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Edition 220 - August 2019
New EU leaders and new CULT committee members
On 2 July 2019, the European Council elected the European Council President and proposed the candidates for the three other EU top-jobs, i.e. the President of the European Commission (EC), the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HR/VP) and the President of the European Central Bank (ECB). Belgian Prime Minister, Charles Michel, was elected President of the European Council and will take office on 1 December 2019 for a two-and-a-half-year term, renewable once. Josep Borrell Fontelles was nominated to be the candidate for the HR/VP post, which requires the agreement of the President-elect of the Commission for formal appointment. The European Council proposed Christine Lagarde, current Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as the candidate for President of the ECB, who will be formally appointed in October 2019, following consultations with the European Parliament and the ECB's Governing Council. On 4 July 2019, Italian MP and former journalist, David-Maria Sassoli was elected as President of the European Parliament.
On 16 July 2019, the proposed European Council's candidate to the Presidency of the European Commission was elected by the European Parliament. Ursula von der Leyen, former German Defence Minister, who received only 9 votes above the threshold required to be elected, will take office on 1 November 2019. Amid criticisms by MEPs on the complete disregard by the European Council to the Spitzenkandidaten process, von der Leyen, in her Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission 2019-2024, My agenda for Europe, set her priorities in different policy areas, including higher education. She affirmed her commitment to "making the European Education Area a reality by 2025, to improve access to quality education and to enable learners to move more easily between education systems in different countries". In addition, she is committed to "updating the Digital Education Action Plan" and "supporting the European Parliament's idea to triple the Erasmus+ budget".
Also, the members of the EP's Culture and Education Committee (CULT) were announced. The total number amounts to 31 MEPs, including Sabine Verheyen (EPP, DE) as Chair, Romeo Franz (Greens/EFA) as first Vice-Chair, Dace Melbārde (ECR, LV) as second Vice-Chair, and Julie Ward (S&D, UK) as third Vice-Chair. The fourth Vice-Chair will be elected in September.
European Council – Press Release
European Parliament – Press Release
European Parliament – Press Release CULT
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©2012 ACA Secretariat - 15, Rue d'Egmontstraat - B-1000 Brussels - Tel. +32-2-513.22.41 - E-mail: info@aca-secretariat.be


For the first time in our history, New College of Florida is hosting a golf tournament to raise money for the College's Club Sports! By having the funds necessary to put more emphasis on Club Sports, we can provide our academically advanced students a more holistic experience at New College.
The scramble-style New College Club Sports Golf Challenge will raise funds for superb coaching staff, league fees and upgraded equipment, thereby increasing opportunities for participation and excellence.


text:
Outdoor Building
Special Outdoor Projects
How to Install Turfstone
By Michele M. Howard
Turfstone pavers, sometimes referred to as grass pavers, can give you an aesthetically pleasing alternative to a solid concrete driveway or parking area. The honeycomb design of these pavers allows grass to grow in their holes or openings while still providing enough structural support for heavy traffic use. Grass pavers are billed as environmentally friendly. They not only solve the problem of permanently destroying green space, but also help to reduce soil erosion and storm water runoff.
credit: Karin Lau/iStock/Getty Images
The interlocking Turfstone design forms a grid-like structure.
Mark off the area where you intend to install the Turfstone pavers. Take accurate measurements with a tape measure, and drive wood stakes into the ground to indicate the corners. Start at one stake -- tie string around the base of the stake. Pull the string to the second stake and tie it around the base of this stake. Continue to tie the string around the remaining corners until you return to the first stake.
Spray along the top of the string with landscaping spray paint to indicate on the ground the perimeter of the area. Remove the stakes and string and use a flat-edge shovel to cut into the ground along the sprayed lines. Excavate the entire area to a depth of 10 inches for light-traffic use, or 12 inches for heavier or vehicle use. Save the soil to use later.
Compact the bottom of the area with a high-frequency plate vibrator. Lay landscaping fabric over the bottom and run it up the side walls. Pour in 6 inches of gravel for light-traffic use or 8 inches for heavy-traffic use. Compact the gravel to a uniform thickness.
