text:
This game, developed by Johan Tré, is most probably the most simple collaborative cost benefit analysis ever.
It is applicable onto subjects where a group has expert knowledge about costs and/or benefits.
A group of developers is such an example.
Especially a customer or customer proxy will have interest when it comes to prioritizing work items.
Generation ideas
If the list of work items is not existent you can start this exercise by a silent post-up.
All individuals in the group start scribbling down about the work to be done. (one thing/sticky)
After 10 min or so ask the group to hang them on the wall.
Ask the team to group items together by subject in silence. Items causing discussion you ask to park aside.
Explain that the only purpose is having a priority. So under what cluster it's been put isn't that important. What is important however, is all know where it's under.
So on the exact scope (what-fits-best-where) there is no explicit consensus needed. A majority is fine.
In short:
* does everybody know the scope of the clusters?
* can the team proportionally estimate the size of the scope? (what is bigger/smaller then what)
Priories on cost
Next, ask the team to sort them top to bottom on cost. (5 minutes of work)
Park the items under discussion aside after all the others are done.
Discussion can only happen when the clustering did not clear things up or caused friction. This could indicate the team isn't aware of the goal: putting priority.
Next hang the lowest sticky way lower and the highest way higher then the rest of the sorted list.
Like that you'll have room to position the stickies on a scale.
Write down on the board some marks of the scale. E.g. (see image): 1, 5, 10, 15, 20.
Ask the team to position the other items on the correct place on the scale.
The sorted order must will stay ofcourse, a relative cost will emerge from the scale as they are positionned.
This all takes about 10 min: Sorting 5, scaling 5.
Depending on the position on the scale, write the relative number bottom left on the stickies.
E.g. stickies in the middle: 50%, top 0%, bottom 100%.
This will be your Y-axis coordinate to put your sticky on a 2D cost -benefit graph.
Priories on benefit
Do the same for the benefits with a product owner, customer if preferred.
Sort, relatively scale them, and write the number bottom right.
Putting it all together
Draw the X and Y axis with the top and bottom values from the exercise above: the costs & benefits.
Hang the stickies according to the cost/benefit coordinates noted on them.
The low hanging-fruit and infeasible-expensive items are clearly found now.
Note that the same approach can be done with a Kano diagram or any other kind of 2D graph.
It's a fun way of clearing things out and prioritizing is done through collaborative support.
Special attention on discussion starters is recommended. They are the time consumers, and can be stopped by guarding and communicating your goal: prioritizing.
Enjoy this game, feedback is mostly appreciated!
This game was developed and originally authored by Johan Tré.


text:
Algernon S. Paddock, who served two terms as United States senator from Nebraska (1875-81 and 1887-93), came to Nebraska as a young man and occupied positions of prominence in the territory and state throughout his life. He arrived in Omaha in May 1857, coming up the Missouri River by steamboat. A native of New York state, he had attended Union College, taught school, and studied law. In Nebraska Territory he preempted a farm near Fort Calhoun, but spent most of his time in Omaha, serving briefly as an editorial writer for the Omaha Republican. He campaigned for a seat in the territorial legislature in 1858. Defeat did not keep him from being active in the founding of the Nebraska Republican Party the next year.
Paddock soon won a position of leadership in the new Republican Party. He was a delegate to the convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860, and the next year (largely through the influence of a friend, Secretary of State William H. Seward) was appointed secretary of Nebraska Territory. He served in both that capacity and as acting governor until Nebraska achieved statehood six years later.
Paddock ran for the U.S. Senate after Nebraska entered the union, but was defeated by Gen. John M. Thayer. In 1875 he won that office, succeeding Thomas W. Tipton. He was defeated in 1881 by Charles H. Van Wyck. Six years later he gained a second term in the Senate, but lost his try for a third term in 1893 to William V. Allen. During the interval between his two terms in the Senate, Paddock served as a member of the Utah Commission, which was formed to allay the practice of polygamy through governmental process.
As secretary of Nebraska Territory, Paddock benefited the state in a number of ways, including the raising of troops for the Union cause during the Civil War and the defense of the frontier. As a U.S. senator, he secured the first river and harbor appropriation for Nebraska, helped retain the headquarters of the Department of the Platte at Omaha, and established a road to the Black Hills.
As chairman of a federal committee on agriculture, Senator Paddock was in a particularly good position to serve his constituents. He worked to build up the agricultural bureau and helped to bring about its change to departmental status. He was instrumental in securing cattle quarantine and meat inspection laws and in supporting pure food legislation.
Senator Paddock was throughout his life one of Nebraska's most ardent and effective promoters. He died October 17, 1897, at his home in Beatrice.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Need to jump, throw or run off some out-of-school, summer energy? Sign up for this Saturday's Hershey's Track and Field Games for boys and girls, with a full day of events planned for ages 9-14.
Registration is free and can be done online or at the Homer High School track from 9-9:45 a.m. Saturday. Registration will close promptly at 9:45 a.m. so the games can begin on time.
"We're really excited about promoting health and fitness, track and field and having fun," said Mike Illg, coordinator of the city of Homer's Community Recreation Program, sponsor of the event.
This is the first time in six or seven years the event is being held in Homer.
"Interest had kind of dropped off and there weren't enough kids signing up," said Illg. "Then, of course, the track conditions were never right."
With Homer High School's new track, however, Illg has seen increased enthusiasm.
"This is definitely one of the premiere venues for utilizing the track and a great way to get kids into track and field," said Illg.
With support from the Kachemak Bay Running Club and community volunteers, the day's activities include five track and two field events.
Participants are divided into age groups: boys 9-10 and girls 9-10, boys 11-12 and girls 11-12; and boys 13-14 and girls 13-14. Each registrant chooses between two track events and one field event or two field events and one track event.
"There will be a total of 42 separate events," said Illg of activities that include the 50-, 100-, 200-, 400-, 800- and 1600-meter dash, the 4×100 relay, long jump and softball throw. Some of the events are reserved for the older age group.
The top five finishers in each event will receive ribbons, everyone gets a certificate of participation and the winners of events get T-shirts.
More volunteers also are needed and will receive free T-shirts.
The Hershey's Youth Program dates back to 1975 and Dr. Donald Cohen, who also founded the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in the United States. It was Cohen's idea for battling the declining physical fitness of this country's 9- to 14-year-olds. Cohen proposed introducing that age group to fitness through track and field events.
It began on 36 playgrounds in Charleston, W.Va. According to information provided on the games' website, it has now spread across the country with more than 400,000 youngsters participating.
Illg anticipates Saturday's games will last until mid-afternoon.
Now the only thing that remains to be seen is the weather.
"It'll happen rain or shine," said Illg.
Cloudy skies and temperatures hitting the 50s and 60s are forecast for Saturday by the National Weather Service Alaska Region.
"I saw the weather report," said Illg. "We'll continue to keep our fingers crossed."
• Pre-registration is available online at: https://www.hersheystrackandfield.com/track-meet-central/find-a-track-meet.aspx.
• Registration forms also are available at the Community Recreation office located at Homer High or the City's Parks & Rec website: http://www.cityofhomer-ak.gov/recreation/hershey-track-field-meet-ages-9-14
• To volunteer, contact Illg at 235-6090 or email@example.com
• For more about the Hershey's Track and Field Games, visit hershystrackandfield.com.
McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at email@example.com.
Track-field day for kids 9-14 slated for Saturday
Tags: Outdoors


text:
Thanks to foreclosures and short sales, home buyers are snatching up great houses at reduced prices and remodeling to create stylish modern homes. Lucky for those buyers, many of today's top trends are relatively easy to recreate, and will add re-sale value to their homes.
"TV interior design shows are mostly about buying and remodeling a home, versus building from scratch or finding a new property that precisely fits a wish list with plenty of personal requirements," says Dani Kohl, program coordinator for the bachelor of science in interior design program at The Art Institute of Indianapolis and a practicing architect and interior designer.
The top remodeling trends include:
* Uniting the kitchen and living space for an open-floor concept
* Culture dictating an increase square footage for entertainment, haven from a busy work schedule or modern luxuries
* Finding multi-functional uses for both spaces and furniture
On average, Kohl's residential clients are spending about $40,000 to $60,000 to renovate and remodel their homes. Most of the money is spent in the kitchens, master bedrooms and bathrooms.
"Gone are the days of the formal dining room and living room," says Kohl. "Walls are being knocked down to join the two rooms."
Parents want to be able to cook while watching kids do homework or entertaining guests. Kitchen islands most often serve as the main division between kitchen and living space, and are the entertainment centers of a kitchen.
"Kitchen islands are looking more like free-standing furniture pieces with elaborate marble tops and wood work, and interior designers are often finding functional yet hidden places to store the trash can and keep the dish washer from view," Kohl says.
Pedro Lima, an interior design instructor at The Art Institute of New York City and owner of Pedro Lima Interiors, says that temporary partitions between the living space and kitchen are also on the rise. These partitions can be of varying heights, whether it's a two-way fireplace or modern book shelving. Partitions are a great option for homeowners who want that open-floor plan for the kitchen and living room, while still maintaining a defined space for each.
Lima says that our current culture and habits are driving the changes in modern, interior spaces.
"When it comes to the master bedroom, we are looking at a more pampering atmosphere," he says. Both Kohl and Lima agree that clients want more of a spa-like feeling than ever before to create a bedroom that is a safe haven for over-worked homeowners.
"Master bedrooms now have their own seating areas and entertainment nooks, and have become personal spaces away from everything," Lima says.
An increase in square footage for closet space is another popular request, according to Lima. "We, as designers, are now looking into proper modular systems of rods and shelving, in addition to our architectural and design duties."
Closets are not just for storage anymore, either. "Now, we're looking at closets to serve as a dressing space in addition to serving as a place to store an increased amount clothes and shoes."
