text:
Insights: White papers on tax, accounting, and more by Thomson Reuters
What Wayfair, Brexit & VAT regimes mean for indirect tax departments
Get insight into the changes and challenges for today's indirect tax departments
New tax compliance challenges are unavoidable, and the pace of change is only accelerating. Outside of the noteworthy complexities of Wayfair, Brexit, and new value-added tax (VAT) regimes, consider what is happening at a macro level that produces unending complexity for indirect tax departments:
Commerce is increasingly global, with supply chains and business models transcending physical borders.
Political winds have prevailed in the direction of protectionism, and nobody knows whether they will stay on that course and accelerate or whether they will snap back and blow in the opposite direction.
Technology has evolved to a point where, for many indirect tax departments, automating many manual or repeating tax processes is not just possible – it is now expected.
Pressures on the tax function are everywhere, and they are growing in number and intensity. Here's how indirect tax professionals should respond.
One consequence of all of this is that tax authorities are being pressed from multiple angles. Not only must tax authorities help fund the operations of their jurisdictions and maintain a regulatory and enforcement approach that is fair, consistent, and predictable, they must strive to achieve a sensible balance between these two sometimes-dueling objectives.
In certain cases, it is becoming easier for tax authorities. Some countries have moved or are moving to the real-time reporting of indirect tax, which helps their tax authorities regulate and enforce indirect tax policy fairly and quickly. In the United States, a new legal precedent, South Dakota v. Wayfair, gave new power to tax authorities to enforce tax collection on online sales.
This is a positive shift for tax authorities, but one that does not do much to simplify how indirect tax departments can achieve compliance, scale operations, and deliver deeper value to their businesses.
In other cases, tax authorities are tasked with generating more revenue by either increasing rates or imposing new taxes. This has a direct and obvious effect on corporate tax departments; those that sufficiently automate tax determination generally won't feel any pain from this complexity, but those that don't, will.
In still other cases, political risks are producing what one might call "unknown unknowns" for tax authorities. Protectionist trade measures affect supply chains and commerce patterns in unpredictable ways, and they can create a rationale for more rate changes. No one knows what the business consequences of Brexit, for instance, might be because Parliament has been unable to reach a consensus on terms of the withdrawal from the European Union. This uncertainty massively impacts indirect tax departments by making it challenging for them to plan.
What can get lost in discussions about macro complexity and the tax function is that greater certainty for tax authorities does not necessarily equate to greater certainty for indirect tax departments. In fact, many instances of a tax authority's job becoming easier can mean a tax department's job becoming more difficult, if and only if the right technology isn't in place to solve for those new demands via tax automation and intelligence.
New sources of indirect tax complexity
Right now, three sources of complexity stand out as being particularly noteworthy: the Wayfair matter, Brexit, and the new VAT regimes.
Sales tax implications for South Dakota v. Wayfair
South Dakota v. Wayfair is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a new definition for nexus. Prior to Wayfair, a company was required to collect sales tax if, and only if, it had a physical presence in the state where the transaction occurred. Obviously, any business that sells in any state is directly impacted by this important legal decision, and many are scrambling to understand the tax implications.
Before Wayfair, the concept of nexus was already complex and open to different kinds of interpretation. Essentially, the Wayfair matter materially expanded the definition of nexus beyond the "physical presence" threshold to include economic nexus. So, while it gave more clarity to states as to when they can require sellers to collect sales tax, it created additional complexity for indirect tax departments in the process. It did not produce a unified and consistent definition of nexus. While Congress has the power to set a unified, national standard, no legislation has yet garnered sufficient support to pass.
Instead, Wayfair opened the door for tax jurisdictions to write new tax laws (or re-interpret existing laws) based on their respective interpretations of the new precedent. Now, every state that has a sales tax has either changed their definition of nexus or has pending legislation to do so.
Indirect tax implications for Brexit
For indirect tax departments, Brexit causes tax compliance challenges. Value-added tax (VAT) in the EU is a general, broad-based consumption tax assessed on goods and services purchased or sold for use or consumption within the EU. VAT is not charged on goods or services exported outside the EU.
However, per the recent guidance issued by UK authorities, effective January 1, 2021 (unless a further extension to the transition period is agreed), all imports of goods into the UK will need to be accompanied by customs declarations. The goods will potentially be liable to tariff payments and import VAT. Therefore, all UK businesses currently would be planning on how they will meet their future customs obligations along with the impact on their cash flow. There will be an added layer of complexity as the same approach will not apply to the flow of trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland or between Northern Ireland and Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales).
Value-added tax in the EU and elsewhere
Brexit highlights, among other things, just how important value-added taxes are to today's global business environment.
Right now, VAT is not a perfect system. EU members lost €151.5 billion, or more than 12% of the total revenue forecast from VAT in 2016 to tax fraud, evasion, and avoidance, according to the European Commission. This "VAT gap" shows how out of sync tax systems are with the ways companies go about scaling and growing in today's business environment.
Tax regimes, however, are stepping up their game. For the EU, part of the solution might include more harmonization of cross-border trade and more autonomy for member-states to adjust rates. Ideally, this would be achieved without disrupting business processes, but it would be risky to assume closing the VAT gap is not the top priority in tweaking the EU VAT regime.
A trend towards real-time reporting and/or e-invoicing alongside SAF-T is another part of this story, as it allows tax authorities to monitor compliance and combat fraud. And because almost every jurisdiction will have differences in how these fast-paced changes are complied with at a technological level, it produces additional complexity for taxpayers. A key challenge in this transformation lies in the quality and availability of tax data in source systems. Expectations and assumptions from the tax authorities often miss commercial reality and the scale of change needed within accounting and invoicing systems, as well as core businesses processes. These can be expensive and time-consuming across all sizes of business.
VAT is also no longer an EU-specific tax framework either as members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an economic union of states of the Persian Gulf, began to implement a VAT framework since 2016. Three now have VAT in force, and the other states are expected to implement VAT regimes in the coming years using systems that are technologically advanced from the very beginning.
Now is the time for indirect tax automation
It is not going to get any easier for indirect tax, finance, and supporting IT departments. Complexity is growing, both in the number of trends that produce it as well as the intensity of the consequences for tax departments that it creates. Indirect tax teams produce significant value to their companies. Nearly everyone wants to automate tax processes because doing so reduces risk, lowers cost, and makes the work of tax more dynamic and exciting.
Having tools like ONESOURCE Determination in place allows teams to respond quickly and thoughtfully to these landmark changes and will be more crucial as this complexity increases. Automation with indirect tax technology ensures that your team has real-time access to accurate content, updated as soon as regulations change, so that your team doesn't have to spend time constantly updating and reacting to the latest information. The best tools feed this content directly into your indirect tax calculations. Instead of scouring sources for how and when rates and rules are changing, you can feel confident that you're getting tax right the first time, every time.
The pace of change in our connected world will only intensify. More than ever, it's important to have a solution that can take care of the manual tasks and get you the information you need faster, so your team can focus on more strategic, value-added work.
PDF - 1.2MB
Incorrect tax calculations can hurt business any number of ways
For businesses of all sizes, calculating taxes correctly isn't just a matter of getting the math right – it's vital to the health of the organization.
Changing economic nexus requirements demand a technological solution
The right technology package can remove a substantial part of the burden of staying on top of changing nexus requirements.
Adobe transforms their global indirect tax process with ONESOURCE™ Determination
Learn how Adobe was able to reduce unnecessary tax management costs resulting in savings of over $1 million.
Use our global tax determination software to calculate and record sales, use and excise tax, VAT, and GST


text:
// © 2020 and later: Unicode, Inc. and others.
// License & terms of use: http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html

#include "unicode/utypes.h"

#if !UCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING

#include "number_microprops.h"
#include "unicode/numberformatter.h"

using namespace icu;
using namespace icu::number;
using namespace icu::number::impl;

SymbolsWrapper::SymbolsWrapper(const SymbolsWrapper &other) {
    doCopyFrom(other);
}

SymbolsWrapper::SymbolsWrapper(SymbolsWrapper &&src) U_NOEXCEPT {
    doMoveFrom(std::move(src));
}

SymbolsWrapper &SymbolsWrapper::operator=(const SymbolsWrapper &other) {
    if (this == &other) {
        return *this;
    }
    doCleanup();
    doCopyFrom(other);
    return *this;
}

SymbolsWrapper &SymbolsWrapper::operator=(SymbolsWrapper &&src) U_NOEXCEPT {
    if (this == &src) {
        return *this;
    }
    doCleanup();
    doMoveFrom(std::move(src));
    return *this;
}

