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Have you ever wondered why this spinning icon shows up whenever you try to play an online video or skip forward in it? This video explains what's happening and why:
Have you ever wondered why this spinning icon shows up whenever you try to play an online video or skip forward in it? This video explains what's happening and why:
As a colleague and I were providing some introductory web development training, one of our pupils asked some questions about how web content works that isn't static, changing state either by positional movement or by appearing/disappearing. The web pages in question used jQuery, and it was during our explanation of some basic jQuery concepts that I found myself saying something that sounded a little too much like LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It." Parodies of that song abound, so I thought, "Why not a parody to explain jQuery?" And this emerged shortly afterward: Read the rest of this entry »
cloudBoard is a new project on Kickstarter that intrigues me as it uses a physical board with puzzle-like pieces and a digital computer game component to teach various concepts, primarily to kids. I think this learning approach is ingenious, as it blends kids' natural desire to play with (and relate to) something physical (like a classic board/puzzle game) and yet leverages the ability to drive video games, providing a rich visual element kids love. And not just kids. The guys at Digital Dream Labs have play-tested their invention with kids and adults alike, often finding that it bridges the generation gap, engaging young and old alike. Early play-testing also revealed some encouraging results with autistic individuals.
How's it work? Players place various tiles in the cloudBoard in specific positions or sequences, and that becomes a direct link to functionality and features enabled in the video game. Repetitive play — the key to learning — is easy, accomplished by simply swapping or rearranging the pieces in the board, allowing learners to tinker with various configurations.
It bridges the physical and virtual. I've long been a believer in leveraging aspects of the physical world in explanation and teaching because people connect with physical things in a unique and memorable way. cloudBoard takes this to a whole new level, grabbing the best aspects of board and puzzle-piece games from our childhood while marrying them to what's possible with modern digital computer technologies. And unlike the Skylanders concept, where the physical figure's position or relationship to other figures is irrelevant, the physical cloudBoard pieces mean different things when they're in different positions on the board.
It's not just a single game. Multiple games can be supported. While the Cork The Volcano game — designed to teach trial-and-error concepts, key to understanding computer programming — is the first game to be released, the Digital Dream Labs dudes have multiple other concepts in the works, including a chemisty game, a music game, and a farming game. Virtually any game can be created with the right software and new tops to the puzzle pieces. And here's where the real extensibility of the cloudBoard concept shines…
Developers can extend it themselves. I spoke with Justin Sabo from Digital Dream Labs, and I think this is a point worth emphasizing about their project. The game APIs will be open to those who wish program their own video game to interface with the cloudBoard hardware. And unlike some other game systems, cloudBoard is designed to run the same across many platforms (tablet, PC, etc.), extending its usefulness.
The tops of the puzzle pieces can also be swapped with other tops, allowing the physical aspect to be ever-changable but using the original pieces. (You don't necessarily need brand new pieces for every game; just change the toppers.) Change the pictures? Fine. Add fuzzy three-dimensional toppers? Go for it. 3D-print your own? Why not? This is part of the future vision that Justin shared with me — that what they've created is a platform others can easily expand upon. Who knows how many educational games could be created.
Here's what I don't like about the cloudBoard project:
It's not fully funded yet. So spread the word and head on over to the cloudBoard kickstarter page to help make it a reality.
Have you noticed that the technical specifications for computing technology always seem to be numbers that double after a while? This has particularly been true of numbers with the word "bit" after them. 8-bit. 16-bit. 32-bit. And now, yes, 64-bit is the latest buzz. But if you're a normal person (not a computer person), what does this mean?
One of my colleagues (Ed) sent me a link to this short article that loosely explains what 64-bit means to you, the normal person: What the iPhone 5s '64-bit' processor means, in plain English. I particularly like the library and book analogy. While I see from the comments that the true technophiles object to the explanation, I'm still going to call it good enough for the normal person. By passing it along, I hope it's helpful to you or someone you know.
There's been a lot of focus on preparing the next generation to learn to code/program. (See Code.org for starters.) And many websites have sprung up sporting interactive tutorials for hands-on learning. But what about really young kids? Is it ever too early to learn the core concepts of programming?
Dan Shapiro doesn't think so. He took a leave of absence from his job at Google to give the world another way: a board game. His project, Robot Turtles, went up on Kickstarter last week and is gaining funding. I hope he gets everything he needs, because this is a clever approach. Give kids a fun board game with great graphics, but at the heart of learning to route the Turtles appropriately, players learn the logic for writing basic computer programs. It's brilliant.
So if you've got some kids you want to introduce to programming concepts in a fun, offline format, consider supporting the Robot Turtles project. It looks like it's going to be a reality for now, but like Dan says, it may never be in print again.
When I was last at UC Berkeley, I found this dinosaur skeleton in a science building and tried to capture it in one photo. As you can see, it's a large model and I had to splice two pictures together. In person, it's even more impressive. And it got me wondering: who had the job of assembling this huge thing and how did they go about it?
