text:
I still plan to finish and share that article soon — but in the interest of softening the transition into it, let me describe my life here in New York right now: my view out the window, so to speak, as I work on projects like this. (And if you want to read about Webmention in the meantime, Chris Aldrich coincidentally posted a link-rich thread on the topic this past week.)
First of all, I'm okay. We're okay, my little family, my wife Amy and our cats and I, in our two-bedroom apartment in a big upper-Manhattan apartment tower. For the time being, I often forget that I live in a city so profoundly battered by the coronavirus, and with the worst still to come, that the whole world's eyes have turned to New York with a sense of guttering hope against mounting dread. Over the past week, old acquaintances and elderly relatives I haven't spoken to in years have texted and phoned me to check in and ask about our health and safety, and I every time I need to remind myself: Oh, right. I'm in danger.
So on that note, I must acknowledge how my family faces this challenge on Easy Mode: we are two healthy mid-life adults (and two healthy mid-life cats) with no dependents, strong social and financial resources, and livelihoods that we can carry on from a home office. (I normally work this way; Amy has had to adapt.) We absolutely feel the pressure of this bottle ordeal even so, and my heart bruises with empathy when I imagine the deeper challenges faced by those without such a multiply-layered and unstrained support setup. For example: anyone with young children, a group that includes many of my closest friends. When I think of the countless people who lost their jobs to the disease and can't seek new ones, or who are forced to stay inside with dysfunctional families, my soul shrinks.
In the prelude to the lockdown, when New York still looked and felt like its usual self but perhaps with the volume tuned down a couple of notches, I posted a tweet (an amplification of an observation by Los Angeles Times correspondent Matt Pierce) that earned a certain degree of traction among people seeking a comforting message:
I've been thinking more about this and it's worth repeating.— Jason McIntosh (@JmacDotOrg) March 13, 2020
"The virus" isn't shutting down all of these services. People are volunteering to shoulder the burden of closure for a while specifically so that the virus spreads more slowly, so that hospitals don't get overwhelmed. https://t.co/v4KOnfYZMV
Two weeks later, this remains true at core, but the voluntary community spirit I described has become muted in the ensuing day-by-day increase of municipally ordered social distancing and self-isolation. I do not fault the local authorities for applying more pressure every day: the situation is plainly grim. But already the thesis of my bright-side post from only one week ago, assuring my readership as well as myself that walks remain free and legal, seems tenuous. I hear of mass-quarantine conditions elsewhere in the world, and I wonder if they will arrive in my country. If they do, I have every reason to expect they'll visit New York first.
But, yes, I'm still walking, and I want to tell you about a walk I took on Friday morning in particular.
I woke up on Friday determined to go out for my morning coffee. I had not gone to the local hole-in-the-wall Dunkin Donuts in several days; my last visit had shaken me. The staff, which normally has my online order waiting for me well before I arrive, had their hands full trying to disperse the career day-drinkers quietly clumped up as usual in the small shop's corners. They did eventually shuffle out, looking hurt and betrayed, and then I was handed my coffee. I returned home feeling quite disturbed. For the first time, I saw what looked like cracks in my daily routine, even allowing for all those voluntary changes I'd tweeted about.
But by Friday enough time had passed that my desire for familiar comfort overrode my misgivings, so I fired up the Dunkin app on my phone. It showed me an adjusted version of the usual tiny map where you pick a store: the pin representing my usual Dunkin's had faded from its normal Day-Glo orange to a dull gray. So had many other pins on the map, with only a few orange holdouts here and there. Tapping a gray pin suggested that the store was closed, at least to online orders.
The round, cheerful graphics delivering this information brought to mind the board game Pandemic Legacy, where one uses colorful stickers to track the destructive spread of a disease across a world map, noting which cities are infected, and which have collapsed into anarchy from the plague. I did not enjoy seeing any of this. At the same time, I saw an orange pin a twenty-minute walk up Broadway, more or less along one of my usual Riverside strolling routes. I asked it for a large coffee instead and then got moving, accepting my earlier-than-usual daily walk.
After picking up the coffee without incident from a shop empty of other customers, I looked around the unfamiliar intersection. This, too, felt like something from a game, this time an immersive 3D simulation which has removed all the people but left behind interesting "environmental storytelling" artifacts to suggest where they went. Some cafes and bars had chalk signs or tacked-up flyers insisting that they were open for take-out, but midmorning I saw no sign of life in any. I turned back to the park and home.
As I approached a dog run, I saw a man having a public temper tantrum. You can't tell me where my dog can shit! he shouted to another park visitor, who held their hands up in an appeal for calm, backing up a step every time the man advanced, careful to stay six feet away. Other dog-walkers also tried to calm him down, also keeping their distance. By the time I passed he had already vented most of his steam. I don't need this, he said, to nobody in particular. The dogs at everyones' feet scampered and played together.
Then I sat on a line of empty benches and sipped my coffee and ate my cold egg sandwich while a city worker silently emptied out a public trash bin, putting a fresh lining in. I thought about the man at the dog park, and how I had blown up at my oldest brother two months ago in the middle of downtown Bangor. Our nerves were both frayed from our brother Pete's death just days before, and some small slight made me explode at him. It must have looked just like that other guy.
Getting up to leave, I crumpled up my wrapper and put it in my pocket to dispose of at home. I found that I didn't want to open the bin with my bare hands.
My neighborhood along the Hudson seems to be keeping it together, and so does my apartment building. I have hundreds of neighbors in this complex, and I like to think we look out for each other, staying aware and careful. If anything, we have become a little nicer to each other lately, exchanging small greetings and health-wishes as we share elevators or pass in hallways not designed for social distancing, hugging opposite walls.
And so far, I find it pretty easy to forget how I live in a dangerous place during a dangerous time. I'm okay and I probably will remain okay. But I can't predict even broadly what will happen over the coming weeks. More cracks appear, small and large. My New York Times delivery simply didn't show up today. If it had, I might have read about the New York subway train that burned, perhaps due to arson, killing its operator and injuring seventeen others. A horror that would have attracted national attention in normal times, but which today didn't even merit the front page of the local paper's online edition.
Learning this news yesterday calcified some of this miasmic dread into active fear, at last. I canceled a non-emergency doctor's appointment that I normally would have ridden the subway to attend; it can wait a few months. None of us need any of this, and we all know it. I don't know what I can do about it other than paying attention, and doing my best to be a good neighbor, and looking to the future.
And so I want to publish a long article about web technology next, or at least soon, because that's me applying some control to a chaotic future: I can write that article and share it, and that therefore becomes a preciously rare event I can predict. The article itself looks ahead to a time when more people might have the free time and resources to think about growing the open web, and that helps me too.
During this strange time, I encourage you to consider the ways you can define your own future, however it best suits you and yours, and to move in that direction as best you can.
This article was also posted to the "coronavirus" section of Indieweb.xyz.]]>
We live in a confused slice of history that Chuck Wendig has called "the ghost of normalcy", a placental state that one day very soon will rip away and push us ready-or-not into a far weirder time of uncertain duration, followed by an unknowable permanence. Whether this tribulation lasts weeks or months or longer, it will transform society, and we don't know how yet. We do know that, like any forced change, it will hurt and bring hardships. Seeing ourselves through to the other side will require mindfully rationing energy on maintaining both interpersonal connections and individual fortitude.
And in that vein, I want to encourage everyone to walk. (Or, if you can't walk, to perform your best analogous locomotion in the open air.) Even with full-lockdown rules in effect — such as those now active in New York, the disease's new epicenter, from which I now write to you — taking a walk remains legal. Without any federal leadership, the list of allowed activities shifts daily and unevenly, but I expect that it will have to allow walkers if only because everyone understands that people have dogs, and dogs gotta pee. Less frequently acknowledged, though: humans need to stretch their legs too, and cycle out their lungs with fresh air, and generally unrattle their cooped-up brains and bodies through the rhythm and flow of a brisk walk.
Last summer — a subjective lifetime ago, yes — I read and enjoyed this Guardian profile of the neuroscientist Shane O'Mara and his research into the brain-benefits of simply talking a walk. One paragraph that resonates strongly with me (written from article author Amy Fleming's point of view):
I witnessed the brain-healing effects of walking when my partner was recovering from an acute brain injury. His mind was often unsettled, but during our evening strolls through east London, things started to make more sense and conversation flowed easily. O'Mara nods knowingly. "You're walking rhythmically together," he says, "and there are all sorts of rhythms happening in the brain as a result of engaging in that kind of activity, and they're absent when you're sitting. One of the great overlooked superpowers we have is that, when we get up and walk, our senses are sharpened. Rhythms that would previously be quiet suddenly come to life, and the way our brain interacts with our body changes."
We can accept as grim blessings how this pandemic strikes the western world just as spring weather arrives, and that the germ does not transmit itself through open air. Take that walk, and breathe freely, and let your mind wander and flow, uncramping itself alongside your muscles. Stillness has its place, certainly, but the unusual surfeit of solitude we must all endure for the next howeverlong invites visits from the demons of anxiety as the mind, demanding motion, circles agitated in the skull.
When I feel that scratching from within masquerading as a dreadful pressure from without, I put my shoes on and grab my housekeys. It always works. The lullaby of locomotion lets those claws slip from my mind's control panel, and I return home as master of myself once more.
For the time being, I can't visit any friends on my walk, and I can't go sit at a favorite coffee shop. Though the trains still run, I can't in good conscience board a subway and walk around on a different part of Manhattan. But I can stroll the familiar parks and bridges near my home, along the river, and I can phone a friend while I do so, or check in with a distant family member. I can also get a coffee and a snack to go, and enjoy it on a park bench. Or, as I've pushed myself to do more often, lately, I can walk "without purpose" — which is to say with the mere sole purpose of enjoying the superpower benefits that O'Mara describes.
It is very important to me that we all walk, that we add this kind of for-its-own-sake walking — yes, practicing social distancing the whole time — to our daily routine. Bring your dogs with you, bring your children and partners; it benefits all of you. Purposefully purposeless walking trades a little time for a manifold payout of mental and physical gain — and that lightens the burden put upon health-care professionals during this critical time when we, the relatively healthy, need to give them as little extra work as possible.
Please join me in hitting the parks and pavement every day, if you can. It helps everyone.
This article was also posted to the "coronavirus" section of Indieweb.xyz.]]>
The first time I saw Root played at a tabletop game conference, I felt immediately drawn to its pairing of Cole Wehrle's crunchy wargame mechanics with Kyle Ferrin's Nickelodeon-ready aesthetic of scribbly little forest animals dressed like deranged, dagger-wielding hobbits. In the two years since its debut I'd learned its reputation as a very good but deceptively heavy and hard-to-learn game, so I made playing Root my goal while attending Granite Game Summit last weekend. Along with Amy and our pal Jess, I did get a game in, and I wound up quite delighted with the experience, far moreso than I had expected. I must now gush about this game for a while.
Root's theme, expressed through its mechanics, runs satisfyingly deeper than its surface layer of cute cartoon animals engaged in bloody conflict (a concept that has fascinated me ever since my first traumatic encounter with Watership Down). While I've certainly played plenty of wargames where players have heterogenous starting positions or a mutually different mix of units, I have never before seen one so asymmetrical that each participant plays an essentially different game from every other, with a set of rules and a goal unique to that player's faction. Conflict arises not due to the more typical wargame goal of victory through obliterating the opposing players' forces, but because those forces lie in the way of each player's victory-path, seeking the same scarce resources for their own ends. This leads to interactions more interesting and unpredictable than the usual rush to clash at the battle-line.
The four factions of the base set represent four competing interests in a tiny world at war. The intermeshing of their gameplay styles balance surprisingly well, with each having a strong narrative explanation that makes the game's overall flow quite sensible. I found that once I understood what each side wants, and how they intend to go about it — in terms of both that faction's unique rules and their "in-world" narrative justification — Root's whole little box of violently clashing gears clicks together perfectly.
In the morally ambiguous world of Root, the Cats probably offer the closest thing to a villain, insofar as nobody likes an invading army. Conquering despoilers, the Cats begin the game already garrisoned all over the map, having stormed the land just before the game begins. The Cats seek to industrialize their freshly grabbed tracts through a network of sawmills, which beget more buildings, and they score points every time they construct something.
The Cats are organized and flexible, with the least complex ruleset. They simply choose any three of the game's common actions (e.g. move, recruit, or build) to perform per turn, and do their best to expand and protect their interconnected assets. The Cats' rapaciousness presents a weakness, as well; to keep scoring, they have to keep growing, and they'll quickly find they can't do that without a fight.
The Birds used to rule the world of Root — until the Cats caught them off-guard and forced them to retreat and contract until they controlled only a single clearing. Having just elected a strong new leader, the Birds are ready to explode back out in a show of might and fury, retaking the land they see as rightfully theirs. They want to wrest control of clearings across the map and establish bases there, and so they score points every turn depending upon the number of bases currently active.
The Birds are powerful but rigid, bound to a "decree" of forced moves that their player is obliged to make even longer with each passing turn. Inevitably, the decree will demand an impossible action — for example, a "move an army" action with no legal army-movements available — and the Birds crash into squabbling turmoil, deposing their leader, wiping out their decree, and losing a bunch of points.
I played the Birds faction during my first game, and I adored this mechanical simulation of a cocky warband with no sense of project management, alternatingly roaring ahead and succumbing to expensive infighting. And it provides a tidy explanation for how the Cats managed to get the drop on them, too!