Spread 1 to 1 1/2 inches of fine aggregate concrete sand over the top of the gravel. Use a two-by-four screed board to smooth out the sand and to ensure a consistent thickness across the length and width of the area. Dampen the sand, but not to the point where it becomes saturated.
Install the Turfstone pavers on top of the sand. Start at one end, laying one row at a time, and work your way to the opposite end. Allow a minimum of 1/16 inch between the pavers. Once all of the pavers have been installed, attach a rubber mat to the plate of the vibrator and run it over the pavers to vibrate them into the sand.
Spread a mixture of grass seed, fertilizer and topsoil on the pavers, and sweep the mixture into the holes of the pavers, filling them up to 1/2 inch below the surface. Use some of the excavated soil to backfill along the outer edges of the border pavers. Run the vibrator over the pavers and along the perimeter of the area.
Michele M. Howard
Michele M. Howard began writing professionally in 2009, producing sports, fitness, home improvement and gardening articles for various websites. In addition to writing, Howard is a United States Professional Tennis Association tennis instructor and a professional racket stringer. Howard holds a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from Southern Connecticut State University.
How to Repair Scratched Pavers
How to Convert a Gravel Yard to a Grass Yard
How Long Does it Take for Fescue Seed to Germinate?
How to Build Raised Beds With Pavers
How to Repair Burnt Grass
How to Take Care of Carpet Grass

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Elliottia är ett släkte av ljungväxter. Elliottia ingår i familjen ljungväxter.

Kladogram enligt Catalogue of Life:

Bildgalleri

Källor

Externa länkar

Ljungväxter
Elliottia

en:Elliottia

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


As of March 16, 2018, we've made changes in the way the value of handle is treated when creating new Products.
Previously, when creating new Products , if you did not supply a value for the optional handle, we would auto-generate an api handle for that product based on the name.
Going forward, we will instead set the handle to nil for that Product if it is not specified.
For more information, please see Create A Product in the Product API documentation or the Product Family documentation.


Feather Pens, Tartan Dreams – Adventures of a self-published author.
A native Californian desert rat, Melanie has lived over half of her life in Texas. Braving mosquitoes, humidity, and the occasional voluntary hurricane evacuation, she and her husband and their two 4-legged children, spend time with family, friends, and planning their next travel adventure. She writes in most of her spare time and always makes sure to take a pen and paper with her just about everywhere she goes.
Want to contact Melanie? She's on the web at these various locations and coming to an e-reader near you!
Updates on release dates, guest blog appearance or book signings, check out her author page on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
Want to get an autograph from the author but don't live close by? No worries! Go to Authorgraph and request a personalized autograph for your favorite book.
Want to see pictures that inspired the stories? Crochet patterns tried? Then check out Pinterest. Want a look into the mind of a crafty woman (as in arts and crafts, people), you can follow Melanie on Instagram.


Most designers find inspiration all over the place and I'm no different. Colors, textures, patterns, materials – and every combination in between can be used for inspiration. I went out to remote West Texas last week on vacation and spent my time hiking around Big Bend National Park and exploring the tiny town of Marfa, Texas (Pop. 2,121).
My wife has been married to me for a long time so she probably wasn't surprised when I started taking pictures of walls … but I'm not sure what the people watching me were thinking. I know I'm not the only designer who takes pictures of walls but I'll admit that I would look around to make sure the coast was clear before I took most of these pictures, it's just easier than trying to explain what you are doing and that you're not actually a criminal casing the joint.
I have only included a small sampling of some of my favorites here, but I saved my favorite one for last. In the town of Marfa, there are abode mud brick walls that are set into place with a cement mortar holding everything in place. Mud bricks have been used for thousands of years and if properly made, they don't really erode over time. The walls I found all over Marfa look intentionally eroded so that you are left with the cement mortar exposed in an exaggerated manner.
Here is another view of the mud brick at an angle with the exposed cement mortar that really illustrates how deeply worked away the mud bricks are from the face of the wall. I have never seen this done before and I think it is amazingly beautiful. I have some research to do to learn more about how this sort of wall was created – this is one wall that is definitely going into my bag of tricks.