How are clients gaining square footage for the needs of today's residential space without making a complete renovation and creating add-ons to their homes?
Lima says that downsizing to accommodate upsizing is part of the remodel plans too.
"Designers are spending more time at looking for innovative ways to add versatile furniture that serve multifunctional purposes," he says. "For instance, coffee tables also serve as storage spaces and additional seating, wall units have built-in desks, and couches open up to beds in home offices."
Whichever remodeling trend homeowners choose to apply, all trends point toward integration, simplification and organization, as homeowners seek to enjoy their homes and share it with family and friends.


text:
Smoking Weed Actually Does Not Lower Your IQ
LatestA study came out last summer that found that blazing up regularly as a teen could make you dumber. However, new analysis of that data finds that the original research was flawed, and that the lowered IQ scores of the study's participants may have been caused by other factors.
The original study—published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last August—tracked over 1000 people from Dunedin, New Zealand for 25 years. Their IQs were tested when they were 13 and again when they were 38. They were asked periodically throughout the years, about their marijuana use. Those who said they were hooked on reefer by the age of 18 showed a drop in IQ points, leading researchers at Duke University to suggest that weed is harmful to the adolescent brain.
However, the new analysis—conducted by Ole Rogeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, and also published in PNAS—found that socioeconomic differences among the study group, like education and occupation, may have contributed to the IQ drop, and not the pot.
Using computer simulation on the data, researchers found patterns that traced how socioeconomic factors potentially contributed to lowered IQ scores. While this new analysis doesn't completely rule out that weed makes you stupid, it does show that smart people are thinking an awful lot about it.
Image via pashabo/Shutterstock
Does marijuana lower IQ? New study challenges link [CBS News]


text:
aide.conf (5) - Linux Manuals
aide.conf: The configuration file for Advanced Intrusion Detection
aide.conf - The configuration file for Advanced Intrusion Detection EnvironmentSYNOPSIS
aide.conf is the configuration file for Advanced Intrusion Detection Environment. aide.conf contains the runtime configuration aide uses to initiailize or check the aide database.FILE FORMAT
aide.conf is similar in to Tripwire(tm)'s configuration file. With little effort tw.conf can be converted to aide.conf.aide.conf is case-sensitive. Leading and trailing whitespaces are ignored.
There are three types of lines in aide.conf. First there are the configuration lines which are used to set configuration parameters and define/undefine variables. Second, there are selection lines that are used to indicate which files are added to the database. Third, macro lines define or undefine variables within the config file. Lines beginning with # are ignored as comments.
These lines have the format parameter=value. See URLS for a list of valid urls.
- database
- The url from which database is read. There can only be one of these lines. If there are multiple database lines then the first is used. The default value is "/usr/etc/aide.db".
- database_out
- The url to which the new database is written to. There can only be one of these lines. If there are multiple database_out lines then the first is used. The default value is "/usr/etc/aide.db.new".
- database_new
- The url from which the other database for --compare is read. There is no default for this one.
- verbose
- The level of messages that is output. This value can be 0-255 inclusive. This parameter can only be given once. Value from the first occurence is used. If --verbose or -V is used then the value from that is used. The default is 5. If verbosity is 20 then additional report output is written when doing --check, --update or --compare.
- report_url
- The url that the output is written to. There can be multiple instances of this parameter. Output is written to all of them. The default is stdout.
- gzip_dbout
- Whether the output to the database is gzipped or not. Valid values are yes,true,no and false. The default is no. This option is available only if zlib support is compiled in.
- acl_no_symlink_follow
- Whether to check ACLs for symlinks or not. Valid values are yes,true,no and false. The default is to follow symlinks. This option is available only if acl support is compiled in.
- warn_dead_symlinks
- Whether to warn about dead symlinks or not. Valid values are yes,true,no and false. The default is not to warn about dead symlinks.
- grouped
- Whether to group the files in the report by added, removed and changed files or not. Valid values are yes, true, no and false. The default is to group the files in the report.
- summarize_changes
Whether to summarize changes in the added, removed and changed files
sections of the report or not. Valid values are yes,true,no and false.
The default is not to summarize the changes.
The general format is like the string YlZbpugamcinCAXSE, where Y is replaced by the file-type (f for a regular file, d for a directory, L for a symbolic link, D for a character device, B for a block device, F for a FIFO, s for a unix socket, | for a Solaris door, ! if file type has changed and ? otherwise).
The Z is replaced as follows: A = means that the size has not changed, a < reports a shrinked size and a > reports a grown size.
The other letters in the string are the actual letters that will be output if the associated attribute for the item has been changed or a "." for no change, a "+" if the attribute has been added, a "-" if it has been removed, a ":" if the attribute is listed in ignore_list or a " " if the attribute has not been checked. The exceptions to this are: (1) a newly created file replaces each letter with a "+", and (2) a removed file replaces each letter with a "-".
The attribute that is associated with each letter is as follows:
- o
- A l means that the link name has changed.
- o
- A b means that the block count has changed.
- o
- A p means that the permissions have changed.
- o
- An u means that the uid has changed.
- o
- A g means that the gid has changed.
- o
- An a means that the access time has changed.
- o
- A m means that the modification time has changed.
- o
- A c means that the change time has changed.
- o
- An i means that the inode has changed.
- o
- A n means that the link count has changed.
- o
- A C means that one or more checksums have changed.
- The following letters are only available when explicitly enabled using configure:
- o
- A A means that the access control list has changed.
- o
- A X means that the extended attributes have changed.
- o
- A S means that the SELinux attributes have changed.
- o
- A E means that the file attributes on a second extended file system have changed.
- report_attributes
- Special group definition that lists parameters which are always printed in the final report for changed files.
- ignore_list
- Special group definition that lists parameters which are to be ignored from the final report.
- config_version
- The value of config_version is printed in the report and also printed to the database. This is for informational purposes only. It has no other functionality.
- Group definitions
- If the parameter is not one of the previous parameters then it is regarded as a group definition. Value is then regarded as an expression. Expression is of the following form.
<predefined group>| <expr> + <predefined group> | <expr> - <predifined group>
- See DEFAULT GROUPS for an explanation of default predefined groups. Note that this is different from the way Tripwire(tm) does it.
- There is also a special group named "ignore_list". The predefined -groups listed in it are NOT displayed in the final report.
aide supports three types of selection lines (regular, negative, equals) Lines beginning with "/" are regular selection lines. Lines beginning with "=" are equals selection lines. And lines beginning with "!" are negative selection lines. The string following the first character is taken as a regular expression matching to a complete filename, including the path. In a regular selection rule the "/" is included in the regular expression. Special characters in your filenames can be escaped using two-digit URL encoding (for example, %20 to represent a space). Following the regular expression is a group definition as explained above. See EXAMPLES and doc/aide.conf for examples.
More in-depth discussion of the selection algorithm can be found in the aide manual.
- @@define VAR val
- Define variable VAR to value val.
- @@undef VAR
- Undefine variable VAR.
- @@ifdef VAR, @@ifndef VAR
- @@ifdef begins an if statement. It must be terminated with an @@endif statement. The lines between @@ifdef and @@endif are used if variable VAR is defined. If there is an @@else statement then the part between @@ifdef and @@else is used is VAR is defined otherwise the part between @@else and @@endif is used. @@ifndef reverses the logic of @@ifdef statement but otherwise works similarly.
- @@ifhost hostname, @@ifnhost hostname
- @@ifhost works like @@ifdef only difference is that it checks whether hostname equals the name of the host that aide is running on. hostname is the name of the host without the domainname (hostname, not hostname.aide.org).
- @@{VAR} is replaced with the value of the variable VAR. If variable VAR is not defined an empty string is used. Unlike Tripwire(tm) @@VAR is NOT supported. One special VAR is @@{HOSTNAME} which is substituted for the hostname of the current system.
- @@else
- Begins the else part of an if statement.
- @@endif
- Ends an if statement.
- @@include VAR
- Includes the file VAR. The content of the file is used as if it were inserted in this part of the config file.
Urls can be one of the following. Input urls cannot be used as outputs and vice versa.- stdout
- stderr
- Output is sent to stdout,stderr respectively.
- stdin
- Input is read from stdin.
- file://filename
- Input is read from filename or output is written to filename.
- fd:number
- Input is read from filedescriptor number or output is written to number.
- p:
- ftype: file type
- i:
- l:
- n:
- u:
- g:
- s:
- b:
- m:
- a:
- c:
- md5:
- sha1: sha1 checksum
- sha256: sha256 checksum
- sha512: sha512 checksum
- rmd160: rmd160 checksum
- tiger: tiger checksum
- haval: haval checksum
- crc32:
- >:
- And also the following if you have mhash support enabled
- gost: gost checksum
- whirlpool: whirlpool checksum
- The following are available and added to the default groups R, L and >
- only when explicitly enabled using configure
- acl: access control list
- selinux: selinux attributes
- xattrs: extended attributes
- e2fsattrs: file attributes on a second extended file system
Please note that 'I' and 'c' are incompatible. When the name of a file
is changed, it's ctime is updated as well. When you put 'c' and 'I' in
the same rule the, a changed ctime is silently ignored.
When 'ANF' is used, new files are added to the new database, but are ignored in the report.
When 'ARF' is used, files missing on disk are omitted from the new database, but are ignored in the report.
This adds all files on your machine to the database. This is one line
is a fully qualified configuration file.
- !/dev
This ignores the /dev directory structure.
- =/tmp
Only /tmp is taken into the database. None of its children are added.
- All=p+i+n+u+g+s+m+c+a+md5+sha1+tiger+rmd160
This line defines group All. It has all attributes and all md checksum functions. If you absolutely want all digest functions then you should enable mhash support and add +crc32+haval+gost to the end of the definition for All. Mhash support can only be enabled at compile-time.
