in this partnership with Abyssinian House, Bright Horizons, and Community Playthings. For almost four years, Bright Horizons has managed MSKCC's Children's Center on Roosevelt Island, and now also provides back-up childcare and eldercare to our almost 10,000 employees," said Dennis Dowdell, Jr., Vice President of Human Resources at MSKCC. "This beautiful Bright Space would not be possible without the support of our employees who raised funds for this employee-driven initiative. We applaud our staff and the staff of the MSKCC Children's Center on Roosevelt Island for their commitment to the needs of homeless children and families in our community."
For nearly 15 years, ADC has operated Abyssinian House, providing Harlem's neediest families with counseling, intensive case management, and referrals to other social service agencies. ADC works with families to provide support and resources in order to successfully transition them into permanent housing and offers quality child care and recreational activities such as the new Bright Space center.
"It gives us great joy and a sense of real accomplishment to open the doors to Harlem's first Bright Space at Abyssinian House," said Sheena Wright, President and CEO of ADC. "I thank Memorial Sloan Kettering, Bright Horizons, and Community Playthings for their support and for opening their hearts to the youngsters here at Abby House."
The Bright Horizons Foundation for Children, the nonprofit organization of Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the leading provider of employer-sponsored child care, early education and work/life solutions, established the Bright Space program to create appropriate play and learning areas for children of all ages living in homeless shelters.
In a Bright Space, the well-worn children's area in many shelters is transformed by a team of early education and design professionals to create a warm, inviting environment where homeless children can simply be children.
Curtains are put up, cozy nooks are strategically placed around the room to give children of all ages a comfortable place to explore, and shelves overflow with award-winning children's books, educational toys and games, and soft toys. Dramatic play areas are set up so children can act out their fantasies and learn to socialize with their peers. Each Bright Space is designed specifically for the individual shelter by early education professionals from Bright Horizons, who create the Bright Space to help meet the needs of the children living in the shelter.
In addition to the opening of the Abby House Bright Space, plans are underway for MSKCC's screening facility, the Breast Examination Center of Harlem, to provide cancer education and screening information to the shelter's residents.
New York based Community Playthings graciously donated furniture, equipment and toys for the Bright Space, creating a welcoming, friendly environment for the children at ADC. Visit www.communityplaythings.com to learn more.


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1895-1900 (100 Kb); Oil on canvas, 21 1/2 x 17 3/4 in; Philadelphia Museum of Art
As early as 1923, Georges Riviere related the sitter for Seated Peasant to those men who posed for the series of cardplayers painted by Cézanne beginning about 1890. Although this rather melancholy young man who sits stolidly on a simple cane chair cannot be identified as one of the models in any of the five versions of cardplayers, he almost certainly was, like them, one of the farm hands who worked at Cézanne's mother's house, the Jas de Bouffan, near Aix, and to whom Cézanne turned through the 1890s for his figure studies. Some of these figures recur in several paintings and watercolors; others, like this man, appear only once. Most of them were posed in a simple, plastered room, probably in the chateau itself, the only ornament being an applied wooden chair rail.
This is a remarkably hermetic picture, smaller than any other of his male studies of this decade and, perhaps because of this, more concentrated and refined in handling. A highly restricted palette of grays, blues, browns, gray greens, and pale yellows is only occasionally relieved with touches of red and purple. The build-up of a lean application is remarkably harmonious and studied. Wetter, attenuated strokes, such as the purple strip on the right knee or the two drips of terre-verte on the whitewashed wall at lower right, seem almost gaily spontaneous in the otherwise stern development of the picture.
For so seemingly simple a composition, the spatial illusion is very complex. The room appears to be L-shaped, the wall, with its continuation of the chair rail, projecting into the space to the right of the figure and then turning parallel to the plane of the back wall, banded with a panel of whitewash that is not aligned with the chair rail. The perspective of the chair is directly frontal, receding symmetrically to one vanishing point for both sides of the caned seat and the one rail visible between the man's legs. However, the small perspectival wedge on the right is so surrounded by the ample thigh, the fall of the coattail (which almost but not quite comes into contact with the chair), and the triangle of wall seen beyond the chair that its spatial implications are quite different from those of the more simply constructed section to the left--although this area, too, is made more complicated by the inexplicable white form that appears under the sitter's projecting hip, where the wooden rail must be attached to the caning.