OK, version 0.1 of the GUI is done. Sorry this is so late, I meant to do it earlier today but I didn't get the chance.
Called it Matchbox since I figured that's what you use to start fires: this is what you use to start modding a game in which you make fires. Might change the name later on though, we'll see.
Anyway, this is basically a GUI for Daxar's tools. Nothing to get excited about (yet), but it'll let you decompress and such without having to hassle with command line or dragging.
I haven't written a ReadMe yet but here's the lowdown: as soon as you open it for the first time, it'll let you choose your custom LI executable. Then you can click "Make Little Inferno Moddable" to strip the .exe. This is basically how I think I'll have it once the modding scene is ready, so I decided to implement this "setup" bit already.
Everything else is in the Tools menu. You can decompress a .pak, compress a .pak, and (if you've selected your custom LI) merge a .pak, which merges it into the .paks of your selected LI. For the moment you can only do one at a time, even though modManage.exe supports multiple.
Just so you know, error checking and such is minimal and there are probably a lot of loopholes right now that can seriously confuse you if you don't know what your doing. For example if you try to compress a .pak without having a filelist.txt, it won't give an error or anything. I'll be adding lots of checks in the future though.
I'd be glad to hear any feedback or suggestions or anything. Obviously once a mod format is decided I'll make it much more user-friendly and have stuff like a mod list (similar to GooTool).
@puggsoy: Excellent! I'll give that a shot later. Got some company coming over now. As for the .filelist.txt, my own readme states this is a temporary measure; I may change it in the future... Any suggestions for an alternative method, or do you think it's good?
@Allan: Fantastic, thanks! And Merry Christmas to you guys as well!
So I got that parsed out to XML, looks like http://pastebin.com/j38ruUVG so far, which I think is a fairly decent XML format. Any comments on that?
EDIT: Just checked out Matchbox, puggsoy, and it looks like a great start. For now, of course, there's not much you CAN do, but it looks great so far. Would it be possible to make some sort of progress bar when decompressing that gives an estimate of the time left, and says the current time elapsed, or something like that? I can format output from liDecompress or such to make that easier, if need be. I'm not sure how Air works for that sort of thing; might be too difficult, I dunno.
1. It's possible to decompress more than one .pak file at a time, since the "decompressing" window doesn't block the main window, which runs more than one copy of liDecompress at a time. Because of the way liDecompress writes stuff to the temp/ folder before decompressing, this crashes horribly. Partly my fault, I know, but if you could make the decompress window block the main window, it'd be a good tempfix for now.
2. You can strip the exe multiple times. I know you probably know this already, and I made strip.exe check and see if the exe has been stripped already before it does anything, so it's not an issue, but worth pointing out.
Overall, though, very nice. Good show ol' chum. Let me know if you want to do something, and the way my tools are set up is blocking you somehow, because I can (hopefully) easily change my tools' behaviors to accommodate whatever you need.
And I think "Matchbox" is a fantastic name, btw.
i think the sound ids should match the resource ids of sounds in the pak file for sound that have only 1 take. the sound ids for sounds with multiple takes are the hash of the file path of a take with the numeric part removed so the sound id for 'data\SFX\cheer.01.flac' and 'data\SFX\cheer.02.flac' is the hash of 'data\SFX\cheer.flac' (which happens to be what the file name for that sound would be if it only had 1 take.) i'll have to post the hashing process i do to generate the ids from strings at some point but if you want to reverse the hash of a sound id with multiple takes (just use the res id map for single take sounds) you could look up the sound id in the sound manifest, look up the resource id of its first take, look up the id string for the first take resource, then strip the take number out of the path and that will be the correct sound id string.
item ids are the hash of the item id strings which are just the name of the item's directory in the tree (so 'AlarmClock', 'BombshellBetty', 'BFReplacementPills', etc.) there's no direct way to look up the strings for those but you can tell which id goes with which string by looking at the path for the item's animation resource in the item manifest. every item has an animation that is in its own directory so the format of the animation resource id string will always be data\items\ITEMID\ITEMID.anim.xml.
