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Locating Leaks
Where To Start?
First locate the water meter. The water meter is normally located in the basement, crawl space, or utility room where the water service line enters the property.
- Step 1 – Pick a time when no water is being used. Lift up the black lid on the meter to reveal the dials, and observe the small blue star shaped disc and red sweep hand/needle on the water meter. If either one of these is moving, this means there is water moving through the meter and something is demanding water. If neither is moving, go to step two.
- Step 2 – Pick a time when no water will be used for several hours, or overnight. Record the reading from the water meter. Check the reading several hours later, or in the morning before any water is used. If the meter reading has changed, there is a water device that is running or leaking.
Where to Look?
Toilet leaks are the number one cause of increased water consumption. About 20% of all toilets leak. Several hundred gallons of water, or more, can be lost per day from a leaky toilet.
- Does the toilet handle stick, or get hung up?
- Does the toilet flapper seal tightly?
- Perform a leak test: Put a few drops of food coloring in the tank to change the water color. Do not flush the toilet! If after 15-30 minutes, the dye color appears in the bowl, there is a leak that should be repaired. Typically, the toilet flapper needs to be replaced, or the water level/float needs to be adjusted.
Other Places to Look:
- A water softener that is running more than normal
- Faucets that are dripping, and will not shut off
- Humidifier on the furnace that is running more than normal
- Outside water spigot left on
- Lawn sprinkler system that could be running/leaking
- Water around the water heater
If you have questions, please call Customer Service at 402-441-7551, Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.


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Madison Common Council approves budget
Council approves $1.75 million for Overture Center
MADISON, Wis. — The Madison Common Council on Wednesday finished approving next year's city budget.
The process took two nights. Council members mostly stuck together to oppose the mayor, especially on Overture Center funding, but there has been plenty of disagreement on the way to finalizing the $267 million budget.
There were some hugs after the meeting and also some frustration over how things were done. In short, the budget has been approved and taxes on the average Madison home will go up about $50 next year.
One of the difficult decisions was a 13-7 vote to internalize city golf operations, meaning four golf pros will lose their jobs at year's end.
"To call that the Madison way — that is not the Madison way," said Alderman Mark Clear.
Madison's parks superintendent said the process has already begun to hire one new pro and four assistant ones and taking over the four clubhouse operations.
Earlier Wednesday night, alders voted to defeat Mayor Paul Soglin on funding for the Overture Center. Alders voted for $1.75 million to go to Overture, even though the mayor made the argument that city priorities have changed and there isn't enough money available.17416076
"We're not special anymore. The demands of poverty have more than quadrupled," Soglin said.
The $1.75 million approved for the Overture Center is still less than the $2 million that Overture leaders wanted.
The council also approved more money for Madison Metro Transit, recommending that the money go toward new bus service to the troubled and isolated Owl Creek neighborhood on the southeast side.

subset: commoncrawl


text: NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cut the credit rating on Argentina's foreign currency bonds to "selective default" on Wednesday due to nonpayment. The downgrade will stay in place until Argentina resolves nonpayment issues. Local currency bonds kept their CCC+/C ratings intact. Argentina remains in negotiations Wednesday in an attempt to reach a deal that would allow it to make payments on its bonds. A years-long dispute with bondholders involved in its last default in 2001 has come to a head following a ruling that Argentina must pay those creditors. Argentine banks are reportedly pitching a deal to avert a default.


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A conversation with Aabye-Gayle Francis-Favilla
Charles Hammond began his professional life in the corporate world, first working for General Motors and then for a pharmaceutical company called Sterling Drug. He expected to spend his professional life working as a successful Christian businessman. However, after nearly two decades in the corporate world, Charles began to feel God guiding him in a different direction. First he began serving on the pastoral staff at Brooklyn Tabernacle. Then, in response to a stirring in his heart, he sent his resume to Nyack College and was soon hired as the assistant to then president David Schroeder.
During his time at Nyack, Charles has witnessed and experienced transformation. He has held a number of titles and is currently dean of students for the city campus. Charles came to Nyack with an undergraduate degree. Encouraged by his colleagues, he has since earned his master's and his PhD.
I spoke to Dean Hammond about his experiences at Nyack, his message to perspective students, and the goals he holds for himself and the school community.
What would you say are the principles that have guided you professionally?
My goal has always been centered around a couple of verses in the book of Colossians (Col. 3: 17, 23), which basically say the same thing in a different way: Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. And whatever you do, do it with all of your heart. Nothing to me is worse than a half-baked anything. My goal, my passion, is to do it all for the glory of God—and to do it with excellence.
What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced working here?
It's a great challenge for me to see students put their emphasis first on Christ. Ask anybody, "What's Dean Hammond's favorite verse?" and they're going to tell you, "It's Matthew 6:33." I don't care what your major is—whether it's nursing, psychology, education, music, or pastoral ministry—you've got to put Christ first. When you do that, everything else is going to work out. In the world we're living in today, there are so many challenges to that. All these things are always vying to try to secularize us and get us away from Christ, but that's not going to stop me from doing my part. Like Billy Graham said, no one person saves the world. I just want to do my part.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
I just love being here. There's no doubt about that. I couldn't be somewhere if I didn't enjoy it. To be able to come here and be somewhat impactful in the lives of people, that's big to me. That's cool. I enjoy the interaction. [My] colleagues, the faculty, the administration folks—I feel like I'm around some of God's choicest people working here.
What would you like your legacy at Nyack to be?
I don't want any notoriety of any kind. It means nothing to me at this point in my life. I'm in my "give back" years. I just want to give back. [I hope they'll say,] "Dean Hammond was someone who exuded the aroma of Christ. When I'm around him, I just want to fall more in love with Jesus and be all that God wants me to be."
What do you hope students who attend Nyack leave with when they graduate?
I hope they leave Nyack with a determination to be a world changer. That whatever profession [they pursue]—music, education, nursing, psychology, social work—that they take the academic piece and integrate it with their faith and go into the highways and byways to be the salt and light that Jesus wants us to be.
What is your message to incoming students?
From the depths of my heart, I want to welcome you here. The storms will come. The hard times will come, but God is able to bring you through the storms. You're going to get the best education that you could ever possibly get. The scholarship here is second to none, and everything that comes along side of that will be commensurate. I welcome you here with open arms. Welcome天地棋牌.