The spatial animation of the picture is heightened by the introduction on the lower left of an intricate still life. A group of geometrical objects--two green-bound books, two small boxes, a white square object with a round top, possibly a small bottle, and a stick-- seem to be carefully placed on a heavy cloth, raised (by a crate?) above floor level. Cézanne often introduced still-life elements into his male figure studies--the book-strewn library in which he painted the critic Gustave Geffroy in 1895 being perhaps his most complex perspectival exercise--although never do they play such an independent role as here, as if their introduction were meant almost as some type of spatial subplot. This is truly a case of a figure taking on the aspect of one more still-life element in the composition, very much the "apple" that Cézanne requested Ambroise Vollard to become when he sat for his portrait in 1899. Not only is the painting daunting in a formal sense, but there also remains, as in many of Cézanne's figure studies and portraits of the 18905, a vaguely disturbing irresoluteness in its final psychological expression.
Many of the farm hands who posed for Cézanne at the Jas de Bouffan were older men with whom he felt great sympathy and perhaps a degree of identity, admiring their "simplicity and natural dignity." They, like him, had stayed in their native region, rejecting the modern ways of the North. After 1902 these sentiments would culminate in a series of studies of his aged gardener, Vallier, at the studio at Les Lauves, two of which are posed quite similarly to the figure here. However, the Seated Peasant, for all his forbearance, seems lacking, to a degree, in this kind of vivid presence. He is dressed in a jacket and yellow vest (very much like the clothes Cézanne must have worn, as documented by a photograph of the artist taken by K.-X. Roussel in 1906), and with a tightly knotted string tie (also like that described as having been worn by Cézanne). Sullenly he poses for the artist in his slightly oversized coat, his striped trousers loosely fitting his rather stout form. His mouth is drawn down into a habitually natural line, one assumes; his exaggeratedly huge, literally ham-fisted hand comes, because of its disproportionate scale, well out from his chest. His complete frontality--shoulders in an even balance with the folded hands and crossed legs--places him even more monumentally in the space. Here is some type of blunt life force, firmly and irrefutably planted in bovine melancholy.
With the exception of identifiable portraits, none of Cézanne's male figure studies of the 1890s, including the cardplayers, can be clearly dated, although this picture has always been placed within the second half of the decade. A "Portrait of a seated man with crossed legs, folded hands, gray background" appears in Vollard's stock books by 1900, although there is no certainty that this is the same picture. By comparison with other works on this scale, Seated Peasant stands well apart from the Standing Peasant, which can be stylistically related quite closely to the cardplayers, and the studies for them from the early years of the decade. In turn, in his painting of a figure of a peasant now in Ottawa --although somewhat larger--with the legs similarly terminated at the ankles, Cézanne pulled the whole figure more tightly to the picture plane. Somewhat less confined and hermetic in its handling and spatial definition, the Ottawa picture of the peasant, justly placed after the turn of the century, contrasts strikingly in his cunning and alert animation to the figure here. A closer comparison can be drawn to the Man with Folded Arms, which appears in two variants although there is an elegance to the lean model who posed for them that is quite distinct from the Annenberg painting. As always in comparing images within any given category of Cézanne's work, one returns to the idea that it is his direct response to the subject--in this case the stolid and beefy young peasant--that dictated the form his picture would take.


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WACO, Texas -- A former Baylor basketball player was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Wednesday for trying to get $1 million from Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III through extortion.
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith also ordered Richard Hurd, 26, to pay a $1,000 fine for threatening to release damaging information about Griffin last June. Hurd could have been sentenced to as many as three years behind bars after pleading guilty in September to two charges relating to the scam - threatening to injure the reputation of another person and receiving the proceeds of extortion.
"I messed up, and I'd like to apologize to my family," Hurd said during a brief hearing. "I've embarrassed myself and them as well."
According to federal authorities, Hurd contacted Griffin's agent and said he wanted $1 million. Otherwise, he would provide the media with information that would damage the former Baylor star's reputation.
Many of the court documents in the case have been sealed, and it's unclear what information Hurd wanted to reveal.
Brooks: Turkey Day primer
Week 12 opens with a three-course football feast on Thanksgiving Day. Bucky Brooks has analysis/picks for each game. **More ...**
During a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Griffin referred to Hurd as his fiancee's ex-boyfriend, noting that anyone who gains fame and money can be vulnerable.
"People do things like that when they're angry at you or for whatever reason," Griffin said. "For me, it's extremely unfortunate, and you've just got to move on from it. It's not anything I'm afraid of. It's just sad."