SymbolsWrapper::~SymbolsWrapper() {
    doCleanup();
}

void SymbolsWrapper::setTo(const DecimalFormatSymbols &dfs) {
    doCleanup();
    fType = SYMPTR_DFS;
    fPtr.dfs = new DecimalFormatSymbols(dfs);
}

void SymbolsWrapper::setTo(const NumberingSystem *ns) {
    doCleanup();
    fType = SYMPTR_NS;
    fPtr.ns = ns;
}

void SymbolsWrapper::doCopyFrom(const SymbolsWrapper &other) {
    fType = other.fType;
    switch (fType) {
    case SYMPTR_NONE:
        // No action necessary
        break;
    case SYMPTR_DFS:
        // Memory allocation failures are exposed in copyErrorTo()
        if (other.fPtr.dfs != nullptr) {
            fPtr.dfs = new DecimalFormatSymbols(*other.fPtr.dfs);
        } else {
            fPtr.dfs = nullptr;
        }
        break;
    case SYMPTR_NS:
        // Memory allocation failures are exposed in copyErrorTo()
        if (other.fPtr.ns != nullptr) {
            fPtr.ns = new NumberingSystem(*other.fPtr.ns);
        } else {
            fPtr.ns = nullptr;
        }
        break;
    }
}

void SymbolsWrapper::doMoveFrom(SymbolsWrapper &&src) {
    fType = src.fType;
    switch (fType) {
    case SYMPTR_NONE:
        // No action necessary
        break;
    case SYMPTR_DFS:
        fPtr.dfs = src.fPtr.dfs;
        src.fPtr.dfs = nullptr;
        break;
    case SYMPTR_NS:
        fPtr.ns = src.fPtr.ns;
        src.fPtr.ns = nullptr;
        break;
    }
}

void SymbolsWrapper::doCleanup() {
    switch (fType) {
    case SYMPTR_NONE:
        // No action necessary
        break;
    case SYMPTR_DFS:
        delete fPtr.dfs;
        break;
    case SYMPTR_NS:
        delete fPtr.ns;
        break;
    }
}

bool SymbolsWrapper::isDecimalFormatSymbols() const {
    return fType == SYMPTR_DFS;
}

bool SymbolsWrapper::isNumberingSystem() const {
    return fType == SYMPTR_NS;
}

const DecimalFormatSymbols *SymbolsWrapper::getDecimalFormatSymbols() const {
    U_ASSERT(fType == SYMPTR_DFS);
    return fPtr.dfs;
}

const NumberingSystem *SymbolsWrapper::getNumberingSystem() const {
    U_ASSERT(fType == SYMPTR_NS);
    return fPtr.ns;
}

#endif /* #if !UCONFIG_NO_FORMATTING */

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


In music, timing is everything. When you're dancing with an enormous machine, it's even more important to get the timing correct, down to the microsecond.
For its latest video, released on YouTube Monday night, pop band OK Go recruited a gang of very talented engineers to build a huge, elaborate Rube Goldberg machine whose action perfectly meshes with the band's song, "This Too Shall Pass," from the band's new album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky.
For nearly four minutes – captured in a single, unbroken camera shot – the machine rolls metal balls down tracks, swings sledgehammers, pours water, unfurls flags and drops a flock of umbrellas from the second story, all perfectly synchronized with the song. A few gasp-inducing, grin-producing moments when the machine's action lines up so perfectly, you can only shake your head in admiration at the creativity and precision of the builders.
OK Go developed a reputation for making catchy, viral videos four years ago with the homemade video for "Here It Goes Again," which features the band members dancing around on treadmills. The company ran afoul of music label EMI's restrictive licensing rules, which required YouTube to disable embedding, cutting views to 1/10 of their previous level. Now, the new video is up – and it's embeddable, so the band seems to have won this round with its label – and is already generating buzz on YouTube and on Twitter.
Planning for the video began in November, when Syyn Labs secured a warehouse in the Echo Park area of L.A. But it wasn't until January that work really got going. The video was shot on Feb. 11 and 12.
"A Rube Goldberg machine is in its essence a trial-and-error thing," Adam Sadowsky, the president of Syyn Labs, told Wired.
Sadowsky explained how many tiny details needed to be just right for the machine's timing to work out.
Given that each of the machine's dozens of stages need comparably precise adjustments, it all adds up to a lot of labor by a lot of people.
"It took about a month and a half of very intense work, with people on-site all the time," Sadowsky said.
Sadowsky estimates that 55 to 60 people worked on the project in all. That includes eight "core builders" who did the bulk of the design and building, along with another 12 or so builders who helped part-time. In addition, Syyn Labs recruited 30 or more people to help reset the machine after each run.
Because of the machine's size and complexity, "We needed to bring in every resource we could to help reset," said Sadowsky.
OK Go hired Syyn Labs to produce the contraption according to certain specifications. One example: The machine couldn't use any magic.
"That was really important," said Sadowsky, "because we are all engineers, and we love magic. We love computers, and servomotors, and fire, and all of that stuff." All those "magic" tricks – basically anything your mom can't understand – couldn't be in the machine.
"We wanted to make a video where we have essentially a giant machine that we dance with," said the band's Damian Kulash, Jr., in a short "making-of" video posted on YouTube.
Otherwise, Synn Labs' engineers went to town, dreaming up the most outlandish and elaborate mechanisms they could to "dance" along with the music. The results are impressive.
Oh, and OK Go's treadmill video from last year? It makes a cameo appearance in the machine too.
"It really was a labor of love," said Sadowsky.
See below for more videos about the making of "This Too Shall Pass."


2 month old seems to have thrush again. 1st time I was on antibiotics so I understood. And it took forever to get rid of. I haven't been on antibiotics since so why again?! Any insight or advice?
Thrush in Babies: What Is Oral Thrush in Infants and How Is It Treated? | What To Expect Thrush is a common oral yeast infection that may cause white patches on your baby's tongue and make sucking and feeding uncomfortable. Learn more about thrush in babies, whether it's contagious, and how to treat it.


More than 60 students collaborate with faculty on a variety of research projects each summer as part of Muhlenberg's vibrant research community. Topics can be student- or faculty-driven, and span the natural and social sciences, humanities and the arts.
Can virtual reality help heal trauma and PTSD? Alison Bashford '20, Desiree Bsales '20, Jessica-Ann Golbitz '19 and Rebecca Shear '21 are researching whether virtual-reality games can change or weaken an existing memory with associate professor of psychology and neuroscience Gretchen Gotthard.
Ben Lieberman '19 and assistant professor of mathematics and computer science Jim Russell collaborated on an algorithm to help determine whether partisan gerrymandering is "too partisan."
How an event is remembered depends on who's remembering it. "Nobody thought to interview the women," says Michaela Feinberg '19, who is studying an under-researched facet of Central African history.
Brooke Torjman '19 conducted field research on the shell preferences of hermit crabs with biology professor Erika Iyengar on Washington state's San Juan Island.
Students are typically on campus for 8-10 weeks of full-time research and receive a stipend, housing and college credit.
Our undergraduate researchers join in a weekly summer seminar series in which students discuss their work and present their work to the entire campus community at an annual poster session. Student research may result in publication in academic journals and students may travel off-campus to present their scholarly work at regional, national and international conferences, with travel funds provided by the school.
Many students take the opportunity to continue their summer research during the academic year by registering for independent study credit or a research assistantship under the guidance of a faculty member. These programs provide hands-on experience with a faculty mentor to complement their classroom education with practical work experience.
Research funding comes from a variety of sources, including national grants and foundation support; Summer Research Grants from the dean of academic life, Research Collaboration grants from the Provost's office, and generous support from alumni and friends of the College.


text:
PORTSMOUTH – The Resistance Seacoast will host Arts for the Resistance at the South Church on Nov. 4 from 7 to 10:30 p.m. The gathering is to commemorate the one-year mark since President Donald Trump was elected and to focus on the crucial 2018 midterm elections taking place one year from now. It will also be a forum to engender grassroots community building among participants and celebrate local artistry.
Musical acts Mara Flynn and Muddy Ruckus and spoken word artist Seth Waleryszak will perform upstairs during the entertainment portion of the event. The downstairs of the church will feature an art gallery of works submitted by 30 local visual artists. All of the art on display will be linked by the theme of resistance. Many of the pieces will be for sale directly from the artists for which they will receive 100 percent of the proceeds. The evening will end with a reception downstairs where local brews donated by local establishments will be served. A $10 suggested donation for admission is requested. A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit the community action organization, The Resistance Seacoast.
Singer-songwriter Mara Flynn, who lives in South Berwick, Maine, has enchanted audiences with her musical storytelling for more than 20 years. Lyrically deft and melodically sharp, Flynn can effortlessly shift from poignant to tragic to downright funny, and, like so many great writers, her deceptively simple songs deepen, expand and continue to leave their mark with each successive listen. Mara will be accompanied by Juliet Nelson on the cello.
Muddy Ruckus is the Maine-based duo of vocalist/guitarist Ryan Flaherty and percussionist Erika Stahl. Their lively, full-bodied, foot-stomping indie-punk and folksy sound has earned them many accolades. Their music has been called, "Darkly Inventive Americana" by the New York Music Daily, and The New England Music Awards named Muddy Ruckus "Best in State of Maine 2016," and nominated their recent album for the "2017 Roots Act Of The Year." Last year's album, Pretty Bones, was awarded the 2016 "Album of the Year" by Red Line Roots.
Spoken-word artist and the evening's master of ceremonies Seth Waleryszak is the minister of Unity of the Seacoast in Dover. He is a storyteller, linguist, folklorist, community activist and poet. He also confesses to being a lawyer. His poetry is influenced by the staccato rhythmic wordplay of hip hop, but is softened by idealistic undertones inspired by the transcendentalist poetry of the 19th century. His performances espouse a non-duality of political spirituality and also touch upon today's increasingly unconscious and often subservient relationship with the tools of modern technology.
The Resistance Seacoast is a grassroots community of local activists whose focus is to challenge and resist the politics of the Trump era, and to work together for tolerance, justice and a habitable planet in the years ahead. Arts For the Resistance is open to the public and seeks to support social and political activism. Learn more about this event on Facebook at www.facebook.com/theresistanceseacoast or check them out at www.theresistanceseacoast.com.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
module Mongoid
  module Elasticsearch
    class Es
      INDEX_STEP = 100
      attr_reader :klass, :version

      def initialize(klass)
        @klass = klass
        @version = Gem::Version.new(client.info['version']['number'])
      end

