text:
Verizon launched Exponent in February, promising to offer other operators a range of software and internet platforms. Exponent VP Brian Higgins gives us the lowdown on the new company
Eurocomms.com: What is Verizon's rationale for creating Exponent?
Brian Higgins: Like most communications service providers, Verizon sought to address OTT and other industry trends and grow revenue through investing in key emerging technology areas.
The available "buy" options did not meet our specific needs and were not scalable to our size.
However, once we built these platforms ourselves, we were getting requests from many service providers curious to know if there was an alternative to building it yourself - a more nimble and faster to deploy option.
That was the impetus behind why we decided to build Exponent and deliver software-based options for other services providers to deploy their own platforms.
Exponent's offering spans a wide range of technology areas – big data, AI, IoT, cloud, plus internet and media services. Are you taking on too much, too soon?
We carefully chose the areas for which we built platforms to address the challenges we were facing.
Today, we use many of the Exponent platforms within Verizon's own architecture, a real world environment with scale.
CSPs who become Exponent's customers can determine which areas are most important to them and can choose which of our platforms will help them reach their goals more quickly and with significantly less capital investment than if they were to build their own solutions.
Why should operators trust you more than other providers offering equivalent services?
Exponent's solutions were developed specifically for carriers, so operators can feel confident that our solutions will meet their needs.
In order to compete, carriers need to get solutions up and running quickly.
Exponent enables carriers to leverage our experience and not have to manage long development cycles, burning capital along the way and missing the opportunity for revenue growth now.
While other companies may offer point solutions, Exponent uniquely offers both end-to-end platform opportunities and modular point solutions that can be expanded for use cases.
Verizon has invested significantly in acquisitions in recent times. Was the plan always to leverage these technologies for carriers?
Verizon has had a consistent strategy for acquisitions – to drive network superiority and coverage, develop platforms aligning to the network and to provide innovative applications using those platforms.
Exponent is one way that we are leveraging the power of our platforms to provide solutions for the global carrier community and grow revenue for Verizon.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in bringing Exponent to market?
Exponent is basically a start-up within a Fortune 15 company, so our team needed to execute with agility and speed that is not expected from a big enterprise.
We went from business case to launch in seven months, showcasing our capabilities at Mobile World Congress to hit the ground running.
The fast pace is both a challenge and an opportunity.
At the core, rapid technology adoption and deployment (leveraging the benefit of the Verizon experience) is the key capability that we deliver to our customers.
Does Exponent plan to work with other partners to deliver services?
We will always seek the best solutions and will collaborate with others to achieve our goals as needed.
Our platform was designed with a high degree of interoperability, so we and our customers can incorporate other technologies and products where it makes sense to do so.
What are Exponent's goals over the next 12 months?
Our mission statement says: "Exponent helps the carrier community capitalize on new and emerging revenue opportunities, through revolutionary technology."
We will continue to bring innovation to this space so that we are all successful together.


text:
|Todd Farmer
I had a chance to catch up with Todd, and ask him some questions about Horror and the craft of screenwriting. Like the very best scribes in any genre, Todd is concerned, first and foremost, with respecting his characters, maintaining authenticity, and protecting the quality of his work from "the suits."
SH: You may be the only writer to write BOTH a Halloween movie and a Friday the 13th movie. To you, what are the differences between the character Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees? Do they behave differently beyond wearing a Shatner mask and Hockey mask, respectively?
|Michael - the sociopath
|Jason - the psychopath
SH: How is writing a horror movie different from writing other genres (Thriller, Action, Sci-Fi, Comedy, etc.)?
TF: While there's always an exception, the simplest way to define horror is to look at the villain's goal. If the villain's goal is to kill with a weapon other than a gun and/or eat the hero, then it's likely a horror. Any good horror will have elements of action and even comedy, but the line between horror and thriller is very fine. Silence of the Lambs, Se7en, Misery...thrillers as defined by agents and media but several have made the argument they are, in fact, horror. The distinction isn't story or character. The distinction is money. Production value and casting. And every year the line blurs a bit more.
While horror is funny and others push the boundaries of taste and morality, all horror should scare you. Either physically or psychologically. The misconception is that horror should be dumb. That the characters should be dumb. It and they should not. Horror should be treated with the same respect as every other genre. Moreso even as Horror tends to make more money than most other genres. Especially now.
|Todd Farmer Unmasked
SH: Where do most run-of-the-mill horror scripts fail?
TF: By disrespecting character and story. By disrespecting the audience.
When I started, horror was small and most studios looked down their noses at it. Dimension and New Line were your goto studios outside the indies. Most horror was written by n00bs because back then an A-Listers didn't filth themselves in the horror genre. What this meant was, many horror flicks were written by writers still in progress. As a result characters and stories suffered. Suddenly there was this misconception that horror should be dumb. Low brow. That only the lowest common denominator liked horror.
Then SCREAM came out. And SCREAM was not dumb. In fact, SCREAM changed all the rules. A movie that flopped its first weekend. Just over 6 million. But it went on to make over 100 million. Suddenly every production company and studio had a "genre" wing. Although even while cashing the checks it was a struggle for said companies to embrace the word "horror". But "horror" kept making money. Once the Williamson ripoffs ran their course, THE RING changed the game again. Then came torture porn. Then 3D which bled into all genres. Next came found footage, started years ago by Blair Witch and re-birthed by Paranormal Activity.
These days horror is getting respect in both character and story. You wanna see a screw up? Look at Devil Inside. (SPOILER) It's a good movie. A good horror. Without an ending. It was a cheat. Good story, great characters and sets ups that never pay off because of a gimmick. You think Paramount would dare end G.I.Joe the same way? "Hey! Let's go get the bad guys!" Fade to Black. Roll Credits. Nope. Because they would never dare disrespect the audience like that. But they'll do it with the horror genre.
SH: Why do you love horror movies?
TF: I don't. I love good stories and good characters. I love great movies that manage to survive the movie-by-committee, overdevelopment industry. I have no loyalty to a sports team. I appreciate talent. No loyalty to a political party. I appreciate intelligence. Nor do I have loyalty to a genre. I have loyalty to good story telling and good characters. That said, I am a champion of both horror and the audience. It annoys me greatly that so many studios are kept afloat due to horror, yet they refuse to acknowledge it publicly. When the bombs drop and the Revolution begins, I say we eat the suits first.
|Pinhead - preparing to make a "suit" suffer
SH: What are some little known horror films that have inspired your writing?
TF: Four tiny unheard of films have made me who I am: Jaws, Halloween, Alien and Aliens.
Smaller known. Hmm. In the Mouth of Madness. Audition. Suspiria. And Halloween III.
SH: What kinds of producer/executive notes can ruin a horror movie? What kind of notes can help?
TF: Ego notes are the worst. Some execs give notes because they think they have to give notes. It's transparent too because they cannot give you a logical reason. It's just this random note so that they can tell the wanna-be actress blowing them in their leased BMW, "See how Bruce Willis just climbed into that red car? Yeah, I said it should be red."
The best notes are notes that aren't at gun point. I'll take a good idea wherever I can get it. I have no ego. But film by committee is a moronic way to do it. Stories should have one storyteller. I prefer that storyteller be the director. Once in production the director should be King. Granted there are some not so great directors in positions of power but I'm currently trying to push legislation to have them all beheaded. The point is, a filmmaker should have the final say. Not an exec or producer or even the studio.
If you pay me to build a house, it's your money. I'll do what I can to make you happy but I will not sacrifice the structure of the house. Nor would you expect that. But execs don't think that way at all. While admitting they cannot write or direct they have no problems telling writers and directors what to write and what to direct with no concern for the structure of the house. "When it's your money, do what you want. When it's our money, do what we tell you."
|The Miner - My Bloody Valentine
SH: Do you write scripts in genres other than horror?
TF: Not often. It's frowned upon. Writers write. Story is story. Characters are characters. But the lazier agents/exes find it easier on themselves to put writers in labeled boxes. Notice though how those same agents/execs work on all genres. I love fantasy. Grew up reading it. Playing D&D after football games. Movies like Armageddon complete me. I consider Real Steel a sequel to Rocky. Fifth Element and Princess Bride and Lonesome Dove have dinner with Empire Strikes Back, The Freshman and Groundhog Day in casa de Farmer. I brush my teeth with Defending Your Life and go to bed with Ferris Bueller. And Lussier and I wrote Drive Angry which is a genre hard to define. While I do have non-genre stuff currently moving forward, I actually have no desire to ever fully leave horror.
SH: What is the single scene in one of your produced movies that you feel is the scariest?
TF: Hmm. Had to think about that one. The scene leading up the the nitrogen face freeze and smash in Jason X is a front runner, but I'd have to say the scene in My Bloody Valentine which begins with Frank meeting the Miner. We designed the top of the scene to be utter distraction. Complete with a little dog, a little person and lots of sex and nudity. The scene was designed to be so surreal that when Frank finally opens the door to his truck the last thing you expect is a pick axe. Just my opinion but that results in an additional 5 minutes of fear for a poor naked girl. And for the record, Betsy Rue, I heart you.
SH: What unproduced original screenplay of yours are you most proud of? What is it about?
TF: So many. I love everything I've written. Otherwise I wouldn't do it. I wrote a big budget time travel action with Bruce Willis. Loved it. Lussier and I wrote Three Days of the Condor in High School for Silver Pictures but we couldn't get it past the gatekeeper. I know without question Halloween 3D is a killer script. My first spec after Jason X was called Riddle Me This. A Thriller. Hensleigh was attached to direct years ago but the option ran out while he was making Punisher. But I haven't given up on any of these stories or characters.
Good story is good story, gatekeepers come and go. We just have to wait them out.
SH: After writing horror films for so long, do horror movies still scare you?
TF: Everything still scares me. The day nothing scares you is the day you should get out of horror.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
WeTeach Advanced
About this article
This article provides a description of WeTeach Advanced and the individual modules included in this course. The article is intended for all audiences.
WeTeach Advanced: Quality Online Course Design Workgroup
In this track we will be using Dr. Dee Fink's instructional design model and backwards design to help support your online course design. In this workgroup, you will spend the majority of your time designing or re-designing your course to meet all QM standards. There are three phases to Dr. Fink's Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning: Initial Design Phase, the Intermediate Design Phase, and the Final Design Phase. Each phase will have a series of online steps you will complete in D2L before meeting face-to-face (F2F) for a working lab session. There are also worksheets to help you implement your design. You can expect to meet F2F for about an hour at least four times during this the semester. The rest of the time will be devoted to self-paced online modules in D2L.
WeTeach Advanced Modules
Below is a description of each module.
Module 0: Pre-Course Information
This module will help you better understand your student audience. We will explore the situational factors affecting your course, including how many students are in the course, their technical abilities, and their prior subject knowledge.
Module 1: Peek Inside a QM Course & Learning Objectives
This module involves creating Course Level and Module/Unit Level Learning Objectives for your course. The F2F session will help you write Learning Objectives that are Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic, and Time-Bound. Participants will also get an opportunity to "peek" inside a Quality Matters recognized course during this session.
Module 2: Alignment & Assessment
This module will introduce you to Backward Course Design, the importance of alignment and creating a module-level matrix. We will also discuss the difference between "Course Design" and "Course Delivery" in our F2F session. This module will also include identifying assignments that align with your stated learning objectives. After drafting learning objectives for one module/unit/week of your online course you will begin to identify learning materials that align with these learning objectives and support your module/unit/week assessments.
Module 3: Instructions & Evaluation
This module will introduce you to interactive learning activities that you can integrate into the D2L Discussion Board tool. Many of the activities can be done in small groups if you have a large class size. You will also explore how to create different engaging learning activities using a "pedagogy wheel" and active learning activities in our F2F session. This module we will also show you practical and fundamental skills you will need to produce high-quality and polished recorded lectures. In this F2F session you will learn what makes a clear and engaging recorded lecture, how to fine-tune your delivery, what to capture and best practices from the broadcast industry and on-air presence and producing shorter more compelling recorded lectures.
Module 4: D2L Course Shell & Technology
This module will introduce you to several courses that have met Quality Matters Standards in a formal external Quality Matters course review. In the F2F session we will review several courses with a variety of course structures and highlight how they met several standards. We will also discuss how to incorporate items in the introduction module of your course to meet several of the standards under General Standard 1: Course Overview and Introduction. Participants will also share their completed roadmap during the F2F session.