Griffin won the Heisman Trophy at Baylor last year, and he signed a contract worth more than $21 million after the Redskins made him the second player selected in the 2012 draft. The Redskins play the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, the rookie's first pro appearance in his home state.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press


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Turquoise and Gold Embroidered Lehenga
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Turquoise and Gold Embroidered Lehenga features an organza lehenga with embroidery. Comes with organza embroidered blouse and soft net embroidered dupatta.
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Bulbapedia is a MediaWiki installation run by Bulbagarden for the purpose of creating a Pokémon-focused encyclopedia. Bulbapedia is a wiki, meaning that editing is a simple process of clicking on the 'Edit this page' link, provided you have registered. It is overseen by an editorial board and is part of Encyclopædiæ Pokémonis and the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance.
Bulbapedia began on December 21, 2004. It currently has 52,585 articles.
All text in Bulbapedia, and some images and other content, is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
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Article count
What does MediaWiki think an article is? The MediaWiki code is as follows:
# Would the given text make this article a "good" article (i.e., # suitable for including in the article count)? function isCountable( $text ) { global $wgUseCommaCount, $wgMwRedir; if ( 0 != $this->mTitle->getNamespace() ) { return 0; } if ( $wgMwRedir->matchStart( $text ) ) { return 0; } $token = ($wgUseCommaCount ? ',' : '[[' ); if ( false === strstr( $text, $token ) ) { return 0; } return 1; }
This means that any article that is in the main namespace (i.e. not prefixed with Bulbapedia: or Help:) that is not a redirect that has a link (or at least a [[) is considered a countable article -- since virtually every article, even the stubs, have a category link, this can be considered a very inclusive article count.


text:
Eventicka E-Ticket Inc. ("Eventicka", "we", "our") are committed to protecting your privacy. We make the website, www.eventicka.com (the "Website") available together with the custom event creation and event fundraising services offered through the Website as further described in our Terms of Service (collectively the "Services"). This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, store, use and distribute information about users and Services.
Consent: By using the Services you consent to the use of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy, your Personal Information will not be used for any other purpose without your consent. We will not actively collect Personal Information for the purpose of sale or marketing in a way that specifically identifies the individual. In other words, we don't sell customer lists. You may withdraw your consent to our processing of your Personal Information at any time. However, withdrawing consent may result in your inability to continue using the Services or certain features of the Services (for example, registration is required to create an event or contribute to it but browsing existing events on the Website does not require registration).
Collection of Information: We aim to collect, use and disclose only such information as is required to enable us to manage your account, to provide the Services, to maintain our customer/visitor lists, to respond to your inquiries or provide feedback, for identification and authentication purposes, for service improvement and management. We will only use information for the purposes for which we have collected it (subject to the exclusions and disclosures we have listed below), unless you agree that we may disclose it to other third parties.
Two types of information may be collected through the Website and our Services: Personal Information and Non-Personal Information. This Privacy Policy does not extend to the collection, use or disclosure of the following information which is currently not limited by applicable privacy laws: (a) information that is publicly available, such as names, addresses, telephone numbers and electronic address when listed in a directory or made available through directory assistance; or (b) Non-Personal Information (as defined further below).
"Personal Information" is personally identifiable information, such as your name, address, e-mail address, credit card information, birth date and gender. At the time of collection, we will clearly identify the information being collected and the purposes for which it will be used. It is always your choice whether or not to provide Personal Information but if you choose not to provide certain requested Personal Information, in some instances you may not be able to register to use the Website or be able to access and use the Website at all. In other instances, your choice not to provide certain other Personal Information may mean that you will not be able to use certain features of the Website. We may collect Personal Information in respect of the Website through registration processes; communications with you; information downloads; service use; service purchases; user support; and surveys.
"Non-Personal Information" is information of an anonymous nature, such as the domain used to access the Website, and the type and version of browser or operating system being used by visitors to the Website. Aggregate information, such as demographic statistics of our users (e.g. average age or geographical allocation of our users), number of visitors, what pages users access or visit, and average time spent on the Website. Business contact information such as the name, title, business address, e-mail address, or telephone number of a business or professional person or an employee of an organisation is not considered Personal Information.
Although the use of certain Non-Personal Information collected, used or disclosed through the Internet as described herein is not restricted (and to the extent that such is the case, the obligations under this Privacy Policy do not apply to such information), we provide information in this Privacy Policy about the collection of such information for the sake of transparency with respect to the operation of the Website. Such Non-Personal Information is collected or derived by us in the course of operating this Website. For example, our web servers may automatically collect Non-Personal Information that is provided through your browser or stored in a cookie when you choose to visit the Website.