I pictured all the bones arriving in boxes or crates. And I sure hope a good instruction manual came with them. I imagined that manual (like most assembly manuals) would probably identify the pieces with some kind of anatomical naming convention, or at the very least, by number. And the assemblers would interpret those diagrams and instructions, fetching each piece from the create one by one, placing it in position.
So how does this relate to web design and how web pages and browsers work?
I've often been called upon to explain the DOM (Document Object Model) that is the basis of web pages, and I always point back to my Berkeley dinosaur friend for a great analogy because it can be used to explain the DOM, HTML, CSS, and (to a lesser extent) why jQuery is lauded for its simplicity.
The HTML document is the assembly manual, and the DOM is the resulting model. The web browser reads the HTML to understand the structure it needs to create. It forms a sort of memory-picture or "mental model." Then it fetches the pieces required one by one (from the web server) and assembles the actual web page (that you experience) based on that model. This model is the DOM, and it is a living model that can be changed once initially assembled. If you change the DOM, the web page also changes to reflect the new model. It's kind of like the bones with skin over the top. While the DOM is behind the scenes, it's providing the structure for everything you actually see and experience. Change the bones, and the skin/body itself will reflectively change to the person experiencing it on the outside.
But is structure all the DOM deals with? Not quite.
Let's return to the dinosaur model again. Once assembled, if you wanted to paint just one bone, to treat it differently from the others, you'd need to know how to identify it for the painting crew. It would be important, for efficient painting and styling, if the painters understood the identification convention used for dinosaur bones. You'd give the painter the number or anatomical name for the bone you wished to tint and then specify the color.
For web pages, this is the job of Cascading Style Sheets. CSS provides this way of identifying and selecting elements in the model to which you want to apply a visual style or effect. Selector syntax is crucial for identifying the parts of the DOM to which styles should be applied, which will treat the appearance of each targeted element in the web page as specified. This is why mastering CSS rules and selector syntax is a major part of web design.
And finally, if, like in A Night at the Museum, you wanted to make your dinosaur skeleton dance around the room, you'd need a way to select specific bones and describe how to move them in a pre-planned way. That's the beauty and simplicity of why people like jQuery. It uses the same CSS selector syntax for selecting elements, to target them for specific actions instead of visual styles.
Modern web browsers do all this interpretation, assembly, and styling every time you load a web page, and they do it relatively quickly given how many structural, style, and action details are contained in the average page. But the reality is that the browser, like the dinosaur assembly crew, is simply following the assembly manual instructions. Ever tried to cook something from a bad recipe? Carelessly written instructions will produce unreliable results, which is why web development is a profession. Because even through the browser is interpreting the HTML and applying the CSS, make no bones about it, it's still the people behind the scenes writing the script and puling the strings.
I hope you enjoyed this explanation and remember it the next time you admire any model, be it prehistoric or modern.


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FX International Payments
By Frances Coppola
Trade finance and business finance for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) is traditionally provided by banks. But according to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), since the 2008 financial crisis SMEs have been finding it ever harder to obtain trade finance at affordable rates.1 Yet interest rates are at historically low levels and, in some jurisdictions, negative. This post explores why banks appear reluctant to provide trade and business finance to SMEs.
For starters, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) explains why negative rates can be bad for banks: "If negative policy rates are transmitted to lending rates for firms and households, then there will be knock-on effects on bank profitability unless negative rates are also imposed on deposits, raising questions as to the stability of the retail deposit base. In either case, the viability of banks' business model as financial intermediaries may be brought into question."2
Before explaining further, it's important to understand a bit more about how banking actually works. The business of banking is to borrow relatively short-term and lend longer-term – a process known as "maturity transformation". Banks take deposits or issue bonds to fund both short- and long-term lending, including trade finance and business finance for large international enterprises and SMEs. This is called "credit intermediation". In practice, banks lend in advance of funding, then fund the drawdown of the loan by borrowing.3
Banks earn income on the spread between the interest rates they pay on their borrowing (funding) and the interest rates they receive on their lending. The spread is determined by the risk that the bank takes in lending: generally, the riskier the borrower, and the longer the period of the loan, the higher the rate. But interest rates are also partly determined by depositors' and bondholders' expectations.
It should in theory be possible for banks still to be profitable when rates are very low or even negative. As an example, imagine that prior to 2008, a bank paid 5 percent on a 7-day notice deposit account and provided 3-month trade finance at 8 percent. It would earn a net interest margin of 3 percent. Now, suppose that benchmark funding rates (e.g., Euribor) have fallen to negative 0.5 percent. The bank could pay zero percent on its 7-day notice deposit account and provide 3-month trade finance at 3 percent. It would still earn a net interest margin of 3 percent.
