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10 Medical Treatments Your Doctor Probably Won't Approve
10 Fascinating Beliefs of Indigenous Cultures
10 Major Movies That Filmed Without a Script
The Crazy Stories Behind 10 Legendary Spite Houses
10 Puzzling Disappearances at Zion National Park
Top 10 Cool Facts about 7-Eleven
10 Merciless Monarch Murders You May Not Know About
10 Heartwarming (Scientific) Stories about Cats
Ten Singers Who Absolutely Detest One of Their Hit Songs
10 Animal Actions You've Never Seen (Caught on Camera)
10 Medical Treatments Your Doctor Probably Won't Approve
10 Fascinating Beliefs of Indigenous Cultures
Who's Behind Listverse?
Jamie Frater
Head Editor
Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. He has been a guest speaker on numerous national radio and television stations and is a five time published author.
More About Us10 Major Movies That Filmed Without a Script
The Crazy Stories Behind 10 Legendary Spite Houses
10 Puzzling Disappearances at Zion National Park
Top 10 Cool Facts about 7-Eleven
10 Merciless Monarch Murders You May Not Know About
10 Heartwarming (Scientific) Stories about Cats
Ten Singers Who Absolutely Detest One of Their Hit Songs
10 Notable Apologies from the Last Decade
It seems these days that it is the fashionable thing to apologize to the masses for things which, generally, don't affect them personally. From religious and political leaders to sportsmen, these apologies really do seem to be nothing but public relations moves. This list looks at ten apologies from the last decade.
2000: Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker apologizes for dissing New Yorkers.
In an interview, Rocker talked about how disgusted he felt, riding in the New York subway with green haired punks, street people with loathsome diseases, as well as how rude the fans were. After the resulting brouhaha, he taped an apology which was shown on the big screen at Shea Stadium before a game. "I have apologized and felt badly for anyone who took my comments personally. I am also fully aware that the overwhelming majority of people in this city are extremely charismatic and full of personality, although a bit spirited at times, but, you know, that doesn't make them bad people." The tape was soundly booed by the Mets fans.
2001: George Bush kinda sorta apologizes to China, in the wake of China's interceptor colliding with an American spy plane.
A hot-dogging Chinese fighter jet crowded an American EC-130 spy plane in international waters. The jet plunged to the pilot's death, while the spy plane was damaged and forced to land on Hainan Island. China demanded an apology from the U.S. for the entire incident, but the protocol parsers of the Bush team balked at the nuance of the Chinese syllable "qian", which implied greater fault than the administration was willing to admit. Eventually the White House issued a statement expressing "regret" for the incident, but not actual remorse.
2002: Trent Lott apologizes for praising Strom Thurmond's 1948 Presidential run.
At South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, Senate Leader Trent Lott expressed the opinion that the country would have been better off if Thurmond had won the 1948 Presidential election, on the segregationist Dixicrat ticket. Lott heard about it hot and strong, and had to go on the media apology circuit. ""I wanted to honor Strom Thurmond, the man, who was turning 100 years old. He certainly has been a legend in the Senate both in terms of his service and the length of his service. It was certainly not intended to endorse his segregationist policies that he might have been advocating or was advocating 54 years ago. But obviously, I am sorry for my words, they were poorly chosen and insensitive and I regret the way it has been interpreted."
2003: Symbionese Liberation Army radicals apologize to family of slaying victim Myrna Opsahl at their sentencing.
70s radicals gunned down a bystander during a bank robbery. When they were finally brought to trial, decades later, the right-wing blogosphere was full of outrage, and claims that they were being coddled by the media and the courts because of their left-wing politics. The terrorists' apologies were marbled with self-pity. "It is your day, and I apologize. But you're not going to walk out of here thinking justice was done. We are truly abstraction because we are the hated monsters for 30 years. There is nothing I can do. I've thought about your mother. To me, your mother has never been an abstraction. You have never been an abstraction to me."
2004: George W. Bush apologizes for prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
During a press conference after a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, President Bush said, "I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families." Needless to say, this was not the end of the matter.
2005: England's Prince Harry apologized for wearing a Nazi uniform to a costume party.
A prime example of outrage being in inverse proportion to the harm done. Prince Henry (and yes, that is his real name – look it up) wore a Nazi uniform to a party and was photographed by the media. Now certainly it was not in good taste, but did it really warrant a royal apology to the entire nation?
2006: Seinfeld star Michael Richards apologizes for racial rant during standup comedy show.
Michael Richards lost patience with a heckler during his show, and started spewing N-bombs. Video of the incident starting showing up on the internet–including a new video website called YouTube–and the heavens came crashing down on him. So he hit the apology circuit, even seeking out the Rev. Al Sharpton, to kiss his ring in atonement. "I lost my temper onstage. I said some pretty nasty things to some Afro Americans (sic). . . . You know, I'm really busted up over this and I'm very, very sorry." He got weirder: "There's a great deal of disturbance in this country, and how blacks feel about what happened in Katrina and, you know, many of the comics, many of the performers are in Las Vegas and New Orleans trying to raise money for what happened there, and for this to happen, for me to be in a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, you know, I'm deeply, deeply sorry. And I'll get to the force field of this hostility, why it's there, why the rage is in any of us, why the trash takes place, whether or not it's between me and a couple of hecklers in the audience or between this country and another nation, the rage . . ."
2007: Mattel apologizes to China over lead-based paint in imported toys.
A perfect example of the growing clout China has over us: They shipped us poisonous toys, toys painted with lead-based paint -and the America toy company Mattel ended up apologizing to China for the fuss. "Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls. And Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys." Mattel groveled further: "We understand and appreciate deeply the issues that this has caused for the reputation of Chinese manufacturers."
2008: The AMA apologizes to black doctors for past racism.
I once knew an elderly black security guard, years and years ago. He told me that he had been to medical school, but was never able to practice in his field, because of racial discrimination. I was appalled. So I was gratified for his sake to learn of this apology from the American Medical Association. "The AMA failed, across the span of a century, to live up to the high standards that define the noble profession of medicine." These included everything from actually barring black doctors from local AMA chapters, to listing them as "colored" in membership directories.
2009: Tiger Woods apologizes to fans for "transgressions."
As the ceiling started collapsing on Tiger Woods' marriage and possibly his career in late 2009, he tried to get ahead of the cascading sordidness by issuing a prompt apology: "I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect." This of course did not head off the resulting bimbo eruptions, necessitating his televised mea culpa earlier this year. One would presume he had already apologized to his wife and family – did he really need to apologize to the rest of us? Does anyone outside of his close circle of acquaintances really care?


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Clean Water Advisory Committee Meeting
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
11:00 am – 12:30 pm
110 W Canal St, Winooski, VT 05404
The Clean Water Advisory Committee (CWAC) oversees the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission activities and policy development regarding but not limited to, the Vermont Lake Champlain Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Plan and its related plans and programs. The CWAC also has an MS-4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) Subcommittee consisting of representatives of the nine municipalities and three agencies charged with carrying out the Regional Stormwater Education Program (smartwaterways.org) and the Chittenden County Stream Team (ccstreamteam.org) as part of their Public Education, Outreach, Participation and Involvement permit requirements. The CWAC will meet at the call of the Chair. The typical meeting time will be the first Tuesday of the month at 11:00am. Full agendas and minutes for Clean Water Advisory Committee meetings can be found at https://www.ccrpcvt.org/about-us/committees/clean-water-advisory-committee/