1. This actually bugged me a lot. I can't find any built-in property for this, the closest I got to was keeping it on top (which I've done here). I'll try and see if I can find anything, but if not I'll either 1) code it myself or 2) disable all buttons and menus while it's working.
2. Yeah, I noticed that last night but couldn't be stuffed to do anything about it yet. I'll make it check the .exe's size, if it's less than the normal size it won't be strippable.
I was also thinking of a progress bar, but since that'll probably take a bit of work I decided to just have a "please wait" dialogue for the moment.
By the way, just so you know: the only ways I can know what your programs are doing are through output and error streams (stdout and stderr). I can also give input through the input stream (like giving "y" when confirming that I want to strip). So what I could do is analyse the output your program gives when it says it's decompressing file number X out of Y, but that would just say the amount done, and I couldn't give a proper estimation of time left (although I could say time elapsed). If it's possible for your program to give a time estimation then I could do it, but if that's not possible or too much work then that's no problem, I think just saying how many out of the total files are done. I could probably say the name of each file too.
In any case I'll try and make a progress bar window. I haven't made one before so it'll be interesting.
If I need you to change anything else with your programs I'll say, but for the time being they're pretty much perfect.
@Allan: Fantastic, thanks! Eagerly awaiting the description of hashing.
2. You could also check strip.exe's output; I think it spits out an error message if the executable has been stripped.
As for the progress bar, what I was thinking was some way to estimate the amount of time left from the elapsed time and the percentage of items decompressed. So, for example, if the program has been running for 5 seconds and has decompressed 256 of 3796 resources, the time left would be 5.0/(256/3796) = X/(3796/3796) -> X = ~74.14 seconds. Just a quick calculation; it'll likely be wrong, but all progress bars are always wrong for time estimation, so it's nothing new. If you need me to format the output of my program so it's easier for you to parse, let me know.
Seems to me that Adobe AIR is well-suited to being a GUI frontend for commandline tools, then. Cool!
Well, if I were to check strip.exe's error stream to see if the .exe is strippable, I'd have to run it every time I wanted to check (i.e. whenever you change the chosen location), and if it were strippable then it would already have started to process.
Although, I will arrange an error message just in case it is run on an unstrippable .exe, so thanks for telling me about it.
I'll be able to do the estimation myself then. As you said programs are rarely accurate, I mean even Windows can mess it up terribly so it's really a minor issue.
As for parsing output, what you've already got is really enough. I can just detect the first and second numbers on each line, which are how far we are out of how much (which I can then use for calculations and whatever). Actually, I only need to get the second one the first time since that's always the same. And if I want I can also get the currently extracting file name as the end of the line after the first colon and space.
So yeah, no need to modify it. The new executable's output is actually less usable, since it appears to spit massive chunks instead of one line for each decompression. Obviously to display progress I need to know the progress more regularly, so yeah, the current output method is pretty much perfect for now. If I have any problems I'll say but for now I think it's all right.
Also yeah, AIR is pretty good for this. It's not really what it's made for (it's actually just Flash in desktop form), but it can do it well and I enjoy doing it so that's cool.
Thing is, I'm tired of it spitting out so much on the command line, so I'm trying to write over stuff already written. I hoping it's possible to do it in such a way that AIR applications can still read it, but if not I can always supply you with a slightly different version each release. I'm hoping this one will work, though.
Only drawback is there's a limited amount of space to write stuff on before it wraps to the next line, and then my writing-over code completely fails, so I can't write filenames. I reckon it's personal preference, but if you like it how it is better I can leave it.
Run with the commandline argument "--overwrite-progress" to have the previous output overwrite the old progress, or without that commandline switch to spit out the regular output with full filename and all. Either one should (hopefully) work fine with your code (just with slightly different parsing), but the way I've been doing it until now will write the filenames, too, which is more helpful anyway, just clutters up the commandline a lot. But in your case, you're not showing the terminal window anyway, so it should be fine.
tl;dr Ignore me. It works like normal.
Also note this will fail to decompress a file with a hyphen in the beginning of the filename. But if anyone ever puts hyphens in the beginning of filenames, they had it coming.