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Small Plant News: Volume 4, Number 7
|Small Plant News Archive Page. This is an archive page. No new content is being added. While these newsletters remain available for reference purposes, the documents do not reflect changes to Agency policy that may have been instituted since the newsletters were published. Also note that resources and websites mentioned in older issues may have moved or may no longer be available. Points of contact for various initiatives may have changed.
In This Issue:
- Part II: Implementing the Public Health Information System (PHIS): An Overview of Its Benefits
- Part I: Rural Development Stands Ready To Assist Small Meat and Poultry Plants With Loans
- Commonly Asked Questions & Answers
- Food Safety Resources
Part II: Implementing the Public Health Information System (PHIS): An Overview of Its Benefits
By Jane Johnson
In the second of a two-part series, Small Plant News takes a look at the benefits of the enhanced public health data infrastructure system being implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS).
As covered in the previous issue of Small Plant News, FSIS is launching an enhanced automated data infrastructure system known as the Public Health Information System, or PHIS. Important data collected by FSIS inspectors will be put into—and will be available from—this data system.
PHIS will have many benefits for plant owners with computer access and an Internet connection. It should be noted that if your plant doesn't have computer access and an Internet connection, you will not be required to use a computer or the Internet at your plant. As a matter of fact, if you don't have computer and Internet access, you will likely not see any change in the day-to-day operations or FSIS inspections at your plant, with the following possible exceptions:
- Inspection program personnel and other Agency personnel will be alerted to irregularities or unusual events in the system data and will be better able to recognize negative trends. Inspection personnel will, in turn, notify the appropriate plant owner and/or operator. This may help the owner and/or operator prevent failures in the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system, or identify and prevent other food safety hazards before they occur.
- You may see quicker response time from FSIS inspection personnel when they are reacting to events or performing followup tasks, such as sampling.
- Inspection personnel will be routinely tasked with verifying your HACCP plan's hazard analysis.
In short, your FSIS inspector in charge may be communicating with you more frequently about preventing problems. This is beneficial to you, the Agency, and the public.
Now, what if you do have computer and Internet access? How will you benefit from PHIS? First, according to Charles Gioglio of the FSIS Office of Field Operations, "PHIS will allow plant owners and operators to respond to noncompliance records electronically, as well as to appeal them electronically."
If your plant doesn't have a computer or Internet access, you'll still be presented with a paper copy of each noncompliance record. You'll also be able to provide a written response on the paper copy if you wish. Appeals regarding noncompliance records will still be accepted on paper. (Although not required by regulation, it is recommended that such appeals be made in writing.)
Second, plant owners and/or operators will have the ability to get timely reports of inspection verifications from PHIS. "Having this data available will give plant owners and/or operators the ability to see trends and predict potential failures in their manufacturing processes, including their HACCP systems or parts of their HACCP systems, and prevent failures before they occur. This should help plants avoid food safety problems," added Gioglio.
Third, the plant profile in PHIS will contain more extensive information about the plants' operations, product types, and HACCP system, allowing the Agency to tailor inspection, sampling, or other activities based on plant characteristics and processes. PHIS will give a plant owner and/or operator the ability to view the data in his or her own plant's profile. If the owner and/or operator believes that data in the profile is inaccurate, he or she can request that the information be corrected and may provide records or other evidence to inspection program personnel to support the correction.
Fourth, for plants that are involved with exports, PHIS, once fully implemented, will facilitate the export process by automating plant applications for approval for export, applications for export certificates, and issuance of export certificates. The system will include an automated edit-check capability to make sure certificates comply with a foreign country's import requirements.
And fifth, for plants that import products, PHIS will facilitate electronic communication between governments, allowing for more efficient receipt of health certificates from foreign governments for product exported to the United States. The results of the inspections performed, including the disposition of a product that has been refused entry, can be reported.
FSIS will give establishment owners and operators all of the information they need to gain optimal benefit from this new system. If you have any questions regarding PHIS, contact FSIS' Office of Policy and Program Development via askFSIS on the FSIS Web site at www.fsis.usda.gov or call 1-800-233-3935. You can also call the Small Plant Help Desk at 1-877-374-7435 or send an email to firstname.lastname@example.com.
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Part I: Rural Development Stands Ready To Assist Small Meat and Poultry Plants With Loans
By Andy Jermolowicz and Janet McGinn
If you are a small packinghouse or processor and you want to expand, upgrade, or update your facility, assistance is available. As covered in the Volume 1, Number 3 issue of Small Plant News, USDA's Rural Development is ready to offer assistance in the form of loans and grants, which this two-part series will examine.
Rural Development is a key provider of loan and grant funding to help meet the diverse needs of rural communities. This Agency works with other Federal organizations, both within and outside of USDA, United States or a State, either State, and local governments, the National Credit Union and a broad range of private Administration or a State sector interests to achieve a agency, or are regulated by coordinated effort to increase a State or national insurance economic opportunity and regulatory agency. Other lenders improve the quality of life for all rural Americans.
While Rural Development does not offer a specific program for these activities, a number of loan guarantee and grant programs administered by this Agency may be applicable to small and very small meat and poultry processors looking to develop or expand their business. Rural Development loan guarantees can be used by individuals, businesses, or cooperatives for acquisition, conversion, enlargement, repair, modernization, development, purchase of equipment, leasehold improvements, machinery, supplies, or inventory.
Rural Development business assistance is available to applicants in eligible rural areas. For information about eligible rural areas, contact your Rural Development State office or visit the Agency's Income and Property Eligibility Web site at http://eligibility.sc.egov.usda.gov/eligibility/welcomeAction.do.
Rural Development's primary lending program is the Business and Industry (B&I) Loan Guarantee program. The purpose of the B&I program is to improve, develop, or finance business, industry, and employment and improve the economic and environmental climate in rural communities. A borrower may be a cooperative organization, corporation, partnership, or other legal entity organized and operated on a profit or nonprofit basis; an Indian tribe on a Federal or State reservation or other federally recognized tribal group; a public body; or an individual.
Eligible B&I guaranteed lenders include any Federal-or State-chartered bank, farm credit bank, other farm credit system institution with direct lending authority, banks for cooperatives, savings and loan associations, mortgage companies that are part of a bank-holding company, credit unions, or insurance companies regulated by the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation. As applicable, these entities must be subject to credit examination and supervision by either an agency of the United States or a State, either the National Credit Union Administration or a State agency, or are regulated by a State or national insurance regulatory agency. Other lenders that the Agency determines have the legal authority to operate a lending program and sufficient lending expertise and financial strength to operate a successful lending program can be eligible. All eligible lenders must have adequate experience and expertise to make, secure, service, and collect B&I loans.
Loan purposes may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- business and industrial acquisitions when the loan will keep the business from closing, prevent the loss of employment opportunities, or provide expanded job opportunities;
- business conversion, enlargement, repair, modernization, or development;
- the purchase and development of land, easements, rights-of-way, buildings, or facilities; or
- the purchase of equipment, leasehold improvements, machinery, supplies, or inventory.
For additional information on loan amounts, terms, etc., visit the Rural Development Business Programs Web site at https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/programs-services-businesses or call (202) 690-4730.
We'll cover the various grant programs that Rural Development offers in the next issue of Small Plant News.
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Commonly Asked Questions & Answers
Q. What are the Rules of Practice?
A. The Rules of Practice are set out in the regulations in Title 9 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 500. These regulations identify the conditions under which enforcement actions can be taken by the Agency and include the criteria for when those actions are warranted. These regulations were issued to ensure that all establishments are afforded due process.
Q. Why are the Rules of Practice important?
A. FSIS is responsible for treating all facilities consistently and fairly and for ensuring that each facility is afforded due process under the law.
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Food Safety Resources
By By Sally Fernandez
Need a handy reference tool to help determine whether you need to invest in a freezer? Want to figure out a way to explain to your customers the difference between line weight, carcass weight, and finished cut weight? Could you use a quick primer on the various types of beef aging?
If your answer is yes, FSIS has a useful tool that can help you. The Beef and Pork Whole Animal Buying Guide is an easy to use resource for buying pork and beef as quarter, half, or whole carcasses from local meat producers. It explains marketing terms and includes information on meat inspection, storage, handling, and meat cut out weight. It also includes photos of common retail beef and pork cuts. For beef, the photos include ribs, rib eye steak, ground beef, etc., and for pork, the photos include pork chops, tenderloin, roasts, etc. It even breaks down the different stages of meat weight production, from the weight of live animals to the weight of carcasses to the weight of consumable meat.
The Beef and Pork Whole Animal Buying Guide was published by the Small Meat Processors Working Group at the Iowa State University Extension office. FSIS has copies of the guide for you free of charge.
If you would like to order a copy or have any questions about this guide, you can contact the Small Plant Help Desk at 1-877-374-7435 or email email@example.com.
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Small Plant NEWS
Editor: Keith Payne
Managing Editor: Jane Johnson, DVM
Production: Joan Lindenberger, Sally Fernandez
Design: Gordon Wilson
Contact: Small Plant News, USDA/FSIS, Aerospace Building, 3rd Floor-Room 405, 14th and Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20250.
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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A new free-to-play MMORPG on the Games.la platform, Naruto Saga brings a fresh set of gameplay experiences into the world of the fabled Naruto anime series. Combining tactical one-on-one battle systems with quick time events (QTEs), dynamic quest systems based on Naruto plots, powerful Beast Summoning, exciting Arena PK and mysterious Ninja Transformation features, Naruto Saga gives players immense freedom while challenging them to use wisdom and courage to overcome obstacles as they strive to become the top ninja in the land.
Players have a main ninja character and choose their ninja class after completing the first main quest. Each of the three classes, Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu, has a unique set of attacks and skills that shape the way they approach battle.
Ninjutsu characters, such as Uzumaki Naruto, Gaara, and Jiraiya, are the heavy hitters of Naruto Saga, proficient enough with Critical damage to deal massive hits to their enemies. When triggered, Ninjutsu ninjas can deal extra damage to all enemies, and their adept use of Strike Talent can restrict a Taijutsu ninja's blocking ability.
Taijutsu ninjas, such as Rock Lee, Gai, and Tsunade, are known for their incredible defense capabilities. By using Block at the right moment, Taijutsu ninjas can greatly reduce the damage they take. Taijutsu characters are cunning enough to outsmart the Genjutsu Ninja's dodge ability.
Genjutsu practitioners, such as Uchiha Sasuke, Kakashi, and Orochimaru, have the ability to move faster than the eye can see. When using Dodge, Genjutsu ninjas can avoid any and all damage coming their way, while their proficiency with Tenacity Talent means they can stand toe-to-toe with the most powerful Ninjutsu ninjas around.
On their epic journey, players will meet and team up with some of the most famous ninjas in the anime world, including Kakashi, Sasuke, Sakura, and even the powerful Naruto himself. Players can also form teams with each other as they explore everything the mystical ninja world has to offer, and make use of deep social features and forums to share the secrets they find or keep them to themselves.
The Naruto Saga open beta goes live today, October 29th at 9:00pm (GMT -5). Interested players can register for free now at the official website, and learn more by following Naruto Saga on Facebook and Twitter.
Play here: http://track.games.la/pr_ns.htm
Official site: http://saga.games.la/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NarutoZone
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Naruto_Saga