The Woodland Alliance comprises the miscellany of forest critters without a warrior class fed up with seeing Cat and Bird armies run roughshod over their towns and fields, over and over. Though political organization and bands of brave militia, they seek to define a new world of Root ruled by common folk. They score points by spreading sympathy to their cause across the map, and by ejecting occupying forces — no matter what faction they belong to — from a newly emboldened region.
Nobody chose to play the Alliance during our three-handed game, so I can't really describe its play style! Reading the Root rulebook suggests it has significantly less military force than the Birds or Cats, but can draw up reserves of strength from the land itself by the unique ability to gain territory non-militarily, and then subsequently foment revolt to destroy enemy units.
I can more confidently describe the Alliance's opposite in the Vagabond, the real odd-one-out among Root factions. Where the Alliance rejects the chaos of war, the Vagabond thrives in it. Reminiscent of the title character from Yojimbo, the Vagabond player controls a lone wanderer who seeks to play all sides off each other while questing for fortune and glory.
The Vagabond is weak but resourceful and slippery, with the most divergent ruleset. An optimal game for them can involve establishing profitable alliances with every other faction and then letting them pound on each other while scoring points at leisure through side-quests. Other players can stunt the Vagabond's progress by attacking them and smashing up their stuff, but during our game their progress instead acted as a sort of natural time-limit that all the nation-states paid attention to, because how embarrassing if some dork with a bindle took the trophy instead of anyone's grande armée.
Root's two published expansion sets introduce four more factions — Lizard cultists! Corvid gangsters! — but they clearly fall outside the finely balanced story told by the four in the core. And, yes, the core game is hard enough to learn as it is. The generous person at Granite Game Summit who came to our aid (answering the call of the Teacher Needed flag we had planted at our table, early Saturday morning) did their best, and succeeded insofar as, hey, we played the game! But having played once, I can't help but think of how I'd have taught the game differently, and I look forward to getting my chance to do so.
I hypothesize maximum effectiveness in presenting the Cats' game first, and then summarizing each other faction's game as variants of the Cats' rules. Root includes a separately printed two-turn "walkthrough" for a four-player game, and I would want to dive right into that. Rather than opening with a half-hour lecture on the common rules of movement and area control and so on before any player even knows their faction's goal, let the players immediately get some wood on the board and dice on the table and explain why the walkthrough has them doing what it does. I would expect that most any reasonable player would find themselves engaged and eager by the start of the third turn.
Root has moved me more than any board game has in recent memory. I love it. I very much look forward to playing this game more, either in cardboard or via the digital adaptation set to appear later this year.]]>
I read and enjoyed brian d foy's Mojolicious Web Clients, a short and direct guide to writing command-line utilities using the open-source, Perl-based web toolkit called Mojo. (The title's "Mojolicious" formally refers to a full-featured web framework built on Mojo, but I am told that the longer name now embraces both the toolkit and the framework, per the project's official website.)
I've worked with Mojo for a couple of years now; my Webmention library relies upon its wonderful DOM parser, for example. But I didn't really understand the project as a whole; while it does offer higher-level guides to complement its voluminous nuts-and-bolts reference material, it has always lacked the slower, fleshier explanatory power of a real book. As such, I hungrily purchased foy's new e-book the moment I learned about it. Even though it covers just one aspect of Mojolicious — using its toolkit to request and extract interesting data from the web, whether via JSON-based APIs or human-intended HTML pages — it still provides very welcome long-form documentation coverage to a project that has long deserved it. I hope similar books follow.
Mojolicious Web Clients tours through major Mojo concepts over a few short and example-heavy chapters. After spending a few evenings working through it, reading slowly enough to get the gist of all its code examples — taking notes and occasionally keying them in to run my own experiments — I have a much more complete understanding of Mojo's structure, power, and philosophy. For example, the purpose of Mojo "collections", an object-oriented reimplemnentation of Perl's built-in array structures, no longer eludes me. And I understand why Mojo cheerfully stole "promises" from JavaScript, allowing one to write conceptually tricky non-blocking code in a fluid and readable way; now I itch to add this technique to my own projects.
Prior to reading this book, I felt quite foggy on the difference between the Mojo toolkit and the Mojolicious framework, vaguely understanding the latter as a followup to the venerable Catalyst framework, and knowing that CPAN hosted a variety of modules under the "Mojo" namespace but not seeing any particular pattern to them. Happily, foy's book opens with a history of Perl-based web tools right up through the present, clearly explaining how Mojo has picked up the torch from the long-lived LWP library, and going on to demonstrate its commitment to modernization through an emphasis on fluid coding style and strategic wheel-reinvention.
Mojo, apparently, is one of those rare software projects that starts over from scratch and gets it right. According to its manual page, Mojolicious has only four library dependencies, and all of them already ship with Perl. A veteran Perl hacker recognizes this as absurd, especially for such a wide-ranging project. It often seems that a typical Perl-based project (any of mine included, certainly) wants to download half of CPAN before it will deign to try installing itself, and so Mojo represents a stunning lesson in dependency-austerity. And as such, of course, it brings both a gift and a challenge: use Mojo in your project, and see how little else you'll need to get to your goal. You just might write better software for it, with far fewer dependencies outside of your control.
To a Perl fan like me, learning Mojo today feels like both a relief and a necessity. At a time when the lights threaten to shut off over Perl's role as anything other than small-scale Unix-glue, Mojolicious represents a rare project keeping the party going with inventive and ongoing vitality. I was intrigued when colleagues first suggested the Mojo modules to me two years ago, delighted to find Mojolicious quietly starring in Emily Shea's 2019 conference presentation about voice-driven programming, and now cheered by the arrival of even one fresh book on the topic. As Brian Wisti recently said, "Mojolicious is why I still have Perl installed in 2020". I like Perl enough and respect its community, however small these days, that I feel obliged to adapt my own practices to better feed from — and, I hope, feed back into — this valuable source of forward-looking energy.
This article was also posted to the "books" section of Indieweb.xyz.]]>
The Perl Foundation opens the floor to community grant proposals every two to three months. The latest round includes a pitch from me, wherein I propose to revise a couple of Perl's core documentation pages for completeness and clarity. It reads, in part:
The manual page for one of Perl's most central functions —
open— has problems. While nobody doubts the page's technical accuracy, head Perl maintainer Sawyer X nonetheless holds it up as an example of documentation in sore need of reorganization and revision. Towards the end of his TPC 2019 talk "Perl 5: The Past, The Present, and One Possible Future", Sawyer described the
openpage as an example of Perl core documentation that fails to put its most useful information in front — making it less likely to be read at all, especially by a newcomer to Perl. "It's kind of like a Google result," he said. "You go through the first page, and that's it, you know?"
In a separate but related issue, the
openpage links early on to
perlopentutas a "gentler introduction" to its concepts. However, that page has problems of its own — most obviously, the fact that it ends with three sections containing only the text "To be announced" (and in one case adding "Or deleted"). Perl's public distributions have included this page, in its current form, since 2013. This marks it as another case of a core manual page that could greatly and obviously benefit from a fresh look.
I — a writer and long-time Perl programmer — propose to address these issues by taking a focused, critical look at these two manual pages, and then revising them for clarity, completeness, and friendliness to Perl newcomers.
As with all grant proposals it publishes, TPF will keep this one open for a few days for public comment prior to internal deliberation and decision about whether or not to approve it. Please do feel free to review and respond at TPF's website by March 1, 2020.
It surprises me that The Perl Foundation does not receive more grant proposals, especially given its pattern of holding a half-dozen or so CFPs every year. Sometimes a bimonthly CFP will pass in silence, with no proposals submitted at all; more often it will hold just one proposal, like the current one. I know that Perl's tarnished star has long since fallen from its apex, but it remains a technology with a sizable and talented community able to keep it maintained and improved, and a nonprofit organization willing to fund such projects. I'd love to see it have a broader choice of proposals to spend its money on!
I do encourage folks who use Perl to consider proposals they could add to one of TPF's frequent funding rounds. (The site doesn't make it super-clear, but you can pitch a project even outside of a CFP, and TPF will queue it up for the next one. This is, in fact, how I submitted this proposal.) TPF even provides a pageful of grantworthy project ideas for those itching to pitch. Note that projects don't necessarily involve any coding, per se; my own proposed project would affect only documentation, for example.
This isn't my first time at this particular rodeo, by the way. In mid 2015, I submitted a proposal to fund Plerd. While TPF declined to fund it, it did so with admirable transparency, and seeing this sample of a technology-supporting nonprofit as work fascinated and inspired me. This, among other factors, led directly to my proposing the creation of IFTF to a group of colleagues, that very same summer.]]>
And, honestly, this is just fine. This blog's regular readership is quite modest; according to my own measurements, between 150 and 200 individuals regularly read Fogknife (either through manual visits or via RSS), amongst a larger cloud of one-time or occasional visitors. These numbers have held stable in the two years since I started tracking them. That's enough to help keep me writing, but clearly not enough to launch any kind of reader-participation activities more complex than the occasional conversation.
In the meantime, I still have this sheet of little vinyl Fogknife stickers sitting in my desk drawer. So: if you'd like one or two, please email me your mailing address, and I'll slide a couple in your direction. (As my memory often fails me, please also note in your email that you'd like a Fogknife sticker.) In the perhaps unlikely event that I run out of stickers — which will occur only if a dozen readers take me up on this offer — I'll update this post appropriately.
Thanks, as always, for reading.]]>
Today I learned a practical lesson on how, when investigating software bugs, simplifying the problem space as much as possible matters — and so does thoroughly exploring every angle offered by that simplified space, no matter how unlikely it seems.
A client wished to test a new version of a certain system that another system of theirs, one under my control, regularly contacts through a simple, HTTP-based API. We found a strange problem: it rejected all attempts at communication from the system I oversee — let's call it "MySystem" — always sending back HTTP 403 responses, signifying an access-permission failure of some kind. However, it was happy to talk to every other computer on the internet. It would even greet manual pokes sent through a web browser. From my point of view, the test system was pleased to receive messages from everyone in the world except for MySystem, the one system that my client required it to listen to.
Step one of investigating any mystery like this often means writing a program that replicates the problem as simply as possible. And so, I knit up a stand-alone script that invoked the same code libraries and techniques that MySystem uses to make web requests. Even though they came from my own computer, the remote system helpfully rejected these requests as well. Progress, of a sort!
As coincidence would have it, I had recently begun reading brian d foy's new book Mojolicious Web Clients, which opens with several simple examples of tiny command-line web-requesters that print the full text of their work to the terminal as they go. Out of curiosity, I aimed one of these little ready-to-go programs at the target, from the very same computer — and the remote server welcomed the request, sending back the correct response.
At this point I had two simple test programs. One used the thoroughly modern web toolkit for the Perl programming language called Mojolicious ("Mojo" for short); the other used the decades-old LWP, which the similarly venerable MySystem employs. The former could make requests of the target with no problem, and the latter had all its requests summarily rejected instead. The requests came from the same machine, and asked for the same URL, using the same HTTP method. What was going on?
I had no access to the server's logs, so I didn't know what complaint it might have had with the LWP-based requests. Nothing to do, then, but dig into this problem myself, seeing what difference existed between the requests the two toolkits sent to the remote server. Time for another simple script that tried the trick with both libraries, printing out the full text of the request made, and the HTTP code of the response. The result looked like this (if you'll pardon my obvious obfuscation of the client's URL):
Trying with Mojo: GET /some/path HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Mojolicious (Perl) Host: api.jmacs-client.com Content-Length: 0 Accept-Encoding: gzip Result with Mojo: 200 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Trying with LWP: GET https://api.jmacs-client.com/some/path User-Agent: libwww-perl/6.43 Result with LWP: 403
(Note that an HTTP 200 code means a successful request.)
All right, some obvious differences between the two requests, then. Mojo seems to attach several more headers to outbound HTTP requests, by default, than LWP does; my program specified no headers in either case. I saw that Mojo also split its reported target URL into a
Host header and a path, compared to LWP's simpler-looking GET of the full URL, and didn't know offhand what any of that meant. And, of course, the
User-Agent headers are different, with the two toolkits taking the opportunity to identify themselves by their full names.
Mojo's additional headers were easy enough to try with LWP, so I started my experimentation there, adding the three extra headers —
Content-Length, and
Accept-Encoding — to the LWP request and running the program again. Same result, other than seeing those new headers printed out. This made the different ways that Mojo and LWP phrased the
GET line more suspicious, and I frowned; that would be harder to experiment with, requiring research into the reasons for the dissimiliar displays.
But before moving on to that deeper layer, and just to satisfy myself that I really had made the headers of the two requests as similar as I could, I tried the program again with the LWP request claiming a
User-Agent of
Mojolicious (Perl). In my experience*, the value of the
User-Agent header never has any mechanical effect on server behavior; it exists merely as a way for particular clients to leave a "calling card" in server logs, if they wish — just a bit of information that might prove useful, from time to time, when reviewing logs by hand. So I expected no change; I just wanted to tidy up and make both sets of headers truly identical, for aesthetic reasons as much as any other, before continuing the investigation.
And, as you have no doubt already predicted, this change made both requests succeed.
Quite surprised and confused, I experimented with different values of
User-Agent. Within a few minutes, I'd deduced that the remote server rejected all requests whose
User-Agent value contained, anywhere within it, the substring
libwww-perl. Removing or modifying that substring let the request succeed. This accounted for the success of the Mojo request — and the failure of the MySystem system's requests, which used a lightly edited version of LWP's default value for this header.