However, the BIS says that banks are reluctant to pass on negative rates to smaller (insured) depositors. When rates on deposits drop too far below zero, people stop putting money into bank deposit accounts and resort to using physical cash (notes and coins). This creates funding strain for banks and increases risk and inefficiency in payments.4
When interest rates are turning negative, therefore, banks can find their spreads diminishing. Depositors still receive positive interest rates, but the bank is expected to extend business finance and trade finance at ever-lower rates. If banks were to maintain higher rates on lending to preserve their margins, they would defeat the purpose of negative policy rates.
An obvious solution to this margin squeeze might be for banks to increase risky lending, for example, by providing more business finance to SMEs.5
The picture for global business and trade finance is gloomier. The BIS says lending for cross-border business finance has been shrinking.7 And the WTO says that banks are less willing to provide trade finance for SMEs, particularly in developing countries.8 The overall picture is one of risk aversion and domestic-focused bank lending, contrary to the "reach for yield" that perhaps might be expected in a negative-rate world.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, banks have been under regulatory pressure to build up capital and liquidity buffers to protect against bank runs and loan default losses.9 Because of the way risk weightings work for capital allocation purposes, riskier lending – for example, business finance for SMEs – requires more capital than forms of lending regarded as safer, such as residential mortgages. The BIS reports that banks have built up their capital buffers principally by retaining earnings, though reducing risky assets on their balance sheets and issuing more equity have also played a part.10
Negative rates contribute to the business finance chill experienced by SMEs in two ways. Firstly, falling share prices suggest that investors don't believe that banks can make profits in a low-rate, low-growth environment, so are becoming reluctant to invest in them.11 As share prices fall, it becomes more difficult for banks to raise the capital they need to support riskier lending. It remains to be seen whether banks' share price rise seen in November 2016 will be an anomaly.
Secondly – and far more importantly – as bank profitability decreases, it becomes harder for banks to build up capital by retaining earnings. Increasing risky lending becomes a business impossibility when profitability is low and capital is expensive.
Consequently, global banks are pulling back from lending to enterprises working in developing markets, and they are limiting business finance to SMEs even in developed nations. The WTO says that in some large developed countries, up to a third of SMEs have difficulty accessing affordable trade finance. Globally, over half of SME requests for trade finance are rejected.12
By effecting bank profitability and investor confidence, negative rates can make it harder for banks to build up and maintain capital buffers. This can force them to limit lending perceived by regulators as risky, such as business finance for SMEs, especially those working in developing market countries. SMEs may increasingly need to turn to alternative providers to fund business investment and trade finance.
With 17 years experience in the financial industry, Frances is a highly regarded writer and speaker on banking, finance and economics. She writes regularly for the Financial Times, Forbes and a range of financial industry publications. Her writing has featured in The Economist, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She is a frequent commentator on TV, radio and online news media including the BBC and RT TV.
1. "Trade finance and SMEs: bridging gaps in provision", The World Trade Organisation; https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/tradefinsme_e.pdf
2. "How have central banks implemented negative policy rates?", Bank for International Settlements; http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1603e.pdf
3. "Money creation in the modern economy", Bank of England; http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarterlybulletin/2014/qb14q1prereleasemoneycreation.pdf
4. "How have central banks implemented negative policy rates?", BIS; http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1603e.pdf
5. "Assessing the implications of negative rates"Benoit Coeure, ECB;https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2016/html/sp160728.en.html
7. "Highlights of financial flows", BIS; https://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1609b.pdf
8. "Trade finance and SMEs: bridging gaps in provision",WTO; https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/tradefinsme_e.pdf
9. "Basel III: international regulatory framework for banks", BIS; http://www.bis.org/bcbs/basel3.htm
10. "How have banks adjusted to higher capital requirements", BIS; http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1309e.pdf
11. "European banks uneasy over deeper negative interest rates",Financial Times; https://www.ft.com/content/2ed4d1ae-cf48-11e5-831d-09f7778e7377
12. "Trade finance and SMEs: bridging gaps in provision", The World Trade Organisation; https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/tradefinsme_e.pdf
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text: Terry Roberts TERRY ROBERTS (Corwen) 9/8/59 - 15/3/03 Always remembered Mam, Dad, Neil, Tina, Gail, Julie & Family xxx Published in the Denbighshire Free Press on 361 views Messages Sign in or Register to leave a message. You can also add a picture, or choose one from our gallery. Leave your message


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Let's face it – NAS refreshes just are not fun. In fact, they are downright painful and expensive. But, they are something every data center with lots of file data will go through at one time or another. There are many reasons an IT shop may do a NAS refresh, including lack of capacity, lack of mobility and data protection issues, just to name a few. And with unstructured data growing at such a fast rate, additional refreshes become more and more difficult. But there is a better way: the cloud.
We co-hosted a webinar featuring Storage Swiss analyst George Crump and ClearSky technologist Darren Miller to discuss all things NAS, including challenges with refreshes, on-prem NAS deployments, and how the cloud can help. We also discussed some of the work we're doing with ClearSky Data customers and how they are addressing these issues.