- =/foo p+i+l+n+u+g+s+m+c+md5
- /foo/bar p+i+l+n+u+g+s+m+c+md5
This config adds all files under /foo because they match to regex /foo, which is equivalent to /foo.* . What you probably want is:
- =/foo$ p+i+l+n+u+g+s+m+c+md5
- /foo/bar p+i+l+n+u+g+s+m+c+md5
Note that the following still works as expected because =/foo$ stop recuring of directory /foo.
- =/foo p+i+l+n+u+g+s+m+c+md5
In the following, the first is not allowed in AIDE. Use the latter instead.
- /foo epug
- /foo e+p+u+g
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. No animals were harmed while making this webpage or this piece of software.


text:
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
On using cosmetic surgery to stop bullying…
23 comments:
- The Roving Reporter said...
Great post! I've also noticed how society looks at those being bullied and ask what they were doing "wrong" to get bullied.
There needs to be more pressure on parents to teach their children not to lash out and bully others. I believe children pick up bullying behavior mostly because of what is going on in the home. I would be willing to bet that these bullies are often put down by their own parents and/or siblings and made to feel next to nothing, which influences them to become bullies just to assert their dominance over others. - 7:44 AM
- Kendra Holliday said...
Hear, hear!
Have you seen the documentary on labioplasty? It featured a 20 yr old woman who got her girl parts sliced because her sister teased her so much about it as a teenager. They interviewed the sister and she was very sheepish, saying she didn't mean anything by it, but the damage was done. Some people tease out of love, and it can still cause serious harm. - 7:44 AM
- Susie Kline said...
You are wonderful! Love it all!
xo Susie
ps and passing this along everywhere! - 8:00 AM
I really wish I'd read this when I was 13 or so. Thanks.
- Denise said...
*raises coffee cup to you*
Yes, we (ALL of us) need to stop making Barbie (and any glossy magazine cover) a standard of expectation, and celebrate EVERYONE'S beauty ...
...I can't tell you how this topic infuriates me. I am very glad you've spoken to it. - 8:20 AM
- cherry Woodburn said...
Fabulous, well written post. Yet, I'm sad that it has to be written at all.
When I was in a Soc. class 40 years ago there was an eye-opening book for me entitled Blaming the Victim. Not sure we've learned much since then.
Cherry Woodburn - 8:27 AM
- Eduardo Guize said...
you're so right about this!
- Connie said...
Amen, and amen.
When my daughter was in the 4th grade, she came home from school one day saying that "the girls" told her that her skirt was too long. I said, "Shall we just go ahead and schedule your plastic surgery?"
She said, "What??!"
I said, "Well, today your skirt is too long so we'll hem it, tomorrow they'll say your hair is too long so we'll cut it, the next day they'll say that your elbows are shaped funny, so let's just go ahead and schedule the surgery."
"Oh Mom, that's silly!"
"Well, alright then. Let's just decide right now that we either do or do not care what 'the girls' say." - 9:16 AM
- Trish said...
That's just about the best blog post I've ever read. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Thank you.
It is sad that our some in our society believe that cosmetic, material, surface alterations are going to solve problems and conflicts that stem from the interior of humanity. This can only create more problems and more wasted resources.
-Davey- - 9:34 AM
- Prince Todd said...
I'm in total agreement with you. Had my mother yielded to my pleas for plastic surgery in high school I would have had repeated nose jobs; eye surgery (I thought my eyes were too big); ear surgery; and surgery to extend my height.
What I didn't know what that I would eventually grow into my features (which I did), now I love them and don't want surgery.
High school kids are shit heads. They are all insecure so they single out the person who is even more insecure and exploit them.
Recently, I confronted one of my former bullies on Facebook and lit her UP. All she could do was apologize profusely. - 10:05 AM
- Ryan Hauck said...
Standing ovation from here. This is an absolutely brilliant, powerful post and I love it. I'm saving it so my kids can read it when they're a little older. Thank you for this courageous post.
- Kathryn Bjornstad-Kelly said...
Completely agree. I was trying to cure my autism before I knew I had autism, just to make the bullying stop. It never worked, and I was victimized further while the people who bullied me got off with nothing.
I was hurt badly, not because I was autistic or had red hair or because I was weird, but because I was bullied by my peers mercilessly and repeatedly for ten years, and because my teachers alternately encouraged and ignored it. I was sent to therapy to fix whatever was wrong with me, and the boy who threatened to rape me and shoved me into a locker and stole my things got to play sports and taunted me openly in front of school officials and teachers. No therapy for him, he was normal and desirable and other children emulated him because he was a sports hero and I was a little nothing who didn't have school spirit and was too disabled for sports. Justice? I think not.
And I like being autistic. I don't want to be cured. I want to make the world a safer place to be autistic. - 3:11 PM
- Triplezmom said...
Great post. Thank you.
- Erica said...
Thank you so much for this! I completely and whole-heartedly agree--the onus is on the bully, not the victim here.
- Naija said...
Perfectly said!
Cynical evil me wants to suggest that the solution to bullying over appearance is to give the BULLY surgery to have the trait that inspired the bullying.
"You make fun of some kid's huge nose? It's yours for a year--and hey, at least you won't be teased about it because you're a perfect example of why not to mouth off." - 4:36 PM
- Carolyn Moon said...
Just recently introduced to your site and what a audacious approach to
a problem that has dogged females and males forever! So impressed that you are my featured blog of the week.
With curtsies and bravos...... - 5:18 PM
Excellent article, thank you for posting!
Also thanks to those who have commented. I was bullied for 3 years in primary school, because I was smart and not good at sports. (The school was academically poor and sports-mad.) The teachers either ignored the bullying or participated in it.
Although I grew into a beautiful teenager and managed to hang onto my looks into middle-age, those image wounds took a long time to heal.
Recently had the satisfaction of hearing that one of my tormentors, who was always bragging about her family's wealth and supposed superiority because they were Christian Scientists, has been posting suicidal messages on Facebook. - 3:27 AM
- Sleepydumpling said...
I am so glad I'm not the only one who is saying it. Bullies need to be taught not to bully. The onus needs to be on bullies to change their shitty, shitty behaviour, not the rest of us to avoid/prevent their shitty, shitty behaviour.
I wrote about the same thing myself: http://fatheffalump.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/too-little-too-late/ if you want a read. - 5:02 AM
- Unknown said...
When my youngest daughter (who is white & Cherokee) was 8, she was bullied by a black child in her school for having lips that were 'too fat'. She was blessed with those perfectly shaped full lips that women pay loads of money to achieve (and never quite get). When she told me, I admit, I laughed first. A black child picking on a white child for fat lips? That's got to be a first! Then I did all the right parental stuff and told her how wonderful they were, blah blah blah. I even pulled up pictures of Rhianna & Angelina Jolie. But what hurt her the most was that it was something she couldn't change about herself. I was the victim of bullying when I moved to the south from the north. Yankees rank under blacks for social status in the rich, white south. It took me five years, but I finally developed the same f**k you attitude. And now, at almost 16, my daughter has too. It hurts to see that very sensitive child become a thick skinned almost adult though. She was such an empathetic person. So she still had to give up some part of herself because of bullies. Just like I did. So neither of us has any empathy for bullies. Too bad, they could probably use it.
- nice little man said...
Bullies, bullied and witnesses are all harmed! ABB and we who comment have very likely been all 3. The onus is "on us" to heal all 3.
This post shows why I love this blog so much. You always nail it.
The Gumdrop Stage of Grief ...
So many of you have shared condolences and support after the death of my beloved brother Bill from COVID-19. I wish I could thank you indiv...
I was slightly illish this weekend and took to my bed Saturday, but I did rally for Brother Rob Thurman's fantabulous cookie decorating part...
Okay, so most of you know that this bitch has some evil assed fibroids . Most of them were successfully murdered with full premeditation se...
So many of you have shared condolences and support after the death of my beloved brother Bill from COVID-19. I wish I could thank you indiv...


text:
Stil. is the much anticipated follow-up to Taylor Deupree's critically acclaimed 2001 cd Occur (12k1013). Where Occur found itself exploring the non-repeating patterns of nature, inspired by the sounds of life outside of Deupree's Brooklyn studio, Stil. was initially inspired by the work of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto, whose Seascapes images masterfully combine repetition and minute change. Stil. thus became the sonic opposite of Occur: a set of compositions based on extreme repetition and the exploration of stillness.
Arranged in four long pieces, Stil.. is based on the complex repetition of looping passages. The underlying idea is that a pattern repeated for long enough begins to reveal hidden pulses and movements not initially apparent. Elements and frequencies overlap to create subtle new intersections, drawing the listener in, and suspending them in this brief moment of frozen time.
The sound of Stil. is built using melodic and granular passages juxtaposed in variable-length loops, creating layered and imbedded rhythms and highly variable structures of repetition. For example, the title track is based entirely on oscillating variations in a single 0.33 second tonal fragment. Subtle manipulations of the sound's loop positions create an extraordinary palette of movement and fluctuation, rewarded by deep listening.
Stil. is an engaging and hypnotic listen, drawing on Deupree's past experience in ambient music. The pieces on Stil., while considered "long" by the usual standards of CD track times, are only fragments of what are intended to be longer works that extend for many hours. This release has inspired a new direction for Deupree's future work: exploring the freezing of time and the possibilities of stillness within the temporal medium of sound


text:
Walking the walk with Alma Mahler
Today it is different. The steady war of propaganda avalanches loosed by press, radio and film makes it impossible for the thought to hear itself. It wavers, weakens and ends up in resignation. And the worst of it is that the evil is not confined to the "totalitarian" parts of Europe, but that it is spreading and infecting the intellectual life of all nations with a strange anarchy mixed of doubt, discontent and confusion.That extract is from a lecture given in Paris by the the Czech writer Franz Werfel in 1937. The evil that Werfel spoke of forced him, together with his wife Alma - seen above - to flee Vienna a year later and follow an arduous path to freedom in California. For part of their journey they had to walk - with Alma carrying the autograph score of a Bruckner symphony - along the torturous path seen below.