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Apple introduced the world to its new iPad mini, the miniature-sized version of the best-selling iPad tablet computer. Apple unveiled the 7.9-inch tablet at a San Jose press event, telling the crowd that the new device is featherweight—tipping the scales at only 0.68 pounds.
According to Apple's marketing chief, Phil Schiller, the iPad mini weighs about as much as a pad of paper.
The iPad mini will compete with other small tablets like Amazon's Kindle Fire HD, Barnes & Nobles' Nook and Google's Nexus 7.
Less is More
The iPad mini's sleek aluminum-and-glass design (which is 23 percent thinner than the previous iPad) makes it only as thick as a pencil. In addition to being 53 percent lighter than the iPad 3, the iPad mini features 10-hour battery life power.
The iPad mini has an A5 chip "under the hood," and features a FaceTime HD camera and a 5-MegaPixel iSight camera. Wi-Fi models go on sale on November 2, with the cellular versions appearing two weeks afterward.
iPad mini Pricing
$329 – 16GB wi-fi
$429 – 32GB wi-fi
$529 – 64GB wi-fi
$459 – 16GB wi-fi, cellular
$559 – 32GB wi-fi, cellular
$659 – 64GB wi-fi, cellular
An iPad mini in comparison to the original, larger iPad.
Industry analysts have figured that Apple would try to find a way to court the smaller tablet market, which supports smaller, less functional tablets offered at a lower price. Apple already securely owns the larger tablet marketplace, with its powerhouse iPad dominating the niche with sales topping 84 million units.
Those iPad sales have taken place within less than three years, too – the first iPad introduced until April 2010. With the iPad mini's heritage, it's extremely well positioned to take on the Kindle's of the world this holiday shopping season.
More than the Mini
But Apple was only getting warmed up with the iPad mini. The company also announced the rollouts of several other Apple products, including a beautiful new update to the iMac.
Also announced…A new iMac, which is drastically thinner and faster than previous iMac's.
- A new 4G iPad that boasts a 9.7-inch Retina™ display, a newly designed A6 chip and a FaceTime HD camera. This iPad will be equipped with iOS 6. On sale Nov. 2, the 4G iPad will also be available in a Wi-Fi and Cellular version. The Wi-Fi version is available in 16 GB ($499), 32 GB ($599) and 64 GB ($699) formats. The Cellular version is available in 16 GB ($629), 32 GB ($729) and 64 GB ($829) formats.
- A sleek new 13-inch MacBook Pro that's 20 percent thinner and a full pound lighter than previous MacBook Pros. Tricked out with a 2.5 GHz Intel processor, this new model features a Hi-Res Retina™ display with 4 million pixels. The new 13-inch MacBook starts at $1,700.
- A new iMac, which will also start shipping in November. The new razor-thin model will start at $1,299.
Online ordering for several of the announced products will begin Friday, October 26th at the Apple Store.
Apple CEO Tim Cook also announced that Apple had recently reached an amazing milestone related to why you should become an app developer, with Apple stating that it had delivered more than 35 billion app downloads.
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Secondary schoolchildren protest over leaving cert examinations
Secondary school students from the towns of Jaromer and Sternberk have organised a protest march in Prague, which should conclude in front of the Ministry of Education. The students are angry at the introduction of a new standardised national school-leaving certificate while they were in the middle of their school cycle. The students want the national leaving certificate to only apply to pupils who have started secondary school this year. They have also begun organising a petition in support of their cause. So far they have collected 11,000 signatures from secondary school students. An internet petition has also collected 30,000 signatures from secondary pupils. The protest march is scheduled to take place on 4 May.
Latest News
Smart Quarantine project to cost CZK 400 million next year10/30/2020
The operation of the national Smart Quarantine programme focused on Covid-19 will cost around CZK 400 million next year, the Czech News Agency reported on Friday.
The programme will be operated by the Ministry of Health in cooperation with the National Agency for Communication and Information Technologies.
The programme, which was launched in the spring, assists regional hygiene stations in tracing potentially infected people by mapping the contacts of positively tested individuals for COVID-19 with the use of modern information technologies.
Lower house votes to extend state of emergency until November 2010/30/2020
The lower house of Parliament has voted to extend the state of emergency in the Czech Republic until November 20. The present state of emergency was announced in the country on October 5 and is in place until November 3rd.
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said the extension was necessary to keep in place the emergency measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, including restriction of free movement and closure of non-essential businesses and services.
The government's original proposal for an extension until December 3 did not win approval.
Deputies approve CZK 5,000 bonus for pensioners10/30/2020
The lower house of Parliament on Friday approved a proposal to give pensioners a one-off bonus of CZK 5,000, in view of higher living costs and additional expenses linked to the coronavirus crisis.
The sum is to be added to pensions in December. The bonus should cost the state CZK 15 billion altogether.
The proposal still has to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president.
Mandatory testing of clients in social facilities to start on Wednesday10/30/2020
A mandatory testing of clients in senior homes and other social facilities in the Czech Republic will probably begin next Wednesday, the head of the Czech Association of Social Services, Jiří Horecký, told the Czech News Agency on Friday. The mandatory testing in these institutions was approved by the government on Tuesday.
The first wave of testing will use antigenic COVID-19 tests, which are less reliable, but are able to indicate the level of spread faster than normal PCR testing. A second, more reliable wave of tests will follow.
On Thursday, over 3,000 clients and nearly 2,200 employees of social facilities tested positive for Covid-19.
Saturday is expected to be partly cloudy to overcast with daytime highs ranging between 12 and 14 degrees Celsius.
Czech economy mitigates its downturn in third quarter10/30/2020
The Czech economy slightly mitigated its fall in the third quarter of 2020, the Czech Statistics Office reported on Friday. According to its preliminary estimate, the gross domestic product decreased by 5.8 percent year-on-year and by 6.2 percent in quarterly terms.
In the second quarter, the Czech economy experienced a fall of 10.9 percent, the worst result in the history of the independent Czech Republic.
Analysts expect that due to the restrictive measures connected to the coronavirus pandemic the year-on-year fall will again exceed the ten-percent mark in the last quarter of 2020.
Jaromír Alan to become Czechia's new NATO and EU military representative10/30/2020
Major General Jaromír Alan will be appointed the new NATO and EU military representative of the Czech Republic, the spokeswoman for the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces told the Czech News Agency on Friday. He will replace Lieutenant General František Malenínský in the post.
Major General Jaromír Alan has served as director of the Capability Planning Division of the Ministry of Defence. He has also worked as Chief of Staff, with the Czech Delegation to NATO HQ, Brussels and has combat experience from his deployment in the Balkans operations.
Mixed results for Czech clubs in Europa League10/30/2020
Slavia Prague were the only Czech club to do well in the group stage of football's Europa League on Thursday night. The Czech title-holders beat Germany's Leverkusen 1:0 in Prague, with the only goal coming from Peter Olayinka.
By contrast Slovan Liberec suffered a 1:5 away defeat at the hands of Crvena zvezda Belgrade, while Sparta Prague lost 3:0, also away, to AC Milan.
Over 1,000 now in intensive care with Covid-19 in Czech hospitals10/30/2020
Some 13,051 new cases of Covid-19 were registered in the Czech Republic on Thursday. The total number of active cases in the country now stands at 178,578, according to official Ministry of Health data.
The number of deaths with the coronavirus has climbed to 2,862, with 540 of those occurring so far this week.
The number of patients with Covid-19 in a critical condition has passed 1,000 for the first time, reaching 1,031. Some 6,604 people are hospitalised with the virus.
New health minister aims to replace fear of Covid-19 with respect for virus10/29/2020
The new minister of health, Jan Blatný, has outlined his vision for the post his first news conference since being appointed. Dr. Blatný said the main goal for him and his government department would be to change the situation with regard to Covid-19 and the mood in society. He said fear of the virus, which was paralyzing and dividing people, needed to be traded for respect.
The new minister said the current strict measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus would not need to be tightened further in a significant way. However, people need to respect them, he said.


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Review: Badland for iOS is nonstop side-scrolling fun
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by Macworld's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
Frogmind Badland for iOS
Are tutorials essential for new games? Though some might think it blasphemy to go without, Frogmind's $4 Badland prefers the learn-by-doing method. The self-styled "atmospheric side-scrolling action adventure game" doesn't so much take its players by the hand as much as it chucks them headfirst into explosive environmental hazards and anticipatory piles of clones—all without a word of warning.
Believe it or not, it's an effective methodology. From the moment the light turns green, Badland has you hit the ground running—or flapping, as the case may be. The introductory sequence is about 15 seconds long: random garbage spews out of a pipe onto a sumptuously drawn world populated by silhouette-based creatures. Shortly after, your fluff-ball of an avatar gets expelled in a similar fashion.
In spite of there being no written instructions to navigate by, Badland remains delightfully intuitive; all it takes is one stray poke of the finger to get the ball flying. Granted, that may be partially because it's pretty much a one-button game: hold down on the touchscreen of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to make your globular persona rise through the air, release it to make the cutesy-looking critter sink. It's easy.
The game itself, on the other hand, is not. Though it begins slowly enough, Badland gradually escalates in complexity. Here, it makes you dodge falling masonry and floating mines. There, it demands you lead a coalition of clones down separate passages to ensure a clear path to the finish. Along the way, you'll find yourself encountering and utilizing power-ups that will cause you to expand, contract, speed up, or slow down. At all times, you must ensure that your character remains on-screen; Failure to do so will lead to an immediate return to the nearest checkpoint.
Bottom line
Simplistic as Badland might be, it's a tightly executed affair: every cog in the proverbial machine operates exactly as it should. The checkpoints never feel too distantly spaced, nor are the puzzles too impossible. It's the kind of game that results in a "just one more round" response, an impulse that can get exacerbated by the excellent pacing, and the fact the game is just too darn pretty to look away from. Plus, the "survival of the fittest" multiplayer mode is absolutely perfect for when you're waiting for the bus.
Frogmind Badland for iOS
This side-scrolling atmospheric adventure game chucks you headfirst into explosive environmental hazards, but each round leaves you wanting more.


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More Than I Can Give
1. When I see someone who is in need
Whom I can comfort, clothe, or even feed
I realize how much I have, and I know it's given to me
To relieve the suff'ring that I see.
2. So I give my substance to the poor
To pay my debt, but then I'm given more;
And so I never can repay the One who has helped me so to live,
But I can show love in how I give.
And when I serve others with love
I am uplifted and filled with peace;
It seems that I'm the one who receives;
I'm given strength that comes from above.
Text: Laura Ashton
Music: Laura Ashton
Artist: Ashton
Album: Music Published in the Church Magazines: New Era
Composition Date: 1993-11-01
More Info: New Era
Service, sharing, strength, love, blessings, thanksgiving, gratitude


text:
Okay so I am in an online class, and at this point I really regret it. There isn't any teaching, just a book an assignment and go. And this stuff is just not working out for me. This week we are suppose to be working with objects. I am suppose to make a class animal, and then three objects; cat, dog, lion. And when I read it in the text book or the other book I bought or online it makes sense, but every single time I try to compile it I get the cannot find symbol error. Several times I have copied the example directly from the book and still get the error.
So here is the example from the book:
class Dog {
int size;
String breed;
String name;
void bark() {
class DogTestDrive {
public static void main (String[] args) {
Dog d = newDog();
d.size = 40;
This is right out of the book I bought but when I type it up I get an error for the newDog(). Can anyone please explain to me why? I thought maybe since they are different things they needed to be in different files, that didn't work so I put them back on the same file...that didnt work either. Whoever helps me with this will by my hero for a long long time.