Additional discussion points include:
- The hybrid cloud's ability to deliver on-premises performance for scale-up NAS;
- How to protect all data and eliminate data protection and ransomware concerns;
- The importance of the edge for scale-up file workloads
- How a single copy of file data can be made available on-demand to all users;
- The data can be rapidly analyzed; and
- The END of on-prem NAS refreshes.
"The whole data protection problem with unstructured data – which is what tends to go on NAS – is that when you have millions and millions of files now being the norm, and many customers approaching the billions mark, just running a backup job on that data is really, really tough to do," Storage Swiss analyst George Crump explains. "There has not been a lot of recognition to the fact that unstructured data has changed dramatically over the past 10 years but we are still using the same utilities to protect it."
If you eliminate NAS refreshes and look to the hybrid cloud, you gain protection for all data and maintain flash performance for hot and warm data. Scale-up NAS can grow on-demand to meet capacity requirements, meaning you don't have to pay in advance for storage or manage painful migrations.
To learn more about ClearSky and the way we are helping customers in many different industries with their storage refresh strategies, listen to the on-demand webcast here.
After you have checked out the webinar, contact us to learn how we can help you take advantage of the cloud as your secondary data center.


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Well we made it!!! After hours of delayed flights, missed connections, fully booked alternatives, planes turned back due to faulty toilets, no sleep and extremely bad treatment at the hands of US Airways we got to Houston!
5 of us from Manchester are presenting our work at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. The conference is being attended by over 2000 people and brings together international specialists in petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, geology, and astronomy to present the latest results of research in planetary science.
Tonight Sarah will be presenting a poster on "Pathways of iodine and xenon into terrestrial planets" which hopes to add to understanding of how volatile elements were incorporated into terrestrial planets like the Earth – something that is still not well understood. We wish her lots of luck!
To find out more about what's happening at LPSC visit the livestream and keep checking our blog!


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Johan Ingler was always driven by his creative side. From as far back as he can remember, he wrote stories and comics, shot his own films with friends and (reluctant) younger sister, and tormented his neighborhood with his own musical compositions. None of this creative drive faded in time, it only grew.
After first pursuing ambitions of music, studying at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, Johan Ingler transitioned from being a full-time musician into the world of movies by working in film distribution and sales in his native Stockholm, and as an assistant on set of film and TV productions. When his creative urge and sense of adventure itched too much, he moved back to the US to study screenwriting at UCLA Extension, winning the school's feature film screenwriting competition, as well as winning best family film at The Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest. Meanwhile, he worked as Head of Development at Reverse Engineering Studios, a Los Angeles production and management company.
Johan has since been a full-time screenwriter, as a freelancer with assignments in the US and in Europe; as part of Zoho Studio, a Dutch animation company; and as co-founder of Dark Roast Features, a Belgian genre film label. He also puts his pen to prose, with a middle-grade novel in his bag of stories, and still picks up his guitar when he needs a fresh boost of inspiration.
FILM (upcoming)
Frankie & Chair – Family Drama/Comedy
Oliver's Travels – Family Animation
Short Stay – Horror
V Detectives – Action/Horror
TV (upcoming)
Space Crusaders – Animation/Sci-fi/Comedy
OTHER MEDIA (upcoming)
Jailbirds – Virtual Reality Series
Several projects in film and TV, live action and animation, with various partners and production companies in the US and Europe.


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Herbert H. Lee, M.D., M.P.H, M.S. Ed.
Place Category: Paragon Physician
Dr. Lee attended medical school at The National Taiwan University in Taipei, and he completed his internal medicine residency at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Following this, he completed his Gastroenterology Fellowship at the University of Michigan.
He is affiliated with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Irvine Digestive Disease Center and Pacific Surgery Center. Dr. Lee had been a voluntary Associate Professor of Medicine at UCI School of Medicine and a voluntary Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at The University of Southern California as well as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Wayne State University in Michigan. He is committed to promoting good health throughout the community and donates a portion of his practice's proceeds to health related research.
Dr. Lee is fluent in English, Chinese (Mandarin) and Taiwanese. His office staff are also bilingual speakers, fluent in English as well as either Chinese (Mandarin) or Spanish.
Personalized Healthcare Program
Program Benefits include:
- 24×7 direct physician access via cell phone and email which reduces urgent care or ER visits as well as some office visits
- Same day or next day office visits with minimal or no waiting
- Evening office visits one night/week
- An annual executive-level physical, which includes:
- Complete medical history
- Comprehensive preventive care examination
- Metabolic panel
- Lipid panel with LDL/HDL ratio and TSH
- Influenza vaccine
- Written report of key findings
- Review of all lab and test results
- Detailed reports and information forwarded to consultants in advance of your visit
- Personal discussion of all consultation and procedure reports
- Personal review of all hospitalizations and clinical implications
- Personalized follow-up call system for appointments and tests
- Assistance with appointments with sub-specialists and hospitals, as deemed medically necessary
- Health and wellness education materials
- Special disount on gastroenterology procedures
For more information on Dr. Lee and his program, please visit his website at www.herbertleemd.com or call 949.552.9628 to enroll or to receive additional information. A limited number of memberships are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Patient Testimonials
"Dr. Lee has been my doctor for many years and I have always received excellent care. He is passionate about this profession and very dedicated to the health of his patients."