text:
- Online Garden Centre Employee Training
Training employees to offer better customer service, know the products you offer, and understand customer needs and sales.
- Landscape Industry Certification
Expand Your Credentials – The Landscape Industry Certified Program for professionals across Canada
- Canadian Landscape Standard (CLS) First Edition
The Canadian Nursery Landscape Association and the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects are pleased to announce the release of the Canadian Landscape Standard (CLS) First Edition. For the first time, there is a national guideline to set the standard of landscape work in every province across the country
- Seminars for Ontario's green industry
Landscape Ontario's many Professional Development offerings help you gain skill, earning power and efficiency and enjoy your job more.
- Commercial pesticide certification


text:
So I'm beginning to lose inspiration and every time I read my past posts I can't help but cringe at my… cringyness. In an attempt to immerse myself into the wonderful world of WordPress and hopefully combat my writers block, for the next seven days I shall be posting about my day.
This could be boring for you.
This could be embarrassing for me.
However, I'll try to keep the posts short and simple (just how I like my men… wait, what?).
I woke up at 9AM this morning for a dentist appointment. Oh golly, this is already bleak… Bare with me. 9AM is a pretty big deal for me on account of the fact that I'm a lazy teenager and it's semester break and it's cold outside (so naturally I'm quite the sloth).
I've decided I'm going to have my teeth whitened. This impulsive decision has made me realize that I spend money on the most peculiar things. I'm still kind of grieving over last months $200 haircut. I need to do some serious life-reassessments.
After the appointment, I met some ol' pals for lunch. We sat down at a nice looking cafe and ordered water for the table. At a closer inspection of the menu, we discovered that pricing was way out of our league. By a good $10. So we made the combined decision to dash out, despite the fact that one of my friends went to high school with the waitress that had served us the water. Awkward.
Before we went our separate ways, I initiated a group hug (there were 3 of us) and didn't let go for a good thirty seconds. I thoroughly enjoy making my friends feel embarrassed in public.
I had my runners (trainers, sneakers, gym shoes… whatever you'd like to call them) In my bag so I decided it would be an appropriate time to break my exercise drought and return to the gym once and for all. Plus, I have been getting repeated text messages from the gym reminding me of my laziness. I was going to take them up on the free personal training session offer and book an appointment after my workout today but there was a fairly attractive man behind the desk and I was afraid he'd judge me for being lazy. But then again… hot guy… he could potentially be the personal trainer… and the personal training session could end with some hands-on stretching. Okay, my mind is wandering now.
I went pretty hard at the gym and I'm going to be pissed if I don't wake up tomorrow morning feeling the pang in my abs and arms. You know what they say… pain is weakness leaving the body.
This evening I babysat for a few hours so I got to watch some cake shows on pay TV. That was pretty sweet. When I got home I ate a pear and watched tonight's episode of Offspring. (Offspring is an Australian comedy-drama centred around the life of an obstetrician, her awkward love life and her chaotic family. Maybe I'm biased, but it's one of my favorite T.V shows at the moment… tears and laughter and the whole sh'bang are induced with each episode.)
So that was my Wednesday.


text:
BlinkOCR works on:
* Autofocus is preferred but not required. On devices without autofocus, OCR quality will be very poor (only very large clear text can be scanned on these devices).
** BlinkOCR on Android supports arm64-v8a, x86 and armeabi-v7a with NEON extensions. Armeabi-v7a CPU's without NEON extensions (e.g. NVIDIA Tegra 2) are not supported.
*** Some Android devices are problematic for BlinkOCR due to hardware or software bugs in device itself. BlinkOCR either does not work on them at all or works, but not optimal. Here is a list of problematic devices:
- LG P350 (LG Pegan)
- problematic because it says it supports autofocus, but crashes when autofocus is requested from camera
- HTC Wildfire
- the image produced by its camera is of too low quality to perform successful recognition
- Nexus 10 (2012)
- if running Android 4.3, Android 4.4 or Android 5.0, it has a bug in camera driver causing camera inaccessible to all apps after performing recognition
- this bug has been fixed in Android 5.1 and was not present in Android 4.2