The path is in the region of south-west France where the hills known as the Albères reach the Mediterranean. These hills are the eastern extension of the Pyrenees which form the border between France and Spain. This rough track connecting the coastal towns of Cerbère in France - visible in the distance - and Portbou in Spain was a favoured escape route for refugees in the early years of the Second World War, and today's overgrown path literally walks the walk with Alma Mahler along it.
Alma Mahler, famously described by Tom Lehrer as 'the loveliest girl in Vienna', had married her third husband Franz Werfel in 1929 after a long affair; they are seen above around the time of their wedding. She had been married to Gustav Mahler from 1902 until the composer's death. Alma then married the architect Walter Gropius in 1915 and divorced him five years later. The photo below was taken in Venice in 1920 and shows Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel with Alma's daughter by Walter Gropius, Manon - it was the death of Manon in 1935 that inspired Alban Berg's Violin Concerto. Franz Werfel was Jewish and he and Alma escaped from Austria to France after the Anschluss in 1938. When France surrendered to the Nazis in June 1940 the Werfels were in Paris and joined the exodus south into the unoccupied zone. In Marseille they were given American visas; but were unable to obtain French exit permits as they had been stripped of their nationalities by the Third Reich and did not have passports. They then made several unsuccessful attempts to escape from France, one of which took them to the Catholic pilgrimage centre of Lourdes. There Alma, who had been raised a Catholic, collected pamphlets and religious tracts telling the story of Bernadette Soubirous and the Marian visions. When Franz read the tracts he vowed that if they escaped to freedom he would write a tribute to the girl who became Saint Bernadette.
After they returned to Marseille the Werfels' escape was finally masterminded in July 1940 by Varian Fry. He was an American journalist and humanitarian who ran a privately funded rescue network that helped thousands of Jewish refugees and other fugitives to escape from Vichy France over the Pyrenees into Spain. Varian Fry deserves his own post: while at Harvard he published an influential literary magazine with New York Ballet founder Lincoln Kirstein, he interviewed Harvard alumnae and Nazi court composer Ernst Hanfstaengl in 1935, was one of the first to reveal the planned extermination of the Jews, and masterminded the escape from Vichy France of prominent figures including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Wanda Landowska and André Breton. His role in saving key European intellectuals is being celebrated as part of the Marseille European Capital of Culture 2013 activities with the exhibition 'Varian Fry in Marseille: the culture of Europe in exile'. The escape group led by Fry in July 1940 comprised Thomas Mann's son Golo, and Mann's' brother Heinrich with his wife Nelly, as well as the Werfels. Alma and Franz are seen below in the Austrian Alps.
Alma's baggage filled twelve trunks and included several Mahler manuscripts, among them Das Lied von der Erde. In her diary Alma describes how "I was wearing sandals, and lugged along a bag containing the rest of the money and jewellery and the score of Bruckner's Third Symphony." In fact the score comprised only the first three movements of the symphony. When Bruckner died the autograph score of the Third Symphony was donated to the Hofbibliothek in Vienna, but was found to comprise just the Finale. This was because the composer had given the other movements to Gustav Mahler, either to make a two-piano transcription or as a reward for having made the reduction. Alma discovered the score among Mahler's papers after his death and it became one of her most treasured possessions. After Alma married Franz Werfel the manuscript was displayed in their house in Vienna where it came to the attention of Hitler. The Führer, who was an ardent Brucknerian, offered to buy it. But the manuscript was smuggled out of Vienna after the Werfels fled, and was reunited with Alma in Paris. That is Alma below walking in the countryside in happier times.
Led by Varian Fry, Alma, together with her priceless baggage and companions, travelled by train from Marseille via Perpignan (where Pablo Casals held his first Casals Festival ten years later) to Cerbère; but they could not cross the border by train as they did not have exit visas. After spending the night in Cerbère, Varian Fry, who as an American citizen did have an exit visa, continued on the train with Alma's twelve trunks to Portbou in Spain. A guide then led Alma - cutching her bag containing the Bruckner manuscript - and the other four refugees along the steep path over the Albères hills into Spain to avoid the border patrols. After successfully crossing into Spain the Werfels travelled to Barcelona and on to Lisbon where they boarded a ship for America. They eventually settled in Hollywood where Franz Werfel wrote his novel The Song of Bernadette inspired by the material Alma had collected in Lourdes, and the subsequent film adaption was a huge box office hit. Franz Werfel did not convert to Catholicism, but The Song of Bernadette is considered a classic of Catholic literature. The Werfels are seen together in their Californian home in the photo below. Franz died in 1945 and Alma lived to 1964.
At this point it would be easy to leave the Werfel's in comfortable exile in California. The story of their escape is moving, but it is one that any writer with a good research library and internet access could have told. When I finished my version of their story some time ago the narrative seemed too monochrome and, in common with so much online writing, lacked any real experiential substance. So I set the post aside until I was able to travel to Languedoc with my wife, to literally retrace Alma Mahler's footsteps. It seemed unlikely that the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek would let me take the now complete autograph score of Bruckner's Third Symphony - an impecunious Alma sold her manuscript to them in 1948 following Franz Werfel's death - in my daypack; so I compromised with a recording of the work on my iPod. In fact I travelled to Languedoc twice because, as recounted here previously, my first trip ended in a peritonitis induced near-death experience - which just proves some music bloggers will do anything for a good story. But there were no such complications on my second visit, and our journey produced the photo journal below. So here, in colour rather than black and white, is a contemporary reconstruction of Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel's trek to freedom.
Above is the view of the town of Cerbère (Cervera in Catalan) that Alma and Franz would have seen when they arrived by train from Marseille. At the time Cerbère and Portbou on the Spanish side of the border were major transport hubs, with much of the cross-border traffic passing through them. But the decline of the railways and the building of the E15 motorway inland means they are now ghost towns.
This photo shows the view looking towards Spain from Cerbère station. The tunnel is the one that Varian Fry's train would have travelled through to Portbou, while Alma and Franz had to climb over the Albères hills above it to reach freedom
After climbing the hill this is the view that Alma and Franz would have seen looking back towards Cerbère station where the previous photo was taken.
This is the border crossing between France and Spain that the refugees had to avoid - the checkpoint has been disused since the creation of the borderless Schengen area in 1995.
As Alma and Franz did not have exit visas and the area was patrolled by Vichy sympathisers, the refugees had to avoid the check-point by taking the path over the hill above it, this is the view down to the border crossing.
I try to avoid using photographs of myself, but this one is included to prove that I walk the walk as well as talking the talk. Alma Mahler was 61 when she walked the walk, which was two years younger than me. But I had the advantage over Alma of Gore-Tex walking boots instead of sandals!
On the Spanish side of the border is this memorial to the Spanish Republican refugees who perished crossing the frontier in the opposite direction during the 1939 La retirada (retreat) from Franco's forces. Their story is told in Postcards from a forgotten concentration camp.
In the background of this view of the Spanish frontier town of Portbou is the descent which Alma and Franz followed. My final photo below shows Portbou station where Alma and Franz took the train to Barcelona and on to fame and fortune in America. The Werfels trek across the Albères had a happy ending, as did mine at the second attempt. But others were less fortunate, and another post tells of how, just two months after the Werfels passed through Portbou to freedom, another refugee - the German-Jewish writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin - took his own life in the town.
This post is dedicated with love to my wonderful wife whose speedy intervention in Languedoc meant that I survived to blog another day. Mad soul, she is currently packing our car for another trip to that magical region where the Albères hills reach the Mediterranean. À bientôt, j'espère!
* Sources include
- Franz Werfel, A Life in Prague, Vienna and Hollywood by Peter Stephan Jungk (Fromm ISBN 0880641304)
- A Hero of Our Own, the Story of Varian Fry by Sheila Isenberg (Randon House ISBN 0375502211
- Alma Mahler, Muse to Genius by Karen Monson (Collins ISBN 0002163152)
- The New Bruckner: Compositional Developments and the Dynamics of Revision by Dermot Gault (ISBN: 9781409400912)
- Love and War in the Pyrenees by Rosemary Bailey (Phoenix ISBN 9780753825914)
Photos 2 and 8 to 16 are (c) On An Overgrown Path 2013. Any other copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). My trip to Languedoc was entirely self-fubded. Also on Facebook and Twitter.


text:
POSTED BY: Jim Ittenbach | August 21, 2013
Association for Psychological Science
On the Monday following a big football game, fans of the losing team seem to load up on saturated fats and sugars, whereas supporters of the winning team opt for healthier foods, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
"Although prior studies had shown that sport outcomes influence reckless driving, heart attacks, and even domestic violence, no one had examined how they influence eating," says Yann Cornil, researcher at INSEAD Business School and lead author of the study.
By comparing the outcomes from two seasons' worth of NFL games with people's food consumption in over two dozen cities, Cornil and INSEAD professor Pierre Chandon were able to determine the amounts and types of food consumed after victories and losses.
"The data also allowed us to look at people living in cities without an NFL team or with a team that didn't play on that particular day, providing us with two control samples," Cornil and Chandon explain.
Overall, they found that people in cities with a losing football team ate about 16% more saturated fat compared to their usual Monday consumption. People in cities with a winning football team, on the other hand, ate about 9% less saturated fat compared to their usual consumption. These trends held even when people who weren't football fans were included in the sample, and the trends were particularly noticeable when a game came down to the wire.