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Analyze the Case for C&C Grocery
This content was COPIED from BrainMass.com - View the original, and get the already-completed solution here!
See attached case file for C&C Grocery.
1. Using a discussion of the types of effectiveness approaches, describe the current and proposed structure of C&C Grocery. Explain in detail.
2. Which of Porter's Competitive Strategies and Miles/Snow's Strategy Typology describe the role of consultant? Be Specific...
3. Which of the Models of Effectiveness Values would you predict would be the solution to each of the four problems at C&C Grocery? Why? Assume I have not read the case nor understand the model.
4. In general and using a discussion of linkages, how did C&C's first organizational structure contribute to the store manager's dissatisfaction?
5. What effect did it have on store meat and produce managers to report to district specialists? Why?
6. What structure problems contribute to the chain being slow to adapt to change? Explain.
7. Using information found in chapter 3; explain why cooperation with stores is so poor. Assume I don't know what you are talking about.
8. How would the proposed reorganizational address the problems addressed in question 4-7? Be specific.
9. What disadvantages might emerge over time with the proposed reorganization? Provide details.
Solution Preview
C & C Grocery
Question 1
The current organizational structure of C & C Grocery is highly centralized, concentrating almost all store decision making to the District Director wherein the store manager is almost solely responsible for the financial performance of each branch.
The proposed structure, on the other hand, solved this issue. It transferred more control to the store manager which is very important. Given the difficult economic times, more decision making authority on the store level would allow C & C Grocery to react to changes in its environment more effectively and efficiently.
Question 2
As regards Miles/Snow's Strategy Typology, I would say that Prospectors describe the role of a consultant perfectly. According to this typology, prospectors are in continual search for market opportunities and experiment with potential responses to emerging environmental trends. This is true with consultants. They have to continually update their knowledge base and skill sets to keep on top of the field they are working in.
Now in regards Michael Porter's Competitive Strategies, I would say that the best one that describes a consultant roles is Differentiation. This is so because with the consultant, the firm seeks for ways to be noticed in the market place whether such way is to offer the lowest cost possible.
Question 3
Given the four models of effectiveness - human relations emphasis, internal process emphasis, rational goal emphasis, ...
Solution Summary
The solution assists in analyzing the case for C&C Grocery.


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Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung's (林佳龍) international news conference on Monday condemning China for maneuvering to revoke the city's right to host the first East Asian Youth Games has been picked up by foreign media outlets in the UK, Japan and Singapore.
Vowing to defend the rights of Asian nations that Chinese meddling has affected, Lin on Tuesday morning filed a petition with the East Asian Olympic Committee to restore the city's right to host the Games in August next year.
The world needs to hear about the incident lest Taiwan's silence be interpreted as acquiescence and damage international norms, thereby allowing Beijing to repeat its action against other Taiwanese cities or even other nations, he said.
In an article entitled "Beijing Halts Taiwanese Youth Games," the Times of London quoted Lin as saying the decision "not only hurt the city of Taichung [and] the Taiwanese people, but also all the athletes."
"China ... has used financial incentives to persuade several of the island's allies to abandon it," the report said.
Beijing also "pressured the World Peace Choral Festival to ban a Taiwanese choir from singing at the UN headquarters" on Saturday, it said.
China's actions elicited strong protest from Taiwan and drew the attention of the international press, NHK reported.
The Games would have been the first time for Taiwan to host an Olympics-related sports event and Beijing moved to cancel the event as retaliation for a proposed referendum in Taiwan to participate in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics under the name "Taiwan," instead of "Chinese Taipei," it said.
Beijing's aim is to prevent the international community from seeing Taiwan as a sovereign nation, similar to its recent action forcing international airlines to change references to Taiwan on their Web sites, NHK said.
Taiwan is well aware of China's political agenda, it said.
Japan's Sankei Shimbum said the incident has sparked growing Taiwanese criticism of China, while Kyodo News reported about Taichung protesting the cancelation.
Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao reported that Lin is not abandoning Taichung's right to host the Games, saying he is "willing to visit Beijing" to press his case and has petitioned the committee to restore the city's right to host the event.
The decision to revoke Taichung's right to host the Games runs counter to the spirit of the Olympic Games, Lin said in a letter to the committee.
The committee also failed to cite any contractual contravention by the city and provided no rationale for its decision, Lin wrote.
Article 24 of the host city contract stipulates that disputes should be solved amicably through negotiations, the paper quoted Lin as saying.