text:
For Albert Einstein the answer to the question is there a God was a simple one, "There has to be a God," he said, "because nothing creates nothing," but as to the answer to the question, why is there evil in the world that was far more difficult. Albert could not reconcile the Judeo/Christian God of love with all the evil and suffering that exists in the world, and so it is with many today. Where does evil come from and why does a holy God permit evil to exist; these are two questions that should not be taken lightly, and a glib answer is certainly not worthy of such a weighty matter. I think that most would agree that not until problems surface in our lives do we give much consideration to finding the answers to the most important questions; for this reason God says in His word, "Sorrow is better than laughter, because sober reflection is good for the heart." Ecclesiastes 7:3. If there were no problems in our lives would we care much about the origin of life, how to know God, how we should live, and is there a judgment to come? Would morality even be an issue if there were no death in the world? I can say unequivocally of this present generation there is far too little faith even in the existence of God let alone in a personal and loving God to consider the meaning of life. People love prosperity preachers who tell them how to have their best life now, but in reality sorrow is part of everyone's life, and with no exceptions. A person who goes to church in order to ease their conscience, find comfort for a present sorrow, obtain hope in a present circumstance, or get pumped for a happy life is not seeking truth but something much more selfish. Any preaching that does not change the way people think is not good or Biblical; so on the one hand there is the quality of the messenger and his message and on the other the listener and his motive. We should first consider seriously whether or not we are seeking truth before we judge if what we hear is the truth. Ask yourself a couple of questions, do I desire truth for the truth's sake or do I have an ulterior motive, and am I willing to negotiate the truth for a fantasy to make myself feel better even though it is not reality? Next it is important to judge whether or not we have a mind of our own or we have to follow the crowd; the masses are seldom right concerning the really important issues. Ask most people what is important in life and what will they tell you; in life the one who ends with the most toys wins; eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die; education will fix the world, and a host of other "truisms" that are anything but true. The truth is the one who ends with the most toys ends up dead and death is never a win; the one that eats, drinks, and is merry for tomorrow they die does not stop to count the cost of eternal judgment; the one who believes that education will fix the world has not considered that in the last and most educated century more than 2.3 billion people were murdered. The masses of men live for today and are not concerned about eternal matters, they deny the existence of the one true God by words and/or works, they are extremely nearsighted when it comes to suffering, and they care not for the truth when it has a cost. Put the thinking of the masses aside, the lies of false teachers, and the selfish motives of your own heart and consider the wisdom of the wisest man of all time according to God. "I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity (a vapor, a passing breath) and striving after wind." Ecclesiastes 1:14 "And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." Ecclesiastes 1:17, 18 "I said to myself, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself." And behold, it too was futility." Ecclesiastes 2:1 "The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I know that one fate befalls them both." Ecclesiastes 2:14 "So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind." Ecclesiastes 2:17 "I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him." Ecclesiastes 3:14 "I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and striving after wind." Ecclesiastes 4:4 "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity." Ecclesiastes 5:10 All of the previous observations by Solomon have one thing in common; they consider all the ways of man in light of the undeniable truth that all life ends in death and it is death that makes all of life for man futile, vain, worthless, and senseless. The man who places all his hopes in this life will without a doubt be disappointed and he is also called a fool by God, "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." Again, some say there is a God but those words are meaningless if the person does not live accordingly. Therefore, in order to understand the truth, what it is, and how it functions one must first understand something about himself; we must understand that we are naturally given to fantasy, we avoid the truth because it hurts too much, we do not wish to look at the reality of death because we do not want to face it, we would rather imagine that we are going to live forever, and this we do even though we know all things die. Only when we face the reality of our own willful ignorance and our denial of the truth can we then hope to see the true truth, which leads us to the matter of evil.
Evil is ubiquitous; there is not a place on earth where it cannot be found because it resides in the hearts of all men. Moral standards differ from person to person, some people would not hurt a fly, while others will kill their mother to get what they want, some people suck society dry of every resource they can for completely selfish purposes, while others give their lives to secure their nation from external evils, however, the Bible says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23. Some men do evil, feel guilty about it initially, rationalize their evil behavior, and become increasingly evil and desensitized to their evil as time passes; other men by following the good traits of their parents and/or peers establish good behavior, which they continue doing all their lives even though evil resides within their hearts. Evil can be clearly observed in the fact that finite men question the justice and love of the eternal God. We all begin as innocent and ignorant infants knowing nothing about the universe in which we live, and within just a few short years become critical of Almighty God. We can stand in pride if we so desire and think that we know better than God but in reality God knows infinitely more than we do and He has planned that the world work the way that it does at this point in time.
The hearts of men cannot be judged properly by the circumstance they are experiencing at any given time, Jesus said of those who want to follow Him,
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 5:45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Matthew 5:44, 45
In this life good and evil befalls both the righteous and the unrighteous, (I have not clarified who is righteous) therefore, it is impossible to know who is who by circumstances, and to focus on what is fair is also an exercise in futility. Fair is not the issue at hand because harsh consequences befall all men in an evil world and there is no way of judging why some live very pain filled lives when compared to others who live the highlife. Some live the "good life" and others suffer terribly but in the end all die; so one fate befalls all people so far as the end of this earthly life is concerned. God is holy, therefore, He has woven evil consequences into an evil world, He has done this for many reasons and the least of which is to warn men about the coming judgment of their souls. The all important question that needs to be answered by each one of us is not, why is the world so unfair but how will it work out for me in the judgment?
The important truth to know is that evil exists in the world and that it resides in the hearts of all men, as stated before, "For all have sinned…" All men experience hardships, broken relationships, sickness, personal loss, the death of friends and family, and most importantly we all die. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death…" and so death gives us the answer to the question, "are we guilty enough before God to be punished?", and the answer is yes. Why do we die? Because we sin, dishonor, rebel, and deny God's existence by our self-centered behavior. Ask yourself this question, "Does God's will always supersede my own?" If the answer is not a resounding yes, you are guilty enough to go into eternal punishment. The issue at hand is not petty thefts, white lies, sins that hurt no one but ourselves, but every sin that is done from a proud heart that says in effect, "I do not care about God, what He wills, why He created me, but only that I get my way and if not God can drop dead." Every sin that proceeds from a heart that says such things, no matter how small it may seem to be, is evil enough to deserve God's just punishment; and all people possess that kind of a sinful heart, and as a result bear the consequences of death.
There is a spiritual death that all men experience because of sin, which is alienation from the life of God and results in blindness to the existence of the one true God, which is why people worship false gods. In such a state of death a person can know facts about God but they do not know Him, which is why prayer is cold, callous, and lacking the warmth that only comes through friendship. There is also a physical death, which results in the separation of the soul from the body; the body departs to a place of torment, which the Bible calls hell, there to await the final judgment. There is eternal death, which awaits all men that have not come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ; eternal death begins after the final judgment, when men are made to see clearly the reason for their punishment, the reality of their sin, and the perfect justice of God.
If you are not convinced as to the evil state of your own soul ask yourself this question "Is it possible for me to completely forgive others for the harm they inflict upon me?" Think of all the aggravating little things that happen in the course of a day and how you react to them, someone cuts you off while driving, a coworker make a spiteful remark about your work performance, a family member talks bad about you behind your back and then denies it, etc. How long does it take for you to stop thinking about how you've been mistreated, wronged, and the meanness of the other person? And can you completely put it all behind you and never bring it up again – even in your own mind?
God says through the writer to the Hebrews, "Your sins and evil deeds I will remember no more," which is a quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34. Are you on a par with God? If God were to judge you by the standard He lives up to, how would it work out for you? Do you really think that God will judge mankind by the standards that sinful men set and would you want to live in a universe with those standards? If you think you don't know what such a universe would look like just look around you!
The truth about evil is that it exists and everyone knows it; even in this post modern society where people believe in the subjectivity of truth and morals let evil come upon them and they will cry for justice like everyone else. It is easy to sweep away evil in our conversation but it is extremely difficult to do so in the face of harm inflicted upon loved ones, women, and children. It takes a very hard and insensitive conscience to dismiss evil when you stand over the body of a child crushed under a building destroyed by a terrorist's bomb.
The Bible does not present God as One who sweeps sin and evil under the proverbial rug, in fact, it has much to say about God's justice that emanates from His perfect righteousness; the end result of God's justice is the penalty of sin, which the Bible calls the wrath of God. It is important to understand that the Bible does not present righteousness as something external to God or something that God conforms to; righteousness originates in God. God is the source of all things and that includes morality, the problem is that as a fallen human race we are too proud to acknowledge God as the all-powerful, supreme, and all-knowing creator of all things. It is first necessary to correct our proud and sinful condition with repentance.
"Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." Acts 2:38a
Only when we are willing to see the truth about our evil hearts and the righteous wrath of God that hangs over us like a watching judge ready to lower the gavel against us, will we then be able to acknowledge the truth about ungodly and godly sorrow.
Because we live in a fallen world we all experience pain and the sorrow that it produces, and the questions I want to answer in regard to our sorrow are these, to what end and for what purpose is our sorrow? With these questions in mind let us consider four kinds of sorrow characterized in the Bible: 1) Synthetic Sorrow, 2) Suicidal Sorrow, and 3) Sincere Sorrow, 4) God's Sorrow.
Just below the surface synthetic sorrow is not real, it is exemplified in Saul, the first king of Israel, who when confronted by Samuel the prophet for having disobeyed the Lord by sparing the best of the Amalakites and not destroying them totally responded in a dishonest manner. At first he told Samuel that he was obedient but it was because of fear of the people that he disobeyed, so not only was he insincere but he also contradicted himself. When caught in his own lie he confessed that he sinned, "I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord" 1 Samuel 15:24, 25. Saul's worship was as insincere as his sorrow; he was no doubt sorry that he got caught, but he justified himself by shifting the blame to the people he had authority over, and then without any inward reflection over what he had done wanted instant pardon. Such sorrow can be painful but it is in no way godly.
Another kind of sorrow noted of in the bible is suicidal because the possessor chooses to check out of his circumstances, which can be done in various ways. This sorrow is best exemplified in Judas Iscariot the infamous disciple of Jesus, who upon betraying the Son of God felt sorrow for what he had done and went out and hanged himself. The only thoughts in Judas mind that are given to us are found in Matthew's Gospel,
"Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 27:4 saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But they said, "What is that to us? See to that yourself!" 27:5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself" 23-25.
We are told that Judas saw that he was condemned, but we are not told by whom, was he condemned by the disciples as they peered at him while Jesus was beaten and taken from them by force? Most likely it was the voice of his own conscience crying from within that told Judas that he had sinned against the most innocent blood of all. The conscience is given by God to warn us that we are doing wrong; we can only wonder in the three previous years how many warnings Judas received from his own conscience as he pilfered money from a poor band of men and women who followed Jesus and called him friend. The only answer that his hardened heart could devise for his act of betrayal was suicide; Judas did not receive the love that Christ offered him for three years and as a result he could not and would not repent of his dastardly deed in a godly way. In the mind of Judas there was no escape for what he had done, not even in the manner of King Saul, the only recourse left to him to relieve his pain, or so he thought, was to end his life. The Scriptures, however, tells us of a far better way to clear our conscience.