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stilaStay All Day® Liquid Lipstick
A highly-pigmented, liquid lipstick that's weightless on the lips and delivers long-lasting coverage.
What it does
This creamy, full-coverage lip color provides intense hydration with bold, long-lasting pigment that stays put for up to 12 hours of continuous wear. Featuring an array of matte, satin and shimmer shades, this lip formula imparts a comfortable texture that feels lightweight on lips, and its color-rich formula does not bleed or transfer. Enriched with vitamin E and avocado oil, Stay All Day® Liquid Lipstick hydrates and softens lips so they look and feel beautiful.
What it is formulated WITHOUT:
- Parabens
- Sulfates
- Phthalates
What else you need to know:
This product is free of synthetic dyes, petrochemicals, GMOs, and triclosan.
-Apply directly to lips with brush applicator.
Modern, sophisticated, and fashionable, stila is a beloved beauty powerhouse. Created in 1994 by a celebrity makeup artist, the line has already built a stylishly individual legacy. Innovative formulas, sleek packaging, and fashion-forward colors make a Stila statement at Fashion Week, in glossy magazines, and on the street. With a fabulous array of cult-favorite lip glazes, cheek stains, eyeshadow palettes, and more, stila's goal is to help every woman celebrate her own unique beauty—to look and feel like the best version of herself, and to have fun doing it.
Get more information about
If you are not completely satisfied with an online purchase or gift, you may return your U.S.or Canadian purchase in stores or by mail. Restrictions apply for returns made outside the U.S.


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How ESTEC turned up temperature for Mercury testing
Japan's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter recently withstood 10 times standard solar illumination levels during ESTEC Test Centre testing. Simulating the blistering conditions of Mercury's neighbourhood posed a huge technical challenge, requiring extensive refit of the Centre's largest vacuum chamber.
Last September saw the Thermal Test Model (TTM) of the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) arrive at ESTEC, ESA's technical heart, in the Netherlands.
The octagonal orbiter is destined to hitch a ride on ESA's BepiColombo spacecraft in the same way that ESA's Huygens lander rode aboard NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn.
MMO's shiny surface and 15-rpm spin (reduced to six rpm during testing) will help it to withstand the 450°C plus temperatures near Sun-scorched Mercury.
The majority of satellites passing through thermal vacuum testing in the Large Space Simulator (LSS) – Europe's largest vacuum chamber – are destined for Earth orbit.
"This means they are subjected to standard top-of-atmosphere solar flux, what we call a single solar constant," said Alexandre Popovitch, overseeing LSS modifications.
"But because BepiColombo is venturing so close to the Sun we needed a way of attaining an order of magnitude higher intensity: 10 solar constants.
"The problems we faced were twofold: first, how to reach and sustain this extreme 14 kW per sq m intensity?
"Second, how to remove the extreme amounts of heat that the light beam would produce over the illuminated chamber wall?"
Tight focus gave solution
The initial solution to the first problem seemed to be replacing the 19 high-power 25-kW bulbs with even more powerful versions.
However, testing showed that all candidate bulbs were unable to match the rigid lifetime requirements.
Instead, engineers turned to the 7 m-diameter mirror used to reflect simulated sunlight into the LSS test chamber.
Made up of 121 hexagonal segments, the mirror has an all-but-flat configuration to produce a 6 m-diameter light beam. The Test Centre team realised that increasing the curvature of the mirror to bring the beam into tighter focus – down to a diameter of 2.7 m – would yield the required intensity.
"To achieve this, we had to move all the mirror segments one by one," added Alexandre.
"For maximum precision we used a laser guidance system – laser light was shone onto a cinema screen we moved into the LSS to check each mirror was oriented correctly compared to our optical simulation. Moving the mirrors took a couple of weeks in all."
Reorienting the mirrors meant what was originally a parallel light beam became a converging one – meaning the end walls of the LSS would receive a still greater concentration of illumination and get even hotter.
Turning down the heat
"So to dissipate the high heat flux we installed an extra thermal shroud with a more than six times greater flow of liquid nitrogen than the existing wall shrouds," explained Alexandre.
"Overall, maintaining the chamber walls at –190°C translates to something like 5000 litres of liquid nitrogen per hour across each two-week test, so our 100 000 litre liquid nitrogen tank on site needed regular topping up by new deliveries by lorry.
"We arranged back-up suppliers to ensure the testing could continue without interruption."
Improved test equipment
Taking the subject's temperature during testing was another challenge, explained Test Centre head Gaetan Piret: "Installing any type of sensor on the illuminated body of the satellite would have been very difficult and would certainly have disturbed the temperature equilibrium of the test setup."
The solution was contactless measurement: a pair of infrared cameras were installed inside vacuum canisters, allowing them to operate in the harsh LSS environment. These serve to map MMO's changing surface temperatures remotely.
A new levelling table, able to control a test item's orientation to a hundredth of a degree, was also developed and validated during the LSS refit.
"The satellite is designed to work in weightlessness of course, so its orientation needs to be carefully controlled relative to Earth's gravity," added Gaetan.
"This ensures the proper functioning of active cooling systems such as heat pipes."
These sealed liquid-filled conduits are threaded through satellites to carry away excess heat through evaporation; they are also commonplace in modern laptops.
Two types of test
The MMO underwent testing in two configurations. First it was spun, just as it will during flight. Then for a second test it was kept stationary while mated to ESA's sunshade, as it will be stored during the cruise phase to Mercury.
Engineering models of the European BepiColombo modules will undergo testing at ESTEC later this year.


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Friday, October 30, 2020
The Sufis of Nablus
PM collaborators
- November 27, 2016
Main News
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In the corkscrew lanes of Nablus' medieval centre, just a few steps from the austere beauty of the grand mosque, there is a low room with some plastic chairs and rich carpet. At first glance, it looks the same as any other Muslim holy place. But this room is actually a
, home to the
sect of
The Naqshbandi have been in Palestine since the 1600s, but are not native to the region. As Hassanayn Maulana, an expert on Nablusi culture explains, the word
hints at the Naqshbandi's origins. "The word is of Persian or Kurdish origin," Maulana says. Indeed, Naqshbandi culture was introduced to Palestine by a Persian from Bukhara, in central Asia.
But if the sect was founded elsewhere, a small group of Palestinians have keenly taken on its distinctive practices. Indeed, Naqshbandi customs are wildly different from those of a typical Muslim congregation.
This became clear as soon as the sermon started. In a normal mosque, the imam discusses an issue, with the audience listening in silence. But during his sermon, Naqshbandi Sheikh al-Masri encouraged the men seated around the edge of the
to contribute to the debate. When one quoted a Koranic verse, the others would nod and mutter prayers approvingly.
After the sermon, the Naqshbandi distinguished themselves even further from mainstream Islam. Two of the worshipers began to play a pair of battered green drums in the middle of the room, while another couple joined in on the cymbals.
The playing got louder and louder until the cacophony shook the entire body. This is the point. As Sheikh al-Masri explained, "we use rhythm as a way of getting close to God." This practice is known as
, whereby devout Sufis repeat short phrases to focus the mind and glorify God.
This was made even clearer when, led by a young man with a beautiful voice, the men started chanting, for several minutes, the word 'Allahu' – God. The final 'u'
vowel was extended to approximate song. When combined with special breathing, this custom aims to mimic the beating of the human heart. "Using the Arabic language is very important to us, explained the sheikh. "It is a way of getting God into our hearts."
The result of all this is incredibly intense. Many of the men rocked backwards and forwards in time with the prayer. When one man got up to leave, another jovially (but firmly) plopped him back down. The sheikh himself, by no means a young man, hopped up and danced around the
at one point.
His passion is unsurprising. Naqshbandi sheikhs are trained by masters stretching all the way back to the Muhammad himself, unlike most Sufis who trace their heritage to his son-in-law, Ali.
Eventually, the trace was broken as the lights came back on, and the Naqshbandi shared out chicken and pita bread on plastic plates.
But despite their emphasis on individual spirituality and charity, the future of the Naqshbandi in Palestine has been put at risk by the political reality. Over the past thirty years,
has galloped across the Arab world. From
Saudi Arabia to the killing fields of Syria
, this fundamentalist strain of Islam now dominates large parts of the Middle East. This conservatism has even affected liberal Palestine. In 2012,
Sufis in Nazareth
reported that they were harassed by their more hardline co-religionists.
In the West Bank, explains Maulana, "many Muslims do not think the Naqshbandi are true believers." The Naqshbandi repay the compliment: Sheikh al-Masri claimed that there is "a big gap between us and other Muslims. They are not able to open themselves to God."
Meanwhile, the
, an Islamic movement with some practices similar to the Naqshbandi – "they all pour from the same well" as Maulana put it – have faced
from mainstream Muslims in Nablus.
But despite these tensions, the Naqshbandi persist, perhaps because of the apolitical nature of their doctrine. Even as Nablus' old town is
wracked by political violence
, the Naqshbandi endure. This is especially important given attempts by rival Palestinian factions to
take control
of mosques for political gain. But Sheikh al-Masri is adamant: "we just want to get close to God," he says. "We want to be isolated from the world."
Photo: Sufi lodge in the old city of Nablus, Palestine.
Credit : Amer Sweidan Photography
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It doesn't take much to start an insta-campaign these days against someone or something thanks to social media. So when an editor emailed a link to a story about Netflix creating a new SuperPAC to support SOPA, I could see this would be a story that was going to prompt a strong backlash against a company that doesn't really need another one at this point.
Sure enough, it appeared Anonymous seemed to be making some waves with an anti-Netflix campaign at: #OpBoycottNetflix .
So, I decided to look for the offending document, and found instead a generic registration for a Political Action Committee filed on April 5 that seemed pretty benign. No mention of taking any positions on SOPA or any other insues.
Then I emailed the company. Noting that the original report about the PAC came from the "Russian News Agency," a Netflix spokesman said:
"PACs are commonplace for companies that lead a big, growing market and Netflix is no exception. Our PAC is a way for our employees to support candidates that understand our business and technology. It was not set up for the purpose of supporting SOPA or PIPA. Instead, Netflix has engaged on other issues including network neutrality, bandwidth caps, usage based billing and reforming the Video Privacy Protection Act."
On the whole, Netflix has a fairly small presence in Washington. It just formally registered to lobby for the first time in late 2010. And in 2011, the company spent $500,000 lobbying Congress on topics such as: "Telecommunications issues, Internet non-discrimination; Internet privacy, Intellectual property issues; Internet competition issues; H.R. 2471, Video Privacy Protection Act," according to Senate lobbying disclosure records.
Will any of this halt the campaign? Probably not. As I write, the tweets are still flying fast and furious.