See UK on page 8


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The Ethicurean are Matthew, Jack, Paûla and Iain: a Bristol-based culinary collective, brought together by their shared passion for ethical eating and British seasonality. With their combined experience (Jack is also a mixologist and hunter, while Paûla has a legal background), they've produced a series of eccentric and delicious events and pop-ups, from a Mexican yurt on the Brecon hillside to a BBQ from the back of an old ambulance on the Mongol Rally launch.
A chance to see the team in action, hear them discuss their original ethos, and taste some of their inspiring creations!


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A government decision to deny divorced women, orphans and unmarried men a special allowance for heating oil has caused uproar in Syria's civil society movement and among women's rights activists.
When the Ministry of Local Administration announced last November that it would distribute a SYP 10,000 (USD 217) allowance for heating oil to the population, many Syrians breathed a sigh of relief. In February, however, this collective sigh turned into a gasp of horror when Minister for Local Administration Tamer al-Hijeh announced that the allowance would not apply to single or divorced women, widows, bachelors and orphans.
"Last year the ministry gave a similar allowance to all Syrians and Palestinian refugees residing in Syria," Sadik Abu Watfe, an assistant to the minister of Local Administration, said. "This year, however, the allowance will only be allocated to those in need."
The needy, according to Abu Watfe, are Syrians and Palestinian refugees who live permanently in the country and do not have a financial stake in more than one car, a residential or commercial piece of real estate or agricultural land. They also have to own a family book, which is a certificate delivered to every Syrian and Syrian-Palestinian groom when he gets married, in which his wife and later his children are registered. Women are never issued with a family book, except if their husband dies, although not all widows have one.
"Why is the right to the heating allowance associated with the family book?" Da'ad Mousa, a Syrian lawyer and activist, said. "This means that a whole segment of society has no right to heating in winter. Furthermore, second, third and fourth wives who live in separate houses don't get an allowance because while the husband may have four wives, he is only issued with one family book."
In short, unless a woman has a husband or her husband's family book, she is not eligible for a heating allowance. Furthermore, according to the minister's instructions, even divorced women who are in the possession of their father's family book are not eligible for the allowance because only the head of the family registered in the family book (or his wife if he has passed away or is ill) can apply for the allowance. Syrian women married to foreigners are also ruled out because their husbands do not receive the all-important document.
The minister's announcement has caused uproar within the country's civil society movement, with local press describing the move as "a punishment to women" that is "against the Syrian constitution". The Syrian Communist Party also vehemently denounced the decision, saying it was a form of discrimination against women, not just because of the link being made between the right to a heating allowance and the family book, but also because women cannot even obtain a family book.
"We have always demanded and we still demand that a woman's right to independence in all matters be acknowledged, especially with regards to civil and personal status law," an editorial published on February 24 in the Syrian Communist Party newspaper Al-Nour stated. "This includes giving women a family book in case their parents die, they don't get married, are divorced or widowed. This would release them from their complete dependence on their families, husbands, ex-husbands or late husbands."
No way out
Despite the public outcry, Mousa says little can be done to change the situation.
"This is a government allowance," she said. "No legal procedure can force the ministry to extend it to women as well." It is a reality that is hard to accept for women like Kamar Habasheye, 50, who has been divorced for three years. With no diploma in hand and in fragile health, finding a job is no easy task. Since her three daughters got married, Habasheye lives alone, surviving off a monthly income of SYP 2,000 (USD 43) that she receives from an Islamic charity. She tries to supplement this meagre amount by taking on the occasional cleaning job, which earns her another SYP 1,500 (USD 32) a month.
"I simply can't make ends meet," Habasheye said. "Every week I have to spend a few days at my parents' house and another couple of days at my brother's place so as not to starve. I desperately need this allowance. The winters are getting colder every year and I have no idea what to do."
Habasheye is one of many women hoping for a change in this year's heating allowance distribution scheme. However, according to Abu Watfe, the funds allocated to the heating allowances have already been distributed, making it pointless to change the eligibility criteria.
"We've already distributed the majority of the allowances, covering eighty-five percent of Syrian families," Abu Watfe said, adding that the ministry could make an exception in extreme cases. "While they are not eligible for the heating allowance, women who are extremely hard up could come to the ministry and ask for help," he said."We might investigate their case.
In February, the Ministry for Local Administration announced that the heating allowance, provided under Law No. 29 of November 19, 2009, does not apply to:
• A divorced woman whose father, mother, brothers and sisters are married. The allowance will only be allocated to the head of the family registered in the family book, or his wife in case he has passed away or is ill.
• A divorced woman who has lost her parents and does not have a family book.
• Underage children who do not have their late parents' family book.
• A widow who does not have a family book, even if she lives in Syria permanently.
• A bachelor whose parents passed away and who does not have a family book, or whose family book is in the possession of his stepmother.
This article was published in Syria Today magazine.