Up to this point, we have not considered any good thing produced in the hearts of men as a result of the first two types of sorrow; there is, however, associated with the third kind of sorrow the outworking of God's love and mercy that produces in the believer gentleness, a hunger for what is right, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, and a willingness to suffer in order to see God's kingdom built. The person who possesses these attributes Jesus called blessed during His famous Sermon on the Mount, and only those who possesses such characteristics in their fullness will live in His coming kingdom, which will endure forever. The third kind of sorrow is sincere because the possessor takes full responsibility for his/her sins, and acknowledges that life in a fallen world is the result of every man's sins, including his own. When I see a dear lying dead by the side of the road I cannot help but think that it is my sin (in an indirect way) that caused its death, as the Scripture says,
"For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now" Romans 8:22.
In this suffering I sorrow, and such a sorrow can only be produced by God; this sorrow is best exemplified in the story of Peter, the Lord's leading disciple. Like Judas Peter was weak when Jesus needed him be strong; Jesus asked Peter to pray with Him as He agonized in the garden. Later that night Peter forsook and denied Christ, he cursed and said he did not know him, but unlike Judas he went out and wept violently and grieved over his evil deeds, he repented of the evil in his heart, and once again looked in faith to Christ for his salvation. A true Christian can deny Christ, but his actions, attitudes, and words will always become very grievous to him and by the grace of God he will mourn over them to the point of repentance.
The first attitude necessary according to Jesus for blessing is poverty, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Why poverty? Because only the poor ask for a hand out, the rich have need of nothing; because only the poor receive the transforming love of God, the rich seek a way out by their own means even when there is none; and only the poor can experience godly sorrow, the rich either do nothing wrong (in their own mind) or they check out in one way or another.
When God created all things He did so knowing full well what it would cost Him to make His creation complete in Christ. Nowhere can we observe (in a very limited way) the cost of God's love illustrated better than at the cross and the time leading up to it. Just prior to Jesus' arrest and trial He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, where we read in the Bible,
"And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground."
In the most picturesque way God revealed to us the agony of Christ as the source of true life, for as rain falls down upon the ground with life-giving water, even so, the Son of God is pictured as watering the ground with His own life-giving blood. The Bible says in Leviticus 17:11 that the life is in the blood, and Christ's sweat was like drops of life falling to the ground; the agony that caused Him to sweat was His having to become the sacrificial lamb, so that, the sins of His people might be placed upon Him, so that, His righteousness would be placed upon them. Why the substitution?
God planned to make man in His image, that is, man would be like God, one with God, an exact representation of God and yet not God and fully aware that He is not God, otherwise he would commit idolatry and sin. For the answer to this dilemma God predestined the fall and salvation in Christ (Ephesians 1) at the cost of His only begotten Son, and even though the work of salvation was accomplished in three hours upon the cross, His role as High Priest and intercessor for His people is eternal; that is love and holiness. God will not have sin in His universe and so He had to secure man in the holiness that exists in Christ; man had to become one with Christ, devoted to Christ, and united to Christ. In union with Christ there is the shared love of the Father and the Son, their devotion to each other, their reverence, respect for each other, and a share in their glory.
The cost for this share in God was the Son of God. God is holy and therefore hates and abhors sin and yet of Him we are told,
"He who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" 2 Corinthians 5:21.
If you want to relate in a minuscule way how Christ felt about putting on our sin just think how you would feel to become a cancer, cow manure, or leprosy, but even in that illustration there is no awareness of evil, which was the greatest concern for Christ. Christ became the very thing He hates and detests the most so that we could be free of sin, its bondage, blindness, and behavior.
Furthermore, what God did in taking on our sin He did as He hung upon the cross when the world went completely dark and Jesus was cast out of God's presence and endured the just punishment for all those for whom He died. Christ suffered an eternity of punishment in just three hours upon the cross, an accomplishment in itself that only God could bring to pass. Every sin in thought, motive, action, and word was placed upon the Son of God, with all the presence that a guilty conscience can produce, and the wrath that a Holy God can impart. Only the person that accepts man's evil rebellion, God's justifiable wrath, and His plan of salvation can also believe in God's sacrificial and benevolent love, which leads us to the truth about the love of God.
If you made it this far and survived the doctrine of evil, the wrath of God, and godly sorrow you probably have serious reservations about God's love. You may be thinking in your mind, what kind of a plan could possibly be good enough to warrant such suffering for thousands of years and then punishment by God's wrath for eternity? In order to accept the truth about such an emotionally charged problem, one would have to be willing to step outside themselves momentarily, put on another person's proverbial shoes, and see things from another point of view, that is – God's vantage point.
The first and most important truth that a truth seeker needs to consider is that God is not like men.
"God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" Numbers 23:19
There is an infinite distance between the ways of men in general and Almighty God; this truth is difficult to see in this present world where man is the center of attention, error is an intricate part of our lives, unfaithfulness is as common as a blade of grass, and enemies as prevalent as there are people. Furthermore, there is an equally infinite distance between the way we love each other and God loves us. We are always selfish in our love, we love those who love us and hate those who hate us, and it may have absolutely nothing to do with right and wrong. Two brothers can get on each other's nerves simply because they do things differently, how they spend their time, choose their friends, and treat their parents, and all their lives be rivals and antagonistic to one another. God is not petty, never majors on the minors, but to the contrary there are no minors with God; He alone is triumphant in all He does. If a person proves himself to be truly giving, unselfish, and altruistic in this world he is elevated to the status of hero and goes down in history as something quite unique, and that he is. Many people do kind things for others, but most people do not live their lives for others, sell all they have and give it to feed the poor, or forsake their careers in order to help as many as they can; this world is just not filled with that kind of benevolent people.
Unlike man God needs nothing and no one; He is never alone or lonely. God is three and yet one; God is referred to in the Bible distinctly as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; each one is a distinct person and yet there is one God. The Father loves the Son and determined to make Him the head of all creation; the Son loves the Father and has submitted to His will and to give Himself for His chosen people throughout eternity; the Holy Spirit works along with the Father and the Son in the work of creation and salvation, He inspired the written word, and gave glory to the Father and the Son. Hence, in the Godhead there is perfect love and unity and at the same time a selfless devotion to the other persons of the Trinity.
Therefore, God is always completely content and in need of nothing or no one. To believe that the trinity is true according to the Bible one only need read the introductions and salutations to the New Testament books, there you will see Father, Son and Holy Spirit referred to as three separate persons of the one God. Therefore, the God who created all things had absolutely no need of anything He created; He did not need you and He did not need me, but He created us completely out of His own loving heart and benevolent Spirit. Furthermore, all the grief that God experienced since the beginning of the world because man sinned, He need never feel. Here is the dilemma, God does all things well, He does nothing half-fast so to speak, and He planned to make man in His own image, to reveal His glory in and to man, so that he could understand it. Now, if you think that it is easy, simple, and there should be no need of pain for God to reproduce Himself in His creation, then maybe you should be God. However, since none of us are God we all need to take God at His word concerning the things that He says about Himself and His plan in creation. God had to make man devoted to Himself alone because equal devotion to any other is idolatry and sin; God had to make man love Him with all His mind, heart, soul, and strength because love for another is idolatry and sin; God had to make man fully dependent upon Him with a faith that is unshakeable and eternally secure because dependence upon any other is idolatry and sin. Do you see the dilemma?
The answer to the dilemma was the sacrifice of Christ. The creation had to put on Christ and by identification with Him, in an intimate and loving union become one with God, so that man could and would think, will, and feel as Christ, who is God and man. Such identification is clearly revealed throughout Holy Scripture, but is nowhere more clearly declared than in Jesus' High Priestly prayer recorded in John 17; I will give just a few excerpts.
"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" John 17:3.
To know God in this way is to know Him personally, not just to know facts about Him, but to have personal knowledge of Him, to be friends and not hostile to Him, which is only made possible through the sufferings of Christ.
"For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth"
John 17:19.
To sanctify is to be set apart for a holy purpose, so what Christ said is this, I set myself apart for the holy purpose of God, which is to make a people set apart for the same holy purpose. Here in lies the identification I speak of, Christ is making a people one with Himself, so that they may live in God, His truth, holiness, goodness, humility and all His glorious attributes. There has always been a holy unity between the Father and the Son, and it is this unity that is created in a people that Christ has saved by His eternal sacrifice,
"I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity," John 17: 23.
Just as the Son dwells in His people, the Father dwells in the Son, so that God's people may be perfected in Divine unity. To be in Christ is like being in a house, it's a place to take up residence, find security, rest, and a place to call your own. To be in Christ is to call Him your own, make Him your own, or rather to be made His own by His will. Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself" John 12:32. It is the love of Christ that draws men to Him, and in that love there is rebirth, repentance, God given faith, and a holy union between God and men. The love of God undoes the evils of this present world by creating in men a holy union with God and between each other.
"Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are" John 17:11.
What makes the world the way it is? Each man goes his own way without concern for others, he looks out for himself and his own, and there is an unholy selfishness in the world to mass proportions and even within individual families. God set out to undo all selfishness, self-centeredness, and hatred of men by sending Christ into the world who Himself lived completely unselfish, unto the Father's will, and for His glory and pleasure. When Christ died He took the evil of men into the grave and when He rose from the dead He brought up from the grave His own devotion to and union with the Father God, which is imparted to His people. In this union with His people the last part of verse 11 is fulfilled, "that they may be one even as We are." The name that God keeps his people in is the name Lord; at the name of Jesus, which is Lord, every knee shall bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. When all men bow to the same Lord and fulfill all the same loving decrees, commands, and desires then they are one. When I live to love the Lord, and obey only Him and if you do the same then and only then are we in agreement, herein is divine and human unity fulfilled in the same person – Jesus Christ. If all of this is hard to swallow you need a God given faith.
Saving faith is the act of taking God at His word, or believing that God is good and all men are evil by rejecting Him, and then comes the really difficult part of the good news message; all men are under the condemnation of God but He chose to redeem some out of mercy, which means those who get into heaven do so by grace and not their own good works.
Furthermore, those who suffer under God's wrath are left to do so by His will, so that, God shows mercy on whom He will and He condemns whom He will and faith accepts that truth as right. God is right in condemning some, just as He would be completely justified if He were to condemn all because all of us are guilty enough to be condemned.
"What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 9:23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory."
Romans 9:22, 23
Godly faith does not question what God does, in other words, faith does not deny that God is God but submits with full humility to his sovereign will. By faith saved people see God as He is through self revelation in His holy Word, and they can believe exactly how God reveals Himself because saved people have come to believe in Him on a personal basis. When a person is born again his spirit is brought back to life and by that life he believes in cooperation with God who has become believable, intimate, and literally larger than life.
"He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit," Titus 3:5
"And Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life." Matthew 19:28, 29
"that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth." Ephesians 4:22-24
"Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, 1:23for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God."
1 Peter 1:22, 23
Do you have saving faith?