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This class is necessary for 'xmlrpc4r' to determine that a string should be transmitted base64-encoded and not as a raw-string.
You can use XMLRPC::Base64 on the client and server-side as a parameter and/or return-value.
Decodes string str
with base64 and returns that value.
# File xmlrpc/base64.rb, line 45 def Base64.decode(str) str.gsub(/\s+/, "").unpack("m")[0] end
Encodes string str
with base64 and returns that value.
# File xmlrpc/base64.rb, line 50 def Base64.encode(str) [str].pack("m") end
Creates a new XMLRPC::Base64 instance with string
as the internal string. When state
it assumes that the string str
is not in
base64 format (perhaps already decoded), otherwise if state
it decodes str
and stores it as the internal
# File xmlrpc/base64.rb, line 22 def initialize(str, state = :dec) case state when :enc @str = Base64.decode(str) when :dec @str = str else raise ArgumentError, "wrong argument; either :enc or :dec" end end
Commenting is here to help enhance the documentation. For example, code samples, or clarification of the documentation.
If you have questions about Ruby or the documentation, please post to one of the Ruby mailing lists. You will get better, faster, help that way.
If you wish to post a correction of the docs, please do so, but also file bug report so that it can be corrected for the next release. Thank you.
If you want to help improve the Ruby documentation, please visit Documenting-ruby.org.


text:
Business Tips: Dublin Tech Summit Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote | Ireland 2017
Awesome Tip: Dublin Tech Summit Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote | Ireland 2017
► Subscribe to My Channel Here
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of VaynerMedia, a full-service digital agency servicing Fortune 500 clients across the company's 5 locations. Gary is also a prolific public speaker, venture capitalist, 4-time New York Times Bestselling Author, and has been named to both Crain's and Fortune's 40 Under 40 lists.
Gary is the host of the #AskGaryVee Show, a business and marketing focused Q&A video show and podcast, as well as DailyVee, a docu-series highlighting what it's like to be a CEO, investor, speaker, and public figure in today's digital age.
Make sure to stay tuned for Gary's latest project Planet of the Apps, Apple's very first video series, where Gary will be a judge alongside Will.I.Am, Jessica Alba, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
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(Redirected from PARTY LINES AND PARTY WALLS.)Limits of a tract of land. When the Hebrew tribes gave up their nomadic life and settled in Palestine in agricultural communities, the most important matter was the fixing of definite boundary-lines to separate the lands of the different tribes and of the families within the tribes. The importance of this is sufficiently shown in the Book of Joshua (xv.-xxi.), where a careful record is made of the boundaries of the tribes and their families (B. B. 56a).
The Biblical law does not enter upon the details of the law concerning boundaries, contenting itself with expressing in general terms its disapproval of the crime of removing the boundary-marks. Of the important branch of the law dealing with the details of boundary-lines, party lines and walls,fences, and the like, the Bible apparently knows nothing. These form an important part of Talmudic law.
Biblical Law.The Biblical law solemnly prohibited any tampering with the landmarks: "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it" (Deut. xix. 14); and this law became proverbial (Prov. xxii. 28, xxiii. 10).
During the time of the Kings the primitive notions concerning the sacredness of the boundary-mark disappeared. The princes were among the first to set at naught the ancient law (Hosea v. 10; Job xxiv. 2). The rabbinical authorities, however, reestablished and enforced it. They appointed surveyors familiar with the boundaries of each estate, to take care that no landmark be removed ("Bar Maḥwanita," B. B. 68; "Meshoḥa'ah," B. M. 107b). The law was likewise inculcated by moral injunction. Sifre (Deut. 188) after quoting the text, Deut. xix. 10, says: "Has the Bible not already said, 'Thou shalt not rob' (Lev. xix. 13)? Why does it now say, 'Thou shalt not remove'? It is to teach that he who uproots the boundary-mark of his neighbor is guilty of two crimes, robbery and removal of the landmark." In a similar strain Maimonides ("Yad," Genebah, vii. 11) and the Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ (376, 1) say: "He who removes his neighbor's landmark, and thus appropriates a portion of his neighbor's property, be it even a finger's breadth, if he does it with violence is a robber, and if he does it secretly is a thief." Solomon ben Adret decided that a trespasser building on the land of his neighbor may have his house razed because the owner of the ground is not obliged to part with it or "to take money for his inheritance," but may insist upon repossession of his ground (Beër Hagolah to Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, ib.).
The greatest care was, therefore, taken to insure accuracy of measurement in fixing the boundarylines, especially when a field was about to be sold. The form of conveyance of the field of Makpelah (Gen. xxiii. 17) shows great care in the formal terms, and refers to the "gebul," the boundary-lines of the estate. In Talmudic times, as stated above, official surveyors were appointed. In measuring two fields the surveyor was not permitted to measure the one in summer and the other in winter, because the measuring-line shrinks in summer (B. M. 61b; Shulḥan 'Aruk, Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 231, 18). In measuring the lines of land to be divided among brothers or tenants in common, the law enjoins great care, because in measuring lands the space of a finger's breadth is as valuable as if it were sown with crocus (B. M. 107b; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, l.c. 16). The lines and angles of the field had to be described, and in the deed the names of the owners of the adjoining land were given (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 219, 1-5, based on B. B. 62a et seq.).
Dividing-Walls or -Fences.When a division of dwelling grounds held by tenants in common was made, a dividing-wall had to be built of such material as the local custom prescribed. Each of the parties had to contribute one-half of the strip on which the wall was built (B. B. i. 1). When the owners of two adjoining fields desired to build a dividing-fence, they built it on the party line, and each erected a sign on his side to indicate his ownership up to that point (ib. 2). If only one of themwished to build the fence, he had to build it entirely on his own ground (ib.). The owners of fields were not compelled by law to build boundary-fences except where local custom so prescribed, but the owners of gardens were compelled to do so (ib.; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 158, 1). The prescribed height of such fences was ten handbreadths, or four ells (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, l.c. 3; "Yad," Shekenim, ii. 16), and the width was determined by the local custom (Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 157, 4). Such a fence might not have any opening in it; it must be a dead wall (ib.).
Where the boundary-fence was built to separate the lands of tenants in common, which laws had been partitioned, both parties shared the expense; and if the wall or fence fell, the materials were divided between them (ib. 3, 5).
The law of party walls in cities was quite well developed, its principles being substantially those prevailing in modern law. A party wall between two houses might be used by both owners: each might dig on his side, and put joists into the wall; but he must take care not to overload it. The weight of the material laid upon it was determined by local regulations (B. B. 6a; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 153, 14, and gloss). If the wall was owned by one of the adjoining owners, the other had not the right to use it (B. B. l.c.; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, l.c. 15); but if he did use it, he might acquire a legal right by prescription (B. B. l.c.; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, l.c. 16).
If the wall was owned by one of the adjoiners, and in building it he had made holes in it on his neighbor's side, this did not give his neighbor the right to use them without the owner's consent. They might have been made as a matter of convenience simply; so that, if the neighbor was permitted to use the wall, he need not cut into it, and thus weaken it (B. B. l.c.; Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, l.c. 19). See Easement, Neighbors.
- The subject is developed in detail in Shulḥan 'Aruk, Ḥoshen Mishpaṭ, 147, 148.