Use of Information: We collect information for the following purposes:
Registration: In order to register for our Services you must provide certain Personal Information to us such as your full name, address, email address, username, Facebook account, Twitter account, LinkedIn, and/or Google+ account. In general, none of your account registration information will be shared with any other users of the Website or our Services. When you sign up for the Services using your Facebook, Twitter and/or Google+ account, Facebook, Twitter and/or Google+ will share certain information with us such as your username, photo (if provided), and contact list. Your username and photo (if provided) will be visible to others if you make your profile public.
Event Ticket Purchases: If you purchase tickets for events using Eventicka's payment processor, Eventicka will collect your credit card information at the time of payment. If you purchase tickets for an event that has a public list of attendees, your name and social media account which you used to register for the Services will be made public on the attendee list.
Transactional Notifications: We also provide notifications relating to your use of our Services, despite your indicated e-mail preferences, for example we may send you notices of any updates to our Terms of Service or this Privacy Policy.
Marketing Communications: If you opt-in to receive communications from us, we will keep you up to date on our products and services. You may withdraw your consent to receiving marketing communications from us at any time by following the opt-out instructions in each communication, or by contacting us. Eventicka will not send any marketing communication to ticket purchasers unless such ticket purchasers independently opt-in to receive such communications from Eventicka.
Statistics: We also collect statistics about use of the Services purchased through the Website. This information will be kept confidential, however, aggregate statistics that do not personally identify an individual will be kept by us and such aggregate statistics may be made available to other members or third parties.
System Logs & Cookies: Cookies are used by us to track content usage and traffic on the Website. A cookie is a feature of your web browser that consists of a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web server. The Website uses cookies to help it compile aggregate statistics about usage of this Website, such as how many users visit the Website, how long users spend viewing the Website, and what pages are viewed most often. This information is used to improve the content of the Website. You can set your browser to notify you when you are sent a cookie. This gives you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it. If you disable cookies, you may not be able to take advantage of all the features of the Website. We do not link any of the information we use in cookies to any personally identifiable information submitted by you when you are on the Website.
Your IP address is reported by your web browser whenever you visit a page on the Website. This information is recorded together with your registration information on our databases.
Advertisements: Advertisements appearing on the Website may be delivered by us or one or more third-party web advertisers. These third party web advertisers may set cookies. These cookies allow the advertisement server operated by that third party to recognise your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. Accordingly, advertisement servers may compile information about where or whether you viewed their advertisements and which advertisements you clicked on. This information allows web advertisers to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you. The Privacy Policy applies to cookies placed on your computer by us, but does not cover the use of cookies by any third-party web advertisers. For the privacy practices of such third-party web advertisers, you should consult the applicable privacy policy for the relevant third-party web advertiser(s).
If we plan to use your Personal Information in future for any other purposes not identified above, we will only do so after informing you by updating this Privacy Policy. See further the section of this Privacy Policy entitled 'Amendment of this Policy'.
Disclosures & Transfers: We have put in place contractual and other organisational safeguards with our agents (see further below) to ensure a proper level of protection of your Personal Information (see further Security below). In addition to those measures, we will not disclose or transfer your Personal Information to third parties without your permission, except as specified in this Privacy Policy (see further Important Exceptions below).
As at the date of this Privacy Policy, we share Personal Information about you in respect of the Website only with the service providers listed below and accordingly your Personal Information may be available to Canadian and United States government or agencies under a lawful order, irrespective of the safeguards we have put in place for the protection of your Personal Information.
Our business partners include:
Software developers;
Hardware vendors;
System integrators; and
Payment processors
– Eventicka Payments
– Stripe
From time to time we may employ third parties to help us improve the Website and/or the Services. These third parties may have limited access to databases of user information solely for the purpose of helping us to improve the Website and/or the Services and they will be subject to contractual restrictions prohibiting them from using the information about our members for any other purpose.
Important Exceptions: We may disclose your Personal Information to third parties without your consent if we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, other Website members, other users of the Services, or anyone else (including the rights or property of anyone else) that could be harmed by such activities. We may disclose Personal Information when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is required by and in accordance with the law.
We may also disclose your Personal Information in connection with a corporate re-organisation, a merger or amalgamation with another entity, a sale of all or a substantial portion of our assets or stock, including any due diligence exercise carried out in relation to the same, provided that the information disclosed continues to be used for the purposes permitted by this Privacy Policy by the entity acquiring the information.