"People eat better when their football team wins and worse when it loses, especially if they lost unexpectedly, by a narrow margin, or against a team of equal strength," Cornil and Chandon note.
The researchers hypothesized that, when a favorite team loses, people feel an identity threat and are more likely to use eating as a coping mechanism. Winning, on the other hand, seems to provide a boost to people's self control.
To test these associations experimentally, the researchers asked a group of French participants to write about a time when their favorite team lost or won. In a later, seemingly unrelated task, the people who wrote about their team losing opted to eat chips and candy over healthier grapes and tomatoes. The group who wrote about winning, on the other hand, preferred the healthier options.
So what does this mean for all those fervent fans who root for teams that don't exactly have a winning record?
"Even if you are rooting for a perennial loser, there is a solution if you are concerned about healthy eating: After a defeat, write down what is really important to you in life," Cornil and Chandon suggest. "In our studies, this simple technique, called 'self affirmation,' completely eliminated the effects of defeats."
The researchers are continuing to investigate factors that influence people's eating behavior even if they're not aware of them, particularly those factors that are under the control of food marketers, like package design and food claims.


text:
Written by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Directed by Alexander Payne
Starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley and Judy Greer
Matt King: I'm the back-up parent, the understudy.
It has been seven years since Alexander Payne's last feature film, SIDEWAYS, charmed critics and audiences alike. The long gestation period has allowed him to make what I would describe as his most satisfying film to date, THE DESCENDANTS. Considering how much I love his earlier films, like ELECTION and ABOUT SCHMIDT, calling his latest his greatest is not a compliment I extend lightly.
At on point in THE DESCENDANTS, a character refers to Matt King's (George Clooney) current predicament to be one heck of a "unique dramatic situation" and he is not kidding. Payne's witty sceenplay finds every single important tie in Matt's life has been tangled together and he can no longer move forward until he figures out how to loosen the ropes that are tightening around him. As the executor of his family's estate, he is responsible for deciding what to do with a fine piece of Hawaiian real estate his ancestors left to him in trust, which has drawn much scrutiny from the locals. More importantly though, his wife is in a coma from a speed boating accident and he has two daughters (Amara Miller and breakout, Shailene Woodley) he barely knows to comfort and console. When he learns that his wife was cheating on him before her accident, it becomes pretty clear that the life he knew is now finished.
As particular as THE DESCENDANTS is, Payne infuses it with his special brand of humanity, sensitivity and humour. Payne has an uncanny knack for bringing his audiences right into the troubled minds of his characters, leaving both their pain and their potential exposed for all to see. In this case, all that heart and heartache seeps from every element of Clooney's fine performance. With so much on his plate, you can constantly see the wheels turning in his head as he drifts off into thought in the gorgeous Hawaiian skyline. He acts as a filter of sorts for everything coming before this moment in his life, now faced with the task of passing on only the best parts to his two beautiful daughters. In doing so, THE DESCENDANTS only passes on the best that contemporary drama has to offer to us.


text:
About The Disc Jockey / Emcee Hillbilly music fans knew him as Randy Blake. But his Mr. and Mrs. Winston named their son Harold. He became one of the first popular hillbilly music disc jockeys with his Breakfast Frolic and Suppertime Frolic radio shows over WJJD in Chicago, Illinois. His father worked for the Western Electric Company and seemed to be one an inventor of sorts. He invented the soap dispenser you see in the rest rooms. He was also part of the invention of the dial phone. But back then, if you worked for a company, the invention belonged to the employer, not the individual. His first 'radio' job wasn't actually on the air, but in fact was as a sales position. He managed a radio store in Chicago's famed Loop. He first began singing while in high school. He kept earning 'scholarships' for his efforts and would sing the lead in a professional production of Robin Hood at a Chicago theater while he was still a teen-ager. In June of 1974, Randy told interviewer Doug Green when he started performing. Randy began as an opera singer and performed for three years on stage. His teacher back then was the legendary Italian tenor, Tito Schipa. The two of them had a problem. Randy didn't speak Italian. Tito didn't speak English. So, Henry DeVries, the esteemed music critic for the Chicago Herald-Examiner newspaper back then became Randy's interpreter and coach. Randy said he played on the Orpheum circuit for three years. He said he made good money back then, $250 a week, all expenses paid. He was young and frugal at the time. He sent $200 home each week to his father to put in the bank. He kept the other $50 and his golf clubs. He left the circuit when they changed the schedule where he would have to do five shows a day. When he went back home, seemingly quite well off having saved about $35,000 during that stint. (Note: The math does check out - 52 weeks times $200 is about $10,400 a year). But he seemingly was also a bit of a soft touch. Everybody he knew back then seemed to be broke, so he made a lot of loans. He told Mr. Green, only one paid him back. He basically gave away most of what he had saved. He went out to California for a time after losing his truck driving job when he caught the flu. He had two brothers living out in California and tried to find something out there. But he ended up coming back to Chicago. He got his start in radio in 1924 when he and Charley Garlan, one of his Chicago friends, went down to the studios of radio station WBBM at the Broadmoor Hotel on Wilson Avenue and did a "...15-minute spontaneous music show" with Randy singing while Garlan accompanied him on the piano. The station liked them and put them on their roster. Mr. Garlan later became an executive with the Columbia Broadcasting System. Around that time, 'crooning' was a popular thing at theaters and clubs, and that led to him thinking he could take his "...legitimate approach at music" and find an appreciative audience on the radio. Shortly after starting at WBBM, he met Harry O'Neill. Harry was a bit of a talent scout and advertising salesman. He was looking for hillbilly music talent for radio shows. The two of them became close friends. Randy found himself drifting into the hillbilly music field because he saw the waning interest in 'crooning' and felt that hillbilly (or folk) music was really the "American opera." He began helping Harry find hillbilly and western talent. But eventually he felt the urge to try his own hand at singing. He joined the Suppertime Frolic over radio station WJJD in 1935 as a sacred singer. Perhaps we can shed light on how he came to be known as Randy Blake. His daughter, Penny Winston Blake Stein, tells us she has only heard one version of how he became Randy Blake. One day he was appearing live over WJJD and the commercial announcer had not shown up. Harold stepped up to the microphone and on the spur of the moment uttered, "Howdy folks, this is Randy Blake". It turns out that a representative of the sponsor was in the station's control room at the time and heard Randy and stated, "I want that man to be the voice for our commercials." He used this name on the air only; he never changed it legally. A 1949 article tends to lend credence to this event, but doesn't mention he took the name Randy Blake in doing so. The Billboard ran a review of the Suppertime Frolic in June of 1937. They said it was "a popular program for rural consumption, patched up to sell a number of products, most of them patent medicines." They were impressed by the announcer they identified as Ervin Viktor who they said also doubled as emcee. The talent roster for the show at that time included Jack McCoy and the Cumberland Ridge Runners; Doc Hopkins; Buster Glosson; Karl and Harty; the Flannery Sisters; Randy Blake (identified as a cowboy singer). The article noted, "They unearth selections, vocally and musically popular long ago and those still enjoying a following in the rural districts. Entertainers are well versed in this type of work and undoubtedly have an audience in the hick towns." One might say that Chicago was hardly a hick town. In the April 2, 1938 issue of WLS' weekly publication "Stand By", it mentions that Randy had recently married about then. But actually, they were married in 1932. Randy noted in a 1974 interview that when he got married, he didn't have a job. And when he did get one, it was driving a truck at 4:00 in the morning delivering newspapers and magazines in Chicago. In 1941, Constance Keith reported that she was hearing Randy over radio station WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky. She noted the show was a Morning Jamboree and played music by transcription or by Uncle Henry and his Kentucky Mountaineers. Randy found himself at WHAS due to his job with the Benson and Dall agency because a friend of his owned the Consolidated Royal Chemical Corporation. He sold something called Peruna (a tonic), Kolorback (hair coloring) and Zumol Trokeys (cough drops). He asked Harry O'Neil if he could sing on the Suppertime Frolic show? When asked what he would sing, he noted, a hymn. He was not welcomed with open arms at the show. They viewed him as a "nightclub singer". But he persisted. Then he got a call from Dr. J. R. Brinkley to do a series of 15-minute programs for his radio station in Mexico. He did those recordings in a studio at the Hyde Park Bank Building and Mr. Brinkley provided the machinery, engineers and platters. He knew the Peruna ads upside down and backwards. Was fooling around with them in the studio during those recordings. The engineer asked him to do one 'straight' and that led to a phone call to Harry and when he heard the result, he had Randy go to WHAS in Louisville two days later and be ready to work at 5:00am on Monday. Performers such as Pee Wee King, Asher Sizemore and Little Jimmie and Eddy Arnold were at WHAS back then. He caused quite a stir, generated a lot of mail that caught WHAS off guard. That later led to an assignment with KNX in Hollywood, California. In early 1942, Sam Abbott reported that Randy was the emcee of the 5am to 6am morning show, "Homefolks Jamboree" over KNX. In January, Mr. Abbott reported that Uncle Henry and his Original Kentucky Mountaineers joined the show's cast. It appears he did not stay at WHAS continuously before going to Hollywood. He mentioned he appeared for a time on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance and he and his wife took up residence during his stint on John Lair's creation. While he was at WHAS, he tripled the mail pull to over 210,000 pieces of mail. Later in the spring of 1942, Mr. Abbott told his readers that Randy had left Hollywood to work at radio station WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky. It was stated that Randy would return to KNX and the Homefolks Jamboree in the fall. But he apparently did not return to the West Coast in the fall. Sam Honigberg told The Billboard readers that Randy had joined the announcing staff at WJJD in Chicago in September. World War II had its effects on entertainers and it was no different in Chicago. In the spring of 1943, Bob Atcher, the music director at