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General description of the gene and the encoded protein(s) using information from HGNC and Ensembl, as well as predictions made by the Human Protein Atlas project.
Official gene symbol, which is typically a short form of the gene name, according to HGNC.
Full gene name according to HGNC.
Assigned HPA protein class(es) for the encoded protein(s).
All transcripts of all genes have been analyzed regarding the location(s) of corresponding protein based on prediction methods for signal peptides and transmembrane regions.
The annotated location overrules the predicted location, so that a gene encoding a predicted secreted protein that has been annotated as intracellular will have intracellular as the final location.
Number of protein-coding transcripts from the gene as defined by Ensembl.
Summary of RNA expression based on cell line data from the DepMap portal and cell line data generated within the Human Protein Atlas project.
The RNA data was used to cluster genes according to their expression across cell lines. Clusters contain genes that have similar expression patterns, and each cluster has been manually annotated to describe common features in terms of function and specificity.
RNA specificity category based on RNA sequencing data from cancer cell lines in the Human Protein Atlas grouped according to type of cancer. Genes are classified into six different categories (enriched, group enriched, enhanced, low specificity and not detected) according to their RNA expression levels across the panel of cell lines.
Tau specificity score is a numerical indicator of the specificity of the gene expression across cells or tissues. The value ranges from 0 and 1, where 0 indicates identical expression across all cells/tissue types, while 1 indicates expression in a single cell/tissue type.
RNA distribution category based on RNA sequencing data from cancer cell lines in the Human Protein Atlas grouped according to type of cancer. Genes are classified into five different categories (detected in all, detected in many, detected in some, detected in single and not detected) according to their pattern of detected RNA expression across the panel of cell lines.
Evidence score for genes based on UniProt protein existence (UniProt evidence); neXtProt protein existence (neXtProt evidence);and a Human Protein Atlas antibody- or RNA based score (HPA evidence). The avaliable scores are evidence at protein level, evidence at transcript level, no evidence, or not avaliable.
RNA expression data as normalized transcript per million (nTPM) values of cancer cell lines.The analyzed cell lines are grouped according to cancer type. Detailed information about the groups is revealed by hovering over the corresponding bar in the chart. More information and cell line data can be found in the Cell line section.
The RNA data was used to cluster genes according to their expression across samples. The resulting clusters have been manually annotated to describe common features in terms of function and specificity. The annotation of the cluster is displayed together with a confidence score of the gene's assignment to the cluster. The confidence is calculated as the fraction of times the gene was assigned to this cluster in repeated calculations and is reported between 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest possible confidence. The clustering results are shown in a UMAP, where the cluster this gene was assigned to is highlighted as a colored area in which most of the cluster genes reside. A table shows the 15 most similar genes in terms of expression profile.
Confidence is the fraction of times a gene was assigned to the cluster in repeated clustering, and therefore reflects how strongly associated it is to the cluster. A confidence of 1 indicates that the gene was assigned to this cluster in all repeated clusterings.
Gene name according to HGNC.
Gene description according to HGNC.
Correlation between the selected gene and neighboring gene. Correlation is calculated as Spearman correlation in PCA space based on the RNA-seq expression data.
ID of the expression cluster of the neighboring gene.


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The Madingley model is a 'next-generation' model of ecosystems and biodiversity. It aims to help inform decision-makers about the impacts of their choices on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and on trajectories of biodiversity change under different scenarios of human development.
The scientific community has spent decades developing models of the atmosphere and climate so that we can project the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. But there is no equivalent for life on land and in the sea. Madingley was developed with exactly this long-term vision in mind: to develop a model of ecosystems and biodiversity on land and sea that would follow on from the successes of climate models and use the fundamental principles of how animals and plants interact to project the global consequences of human impacts.
The Madingley model is an entirely new approach to modelling ecosystems and biodiversity. It is different from existing models as it includes both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and marine and terrestrial human pressures – fisheries, agriculture, and climate change, for example. It is global in scope but can be applied regionally or nationally, and allows for unpredictable behaviour to emerge – meaning that food webs can shift and ecosystems can radically alter. It is published and described in the scientific peer-reviewed literature, and is open for anyone to use and modify.
Madingley is global in scope and includes both terrestrial and marine habitats, as well as the ability to track the fate and ecological interactions of every individual in the model. It spans organisms ranging in size from plankton to whales, and aphids to elephants. The model is undergoing continual development and refinement.
Unlike most other models of biodiversity, in addition to describing how biodiversity will change it also provides a rich understanding of why such responses might occur. It is free and available to download (https://github.com/Madingley) for those who would like to experiment with it or use it for scientific or policy purposes.