Aha, right, I see now. Previously I hadn't actually run it from the actual command line, I just wrote a batch file and made it write the output to a text file. I ran it from the actual console this time though, and I can see what you mean: it overwrites the previous progress as it goes. Obviously writing it in a text file (or tracing it, which is what I'm currently doing in Matchbox) doesn't reflect this, but it is helpful when using the console.
Well, the new .exe works with both methods: i.e. the old way works, but if I add the overwrite argument I also get each line at a time. I'll use the old one though since, as you said, I'm not showing all the output so clutter isn't a problem. Plus I also have the filenames, which may be helpful somehow.
As for hyphens: you're right, I mean who does that?
EDIT: By the way, just figured out how to keep windows on top active (i.e. not allowing you to access the main window while a dialogue is up). I still had to do it manually (no built-in feature), but it was much simpler than I thought, and works perfectly.
EDIT2: OK, so I've managed to parse the compression and decompression output and make a loading window with a bar and everything. There's no time estimation yet but I'll get to that.
However, there's no progress output when merging, nor when stripping the .exe. (Can't recall what happens when simply pulling the .paks though). So yeah, do you want to add progress for those, or should it just say "please wait"?
Excellent! Glad that's working for you. Kudos and all that.
I haven't looked at a progress output or anything like that for merging yet. I was thinking today about how I want to overhaul the program anyway, and I'll probably add that sort of support in soon. Maybe along with some optimizations to speed the program up. I'd like to make it into a more full-fledged mod-managing program, with some sort of way to add and remove mods from a queue type of thing, like how GooTool manages it. Dunno yet. But yeah, I'll be working on it.
As for stripping, the problem there is that it's really just two huge file operations. First, I load the "Little Inferno.exe" resources into memory, which is a Windows API call that I can't split up into good progress-bar-sized chunks. Then, I save it all to disk (again a single Win32 function call). This second step is likely what takes all the time in the program (though the first may take a fair amount of time as well- I should probably test this). I could theoretically split the file-writing up into chunks, and spit out some kind of output at intervals, though I'm not sure how much that would gain. Do you think the time delay is enough of an issue? I can do that if need be.
EDIT: Just changed the program to spit out some debug output; seems that indeed the LoadLibrary() call to load the resources from the executable and the WriteFile() to save resource.pak to disk are the two major time-consumers for this program. The first is taking about 2.3 seconds, and can't be split into chunks for me to spit progress data out about. The second is taking about 2.6 seconds, and can. Writing embed.pak and frontend.pak to disk is taking somewhere between 1-10 milliseconds apiece, so they're not really any concern. If you want me to split the saving-resource.pak part of the program into progress-sized chunks, I can. Your call.
Oh looks nice! Suggestion: Make the GUI version localizable, that will help much!
Oh it seems I forgot to tell you what those Chinese means. They are just the common program-crashed window in Windows 7. It is meaningless. No useful information provided.
@Mygod: When the GUI's mostly done I'll look into adding other languages. The only language I know other than English is Dutch though, and Google Translate will mess up grammar, so I'll probably need peoples' help with that (you can do Chinese if you want). But yeah for now I'll just try and get the main stuff done.
@Daxar: About the mod installing: I was planning to have a queue system similar to GooTool, which my program could probably manage. It'd basically take note of all mods that are in the queue, and every time you save it copies the original paks, then installs the mods in order of the queue (which you can customize of course). Just like GooTool, actually.
Unless you have a more efficient way of course, by all means do that. Just so you know you won't have to make your program keep track of a queue, if you don't want to.
The ouput-spitting version of the program right now isn't usable, but thanks anyway. If it's not too much trouble, giving some progress in the second step would be nice. The time it takes isn't really huge (much faster than decompressing resource.pak, for sure), but a progress bar might still be of some use. At the very least it'll let people know that something's happening (rather than a static "please wait").
If you do that, should I try estimating time on it as well?
@Mygod: Hmm, I can tell from your screenshot that you're running it in a folder with non-ASCII characters. I'll mess around and see if I can replicate the bug. Could be an error in my code. Strange that it would crash midway through, though. Anyhoo, thanks!