      def client
        # dup is needed because Elasticsearch::Client.new changes options hash inplace
        @client ||= ::Elasticsearch::Client.new klass.es_client_options.dup
      end

      def index
        @index ||= Index.new(self)
      end

      def index_all(step_size = INDEX_STEP)
        index.reset
        q = klass.order_by(_id: 1)
        steps = (q.count / step_size) + 1
        steps.times do |step|
          docs = q.skip(step * step_size).limit(step_size)
          docs = docs.map do |obj|
            if obj.es_index?
              { index: {data: obj.as_indexed_json}.merge(_id: obj.id.to_s) }
            else
              nil
            end
          end.reject { |obj| obj.nil? }
          next if docs.empty?
          client.bulk({body: docs}.merge(type_options))
          if block_given?
            yield steps, step
          end
        end
      end

      def search(query, options = {})
        if query.is_a?(String)
          query = {q: Utils.clean(query)}
        end

        page = options[:page]
        per_page = options[:per_page]

        query[:size] = ( per_page.to_i ) if per_page
        query[:from] = ( page.to_i <= 1 ? 0 : (per_page.to_i * (page.to_i-1)) ) if page && per_page

        options[:wrapper] ||= klass.es_wrapper

        Response.new(client, query.merge(type_options), false, klass, options)
      end

      def all(options = {})
        search({body: {query: {match_all: {}}}}, options)
      end

      def options_for(obj)
        {id: obj.id.to_s}.merge type_options
      end

      def type_options
        {index: index.name, type: index.type}
      end

      def index_item(obj)
        client.index({body: obj.as_indexed_json}.merge(options_for(obj)))
      end

      def remove_item(obj)
        client.delete(options_for(obj).merge(ignore: 404))
      end

      def completion_supported?
        @version > Gem::Version.new('0.90.2')
      end

      def completion(text, field = "suggest")
        raise "Completion not supported in ES #{@version}" unless completion_supported?
        body = {
          q: {
            text: Utils.clean(text),
            completion: {
              field: field
            }
          }
        }
        results = client.suggest(index: index.name, body: body)
        results['q'][0]['options']
      end
    end
  end
end


My family and I are in the SF Bay Area this Thanksgiving week celebrating the holiday with our wonderful extended family and dear friends. The rain has come, giving fire-ravaged Northern California some much-needed relief. TYG!
So much to be grateful for. So much to be grateful in.
From my heart to yours, I want to express how grateful I am to have YOU in my life and in my community.
Thank you for your courage to pursue your passions and dreams. Thank you for shining your light in your own one-and-only way. Thank you for your willingness to share your gifts; to be seen and visible; to show up in all of the ups & downs of your life and business; and to keep on forging ahead, despite setbacks, letdowns, meltdowns and breakdowns.
The other day I went through a wave of feeling terribly alone in my business. (Oh, the life of an entrepreneur!) During my morning meditation and centering practice, I got the distinct message that I need only to call upon my soul tribe for unconditional love and support and open myself to RECEIVE this abundant seen and unseen backing. Group energy is powerful and can lift us when we most need it.
So this is my message to you today: As a leader of your own tribe, you are not alone. Anytime you can call upon the souls here who love you and are here for you unconditionally. They may be your Facebook friends, Instagram followers, in your networking groups or on your mailing list. Or not. Or not yet.
Use this holiday time to send out invisible beams of light to them and energetically let them know you are willing to become even more visible to them; and in particular, you are willing to RECEIVE their support as a leader.
And then, of course, keep doing the outer work to connect with them–through speaking, emails, social media, videos. Keep stepping out, despite the self-doubt and worry, to make your message known and visible.
And keep willing to shine, like Venus in the early morning sky. We need YOU. Your voice, your story, your unique brand, your perspective and your energy are important and matter tremendously.
Wishing you an abundantly blessed holiday time!
The single greatest thing you can do every day to succeed in your business or creative endeavors is… what?
Deliver over-the-top customer service? Nope.
Book more speaking engagements or engage more on social media? Nope, and nope.
Now mind you, these are ALL critical to having a successful business, and I DO recommend you give them top priority each day.
However, the single greatest thing you can do everyday to succeed in your business and life is to build the belief in yourself.
Self-doubt, not believing in yourself and what you're capable of is truly the #1 thing that gets in the way of your success.
1) Appreciate and track your wins every single day (no matter how small).
As the old saying goes, what you appreciate, appreciates! Meaning it grows! So, take time every day to celebrate and appreciate the big AND the little wins in your business and life.
Particularly on the days when nothing seems to go my way, I especially make sure to take time to find at least 5 things to celebrate, no matter how small or insignificant they seemed.
Success breeds success—and what you focus on, grows and flourishes!
2) Do something everyday to exercise your courage muscle.
From the Latin word for heart, cour, courage is to share your whole story with your whole heart.
Where can you show up more fully in your business? What opportunities are in front of you to stretch and share "your whole heart" with strength, leadership AND vulnerability?
These past few weeks I've had at least 3 opportunities to exercise my courage muscle and share in conscious business settings parts of my story or hero's journey.
It's been exhilarating, scary and liberating! But I'm getting more comfortable with being uncomfortable and trusting that it will be awesome learning experience.
I also know each time I stretch myself to do something beyond my comfort zone, I'm growing my courage muscle—and my confidence.
3) Give yourself a testosterone boost.
We're also learning we can also use our BODIES to change our state of mind!
When you do this, you literally raise your testosterone levels, helping you feel more confident and personally powerful, AND you're literally lowering cortisol in your body, which is the stress hormone.
This is one of my favorite practices that I've borrowed from Amy Cuddy, another famed TED speaker, Harvard Business School professor, and author of Presence.
I expand in abundance, success, and love everyday as I inspire those around me to do the same.
Try these practices, and let me know how they work for you. Wishing you soulful success always!


Equipo Nizkor - Schaeuble says Germany does not want a 'German Europe'.
Germany does not want a "German Europe" and believes no single country can take a leading role, yet Berlin does have a special responsibility for the path to exiting the euro zone crisis, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble wrote in an editorial.
"It is a completely absurd idea, to think that the Germans want to play the role of leader in Europe... We do not want a 'German Europe'," Schaeuble wrote in a piece to be published in five European newspapers on Saturday, and made available in German on Friday.
But he added, "at the same time Germany believes it has a special responsibility for the mutually agreed pathway for solving the euro zone crisis. We assume this leadership responsibility above all in conjunction with our French friends."
Much discussion about Germany during the euro zone crisis has been contradictory, he noted, with some criticizing Berlin for doing too much, others too little.
"It is a misconception to think that in Europe one country should or could lead. Germany's reserve isn't only because of our guilt-laden history. The particular political composition of Europe simply does not lend itself to the notion of one nation leading and others following," he added.
"Germans least of all could tolerate a 'German Europe'. We want rather to see a Germany helping economic recovery in Europe, without itself becoming weak in the process," he said.
Sound financing and creating the right conditions to keep pace with global competition were not German ideas, Schaeuble said, but rather the necessary steps for a secure future.
Schaeuble visited Athens on Thursday in a trip presented by the Greek government as a show of support by one of its biggest creditors. But he also bluntly told Greeks to stop asking for a second debt write-down following a restructuring last year that imposed massive losses on private holders of Greek bonds.