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In the first few days of the new year, we stacked your 2017 reading list with some incredible book titles authored by women. Just over two months later, with the women's marches still raging on in our hearts, we wanted to keep the girl power alive with a shout out to the ladies who podcast.
We've published podcast roundups before, and while our last one featured some great listens, I couldn't help but wonder, "Where my girls at?"
What better time to refresh our podcast recommendations with a little diversity than International Women's Day, and who better to pick them than women themselves?
I realized that my own podcast listening habits already included a ton of amazing women hosts. While I'll talk your ear off about my favorites—everything from true crime to sex and relationships podcasts—I consulted my office mates at Shopify to help round out a few of my entrepreneur-focused picks.
I asked them, "What's in your ear right now?"
18 Women-Hosted Podcasts for Entrepreneurs
While most of our picks focus on topics like business and stories of successful women, we've thrown in a few bonuses: brain-building podcasts about science and human relations to give you a break from busy entrepreneur life, and boost creative and critical thinking.
Pop in your earphones, sit back, and absorb some great discussion by the women of podcasting.
1. Being Boss
Hosts: Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon
Topic: Entrepreneurship
Recommended by:
Casandra Campbell, Content Marketer, Shopify
"As the name suggests, Being Boss focuses on one of the more delicate parts of entrepreneurship: being a boss. Being the person in charge and responsible for growing a successful business is tough, but it's also rewarding. Being Boss aims to make your transition to this role smoother." – Casandra
2. Sampler
Host: Brittany Luse
Topic: Podcasting
Recommended by:
Genevieve Lalonde, Developer, Shopify
"Sampler is a good way to discover new podcasts as it provides curated samples of podcasts around a different theme for each episode." – Genevieve
3. Invisibilia
Hosts: Alix Spiegel, Lulu Miller, and Hanna Rosin
Topic: Human Behavior
Recommended by:
Jen Jarvis, Human Relations, Shopify |
"Invisibilia explores those 'invisible' things that have an impact on our behaviour as humans and that inform our opinions and thoughts. One of my favourite episodes explores how the expectations of others can have an impact on our success (How to Become Batman) - approaching 'impossible' situations with a positive attitude can have a distinct impact on your ability to succeed." – Jen
Episode of note: How to Become Batman
4. The Great Girlfriends Show
Hosts: Sybil Amuti and Brandice Daniel
Topic: Entrepreneurship
The hosts of this podcast have great energy and chemistry with each other and with their guests. Episodes cover a really wide range of subjects like empowerment, beauty, emotional health, and love, but many episodes are geared towards women in starting businesses. Sybil and Brandice's guests are often really inspiring and entrepreneurial women of color.
5. Happier
Host: Gretchen Rubin
Topic: Success and Happiness
Recommended by:
Dayna Winter, Writer, Shopify |
"At the top of each episode, Gretchen rattles off the goals/keywords for that day's podcast, which helps to understand what to expect before you commit to 30 minutes of the topic. If you like Gretchen's books (I recommend The Happiness Project), her podcast is presented in the same manner—casual, light, and peppered with personal anecdotes. The topics vary from parenting to eliminating clutter to time management but are all centered around making the life and work decisions that ultimately make you happy. The podcast is full of tips to help achieve efficiency and minimize stress—perfect for busy entrepreneurs." – Dayna
6. Women of the Hour
Host: Lena Dunham
Topic: Women
Recommended by:
Francine Navarro, Developer, Shopify |
"Each episode in this podcast miniseries features candid conversations with women sharing unexpected and sometimes uncomfortable insights about questions big and small. While the guest list includes well-known figures like Zadie Smith, Joss Whedon, and Dunham's co-stars on Girls, the most memorable episodes, such as the one on faith and spirituality, showcase the individual stories of everyday women whose experiences and personalities are nevertheless inspiring." – Francine
7. The Allusionist
Recommended by:
Anshuman Iddamsetty, Podcast Producer, Shopify |
"The Allusionist is a wry exploration of the everyday words we use. Critical, I think, for showing how language evolves from moment to moment. The episode about the origins of 'Pride' in the context of LGBT issues is a heartbreaker." – Anshuman
Episode of note: Pride
8. After the Jump
Recommended by:
Chelsea Rudderham, Talent Acquisition, Shopify |
"Host Grace Bonney interviews established and up-and-coming designers, artists, and entrepreneurs to showcase what challenges they face in pursuing their passion and craft." – Chelsea
9. Raise Your Hand Say Yes
Host: Tiffany Han
Topic: Entrepreneurship
Brand strategist and creative director Tiffany Han interviews some really inspiring women—designers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs alike—on topics like risk taking and productivity. Her podcast aims to "light fires under creative women to create bold brands and businesses that they love".
Episode of note: #51 Lisa Congdon on Passion Projects
10. Magic Lessons
Host: Elizabeth Gilbert
Topic: Creativity
Recommended by:
Katie Hudson, Marketer, Shopify |
"Sometimes it can feel like creativity can be hard to come by. Where do people find their inspiration? How do they stay motivated and push through any roadblocks that prevent them from doing what they truly love? As a continuation of Eay, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert interviews a variety of people from different backgrounds and shares their amazing stories of success. This podcast is inspiring, uplifting, and a great storytelling piece. Check it out!" – Katie
11. Spent
Host: Lindsay Goldwert
Topic: Finance
Recommended by:
Dayna Winter, Writer, Shopify |
"This is 'the podcast for the financially challenged' (*raises hand*). Lindsay takes dry topics like personal finance and makes them funny—but she's also very knowledgable. The episodes vary from repaying student loans to asking for money, and many, like the episode below, are relevant to bootstrapping, self-funded entrepreneurs. Lindsay's great podcast voice and her guests, who are often comedians, keep each topic engaging." – Dayna
Episode of note: #20, Mike Lemme: Should You Put Your Dreams on a Credit Card?
Related: The 32 Best Entrepreneur Books of All Time
12. Design Matters
Host: Debbie Millman
Topic: Design
Recommended by:
Cassie Slack, Designer, Shopify |
"Debbie was my rock throughout design school. I learned so much about the industry and heard stories from so many amazing people all over the world. Design Matters is the best. You should be listening to Design Matters right now." – Cassie
Episode of note: #42 Amanda Palmer
13. Entrefamily
Host: Stephanie Langford (and husband, Ryan)
Topic: Entrepreneurship and Family
Recommended by: Theresa Nguyen, Talent Development, Shopify |
"Love this podcast! Stephanie and her husband are serial entrepreneurs that also love to travel. They juggle multiple businesses and 6 children and travel the world for stretches at a time. Really inspiring." – Theresa
14. She Means Business
Host: Carrie Green
Topic: Entrepreneurship
Recommended by:
Chelsea Rudderham, Talent Acquisition, Shopify |
"Carrie Green is passionate about starting and growing businesses. Her podcast takes the listener through a weekly show filled with tips and tricks to help entrepreneurs build successful businesses." – Chelsea
15. The Heart
Host: Kaitlin Priest
Topic: Human Behavior and Love
Recommended by:
Anshuman Iddamsetty, Podcast Producer, Shopify |
"Award-winning stories on intimacy and the elusive qualities of the human condition. Stunning showcase of storytelling and the importance of empathy." – Anshuman
16. The Broad Experience
Host: Ashley Milne-Tyte
Topic: Women in the Workplace
Recommended by:
Shannon Gallagher, Apprentice Product Manager, Shopify |
"The Broad Experience is an honest show about women's unique experience in the workplace. The host is no-nonsense and she does a great job of uncovering and intelligently discussing issues that many of us have, but not all of us talk about." – Shannon
Episode of note: #96, Burnout
17. Science VS
Host: Wendy Zukerman
Topic: Science
Recommended by:
Annie-Claude Côté, Senior Developer, Shopify |
"Wendy does a great job at taking on current science related trends and topics and demystifying what's real and what's not based on science research. The best thing about this podcast is that she's being impartial and will also tell you when there's no real evidence on one side or the other. It's refreshing to hear unbiased facts about popular subjects." – Annie-Claude
18. StartUp
Host: Lisa Chow
Topic: Entrepreneurship
Recommended by:
Kevin McPhillips, Order Manager, Shopify |
"Season two of StartUp follows an all-female tech startup building the online dating site, Dating Ring. It is a raw and intimate day-to-day account of how frantic and difficult it can be to run a tech startup. It follows the company and the founders through the lifecycle of their business, and frequently touches on the complexities of being women entrepreneurs in a male dominated field. Season 3 is also good, covering a number of topics, but largely the controversial story of American Apparel and its founder Dov Charney." – Kevin
Episode of note: S2E1, Origin Story
If you're looking for even more podcast inspiration from the badass women running businesses on Shopify, check out our very own Felix Thea on Shopify Masters, as he interviews the likes of Debbie Sterling of Goldie Blox, Cindy Chan of Dotoly, and Candice Galex of Bikini Luxe.
Or—get this, Girlboss—why don't you create your own podcast?
Learn More: How to Start a Podcast
What's coming through your headphones these days? Share your favorite women-hosted podcasts in the comments below.


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[Rob Hemsley] sent in an update to an RFID-based door lock. Previously, if you wanted to enter the MIT media lab, a RFID-enabled card was required to get in. Now, with [Rob]'s update, you only need to tap the door handle in a 'secret' pattern.
The earlier RFID-enabled build used about $80 in hardware, not a very economical solution. The new touch-based solution only uses an Arduino and servo, making the build much cheaper.
The touch sensitive lock uses the CapSense Arduino library. By turning the door handle into a touch sensor, [Rob] allowed a secret code to be saved in the EEPROM. Repeating this sequence when the door is locked sends power to the servo, unlocking the door.
A very cool build that's also a little more secure than the traditional, audible knock lock. Check out the video after the break.
Continue reading "Knock Lock Balks Knock, Uses CapSense Without Shock"


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Regulating Cannabis in Accord with International Law: Options to Explore
CND side event on Friday, March 16, 2018: Conference Room M5, 13:10-14:00
As a growing number of countries move towards legal regulation for non-medical cannabis, governments are pushing the boundaries of the three UN drug control treaties. At the 61st session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in March 2018, TNI, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and the Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO) organised a side event to explore the issue, addressing the various challenges and opportunities involved. At the event a groundbreaking report on the issue was presented: Balancing Treaty Stability and Change: Inter se modification of the UN drug control conventions to facilitate cannabis regulation.
Regulating cannabis for non-medical, non-scientific uses is plainly disallowed by the UN drug conventions. Nevertheless, sub-national and national jurisdictions are choosing to formally regulate adult-use cannabis, through state-level ballot initiatives and legislation, as has been occurring in the United States since 2012, or through new national laws, as in Uruguay in 2013, and as in Canada, where bills are currently under parliamentary consideration. Such reforms pose considerable challenges to the international legal framework for drug control. This side event explores options for how countries might move forward with cannabis regulatory systems with due respect for international law.
The 61st session of the Commission on Narcotics Drugs took place in Vienna (Austria) between 12th March and 16th March 2018. TNI co-organised another side event to address the rising tension between the UN drug control conventions and shifts in policy towards non-medical cannabis, exploring a number of options of treaty reform which can be pursued by reform-minded countries like Canada and the United States.
Click here to read a summary of the event.
Friday, March 16, 2018: Conference Room M5, 13:10-14:00
- Annette Henry, Cannabis Licensing Authority (CLA), Jamaica
- Dave Bewley-Taylor, Swansea University, U.K.
- Martin Jelsma, Transnational Institute, Netherlands
- Allyn Taylor, University of Washington School of Law, U.S. (Read the presentation)
- John Walsh (Moderator), Washington Office on Latin America, U.S.
At the event a groundbreaking report on the issue was presented:
Balancing Treaty Stability and Change: Inter se modification of the UN drug control conventions to facilitate cannabis regulation
By Martin Jelsma, Neil Boister, David Bewley-Taylor, Malgosia Fitzmaurice and John Walsh
GDPO Policy Report 7 | March 2018
The report explores in detail the rationale, potential legitimacy, and feasibility of the inter se option for treaty modification, whereby a group of two or more like-minded states could conclude agreements among themselves that permit the production, trade, and consumption of cannabis for non-medical and non-scientific purposes, while minimizing the impact on other states and on the goals of the drug conventions. The report concludes that the option of inter se modification holds enormous promise and merits careful consideration for application by like-minded states, not only as an immediate and legitimate safety valve for the rising treaty tensions around cannabis regulation, but as the basis for like-minded countries to promote and deepen the discussion on how — in the words of UNODC's Executive Director from ten years ago — "to make the [drug] conventions fit for purpose and adapt them to a reality on the ground that is considerably different from the time they were drafted."
The report was the result of an expert seminar held in Amsterdam on 26-28 October 2017, which brought together international legal scholars and officials from the United Nations and from national government agencies to discuss and debate different options and scenarios to facilitate cannabis regulation models under international law.
See also:


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NSPM in English | |||
Solution to the Credit Crisis? |
уторак, 23. фебруар 2010. | |
(Global Research, 21.2.2010) While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks. State budgets for 2010 face the largest shortfalls on record, totaling $194 billion or 28 percent of state budgets; and 2011 is expected to be worse. Unemployment has already officially hit 10 percent, and many economists expect it to rise higher. Continued high unemployment will keep state income tax receipts at low levels and increase demand for Medicaid and other essential services states provide. The existing alternatives are spending cuts or tax increases, but both will just serve to make the downturn deeper. When states cut spending, they lay off employees, cancel contracts with vendors, eliminate or lower payments to businesses and nonprofit organizations that provide direct services, and cut benefit payments to individuals. The result is a reduction in overall demand. Tax increases also remove demand, by reducing the amount of money people have to spend. Amanda Paulson, writing in The Christian Science Monitor, quotes Arturo Pérez, fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, which released its survey of state budget situations in December: "Unless you're North Dakota, you're probably a state that has had some degree of difficulty or crisis involving finances. It's the worst situation states have faced in decades, perhaps going as far back as the Great Depression in some states." "Unless you're North Dakota" – a state with a sizeable budget surplus, and the only state that is adding jobs when other states are losing them. A poll reported on February 13 ranked that weather-challenged state first in the country for citizen satisfaction with their standard of living. North Dakota's affluence has been attributed to oil, but other states with oil are in deep financial trouble. The big drop in oil and natural gas prices propelled Oklahoma into a budget gap that is 18.5% of its general-fund budget. California is also resource-rich, with a $2 trillion economy; yet it has a worse credit rating than Greece. So what is so special about North Dakota? The answer seems to be that it is the only state in the union that owns its own bank. It doesn't have to rely on a recalcitrant Wall Street for credit. It makes its own. Candidates Across the Political Spectrum Pick Up on the Public Bank Model In the quest to find ways to divorce the well-being of their states from the financial sector, a growing number of candidates are picking up on the public bank alternative. Florida, Illinois, Oregon, Massachusetts, Idaho and California all have candidates whose platforms contain this proposed solution to the credit crisis. A publicly-owned bank has also been proposed on the federal level. Nationalizing the Federal Reserve (which is not actually federal but is owned by a consortium of private banks) was advocated by 2008 Presidential candidates Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, and Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party candidate. In 2009, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said the government would have been better off funding a federally-owned bank than doling out trillions of dollars to private investment banks and CEOs who speculated their way into bankruptcy. Speaking at the New York Society for Ethical Culture on March 6, 2009, he said: "If we had used the $700 billion to create a new financial institution, allowed it to lever 10 to 1, which is very modest compared to the 30 to 1 that we were doing, 10 to 1 would have generated $7 trillion of new lending capacity, far in excess of what our country needs. So the issue here is not about lending. It's really about saving the bankers. And what we confused was saving the banks versus saving the bankers and their shareholders." But nationalizing the Federal Reserve faces powerful opponents in Congress. Meanwhile, on the state level the public bank concept is gaining ground, attracting proponents across the political spectrum, including Democrats, Republicans and Greens. The issue transcends party lines. In North Dakota, a Republican state, the state-owned bank was inaugurated by a political party appropriately called the "Non-Partisan League." Oregon: The Bankers' Bank Model In Oregon, Bill Bradbury has included a state bank platform in his bid for governor. Bradbury, a Democrat, was formerly secretary of state and has been endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore. His website declares: "It is time to put Oregonians back to work. It is also time to declare economic sovereignty from the multi-national banks that in large part are responsible for much of our current economic crisis. We can achieve these two goals by creating our own bank." The Oregonian, Oregon's largest newspaper, reported that Bradbury plans to deposit tax revenues in the public-interest bank, keeping Oregon's money in Oregon. The bank would then lend the money to get the economy going again, targeting small and medium-sized businesses. Interest would be poured back into the state through more loans to start-up businesses, agriculture, and other key sectors. Currently, Oregon deposits hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues into large out-of-state banks, siphoning the money off from productive in-state uses. Many of these banks are the very banks needing federal bailouts to keep from failing in 2008, after years of handing out risky mortgage loans. These banks have now grown tight-fisted with Main Street borrowers, making Bradbury's plan to get money flowing again especially appealing to Oregonian voters. Bradbury uses the Bank of North Dakota (BND) as his model. Like the BND, the Bank of Oregon would return a dividend to the state based on its earnings, while creating jobs and stimulating the economy through lending. The state bank would not replace private banking institutions but would partner with them, particularly with community banks, providing them with new customers and helping them provide new services. To assure the state bank's independence from existing financial powers, Bradbury proposes that a board of directors appointed by Oregon's Senate should govern the bank, while taking advice from an advisory committee of experts. Idaho: Keeping State Assets in the State In Idaho, James Stivers, a Republican candidate for the State Senate, has also proposed a state bank to fill state coffers and protect the local economy. In the first indication of a political shift among grassroots Republicans, Stivers swept a closed-ballot preference poll at the GOP District 2 Central Committee meeting in Coeur d'Alene on February 13, winning the non-binding poll 10-0. Stivers declares: "An important part of sovereignty is the monetary authority. Currently, banks are allowed to multiply many times over the tax receipts deposited in their institutions. This special privilege is partly responsible for the 'sucking sound' in our local economies, as regional banks send their assets to central banks that are playing the derivatives markets of the world. "A state bank would restore this privilege to the people in a public trust and would give us the opportunity to back our deposits with the wealth from our public lands." Stivers sees the bank as a way to facilitate small business startups, end the ability of private banks to cream profits from the public treasury, protect key budget items, and stave off excessive influence from the federal government. He suggests the novel approach of expanding the role of Idaho's Bond Bank authority into a full-fledged state bank. The current banking system, he says, causes inflation, one of the "greatest detriments to a living wage": "Inflation is caused by the secret tax of the banking industry in which lenders use the multiplier effect to the benefit of their cronies. This secret tax takes the form of a decline in the value of the dollar and results in higher prices. Wages never keep up with this process because its very purpose is to extract wealth from the wage earner to support the privileged classes who curry the favor of lenders. A state bank would restore this privilege to the people in a public trust and would give us the opportunity to back our deposits with the wealth from our public lands." Illinois: Using a State-owned Bank to Fund Infrastructure In Illinois, Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney has other ideas for a state-owned bank. Illinois is listed by the Pew Center for the States as one of nine states confronting historic budget problems. In a recent response to the governor's State of the State Address, Whitney said: "I am the only candidate in this race who proposes to fund public improvements, and promote economic health, without any further tax increases, through the establishment of a state bank, a progressive idea that North Dakota adopted years ago, and that has helped keep that state debt-free even in these troubled economic times. Instead of going into more and more debt, to further enrich private banks, we should be using our tax revenue to further invest in our own State and its people, for the enrichment of our own economy." The bank would use tax revenues and pension contributions as the financial base to expand credit where it is most needed. Illinois' bank would borrow from the Federal Reserve at the same 1 percent rate as commercial banks. Once the budget was balanced, Whitney's top priorities would be to use the new money to modernize energy infrastructure and promote solar and wind power. To achieve this, property owners of land where wind and solar generators could be located would be lent money through the state bank at a minimal 1 percent interest rate. To secure repayment, Whitney would require utilities to buy power from the solar and wind-based producers at a premium rate. One option would then be to require part of this premium to be paid to the state bank until the loan is returned. This arrangement, says Whitney, would create a win-win situation: "The bank is paid back. The homeowner, farmer or business investing in solar or wind generation realizes immediate savings on energy costs and in many cases will go from being a net consumer to a net producer of energy. Their greater income will further stimulate the economy. The utilities will have to pay the cost of the premium rate but in the long run will realize the benefits of having a greater, stable, more diversified and decentralized energy grid, ultimately cheaper in the face of rising fossil fuel prices. As economies of scale are realized in wind and solar power generation, the costs will fall, as will the necessary premium rate. And we all benefit from the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions." Florida: The Commercial Bank Model Economist and author Farid Khavari, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Florida, proposes a state-owned bank that would lend directly to borrowers. The Bank of North Dakota usually uses a "lead lender" such as a bank, savings and loan company, or credit union rather than doing commercial lending directly. Dr. Khavari maintains that the Bank of the State of Florida could be launched at no cost to taxpayers by using the state's assets as the reserves for making loans, employing the same fractional reserve lending rules used by private banks today. In this way, he says, the bank could drive an "economic miracle" in Florida, instigating massive job creation, cutting costs in half or more, providing low interest financing to homeowners and businesses, and improving teacher salaries and care for veterans and the elderly, while at the same reducing taxes. He explains: "The economy is collapsing due to lack of demand. The economy needs money, but the banks are cutting credit, and then sucking all the cash out of the economy by raising interest rates to make sure no one has any cash left at the end of the month. The cost of interest is built into the cost of everything. People already work ten years of their lives just to pay interest in one form or another. The Bank of the State of Florida will end that for Floridians. And this model will work for every state. . . . "We can pay 6% interest on savings. Using the same fractional reserve rules as all banks, we can create $900 of new money through loans for every $100 in deposits. We can loan that $900 in the form of 2% fixed rate 15-year mortgages, for example, and the state can earn $12 every year for every $100 in deposits. That means Floridians can save tens of billions of dollars per year while the state earns billions making it possible for them. "State and local government budgets will balance without higher taxes when the BSF cuts interest costs. 6% BSF credit cards will save people billions per month, money that stays in Florida instead of going to the big banks—and the state will make huge profits on that, too. Saving billions in interest costs will create millions of jobs without subsidies just by keeping those billions circulating in Florida. Eventually the state will earn enough to reduce and eliminate state and local taxes while every Floridian has economic security in a recession-proof Florida." The Federal Reserve states on its website that the banking system as a whole leverages $100 in deposits into $900 in loans, but whether a single bank can do it alone has been challenged. Critics say that while banks do create money as loans, they have to replace the deposits when the checks leave the bank in order for the checks to clear. How this all works is a bit complicated and will be the subject of another article, but suffice it to say here in response that if a bank does not have the deposits to cover its outgoing checks, it borrows from the interbank lending market at very low rates, or issues commercial paper or CDs; and the state bank could do the same thing. It would not be fighting with the other banks for old deposits. Loans create new deposits, which can be borrowed back from the pool of "excess deposits" thereby created. Ninety-seven percent of the money supply has been created by commercial banks by turning loans into deposits, but that credit machine has frozen up. A state bank could get it flowing again. California: Catching the Wave California leads the nation in the sheer size of its budget gap. It too now has a gubernatorial candidate proposing to alleviate the state's credit woes with a state-owned bank. Running on the Green Party ticket, Laura Wells is a former financial analyst who received 420,000 votes in her 2002 bid for State Controller, more than any other Green Party candidate has earned in a partisan statewide race. According to her website: "Rather than drowning in debt and begging Wall Street for loans, California can institute a State Bank that invests in California's infrastructure, and future generations." She stated in a comment, "A state bank for California is part of my platform as a candidate for the Green Party nomination for Governor. I ran for State Controller to 'Follow the Money.' Now, we need to Fix the Money. A state bank would keep California's wealth in the state. Rather than invest in Wall Street (we've hit the wall on that one) we can invest in our infrastructure and our future generations." Legislative Proposals It is not just political hopefuls who are exploring the public bank option. Therese Murray currently presides over the Massachusetts State Senate. She has introduced legislation that would study the formation of a state-owned bank with the principal aim of boosting job creation in the state. Massachusetts now faces a 9.4 percent unemployment rate. "It wouldn't be in competition with our small community banks," she says. "We've got to free up some credit, and mortgage companies and banks have got to do a better job of allowing people to redo their mortgages." In Virginia, Congressman Bob Marshall, a Republican, introduced a bill in January to study whether to establish a bank that was owned, run, and controlled by the state. However, the plan was tabled in committee. On February 16, the front page of the Huffington Post featured an article on the Bank of North Dakota and the precedent it sets for financially-strapped states. Besides political candidates promoting this option, it noted that a Washington State legislator and a Vermont House committee were exploring it. North Dakota hit the Wall Street wall in 1919, when the Bank of North Dakota was established by the state legislature specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers. For over 90 years, it has demonstrated the success of the public banking model. Other credit-choked states are finally taking notice and devising their own variations on the theme. |