both WJJD and WIND, had joined the U. S. Army. His wife, Bonnie Atcher (Bonnie Blue Eyes) took over his job while he was away and had her own show five days a week from 7:15pm to 7:30pm. Randy was to appear on the show with her as well. Bonnie's show was to start in June 1943. In his May 1949 column, Arlie Kinkade reported that Randy Blake was signed to a record deal with Capitol Records. But it appears at that time he was not on WJJD as Mr. Kinkade mentions Randy was a part of the Suppertime Frolic show over WJJD prior to World War II. Penny (Randy's daughter) recalls that they moved to Los Angeles / Hollywood during World War II. CBS hired him during his time there to train the new up and coming disc jockeys. His fame was such even on the west coast that it enabled him and his family to get housing in the area even though it was scarce during that time. During that time, the U. S. Government awarded him a medal for being in a necessary industry during the war. His shows were on wire recordings that were sent to the troops overseas. Penny recalls he had both a "Breakfast Frolic" and "Suppertime Frolic" show and he was rarely home for dinner with the family. And she told us another bit of trivia - how many of you fans remember that his theme song was "Oklahoma Stomp" by Spade Cooley? Mr. Blake took a break from WJJD during World War II and when he returned to WJJD, the station decided they would have Randy play records during the Suppertime Frolic two-hour show. He was on the last shift and was on until WJJD had to go off the air at sundown each day. It was said that he offered a minimum of comment as he played the recordings from hillbilly music in that era. Proof of his popularity lay in the fact that he got over 100,000 mailings from every state in the USA. We get some indication of his popularity from a 1943 article. The Suppertime Frolic show that was emceed by Randy aired from 7:30pm to 9:30pm. Each 15-minute segment of the show had a sponsor; most of them said to be mail order businesses. The results for those sponsors were said to be solid and we quote from the article, "...in spite of the goshawful, bombastic commercials." But they did get results. An insurance company using the Suppertime Frolic show received over 27,000 requests for policies over a period of six weeks. In one week, it received 7,193 requests from 1,445 out of the total 3,070 counties in the United States. The time line gets fuzzy with Randy's career. He took another leave of absence from WJJD and worked at radio station WCKY in Cincinnati. When he left WCKY, a young disc jockey took his place that would himself become one of the legends, Nelson King. That 1943 article was highlighting the pull of "mountain music" in Chicago and the success it was generating for sponsors. The Chicago market for hillbilly music at that time was dominated by two stations - WLS and WJJD. The article concluded by noting that there were a few other hillbilly music artists on other stations. It noted that one such artist stated it was why Chicago was "Hillbilly Heaven" at that time. In 1946 Randy Blake had a hand in getting Mercury Records to setup a Nashville operation. Murray Nash had just left RCA Victor. Randy knew Murray and suggested to the Mercury Records executives that they should contact Murray to setup a country music recording studio. That first Mercury studio effort in Nashville was at the Cumberland Lodge, near the WSM radio station. The studio operations later moved to a 7th Avenue location in downtown Nashville. In 1947, Randy tried his hand at songwriting. He penned his first tune, "You Never Shoulda Done That". December of 1947 found him cutting his first recordings for the Gold Seal record label. It was reported that the two tunes he cut were "Howdy Friends, Good Evening, Neighbors" b/w "The Little Golden Locket." The first tune was said to be based on the Suppertime Frolic opening. Randy and Ken Nelson were listed as the songwriters for that tune. (Note: Mr. Nelson was a long time executive for Capitol Records on the west coast and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.) A few weeks later, Billboard reported that he had already sold 5,000 copies of the record. In 1948, another sponsor wanted Randy for their products - records. Columbia sponsored a nightly 15-minute segment that Randy hosted. He would provide short biographies of the artists and play their latest recordings. National Jamboree magazine reported in the summer of 1949 that Randy had received a "huge" gold loving cup from Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl and Rod Brasfield for "...the many years spent in promoting folk music." The cup was inscribed with the words, "To Randy Blake, who has done so much to promote folk music." It was given to him to honor the many years he promoted hillbilly and western music over WJJD on the popular Suppertime Frolic show. Later in 1949, Rosalie Allen wrote a bit of a review of one of Randy's releases on Capitol Records - "The Old Rugged Cross" b/w "The Lesson of Love". She told readers that Randy had "...always been one of my favorites when it comes to hymn singing, and in this release he has the fine sincerity and feeling that makes listening a real pleasure." That 1949 feature article in National Jamboree notes that he never thought he'd be a "top folk music disc jockey", but was happy it turned out that way. To him, there were only two types of music. One was opera - the folk music of Europe and then there was good old American folk music. In April of 1949, Capitol Records announced they had signed Mr. Blake to a recording contract to record sacred songs for the label. At that time, Randy was being heard seven hours a day over border radio station XENT out of Laredo, Texas, presumably by transcriptions. He also had transcribed programs airing over 20 radio stations in the South. Also signed to the label around the same time were James and Martha Carson. Just how popular was Randy Blake? In 1949, The Billboard published its list of the 'Favorite Hillbilly Disc Jockey' based on a poll of disc jockeys and folk artists. Yes folk artists. Back then it seems there was a bit of a struggle how to classify the music - as hillbilly and for a time, it was coined folk music - in the ever evolving marketing strategies to get an extra sale or two. Nelson King over WCKY in Cincinnati, Ohio ruled the top of the list that year. But Randy was in the runner-up position. In late 1949, Randy Blake's father passed away. Somewhere in the late 1940s, MGM records were being distributed in Chicago by the Zenith Corporation that was on Jackson Boulevard. Frank Walker called the sales manager and told him he was sending him a record by Hank Williams and was not to open it, but take it to Randy Blake at WJJD. Randy didn't think much at the time. Neither did Fred Rose when Hank recorded "Lovesick Blues". But Hank knew different because of the reaction by the audiences at his personal appearances. The song was so popular that audiences wouldn't let him sing until he did the tune. Randy told Mr. Walker that "...Obviously he has a lot of talent because he writes and writes and writes. I'll tell you what I think of this record. I think you should put it out. I'm giving you an order right now for 10,000 of them." In the late 1940s and early 1950s, some publications included columns that seemed to plug the new songs being published during that era and where they were being featured. Walter Hudnall noted in National Hillbilly News that Randy was featuring a song called "Charleston Is the Place For You" by Johnny Smolen over WJJD. In several older The Billboard magazines, we have seen advertisements for records that featured Randy or a quote about the air play and response the record was generating over WJJD. A 1950 publication noted that Randy had received his 600th namesake that year. Parents were naming their new born children after him. Randy entered into a new venture in 1950. Art and Leonard Keller had formed a music publishing company called Len-Art Music, which was affiliated with BMI. They added a hillbilly and Western 'department' and signed up Randy Blake to lead that effort. In April, they announced that Lou Camito was going to help promote the firm in New York City. Later that summer, Ted Browne was said to be heading up the hillbilly and Western song department and that Randy was an 'official' of the firm. The Billboard published another popularity list in October 1950. To show you again the mix of how they were describing the music back then. The article headline is "Favorite Folk Disc Jockeys" but when you read the details of what they asked the disc jockeys and folk artists, they asked, "Who is your favorite Hillbilly disk jockey?" And yes, they did capitalize Hillbilly. The 1950 poll was very similar to the 1949 one. Nelson King still on top of the list and Randy Blake taking the runner-up spot. It's a bit difficult to pin down the exact years Randy led the Suppertime Frolic show over WJJD, but The Billboard reported in its "Disk Jockey Doings" column in October 1950 that he had completed his ninth year as country music emcee on September 25. Randy's name even popped up in Letters to the Editor type of columns. Country fans were loyal to their favorites and were outspoken if they felt their favorite wasn't getting their just due. One such fan was Pearl Smith in Kokomo Indiana who was a Ray Price fan and in 1953, felt he wasn't getting enough air play and noted that Randy wasn't even playing his records. While Mr. Blake was on the Capitol Records label, he managed to get out of the studio and participate in what was termed "Artistry in Golf" tournament for the label's artists, personnel and disc jockeys in the Chicago area. He and WIND's Jim Lounsbury were said to have been the winners in 1950. In 1953, The Billboard announced its annual DJ poll. This time the question they asked was "Which three disk jockeys in your opinion have had the best local radio and/or TV jockey shows over the past year?" The top two DJs were unchanged from the earlier 1949 and 1950 polls. Still number one was Nelson King and runner-up was Randy Blake. But 1953 may have also been the start of a shift in fortunes for hillbilly music in the Chicago scene or at WJJD. It was reported that Randy had started doing a new hour long show that featured the pop tunes of the day. In another article by Bob Francis reporting on what was going on with record dealers, Randy Blake noted his Stewart Sales mail order company that specialized in folk records had included some pop records in their catalog. The results were some surprising sales increases for artists such as Sammy Kaye ("Dance of Mexico") and Jay White ("On The Trail"). According to Randy's daughter Penny, The Stewart Sales Company would purchase surplus records that the record company did not sell and did not want to return to inventory. That meant his company would get a very good (low) price. In addition to the mail order business, the surplus records were used in promotional deals. Such as "Buy a stereo and get 10 Free albums," or "Buy a bag a chips and get a record inside." Randy told interviewer Doug Green in 1974 the company was named for his son. The record company did well. It worked with Syd Nathan of King Records and were selling records by such artists as Cowboy Copas, Grandpa Jones, the Delmore Brothers and the Carlisles. He'd sell the records very simply. Listeners didn't have to send any money. Back then, they would pay the postman $2.98 plus 35 cents on delivery. Uncle Sam was their account receivable department. In another testament to the reaches of his popularity, he told The Billboard in November of 1953 that he had received an order for a product that was being pitched on his show from a listener in England. The Billboard published its seventh annual list of Favorite Deejays in 1954. Nelson King was still at the top of the list, but Randy was now listed