@puggsoy: Ok, if you want to make the queue in your GUI, that works too. The only potential issue is the possibility of wasting a lot of time if you call modManage multiple times with one .pak file each time, rather than once with all of them. So don't do that. Should be a fairly simple two-step process: Copy the original .pak files over, call modManage.exe [pakfile1]...[pakfilen]. The modManage program already merges the .pak files in order, so that should work fine. Sorry if you know all this already; I'm just kinda thinking out loud. Should work great, then.
Another thing, in case you didn't think of it: GooTool saves all the .goomod files to a central location when they're installed, in case the original files are deleted. It's probably a good idea to do that here, too.
And I'll get cracking on strip.exe progress. I think you don't need a time estimate on that one; a progress bar alone should be fine.
there's a bunch of stuff here (i haven't even gotten into the specifics of each section of data besides just the header) and i'm out of time again since i'm still on vacation for the holidays. i'll follow up again later with more info.
Yeah when I move it into an English-only directory, the problem fixed! Thanks!
By the way about the itemmanifest.dat.xml, I think we'd better use attributes instead of elements for itemId, itemIdStrId, animResId, costCoins, etc.
Yeah, I was thinking about attributes, but decided on separate elements for readability. I'll toy with it, though. I'll probably split the sndmanifest.dat.xml up a bit for readability... We'll see.
Glad to hear an ASCII-only directory works. My code should theoretically work with UTF-8 fine, but I imagine I messed something up someplace. I'll have to look into it.
I'm willing to help translating the GUI in french if that's needed.
I can translate the GUI in Russian and Italian.
I personally think this is a bit less readable, but I'm open to suggestions/questions/comments/whatever. I don't think there's a way with tinyxml2 to add whitespace to make that any more readable; that'd probably have to be done by hand.
It IS a lot of data, but I think I can make reasonable defaults for some of the values, and cut down on the amount of XML that way.
I'll allow you to select multiple files for decompressing and merging in the next release. Hopefully that should be tomorrow.
By the way, I was checking out compressing and found a couple of bugs. First of all, if it tries to compress a file that doesn't exist (i.e. you write a nonexistent file in the filelist.txt), liCompress crashes. Nothing special, just "liDecompress has stopped working".
Secondly, there are issues when one of the files you want to compress into the .pak has a space in the filename. It appears to compress OK, but when I decompress it again the file with the space doesn't appear, and the filelist.txt generated has a blank line instead of the file path. Obviously it's generally better not to have a space at all, but some people might do it so I thought to check it.
@momo & movildima: Awesome! I'll most likely have the languages in XML files, which you'll have to edit by hand. Is that OK?
@puggsoy: re/ the nonexistent file: Yes, I didn't begin to bother testing that. The whole .filelist.txt thing is still just a placeholder for now until I can think of something better. I haven't yet. I especially haven't done anything to finalize the format with error-checking and stuff. In any case, even if it didn't crash, it'd stop later, since it checks the number of items in the .filelist.txt and compares this against how many files it was able to compress, and halts if the number was different. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do all this, and I'll address this once I've decided. But thanks for finding that; I'll be sure to keep it in mind.
You can only modify existing resources; you cannot add new ones, as there is currently no way to get a resource ID from a filename. If you attempt to add a new .ogg file as a take somewhere, you'll end up with an undefined resource ID, which will likely cause a crash.
So, if you're working on a GUI so people can select files to compress into .pak files, please stop now. It won't work at all. Right now we don't know how resource ID's are hashed from filenames, and until we do, there's no good way to get an ID from a filename if we don't have a filename-to-ID mapping already (i.e. unless it's in the original residmap.dat). For my code, the default ID generated for an unrecognized filename is undefined, and the default filename for an undefined ID is a blank string, hence the empty line in the .filelist.txt. Once we get the hashing algorithm, I'll make this all work, but for now it completely messes everything up. Long story short, If a file isn't in the original .pak files, it can't be compressed. Well, it can, but it ends up with a meaningless resource ID and can't be decompressed. For now. I probably should have added a test for that, too, but hey, alpha-stage modding tools and all that.