Security: The security of your Personal Information is important to us. We use commercially reasonable efforts to store and maintain your Personal Information in a secure environment. We take technical, contractual, administrative, and physical security steps designed to protect Personal Information that you provide to us. We have implemented procedures designed to limit the dissemination of your Personal Information to only such designated staff as are reasonably necessary to carry out the stated purposes we have communicated to you.
In certain areas, such as when you provide credit card or other payment information to us, the Website works to help protect the security of your credit card and other payment information during transmission by using industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology.
You are also responsible for helping to protect the security of your Personal Information. For instance, never give out your email account information for the Services to third parties password.
Retention: We will keep your Personal Information for as long as it remains necessary for the identified purpose or as required by law, which may extend beyond the termination of our relationship with you. We may retain certain data as necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse, or for legitimate business purposes, such as analysis of aggregated, non-personally-identifiable data, account recovery, or if required by law. All retained personal information will remain subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you request that your name be removed from our databases, it may not be possible to completely delete all your Personal Information due to technological and legal constraints.
Amendment of this Policy: We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. If we decide to change this Privacy Policy in the future, we will post an appropriate notice on the home page at https://www.eventicka.com/privacy-policy. Any non-material change (such as clarifications) to this Privacy Policy will become effective on the date the change is posted and any material changes will become effective 30 days from their posting on the Website. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all Personal Information that we have about you. The date on which the latest update was made is indicated at the bottom of this document. We recommend that you print a copy of this Privacy Policy for your reference and revisit this policy from time to time to ensure you are aware of any changes. Your continued use of the Website signifies your acceptance of any changes.
Access and Accuracy: You have the right to access the Personal Information we hold about you in order to verify the Personal Information we have collected in respect to you and to have a general account of our uses of that information. Upon receipt of your written request, we will provide you with a copy of your Personal Information although in certain limited circumstances, we may not be able to make all relevant information available to you such as where that information also pertains to another user. In such circumstances we will provide reasons for the denial to you upon request. We will endeavour to deal with all requests for access and modifications in a timely manner.
We will make every reasonable effort to keep your Personal Information accurate and up-to-date, and we will provide you with mechanisms to update, correct, delete or add to your Personal Information as appropriate. As appropriate, this amended Personal Information will be transmitted to those parties to which we are permitted to disclose your information. Having accurate Personal Information about you enables us to give you the best possible service.
Contact Us: You can help by keeping us informed of any changes such as a change of address or telephone number. If you would like to access your information, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions of if you find any errors in our information about you, please contact us at: [email protected].
Last Updated: January 21, 2018


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Module for decorators, wrappers and monkey patching.
Project description
The aim of the wrapt module is to provide a transparent object proxy for Python, which can be used as the basis for the construction of function wrappers and decorator functions.
The wrapt module focuses very much on correctness. It therefore goes way beyond existing mechanisms such as functools.wraps() to ensure that decorators preserve introspectability, signatures, type checking abilities etc. The decorators that can be constructed using this module will work in far more scenarios than typical decorators and provide more predictable and consistent behaviour.
To ensure that the overhead is as minimal as possible, a C extension module is used for performance critical components. An automatic fallback to a pure Python implementation is also provided where a target system does not have a compiler to allow the C extension to be compiled.
For further information on the wrapt module see:
Quick Start
To implement your decorator you need to first define a wrapper function. This will be called each time a decorated function is called. The wrapper function needs to take four positional arguments:
wrapped - The wrapped function which in turns needs to be called by your wrapper function.
instance - The object to which the wrapped function was bound when it was called.
args - The list of positional arguments supplied when the decorated function was called.
kwargs - The dictionary of keyword arguments supplied when the decorated function was called.
The wrapper function would do whatever it needs to, but would usually in turn call the wrapped function that is passed in via the wrapped argument.
The decorator @wrapt.decorator then needs to be applied to the wrapper function to convert it into a decorator which can in turn be applied to other functions.
import wrapt @wrapt.decorator def pass_through(wrapped, instance, args, kwargs): return wrapped(*args, **kwargs) @pass_through def function(): pass
If you wish to implement a decorator which accepts arguments, then wrap the definition of the decorator in a function closure. Any arguments supplied to the outer function when the decorator is applied, will be available to the inner wrapper when the wrapped function is called.
import wrapt def with_arguments(myarg1, myarg2): @wrapt.decorator def wrapper(wrapped, instance, args, kwargs): return wrapped(*args, **kwargs) return wrapper @with_arguments(1, 2) def function(): pass
When applied to a normal function or static method, the wrapper function when called will be passed None as the instance argument.