text:
Coal Roadshow: JPMorgan Chase propping up new coal plant in Poland
Less than one year after committing not to finance new coal power in the developed world, JPMorgan Chase uses policy loophole to finance company planning new coal capacity in Poland
By: Foundation "Development YES - Open-Pit Mines NO"
Warsaw, San Francisco
Kuba Gogolewski, Private Finance Campaigner, Fundacja "Rozwój TAK – Odkrywki NIE"
Email: k.gogolewski@fundacja.rt-on.pl; Tel: + 48 661 862 611
Jason Disterhoft, Climate and Energy Senior Campaigner, Rainforest Action Network
Email: jason@ran.org, Tel: +1 415 398 4404
Ostroleka coal power plant.
ENERGA Finance AB – the Baa1/BBB rated finance subsidiary of ENERGA S.A., the Polish state-owned utility – started a roadshow this week to convince investors that the bond issuance with which it is planning to raise a minimum of EUR 250 million has nothing to do with a 1000 MW coal-fired power plant in Poland that the parent company is developing with another coal-heavy state-owned utility, ENEA S.A. Two banks – JPMorgan Chase and BNP Paribas – are arranging the deal, putting their credibility up for sale.
Rainforest Action Network, Foundation "Development YES - Open-Pit Mines NO", and other civil society organizations consider deals like this a climate test for how seriously international financial institutions take their own policies as well as the Paris climate agreement.
Less than one year ago, JPMorgan Chase committed that the bank "will not provide project financing or other forms of asset-specific financing where the proceeds will be used to develop a new coal-fired power plant located in a high income OECD country" – including Poland. Yet JPMorgan Chase has now signed up to underwrite bonds for a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy SA, whose electricity generation mix is 68% coal, and is searching for ways to finance its recently revitalized plans for the Ostrołęka C 1000 MW coal power plant, which will cost EUR 1.5 billion.
ENERGA aims to raise capital by launching eurobonds through its wholly-owned, Sweden-registered subsidiary whose sole purpose is to secure corporate finance for the mother company with no strings attached. The purpose of the bonds is that the money raised will be for the utility's "general corporate purposes" – and it shouldn't be difficult for JPMorgan Chase to see what that means when this one planned coal plant would double ENERGA S.A.'s coal generation capacity.
Poland is the last country in the European Union where new coal-fired power plants are still planned. It is also the country with an energy system most heavily controlled by the state. As one of the four state-controlled coal heavy energy utilities, ENERGA S.A. is also in talks with the European Investment Bank about financing a hybrid bond launch worth EUR 250 million that would also enable ENERGA to proceed with the Ostrołęka C project. ENERGA S.A. first launched eurobonds in March 2013, when BNP Paribas, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and HSBC arranged for the company to obtain EUR 500 million.
Back in 2012, ENERGA had shelved its power plant construction plans, but in November 2015 the plans for the Ostrołęka coal plant were restarted. According to the energy consulting company Ecofys, any new coal-fired power plant is inconsistent with a 2°C scenario, and yet there are currently more than 2,000 coal fired power plants under preparation to be built in the world. If all were to be built, according to Climate Action Tracker, coal power emissions in 2030 would be 400% higher than what is consistent with limiting warming to under 2°C.
Kuba Gogolewski, Finance Campaigner at Foundation "Development YES - Open-Pit Mines NO", said:
"By supporting ENERGA's bond issue while it is building a coal plant that would more than double its coal generation capacity, and by helping to keep afloat the country's collapsing mining sector, JPMorgan and BNP Paribas clearly show that profit comes first and that their climate commitments only go skin deep. Polish communities aspire to a healthier and cleaner future and ENERGA Finance will fund the opposite. Investors buying ENERGA Finance bonds have to know that they will take part of the responsibility for stalling the diversification of the Polish energy system away from coal and keeping Polish citizens away from clean air to breathe. We call on all investors to stay away from ENERGA Finance eurobond launch, and on JPMorgan and BNP Paribas to cut their ties with ENERGA until it drops its coal plans."
Jason Opeña Disterhoft, Climate and Energy Senior Campaigner, Rainforest Action Network, said:
"The ENERGA bond issue is a test of JPMorgan Chase's seriousness on climate change. As we approach the one-year anniversary of its new coal policy, the bank is looking to exploit a loophole to finance a new coal-fired power plant in an OECD country that is already locked into coal dependence. Now it has to choose: does it care more about coal or the climate?"
See: https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/Corporate-Responsibility/document/jpmc-environmental-and-social-policy-framework.pdf
See: http://data.worldbank.org/income-level/high-income
See: http://www.banktrack.org/project/ostroleka_c_coal_and_biomass_power_plant
See: http://bankwatch.org/publications/regarding-energa-hybrid-bond-project
See: http://www.ecofys.com/files/files/ecofys-2016-incompatibility-of-hele-coal-w-2c-scenarios.pdf
See: http://endcoal.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CountryUnit-4.pdf
See: http://climateactiontracker.org/news/248/The-Coal-Gap.html
Related banks
BNP Paribas France
JPMorgan Chase United States
Related Dodgy Deals
Ostroleka C power plant Poland
Coal Electric Power Generation | Gas Electric Power Generation
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text:
Comcast gets name on Mass. concert site
MANSFIELD, Mass. - The Tweeter Center will become the Comcast Center under a naming-rights switch at the outdoor concert amphitheater in Mansfield.
Philadelphia-based cable TV provider Comcast and the center's owner, Live Nation, announced the change today. The switch takes effect tonight for a concert by Eric Clapton.
The nearly 20,000-person-capacity venue, which is about 45 minutes southwest of Boston, has 35 to 40 concerts a year. By midmorning, the center's Web site carried the Comcast name.
The site had carried the name of Tweeter Home Entertainment Group, the Canton, Mass.-based chain of electronics stores that entered bankruptcy protection last year. Tweeter had taken over the name of the Great Woods Center for the Performing Arts in 1999.
The bankruptcy triggered Tweeter to pull out of four naming-rights deals at outdoor concert sites on the East Coast.
In the bankruptcy, Tweeter's assets were sold under a court-supervised auction.
(By the way, a tweeter, along with a woofer, is a component of stereo speakers.)
What had been the Tweeter Center on the Camden waterfront was renamed the Susquehanna Bank Center under a $10 million deal announced Feb. 4.
Susquehanna Bancshares Inc., a Lititz, Pa., bank holding company, had recently opened a regional headquarters along the Delaware River in Camden. The naming-rights contract is for an initial period of five years and is renewable for two five-year terms. Over the 15 years, the value would be $10 million.
Tweeter had purchased the naming rights for the Camden center - which opened in 1995 as the Blockbuster-Sony Music Entertainment Centre at the Waterfront and was referred to by most people as the E-Centre – for an undisclosed amount in 2001.
Tweeter purchased the King of Prussia-based Bryn Mawr Stereo & Video in 1996. And five years before that, Bryn Mawr Stereo, founded in 1946 by a Main Line podiatrist, nearly bought Tweeter.