text:
Health roundup: Vitamin D fails to prevent colds
Your Wednesday morning health roundup:
Vitamin D study: Taking vitamin D supplements to prevent colds? You may be wasting your money. A rigorous new study finds that people taking large doses of the popular supplement were just as likely to get colds as people not taking them and that their symptoms lasted just as long. Researchers haven't given up on the idea that supplements might help some people who have very low blood levels of the vitamin. (WebMD)
Teen drivers: Drunk driving among teens fell by more than half in the past 20 years, thanks in part to laws curbing underage drinking -- but also thanks to the fact that teens drive less overall. Rising gas prices also played a role, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 10% of high school students admitted drinking and driving in 2011. (Bloomberg)
Meningitis outbreak: An unusual outbreak of fungal meningitis -- infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord -- has killed two people in Tennessee and sickened 12 others, including one person in North Carolina, health officials say. The infections have been linked to steroid injections the patients got in their spines and a possibly-contaminated drug has been recalled. (New York Times)
Today's talker: Video of a teenager who licks an entire New York City subway railing on a dare -- for a paltry $1 -- is making the Internet rounds. It's gross, but the folks at NBC News' Body Odd blog stop to ask just how gross it is. Answer: probably worse than licking a toilet seat. That handrail may host hundreds of thousands of germs. And yet, the chances the kid will get sick are pretty low -- unless he is unlucky enough to slurp up some fecal matter. Good to know.


text:
Renault Enquiry - Renault MEGANE Sport Tourer
We would be pleased to help with any enquiry you may have. Please use this form to send us an enquiry and we'll respond as soon as possible. We'll never pass on your details to anyone else. Fields marked with an * are required.


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Mayor's Office
As the warmer months approach, Mayor Chris Beutler said watering restrictions will not be necessary because the City's water supply is in good shape. This is the third consecutive year the Mayor is not asking residents to follow the voluntary designated-day watering schedule implemented nine years ago.
"We need to practice good water conservation measures even though Lincoln continues to be blessed with an adequate supply of high-quality water," said Mayor Beutler. "We also want to remind residents that the more water you use, the higher the rate and cost. Lincoln Water System rates are structured to encourage conservation. Relatively small conservation measures can save a lot of water, and that means lower water bills for consumers."
Jerry Obrist, Lincoln Water System (LWS) Chief Engineer, said precipitation is near normal levels, the aquifer is almost full and flows in the Platte River are slightly below normal. Lincoln's water comes from well fields along the Platte near the City's Ashland treatment plant. LWS will continue to utilize electricity in the off-peak period at the plant and select pumping stations to manage electricity consumption to the lowest level possible to conserve energy and reduce electrical costs.
Obrist said the City is currently reviewing its water rate structure and its schedule for the replacement of aging infrastructure. "We must ensure that the system always has the capacity for fire protection and basic health needs," Obrist said. "Many factors must be taken into account, including metering and meter replacement; billing, hydrant repair and replacement; and maintenance and replacement of our current infrastructure. And we must have resources to build new infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing city."
A complete description of water rates and the City's Water Management Plan are available on the City website, lincoln.ne.gov (keyword: water). The Mayor's Water Conservation Task Force recommends the following:


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3net to Simulcast Season Premiere in 3D on Saturday, April 13 at 10 and 10:30pm E/P
(Silver Spring, Md.) - In Cold Mountain, North Carolina, the land is beautiful and the living is tough. In a remote region full of bizarre superstitions, colorful characters, and deep-rooted tradition, folks live off the land just like their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents before them, carrying on the custom of getting by with little and making do with less. When it comes to living the hard-scrabble Appalachian life, there's nobody better than Eugene Runcus, who's got hillbilly ingenuity running through his veins, and his mountain brother, Spencer "Two-Dogs" Boljack, who has unlocked the secrets to backwoods survival. Go along with these mountain men in HILLBILLY BLOOD, returning for a second season on Saturday, April 13 at 10 and 10:30pm E/P on Destination America, with a special 3net 3D simulcast.
"HILLBILLY BLOOD is about more than just stories of life in Appalachia, it's a how-to guide - sort of a Hillbilly MacGyver - for surviving off the land and innovating with the natural resources the mountains offer," said Marc Etkind, SVP of Content Strategy for Destination America. "This show teaches us about home grown brilliance and one important lesson -- how to make so much out of so little."
Viewers will not only join in the HILLBILLY BLOOD mountain adventures but also learn how to remedy any sticky situation using commonplace tools and resources at hand, from rigging a hillbilly scuba suit to cobbling together a recipe for superior moonshine.
The first three episodes include:
Moonshine Secrets premieres Saturday, April 13 at 10pm E/P
Eugene Runcus is known for brewing some of the finest moonshine around, and every winter he counts on trading his hooch for some much-needed supplies to survive the cold conditions. When a new moonshiner with superior brew starts cutting into his territory and stealing customers, Eugene has no choice but to track down this mystery man and learn his secrets. With the help of Spencer, Eugene sets out to find this anonymous moonshiner's location and reclaim his reputation as the finest moonshiner on Cold Mountain. Along the way, they brave harsh terrain crossing a freezing river with a raft made out of vines and disarm a deadfall trap.
Church and Snake premieres Saturday, April 13 at 10:30pm E/P
A local preacher enlists the boys' help to capture snakes for a traditional mountain Pentecostal church service. Keeping community traditions alive is something that Eugene and Spencer hold dear. It's a dangerous assignment, but the boys are up to the task. Using their mountain wits, they devise hillbilly gadgets to protect themselves against the snakes' venomous bites while keeping the critters safe as well. Eugene crafts a humane snake grabber out of wood and wire, while the pair sets up a special zip line to safely transport any vipers they find.
Sunken Treasure premieres Saturday, April 20 at 10pm E/P
There's sunken treasure at the bottom of Pirate's Cove Lake - submerged timber left behind by the logging industry a century ago. To retrieve this precious wood, which could be worth a thousand dollars or more, Eugene and Spencer use every ounce of mountain ingenuity to rig a homemade pontoon boat and diving gear out of scrapyard junk. As Eugene turns an old plastic bucket, garden hose, and leaf blower into a diving helmet and air supply, he's willing to risk life and limb to try and free the log from the muddy depths, even if it means plunging into frigid waters.
HILLBILLY BLOOD is produced for Destination America and 3net by SuperfineFilms with Steven Miller as executive producer. For Destination America, Sara Helman is executive producer, Sara Kozak is SVP of production, Marc Etkind is SVP of content strategy, and Henry Schleiff is president and general manager.
About Destination America
Destination America is the only network to celebrate the people, places, and stories of the United States. The inclusive network targeting Adults 25-54 is available in 60 million homes, emblazoning television screens with the grit and tenacity, honesty and work ethic, humor and adventurousness that characterize our nation. Destination America features travel, food, adventure, home, and natural history, with original series like BBQ Pitmasters, A Haunting, Epic, and Buying Alaska. For more information, please visit DestinationAmerica.com, facebook.com/DestinationAmerica, or twitter.com/DestAmerica. Destination America is part of Discovery Communications (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK), the world's #1 nonfiction media company reaching more than 1.8 billion cumulative subscribers in 218 countries and territories.


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Yeah, we've run across the same behavior where we have a grid that reloads every 30 seconds and is on a hidden card. If the card is destroyed (and this the grid) there is no issue.
Yeah, we've run across the same behavior where we have a grid that reloads every 30 seconds and is on a hidden card. If the card is destroyed (and this the grid) there is no issue.
Has there been an official response to this bug? Is this something that the dev team has been able to replicate? Will this fix be in 4.1?
Can someone on the Sencha team comment on this? This bug isn't a deal breaker but it does make the most important page of my application look very sloppy. We're in the testing phase of our ExtJS 3 to 4 conversion and it's looking awesome except for this one issue. I have time now and can try to replicate this in a test case but I don't want to go through this if it's something that is already being taken care of.
After reviewing the Loadmask code, it appears this issue has been resolved in 4.0.7 and 4.1PR.
"be dom-ready..."
Doug Hendricks
Maintaining ux: ManagedIFrame, MIF2 (FAQ, Wiki), ux.Media/Flash, AudioEvents, ux.Chart[Fusion,OFC,amChart], ext-basex.js/$JIT, Documentation Site.
Got Sencha licensing questions? Find out more here.
Same problem here with ExtJS 4.0.7
The 4.1 is not working with my app so I can say for this version.
I'm running 4.0.7 also and have the issue.
Another probem with mask. When I use it on a window, the mask is display bellow the window so it is not visible.
Lots of bugs with these mask, should I try to fix this bugs or should I wait for new version ?
hmm i'm seeing this just SINCE 4.0.7
Allso all load-masks on views within a panel that has autoScroll true get the load-mask placed centered on the total content height. making the load-masks appear way off.
I saw ppl reporting issues about the load-masks since day 1 when 4.0.7 was released.
Was expecting a fix soon tbh.
btw. happens especially on Accordion-layouts, GridPanel load-masks seem to work fine.
this is how it looks like
Again....Sencha team.
Do I need to take the time to replicate the issues I have in a basic test case or is this a known issue that's already being addressed?
I see tons of complaints on this forum about load mask issues. I can currently think of 3 but have only mentioned 1 because I didn't want to hijack this thread. So far the official response is that the issue is fixed in 4.0.7, but it's clearly not. Is it being addressed?
I am committed to ExtJs 4.x and will do what it takes to help make it work.
I'm having the same problem. I have two grids that are instantiated from the same xtype. The two grids are on two different tab Panels. The two grids share the same store.
The grid panel uses a grid view, and the gridviews loadMask config is defaulted tontrue. When I set the loadMask:false, I did not see the loadmask anymore.
I think what is happening is that it is not marking the grid in another tab as 'disabled', because they are bound to the same store. Hopefully this helps in some way!
One other place to look is in the LoadMask's onBeforeLoad event, which gets called before a store loads(I believe)
if(!this.disabled) <------ mine was not disabled.
In my opinion, still a bug. If I cant see the component, disable it.
Code:onBeforeLoad : function() { var me = this, owner = me.ownerCt || me.floatParent, origin; if (!this.disabled) { // If the owning Component has not been layed out, defer so that the ZIndexManager // gets to read its layed out size when sizing the modal mask if (owner.componentLayoutCounter) { Ext.Component.prototype.show.call(me); } else { // The code below is a 'run-once' interceptor. origin = owner.afterComponentLayout; owner.afterComponentLayout = function() { owner.afterComponentLayout = origin; origin.apply(owner, arguments); if(me.loading) { Ext.Component.prototype.show.call(me); } }; } } }
My situation is similar. I have 2 grids on 2 different cards in my employee section that share the same store. One is a full employee list with a lot of info, the other "jump to" list using just their names. On the page with the full grid it works great. On the employee details page the small "jump to" list is displayed and I get the load mask in the corner.