When applied to an instance method, the wrapper function when called will be passed the instance of the class the method is being called on as the instance argument. This will be the case even when the instance method was called explicitly via the class and the instance passed as the first argument. That is, the instance will never be passed as part of args.
When applied to a class method, the wrapper function when called will be passed the class type as the instance argument.
When applied to a class, the wrapper function when called will be passed None as the instance argument. The wrapped argument in this case will be the class.
The above rules can be summarised with the following example.
import inspect @wrapt.decorator def universal(wrapped, instance, args, kwargs): if instance is None: if inspect.isclass(wrapped): # Decorator was applied to a class. return wrapped(*args, **kwargs) else: # Decorator was applied to a function or staticmethod. return wrapped(*args, **kwargs) else: if inspect.isclass(instance): # Decorator was applied to a classmethod. return wrapped(*args, **kwargs) else: # Decorator was applied to an instancemethod. return wrapped(*args, **kwargs)
Using these checks it is therefore possible to create a universal decorator that can be applied in all situations. It is no longer necessary to create different variants of decorators for normal functions and instance methods, or use additional wrappers to convert a function decorator into one that will work for instance methods.
In all cases, the wrapped function passed to the wrapper function is called in the same way, with args and kwargs being passed. The instance argument doesn't need to be used in calling the wrapped function.
Full source code for the wrapt module, including documentation files and unit tests, can be obtained from github.
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When It Comes to Lincoln, We're Still Virgins
One of the lines of argument about Lincoln that has intrigued me most is this one, which Will Boisvert states over at Crooked Timber:
But the movie's focus is on…snakey retail politics. That's what makes the movie interesting, in part because it cuts against the grain of Lincoln hagiography by making him a shrewd, somewhat dirty pol.
Will isn't alone in this. I've seen David Denby, Anthony Lane, Geoffrey O'Brien, and Chris Hayes offer eloquent statements of the same thesis: that what makes Lincoln great is that it shows how his greatness consists in so many acts of smallness. Politicking, horse-trading, compromise, log-rolling, and the like.
What's interesting to me about this line of argument is, first, that it hardly cuts against the standard historiography of Lincoln. Ever since David Donald's Lincoln Reconsidered, which came out in 1947, and Richard Hofstadter's famous essay in The American Political Tradition (1948), we've known about this Lincoln. When it comes to Lincoln, we lost our virtue a long time ago, yet somehow, in 2012, we're all still virgins. (Pace Pauline Kael.)
But beyond the historiography, there's a larger cultural question: What is it about this country that makes any description of the moral cesspool of politics seem like the revelation of a brave new truth? Particularly among otherwise sophisticated cultural brokers like Lane et al? I mean these are men steeped in the Western canon; David Denby even wrote a book about that. Yet somehow they've never absorbed the lessons of Henry V? Or The Prince? Or Max Weber?
I think it was D.H. Lawrence, in his Studies in Classic American Literature (though my copy is in storage so I can't know for sure), who first cottoned on to this peculiarly American dynamic whereby innocence gives way to cynicism, without ever achieving anything like a mature and stable or permanent sense of realism. So that every time we stumble across some banal item of reality—Lincoln was a politician! Politicians politick!—we draw back in shock and awe at the haunting truth of it all, as if we had just been handed the tablets at Mt. Sinai. (O'Brien speaks of our "authentic wonderment" at Spielberg/Kushner's decision to set the saintly Lincoln against "a more detached and analytical surveying of circumstances.")
Understood in this light, the realism of Lincoln is just the flip side of the hagiography of Lincoln. Only a country steeped in myths of innocence would find the most conventional and boring kind of realism about politics to be the trumpet blast of Truth, Brave Truth.
We see these quicksilver shifts, from innocence to cynicism or realism, in the culture all the time—though sometimes they go in the reverse direction. Think of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, how the wise-cracking cynic Jean Arthur becomes a true believer. Or Dave, where the Sigourney Weaver character makes the same pilgrimage. (Interestingly, in both cases it's a woman who loses her cynicism and discovers her innocence via falling in love with a man.)
But whether it's the cynic discovering or recovering her innocence, or the innocent losing his innocence, the story of politics in this country is always the same, toggling back and forth between two positions that are little more than the competing wisdom of juveniles.
It's basically the truth of the 5 year old set against the truth of the 15 year old. And any time the 15 year old speaks, we're expected to murmur, in hushed wonder: brave, bold, true, wow. If you're a 5 year old, I can see why that would be the case. If you're a 45-year-old, as I am, it's a bit tougher. Or at least it should be.