text:
Deleting Facebook
#linkedin
Yup. I'm done with Facebook. However, it's tough to delete your account. Read the message above. I exited out of this screen, suspended my account instead, but then went back 15 minutes later and actually deleted it. Well – I started the deletion process. I don't know what day I'm on, but I think I'm close to 14 days. So, I'm still "deleting" apparently.
The only inconvenience I've noticed so far are all the sites where I used Facebook as the sign-on authenticator (rather than setting up a separate email/password combo.) I think I'm through most of that – at least the sites I use on a regular basis. For the first few days, I accidentally ended up on the Facebook login screen which was pleasantly filled out with my login beckoning me to log back in. I resisted the siren song of restarting my Facebook account before the 14 days was up.
I have never been much of a Facebook user. About once a year, I try to get into it, but I always stall out and use it as a broadcast-only network for my blog and links that I find interesting. I went through a phase of tightening up my security, pruning my friends, using it more frequently from my phone, deleting it from my phone, checking daily in the morning (as part of my morning routine – which has evolved a lot since I wrote this post in 2007), and then giving up again and never looking at it.
Recently, I decided to rethink Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Facebook was the easiest. While it had already become a walled garden, I suddenly noticed that the walls we were going up very high, being justified by Facebook's new effort to get all their privacy and data issues "under control." For example, you can no longer automatically post your Tweets to your Facebook profile.
And, Facebook recently killed automatic WordPress publishing to Profiles. So, my one (and only) current use case for Facebook, which is to broadcast from my blog, disappeared. Sure, I could create a public page, go through all the authentication stuff, and theoretically post to my new public followers, but who cares. If they are really interested in what I write, they can subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter (at least for now, until I figure out how I'm going to engage with Twitter long-term.)
Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now tipped me over into thinking harder about this. Now that I have decided how to deal with Facebook, at least for now, it's time to move on down the road to Twitter and LinkedIn. I'm about a month into a different way of engaging with LinkedIn and we'll see if it sticks. When I reach a conclusion, I'll definitely write about it.
RSS: The Persistent Protocol
#newsgator
#rss
#protocol
#feedburner
One of our themes is Protocol. We've been investing in companies built around technology protocols since 1994. One of my first investments, when I moved to Boulder in 1995, was in a company called Email Publishing, which was the very first email service provider. SMTP has been very good to me.
We made some of the early investments in companies built around RSS, including FeedBurner and NewsGator. RSS is a brilliant, and very durable, protocol. The original creators of the protocol had great vision, but the history and evolution of RSS were filled with challenges and controversy. Like religious conflict, the emotion ran higher than it needed to and the ad-hominem attacks drove some great people away from engaging with the community around the protocol.
And then Facebook and Twitter took over. RSS Feed Readers mostly vanished, and the feed became the "Twitter feed." After a while, Facebook realized this was a good idea, and created the "Facebook news feed." I think it's hilarious that the word "feed" is still in common usage – The Dixie Flatline is amused.
Over dinner, after he had become the COO of Twitter (but before he was the CEO), Dick Costolo (who had previously been the founder/CEO of FeedBurner) told me that he viewed Twitter as the evolution of RSS. At a protocol level this wasn't true, but at a functional level (providing another way to get access to everything going on any website that was publishing content) this became true. Our investment in Gnip (which Twitter eventually acquired) helped extend this, by allowing companies to build products on top of the Twitter firehose (which was the name for the entirety of everything being tweeted on Twitter.)
Time passed. Facebook and Twitter gobbled up all the direct attention of end-users. Publishers pushed their content through Facebook and Twitter, not realizing the control over the user they were giving up to these platforms. For some reason, there was more focus for a while on Google, and how they were aggregating content. The beauty, and brilliance, of the web, started to become the walled garden of Facebook. For those of us who remembered AOL's walled garden vs. the web (and Microsoft's failed attempt as MSN as a walled garden), there were echoes of the past all over the place.
Some smart people started talking extensively about decentralization and lock-in right around the time that the Facebook privacy stuff became front and center. As it unfolded, and the dust settled, there was nothing new, other than a continued schism between the effort to control (and monetize) users and the effort to create broadly democratized and decentralized information. Oh – and privacy. And legitimacy (or authenticity) of information, much of which is wholly subjective or imprecise anyway.
In the middle of all of this, Wired's Article It's Time For An RSS Revival caught my attention. I've been using RSS continuously for over a decade as my primary source of information. My current feed reader is Feedly, which I think is currently the best in class. It's one of my primary sources for information that informs me, is private, and allows me to control and modulate what information I look at.
While RSS has disappeared into the plumbing of the internet, there's still something fundamental about it. Its durability is remarkably impressive, especially in the context of the lack of the evolution and perceived displacement of the protocol over the past few years.
The tension between walled gardens (or lock-in, or whatever you want to call it) and a decentralized web will likely never end. But, it feels like we are in for another significant turn of the crank on how all of this works, and that means lots of innovation is coming.
More Thoughts on Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
Category Productivity
#information
#lanier
A few weeks ago I read Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. It helped consolidate some thinking on my part and I sent a few copies out to friends who I knew would have thoughtful and interesting responses. One that came back is very worth reading as it has a healthy critique as well as some personal reflections. The note from my friend after reading Lanier's book follows.
He makes a reasonable case (obviously with a lot of room to dispute individual points) that social media is "bad" in general and a source of concern. Some of it is old hat but the way he puts it together is certainly helpful. It seems like it would be good if a lot of people read it.
I had two major concerns with it structurally. First, he positions the book as making arguments as to why *the reader* should delete his or her accounts. But as is common these days, it conflates reasons that are self-interested with reasons that might justify a "boycott." Many of the arguments are not about how the use of social media affects the reader directly as an individual, but rather its systemic effects. Even the economic argument doesn't work individually – even if I'm a gig economy person, it does not hurt my prospects to use social media, it's that the BUMMER business model exists at all that causes the problem. It's all the rage of course to talk about boycotting anything that has any secondary effects we don't like, but it rarely works, especially as we realize everything affects everything else, which is why people in Boulder who are concerned about CO2 still drive up to the mountains constantly just for fun. So I thought this really weakened the argument that he does not separate the two things. It's really Three Arguments why you should delete your social media accounts and Seven Arguments why you should Boycott them.
The second concern is that he conflates Google with social media. Last I checked, no one uses Google Plus. Yes, Google has an advertising and manipulation-oriented business model, but it's extremely different from Facebook and Twitter. I find the ads Google gives me generally useful, and I don't see Google making me more of an asshole than I already am. It certainly does not make me sad. Yes, search does have the effect of causing SEO and content-poaching and all that stuff, so this distinction connects to my first point. I think the book would have been better if he had made a more clear compare/contrast with Facebook. I do worry that he is a Microsoft employee and he has a Google-is-the-enemy bias. I'd be very open to hearing how Google is bad for me because I have thought about this and I don't see it (other than the same things that happen when I pass a billboard on the highway or whatever). I also like Chrome Mobile's news feed – it's very much tuned to things I find interesting (cosmology, AI, poetry, etc.) in a way that a news site like the NY Times, which thinks that POLITICS is what is important (just like the MSM) – he talks about religion but does not connect the dots that the MSM have elevated politics-is-the-most-important-thing into a form of religion.
From a personal perspective, in the past year, I went through a couple of transformations regarding Facebook (I don't use Facebook and never really have). The first was after the election I realized I had gotten caught up in the politics-is-important cycle and was posting frequently on it. At some point, I realized I had been sucked in, and mostly stopped posting on current politics. That took a month or two. Then I had a run-in with a particular individual on something controversial I had posted, and it made me realize I too had been sucked into making controversy and drama there. My approach now is only to post things I think my friends will find funny (NOT political satire) or that offer an update on my life. Yes, I mostly post positive things, but generally not competitively. Instead of commenting I just Like posts, or just read them and move on. I mostly ignore the politics or I just smirk at how absorbed and overconfident everyone is. I probably waste a little more time on Facebook than I would like, but I do find that scrolling through stupid dog and cat and political posts and all that sometimes leads me to a post I am really glad I saw. So, noise to signal is high but really what isn't?
Category Entrepreneurship
#gnip
#origin stories
#jud valeski
#doug williams
I love origin stories. Some of them glorify entrepreneurship in a way that makes them challenging to parse, as the struggles of our heroines and heroes gets romanticized in a way that tastes sugary sweet. But, when they are written in first person, unedited, on a blog, they are often delicious in a tasty and fulfilling way.
Jud Valeski, the co-founder of Gnip, wrote a great one a few days ago. It's titled How Did Gnip Get The Twitter Deal? and does a thorough job of telling the story from Jud's perspective. If that's all that was there, it'd be a solid origin story.
But then Doug Williams, who was on the Twitter side of the Gnip / Twitter origin story, weighs in with a comment that is the same length as Jud's post. And now we get Doug's view. Not the official Twitter view. Not the C7H5NO3S version that has been denuded of anything challenging and controversial.
The combination is delicious and worth reading. I lived it as an investor and only have two categories of things to add. The first is that the most important role of the investor in deals like this is to talk your team (in this case Jud and Rob) off the cliff. Or, more likely, to take the flamethrower out of their hands before they started spraying it on everyone in sheer frustration. The other is a few well timed phone calls to key people (in this case, Dick Costolo, who totally saw the value of the relationship but at the time was trying to navigate whatever the current version of Twitter dynamics were.)
The end of Jud's post has two extremely important points in it. The first to play by the rules of your partner.
"This conflict between your product and the publisher, is real, and it can make or break you. On one hand, you want revenue, and if you break/bend the rules, you can get more of it. However, doing so puts you at odds with the publisher (arguably your bread and butter). Take your pick. We chose to play by the rules and were able to navigate to a successful partnership and outcome. We firmly believed that breaking/bending the rules would yield an incrementally small amount of revenue, and never actually let the business get as big as it could. Think about it this way, black markets exist, and always will, but they're never as big as the open market. Pursue the open market, sure, it's harder, but the rewards are bigger. If the only way you have a business is by breaking rules, stop what you're doing and go do something else; that's ultimately lame; explain that one to your kids."
The other is what we called "Be Everywhere That Twitter Is."
"We spent years cultivating relationships inside Twitter (from the CEO, which changed a few times during our efforts), to mid-level, to developers, to BD, to on and on and on). When we were at a conference and there was a Twitter person there, we elbowed our way to them to get a word in. When Twitter put on conferences, we were there. When Twitter wouldn't answer the phone because we were that annoying gnat in the swarm, we backed off the calls until we had something significant to put in front of them (a new feature, a new business milestone). Partnership negotiation is a fine line between expressing your need for the other partnership, and illustrating your ability to be independent."
And Doug, in his conclusion, reinforces the value of that approach.
"I'll leave you with this final anecdote. While in the midst of the start of our initial term sheet negotiations with GNIP, my team was moved under a new executive. After bringing him up to speed, he told me he didn't like the strategy and called it off. That day, he and I were to meet with Jud and push things forward. I had to break this news to Jud that the exec had pulled the plug and wouldn't be at the meeting. It's difficult to say who was more heartbroken at this point. In his patient and persistent way, Jud keep calling. He kept asking questions. He kept showing up at the office. We kept working on the term sheet and he motivated me to go to bat again. Again, we eventually got the nod. Luck, timing and patience paid off, but more than all kept Jud showing up. That is the ultimate lesson he taught me, one that I carry with me every day."
There's a lot of healthy and tasty juice in this origin story. Jud / Doug – thanks for putting it out there.
High Technology Tell All Books
#high tech
#tell all
#hubspot
Tell All Books are nothing new and some of the most explosive ones of all time have already come from California (in and around Hollywood). Suddenly, tell alls are focusing on high tech companies instead of movie stars. So far this year two have been published with a lot of fanfare and I bet there are several others that are under contract from major publishing houses.
The first was Dan Lyons book Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble which is about his time at Hubspot. I love that the very first review on the Amazon page for the book is from the Los Angeles Times and says "Disrupted by Dan Lyons is the best book about Silicon Valley today" as it is indicative of the content of the book, which I'd categorize as ironic at best and notionally confused. Why? Because, ahem, Hubspot is in Boston, where the majority of Lyons' book was based.
The second, which I gobbled down on Friday and Saturday, is Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez. This book actually takes place in Silicon Valley and we get to spend a lot of time at Y Combinator, Twitter, and Facebook.
Both books are classic tell alls, which is to say that they are juicy, salacious, sarcastic, nasty, critical, provocative, self-effacing, cringeworthy, and generally an effort in both education ("let me tell you how the world works") and self-justification ("look at the injustice visited on me by how the world works.") Each will titillate, depress, sadden, frustrate, and amuse you. Each will likely cause you to have conflicting feelings about the authors. I expect both authors view this as "the truth – at least my truth – is more important than being liked." Or maybe they just got healthy advances from their respective publishers (Hachette and Harper).
While I have no interest in debating either Lyons' or Martinez's personal truth, I fell like their excessive cynicism and general loathing of most of the people they worked with undermined their stories. While big swaths of each books were fun to read, some parts of them didn't ring true to me, especially in the case of Lyons, where I felt like I was reading the words of a sad and angry person trying to justify – in hindsight – what had happened to him. Occasionally there would be a bright spot and I'd feel like the story had turned a corner and was going to have some positive content, but in both cases they turned dark quickly again.
Having read my share of tell alls over the year, including some that were passed off as autobiographies, I mostly feel sad – sometimes for the writer and sometimes for all the people in his way. I hope that the process of writing the tell all gives some release and closure on what clearly was an unpleasant and unfulfilling life experience. Or, I'm hopeful it leads to more enlightenment, or a more satisfying role in life for the person, as it appears it has for Dan Lyons from a casual read of his blog.
I don't know Lyons or Martinez, but I know plenty of people in each of their books. Sometimes I share their view of the people they write about. Other times I don't. But I kept searching for some optimism somewhere in each of these books and found none. Ultimately, that is what disappointed me about each of the books.
All My Comm Channels
#skype
#comm channels
#voxer
#slack
#imessage
#sameroom
I realized yesterday, as I was driving to Denver, that my comm channels shifted again after I returned from sabbatical in December. This happens periodically, mostly as a result of me taking some time away and changing things up on re-entry.
The largest change is that I'm batching my email. Rather than reading and responding to email on my phone throughout the day, or using slack time in my calendar to check and catch up on email, I'm doing a pass in the morning, another pass late in the day, and then finishing up at night. While grinding through 200 emails at a time in 90 minutes isn't awesome fun, it's enhanced by having some Nine Inch Nails playing loudly while I'm doing it. So – instead of an always or or interrupt channel, my email has turned into a more periodic (several times a day) comm channel. This feels good so far.
That shifted my real time channels to a few different things since there isn't a single unifying answer. The active set is Voxer (audio), Slack, and iMessage, probably in that order. Techstars runs on Voxer as do several companies I'm involved in and my partners use it for longer discussions. We use Slack internally for short stuff and I'm in eight other Slack instances for companies I'm on the board of. iMessage ends up being the least common denominator for everyone else for real-time messaging.
Of the three, I find Voxer by far the most satisfying and convenient. I went through an intrigued phase with Slack when I started engaging with the Slack instances for several of our companies, but I quickly found the noise overwhelmed the signal for me so I use it for specific things and periodic scans of a channel I'm particularly interested in (say – the FullContact Chrome 2.0 channel since I'm obsessed about the new version coming out), but mostly it's now a direct message channel to the CEOs and a few other people on various leadership teams.
Interestingly, Skype is completely absent from my workflow. I've also largely eliminated Twitter and Facebook from my daily information flow given the high distraction characteristics. I do monitor Twitter for DMs and @bfeld's via Twitter for Mac, but it mostly hangs out quietly on the far left side of my screen. Facebook gets my attention once a day when I scan it as part of my "daily routine", but that's about it.
I also find that I'm spending much less time looking at shit on my iPhone, which I think is likely a result of cutting Twitter, Facebook, and email out of the always on / interrupt flow. The result is that I feel much calmer and focused throughout the day, and able to concentrate on what is in front of me, rather than what is flying at me.
I'm curious if anyone out there has discovered, or is using, something that effectively unifies different channels. We are investors in Sameroom and I've used it effectively in some cases, but mostly to integrate across different Slack instances, since Slack doesn't handle that very well.
And, if you have other favorite comm channels, weigh in on them and I'll react to how I have, or haven't used them in the past.
A Twitter For Mac Bug That Breaks My Heart – And Workflow
Let's start with my bias. I love Twitter, use it all the time (a lot more than Facebook), and will continue to love and root for Twitter.
I've been a Twitter for Mac user for a long time. I know it's out of favor with all the cool kids, but it works for me.
It sits quietly on the left side of my giant screen and whenever a little dot shows up next to the second icon (I think it's a tilted bell) I know I have something that has @bfeld in it that I should look at or respond to. And, when I feel like tweeting something, the app is right there on the left side of my screen.
Last week when Twitter for Mac was upgraded to raving from folks like Cult of Mac in their post Twitter for Mac doesn't suck anymore I was psyched to install the update from the Mac App Store. So I did.
Here's the problem. Suddenly refresh no longer works on the notification page (second icon). Now, when there's a little dot there, I have to click the first icon (Home) and then the second icon (titled bell).
Sadness ensued. I presume that this has already been reported to gang at Black Pixel. I was hoping this would get fixed in version 4.0.1 which came out yesterday. But it didn't. So here's hoping for 4.02.
Weekend Video Fun From Big Omaha
#startup communities
#harmonix
#Interliant
#big omaha
This weekend you can catch up on Halt and Catch Fire, Mr. Robot, or the talk I gave at Big Omaha in May.
I tell stories about my favorite investment (Harmonix), an investment we clearly missed and why (Twitter), and my worst and most heartbreaking investment (Interliant), along with lawsuits and eating babies.
I then go on a riff on Startup Communities and Fundraising, where the phrase "Any rich people around here?" popped out and got some applause.
I covered the inevitable question about dragicorns and big financings, went on my culture – competence rant, and then answered whether entrepreneurs are born or made.
I had fun at Big Omaha. While I think Halt and Catch Fire and Mr. Robot are way more interesting than me, this was a pretty good interview.
Foundry Group Traditions: Gnip Exit Gift
Category Foundry Group
#foundry group
#makerbot
#exit
#tradition
#postertext
Foundry Group has now been around for over seven years and I've been working with my partners for 14 years. We've started to develop some traditions.
One of my favorites is exit gifts. When a company has an exit that generates a return for us, we give a gift to the partner who served on the board. These gifts are generally tuned to what the partner loves such as musical stuff for Ryan and Jason, bike stuff for Seth, and art for me. They are modest, but very thoughtful and something the partner wouldn't have just gone out and done for himself. They are often self referential, such as the Makerbot sculpture of me created by an artist and printed on a Makerbot after Stratasys acquired MakerBot.
A few weeks ago Seth, Jason, and Ryan corralled me in our small conference room. Whenever they do this, I'm never sure if it's going to be a happy thing or an intervention. Ryan was holding the following 2′ x 3′ framed print.
To get a better sense of this masterpiece, let's zoom in on the G and the N.
This is a list of every tweet I made at @bfeld from the day of our investment in Gnip to the day that Twitter acquired Gnip. This first one is from 2/29/08.
The last batch is from 4/14.
Ryan told me that Gnip was used to generate the tweet list for the poster. And Postertext was used to print it. Thanks guys – this one made me smile a huge smile. I love this tradition.
Tickets for #BoulderWin Event – June 4th
Category Places
##boulderwin
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about an event a bunch of us in the Boulder startup community are putting together called #BoulderWin, a celebration for the sale of Gnip to Twitter. Instead of having a secretive closing dinner for a small number of folks, we are going to have a big party to welcome Twitter to town.
#BoulderWin is happening on June 4th from 7pm – 10pm at the Boulder Theater.
You must register to attend and tickets cost $20 per person. All of the proceeds are going to Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. There are a limited number of tickets available and it's first come first served.
In addition to the proceeds from the sales of the tickets, I'll be matching the $4,000 with a personal gift of $4,000 from me and my wife Amy Batchelor to the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. And, my partners at Foundry Group are sponsoring the event, along with a bunch of other local companies including:
Dfuzr Industries
Dfine Branding
dojo4
EKS&H
These companies represent a big part of what makes Boulder such a great place for entrepreneurs. Thanks for everything you do!
Once again, you can get your tickets here.