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Hello Moderators.
* I am asking for a honeymoon period.
Please forgive me if this sounds a little hostile or whinny. I always seem to end up with the resident "troll" or people all to willing to shut me down or to make me feel dumb. I am done with this. For once, let's avoid that.
I am asking about Ezekiel, the man. And no I cannot just "google" it. In an age of over-reliance on Wikipedia use and rampant lies all across the internet. It shocks me that people cannot be bothered to answer a couple of questions. As long as I am not spamming or violating the board rules or lying. What is the problem? I cannot impress upon you how I'd wish this to be a pleasant experience online. *Pay attention to the letters in red.


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Kraftster wrote:llipgh2 wrote:pittsoccer33 wrote:are the prelit trees ok? I think of them and worry about one bulb going out and the whole thing being a waste
I bought a pre-lit tree this year. My old tree needed replaced, and Target had a great sale on them.
Went up in a snap, looks really nice and just enough lights (100 lights for a 4 foot tree), and it comes with spare bulbs in case one goes out.
So far I'm happy, but's it's only been a day.
I put 800 on our seven footer yesterday....
Did it burst into flames yet?
The most lights I've put on a tree was 300 on a 6 ft.


text:
- Description
Details• Rug 80 % Wool, 20% Polyamide.
• Made in Europe.
- Additional Information
Additional Information
Weight 35.00 kg Google merchant condition supr-2018-11-12 Brand Little Cabari Length (cm) 250 Depth (cm) 200 Material 100% Wool
- Shipping
Free delivery for orders above CHF 150.- and below 30kg : decoration, toys & small furniture.
Free delivery for orders above CHF 1000.-
Dispatch within 24 hours only for items in stock.
• Decoration and small furniture (<30kg)
• Deliveries within Switzerland from Monday to Friday, for orders placed and payed by 1PM:
• DPD Predict or SWISS POST Economy: Delivery within 24H to 48H.
• SWISS POST Priority: Delivery within 24H.
• SWISS POST Saturday: Delivery on the following Saturday.
DPD Predict: You will receive an email from DPD informing you of the delivery date, you then have the possibility to delay the delivery from 1 to 3 days.
SWISS POST: In case you are absent the day of the delivery, you can pick-up your parcel at the closest post office within the following 7 days.
• Delays and shipping costs outside of Switzerland are available under our TERMS and CONDITIONS page.
• Furniture (>30kg)
• Delivery of furniture in Switzerland is provided by a professional carrier, to your floor, to your door and in the room of your choice.
• For furniture in stock : our carrier will contact you within 3 working days following your order to make a delivery appointment.
• For furniture orders (not in stock): a delivery time frame is indicated at the top of the item's page under "Availability".
• As soon as we receive clearer notification, we immediately inform you of an estimated shipment date.
• Your order is dispatched once complete (when all of the ordered items are available).
• You can see the exact amount of your shipping costs in your basket before confirming your order.
- Payment
You can easily pay your order via :
• Bank transfer
Payment to be done within 3 days following your order. Your order will be processed only after receiving your payment.
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text:
Makeover Gooey Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
Total TimePrep: 25 min. Bake: 40 min. + cooling
Makes24 servings
This is very good, but mine does not turn out like the pic. Are you sure you do not bake the cake before you add the peanut butter layer? Mine all mixes together and puffs up.
We are always looking for dessert recipes that taste good and mimic the high fat and calorie counterparts. This is satisfying and delicious. To further reduce the fat, I used no eggs and whites only. Further, I eliminated the canola oil and used a fat free butter substitute. The finished product was wonderful. Kudos to the cook who created this....it was love "at first bite " !
I agree with kerschc, the chocolate layer was very difficult to spread in the bottom of the pan, & I also thought that part of the cake was dry after I baked it. The peanut butter top part of the cake was easy to spread & moist after baking. Maybe increasing the canola oil & applesauce would make it easier to spread the chocolate layer & make it more moist after baking?
A little too sweet for my taste but I will tweek it and try it again !! Have to get daughter-in-law's input--she is the Reeses nut in the family
Mine turned out exactly as pictured. They were really good. Took them for the volunteer at a food bank I help at and everyone wanted the recipe.
No comment left
My family loved it! EAsy to make too
Did not turn out at all like it's pictured, the sides puffed up and the middle was very doughy, even after baking it extra time. Will not try this recipe again.
We loved the flavors and textures. I really struggled to spread the cake layer. I ended up spraying a spoon with cooking spray so I could press it into the pan.


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Rihanna to Talk About Being Facebook's Most-Liked Person in Live Chat
Rihanna, who has racked up a Facebook audience larger than anyone else's, will sit down with Bravo's Andy Cohen in a Facebook live chat Thursday.
The 24-year-old plans to talk about having more than 62 million Likes on her Facebook page and her forthcoming seventh studio album, Unapologetic, which comes out Nov. 19. The chat begins at 7 p.m. EST.
When Unapologetic's lead track, "Diamonds," hit iTunes in October it quickly topped singles charts in 27 countries. Rihanna most recently performed at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (it airs Dec. 4 on CBS), and she's scheduled to hit the Saturday Night Live stage Nov. 10.


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There's something so very right about big American V8 racecars competing in Europe.
This SCCA Trans Am Camaro running in the Swiss Reitnau and Oberhallau hillclimbs in 2011 just blows my mind. I'm not sure if it's how gorgeous the car looks, totally widebodied and lowered, or if it's just the huge V8 thundering through the Alps that has me dreaming of buying an F Body.


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Navfree USA is a North American localization of worldwide, crowdsourced and open-sourced GPS navigation software that is offered for free in the Android market. The world version of the app supports navigation in about 34 countries. Navfree USA chooses to focus on the 50 U.S. states, Canada, and Mexico.
There are two reasons someone would want to take a look at Navfree. Firstly, it's free. There are no charges for map downloads, updates, voices, or language packs. Secondly, the free maps are downloaded and stored locally, which means that you won't have to ping a server to download map tiles while on the road or to calculate and recalculate routes. There's also a third reason to consider and that's the warm and fuzzy feeling that you get when supporting open-source software -- if you're into that sort of thing.
Locally stored map data
After installing the app, the first thing that you'll want to do is to pop into the Upgrades section of the main menu to download the map data that Navfree will need for navigation. If you speak a language other than English or would simply like a different voice for your turn-by-turn directions, here's where you can download additional speech packs, as well.
The map data is provided by OpenStreetMap.org, an open-source repository for crowdsourced and community-moderated street map data. Think of it as a decentralized version of Waze or TomTom MapShare or like Wikipedia for road maps.
OpenStreetMap.org maps for the state of California took up 248.7MB of storage space on my device, so you'll probably want to make this download over a Wi-Fi connection. Factor in the space taken up by the app itself and the total storage footprint for Navfree USA on my Google Nexus 7 totaled up to 314MB, which isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. However, by comparison, CoPilot GPS' maps for the entire Southwest United States (covering Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) only took up 172.6MB, with a total app storage footprint of 207.8MB. Now, it's difficult for one person to compare the accuracy of all of that map data, but CoPilot manages to squeeze in four more states with 100MB less data. If you're looking for the absolute smallest footprint on your SD card or internal storage, this is important information to know.
Navfree USA: Free Satnav (pictures)See all photos
Like most crowdsourced data, the OpenStreetMaps are constantly being refreshed, revised, and (hopefully) improved. So, you'll want to periodically check the app's Upgrades screen for updates. I received two full map updates during my two weeks of testing.