It seemed, at this point, that the customer's web server intentionally rejected with prejudice any request made by a program using the LWP toolkit — at least, those that didn't bother to change outgoing
User-Agent values to something other than the default. Since at this point I had enough information to formulate a short question, I presented the problem to the sages at the #perl channel on Freenode. And as they often do, the denizens answered accurately within moments: some corners of the cybersecurity world have recommended blocking all requests from agents identifying as
libwww-perl, and some servers duly accept this advice. This stance sees this substring as a flag flown by a filthy bot, one that didn't even bother to set a non-default name for itself. Not exactly flying the Jolly Roger, but not troubling to provide a nation (or project URL) of origin, either — and therefore deserving of suspicion to the point of summary dismissal.
A most unexpected outcome! In my whole career as a web programmer, I'd never imagined the
User-Agent header employed by automated scripts for any purposes other than curiosity (when reviewing my own server logs) or amusement (when writing a program that would go mark up some other server's log). As a younger hacker I took pleasure in always setting the agent string to something unique to my project, imagining the calling cards my software left in server logs around the world; more recently, I have seldom bothered. What a surprise, then, to at last encounter a good reason to change the value to something other than the default.
Or, you know, to just carry on with my plans to retire LWP from all my Perl-based projects going forward and just use Mojo instead, since that apparently works just as well…
See also: A little jaunt through the bitwise.
* As several readers have pointed out to me, this speaks to my particular experience as one who has never needed to care much about website appearances during the start of the smartphone era, or the waning years of MSIE 6 — both times when serving different content depending upon user agent were de rigueur.]]>
It feels far too early to start wailing in despair that the whole thing was a mistake and we were all wrong. Applebaum's article used the impeachment and acquittal of Andrew Johnson as its augur, and by this measure he predicted a period of celebration and a flare of support for Trump after his own acquittal — as obvious an outcome in January of last year as it was last month.
And lo: Trump has, as I write this, begun to celebrate in his favorite way, going beyond obvious gloating (though there's plenty of that too) and immediately delighting in the retaliation of all who wronged him through either political opposition or mere disloyalty. Not just individuals, mind you, but also their families, their constituents, and the very lands they call home.
Applebaum's stated hopes that the act of impeachment would corrode the president's support in the Senate, of course, proved entirely unfounded. Instead, senate Republicans just shrug, either too cowardly to protest or openly supportive of the executive's rampant and overt abuses of power. Certainly, they do nothing at all to temper my own earlier assessment that the modern Republican party stands against human progress, or even its long-term survival.
So we all look ahead to November, once again. I do not, at this time, consider any candidate, the president included, a lock-in; I expect that Trump's steady unpopularity balances both his incumbent advantage and his eagerness to fight dirty, including using the powers of his office to harass his political opponents. It seems currently that if the president's impeachment carries any effect on the looming election, then it will take the form of citizens' reaction to his unsubtly vindictive rampages upon his preordained acquittal. Now that he has little left to fear, we witness this president at his most unmasked.
We should forgive those who voted for Trump in 2016. I know my parents would have done it, were they still alive. Hillary Clinton was the second-least popular presidential candidate since such things have been tracked — losing that mantle only to her opponent — and countless people beyond die-hard Republican supporters had no love for her. I have sympathy for those who thought, not entirely unreasonably, that a jokey novelty president would shake things up and give us a few years of amusing pro-wrestling kayfabe from the White House while conducting business more or less as usual behind the scenes.
I feel plenty of reason to hope that enough of these people recognize their error and have no taste for repeating it, and will quietly make amends in the privacy of the voting booth this fall. Even if that happens, it will be impossible to say how much impact the impeachment-and-acquittal dance had. And I have to acknowledge how frustrating and sad this rare scrap of foreknowledge feels, at a time when the world needs sure-footed leadership more than ever.]]>
In December I started using Fraidycat, a new, free and open-source feedreader by Kicks Condor. While I last summer voiced anticipation for its impending release, I did not expect how immediately and wholeheartedly I would appreciate and enjoy it once I began to use it. Fraidycat, just-born warts and all, quickly became my favorite feedreader program, entirely supplanting my use of ReadKit — and even giving my favorite Twitter client a run for its money, in some use-cases.
Fraidycat's novel philosophies about fetching and displaying new content from disparate web-based sources respect one's attention more, I do believe, than the long-prevailing single-stream news feed model. I have felt no qualms about leaving it running all day long for the past several weeks, where it serves with equal utility as an at-a-glance summary of what's new among all my favorite blogs and such, as well as a conduit for diving deeper into any single source's recent articles.
The progam's core differences from a typical feedreader:
It does not fetch or display any item's content, instead retrieving only minimal metadata from each source. It grabs items' titles, URLs, and last-updated timestamps, plus a little extra metadata about the source itself. To read an item, click its title in Fraidycat's window, and your usual web browser will fetch and display it in that source's home environment.
For display purposes, Fraidycat groups items by source, rather than the traditional strategy of pouring all received items into a single feed ordered by time-of-arrival. Furthermore, it flattens sources such that each one occupies only two rows of Fraidycat's window: one for the source's name and icon, the other a horizontal list of its most recent items' titles, truncated to fit. (You can tap a button to temporarily see a single source's items as a traditional vertical list.)
When Fraidycat receives a new item, it "bumps" its source's display-row up to the top of the source-list. Due to its grouping and display rules, though, that source's articles don't take up any more total vertical space in the window than they did before the new items' arrival.
Finally, Fraidycat only shows up to ten items from any source (I think?), and furthermore doesn't track whether you've clicked on anything or not. Things just flow by, faster for chattier sources. When items become stale, they quietly vanish. Nothing anywhere tallies up how many unread items you have piled up, because there is no pile.
Combined, these rules remove the anxiety that a traditional news feed presents of always running behind. Instead of a vertical tower of articles growing faster than you can possibly read them, you have a tidy list of favored sources that never changes shape — it just re-orders itself from time to time, swapping out the "front-page headline" for the affected source-row as needed. You can dip into any with a click, but if you don't, the quiet passage of unread older items into the past no longer feels like a personal failure; it brings no more heartbreak than seeing yesterday's newspaper go into the bin . It is so refreshing.
Fraidycat also prides itself on its ability to let you tune how often it checks in with a given source. If a website proves so chatty with new and updated items that it stays affixed to the top of Fraidycat's window, you can ask the program to check in with it less often — only daily, say, or weekly — in order to give other sources a chance to bob up to the fore now and again. You can also segregate items into tagged categories, so that e.g. Twitter-based sources get to race around in their own view, apart from slower blogs or online magazines. (Fraidycat does indeed support not just RSS-based sources but Twitter accounts, Instagram feeds, and a surprising array of other stuff I haven't tried.)
This leads to my one significant critique with Fraidycat's current design: I don't think that sources set to have less frequent check-ins should necessarily get relegated to separate views. Currently, each tag-based Fraidycat tab has sub-views for "Daily", "Weekly", and so on, as well as the default "Real-time" view. When you set a source to anything other than "Real-time", Fraidycat banishes its display to that sub-view.
I think this plays a little too much into the program's shyness about mixing too many sources into one list. As it stands, I tend to forget that any of the "rate-limited" views even exist, within a given tag-view. I don't mind clicking around in between the category-tags according to my mood, but further clicking around between checking-rates doesn't feel the same. These rates don't denote any difference in content or quality from its neighboring sources, after all; I just want to see them presented a little less prominently.
Update: I note with amusement that, according to the project's rejected-features page, this does indeed describe how the first versions of Fraidycat used to work — but early testers hated it, it seems! Regardless, Fogknife stands by its assessment.
Even though Fraidycat's interface remains a bit rough around the edges, I find it quite a pleasure to explore. After I imported my old RSS reader's blog-list into it, I discovered some fascinating side effects from the way it sees websites not as cannons that fire out content continuously until they at last fall silent, but repositories that last for as long as their URLs resolve. I thus found several bittersweet signing-off announcements from blogs that had long since wrapped up their work, and which in every case had gotten buried in the flood of my combined RSS feed. Fraidycat will give one source's year-old item equal billing to another's hour-old one, if that's its most recent update — while also making clear, at a glace, the relative age of each item. I like that a lot.
All told, I find Fraidycat a most interesting new way to keep up with the web without either the guilty futility associated with traditional feedreaders, or the anxious addiction that social-media monoliths encourage. I quite look forward to following this program's ongoing development.
(I use Fraidycat's stand-alone macOS edition, even though it seems primarily intended for use as a Firefox or Chrome plugin. Linux and Windows stand-alone editions are also available.)
This article was also posted to the "web" section of Indieweb.xyz.]]>
Peter Stuart McIntosh, 61, died on January 22, 2020 in Bangor.
He was born in Framingham, Massachusetts on June 23, 1958 to Dorothy and Richard McIntosh. He grew up alongside his older brother Richard Jr., and helped raise younger brother Jason years later.
After graduating from American International College, Pete held roles ranging from hotel cook to night watchman before finding his true calling, assisting adults with severe autism. He worked at special-needs homes throughout Maine, where his deep and devoted caring touched many lives.
Pete was devoted also to his wife Janice, married in 2002, his companion in every aspect of life. She predeceased him after a long illness in 2014, with Pete willingly becoming her full-time caretaker in the end.
Pete continued life after this loss by joining the Bangor chapter of Clubhouse International, a nonprofit advocate for adults with mental illness, and he made many dear friends in this community.
For his whole life Pete loved paperback novels, superhero comics, and Boston sports teams. He instilled in Jason a love of reading, whether Spider-Man or Steven King.
Peter is survived by his brothers Richard and Jason and his cat Moxie.
In lieu of flowers, those who wish to honor Pete's memory may make a donation to the American Stroke Association or to Clubhouse International.
This represents the third family obituary I have written in seven years. I suppose it benefits from this past experience, but it differs from the previous two in that I didn't enter the month expecting to write it. I had to scramble to pull a first draft together before the paper's weekend deadline while juggling every other sudden responsibility that fell to me upon my brother's wholly unexpected death. My first try proved far too lengthy, and with friends' help I ground it down below the $300 mark (at the paper's $1.25-a-word rate).
As such, much remains unstated here, including the cause of Pete's death. A car struck him as he crossed the street while walking home after dark. Within hours surgeons had set to work repairing his many broken bones. They could see brain injuries as well, but imperiled brains often surprise doctors with their resilience, so we waited for days to see if he'd regain consciousness. He did not, and the long sleep plus the nature of the injury meant that he almost certainly never would. His family agreed to let his body slip away, joining the personality that the car probably obliterated on impact.
This oblique stroke cut short an already tragic life. The obituary's first draft contained no details of the accident or its aftermath, but it did put more words towards the complete and permanent devastation he had experienced six years before with the loss of his wife Janice six years ago. Her death tore him apart, and he never really came back together.
Pete triggered the previous time I had to race to Bangor in an emergency mode, which I detailed in a cotemporary post on my old LiveJournal. In short, after I rescued him from despair-driven homelessness, he proceeded to live an utterly enervated existence, defined primarily by mourning, for years to come. I can reveal now that "Hank" in my angry and self-loathing Gameshelf post about the Walking Dead video games was Pete. These articles from a half-decade ago accurately and frankly show the poisonous frustration I felt for my brother, my will to sympathize with his terrible loss balanced with my inability to understand why he couldn't move on from it.
In time he came partway out of this state, largely thanks to Clubhouse International, whose Bangor chapter helped him out a great deal, and even set him up with a dishwashing job for a little while. But Janice's ghost never, ever left his sight. No conversation with Pete could happen without mention of her, right up through the last time I spoke with him this month. If he laughed at a joke, he'd often catch himself, horrified, and explain that his laughter doesn't mean that he's forgotten Janice. When he got confused while paying for his groceries, he'd mumble apologies to the cashier about how he hasn't thought straight since his wife died. Death made her larger, infinitely large, Pete's whole universe, forever.
On Tuesday, having done everything I could in Bangor until the spring thaw — when I plan to lay Pete's ashes to rest by his wife's, in her northern Maine home town — I returned home by train. The landscape smearing past the window invited my mind to drift, for the first time in two weeks, to contemplate my own loss. I wondered if Pete had time to turn to face Janice in his final conscious moment, to send out a radar-pulse of love to her memory as he abruptly transitioned into memory himself. Without thinking too much I summoned up "The Commander Thinks Aloud" by The Long Winters on my phone, a deeply sad and beautiful song about the last thoughts of someone perishing in a sudden, violent accident. The lyrics reflect not pain or fear but longing, an ultimate unrequited longing. Can you feel it, we're almost home sang its voice, as my tears ran freely, and Connecticut rumbled on past.
I carry the terrible ambiguity that in my final conversation with Pete, on the telephone a week before the hospital called me, he sounded quite upbeat. As the years went on, he never stopped living every moment for Janice, but he gradually got better at the living part. He made friends, he started attending church again, and he got back into reading. He also struggled — letting bills pile up, frequently losing his housekeys, and developing balance issues that forced him to stop driving, and then stop working. He sometimes called me in confusion or desperation, but that last time he felt calm and hopeful.
And underneath surged an impossible longing for his lost partner, a roaring river of it, wider and deeper than anything I've ever felt, maybe more than anything I am capable of feeling. I needed a song to unlock this revelation, and to glimpse the tragedy of so suddenly losing someone capable of feeling so much love, so much love that it may well have drowned him.]]>