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A crushable foam model was found to be appropriate to simulate the response of jellyroll of lithium battery as a homogeneous material under predominantly compressive loads [5, 6, 7, 10].
Terminus dinner special: Rick Grimes pot pie, Michonne de soul, Carl Grimes escarole, Judith jellyroll and Daryl Hot Pockets.
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Big Bridge, Fence, Amerarcana and JellyRoll Magazine, among others.
Line a 10x15-inch jellyroll pan with no-stick foil.
Performed by local Philadelphians from the award winning band, Jellyroll, the Sounds of Philadelphia features music you know and love from the artists and producers that changed the face of music.
One night in the fall of 1965 I put a typewritten yellow-labeled record titled "Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jellyroll Like Mine," by someone named Bessie Smith, on the turntable of my 78 rpm phonograph, and the universe stuttered and everything fell to a new place.
And although Midlgeston hardy seems a ladies' man, the fact that he does live with a Universal Oil boss's wife might suggest that there is a jellyroll in this narrative somewhere, that Midgleston is involved in negating a marriage, as it were.


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Graphic photography as artwork, and a stunning statement chandelier. YES!!!
The bookshelf AND the chandelier are absolutely perfect. I love bookshelves: you can add decor or store all those books and magazines you have running around.
yes, but then i think, "i would have to dust it."


1. A new Syrian Constitution should be discussed and adopted by the Syrian National Council as soon as possible. We should not wait for the fall of the Assad regime in the hope that a democratic constitution can be agreed in the extreme chaos that will inevitably follow. This mistake was made in Iraq as well as in Libya and Egypt where the West did not connect its support with a crystal-clear democratic constitution first and naively believed democrats would later win in the power struggle with radicals. All leaders of the different groups must personally sign and agree under oath to implement all the rules of this new fundamental law of the Syrian National Council. Any group which abstains must be excluded from any political, financial or military support by the West and the Arab States involved. We can only support rebels who fight for democracy and not a differently labeled dictatorship.
3. As proposed last year, a special "Syrian Centre for the Registration of Crimes against Humanity" should be established now, preferably in Berlin. Special prosecutors must collect evidence of crimes including the many murders and executions. Victims can report them to the staff. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) can be co-opted to punish major human right violations.