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Here you will find all types of Tutoring Classes, both new ones and used, advertised from both companies and individuals. On Kupatana you will find a wide selection of brands sorted by categories. Filter your search or just start browsing!
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text:
This is second annual iPhone OS Application achievement awards. We started the awards last year to recognize the best, not just the best-selling iPhone apps.
Click on the categories below for the nominees and winners in each category.
The 2009 Best App Ever Awards is brought to you by 148Apps.com.
Best App Ever and the Best App Ever Awards are © 2008-2012 148Apps/Steel Media Ventures.
Trademarks of the products shown here are those of their owners.
148Apps and Best App Ever are independent from and not authorized or approved by Apple™ Inc. or Google.


text:
New chace infinite, talib kweli, yeah
Music courtesy of, maurice 'mo betta' brown
Mo betta, makes it mo' better, yeah
Preacher's playing foul in the system now listen now
It's more hate in the religious now ain't it foul
Gotta be a better way to figure out
How to be a self savior plus help my niggaz out
These pigs playin foul in the system now listen now
Every poor person is a nigga now
There's gotta be a better way to figure out
How to get this paper cause they lockin all my niggaz down
How do expect to live? Dealin with savages is damagin
Somebody gotta lose although you play to win
You know these niggaz hate, despite the color of your face
When I say nigga I'm just speakin on your mental state
Life ain't a game if it is I can't participate
Maybe I've changed but my mind is in a different state
Cause now it seems more like a plan
I'm strivin for perfection, so that's where I'll begin
Your tallies and peaks and valleys can't describe who I am
This music is therapeutic, I define who I am
Through the actions I portray as a man - in combination
With impressions I leave on people through things that I've said
I've had it up to here with the bullshit
So when I rap I sound like I'm in the pulpit
Yeah; they say that I be preachin too much
But I know that through the music's how you teach it to us
It's all real
True indeed chace; they tried to get rid of me (say word)
But they can't write me off, I'm not a charity
That's a parody right? You kiddin me
There really ain't no challenge, my authenticity
Virtually guarantee me a flawless victory, you kiddin me?
I'm lethal, I'm from a people who was forced into captivity
Original man, there was often a facsimile
I give a little more than your metaphors and wack similes
Thousand yard stare, say a prayer for my enemy
I'm international, half of these rappers laughable
It's tragic how the other half so vaginal
They put the style over substance, they counsel bother me
My style married my substance and now they livin in harmony
But any substance can be abused
Especially when the style is so seductive the substance consider leaving you
You gotta get back to your essence
Use your gifts and share your presence
Don't count your dollars 'til you count your blessings


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Enceladus plumes and Dione
The international Cassini spacecraft was on its way to its lowest pass yet over the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus when it took this image of the impressive plumes.
The plumes are jets of water ice and vapour, mixed with organic compounds. With this flyby coming within a mere 74 km, scientists hope to learn more about the composition, density and variability of these remarkable features of Enceladus.
A day after the flyby, Cassini imaged Dione, another of Saturn's moons. From a distance of 44 000 km, features like impact craters are clearly visible on the side of the moon that faces away from the Sun.


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Bathtub brought to court in case against doctor suspected of killing wife
PROVO, Utah >> Using a bathtub brought into court by prosecutors, neighbors of a former Utah doctor charged with murder in his wife's death demonstrated Friday how they found the woman's body.
They also described frantic moments at the home after they were summoned for help by a daughter of defendant Martin MacNeill.
They recalled finding MacNeill in a lab coat, blaming his wife for her condition while asking for help lifting and trying to resuscitate her.
"She looked lifeless and collapsed," testified Doug Daniels, MacNeill's next-door neighbor at the time.
MacNeill is accused of killing his wife, Michele, by giving her a lethal combination of prescription drugs after persuading her to get a face-lift.
Prosecutors say he had helped her into the tub.
Defense lawyers have claimed that Michele MacNeill had a heart attack and fell into the tub after drawing water for a bath.
On the day she died, Martin MacNeill was yelling, "'Why did you do this? All because of a stupid surgery,"' Doug Daniels recalled. "He would have a bit of outburst, then he would tell me very calmly, 'OK, continue"' resuscitation efforts.
Ray Ormond, a Pleasant Grove police officer at the time, said he found MacNeill's behavior threatening — "very loud, very agitated" — while accusing his unconscious wife of having taken too much medication.
"It made me feel uncomfortable," Ormond said.
The neighbors also testified that MacNeill previously told them he was dying of cancer. Prosecutors have alleged that he was lying to deflect any suspicion in his wife's death.
Prosecutor Chad Grunander said he bought a small, round bathtub for the demonstration on Friday, the second day of testimony. The tub was similar to the size of the one where Michele MacNeill was found.
Investigators have said Martin MacNeill plotted his wife's death to carry on an affair with his mistress, Gypsy Willis, who the doctor invited to his wife's funeral and asked to marry him weeks later. They said he had pressed a plastic surgeon for drugs that his wife — a former beauty queen — didn't need then gave her the fatal dose.
Medical examiners couldn't determine exactly how the 50-year-old woman died. A doctor who examined her before the face-lift testified she was generally healthy.
MacNeill, 57, was charged in August 2012, nearly five years after his wife was found in the couple's Pleasant Grove home.
The case shocked the Mormon community of Provo, 45 miles south of Salt Lake City, because the suspect was a doctor and had been a church leader. He was clinical director at the Utah State Hospital but has surrendered his medical license.
The drugs his wife was taking weren't necessary for most people getting a face-lift, the surgeon, Dr. Scott Thomson, testified Thursday. He said he would not normally prescribe Valium or Oxycodone, among other painkillers and sleeping pills, for recovery, but did so because MacNeill was a physician and asked for the prescriptions.
Michele MacNeill required only antibiotics, and he advised her to use painkillers sparingly, Thomson said.
Von Welch, another doctor who examined Michele MacNeill before cosmetic surgery, said her husband was eager to "get things going." Welch was surprised the couple rejected his advice to put off the surgery until she got her high blood pressure under control.
The MacNeills had eight children, and their oldest daughters have been outspoken in their belief that their father killed their mother.
Rachel MacNeill and Alexis Somers have gone on national TV with their claims and sat in his court hearings holding up photographs of their mother. They insist his motive was the affair.
The trial will resume Tuesday.


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At the recent KDE Four Core meeting Aaron Seigo interviewed a number of the developers. You can hear them now on the new KDE://radio (listing) site. Subscribe to the podcast feed in Ogg or MP3. The interviews cover the new liveui framework, Akonadi PIM Storage Service, the Human Interface Guidelines and many more. Thanks to OSU Open Source Lab for sponsoring the KDE://radio bandwidth. In related stories Newsforge gives us a wrap up of the blogs from Trysil and here's the group photo you've all been waiting for.
I really enjoyed listening to the various interviews. They were very informative and /very/ interesting. Hopefully more will be made and they will be released pretty regularly (Aaron could do one on Plasma and interview himself!)
> Aaron could do one on Plasma and interview himself!
oh man. like i don't have a hard enough time convincing people i'm not crazy as it is without recording conversations i have with myself ;)
glad you enjoyed the interviews; they were equally enjoyable to make.
thanks to rainer endres and danny allen for stepping up out of the blue to take on the website stuff =)
> oh man. like i don't have a hard enough time convincing people i'm not
> crazy as it is without recording conversations i have with myself ;)
Oh yeah, it becomes much harder this way. Esp. if you just serve people, that picked you up, in order to get them at their balls. :|
But who would consider that...
Here's a fixed RSS feed:
There were two extra s which QDom doesn't apperciate very much. And I guess radio.kde.org hasn't reached my DNS server yet or something, the URLs were all broken.
Don't subscribe to that permanetly, I'm not updating it.
did you perhaps grab the feed from my blog entry earlier in the week? because i fixed the "2 s" thing mid-week...
aaah.. osuosl.org hasn't resync'd yet and you're probably grabbing it from there (due to a dns server issue that we're still working out) ... but osuosl.org not syncing is odd.. it should be happening each day at 13:30 ... =/ hm.
yet more things to look into. sorry for the bumpy ride. didn't see the dns or the sync issues coming (and it all works from here) =/
Podcasting rocks. Open Source here lacks behind but I am sure this will change.
What is urgently needed in the Podcast world is a kind of torrent protocol, bandwidth is a problem.
My favourite podcast station btw:
I really enjoy your oggs! And it is very nice that you support the ogg format.
Heh, a torrent protocol like BitTorrent? :) Azuerus already supports RSS feeds via a plugin.
The podcast could easily point to a .torrent file fpr a ogg-vorbis or mp3 or any other file. AFAIK podcasts are really just RSS feeds that point to a media file. It shouldn't be hard to have a podcast/rss client like Akregator that when it sees a feed that uses .torrent it could pass the torrent to kget (which I believe has a built in torrent client now), and when that download finishes it would then treat the file that was downloaded from the torrent the same as if it was downloaded via http and do what it normally would of done.
Right, but pocasting is "easy".
I mean, we had Rss for ages an then Apple came with iTunes. Let's forget the iPod, but we had no podcasting phenonemon without iTunes.
That you can download references in rss.files is one thing. With the new podcast experience it is all backgrounded. You do not have to care about it.
but the major disadvantage of podcasting is that success kills your channel. What I mean is that you pay for the download traffic. A 4MB mp3 that is downloaded by 10 000 users is 40 GB. Now, when we move to videoblogging we even need more traffic. peer2peer distribution is certainly a good method to reduce server load. And as it is about small files it should be possible to get fast data echange, your podcast files as an alternative target for others. Even further: It does not need to be provided by the person who runs the podcast channel. Users just have to exchange their podcast subscription lists and then get the files from other users who already downloaded the files.
Very interesting podcast... thankyou, i hope to hear more in the future.
In the Akonadi segment Aaron and the PIM crew are talking about a sleek new interface and Aaron says he even has it running on his laptop... It peeked my interest, but they didn't give any details.
What program are they talking about? In what way is it slick? And are there any screenshots?
This is the programmer Aaron talking:-) Akonadi are the new backend/storage server for KDE PIM, and it does not really have a UI. So the sleek interface he is talking about are the programmers interface, not material for exciting screenshots really.
actually, i was talking about a user interface. though i could've been talking about an API as that wasn't particularly clear indeed.
the UI is part of a summer of code project being done by sheldonc that introduces a graphical representation of a timeline which can be populated with time information ... the timeline ticks by in real time (mouse interaction is also planned so you can zoom and move the timeline) and entries show up as cute little flags that you can interact with ...
data will come from akonadi among other sources and it will be integrated with plasma. neat.
Ooops, my mistake. Was not my intention to put words in your mouth. I had never seen anything about any UI in connection with Akonadi, and it looks like I'm not very up to date on SOC either. But I'll blame the developers, running around and doing greate amounts of coding and developing new stuff all the time. And all that without notifying me about it, I think thats really bad form:-)
Which RFC defines the KDE protocol?
The "kde:" web shortcut works in KDE applications to access the KDE developer documentation (e.g. type "kde:KApplication" into the Konqueror address bar). As of 1 minute ago, kde://radio works as well.
To make it also work in capital letters, you need to change the web shortcut in the Konqueror configuration dialog from "kde" to "KDE".
kde://radio .. literally (at least in konq). holy crap. now -that- is cool =) i was wondering what your commit to the media/ framework did, and now i know... thanks olaf
i think that the kde community should no longer provide media in the mp3 format.
ogg is supported on all free platforms and even on many non-free players.
all those, not using a compatible player, should know, that we are all about freedom and that we oppose non-free and/or patent-encumberd formats or standards.
please also assume that KDE wants to equally well inform those that don't already have a free desktop.
Yours, Kay
well, the default feed is in Ogg format. and the idea is to reach out to as many people so that they might be enticed to join us in our free software world, and that means offering it in mp3 ... note that most portable media players only support mp3 (the device i recorded with only does mp3 as well), most people on non-free platforms don't have ogg support installed ... etc.
hopefully, though, the default feed format will encourage people to discover what ogg is ...
That would be very user unfriendly. I for example am using only Linux on my computers (even on my Mac mini), I know and love Ogg Vorbis, I know the licence and patents problems of MP3.
BUT: my Hifi-System, my iPod, my Palm PDA, my cell phone, my DVD player, my MP3 USB stick - they all support MP3. But not one of them supports Vorbis. So I encode all of my music only in MP3 because it's the most usable solution for me.
Even if I install Rockbox (rockbox.org) on my iPod for example (which provides Vorbis support but is rather unfinished yet), I still can't use my sound files on my other devices where I don't have the possibility to add Ogg Vorbis support.
In the end I would transcode Vorbis-only podcasts to MP3 and just be annoyed about the podcaster.
Am I the only one to notice this ? Konqcast.rss file is broken i.e. it is an invalid XML file. Line 69, 70 both have , only one should be present. Its weird nobody (read: no player) noticed that. Kudos to amarok for refusing to load the podcast :)
Someone (Aaron?) please fix the rss file. Thanks.
Oops. I meant.
Oops again :(
Just read the posts above. How did I not see that! Sorry for dupe.
I was excited to hear about kde-centric podcasts! Unfortunately the audio quality is really poor and I could not hear what was being said most of the time :-( It sounds like you just put a recorder on the table and started talking - you really need to hold a mike to the mouth of the person speaking...
Thanks for taking the time to do these...hopefully the quality will improve as you get more practice!