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Pass over the carrot sticks that you provide your kid at lunch, count the hand towels as you, and also your kid folds them with each other. They will learn just how to share, exactly how to take turns, exactly how to share their instructor's attention.
If I removed an article from somewhere, or Xerox a suggestion from a book, I belong to submit it away where I can always discover it again. The even more you count, the extra your child will see the relationship in between the numbers and also the actual world.
Toddler Curriculum Free Printable
There is no demand to develop difficulties with placing the challenge together when that is not the goal. It is a God-given duty that they take care of the physical, intellectual as well as spiritual needs of their kids.
So, initially, you need to attack your tongue, second of all, obtain your youngster curious about math from an early age. I store all of my young boys' flash cards and also card games in a small plastic storage container.
Your preschoolers will undoubtedly need to utilize more pressure to develop the color they want, and this assists with their excellent electric motor skills. Co-op: This is a preschool program where parents actively get involved.
Prek Worksheets Printable
This task assists in fastening the value of numbers in their mind. Notice a youngster that sees the rainbow overhead for the very first time.
For instance, If you are counting apples, the first Apple would certainly be 1, the second would be 2, the 3rd would certainly be 3, etc. What kind of tools is offered? Look for a school with play devices in good condition.
Where my child was physically progressed, climbing up, leaping, and also running at a very early age, my niece. Take the initiative to obtain one for your child today since this could indicate a globe of distinction for him or her.
The storyline adheres to a recurring pattern, these sorts of publications are called rising viewers. Educational playthings, video games, simplified, and also task notepads for math will certainly additionally help.
Also, they usually supply these learning devices for children (preschool youngsters) completely free, so the study is most absolutely advocated for. Using these motivates them to differ the intensity or depth of colors, worthwhile of note here is the usage of paint smocks for either activity.
Free Printable Pre K Worksheets
Homeschooling education has been approved and also adapted by numerous households around the world. Nevertheless, this modification in mindset regarding education is the outcome of brand-new developments in brain check modern technology, brain surgery, as well as mind study.
Meet them on their degree, toddlers emotions are close to the surface. Discovering points that start with a certain letter and also counting video games are a likewise fantastic method to find out while playing, at preschool creative thinking is a given.
This is also where I keep the ink pads I don't desire them obtaining right into on their own. As well as with more control of the curriculum that is being instructed.
Cynical pose creates tension on young spines. Needing to match as well lots of principles will certainly be complicated and also sturdy.