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In the aftermath of the judge handing down a £5 million fine last week to Merlin Entertainments, owner of Alton Towers, Paul Paxton, the Stewarts Law solicitor representing the victims of the Smiler ride accident, said: "Money alone will never replace limbs, nor heal the psychological scars."
While money cannot undo what has happened, the scale of the fine could be a wake-up call to other visitor attractions to ensure that they tighten their safety regimes and avoid similar accidents.
What is clear is that, coming just days after Network Rail was fined £4 million for safety failings in connection with the death of the actress Olive McFarland, the judge was sending a strong message that the financial penalties after serious accidents are no longer going to be mere pinpricks — they will lead to gashes to the balance sheets of culpable businesses.
The context for the Merlin and Network Rail penalties is the new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences that came into force in February. As Chris Green, of Weightmans, says: "Following the new guidelines, the penalties for industrial accidents are just rocketing."
Already the impact of the penalties has been extraordinary. "It's been a game-changer," says Chris Morrison, of Clyde & Co. "While we don't have all of the data yet, we can safely say that fines relating to Health and Safety Executive prosecutions in the first six months post the guideline are significantly greater than the whole of the previous year,"
In effect, as Green explains, a new scale of penalties has been introduced based on the erring company's financial turnover (as opposed to profitability). "For example, there was recently a case of a care home that had a fatality for which they were held responsible and the fine was £1.5 million on a turnover of £12 million," Green says. "Not so long ago £500,000 would be regarded as the top end for corporate manslaughter in practice, while an accident which was a non-fatality would be £100,000. So you can see the size of the increase."
High though the penalties such as Merlin's have become, they could be much higher. Because Merlin pleaded guilty it automatically reduced its tariff by a third.
Andrew Sanderson, of Fieldfisher, says this level of discount could be seen as controversial. "What it means is that the bigger the fine, the bigger the reduction, and some people regard that as unjust. While pleading guilty does save court time, the perceived financial benefit for the business of a discount may be viewed negatively."
It is important to remember that none of this money goes to the victims or their estates — it goes to the government.
As Keith Cundall, of Irwin Mitchell, says, the victims are still primarily reliant on compensation for financial loss from the company's insurers, which will depend on individual circumstances. Mere loss of life (as in the case of a child) leads to a bereavement award of less than £13,000.
So the purpose of the higher penalties is not just to punish, but to prevent. "It's a way of encouraging boards of directors to become much more hands-on when it comes to health and safety," Green says. "Traditionally some directors have been happy enough to delegate health and safety to safety specialists and let them get on with it. Now, because of the level of potential fines, there is a big incentive to take much more interest and to ensure that standards are kept high."
One consequence of the rise in penalties is that auditors are taking a much greater interest, because they could have material bearing on the state of a company's financial health.
This comes at a time when the number of fatal injuries (in the 140s each year) seems to be levelling off after many years of sustained reduction. It may be that a degree of complacency has set in that needs to be disrupted to jump-start further reduction.
That is why the shared view of lawyers in the health and safety field is that Brexit is unlikely to make any significant difference. "The foundation of our legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act, which dates back more than 40 years," says Helen Devery, of BLM. "While some new regulations came from Brussels in the 1990s, that simply reflected a process of modernisation. There is no demand for a repeal of health and safety legislation among my clients."
If there is a need for change, Devery adds, it may be at the more pragmatic level of recruiting many more specialist health and safety judges for the magistrates courts.
However, perhaps the biggest threat to health and safety, says Paul Dean, of HFW, comes potentially from financial cost-cutting in industries feeling the pinch. "I was at a conference in Dubai last week," he says, "and heard a presentation at on offshore supply vessel [OSV] forum about saving costs on safety in the current difficult market. I was troubled by this."


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For the upcoming and final (how did that come around so quickly?) HS4 show at Corban Art Centre, we have decided on the title 'Polarity'. We were asked to write a few words to illuminate our various responses to this title and this was my response:
"I'm approaching the theme of 'Polarity' from the point of view of making work derived from the constant 'push-me pull-you' narrative that drives my own artistic practice and to be fair, my own existence! There are always voices inside my head that doubt my making process, constantly questioning the point of what I am making, urging me to put down the tools and walk away. From many conversations with fellow jewellers, I know I am not alone in this!
When making an object that is responding to an emotion or a concept, it is also wise to give due consideration to any opposing forces in order to legitimise the integrity of that object. Nothing light can exist without dark, love cannot flourish without hate and so on. If we only paid consideration to one pole we would spin off into chaos.
Finally, as a person who grew up with two nationalities, from opposing sides of the globe, I am all too familiar with the feeling of a fractured sense of identity and I am constantly tussling with an inner dialogue between two cultures which are sometimes remarkably similar and other times, 'poles apart'."