text:
A Calendar of Events letting you know what, where and when is happening throughout the Chopin Year:
- Events: concerts, exhibitions, shows and many others
- Reports
- Interviews
- Kordegarda CHOPIN 2010
Join us on Facebook! Visit our profile THE CHOPIN YEAR 2010 CELEBRATIONS to become part of the vibrant network of Fryderyk Chopin's fans around the globe, discuss anniversary events and share your views!
Visit out channel on YouTube to watch a range of Chopin Year content, trailers of topical films and reports from competitions and conferences exploring Chopin.


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The 2016 anime She and her Cat: Everything Flows currently airs on Crunchyroll and can be viewed via VRV, while the 1999 short is not yet legally available. Each episode runs for 7 minutes, except for the 1999 short, which is 4:45 minutes. This review is for both the 2016 prequel series and the 1999 short.
Okay, fair warning. I'm spoiling this series. I know, I know. Some of you out there are a little mad at me that I keep doing this, but honestly, this is for your own good. It'll all make sense later on.
Also, parents? I need to address the rating. Out of fairness, I gave this a Tween rating due to the subject matter. The Blu-Ray is technically G or "NR/Not Rated" but honestly? I would be really upset with you if you let your young kids watch this unsupervised. There's no violence, sex or swearing in this, but it's just so dark and sad that again, I really can't recommend this to it's original G rated audience. Watch with caution.
So now that I've warned you, let me be clear. This is a very depressing anime. Makoto Shinkai (The guy behind the hit film Your Name) is surprisingly the man behind the entire series. For a first try, his visual direction is great, but the story is not for those on Zoloft.
Before I dive into the story, let's look at the things that work in this show's favor.
For starters, the writing is going to hit close to home for many of you. If you're tired of fantasy anime and you're looking for something "real world" (Which is adult slang for "everyone is miserable because if you're happy, you're living in a fake world, but if you're struggling, then it's real") then this short series should be right up your alley. There is absolutely no imagination in this whatsoever, no fantasy beasts, no magic, just endless realism. The timing is also realistic, so if that's your thing, here you go.
Another thing that works? The time. All four episodes of the 2016 series combined equate to 28 minutes. Not long enough to justify the $20-65 I have seen people sell the Blu-Ray for, but long enough it doesn't overstay it's welcome. If this is your thing, you'll appreciate it's pacing. If this isn't for you, you'll be happy to know it's over in less than a half an hour. The 1999 short is four minutes, 45 seconds.
Artistically, the 1999 short is more pleasing to the eye. Both are realistic, but the original black and white short features the cat in a simplistic, cute design, and everything else ultra realistic, while the 2016 series features the cat in a more ugly form. This is to express his age of course, but eesh.
Now let's dive into the story. I have to start with the 2016 series first, or none of this will make much sense.
The four episode series follows a black cat named Daru, who is fascinated with his owner Miyu, a down-on-her-luck college student who is struggling to make ends meet. We see glimpses of her coming back to her apartment later and later, trying and failing at finding a job. Miyu initially shares the apartment with her lifelong best (and only) friend Tomoko, but when her friend gets married, it leaves Miyu and Daru to live alone in the apartment.
Daru narrates the story of his and Miyu's life, between moments of talking about how happy she makes him, how fascinated he is with her scent, and how he knows they do not speak the same language, and yet somehow, they understand each other.
We learn that he came into her life as a young kitten, in cat years, somewhere between a child and tween stage. His mother and siblings were killed by large birds, which led to him running away and finding a cardboard box, which Miyu's mother finds soon after.
Miyu's mother brought Daru home sometime after Miyu's father... dies? We have some implication he's probably dead, but it's never openly said. Miyu when she got him was somewhere between 6 and 8 years old and she was given Daru to ease the loneliness. Not only is her father out of the picture, but she'd just moved to a new town and had no friends. At first, she hates Daru and tries to abandon him, but comes to her senses and changes her tune after she makes her only friend, who happens to think Daru is cute.
We see Miyu growing up, and we learn the only reason why she moved out on her mother was so that her mom could find a replacement husband after being alone for more than a decade. At first, she doesn't want to do this, but she finds a husband and starts insisting Miyu call him "Dad" much to Miyu's chagrin. Miyu has no personality other than one of bleak cynicism, so it's really no wonder she has no friends.
In adulthood, we see Miyu struggle through one job rejection after another. She has no social life, she overworks herself trying to get a job, she avoids her mother and friend, and these scenes of abject misery are followed by brief moments of Daru trying to comfort her as his body starts to fail him.
The final episode, Daru figures out how to use a phone and gets Miyu's mother to come over. The mother is distraught to find that Miyu is so sleep deprived that she looks like a ghost. Daru sits in Miyu's arms, and just slightly nudges her towards talking to her mother. They finally share a laugh together, and Daru feels happy knowing that Miyu is happy.
... And then Daru dies in Miyu's arms, as her mother is about to leave.
Daru's soul lingers in the apartment for one year, while Miyu battles depression.
It's here that the anime becomes self-aware, and realizes it's much too dark for it's own good. So after the credits roll, we cut to Springtime, a year after Daru's death. Miyu has grown her hair back to the way it was when they first met. She finally has a job and on a rainy day, finds a cardboard box, just the way her mother found when she discovered Daru years ago. Inside the box is a white cat, and we realize quickly that it's Daru, reborn.
The 1999 short picks up where Daru is now Chiho. He has a girlfriend cat, but because she is younger, not yet fully grown and he is now in love with Miyu, he doesn't take too much interest in her. Yeah. It just got creepy. He even retains some of his memories of Miyu from years past, which is just throwing a little extra creep onto this pasta. (See what I did there?)
Miyu is still battling depression, and isn't making it very far into her adult life, but just as he did when he was Daru, Chiho stays by her side, and the short ends with it suddenly being winter again, and they both decide that they like living together just fine.... um... okay? I guess we can say this counts as a happy ending.
She and her Cat is deeply depressing, but very realistic. Anyone struggling through their 20's will completely understand Miyu as long as they can look past her dismal attitude, and pet lovers will take comfort in Daru's quick rebirth and memory retention. But if you suffer from depression, hate to see a cat die or you are a kid, I can't really recommend the 2016 installment. Watch at your own risk.
Kumamiko: A bear in the boonies?
Codename Sailor earth
Codename Sailor Earth is a lifelong anime and wrestling fan. IRL she is cartoonist Koriander Bullard, formerly Koriander Ake, a happily married Chicagoan. Her favorite anime is Sailor Moon. A baby in the late 80's, the first anime titles she ever saw were Speed Racer, Voltron and Robotech.
December 2017