subset: commoncrawl


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Rattan Counter Height Bar Stools
The same quirky white bar stool is featured in a modern setting, accompanying a fresh and cheerful kitchen decorated in tones of white, steel and with a few strong green and red accents.
Pacific Green uses elements from traditional craft designs of the Pacific Islands and sustainable materials from the region to create its pieces. This leather-covered rustic bar stool has a drum-shaped bottom with metal legs, accented with hairpin supports.
The design of this kitchen island evenly divides the space between the three Twist swivel stools. Also, the design of the stools allows them to have adjustable height and this pretty much solves both problems we've discussed so far. But when the island has an undulating design such as in this case, the irregular shape makes it difficult to evenly distribute the stools and to offer each one the same type of comfort.
Similarly, these spare metal bar stools are topped with a wooden seat that has splashes of color that also evoke a recycled feel. Whether or not you use them with the matching bar, they will inject some subtle color into your kitchen or bar area.
Another type is the counter-height stool which is the one we're more interested in. These stools are smaller than the ones used in bars and restaurants and they're the best for kitchen islands. They measure between 24" and 27" in height. Then there's also the bar-height stool which is the same one you see in bars. These can be used for standard built-in bars and have a height of 28" to 33". The fourth type is the extra tall stool which is somewhere between 33" and 36" tall. In its case the name pretty much speaks for itself.
Wenn Sie nach einem Barhocker Modell suchen, ist unser Rattan Counter Height Bar Stools perfekt für Sie. In unserem Rattan Counter Height Bar Stools Artikel haben wir die beliebtesten Barhocker Modelle zusammengebracht.
Klicken Sie auf den link um alle Barhocker Modelle anzuzeigen. Alle Barhocker in Rattan Counter Height Bar Stools finden Sie in den Bildern unten. Einige von Ihnen sind , Barools Neutralisiere Rückenfrei Navy Wicker Höhe Rattan Outdoor, Licious Rattan Zähler Hocker Küche Mit Tropischen Bar Wickeright Esstisch Mit Stühlen Im Freien.