in the number five position behind Eddie Hill of WSM, Paul Kallinger of XERF and Marty Roberts also of WCKY. The Billboard noted that Randy was celebrating his 20th anniversary as part of the Suppertime Frolic show over WJJD in 1955. He started as a producer on the show, then became one of its singers and eventually took over the show. Mr. Blake reported to The Billboard in May of 1955 that he had seen record sales for sacred music had tripled in the past couple of years. He stated that his Stewart Sales Company, Inc. that specialized in handling mail order requests for country and western records had seen the sacred music records increase to almost 50 percent of his request mail and accounted for 40 percent of his mail order volume. The records he noted that were selling were by such artists as Red Foley, The Johnson Family, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, the Chuck Wagon Gang, Martha Carson, the Smith Brothers, Stuart Hamblen and on it goes. The Billboard C&W Jockey Of The Year list in 1955 showed Nelson King again at the top of the list. Randy Blake was now listed as number 12. It is interesting to note the changes in the name of the list over the years by the magazine in this list. Variety magazine noted the long-running Suppertime Frolic show in a 1955 article. They noted the long run and that the show had a waiting list of sponsors. It mentioned that Randy began directing the show in 1935 for Benson & Dall, Inc., an advertising agency. The show started off using live talent, but eventually the record industry took hold and over the years, the show featured the hit records of the day and hosted by Randy. The advertising agency in 1955 handling the program was O'Neil, Larson & McMahon which had offices in Chicago. In 1956, The Billboard called it the "Country and Western Jockey of the Year". Eddie Hill unseated Nelson King as number one. Randy Blake was tied for tenth place with Lee Sutton of WWVA. In 1956, a Country and Western Jamboree magazine poll showed that Randy was the fourth most popular Disco Jockey that year. That same magazine noted Randy was the No. 1 "non network" disc jockey in 1955. On March 31 1957, his contract with WJJD in Chicago as host of the Suppertime Frolic had expired. He had been a part of the show except for some brief interludes during World War II for over 22 years. Al Bland, vice-president of WLW radio in CIncinnati stated that they had hired Randy to fill the 8:05pm to 9:30pm time slot each night except Mondays. WLW wanted stronger ratings during that time slot. Mr. Blake would continue to live in Chicago and tape his WLW shows. He noted that he would not be changing the format of the show; he would continue to feature country music along with gospel recordings. His show was to begin airing over WLW on March 12, 1957. In a later article, The Billboard noted his show's move and noted he was still going to work from his offices on South Wabash Avenue, but we wonder if they meant the office where he was working out of rather than literally his home address. Later on after his radio work, he went to work at WGN-TV (channel 9) in Chicago. At one point he did commercials for a program that was a "man on the street" type of show and was hosted by the legendary Chicago Cubs baseball announcer, Jack Brickhouse. Randy's daughter tells of some of the 'special effects' that were used to do those commercials sometimes. She did a commercial for a brand of hair waving shampoo. They had her pose as a 'before' picture, but then the 'after' picture was not because she used the shampoo, but because they took her to a back room and used curling irons on her hair. It's probably still true today - be a bit skeptical about those claims in commercials. Towards the latter end of his career, he was invited to conduct a class on diction at both the University of Illinois and Northwestern University. He felt it was quite an honor and took advantage of it. The pictures we've seen of Randy always seem to show him with a suit coat and tie. Penny tells us that was his everyday apparel on the job and may have loosened the tie once behind the microphone. In many of the photos of her father especially those that show his hands, you should see him wearing a gold ring on his pinky finger - which was part of the male fashion of that era. She now wears that ring on the middle finger of her right hand. Mr. Blake was from an era where the hillbilly music disc jockey played an important part in the growth and promotion of that musical genre. Johnny Sippel in The Billboard in 1951 and Hugh Cherry in The Music City News in 1980 both spoke to this aspect. Mr. Sippel points out in his article that the disc jockey was a "paramount promotion force in any branch of the music business." But it was even more important to Country and Western music. Back then, as Mr. Sippel put it, the "rustic music warbler" did not have the same opportunity to do personal appearances at major venues that the pop music and vaudeville acts of the day had access to. Country music had a few exceptions. Reno and Las Vegas played host to hillbilly music acts. Even in the movies, Mr. Sippel noted that h.b. (his article abbreviated the term hillbilly in this manner throughout) and Western talent were only featured or in supporting roles in horse operas that only got limited distribution and generally, did not make it to metropolitan areas. How did the h.b. and Western talents get heard by audiences? A survey back in 1951 noted that there were 1,400 h.b. disk shows being broadcast over radio stations. Mr. Sippel pointed out that the large 50,000 watt radio stations had by and large turned to h.b. and Western programs for their all-night and early morning programming. These disc jockeys put in a lot of work. The 'average rustic spinner' put in 11 hours of disc jockey work each week, usually six days a week. Some of the well known disc jockeys of that era such as Randy Blake, Nelson King were doing an average of three to six hours per day. The h.b. disc jockey was in essence the only really big promotional outlet for country talent in their geographical area of coverage. Many of them became a part of country music parks back then to give the artists a venue to be seen and heard. In other localities, the disc jockeys were even investing in the promotion of the country talents by getting into the business of staging and promoting the package shows of talent for audiences. Others even opened a record shop - such as Jimmie Skinner. Or in Randy Blake's case, a mail-order record business. Hugh Cherry stated that Randy Blake was the first important hillbilly disc jockey in his 1980 article. The Suppertime Frolic show he began hosting in 1941 over WJJD was heard in more than half of the then 48 United States. "Randy had a smooth, resonant voice. He played it straight, without regional accent and his presentation of hillbilly music had a dignity and authority not before identified with the music."Mr. Cherry stated not only did he sell a lot of baby chicks or fertilizer, but he also sold a lot of hillbilly music. Mr. Cherry points out in the time after World War II had ended, the Federal Communications Commission granted hundreds of licenses for new radio stations. These were often started without any network affiliation. Most began by playing records. They would play hillbilly music in the early mornings, mid-day or late night hours. When a new disc jockey came to a station, Hugh points out there were often given the then 'undesirable' hillbilly music shift. He noted that few disc jockeys back then identified themselves with hillbilly music voluntarily. That's how he got into the business - because he wanted to keep his job. But Hugh found out as time went on that instead of feeling like he had a stigma attached to him, he had become a hillbilly disc jockey because ... "I liked the music." Mr. Cherry points out that in the early days, there was a family feeling which prevailed in the country music community. You were part of a group. It made no difference who you were or where you were - it was a close-knit family. You could go to Nashville and stay at a hotel, but more likely someone you knew would invite you to stay with them. In perhaps a comment on what he was seeing in the industry then, he felt that the artists of that generation had forgotten roots of the industry they were now enjoying being a part of. He noted "...country music presentation has evolved into today's highly-impersonally purveyance of a commercial medium." He felt while the industry was making gains, country music's heritage and history was being lost and forgotten. He noted, "Let us remember what happens when you kill the roots of a tree—it dies. Earlier we wrote of how Randy started as an Opera singer. And he later told Mr. Green how it compared to hillbilly music. "I studied opera for many, many years. I see a similarity between opera and country music. I'm talking about the country music that I know, that I took part in. Opera is a tragedy. They all wind up with somebody dying or somebody leaving and "Why did you leave me" and all that, and the same thing in country and western music as I knew it. It was called hillbilly music, which was a stigma, as far as I was concerned, except when I had to go to the bank. Then it was not a stigma anymore. But I mean, jeez, how can an opera singer be a hillbilly, you know?" Randy also revealed the types of music he would play. If it had a piano or electrical instrument behind it, he would not play it. If it had anything to do with drinking he would not play it either. He noted he was very, very careful about that. And his opinion of modern country music was not flattering either - he thought it was comparable to the sound of Andre Kostelanetz's orchestra music. Over the years, this web site has received several email's from fans who recalled the enjoyment of listening to Randy over WJJD. We only hope this helps the fans bring back some of those memories and the legacy he left behind. Harold Winston was his name, Randy Blake was the name hillbilly music fans knew. He passed away on February 18, 1976. He was survived by his wife, Bernice. They had a son, Dr. Stuart Winston and a daughter, Penny Winston Stein. At the time of his death, he and Bernice had been married for 44 years. His wife was active in many philanthropic organizations and was on the board of the Chicago Symphony. She moved to San Diego in her later years and married Don Fraser, who passed away in 1994. Bernice passed away in February 2008. On October 15, 1976, The Federation of International Country Air Personalities hosted its second annual DJ Hall of Fame awards banquet at the Hyatt Regency in Nashville. Chuck Chellman, who was a trustee for the Country Music Disk Jockey Hall of Fame Foundation, made the presentation as they inducted Randy posthumously into their Hall of Fame. Penny's son is a blues musician. When he first started, the leader of the band at his first gig thought the name "Tom Stein" was a bit ethnic for an American blues singer. So, he became Tomcat Blake to honor his grandfather's musical heritage. Credits and Sources
Printer Friendly Version |
Yes, Hillbilly Music. You may perhaps wonder why. You may even snicker. But trust us, soon your feet will start tappin' and before you know it, you'll be comin' back for more...Hillbilly Music.
Hillbilly-music.com ...
It's about the people, the music, the history.
Copyright © 2000—2023 Hillbilly-Music.com


text:
StandardSideloaders9-PocketRegular price From $15.99Regular priceUnit price per
Sold outStandardPOP! ProtectorsRegular price $12.99Regular priceUnit price perSold out
I wouldn't trust anything else with my collection
Vault X are on top of their game. I started using their products 3 years ago and wouldn't use anything else now. The one time I've needed to use their customer support has been a pleasant and efficient experience too. I can't recommend them enough!