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Part Zabar's, part Xanadu, this stupendous compendium of comestibles is a testament to the opulence and abundance of the American 21st-century good life. Here -- serendipitously located at the intersection of Prosperity Farms Road and PGA Boulevard -- is where your amber waves of grain, your fruited plain hit the table and the palate. Of course, the pot of food at the end of the rainbow is in a yacht harbor in a municipality that christens its main public thoroughfare after the ruling body of a ruling-class sport. Of course, the leisured white folk of the country-club set steer their SUVs this way at day's end, weary of the sun and the cart, to pick up a gourmet delicacy or two for dinner: black-and-white sesame-seared tuna, herb-crusted sea bass, rapini-and-sausage-stuffed breast of chicken, and meats Milanese, Francese, parmigiana, and piccata. There's an extensive wine selection, produce section, and bakery near at hand. It's pricey -- prepared foods top out around $19.99 per pound -- but hey, it costs to eat the dream.
Consider the prototypical deli: a convenient haven of roasted meats, cheeses, pickles, condiments, and home-meal replacements. Antonette's takes that basic model and improves on it by providing Boar's Head cold cuts, fresh mascarpone and ricotta salata, Sicilian olives, eggplant caponata, and homemade "dinners to go" like spinach lasagna or chicken Parmesan. Then the eatery goes one step further by importing a host of products, such as jars of minced truffles, marinated artichokes, and pepperoncini paste, directly from Italy. Prices might be a little bit higher than Publix, but that's a given, given the assortment of hard-to-find goods. One caveat: The aroma of made-on-premises sausage and peppers is so seductive and the service so pleasant, chances are your one-stop shopping could turn into quite a lengthy excursion.
116 Weston Rd., Weston, 33326 Map
OK, for one thing, it's counter service, so you don't have to worry about annoying a server. Two: Yes, there is a high chair -- maybe even two -- on the premises. So what if they're not quite the same height as the bar-style tables? Three: The utensils are plastic. The plates are paper. The floor is tile. Throw those tortilla chips. Really, no one will notice till they step on them. And finally, the cooked-to-order Mexican food here is actually healthful, prepared without added lard or other extraneous animal fats. Not that you would know it by the taste: rich, full of flavor, spicy with peppers and onions, and perfumed with herbs. This might indeed be the one place where you could get your kids to eat anything, including fish. After all, it's in tacos. And you can't dress up fish better than that -- not even as sticks.
www.zonafresca.com
When first confronted by the produce section in a Whole Foods Market, your immediate reaction might be a double take to see if you've accidentally wandered into an art gallery by mistake -- the food is that beautiful, and beautifully arranged as well: walls of glistening greens, row upon row of perfect fruits. Once you've gotten your bearings, however, you'll realize you're in produce paradise. Much of what you'll find is the usual supermarket fare, although invariably fresher and much more carefully displayed. (Some of the arrangements are so artful that you have to pick gingerly to make sure they don't come toppling down on you.) It's the variety that overwhelms. There are red potatoes and white potatoes, but there are also sweet potatoes and yams -- there's a difference, you know -- as well as tiny fingerling potatoes and purple potatoes. Other exotica include black radishes, yellow tomatoes, white asparagus, and two kinds of kale. Then there's the fruit section, which, depending upon the season, can feature cactus pears, purple-streaked pepino melons, wrinkly passion fruit, huge fuyu persimmons, a horned melon called kiwano, the appropriately named ugli fruit, and the truly bizarre tropical delicacy monstera deliciosa, which comes with detailed instructions on how to ripen and eat. And if the array of fresh mushrooms and the dozen or so fresh herbs don't impress you, maybe the edible flowers, including orchids and pansies, will -- or should.
810 University Dr., Coral Springs, 33071 Map
www.wholefoodsmarket.com
Just a block east of Old Schoolhouse Square, the Delray Green Market is a sweet place to wile away a Saturday morning. From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., about 35 vendors set up in Worthington Park, where magnificent banyans provide shade and park benches welcome the shop-weary buttocks. Produce is available from four vendors. Hippocrates organic farms sells vegetables and fruits as well as juices and wraps. Triple C, a citrus grower, sells citrus and fresh-squeezed juices. Nancy and Charlie Roe, who operate a community-supported farm in Boynton Beach where a monthly subscription brings a weekly bag of seasonal produce, bring a selection of fresh vegetables. There's also barbecue, fresh fish, crafts, and usually musical entertainment. The only bummer: Like pretty much all such gatherings in these subtropical climes, the Green Market is open only from mid-October through the end of April.
At the Twin Marketplace, the tuna is a little redder, the shrimp a little pinker, and the lobsters a little livelier. Hell, the ice even seems a little colder. It's just that kind of place. You choose from a wide variety of seafood at the Ocean's Harvest Seafood Market, which makes up half of the little store (one of the twins, as it were). And there, you can often get unbelievable specials on such wonders as Maine lobsters. On our most recent trip, we bought up a couple of those kicking beauties at a mere $6.99 a pound. God, they were good. But the really unique thing about the place is that there is also a top-flight bakery and deli to provide you with everything else you need to go along with your feast from the sea. In the other half of the store, Stephane's Deli, you have tomatoes, portobello mushrooms, and zucchini, all stuffed with goodies like spinach and cheese. There are various salads and rice dishes and casseroles. And you have delectable cheesecake and other sweet treats. To wash it all down, there is a serviceable selection of wines available. The only problem is that the place is so good, it's addictive. Our mouths are watering like golf-course sprinklers as we write this. Time for a return trip.
First, the bad news about golden crabs: They're as ugly as a hockey player's nose, and their dining habits are macabre. Bearing a striking resemblance to giant spiders, they live in the deep sea and feed on corpses and carcasses, especially favoring rancid eyeballs. But the meat within a golden crab is oh-so-sweet -- not to mention plentiful. Some weigh up to five pounds. It was only in the 1980s that researchers discovered them in great quantities in the deep waters off the Florida coast, and since then, they've been slowly catching on with seafood aficionados. Captain Mike's gets its golden crabs off the shores of Miami Beach from depths of about 1200 feet and sells them whole for $2.69 a pound. Once cooked, they glow like burnished bullion and taste like a million bucks.
Clever name, considering that this storefront coffeehouse is at the junction of Second Street and Second Avenue. But that's not why we fall for the joint, which is all about high-octane fuel that's not even close to motor oil. It's actually refreshing to have this nonalcoholic haven to fall back on after we've tied on a bender at Tarpon Bend or chased with one too many sidecars at Side Bar. And unlike at most garages, the service here is actually friendly, encouraging those whose engines are stalling to stop in for a quick fix. The only irony? Well, parking on this street is a little tough.
The number-one reason this place is kid-positive: It's loud. Thanks to the minimalist décor, even the crankiest of two-year-olds will be drowned out by the echoing conversations of other diners or by the sounds emanating from the open kitchen. Not that there are many reasons for a child or an adult to wail here. Almost as soon as your party is seated, the fruit of your loins will be handed a fruit, vegetable, and quesadilla plate. This is the first of three courses from the outrageous "keiki" (kid's) menu, which features entrées like teriyaki chicken breast, broiled short luau ribs, and flat-top seared Hawaiian catch of the day, as well as the standby favorite, pasta. While you peruse the extensive wine and sake list, your progeny can munch happily on her food or scrawl all over her menu with a crayon. The children's selections are as artfully prepared as the adult's meals, and they are as beautiful as they are delicious, served sizzling, freshly made, and decorated with flowers. Parties with children are not relegated to the dark corners of the restaurant, mostly because there aren't any. All the servers are professionally friendly without being too cute to your kid or too personal with you. The only thing missing from this restaurant is a diaper deck in the men's bathroom, though dads can pop next door to the Holiday Inn and use those. That's a small price to pay for the glee in your child's eyes as she is led away to the kitchen to watch the pastry chef prepare her sundae. The three-course kid's meal costs $9.95, which is less than you'll pay for a sitter; the whole evening will certainly cost less than a family trip to Hawaii.


Details of the Club's Constitution, Child Welfare Policy, Committee Roles & Responsibilities and the Club's Membership Rules.
Information on England Hockey's Code of Ethics and Behaviour and North Shields Hockey Club's internal disciplinary procedures.
For certain events and activities, under 18s will need their parent's/guardian's permission.
Members are required to keep their membership details up to date. Please use this form to do so.


Make sure your baby is safe from rashes and skin irritation. Buy disposable diapers from popular brands including Huggies and Pampers. Made to ensure that your baby's sensitive skin remains smooth and healthy, these diapers are available on First Cry at a 10% discount. Buy Rs. 999 worth of this essential product and you could avail of this offer. Be sure that it is not a Combo offer that you are buying as this offer is not valid on those products. Hurry, as this is a limited period offer. use the coupon once and save money!
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Back in the studio early this am recording some more guitar tracks for "Toxic Box." Josh and Nick say it is our best song to date.
One of my favorite FM covers in my collection! James Bama, in THE AURORA MONSTERS DVD (Which I highly recommend), said he wasn't even aware that his painting appeared on this FM cover at the time it was issued...he saw it years later.
We recorded our hardest rocking song to date called "Toxic Relationship" at Tom Repetny's studio tonight. I was pretty happy with the sonic noises I got out of my stratocaster! Adding a solo on Saturday.
It was a beautiful, windy day at BENGTSON'S Today!
This guy plays the theme from "The Ghost & Mr. Chicken" by Vic Mizzy and has for over twenty years!