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(January 17, 2018 / JNS) Steven Spielberg's latest film, "The Post," has been banned in Lebanon due to the famed Jewish-American director's purported ties with Israel.
A source involved with the international rollout of "The Post" said the movie "was presented to the Lebanese censorship board, which nixed it, citing a 'boycott Israel' list that includes Spielberg due to his Oscar-winning Holocaust film 'Schindler's List' (the 1993 film shot some scenes in Jerusalem)," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"The Post," which stars Tom Hanks and Meryl Strep, tells the story of The Washington Post's decision to defy attempts by the U.S. government to suppress reporting on the Pentagon Papers. The film was released in the U.S. on Jan. 12 and was set to be released in Lebanon on Jan. 18.
Earlier this year, Lebanon and Jordan banned the screening of "Wonder Woman," which casted Israeli actress Gal Gadot in the lead role, over her service in the Israeli military. Spielberg is not an Israeli citizen, nor has he served in the IDF.
Nevertheless, Spielberg has been supportive of Israel in the past, such as his donation of $1 million to relief efforts in Israel following the 2006 Second Lebanon War with Hezbollah.
Spielberg's most recent works, including "BFG" and "Bridge of Spies," were both released in Lebanon.
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At JNS, you get the facts about Israel and Jewish issues without the bias that so often tilts the argument against the Jewish state. JNS articles and columns are republished every week by digital outlets and print newspapers across the globe. But in the age of round-the-clock news coverage, advertising and syndication revenues are not enough to support our continued growth. We need your financial help to keep JNS on target as we continue our fair and accurate reporting.
Please help us take JNS to the next level with a tax-deductible sponsorship, either on a recurring monthly basis. Jewish News Syndicate is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.


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General Wrapping Film/Others
Vertical Arrangement Hanging Type Automatic Slitter/Rewinder
Model FSL-HV is a center drive type precision slitter/rewinder with two winding sections of upper and lower arrangement. The unwinding tension, cutting tension, and winding tension are controlled separately. The winding tension of each spindle is independently controlled by an AC servomotor. As contact pressure arranged in parallel with the winding spindle can be accurately controlled and the winding spindle moves horizontally as the diameter of the product roll increases, there is no errors caused by touch pressure or no need for complicated compensation control.
|Independent Contact Roller and Center Drive System
|Mill Roll Width
|MAX. 3000m
|Slit Width
|MIN. 200mm
|Rewinding Speed
|MAX. 800m/min
|Optional Device
|Finished Roll Handing Device


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It was reading a story on the EMCSA today that made me think about this. Though that was purely a visor, and the effects, well, maybe they were pure fiction lol! But what it of course reminded me of, was something that long ago was going to not only change gaming, but the world as we knew it, virtual reality.
Yes, I'm old enough to remember when it first came out as a concept, with its special visor, and all over body suit, and a pair of very large gloves. To be honest, all the talk back then was how all this gadgetry would be out in arcades in less than 2 years, and that everyone would get to experience it. Thing is, over here at least, it never happened. There was someone, waiting to get all dressed up in all this VR gadgetry, and she never got the chance!
Alright, as far as I know, no game ever came out that transformed the wearer into a robot, and I certainly know of no visor/headset that gave you the thought processes (and controlled mental state) of a robot, but anyway…I never got to discover, because it never really left the science labs. Now, I'm not a gamer, so dont quote me on this, but have some of the more recent/current consoles actually gone some degree towards this or not? Visor wise maybe, though as far as I know, nothing that requires you to wear a body suit to get totally immersed in the game has ever came along. As I say, I'm not a gamer, but if I got the chance to try something like that, you bet I would!
Seemingly in the science lab at least, things have moved on, though I note this one only seems to need a visor, maybe sight and sound are the only virtual senses you need nowadays? But if anyone out there is developing a virtual robot suit, and need a guinea pig to try it on, as Blondie would say, call me!


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Dates and Times
Mon 9 March 2020 at 9pm
Featured in Sprint Festival 2020: three-weeks of striking new work by some of the UK's most exciting artists. Browse the full line-up here.
Take advantage of our double-bill ticket offer, and book two different shows on the same night for just £16, or make the most of our Season Pass and book tickets for three different shows to receive a 10% discount. Simply add the tickets for the shows into your basket and we'll do the rest.
Presented by Isabelle Farah
"I carried on. Day job, standup. Standup competition. See friends, get obliterated. Wake up in the night crying. Get up. Shower. Eat. Make up on. Go to work. Argh! The tube feels like a gauntlet. Deep breath. Dive in. Earphones in. Volume up. It's a game, through Kings Cross, dodging the obstacles. Duck into the secret passage between the Victoria and Piccadilly Lines. One foot in front of the other."
For Isabelle, standup comedy is the outlet that keeps her sane in her day job. But the nature of the game is to turn your life into punchlines. How can you be funny when all you're feeling is all-consuming sadness?
"In some ways I wanted [my therapist] to come and watch me to see how FUCKING HILARIOUS I AM and in others I thought how odd it would be performing to someone who's seen so far behind my mask. Would he even find it funny or just sit there knowing what I was hiding?"
Ellipsis explores how to deal with grief, be authentic, and still be funny.
This show contains themes of depression and mental health and references to suicide. Recommended age rating; 16+. To read the detailed synopsis with the content to consider, please click here.
The company believe there are no health warnings for this show.
If you have any other questions or enquiries that are not covered here please do get in touch by calling 0207 419 4841 or email James, our General Manager on [email protected].
About the company
Isabelle Farah is a British Lebanese actress, comedian, and writer. She trained at DSL, graduating in 2011 and has worked in a variety of roles in theatre. As a stand up she was a semifinalist in the Funny Women and 2Northdown New Act competitions and performed at the Edinburgh Festival 2018.


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Just a 5-minute drive from downtown Campo Grande, Athenas Apart offers practical accommodation with air conditioning, mini kitchen and free Wi-Fi. It also supplies free parking and a 24-hour reception.
Fitted with tiled floors and basic furniture, rooms provide cable TV and telephone. Their compact kitchen area is equipped with a minibar, sink and cabinets.
Buffet breakfast is served every morning at Athenas Apart Hotel, with a variety of tropical fruits, bread rolls and cake. Room service is available too.Set in a tranquil residential neighbourhood, this apart hotel is conveniently located only a 10-minute drive from Campo Grande Airport.


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It is important to have your vehicle serviced and maintained regularly, in the interest of safety, reliability, efficiency and protecting value of asset with a manufacturer service stamp. Once vehicles are outside manufacturers warranty we offer a range of fixed price services to suit your vehicles and your pockets needs. Our prices are so good they easily compete with any reputable independent garage, but use the right parts, oil and the right people and equipment.
We also offer a while you wait service with hot drinks, TV, newspapers/magazines and WiFi or a courtesy lift into town or work (if local).
What's more, book your MOT test for only £39 when booked with one of the following services.
Bronze Care
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*Terms and conditions apply. *£30 extra will be charged for vehicles over 2000cc #30945
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When viewing a car you like, simply click on the "Add to Shortlist" button, and it'll be saved here so you can access it later.


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Two First Central State Bank employees earn degree from Graduate School of BankingAugust 29, 2019Two First Central State Bank team members recently graduated from the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Scott Wiley and Valerie Pell completed the more than two years of schooling needed to earn the Certificate of Executive Leadership, the highest level of certification from the Wisconsin School of Business and Executive Development. Since its inception in 1945, more than 23,000 bankers have attended the school.
Wiley and Pell join several others at First Central State Bank to earn this designation. First Central State Bank President and CEO Brigham Tubbs said the institution offers a proven training ground for team members to advance their financial industry knowledge.
"We encourage our team members to continue to grow in their industry knowledge," Tubbs said. "We're proud of Scott and Valerie for challenging themselves and working hard to achieve this honor."
Wiley is a Vice President, Loan Officer, based in First Central's Eldridge location. Wiley said the additional training will help him better serve the bank's customers on a day-to-day basis.
"I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this added training and it will only help my development as a community banker," Wiley said.
Pell, a vice president assistant cashier based in the DeWitt office and formerly in the Clinton location, echoed Wiley's sentiments on staying current with the banking world's changing landscape.
"I love to learn and have already started applying some of the strategies highlighted during my time in the program to both my career and personal life," Pell said.
The Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison offers a comprehensive course of study that focuses on meeting the changing needs of today's bank manager. Core courses address broad areas of finance, marketing, management and the environment in which banks operate while elective courses allow students to customize their learning experience.
Ohnward Bancshares, Inc., a billion-dollar plus holding company with 19 financial offices in Eastern Iowa including Maquoketa State Bank with offices in Maquoketa, Andrew, and Preston; Ohnward Bank & Trust with offices in Baldwin, Cascade, Monticello, Marion, Central City and Cedar Rapids; First Central State Bank with offices in DeWitt, LeClaire, Clinton, Goose Lake and Eldridge. Trust services are offered through all banking offices under the Ohnward banner, which includes Ohnward Insurance Group, Central Realty, Ohnward Financial Advisor Services, Ohnward Farm Management, Ohnward Tax, Accounting and Business Services, Vosler Investment Group and Ohnward Wealth & Retirement.
Ohnward Bancshares, Inc., has assets of $1.1 Billion, capital of $150 Million and employs over 260 full and part time employees. Ohnward is locally owned by shareholders living primarily in Jackson, Clinton, Scott, Jones, and Linn Counties. Bank management's focus continues to be helping clients and communities grow and prosper. The banks and ancillary businesses have a strong record of community and economic development, and educational and cultural support within the markets they serve.
Contact:Scott Levine, Marketing(563) 242-2265