@all: I decided to find out if some of the item data (from the structure Allan just mentioned) could have default values, and so I made some debug code that spit out all the values for all the items. Seems to me I can simplify this XML down quite a lot in order to conserve space (and sanity, and all that kind of good stuff).
As you can see, a lot of the items have the same values for a lot of these. "costStamps," for example, is 0 for every item, and can be optimized out completely. Not everything can have a default value, of course, but I'm going to be going through this and figuring out what values I can make optional in the XML. I'll be sure to document it all, of course.
I think the game quotes everything with the ID so the hashing method is not important at all. You can create one yourself or let user enter IDs themselves.
While running strip.exe or pullpakfiles.exe, generate a default filelist.txt. While running liDecompress.exe make it read the filelist.txt so that it knows what ID should be used.
Here are my thoughts, but I need a confirmation. What do you think, @allan?
While it is indeed possible for users to create an ID by hand, the chances can become quite high that IDs overlap, and the consequences for something like that could potentially be disastrous. This is why I'm holding out for getting the actual filename hashing algorithm, so we don't end up with a lot of random IDs that are potential conflicts floating around.
@puggsoy my email is my username at gmail dot com.
@momo & movildima: Heh, well, actually I'm gonna hold translation off until it's almost complete. That is, at least until we have a finalised mod format, and my program has a mod queue and all that. Sorry to get your hopes up, mostly I just wanted to check if XML was good with you guys for when the time comes (then I can sort of plan ahead). Good to know XML works though, so thanks.
@Daxar: No, I wasn't implementing any real interface for choosing files to compress yet. I was just running some error tests for compression (for example I made an alert dialogue pop up if my program can't find a corresponding filelist.txt). I'll definitely wait until you're done with compression, maybe even until we get a finalised mod format, before I allow people to choose files to compress. But for the time being the user just specifies a .pak, like your program.
Hopefully Allan's hash should help though!
EDIT: Another bug found when I was trying to edit an data/animations/Intro/TomorrowCorporationLogo.png. Layer masks used. There may be something wrong with PNG parsing. Please check.
@Allan: Sweet, thanks! I'll get cracking on that, then.
@Mygod: Good idea for the batch file to add the tools to your PATH. I hope that works out good for you!
I double-checked by compressing your image then decompressing it, but the same image gets spit back out, so I don't think it's my code. In any case, this is kind of a strange limitation imo. I've toyed around with low-alpha images, too, and it seems to behave in a strange manner with those, as well. For example, the "glassbulb" item has a low-alpha brown image that seems to display absolutely fine. However, if I try to make one of the chimneys in the main screen low-alpha, it treats it as if the alpha stays 255. Very strange to say the least.
You can just install this over the old version and it'll update it, no need to uninstall.
-You can now decompress multiple .paks at once.
-You can now merge multiple .paks at once.
-You can now pull .paks from an .exe without stripping it.
-Added a bunch of checks and alerts (for example it won't let you try and strip an already-stripped exe). There's probably still a couple of things that I haven't checked for but I've done the most obvious stuff.
-Added a dialogue with a loading bar to show the progress of decompressing and compressing. For now it just says how many files out of the total it's done, but I'll make an algorithm for time estimation in the next release.
That's about it. I also fixed a small problem I had with the buttons being scaled down, but it's not a huge change and you probably won't notice it.
Note that unfortunately, when you select multiple files they're forced to be fed to the program in alphabetical order, even if you select them in a different order. This isn't really a problem when decompressing .paks, but it's not ideal when merging. Obviously once I get the whole queue system sorted you can drag them around and organise them by priority, but for now if you want to install them in a non-alphabetical order you should do them one-by-one.
By the way Daxar, I noticed that modManage doesn't give any usable progress output. Are you planning to add it or isn't it possible? No hurry of course (figuring out those IDs is probably more important), but just thought to ask.
@puggsoy: I'm planning on refactoring the modManage program sometime anyway, so for now there's no progress output. I'll put that on my TODO list though.
EDIT: Just testing out the new version of Matchbox. It works beautifully and looks brilliant. Great job!
You can try to set rgb values to zero when alpha is zero. I guess doing this might work.