text:
Goodbye, Texas
by thoughtsatlarge
We moved to Texas seeking medical treatment for my wife. I found the people friendly and honest, the streets clean and free from potholes, and the weather devoid of snow. We were renting our home in Spring, about 30 minutes north of downtown Houston. We arrived in town just in time for Hurricane Ike to hit; fortunately, we didn't suffer any damage. Treatment at M. D. Anderson was going well and my wife was responding to the chemotherapy. Her surgery had been a success and she was enduring the radiation as best she could. The kids were freshmen in high school and adapting well to the new "normal" in our lives. Their grades remained high and they immersed themselves in extracurricular activities such as theater and debate.
Following Lisa's successful treatment and a declaration that the doctors could find no further trace of cancer, we packed up our belongings and made the long ride back to Rhode Island, our home, and the friends and neighbors we had known forever. Nine months passed and we were readjusting to our life in Rhode Island when the news came, following her third follow-up appointment, that the cancer had returned. We determined that we were too far from the hospital and all of the medical expertise and technology that M. D. Anderson could bring to bear so we put our beloved house on the market and moved to Texas permanently. We bought a house, again in Spring, and re-enrolled the kids in the same high school. However, this time, the glossy varnish of southern hospitality wore thin to show an ugly side of Texas. Say what you will about northerners, but we have a thick skin and a good sense of humor when it comes to handling adversity. The same cannot be said about Southerners, or perhaps some Texans in particular.
The ugliness appeared after the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in December of 2012. Driven to action, I began reading and reaching out. What I found was a gun culture enmeshed with religious self-righteousness that defied understanding or explanation. Rather than agreeing that something needed to be done to prevent another mass shooting I found a society determined to double down on protecting the guns instead of the children and then watched as the Texas legislature passed several pro-gun laws, including open carry and campus carry. As I spoke before democratic groups, I found tepid approval of my message or blank silence. I felt as though I had been transported back to the Wild West of the 1850's. Fortunately, I met the most wonderful mothers from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. They began speaking at the same meetings I was being asked to speak at, and they were kindred spirits in gun-crazy Texas. Together, we made the rounds speaking out and protesting easy access to guns, including protesting outside the NRA Annual Paranoia Jamboree held in Houston several years ago.
Now, perhaps my initial illusion of southern hospitality was misplaced. Perhaps I saw what I wanted to see, perhaps I had bought into the travel brochure's salesmanship and had assigned characteristics to all of the people here before they had earned them. However, the fact remained that I was seeing people all over who flared with road rage at the slightest infraction (even though they were usually at fault!) and the initial kindness I saw displayed was revealed to be a thin veneer beyond which an angry populace lived. Again, perhaps it was my fault that I expected kindness to go along with their initial genteel hello. However, the initial hello was shallow and provided no shelter to the storm of their real feelings, especially to someone from "up north." The least informed tend to have the firmest convictions, and here the stupid were downright rigid in their unexamined beliefs.
As Lisa continued to fight against the ravenous cancer, we came to an understanding of the culture in which we found ourselves and tried to make the best of it. I attempted to let go of the mixed up anger I had at both the people and our situation, especially as it became evident that the cancer was killing my wife. When she died, part of my world became frozen in time. I cannot convey in words what telling my kids was like. The pain is too real.
And yet, as we close in on our moving date to move back to Rhode Island, less my wife and my dog who cancer finally took over the past nine months, I have a soft spot in my heart for Texas and the medical center here that brought us seven years together we would otherwise not have enjoyed. Granted, it's not a big soft spot. Along the way, I have met good friends at work. My job has been fantastic to me, and their kindness, compassion, and comfort have made this situation a little more bearable. Nothing can break the pain I have associated with Texas as the place where Lisa drew her last, labored breaths and where we had to put our beloved dog down because of his cancer pain. Nothing can change the past nine months and the grief we have endured. My heart is shattered, but we are going home where we belong. We will be going to a new town for us, but back to a culture we understand.
The last chapter of our Texas odyssey is being written, and the kids and I are in a mad packing frenzy right now as the truck is soon to be on its way to pack all of our belongings and take them to our new home. The kids have graduated from college (with honors), a true testament to their work ethic and determination and are scheduled to apply to graduate school in the fall. Samantha has been challenged to apply the design lessons she learned from Lisa and school to the new house. God knows I don't have a clue! We will make the most of our home while the kids research the grad schools and work on their portfolios. I'll be working out of the house and trying to balance a new social life. A new chapter is beginning, and we will do our best to live up to the expectations Lisa set for us. Texas will soon be behind us, home to immeasurable pain. The pain will travel with us to Rhode Island, but a new beginning carries with it the hope of better days ahead. Goodbye, Texas.