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Our team is made up of qualified and skilled people who are passionate about early childhood development, supporting families and building communities. Our leadership, management, operational and program teams are highly experienced and driven by the values of respect, integrity and openness.
See below for vacant positions
At Playgroup NSW our people are at the heart of what we do. We pride ourselves on our inclusive and engaged organisational culture. We value work-life balance, are family-friendly, flexible and inclusive, which makes us an employer of choice.
Our experienced and dedicated team is comprised of staff based at the Playgroup NSW headquarters in Rosehill as well as support and development staff working in the Greater Sydney and regional areas.
Supporting current and prospective Playgroup NSW members to help them establish and manage community or supported playgroups is the major focus for the majority of our team. This includes providing information and guidance to playgroups, facilitating our supported playgroup sessions and promoting early childhood development with families and professionals.
Our focus and leadership is built around quality service delivery and sees our staffing resources focused firmly on playgroup development, excellence in service delivery, member support and engagement, and continuing our business and digital transformation.
Playgroup NSW also relies on the generosity and passion of our wonderful volunteers. Our community playgroups are run by volunteer committees who dedicate their time to ensure their local playgroup thrives.
Chief Executive Officer
Nadene Lee
As the CEO of Playgroup NSW, Nadene Lee is focused on delivering better outcomes for children, families and communities. She also helps families in need through her role as the Chair of SMART Recovery International - one of the world's largest and fastest-growing global addiction treatment programs. She has held a number of non-executive director positions, including with the disability support organisation Fragile X Association of Australia.
Nadene has extensive experience corporate and not-for-profit industries, leading strategy and performance delivery for a range of state, national and international organisations. These positions have led to the development of strong functional expertise in corporate governance, leadership, strategic planning, project & change management, risk management, international business, marketing, branding, member services, product/service development, digital strategy and fundraising.
Nadene holds a values-based approach to leadership, with high standards of professionalism and integrity guided by personal values and the current organisational values of being: Passionate; Loyal; Accountable; Young at Heart.
Nadene holds a Bachelor, International Business (Chinese), and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Queensland, is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and recently completed the Company Directors Course.
Mel Hill
General Manager Programs & Quality
Mel holds a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood), from Macquarie University and has had an extensive career in not-for-profit organisations in the early childhood sector. Mel is a passionate, self-motivated professional committed to achieving strategic objectives, and has a track record in increasing the engagement and participation of marginalised children.
Mel brings to Playgroup NSW skills in building and maintaining partnerships, solid operational management experience with a focus on process, systems and implementation of strategy. Mel is a values based leader with a strong focus on collaboration and collective decision making.
Daniel Muller
Manager, Membership and Corporate Services
Daniel is an experienced provider of IT solutions, process design and corporate services, having managed the operations of corporate, government and not-for-profit organisations in Australia and Asia.
He is responsible for managing corporate services, enabling the team to provide excellent support to our members and playgroups. His role encompasses managing and improving our IT infrastructure, HR and finances. Daniel joined us in 2015.
Hasret Mehmedali
Program Manager
Hasret joined Playgroup NSW in 2018 after 15 years in the early childhood and community sectors across Greater Sydney. She has worked in many education settings as well as non-profits where she supported migrants and refugees by linking them to local services. Hasret commenced at Playgroup Coordinating the Community Playgroup Team and was then appointed as the Program Manager for the implementation of our new Play Strong program, which aims to establish 50 new supported playgroups across NSW.
Sehr Minhas
Corporate Partnerships/Marketing Specialist
Born and raised in Pakistan, Sehr began her marketing career in advertising. She has a Master's Degree in Marketing with a major in Brand Management. Since moving to Australia in 2005, Sehr has held marketing positions with several not-for-profit organisations. She manages special events and corporate partnerships for awareness campaigns, playgroup resources and other activities. Sehr joined us in 2012.
Vacant Positions
Beaumont Hills Little Buddies Mandarin Playgroup meets every Monday from 10am to 12pm with a wide range of fun activities laid out for the day. The aim of this playgroup is to provide a friendly, Mandarin speaking environment for all parents, carers and children in the area.
out our Playgroups who are looking for families to
join them.
Children love playing with balls of all shapes and sizes. And with good reason: balls are great for group play, organised sports or just playing by yourself. They are also suitable for a variety of age groups (from babies to children and even adults).
Mothercraft nurse, Chris Minogue, answers one of Kinderling Radio listener's question on how to keep their child safe on the ground.


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Cowichan Exhibition updates: COVID-19.
Today we have made a difficult decision, in the best interest of our community and our members, we have closed the Cowichan Exhibition Grounds until further notice.
We ask for your patience and support as we monitor what is the best way to navigate this. We will reassess the conditions as they change daily.
We have taken steps to ensure the safety of our members, volunteers, patrons and staff by sanitizing all touch points and adding additional sanitizing stations at the front of each room.
We recognize that we are in a position to support the collective fight against COVID-19. Following guidance from public health authorities we understand that practicing social distancing and reducing dense public gatherings as much as possible is critically important at this time. This is truly a global effort that requires all of our participation.
During this time, we remain committed to serving our clients as best as we can:
The office will respond to emails and phone messages at firstname.lastname@example.com or phone 250-748-0822.
While this remains a challenging time for us all, we are truly inspired by the support of this community.
Due to COVID – 19 concerns,
Pickleball at Mellor Hall
is now CANCELLED until further notice.
The Cowichan Valley Regional District is pleased to support the 2020 Get A Grip Pickleball Tournament
and the Cowichan Exhibition through our Sport Tourism initiative.
Welcome to all participants and spectators.
The Pickleball Tournament – April 17-19, has been postponed until further notice.
starting at 8:30 am
Mixed Doubles (all levels) Saturday, April 18
starting at 8:30 am
Men's Doubles (all levels) Sunday, April 19
starting at 8:30 am
Exhibition Park Event Calendar
Cowichan Valley Garden Fair
April 25th 10 am - 2 PM
Cowichan Valley, British Columbia.
It is a beautiful scenic mountainscape that features facilities for a wide variety of events.
Telephone: (250) 748-0822
Fax: (250) 597-2670
Email: email@example.com


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You can check here latest SSC Stenographer Exam Pattern 2020 and SSC Stenographer Syllabus 2020.
A candidate must be aware of the eligibility norms, application procedure and exam pattern of the Steno exam 2020. However, the most important information for this exam is its syllabus. As a contestant, you are required to know the purview under which the questions would be asked and what all knowledge is important for the post. Here is an exhaustive discussion of the SSC Stenographer Exam Syllabus 2020.
SSC Stenographer Exam Pattern 2020
Scheme of Examination: The Examination will consists of a Written examination and Skill Test in Stenography.
1.Written Examination Examination: Written examination will consists of Objective Type- Multiple choice questions only. The questions except in Part III will be set both in English & Hindi.
Details of Examination are given below:
|No of
|Total Duration /
Timing for
|Total Duration/
Timing for Visually
|General Intelligence &
Reasoning ( 50 questions )
|2 Hours
10.00AM to
12.00 Noon
2.00PM to
|2 hours 40
2.00PM to
|General Awareness
( 50 questions )
|English Language and
( 100 questions )
Note-I: There will be negative marking of 0.25 marks for each wrong answer. Candidates are, therefore, advised to keep this in mind while answering the questions.
2. Skill Test in Stenography: The candidates who qualify in the written examination will have to appear for the stenography test. The candidates will be given one dictation for 10 minutes in English / Hindi at the speed of 100 w.p.m. for the post of Stenographer Grade -C' and 80 w.p.m. for the post of Stenographer Grade -D'. The matter will have to be transcribed on computer only.
The transcription time is as follows:
For Stenographer Grade-D : 50 minutes ( English ); 65 minutes ( Hindi )
For Stenographer Grade -C: 40 minutes ( English ); 55 Minutes ( Hindi )
1. If the candidates do not indicate the medium of Stenography Test in Column No.14 of the Application Form, the Commission will consider English as the medium of Stenography Test for such candidates and the candidates will not be allowed to change the medium at a subsequent stage.
2.There is no exemption from skill test for any category of candidates.
SSC Stenographer Syllabus 2020
General Intelligence & Reasoning: It would include questions of both verbal and non-verbal type. The test will include questions on analogies, similarities and differences, space visualization, problem solving, analysis, judgment, decision making, visual memory, discriminating observation, relationship concepts, arithmetical reasoning, verbal and figure classification, arithmetical number series, non-verbal series etc. The test will also include questions designed to test the candidate's abilities to deal with abstract ideas and symbols and their relationship, arithmetical computation and other analytical functions.
General Awareness: Questions will be designed to test the ability of the candidate's general awareness of the environment around him and its application to society. Questions will also be designed to test knowledge of current events and of such matters of everyday observation and experience in their scientific aspects as may be expected of an educated person. The test will also include questions relating to India and its neighbouring countries especially pertaining to Sports, History, Culture, Geography, Economic scene, General Polity including Indian Constitution, and Scientific Research etc. These questions will be such that they do not require a special study of any discipline.
Note: For VH candidates of 40% and above visual disability and opting for SCRIBE there will be no component of Maps/Graphs/Diagrams/Statistical Data in the General Intelligence & Reasoning / General Awareness Paper.
English Language & Comprehension: In addition to the testing of candidates' understanding of the English Language, its vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, synonyms, antonyms and its correct usage, etc. his/her writing ability, would also be tested.