The recent work I have been making, inspired by the theme of London Stock Brick (see my blog post from April 19th) is very much influenced by my dual nationalities and as such, this work allies itself with the double-headed Polarity theme. Living and working in a southern hemisphere city, where proposed civic fireworks are suspended because of the presence of a single whale in the harbour, I am also inevitably influenced by the huge, sprawling, dirty city of my birth where governments teeter and a whole nation concentrates on eleven overpaid men kicking a ball about. Micro to macro and north to south, the pendulum swings on.


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Today's First Home Buyer
Owning your own home still remains a goal for many Australians and first-time buyers represent about 18% of total home loan lending. As the market has become more affordable interest among first time buyers has increased.
As affordability improves the FHB can, as we know access a range of incentives including stamp duty savings, FHB grants and in some areas developer incentives, along with the advantage of low interest rates usually around 3.6%.
Plus, for some buyers there's a helping hand from mum and dad. Combined it looks a much-improved outlook for the first-time buyer.
However, there are still some barriers for any FHB and while prices are down housing affordability is still a hurdle. A situation made more complex by a lack wage growth. There's also been a big shift in FHB demographics impacting how future projects might best serve this rising market.
One option is buying off-the-plan, this can be an attractive way to enter the market and recently we published a First Home Buyers Guide to buying off -the-plan. It's well worth reading to gain an understanding of this popular way to buy a new apartment or house.
Savvier and More Demanding
There's no shortage of evidence to show that market activity and prices are down across the board. We also know that fewer people are getting loans to buy homes or investments.
However, the proportion of FHBs is growing as we see lenders are tighter on eligibility it also seems that the FHB is changing and changing a lot.
While it's true that we might be familiar with the nature of the FHB starting out to buy their first home, there are some emerging trends that will have far-reaching impacts on the FHB market.
Not only are we facing the age of the Millennials, we also see that FBHs are these days older, perhaps wiser but, for sure they are much more selective.
On average the FHB is older. Back in the earlier 1990's they averaged 27 years of age however, some recent research shows today 31 is more typical and in Sydney and Melbourne they may well be even older again and facing bigger income gaps. Almost every FHB does have to face the reality that while property prices have risen over the last decade, wages and salaries have grown at less than snail's pace.
One key reason for this jump in the age of FHB's is not only changing expectations around lifestyle and travel goals, but the reality that it's taking much longer to save a deposit. And just as some prices may have eased, many lenders now require larger deposits, often 20% but generally more than the traditional 10%.
Shifting Lifestyles
Sometimes we might be inclined to think of the FHB as a freshly minted couple, recently wed and planning a family. Today that's a very different picture, we have same-sex couples, family groups and couples who may have lived together for many years in rented are shared housing.
Until their 30's and 40's renting has suited their lifestyle choices and allowed for travel and greater career flexibility and mobility however, now as they get older, security and possibly having children has an impact.
Homes still offer a feeling of security that all buyers nominate as a key reason for buying and it's a need that naturally become stronger as we age and the appeal of back-packing around exotic locations fades.
However, this very high-level focus on security often means that today's FHB will end up taking extra time to find the house or apartment that best suits their needs.
Today's FHB is not so willing to play leap-frog through a succession of purchases. Partly because they better understand the stress, and costs involved with buying and selling. They are also more sensitive to the rising prices that can be associated with up-grading.
It's a trend that in part helps to explain why 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom apartments and town-homes are now more popular. An FHB in 2019 takes the long-term view they are not out to speculate on continued market gains and they are selective in terms of location and existing facilities.
Invest to Buy
If today's FHB is adjusting to saving for a 20% deposit they are also looking at other financial options to help them get their ideal home and that includes investing in property, and the figures are not always easy to measure.
However, it is a choice some make and that can include living at home longer. Despite the characters used in some TV commercials, depicting the reluctant stay-at-home adult-child, many do believe that it's okay to live with their parents, and beyond the age of 30.
It's also interesting that some FHBs in more expensive markets are just as likely to make their first purchase an investment property. This can include the purchase of an investment property out of their city, home state or in regional areas. It's a trend that again reinforces the fact that FHB's are very market savvy.
As FHB's get older and more selective the reality is that at some point lenders do start to be even tougher with loan applications and it's an issue that some couples who divorce can have to face.
This can eventually favour downsizing to an apartment, and again this is driving demand for bigger and quality apartments among this group of potential FHB, and they are also keen to stay in familiar areas.
Later Parents
Another big impact on the demographic of the FHB is later parenting. The figures are telling and the impact on the shape of the housing market is very obvious. The headline is that we are having children much later in life.
In 1991, the average age of first-time mothers was 25.8. By 2015, it had increased to 30 plus, and dads are also older, these days parenting looks very much like something many of us do in our 30's rather than our 20's.
Migrants and first adult children of migrants are also a big part of the FHB market, they are more often than not urban focused and are not that interested in green-field or outer-suburban locations.
Today's FHB is under more financial pressure, older, much more selective, well-educated, possibly a property investor, could be divorced or about to have a family, well-travelled and not in a hurry.


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