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The Hungarian government decided to reject the progressive drug strategy of the country and to draft a new, prohibitionist one. The head of the Drug Policy Program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union argues that this is an example how a government should NOT draft a drug strategy.
In December 2010 we reported that the Hungarian government rejected the harm reduction oriented national drug strategy enacted by the previous parliament and decided to create a new drug strategy based on zero-tolerance. More than a year later we still do not have an effective national drug strategy in Hungary, but there is a draft strategy harshly criticized by all professional organizations. The public consultation is closed now and the draft is expected to be discussed – and probably fastly adopted – by the two-third government majority in the parliament in the spring.
We have seven reasons why we dislike the new strategy – this can serve as an example for other countries how NOT to draft a new drug strategy!
1. Inception
The previous government was appointed by the parliament to draft the second national drug strategy of the country in 2009 because the long term goals of the first drug strategy (2000-2009) expired that year. The second strategy (2010-2018) was drafted by the Ministry of Social Affairs and its background institution, the National Drug Prevention Institute (NDI) through a long, broad professional and public consultation process with the involvment of all relevant NGOs, law enforcement officials and researchers. In addition, the NDI created an international advisory group from leading researchers, such as Peter Reuter (RAND), Maurice Galla (European Commission), Wolfgang Götz (EMCDDA) or Sandeep Chawla (UNODC). The result was a drug strategy that was praised by the Global State of Harm Reduction report as one of the bests in the world: it was based on a pragmatic human rights and public health approach, setting up clear priorities and comprehensive goals. When the government decided to reject it in December 2010, it did not consult with the civil society or professionals, not even with its own advisory board, the Committee on Drug Coordination (KKB). The decision was made on a pure political ground, the government has never come up with any professional or scientific arguments. They said the drug strategy is "not acceptable" mostly because of its pragmatic approach. When the government launched a public consultation process to draft a new drug strategy there were many critical voices from civil society – but they were not reflected in the first draft, which was more like an ideological pamphlet against harm reduction than a real strategic document. The new zero-tolerance approach got an almost unanimous criticism from professional networks: not only the Hungarian Harm Redution Association said its poorly drafted and not in line with our best knowledge, but the Hungarian Society on Addicion Sciences, the Hungarian Alliance of Prevention Organizations and the Hungarian Alliance of Treatment and Rehabilitation Organizations. This was a slam in the face of the government but it still did not give up the idea of making a drug strategy based on an outdated view on drug policy, so the second draft is not much better.
2. Approach
The draft is based on the idea of zero-tolerance. The text defines drug use as "not a tool of exercizing personal freedoms but a self- and community-destroying behaviour manifesting itself in many levels, so we should fight it with comprehensive social policy actions." This means that accoding to our draft drug strategy all kinds of drug use is inherently bad and destructive. This is a retreat from our evidence-based knowledge on drugs – we know it is a very complex phenomena and even if drug use is a risk-taking behaviour it is not inherently harmful for the individual or the society. Actually most people who use illegal drugs do not cause more harms to themselves and to the society than the vast majority of people who use legal drugs such as coffeine or alcohol. What makes the use of illegal drugs more risky is the fact that they are illegal. While the previous drug strategy focused on how to prevent the harms of illegal drug use and how to provide access to services for those who are the most vulnerable drug users, the new priority is to protect the non-user majority from the deviant minority who should be disciplined and forced to follow the norms.
3. Priorities
The previous drug strategy created a tool to assess the needs and establish the priorities among different drug policy interventions based on the principles of vulnerability, severity and sustainability. The new draft strategy has some very ambitous goals and aims but it did not set clear priorities, it does not even have strategic pillars. In the times of an economic crisis the downsides of this approach are very obvious: there is no guarantee that those services will survive that are really needed to save the lives of people. The budget for community services is reduced by 63 percent from last year and a lot of effective harm reduction programs that have been operating for several years will not be funded any more. One of the needle exchange centers in downtown Budapest, operated by Artéra Foundation, may close down its doors because the government simply refused to fund it. The same happened with a needle exchange program operated by the Baptist Church in a distressed area of Miskolc, a city in the North, and another one in Debrecen, Eastern-Hungary. A few years ago a human rights NGO started an innovative program for pregnant women who use drugs and their babies – but their funding was terminated this year as well. Hundreds or thousands of drug users will go without sterile injection equipment, HIV screening and counceling in the future.
4. Human Rights
Human rights stayed in the center of the previous drug strategy which made several references to international human rights treaties and recommendations. The new draft strategy failed to give human rights its due role as a guiding principle of drug policies. It has no reference to any related documents protecting the rights of people who use drugs but it borrowed its approach to human rights from the World Federation Against Drugs, a strictly prohibitionist organization based in Stockholm, Sweden. It limits its understanding of human rights as a right to be drug-free. This means that protecting human rights is the same as to protect people from using drugs – so the responsibility of the government is to fight drugs and protect the majority who do not use drugs. We know that in reality it is not the non-using majority whose rights are systematically abused but the minority who use drugs – an drug policy is often in and itself the cause of human rights abuses. "Criminalization results in a severe form of discrimination against people who use drugs," said Anand Grover, the UN Special Rapporteur on the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. We need to protect people who use drugs from discrimination and stigma, not to create policies that generate discrimination and stigma! This is not the only field where the government declared war on minorities: the Hungarian parliament adopted a new law that makes it a crime for homeless people to use public spaces "for living". This is a very narrow minded and evil approach. I can say, this is against the very principles of Christian morals which they claim to protect.
5. Harm reduction
The first Hungarian national drug strategy recognized harm reduction as "the only cost-effective tool to prevent blood-born infections" and therefore it aimed to improve the access to harm reduction services, such as opiate substitution treatment and needle exchange programs. Notwithstanding, harm reduction is a step daughter of the new draft strategy: the text rarely mentions the risks of infections or overdoses and it even misses to list needle exchange and voluntary HIV/AIDS testing and counceling among its aims! At the same time, the strategy requires a cooperation between treatment centers and Narcotic Anonimous. The text refers to opiate substitution treatment as a form of treatment that "may be necessary" for those addicts "who cannot be treated effectively with other methods". Thus it is not a must for our government to improve access to OST but only an unpleasant option for those doctors who do not find any other ways to treat addicts. The sea of scientific literature that proves that OST is effective in reducing crime, death and disease does not matter because the priority is to make him drug-free, not to save his life. There is no reference to overdose prevention at all, not to mention naloxone distribution programs. Harm reduction activists will not be in a position to advocate for more harm reduction with this drug strategy. As I mentioned above, needle exchange programs may be closed in the near future. This is especiall dangerous because there is a rising need for sterile syringes and needles because thousands of injecting drug users stopped using heroin and started to inject designer drugs or legal highs. The inject these drugs more frequently and the risk of infections is increasing. The same trend was observed in our neigbhoring country, Greece and Romania, which were law prevalence countries as well – but recently there is a major outbreak of HIV epidemic among their IDUs. If the government does not realize that we face the same danger and if it does not make urgent actions to support harm reduction, the world may soon witness another outbreak of HIV among Hungarian IDUs.
6. Criminal policies
Hungary has one of the harshest drug laws in the European Union: the simple possession of illicit drugs (without any differentiation) in small amounts is a crime punishable with 2 years of imprisonment. In 1993 the parliament modified the drug legislation and made it possible for drug users to avoid imprisonment if they participate in a 6 months prevention or treatment program as an alternative of criminal sanctions. Actually more than 90 percent of those who are referred to these programs are occasional marijuana users who do not need any kind of treatment, so the HCLU has been advocating for a long time to decriminalize drug use. The previous progressive drug strategy stated that criminal sanctions are neither necessary nor effective to deter young people so the criminalization of drug users should be avoided. We hoped that the Criminal Code will be amended accordingly soon. However, our current government says the problem is not that thousands of young people are arrested and referred to treatment every year for simple drug possession. They say the problem is that the current referral system is not strict enough to deter young people from using drugs – so they decided to restrict the law in the spring. This means that the government will spend more tax payer money and more police working hours to catch young people on the streets instead of chasing violent criminals, or spending that money on voluntary treatment and prevention programs. In 2007 the National Focal Point of the EMCDDA made a survey on the public spending on drug policy and found that in comparison with other EU countries, the Hungarian government spends a very small proportion of its GDP on drug policy. What is more, it spends four time more money on law enforcement than on treatment, prevention, harm reduction and research all together! If the restrict the criminal law, this disproportional allocation of resources will be even worse.
7. Civil society involvment
In 2007 the previous Hungarian government created a new system to involve NGOs to drug policy decision making procedures. According to a government decree NGOs working in the field can register for an election and delegate for representatives to the Committee on Drug Coordination (KKB), the main advisory body of the government where all ministries and governmental institutions are represented. This system is a best practice in Europe indeed. As representative from 2007 I can say the NGO delegates refreshed the discussions in KKB with completely new perspectives and provided technical assistance to the government on creating and implementing new policies. When the new government announced at the meeting of the KKB that it decided to reject the national drug strategy, the civil society delegates, including myself, marched out from the hall as a sign of protest and made a press conference condemning this decision. The government has never forgiven us this revolt. So the new draft strategy intends to weaken the civil society involvement and plans to restructure the KKB – they do not say how it will happen exactly, but probably they will either exclude NGO delegates from the governmental meetings and create a forum for NGOs only, or they include their own ideologically reliable NGOs (faith-based groups promoting prohibitionist policies) who have no real support from the NGO community but they support the government. Without strong civil society presence and representation the implementation of the national drug strategy will be neither transparent nor accountable.
Peter Sarosi
Drug Policy Director
Hungarian Civil Liberties Union