Robert M. from Southampton
Extremely well made professional binder
I have only recently started collecting cards again (in my case Pokémon) so I needed a binder for them. I wanted something that looked minimal and felt high quality. I wasn't disappointed!
Harry from Amazon
The best binder out there
Without a doubt the best binder out there for the money. Excellent quality and for a very good price. After trying a few cheaper binders, this one is by far and away worth every penny you pay for it. Would highly recommend to anyone.
Andrew R. (Amazon Customer)
Takes a beating in my bag but is still in amazing condition
I get regular compliments about this deck box, people always want to know where I got it and I am all too happy to recommend the company.
Alexander (Amazon Customer)
The best binder I've bought
This is the highest quality binder I've seen. Very happy with it and won't buy a different one ever again.
A. Wilcock (Amazon Customer)
One of the best binders I've ever owned!
A very good binder, I love the fact that it has a zipper, hard covers and double sided pages. Holds a really good amount of cards. Would buy a few more in the future.
Amazon Customer
Very high quality binder
It's the best way to store those precious cards you have. I'm confident my cards will last forever now.
Amazon Customer


text:
Obama's statement:
Today, I spoke to Ambassador Susan Rice, and accepted her decision to remove her name from consideration for Secretary of State. For two decades, Susan has proven to be an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant. As my Ambassador to the United Nations, she plays an indispensable role in advancing America's interests. Already, she has secured international support for sanctions against Iran and North Korea, worked to protect the people of Libya, helped achieve an independent South Sudan, stood up for Israel's security and legitimacy, and served as an advocate for UN reform and the human rights of all people. I am grateful that Susan will continue to serve as our Ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my cabinet and national security team, carrying her work forward on all of these and other issues. I have every confidence that Susan has limitless capability to serve our country now and in the years to come, and know that I will continue to rely on her as an advisor and friend. While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first. The American people can be proud to have a public servant of her caliber and character representing our country.


text:
Tech Journal Cloud + Edge: The Innovation Equation
By Carmen Taglienti / 25 Oct 2021 / Topics: Cloud Analytics Digital transformation Modern infrastructure
By Carmen Taglienti / 25 Oct 2021 / Topics: Cloud Analytics Digital transformation Modern infrastructure
By now, most organisations are leveraging the cloud in some way, and usage is only increasing. Gartner forecasts worldwide public cloud spending will grow by 23% in 2021 as organisations face ongoing pressure to support complex workloads and the demands of hybrid work.
While some continue to focus on core business functions such as IT cost optimisation, risk reduction and the digitisation of processes, the majority of organisations are now looking further ahead — seeking opportunities to leverage their infrastructure to drive growth, accelerate product development and scale innovation.
The reason many organisations fail to transform — and therefore survive long term — comes down to a lack of skills needed to rapidly adopt new technologies. By providing access to democratised services and capabilities, the public cloud brings solutions such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) or the Internet of Things (IoT) within reach, without requiring deep, in-house expertise. This enables businesses to do more with less, faster.
No matter the intended outcome, the effectiveness of these solutions begins with the availability and accessibility of good, clean, unbiased data. Today's cloud providers make it easy to ingest, store, query and visualise massive amounts of data in support of a wide range of use cases. Backed by security, resiliency and geoproximity capabilities, the cloud enables users to access the tools and information they need to make better business decisions from anywhere in the world — without the need to connect to an on-premises data centre.
Ultimately, accelerated innovation in the cloud supports accelerated innovation across your company. Having the tools to execute on individual projects more effectively empowers your organisation to ideate and transform faster, driving disruption and competitive advantage. This is why, according to McKinsey, 75% of the cloud's predicted value comes from its ability to enable innovation.
But while public cloud has been established as foundational to enterprise innovation, focus is increasingly shifting to the edge. IDC reports companies worldwide are on pace to spend $240.6 billion on edge computing through 2024, investing in hardware, software and services at a compound annual growth rate of more than 15%.
So, what value does edge computing add to the innovation equation?
Put simply, edge computing is an extension of your organisation's distributed or hybrid architecture which allows data to be processed closer to its source. As a result, one of the primary benefits of the edge is low latency.
Sending data back to a centralised public cloud for analysis causes lag, which may render the information unusable or, more importantly, result in missed opportunities to provide services within the critical user experience window. This is a key consideration for many AI- or IoT-based solutions, including predictive maintenance, defect detection, security and surveillance, and more. On a product assembly or food processing line, for example, data often has an extremely limited lifespan. Anomaly response must occur immediately to prevent low-quality products from reaching distribution. Other solutions such as Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) also depend on low latency to deliver real-time experiences.
The edge also supports innovation initiatives on the whole by reducing the technical, financial and security burdens associated with storing massive amounts of data in the cloud. Running workloads at the edge enables organisations to build solutions that leverage short-term or single-use data that can be discarded to reserve storage space or protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Sending only the inferences or insights derived from this data to the cloud informs broader decision-making while reducing risk, preserving privacy and improving overall bandwidth.
By 2025, Gartner predicts 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed at the edge.
While both cloud and edge solutions offer distinct benefits, when it comes to driving innovation, the most effective strategies capitalise on the complementary features of both approaches.
The cloud provides:
The edge:
Together, cloud + edge establishes a robust framework for rapidly developing, delivering, managing and modifying your approach to innovation. Rather than requiring a full week to build an on-prem solution, cloud services may be used to prototype a concept overnight. It can then be deployed to the edge for rapid testing, modification and proof of value. The faster your organisation can test and learn, the faster you can transform over time.
But in order to effectively leverage your architecture from core to edge, there are a few things to consider.
When designing an architectural strategy that supports innovation, public cloud managed services are key. While the specific offerings will vary by cloud provider, they typically support security and compliance, monitoring and management, solution design, modernisation and more. By offloading the technical burdens associated with managing cloud and edge environments, these services accelerate time to value while lowering your overall cost profile.
There are also many solution-specific cloud platforms which can be leveraged by internal teams to build and deploy custom AI (Azure AI, Google Cloud AI, Amazon SageMaker, IBM Watson), IoT solutions (Azure IoT Central, Google Cloud IoT, AWS IoT Core, IBM Watson IoT) as well as chatbots, computer vision models and more. These tools provide the foundations to make complex solutions more approachable without the need for custom code.
Cloud providers are also increasingly expanding their offerings to simplify the process of operationalising data at the edge. Frameworks such as Google Anthos, Azure Arc, AWS Outposts and others can be used to manage clusters and the workloads deployed on them.
New tools and services are released regularly, so as part of your architectural strategy, it's important to reevaluate which solutions may be best suited to your environment. Relying on a static approach will result in missed opportunities to reduce operating costs and improve efficiency or scale.
Intel's The Edge Outlook report shows that while most businesses understand the edge is integral to unlocking future innovations — 76% say identifying "the ideal" location for data is a challenge.
There's no one right way to determine where data should be managed and stored; the decision ultimately comes down to where a particular workload will be most useful, practical or desirable. But in general, applications or workloads that benefit from being processed at the edge are those that require low latency, high bandwidth, strict data privacy and/or a short data lifespan. Edge applications also tend to be more "lightweight" and specialised, while solutions that are more broadly focused and more compute intensive tend to be better suited to the cloud.
Industry- or company-specific privacy policies, such as HIPAA or GDPR, will also play a role in determining where your data will live.
As your cloud + edge architecture becomes increasingly distributed, challenges of scale and complexity are bound to arise, particularly if edge deployments are treated as point solutions rather than integrated aspects of your network.
To enable operational efficiency, organisations must manage edge and core cloud workloads in a secure, maintainable and scalable way. This requires a consistent operational approach to automate processing and execution as data is sent from the edge to the cloud and back again.
Leveraging a microservice or container-based approach can simplify the process of extending cloud-native services and applications to the edge. A container-based application is scalable and can run in the cloud or on the edge making it easier to manage. This reduces the cost of managing different frameworks and deployment strategies.
As with any technology implementation, security must be considered when implementing solutions at the edge. This is a broad topic with many facets to evaluate, but in general you'll want to prioritise:
The good news is that some of these requirements can be managed by your cloud provider. The rest should be kept top of mind as your team moves applications and workloads from proof of concept to production at the edge.
The ability to "fall quickly" — not fail quickly, but fall quickly — then get up and move on to the next solution is a cornerstone of innovation. A robust cloud + edge strategy enables this approach by circumventing many of the lengthy, manual processes associated with a traditional on-prem or core cloud architecture.
By building on the benefits of each aspect of your infrastructure, your business will ultimately be able to develop a robust approach to data-driven innovation that's greater than the sum of its parts.


text:
ABSARD, Iran (AP) — State television says an Iranian scientist was killed in a targeted attack killed in Absard, a small city just east of the capital, Tehran.
State TV says the attack on the scientist, named Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, saw gunmen use explosives and machine gun fire. He was attacked by "armed terrorist elements," according to state TV, and died at a local hospital after first responders couldn't revive him.
Israel has alleged the man led the Islamic Republic's military nuclear program until its disbanding in the early 2000s.
Iran's foreign minister is alleging the killing of Fakhrizadeh has "serious indications" of an Israeli role. Mohammad Javad Zarif made the statement Friday on Twitter.
"Terrorists murdered an eminent Iranian scientist today. This cowardice—with serious indications of Israeli role—shows desperate warmongering of perpetrators," Zarif wrote. "Iran calls on int'l community—and especially EU—to end their shameful double standards & condemn this act of state terror."
Israel declined to immediately comment on the killing of Fakhrizadeh, who Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once called out in a news conference saying: "Remember that name."
Israel has long been suspected of carrying out a series of targeted killings of Iranian nuclear scientists nearly a decade ago.