text:
Process impovement
Deploying technologies
Business analysis
Change management
Project management
We are a consulting company specialized in innovation and management.
Our mission is to deliver knowledge and innovation through experienced professionals.
Our vision and main goal is the creation of specifically dedicated solutions to promote innovatoin.
We share best practices from different industries


text:
Audible makes audio books more convenient than most other sources thanks to its integration with Amazon Kindle, but it was not very convenient for Android Auto users until now. The app has finally been updated for Google's car interface, but there are a few other notable improvements too.
- Playback speed – you can now fine tune playback speed between 0.5x to 3x
- Android Auto support
- Store – easier access to your wish list, best sellers, categories and pre-orders
If you have an Android Auto unit, you'll see Audible in the list of media apps. It looks more or less like all the other Auto apps with the playback bar and nav menu. You have access to the skip forward/back functions and play/pause on the main screen. This is essentially par for the course with Auto apps.
Also in the updated app, you get playback speed adjustments between 0.5X and 3X. That'll speed things along if you're a voracious reader/listener. The updated app is live in the Play Store if you want to grab it. As usual, Audible offers a free book if you sign up for a trial.


text:
Check the competition section.
The V.5 Intro competition is launched...
Po. Prune wrote::claps:
Ok! Today is September 15. Not only is it Battle of Britain day, but it's also the last day for sending your Intro Comp game to me.
So far I have received 2 games...
Return to News and Announcements
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests


text:
This is not an offer for credit and should be used for estimation purposes only based on the information you provided. You should not base your decision on this estimate alone. Title, registration, tax and other fees, and personal circumstances such as employment status and personal credit history, were not considered in the calculations.
The Ferris® 400S zero turn mower is the best of both worlds. On a compact, entry level body the 400S is able to navigate tight areas without sacrificing commercial grade attributes. A large fuel capacity, hefty drive tires for added traction and a dual drive system sets the 400S far above the competition.
Forward - 0-8 mph
Reverse - 0-4 mph
Caster Tires - 11 X 4-5 pneumatic
Drive - 20 X 10-10
Deflector Down - 59 in.
Deflector Up - 53 in.
Engine - 3-Year Manufacturer's Limited (36 month)
Balance of Machine - 4-Year Limited (48 months) or 500 hours, whichever occurs first.


text:
Sam Sez
Question: "Full Faith and Credit?"
Answer: There is ongoing erosion in faith that impacts credit.The United States and other countries abandoned the gold standard years ago. This abandonment allowed monetary authorities to print quantities of money without a connection to a standardized unit for commerce and finance. Similarly, fiscal authorities could spend money that was not tied to such units. This eliminated many checks and balances or financial constraints. These actions also spurred imbalances and inefficiencies. Arcane terms are often tossed about with little transparency or clear explanations as to actuality. For example, fractional reserve lending and monetary series sounds profound but it is another way of stating a leveraged financial system for both money and credit. Likewise, monetary multipliers magnify the impacts of good or bad decisions. A simple example of the erosion in faith and credit is the metallurgical reduction of copper in a penny or one-cent coin. If one cannot preserve the value of a penny, how can it be expected to maintain the value of a dollar, pound, and euro etcetera? A classic case of long-term reduction is the British Pound Sterling. At the beginning a pound was a pound of sterling, now it is not even an ounce or 1/10th of an ounce of silver. While some say that it is "only" a penny others would point out that it is an elemental and scalar unit for the higher denominations. In other words, if the basic unit is impaired the rest of the structure is too. This connects to integrity, faith, trust and credit. To paraphrase wisdom, if a one cannot be trusted in matters small then how can one be trusted in matters large. There will be more on this later.
| OASIS® Home |


text:
No products in the cart.
Water gardening has become an increasingly new trend toward the inclusion of ponds as part of a garden makeover.
More gardeners are embracing ponds as a way of capturing more of a complete environment giving them a broader range of endemic pleasing plants and realising the calm and serene atmosphere which can be enjoyed everyday in their own backyards.
Suncoast Tropicals is a division of Suncoast Water Gardens Pty Ltd and is a family owned business and was established in 1995 as a hobby farm which soon grew into a large production nursery supplying water plants and Tropicals plants to the retail nurseries and Landscape trade.
Today Suncoast Water Gardens is a well-established and reputable nursery providing the highest quality products, services, and advise.
Suncoast Tropicals on-line store will provide easier access to water plants for those who are unable to reach Gardens Centres or live in remote areas.


text:
|Warranty length
|5 Years
Product Description
The 029 range of Oyaide mains connectors feature brass plating, an excellent value upgrade over standard connectors, available as an IEC (C-029), a US mains plug (P-029) or a Shuko mains plug (P-029e). These mains connectors feature strong, black easy grip handles, excellent quality brass metal contacts (no plating) and are designed to upgrade any standard equivalent mains connector.
Please select type before adding to basket.


text:
During the recent years, the word "virtualization" has become a household name in the technology niche. More often than not, virtualization is associated with "cost efficiency" and "cloud computing." simply because it does exactly that.
Virtualization could come in different forms – network virtualization, storage virtualization, and server virtualization. While the first two of its kind multiplies bandwidth and storage respectively, the third one masks multiple server resources that allow its users to be spared from managing its complexity and paves way for them to simply use it and appreciate the concept of getting the resources "multiplied" through virtualization.
Gone are the days when virtualization is only for the Fortune 500 or large enterprises, and while virtualization proves to be a cost-effective solution whether to SMBs or big companies, the question "Is virtualization right for my business?" still remains unanswered.
Think about this. If your server goes down today, how long is an acceptable amount of time to get it back up? If your Virtual server was on a network drive and could easily be mounted on a computer or another hardware server for use quickly, how valuable would that be for your company in terms of minimization of downtime?
On the other hand, if you have more than the average computing requirements with just a handful of servers, then virtualization might just be the solution to your problem. Server virtualization paves way for several, stand-alone operating systems to virtually run on a single server. Instead of having 10 physical servers which are only being utilized at 20 percent, with virtualization, business are able to use only 1 or 2 servers, and are being utilized close to its maximum capacity.
Small and medium-sized businesses have their own basis for going for virtualization or not. It all boils down to their requirements and investment decisions.
Here are a few factors to consider whether to go virtualized or not:
1. The number of existing physical servers being used. This could do you good either way. If you only have one or two servers but with an actual requirement of 10, you might just be able to make virtualization work for you by utilizing both servers to its fullest capacity, thereby saving you from buying additional servers. On the other hand, if you have more servers and are not using each to its fullest capacity, it might just be the time to retain only a couple of servers and sell the others. Turn off and recycle or sell.
2. Software applications. Check if the applications that you use are compatible with the virtualization software.
3. Age of existing physical servers. If your existing servers are 4 years old or older, it may not work also with the hypervisor (virtualization software). Check with IT experts on what hypervisor would work best with your existing hardware.
4. Is Time to restore important? If so virtualization when setup correctly can allow for a full restoration of a server in a fraction of the time of previous setups. This is done by taking copies of the virtual server image, then simply mounting up an image from the previous day.
Jaycee Smith has been researching and writing about network support and computer disaster recover for over 2 years now. You will see more information on http://www.logicalchoiceit.com.au


text:
Active Learning Examples: Lost at Sea II
Name of Activity: Lost at Sea, Extreme Human Resources
Sam Vegter
Description of Activity:
Students must make decisions based on information provided in the case.
Procedure for Activity:
Students are given the following information on individual slips of paper:
You are on a sinking boat in the middle of the sea. The ship is on fire and you don't have much time left. You have already decided which items you are bringing with you. As the water is creeping into the hull and the fire is raging out of control you notice a problem with the raft. It can only carry two more people… There are 10 people on the boat. You now have to decide which two people are going to live, and which 8 people are going to eventually die. The boat is quickly sinking and you must make your choice quickly.
Next to random names on the paper is a small black mark. This indicates, to the student, the person they are "representing" on the boat. If their person is picked to be one of the last two people on the boat they receive extra credit.
As a group they must decide who is thrown off the boat and who stays. Each decision must be made as a "motion", seconded by another castaway and then voted upon. A simple majority vote wins the motion.
The students work together as a group to complete the task as they discuss and debate the merits of each person.
Result of Activity:
Human Resources can be an interesting subject. In this assignment students must complete a job analysis, job description, and perform a candidate evaluation and selection. By making the scenario outlandish the students can see all the interesting aspects that go into hiring for a specific job.
General Thoughts of Activity:
Giving the students difficult choices always gets them talking and interested in the material. By making them personally vested in the success of someone on the boat makes them even more so. I find that being the devil's advocate and inserting ideas into the conversation can help these large groups function more efficiently and keep the process moving.