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Last Modified: July 13, 2010
At Garden.info we recognize that privacy is important. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us through our website
CEO, Jeff Libert
Personal Information gathered from Garden.info
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Please feel free to direct any additional questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy to our web administrators.
CEO, Jeff Libert


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We are very happy to share that Hive76 is now home to a 45W H-Series laser cutter from Full Spectrum Laser! Members now have the capability to cut complex 2D shapes in wood and plastic in thicknesses up to 0.25 inch. If you can draw it on a computer, the laser can cut it. It's great for engraving too:
We've just begun making test cuts and machine break in. Our next step is to develop a class for members to become laser cutter certified. I can't wait to see what kind of cool projects our members will use this tool for. In the mean time, stop by our open house Wednesday nights 7-10pm to see it in action and find out how to become a member!


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The rainy season is rapidly approaching, which means it's time to think about whether you will be doing any grading between November 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017. If your project includes Geotechnical Special Inspections AND if your project is in an environmentally critical area or involves a large quantity of earth-moving, check the Geotechnical Special Inspection assignment letter we sent you shortly after your permit was issued.
If you see an item called "Monitor Grading Season Restriction" on the assignment letter, this means that grading between November 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017 is prohibited unless you apply for and receive a Grading Season Extension. For smaller projects in environmentally critical areas, there may be a note in the assignment letter allowing you to follow the additional measures for wet weather work shown on the approved plan set in lieu of a formal grading season extension application.
For information on how to apply for a Grading Season Extension, see Director's Rule 26-2015. This year, you must submit an application online through your SDCI Project Portal at http://web6.seattle.gov/DPD/eplan/. We will not accept paper applications. We may take up to two weeks to review your application. Please note that your permit must be issued before we can process a grading season extension application. Contact the on-call geotechnical engineer at (206) 684-8950 if you have questions about submittal requirements or whether you need an extension.


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For the past 30 years, The Information Refinery has been providing a variety of marketing services to its clients. From list brokerage and management to direct mail and email marketing our team provides the latest, most up-to-date marketing techniques in the industry.
We strive to provide each client with the best targeted and best priced lists available to market their products and services. If you are looking for new ways to stay ahead of the market and surpass your competitors, you have come to the right place!


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QUOTE said:After weeks of waiting, and having all of its faults pointed out to us, Gears of War 2 has received a second title update which hopes to correct many of the glitches in the game. According to release notes the title update (aka patch) that went live this morning includes fixes for everything from Crabwalking (firing, while roadie running), unlimited Lancer ammo, grenade tagging through walls, using two-handed weapons with a shield, picking up weapons while sliding into cover and much more.
The update also activates brand new achievements worth 175 GS points, which were discovered earlier this week. Each of the new achievements are DLC-based. In order to unlock all seven new achievements, players will need to get their hands on the Flashback Map Pack, free for gamers who purchased the game new but also available on the Marketplace for 400and the Combustible Map Pack, available for 800
The following fixes and improvements are included in Title Update 2.
Exploit Fixes
Title Update 2 fixes these possible exploits, where under certain circumstances:* A player could melee or grenade tag through certain walls.
* A player could equip a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously.
* A player could make their shield invisible.
* A player could become invisible.
* A player could do a "super" mantle or "kung fu flip," flying high into the air.
* A player could gain unlimited ammo with the Lancer Assault Rifle.
* A player could fire while roadie running (also known as "crabwalking").
* A player could pick up a weapon while sliding into cover.
* A player could walk forward while firing a deployed mortar.
* A player could force an opponent to be stuck in the down but not out (DBNO) position.
* A player could prevent other players from picking up a heavy weapon.
* A player could pick up a dropped meatflag without having to knock him down.
* A ragdolled player could be killed without ever going DBNO.
* A player could roadie run while firing the Scorcher Flamethrower.
* A player could get stuck while evading, though they could continue shooting in any direction.
* A player could concuss themselves under the stairs on the River map.
General Fixes
Title Update 2 fixes these other issues as well:
* An issue with client-side hit detection of the Gnasher Shotgun. The fix makes the shotgun more reliable in high-latency situations.
* An issue where players could have shotgun or Boomshot rounds fire into the ground when shooting from the hip.
* A split-screen issue where one player transitioning to the death battle camera disrupted input from the other player.
* An issue that could cause players' Look sensitivity to be changed to their Zoom sensitivity while zooming in, zooming out, and firing.
* An issue that could cause players to get stuck if they tried to pick up a heavy weapon while firing the shotgun at the same time.
* An issue where players could become stuck if they kicked over a shield while ragdolled from a smoke grenade.
* An issue where bots were unable to kick over a shield that was planted backward.
* An issue where players who quit during voting didn't show up in the end game stats, which meant other players couldn't easily provide negative feedback on them.
* An issue where players couldn't chainsaw enemy meatshields if the meatshields were already damaged.
* An issue where some players would not see the animation of a meatshield being chainsawed.
* An issue where players could not chainsaw an opposing team meatshield in a game type that doesn't allow respawns (for example, Warzone and Execution).
* An issue where a player partway through the act of raising or lowering the chainsaw did not transition into a duel when attacked from the front with a chainsaw.
* An issue where occasionally a player waiting to respawn could not respawn when repeatedly hitting the left trigger to switch cameras.
* An issue where some teammates couldn't communicate between rounds in games type that don't allow respawns, because dead team members were left in the dead radio channel until the next round started.
* An issue where a DBNO player could be seen as standing if knocked DBNO while reloading the mortar.
* An issue where a player joining a Private Xbox LIVE game in progress from another specific type of game could potentially lose HUD functionality.
* An issue on the Flood map where a player's dying from Imulsion did not trigger a death message or penalize the player as other environmental deaths did.
* An issue with Guardian games where if the leader is the last player killed on a team, the round may not end, due to the respawn timer.
* A campaign issue where the gamer picture would not be awarded when the game is completed on Insane.
* An issue where a player would continue to fire the flamethrower and damage other players if that player was knocked DBNO while firing it.
* An issue that could cause a player to get stuck while moving and quickly attempting to aim the mortar at the same time.
* An issue with Horde games where clients didn't receive the "waiting for host" message after they failed a wave.
* A Horde split-screen issue that could cause a team to get –2 billion in score, which when posted to the leaderboards looked like +2 billion.
* An issue where dead players may not show up in the metadata for multiplayer photos.
* A system link issue where if a multiplayer match and a co-op game were hosted at the same time on the same LAN, neither could be joined.
* Additional miscellaneous bug fixes.
Title Update 2 makes these balancing changes:
We continue to test internally and monitor online gameplay to determine what else may need adjusting.* Made planted proximity grenade mines much easier to shoot off the surface they're planted on, by giving them 50 percent less health.
* Set grenades to respawn less frequently. When a player picks up grenades from a spawned location, a new set of grenades does not respawn until the previous grenades have been used.
* Increased the penalty to rank for players who quit Public Xbox LIVE matches early.
* Buffed the flamethrower to have stopping power (to slow a charging enemy) and to cause a chainsaw interrupt (to force the opponent to lower a revved chainsaw).
* Removed the ability to instantly shoot coming out of a roadie run.
* Added additional spawn protection to prevent proximity grenade mines and chainsaws from killing a player within 5 seconds after spawning.
* Balanced grenade spawn cycling on the Hail map so that both teams have equal access to both types of grenades.
Title Update 2 makes these new improvements:
* Changed Annex games to use execution rules, to prevent players from leaving DBNO opponents on the ground to bleed out.
* Made Horde waves count toward the "Party Like It's 1999" achievement. Each wave is counted as one round.
* Added the ability, during Submission games, to see the flag's final destination by using Tac/Com.
* Increased the frequency of most of the toasts for in-game achievement progression.
* Added achievement progression numbers to the War Journal.
* Added 7 new DLC-based achievements worth 175 points (progress toward them starts after Title Update 2 is applied):
o "Skeletons in Your Closet" (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Flashback Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
o "Trial by, and on, Fire" (20 points): Complete waves 1 through 10 on all Combustible Map Pack maps in Horde (any difficulty).
o "More Mystery, Less History" (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the 5 Flashback Map Pack maps (any mode except Wingman).
o "The Roof! The Roof! The Roof..." (15 points): Win a multiplayer match on each of the 3 Combustible Map Pack maps (any mode except Wingman).
o "Bound by a Shared Past" (15 points): Win a Wingman match on each of the 5 Flashback Map Pack maps.
o "Forged in the Fire" (15 points): Win a Wingman match on each of the 3 Combustible Map Pack maps.
o "Annex: Now with Execution Rules" (75 points): Win an Annex match on each of the Flashback and Combustible Map Pack maps (Public only).
My thoughts? About goddamn time epic!