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You are at:Home»Entertainment»Movies»Movie Review: "Freaky"
Movie Review: "Freaky"
By Rob Dean on	 November 12, 2020 Movies
The early '80s heyday of slasher films produced dozens of titles that have become staples of pop culture, beloved cult classics and rightly forgotten duds. But due to that excess, it became harder to reproduce later as plots were exhausted and audiences grew tired of the formulaic approach. 1996's "Scream" added a meta-textual element to slashers that paved the way for a mini-resurgence with some enjoyable (if immemorable) movies that featured beautiful people from various WB and UPN teen dramas. As the kids who were raised on these early slasher films because filmmakers themselves, there have been more attempts to revive this former staple of horror. Most keep the meta element of "Scream" but also introduce some form of gimmick, like the role reversal of "Tragedy Girls" and "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" or the time loop of Christopher Landon's "Happy Death Day" movies. Landon's latest feature, "Freaky," once again crosspollinates the slasher film with a subgenre of another kind: the body swap comedy. The resulting product is a mixed bag in terms of humor and horror but has many strong moments and unexpected approaches that make it an enjoyable watch.
Blissfield is an average suburban town with a high school that adheres to the usual strict social hierarchy. It also has its own local boogeyman in the form of the Blissfield Butcher (Vince Vaughn), who murders teens around Homecoming weekend. When the Butcher attempts to murder perennial wallflower Milly (Kathryn Newton) with an Aztecan ceremonial dagger (as one does), the two swap places, with Milly's consciousness now in the lumbering behemoth's body and the Butcher's consciousness in the high schooler's diminutive frame. With a strict deadline to undo the mystical spell, Milly must convince her friends Nyla (Celeste O'Connor) and Josh (Misha Osherovich) to help her while the Butcher continues his murderous ways.
Landon (who co-wrote "Freaky" with Michael Kennedy) has a sincere love for slasher films that permeates his work. With the "Happy Death Day" movies, he attempted to create an iconic mask along with inventive kills that harkened back to the heights of the subgenre. That same affinity is on display in "Freaky," although the mask is quickly ditched and the clever carnage is increased, matching the most gruesome deaths of "The Burning," "The Prowler" and other hits from that bygone era. The movie starts out on awkward footing, though, as there is a lot of winking dialogue about the morality of scary stories and direct visual references to horror classics. This self-awareness immediately takes the wind out of its sails. Luckily, it quickly rights itself and manages to find a good balance between humor and horror, delivering some truly funny sequences along with some uniquely grotesque murders that appear mostly practical and less constrained by censors as opposed to more recent genre titles.
Newton is great as the much put-upon Milly and then as the teenage terminator who stalks the high school hallways looking for new prey. Her physicality between the two characters — not just due to the glow-up that Milly receives when the Butcher inhabits her body — is impressive to watch. It's not always subtle, but watching hunched shoulders become broad or intermittent eye contact become sustained showcases a lot about these personas. Vaughn is clearly having fun and relishing the chance at playing against his appearance, while O'Connor, Osherovich and Uriah Shelton as Milly's crush do serviceable work and buck stereotypes as they help navigate this freaky Friday the 13th. They are able to have rapid banter with each other and recognize the absurdity of the situation without undermining the threat they face.
The two main issues with "Freaky" are split between a horror problem and a humor problem. In terms of the latter, the film tries to get a lot of mileage out of Vaughn as a teenage girl. There are some funny moments with him speaking in emojis and using teenage colloquialisms in a soft voice or reacting to being in a different body, but that's mostly the entire joke, and it just keeps happening. Clearly, that's meant to be part of the charm and is the inherent comedic punchline to this concept, but there are diminishing returns as it continues.
The other hitch with "Freaky" is that the Butcher is initially presented as a Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers type — giant, lumbering, brutal and silent. Putting that character in the body of a petite teenage girl is a good visual juxtaposition, but suddenly, the Butcher is delivering threats and interacting with people in ways that seem completely against how the character was originally established. If the opening act had introduced the Butcher as a quip-making killer à la Freddy Krueger, then it would work, but there's no real character for Newton to play beyond glowering menace, so it requires a change in the previously established Butcher character. A shy girl suddenly using shocking expletives and issuing graphic threats is a clear demarcation between the two personas, but it seems incongruent with the kind of character that Butcher is supposed to be.
Nevertheless, Landon delivers a film that looks great thanks to some engaging sets, fun camera work, and coherently blocked and edited scenes so audiences know the spatial relationships between people. The fighting is well choreographed and has a grounded sensibility that helps cement the horror part of the ludicrous but fun premise. Not all gimmicks are as quaint and uninteresting as slapping on a pair of 3-D glasses, and Landon proves here that combining genres and injecting high concepts into a previously well-worn formula can be a clever approach that creates a fun synthesis. Even with its drawbacks, "Freaky" is a truly entertaining slasher film that uses these gimmicks with an inventive flair to produce something familiar yet wholly unique at the same time.
Starring: Kathryn Newton, Vince Vaughn, Misha Osherovich, Melissa Collazo, Celeste O'Connor, Uriah Shelton, Kelly Lamor Wilson, Alan Ruck
Director: Christopher Landon
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Tags: comedy films, Freaky, horror films, Kathryn Newton, movie reviews, Vince Vaughn
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Stanton-under-Bardon Parish Council
Council Agendas 2022/23
Council Minutes 2022/23
Budget/Precept
Payments Over £100
Welcome to Stanton-under-Bardon
Stanton-under-Bardon is a small rural village pleasantly situated
amongst farmland but only a mile from junction 22 of the M1 in north Leicestershire; it is part of the borough of Hinckley and Bosworth.
Stanton has a population of around 1,000 people and was recently expanded by two new developments of domestic property. The village possesses a newsagents/general store, two churches, public house and a primary school which is highly regarded in the area.
The name 'Stanton' originates from the Latin 'stan' meaning stone
and 'tun' meaning village. The name reflects the fact that, for the
last two centuries at least, quarries have existed in the area and
have provided a welcome source of employment. Today, two major
companies still quarry extensively in close proximity to the village. A number of references to the village as 'Staunton-under-Bardon' are made in historical texts.
Stanton is featured in the Domesday Book at which point it had
eighteen households, ten of which qualified to pay taxes.
The households consisted of 13 homes for villagers and five
smallholdings. The nearest church, for many centuries, was at
Thornton, one and a half miles away, but records show that there
was a Chapel in the village. It would seem that the chapel was a
'sub-branch' of Thornton church and records of both marriages
and burials, which took place at Stanton Chapel, still exist.
The last burial appears to have been that of Grace Dunisthorpe in
1685. In 1908, Stanton built its own Anglican church out of local
granite. The little church is a feature of the village and can seat 120 people.
The Parish Council Offices are situated in the new village hall which was completed in 2015 as part of a development of property in the centre of the village. Further details about the workings and activities of the Parish Council can be found on the pages of this website. The website is of particular interest and relevance to people who live in the parish and surrounding area.
Come in and take a look!
2 St John Cole Crescent, Stanton under Bardon, Markfield, Leicestershire LE67 9AE


The five-step writing process is a technique used to teach students how to break down the process of writing an essay into multiple steps. The steps are pre-writing, drafting, revising, proofreading and publishing.
The first step in the five-step writing process is pre-writing. Pre-writing includes brainstorming and researching. Students are often taught to use drawings, word webs or graphic organizers for this step, or they may be instructed to simply jot down any ideas they have related to the topic.
Drafting refers to writing the essay. The key to this step is avoiding the temptation to correct mistakes, instead focusing on getting words on the page.
The third step is revising. In this step, writers strengthen their draft by adding more detail in places where it is lacking and removing detail they deem to be irrelevant or not necessary.
Step four is proofreading. Writers carefully read over what they have written and check for correct spelling, punctuation and grammar.
The final step is publishing. This term refers to sharing what one has written with others. For example, publishing an essay could mean printing a copy to turn in to a teacher, or it could mean uploading an electronic copy to a school website.


Dr. Michelle Katz is a clinician and health services researcher interested in directly improving health outcomes for youth with Type 1 diabetes. Her current research efforts are aimed at decreasing later cardiovascular disease by improving the management of hypertension and dyslipidemia in Type 1 youth.
Dr. Katz works to impact diabetes care delivery on two fronts. First, she has investigated ways to increase awareness of family impacts of Type 1 diabetes and avoid diabetes complications. Second, with the support of a Career Development Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, she is investigating current practices for hypertension and hyperlipidemia management and is developing an intervention to improve heart healthy behaviors in youth with Type 1 diabetes at elevated cardiovascular disease risk. She has presented the results of her research at national meetings and published research in JAMA and Diabetes Care. She serves on national committees for the Pediatric Endocrine Society and American Diabetes Association.
Dr. Katz completed her undergraduate training at Duke University, medical school training at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and her residency training at Yale-New Haven Hospital for Children. She was a Chief Resident in Pediatrics for the University of Connecticut Pediatric Residency Program. She completed her fellowship training in pediatric endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital and her Masters in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. She also completed a fellowship in health services research as a part of the Harvard Pediatric Health Services Research Fellowship Program.
Dr. Katz joined the Joslin faculty in 2013 and is an Assistant Investigator in the Section on Clinical, Behavioral and Outcomes research, as well as the Associate Director for the Section of Pediatric, Adolescent and Young Adult Diabetes. She is also an Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.


The six units of Provost Shared Services provide strategic expertise on a wide range of business, technology and personnel functions.
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Coldplay frontman Chris Martin has admitted he felt "worthless" in the midst of his split from former wife Gwyneth Paltrow.
Chris and the Oscar-winning actress famously announced their "conscious uncoupling" in March 2014, after 10 years of marriage, during which they welcomed two children together, Apple, 14, and Moses, 12.
In a new documentary film about the chart-topping group, Coldplay: A Head Full Of Dreams, the 41-year-old confessed he hit a low point during the band's 2011 world tour in support of their fifth studio album Mylo Xyloto, as he struggled with "some parts" of his life.
"When we're on tour, it's just a little bubble, you become institutionalised. And this is why a lot of frontmen have problems in their personal lives," Chris recalled, reports The Daily Mail. "Towards the end of the Mylo tour, it was a very difficult period for about a year or so of feeling completely worthless and nothing to anybody.
"Then, of course, I went through a break-up with Gwyneth," he continued. "Listen, I'm never going to moan, I'm grateful for everything, but it was pretty touch and go."
The Yellow singer's bandmates, Jonny Buckland, Guy Berryman and Will Champion, and their former manager Phil Harvey also admitted they were extremely concerned for their friend at the time.
"Your mind can go to the worst case scenario," said Phil. "I was worried about him to the extent that I was just really glad to get a text in the morning just to know he was OK."