text:
A classic IC style is reimagined with metallic printing in a baroque design on purple. Add some elegance and whimsy to your outfit with these gorgeous shoes!
Order by 13:00* if you need DPD UK Next Working Day delivery!
FREE UK delivery (Over £50). We now offer Klarna!
Not sure which size to pick? Check our size guide for help, or read the reviews!
We are happy to accept exchanges for another size or style and we offer free returns for UK orders*
*please read our terms and conditions and FAQs for further information on stock availablility and ordering processes, returns policies etc
Items 1 to 15 of 15 total
average fit rating just right
I bought the iridescent variety of these in a Schuh store in my city. They were to be my 'birthday' shoes back in Feb '17. I absolutely love them. I've worn them so much I may need to get them reheeled soon. Always get multiple compliments on them when wearing them, & folk always marvel when I tell them just how comfortable they are. Fantastique.
My first pair of IC shoes! I love them! I'm a size U.S 6.5/UK 37. I wore these babies on Christmas Eve and walked 9 miles through cities street and back. Comfy and no blisters! Shoes are more gorgeous in person. I became a believer and will be purchasing more in the future!
Size 43 Red/Gold - Bought these for my Birthday and love them ...
The most comfortable pair of IC shoes I own and the most subtle ... not as OTT as the other 14pairs of IC that I own but the most wearable for all occasions.
Great for day wear and nights out - maybe have to add more colours to my collection in the future !
Fit is perfect for me as I am UK 8-8.5 so 43 is just right for me.
Totally in love with this little shoes, a professional shoe maker asked me about them since she never saw anything like them. Very comfy when you walk a couple of days with them, a bit narrow for the back of my feet but with days it gets better. I will get another pair soon.
I purchased the iridescent lazy river shoes as my very first pair of irregular choice shoes, they are a little snug around the toes but very comfortable, you can wear these all day, dance all night and still feel comfortable in these stunning shoes. I always receive compliments on these from men and women...they're real head turners, I love them and hope to collect more colours in this style :)
Size 37 has fit me in other styles but the 37s in Lazy River were tight around the toes. I returned them for a size up and they are roomy but with an insert work a treat! The shoes are also so beautiful, they sparkle and shine like nothing else. The heel height is extremely comfortable as well, I'm able to wear these shoes all day with absolutely no issues!
I wasn't that convinced I would like the Lazy Rivers at first but when they arrived I fell in love. They're so unique and pretty. I've had people stop their cars to ask me about them and people taking photos. I need to use an insole and a gel heel raiser in mine as they're a little wide for my narrow feet and low ankle bone, but they are ridiculously comfy now and easy to walk in. They go with EVERYTHING too. (although it helps that I love them so much I have a few different colours now!) :-)
I have had these in white for a few years and recently bought the black. Both pairs are extremely comfortable although I use a gel heel raiser to avoid them rubbing my ankle bone. I can wear them all day without problems. Seriously considering getting the January '18 releases :)
I bought the green ones with the floral print and the picture doesn't do them justice! They are covered in beautiful iridescent green pixie glitter that makes them glow! The fit is absolutely perfect on me!
I ordered a size 38 of these but they were a bit too tight around my toes so I sent them back for a 39 which fit really comfortably and are easy to walk in. But hot damn the shine on these bad boys! My Ariel dreams are coming true, I feel like a real life mermaid :D They are truly beautiful
Pictures do not do these justice as they are so bright in real life. The colours fluctuate with every move, but I see mostly blue and purple shades. Also the heels are very comfortable and stable.
I went into the store in Leicester to buy a different pair of shoes, for my wedding next year, which they didn't have. Thank god they didn't. I brought these instead and they are so me. Glittery, shiny and they change colour. Absolutely in love. Bring on next year when i can actually wear them. The fit is spot on, i'm not usually comfortable in heels but these are awesome.
Cannot get over how comfortable these are! I got them initially for my friends wedding as the heel height/style was what I was after for my outfit, the fit was amaaaaazing and now I must say they are my GO TO for all occasions! If you want some shoes you can wear around town all day or dance all night in, I seriously suggest you get these shoes!!
I bought these shoes in January to be my wedding shoes for this coming July. I have been wearing them around the house every day for the past 3 months and they are so comfortable!! This morning we got all the way out of the house before I realised I was still wearing them and had to go back to change into a pair of everyday shoes. I have wider feet, so normal shoe shopping is frustrating. These fit great and the colour is gorgeous! My 3 year old loves the colour. I love them!!
I danced my senior ball (Vanhojen tanssit in Finland) wearing these shoes. Size 37 sometimes tends to be a bit too big for me when it comes to heels but these fit just right and the straps provided extra security when dancing. I found that they stayed in my feet better when I wasn't wearing a sock of any kind in between and despite of that the shoes felt super comfortable. I didn't get a single blister or any irritation at all during the whole day. My only minus is that the glittery parts grab some dust, little hairs etc. and it can be hard to get off. Also, the white rim turns greyish eventually but it's something you can't really avoid if you're using them a lot. In conclusion, these have to be the most comfortable heels I've ever owned and the beautiful shifting of colours makes them even more special!
item code: 4136-12aa
colour: black
brand: irregular choice
heel height (cm): 6
leather: no
materials: fabric/pu
season: ss20


text:
The 'get tough' approach to sick and disabled welfare claimants promoted by the big party players in the run up to this General Election, and in recent media rhetoric, is not just morally cheap, it is reflective of a profoundly inadequate policy approach which ends up scapegoating those we should be supporting most.
It also puts into sharp perspective some of the realities behind the rhetoric about 'family' and 'community' which politicians (and some Christian pressure groups) like to indulge in.
Where we need to start, is with the real life situations people face, and what they tell us about the 'issues'.
Dying of cancer can be deeply difficult, both for the sufferer and his or her family and friends. Even non-fatal forms of this disease, and conditions such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, can have a devastating effect. The last thing that people in such situations need is additional stress and the risk of being left destitute.
Yet a Londoner in his 50s who became so ill with heart disease that he needed a triple bypass, then found that he had incurable stomach and liver cancer, and who suffered constant pain, struggling to walk and even breathe, was ordered to start looking for a job. A work capability assessment had found him capable of work. Likewise a Wiltshire man with Parkinson's disease who could no longer stand for more than 10 minutes, tended to fall over, slurred his words, had severe memory loss and mental health problems was also declared capable of work.
Fortunately, in each case, the Citizens' Advice Bureau was able to assist. Yet in many areas, advisers and advocates are overwhelmed by the level of need, as sizeable numbers of sick and disabled people are threatened with reduction or withdrawal of benefits. So far, it is new claimants who have been targeted, but in time, the scheme will be rolled out more widely.
Reforming welfare
In March 2010 a CAB report, Not Working, summed up some of the hardship caused by the introduction of an "Employment Support Allowance" (ESA) for those not in paid work because of a long-term illness or disability. ESA was introduced in October 2008 to replace incapacity benefit for new claimants. The supposed aim was to give more help to those who might, with support, be able to undertake paid work.
It had long been recognised that some disabled people who wanted to enter into employment were not given enough support or working conditions did not adequately address their access needs.
In addition, more rehabilitative support and flexibility by employers could enable some people with illness or injury to get back to work, even if the tasks they could do were limited, and this could be financially beneficial and good for their health.
There were also some people who exaggerated the extent of their incapacity – though there were fairly rigorous tests, and unnecessary claims were counterbalanced by those who fail to claim benefits to which they were entitled.
However, a more reasoned approach was overtaken by a contest between the Labour government and Conservative opposition as to who could get tougher on those who, at best, imagined they were less capable than they were and at worst, were "scroungers" or "cheats".
Investment banker David Freud was appointed as a government advisor, though in his own words he "didn't know anything about welfare at all", and set out a bold programme to end the UK's "dependency culture".
The system was to be largely privatised, offering private and third sector companies lucrative opportunities, and ambitious targets set to get people back into work, or at least, off benefits.
Both parties argued as to which would be more radical in reforming welfare. While some positive measures were introduced, the new system was largely based on achieving ideological goals, whatever the human cost.
A year after the reforms were introduced, they had outwardly been successful – a high proportion of people had been declared fit for work or dropped out of the process of claiming, either because they found work or could not cope with the hassle of making a claim.
But the human cost had become very apparent, as sometimes, even people who should have been exempt, were caught up in the drive to get large numbers into, or back to, work.
A report by Macmillan Cancer Support and Citizens Advice, based on large numbers of cases, found that cancer patients were often being poorly served. Terminally ill patients were not always fast-tracked into the ESA support group as they should have been, and instead were asked to undergo the work capability assessment (WCA) or attend work-focused interviews.
Cancer patients receiving chemotherapy were likewise asked to attend a WCA or work-focused interviews, while the WCA is not sensitive to the problems faced by people with cancer, including the sometimes drastic effects of treatment.
Examples were given, including that of Patricia Watson from London, who discovered that she had terminal bowel cancer. Though the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was informed, "I was shocked when I received a letter requesting that I attend an assessment centre to review my ability to work during my third cycle of chemotherapy. I was told that if I didn't attend the interview I wouldn't receive any benefits."
The Parkinson's Disease Society announced in October 2009 that two-thirds of people under 65 with Parkinson's who responded to a survey, had been wrongly forced into job-seeking, despite being physically unable.
UK-wide research for the National Autistic Society found that one-third were without a job or benefits. Medical assessors often seemed to lack understanding of autism, and those who felt they were capable of employment did not always get the support they needed.
Many reported that Jobcentre Plus staff and professionals from Atos Healthcare – a private firm contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions to carry out the WCA – had little understanding of autism: as one carer put it, "it's like these people haven't got a clue what the circumstances are."
A woman with Asperger's, Paula, described her experience of being assessed by an Atos doctor. Despite a seven-page psychiatrist's report about her diagnosis, he rushed through her assessment in a quarter of an hour and recorded that he saw no evidence of communication difficulties: "It was like he thought I could just 'get over it' or something." On appeal, her ESA was restored.
Competing to victimise claimants and their families
Such inhumane treatment of some of the most vulnerable people in society and their families, undermines other aspects of public policy. For instance, many politicians are gushing in their praise for unpaid carers, yet the latest welfare reforms are stressful and potentially financially ruinous for many carers, who may be required to support claimants left distressed and possibly destitute.
In addition, some disabled people are also carers. Some sick or injured people who might have been able to cope in the community may end up in hospital or institutional care, which can be hugely expensive.
There are also measures which might help people back to work without causing distress, such as ensuring quick access to high quality physiotherapy for stroke patients across the country, and greater flexibility so that claimants who volunteer, and through this, gradually increase their fitness and self-confidence, need not be afraid that they will be pushed into employment before they are ready.
More affordable childcare and better access to social care services too could help – those with limited energy may be too exhausted after a day's work to do much in the way of domestic tasks.
Yet the Labour government shows no sign of retreating on its current policy and the Conservatives, if elected, plan to go further, while introducing even more harsh cuts in public spending, which is already overstretched.
"Let's cut benefits for those who refuse to work" declares a poster campaign. Though party leader David Cameron has claimed, "To people who cannot work, to people who are disabled, to people who are looking for work: we will always help you, we will always stand by you", he too is committed to reassessing all current incapacity benefit claimants for supposed fitness to work.
He has threatened that "within six months of taking office, we will set out a new welfare contract that says the first time you refuse a job that you could do you lose a month's benefit, the second time, three months' benefit, and then you lose benefit for three years."
In practice, then, if a building worker who had been traumatised and suffered ongoing dizziness and balance problems after a near-fatal accident were ordered back to work on a similar job, if he were too frightened to take it, he would be left to starve.
As the DWP's research shows, benefit claimants are largely manual workers from lower-grade occupations with a track record of continuous employment who stopped paid work due to illness, injury or disability. In contrast to the state's generosity to rich bankers whose recklessness has imperilled the economy, and MPs making dubious expenses claims, sick and disabled people are finding that even the slightest assistance is begrudged them.
Yet these policies have a certain appeal. Some people in paid work who are able-bodied and in good health have difficulty empathising with those in a different situation, especially if they appear healthy (and those with fluctuating conditions or mental illness may indeed look perfectly fit much of the time).
The inner turmoil faced by someone who has found that she has early-onset Alzheimer's or a brain tumour is not immediately visible, and to a neighbour she may just seem like a workshy scrounger. Indeed claimants themselves may understate their needs, refusing to admit to problems which may make them seem weak or affect their self-image.
Some employees may make considerable effort to keep their jobs and feel that others too, should pull their weight. Perhaps most significantly, especially at times of social turmoil, there is a tendency to victimise minorities, who can serve as scapegoats for society's ills and thus help restore a sense of unity. Welfare claimants and immigrants are tempting targets.
There may also be a degree of denial about people's bodily realities in this society: in particular, the fact that we are all prone to get sick or injured, and will eventually die. Insisting that most sick and disabled claimants can "pull themselves together" and "snap out of it" if they make the effort, may perhaps help to ward off the fear of being vulnerable and mortal oneself.
Acting to defend the rights of claimants
Many people, even if not personally targeted, find politicians' treatment of the sick and disabled affronts their sense of decency and compassion.
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
Many people of faith also believe that injustice to the vulnerable is not only cruel but also spiritually destructive to those who are involved, and societies built on such shaky foundations may topple. In the words of Isaiah 10:
Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
Sooner or later, the population as a whole is likely to reject these policies, especially as growing numbers of voters find that they, their families or friends are personally affected. In the meantime, however, much damage is being done.
Alliances of those concerned about the harsh treatment of sick and disabled people, from disability and carers' organisations, to trade unions, faith and humanist groups and human rights activists, could effectively challenge the crack-down on claimants.
(c) Savitri Hensman was born in Sri Lanka. She works in voluntary sector in health and social care and equalities in the UK, and is also a respected writer on Christianity and social justice. Savi is an Ekklesia associate.
See also 'Care and control at life's end', by Savi Hensman - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10334