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f-cell Conference / WORLD OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS 2013: Marketing fuel cell vehicles with success
Automobile manufacturers are forging alliances in hopes of marketing fuel cell vehicles in the very near future. How well they succeed will be determined by a number of factors. Experts will be discussing these issues at the f-cell international fuel cell conference and trade fair in Stuttgart.
BMW, Daimler, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Volkswagen – the list of automobile manufacturers pursuing plans to market hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles has grown longer. Several producers are now planning to launch serial production as early as 2014/2015 or 2017.
International cooperation is essential – f-cell provides a platform for dialogue
A successful market launch will require more than just attractive vehicles. "The development of a broad-based hydrogen (H2) refuelling station infrastructure will be a crucial success factor. Therefore, political decision-makers, energy suppliers and automobile manufacturers need to pursue intensive international dialogue devoted to meeting the corresponding prerequisites," explains Prof. Dr. Herbert Kohler, Director, Group Research & Sustainability at Daimler AG. One platform for this dialogue is the annual f-cell fuel cell conference and trade fair. The event will take place under the umbrella of the "WORLD OF ENERGY SOLUTIONS" in conjunction with the BATTERY+STORAGE and e-mobil BW TECHNOLOGIETAG (technology day) conferences and trade fairs and the Solar Energy Solutions conference. More than 140 top-flight speakers from Germany, Belgium, China, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, Korea, Austria, Switzerland, South Africa and the U.S. will be reporting on a wide range of topics at the conferences.
The refuelling infrastructure: a prerequisite for market success
Without a sufficient number of public hydrogen refuelling stations the demand for electric cars equipped with fuel cells will remain low. Conversely, if only a few hydrogen powered vehicles are on the road in Germany, investing in an infrastructure will hardly be worthwhile – a classic chicken-or-egg problem. Therefore, automobile manufacturers, oil companies, gas suppliers and members of the political community have joined forces under the flag of the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) for the purpose of developing the necessary infrastructure. Fifteen publicly accessible hydrogen refuelling stations are already operating in Germany.
Long-term goal: 1,000 hydrogen refuelling stations in Germany
"We expect to have 50 stations in operation in Germany by 2015. They will be needed to serve the major metropolitan areas and the major traffic and transport routes in between," explains f-cell speaker Markus Bachmeier of Linde. "Linde is planning and building 20 of these stations in cooperation with Daimler. We're going to need about 150 hydrogen refuelling stations nationwide in the medium term and roughly 1,000 farther down the road." Japan has also set a target of 1,000 hydrogen refuelling stations. "According to estimates, two million fuel cell cars will be on the road in 2025. At that point, the refuelling stations will be able to operate economically," says Tetsufumi Ikeda from the HySUT initiative, who will also be speaking at the f-cell conference. Catherine Dunwoody of the California Fuel Cell Partnership reports that 68 hydrogen refuelling stations will be needed to serve the estimated 30,000 fuel cell vehicles marketed during the first commercial phase in California. Eight of these H2 stations are already open, and 14 more are currently in the planning phase.
Reducing costs through continuing development and standardization
A hydrogen refuelling station costs roughly one million EUR today. "Further advances in the development of expensive, failure-prone components such as accumulators, compressors and pre-coolers could contribute to reducing costs in future. By standardizing refuelling station concepts, we can also help lower costs and enhance reliability and user-friendliness at the same time," notes Dr. Manuel Schaloske of e-mobil BW. A study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) was recently released as part of the series of publications issued by the state agency and will be discussed by ISE expert Dr. Tom Smolinka at the f-cell conference.
Fuel cell buses: experience in Hamburg
For fuel cell buses that return to their base stations daily and refuel there, increasing the number of hydrogen refuelling stations is not the crucial issue. Heinrich Klingenberg will be reporting on experience gained by the Hamburg Public Transport Network with a new generation of fuel cell hybrid buses. These vehicles recover energy – during braking, for example – and store it in a battery that is capable of supplying the engine with electrical power for certain periods of time. "This reduces hydrogen consumption from twenty to eight kilograms per 100 kilometres," explains Heinrich Klingenberg, who initiated extensive testing of the precursor models.
Reducing costs, building a supply chain, generating user enthusiasm
In addition to the key theme of infrastructure development, this year's f-cell conference will also focus in several different forums devoted to a diverse range of other issues of relevance to the successful introduction of fuel cell vehicles to the market. International vehicle manufacturers including Daimler, BMW and Toyota will be presenting their current activities in the field of passenger vehicle technology. Other experts will be presenting successful pilot projects and innovations relating to fuel cell powered buses and lorries. In another session, speakers from Daimler, Ballard and Siemens will show how they are reducing the costs of fuel cell systems and building reliable supply chains for the required components.
The complete conference programme and further information are available at www.f-cell.de and www.world-of-energy-solutions.de.


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As we begin 2018 many of us make New Year resolutions. We might be resolving to change our diet, travel more, or finally read those books on our nightstand. One very important area of everyone's life we should consider organizing is our home office, and specifically where and how we store our important family documents and financial information.
Here are three ideas for organizing your important information:
1. "In Case of Emergency" Folder. If you handle the finances for your family, creating a backup folder of essential information is a reassuring resource for your loved ones in case anything happens to you. This folder can be an actual folder in a desk drawer or home safe, or a folder on the desktop of your computer.
Examples of information to include in this folder:
- Account numbers
- Login IDs and passwords
- List of bills you pay each month
- Investment and retirement fund info
- Medical info & ID chip numbers for pets
- Anything else…
2. Create an Inventory of the Contents of your home. 2017 was a year filled with too many reminders of how in a natural disaster or fire, we might only have minutes to get our loved ones out of the home.There might not even be time to grab family mementos or items of value. Take some time with your family to make a list, room by room, of the contents of your home. Take photos.If this project sounds too daunting, there are some Apps out there that can help you take a Home Inventory. For more information, check out these articles:
3. Create a 3-ring binder of all vital information and store in a heavy-duty water-resistant bag for easy grabbing in an emergency.
Items to include:
- Drivers licenses, birth certificates, passports, marriage licenses, etc.
- Insurance policies
- Real Estate deeds, auto/boat/RV registration & titles, household inventory
- Medical Information, including all prescriptions & dosages
- Estate planning documents
- Pet information
- And more…
May these tips bring you organization and peace of mind in the new year!
The article and opinions in this publication are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. We suggest that you consult your accountant, tax, or legal advisor with regard to your individual situation.


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Are You Already Marketing On The Internet?
Take a moment to think about how you would really answer this question, "Are You Already Marketing On The Internet?" If given enough thought, just about any business owner who utilizes the Internet for any purpose will likely find that whether or not they intentionally organized an Internet marketing campaign, they may already be marketing their products and services on the Internet. This article will examine some subtle ways business owners may already be marketing their business on the Internet.
Categories: Affiliate Training Tags: Customer Feedback, Free Affiliate Training, Internet Marketing, learn affiliate marketing, Post to Forums, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Super Affiliates
Free Affiliate Training – Get Blogging
Your Free Affiliate Training continues with this informative post about blogging and getting targeted traffic to your sites and blogs.


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Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
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|What tempeture does it freeze at?
|Freezes 0 degluis celsius
|What it turn into ?
|solid ice
|What substance dissolves?
|Calcium and Mangesium
|What happens when it freezes?
|Whats the checimal frouma for water?
|What the density?
|Ig/cm cubed
|What water molecules?
|Clings together forming bonds. More attacted to the container side than each other and this creates...
|What menisus layer?
|When it creates water molecules
|What is the test of water?
|Snhydrous Copper Sulphate white to blue Cobalt Chloride blue to pink
|What is screening?
|Pass through a grid or screen and remove large debris
|Settling in a tank add aluminium sulphate. Small particcles clump together?
|Passed throuugh sand and rocks filter beds Removes dirt
|Kill bacteria
|helps tooth decay
|Hard what is caused ....
|calcium and magnesium
|ions are?
|Calcium and chloride ion.
|What is insouble ?
|Rainwater acts on limewater because?
|to produce Calcium hydrocarbonate
|Dissolves calcium carbonate is
|Boiling Calcium Hydrocarborboneate turns
|Liquid to a solid.
|whats limesclae
|liquis to a solid
|Advanages of water
|Healthy bones and teeth tastes nicer goodbrewing
|disadvantages of water
|Blocks pipes produces lime scale Doesnt lather soap so it produce scum
|What is electroylsis
|use of electricity cause a checimal change
|what is used to split water
|Hofmann voltameter
Created by: Kbuttimer2018


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The Partners for Resilience (PfR) put their integrated approach and vision of community resilience into practice to improve the livelihoods of rural communities in Nicaragua. In the municipalities of San Lucas and Las Sabanas, their micro-projects consist of specific interventions and management actions, which combine Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) with Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Ecosystem Management and Restoration (EMR). The communities are directly involved in each phase of the micro-projects: from the risk analysis and design to the actual implementation.
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