text:
Point to Point Summary 6-20-2015
by Challen Yee, L.Ac.
I am a Licensed Acupuncturist practicing in California since 2007. I am also certified nationally as Diplomate of Oriental Medicine and also carry a license to practice in Hawaii, where, back in the 1980's, I served in the Navy stationed aboard USS Bremerton (SSN698) a nuclear attack submarine (which at the time of this post is the oldest operating submarine in the US Navy). Currently I am working on my Certification for Applied Clinical Nutrition.
While my focus on this blog has not been my practicing acupuncture, there is certainly a connection between detoxification and how acupuncture stimulates the tissues of the body.
One of the reasons for the simple practice of drinking a cup of warm or tea drinking temperature water after an acupuncture treatment is to help your body off load toxins that have been stored in tissue, released into the blood stream by acupuncture stimulation. The release of toxins is a reason why people may feel a bit fatigued after a treatment.
The general public is still pretty oblivious to the applications of acupuncture, so the idea came to me when I was treating myself one night that I start sharing my knowledge with you.
Although many people have a phobia of needles, it remains a strong value of acupuncture that it can help the body in many ways without the introduction of harmful exogenous-toxic chemicals – That fact in itself makes acupuncture a worthy addition to the lifestyle of those who desire to lessen the need for pharmaceuticals and their overloading of the body's capacity for natural detoxification.
For your convenience, I have summarized my recent and ongoing Instagram publications of some simple acupuncture practices and concepts. The last one (which was my first post) was only one Facebook, not Instagram.
Pain – Calf
View this post on Instagram
Point to point: tightness in the lower calf muscles are common amongst the elderly. Acupuncture applied directly to sore and painful areas can either be applied in isolation or as part of a more comprehensive plan involving other points around the body (photo Challen Yee, L.Ac, Menlo Park, Ca).
Precautions – Scars
Pain – Shoulder
Tennis Elbow
View this post on Instagram
Point to Point: have you ever had tennis elbow or experience pain in the muscle near the elbow like in the photo? Tissue damage frequently occurs at the transition between muscle and tendon and Acupuncture can help bring immediate relief and promote the healing process. (Photo: challen yee, L.Ac. Menlo Park, Ca).
View this post on Instagram
Point to Point: Difficulty sleeping can be caused by upper neck misalignments and muscle tension. The ancient Chinese were aware of this and named one of the special points "peaceful sleep". Seek the sensitive area at the base of the bone that protrudes downward behind the ear. (Photo: challen yee, L.Ac)
Carpal Tunnel
View this post on Instagram
Point to Point: pain and soreness in the wrist like Carpal Tunnel are great candidates for the application of Acupuncture. With so many moving parts needed to control your hand, a little swelling or inflammation from repetitive motions will cause discomfort or pain. Acupuncture helps regulate both excess and flaccidity in body tissue and is a valid treatment option.(photo: challen yee, L.Ac).
Adrenal Support
#1Colon/Appendix Maintenance (was posted on FaceBook, not on Instagram)
Point to Point: Performing acupuncture treatment on myself to help the appendix area. In acupuncture we often use points along an acupuncture "channel" or pathway to balance an area of concern. The point shown here is below the knee and is confirmed by centuries of empirical data.
Best to follow me on Instagram if you want real-time updates for Acupuncture with minimum noise. I post to Twitter and Facebook from Instagram, but the other media venues tend to cover a variety of other non-health subjects.
If you've received some value from this, please LIKE SHARE and COMMENT
Copyright © 2015 ChallenYee.com. TheDodgeKid.com BestBuckBuck.com All Rights Reserved.


text:
Well my friends today we witnessed the GOP making a JOKE out of the American Judicial System and the heroism of an innocent woman Dr Ford. The GOP treated her like she was a defendant. The person doing the questioning of Dr Ford was FIRED when she started questioning Kavanaugh. Yes, did you notice she was gone? We feel much sorrow for Dr Ford and we applaud her on her "testimony". To bad the GOP did not want the truth and when she was done, neglected to mention she was there earlier after Kavanaugh started. Very sad my friends, very sad.
Then we have Lindsey Graham melting down and making this a completely political spectacle, like he was in an acting class and his teacher (POTUS) was watching. Sad Folks, sad day in America!! The GOP did not seem to care much about and the rape, nor did they care much about other allegations from other women. The GOP wanted to once again blame the Democrats and Kavanaugh said this was a political conspiracy, like his friend who watches to much TV and is in a different dimension than all the rest of the world.
We have nothing more to report and we are beyond discussed in this sham. Women of America please stand up to these fake politicians and VOTE IN NOVEMBER.
Go bless America and the true humans that reside in this awesome country !
Thank you Dr Ford for being a true Patriot. God Bless you !