@Mygod: Yep, that's what I did for now. Though it doesn't work for low-alpha portions of an image. It may have to do with normal images, and images without normal images don't work for low-alpha... I dunno. It's strange, to say the least.
@all: The new XML format with default values looks like this: http://pastebin.com/iH5qxjPT which looks fine with XML attributes rather than elements, so I stand corrected, Mygod.
Unless there are any objections, I'll stick with this format for the itemmanifest (until more is explained, of course. Maybe I'll end up splitting stuff into separate XML files like how it all was originally; I'll see). I parsed through all the values in itemmanifest.dat for all the fields of all the structures, and if any value for a field was used more than 50% of the time, I made that the default, which seems to work out great. The only field that was borderline was enableHFlip, which had the value 1 a total of 98 times out of 192 total objects. The rest of them were in the 180's or so.
Onward ho to adding support for new resources.
image data for the game is stored with premultiplied alpha. if you want to get back to the approximate values that would go into a PNG, you need to divide the color channels by the alpha channel when you extract the images from the game and multiply when you put them back in.
Ah, that would do it. Thanks, Allan! Works like a charm now.
EDIT: Ok, wow. I had no idea that this would make such a tremendous difference. I changed my modManage program to pull all the data from the .pak files and store it in RAM instead of in files in temp/ and tempmod/ before merging and recompressing. It's running somewhere between 7x and 20x faster compared to the original version, which is amazing. Time to refactor liDecompress and liCompress, I think.
EDIT2: Done optimizing liDecompress to alleviate the need for a temp/ subfolder. I think it's somewhere around 40-60 seconds faster now. Good call, Mygod.
Wow. The effect is better than I expected. Nice job.
Do you mean your program store all the data in RAM? That will consume large amounts of memory. When it runs on a computer with low memory, it will produce large amounts of hard errors which will decrease the speed a lot. You can try to read one file a time (requires thread synchronization), decode it and write it to the disk. If not, that's great.
EDIT2: Fixed a major bug that would botch decompression of resource.pak and updated the links above accordingly. As a bonus, you can now specify compression level for liCompress via the commandline switch --level=n, where n can be 0 (no compression), 1 (fast compression) through 9 (full compression, slow but smaller filesize). All files are now compressed by default, and if the resulting compressed file is larger than the original, it is discarded and the uncompressed file is used. After running a couple tests, at level=9 my compressed resource.pak is about 2.1 MB smaller than the original, which takes an extra 30 seconds or so. At default compression level, it's still about 1 MB smaller. It's fun to toy around with, at least.
Looks like now I'll get cracking on adding new resources into pakfiles; I was thinking of a small residmap.dat-type file in each .pak mod so that the files can still be decompressed easily.
@Daxar: Compression levels look interesting. Can the game still use the .paks if they're compressed than any level other than the default? Because if so I might add an option for it in Matchbox.
Hello people! You've done very nice work here!
I'd love to participate in modding this game too! I have previous experience in both C# and C++.
@puggsoy: I can translate your GUI to finnish.
@puggsoy: Just tested it and it works great. I think most compression schemes work this way; they don't care about compression level when decompressing, since it's just an optimized compression that takes longer.
@Haapavuo: Awesome! The more languages the better.
@Daxar: That's cool, just wondering. In that case I'll make a little dialogue to choose compression level (which will probably cause me to also create some sort of menu (maybe "Preferences" or something) to let you choose if it pops up every time you compress).
I am now doing some experiments with itemmanifest.dat file. I found out how item prices, names and descriptions are stored. Seems very interesting... I will update this post soon with a screenshot!
@Daxar: Thanks for the link! I'll look into that!
@puggsoy: Could you release the future versions of Matchbox rather zipped than with an installer? I'm pretty sure most people will like it that way. Thanks!
BROWN: Crash when edited (item ID maybe)?
BLACK: Didn't change anything noticeable.
Item names (and all texts) are always cut with 2 zeroes (0x00) so it should be pretty easy to write a parser for these dat files (or at least this one).
Unfortunately it actually compiles into an installer, apparently it's essential. Personally I'd also prefer to release it as an archive, at least these beta versions.
I'll snoop around and see if it's possible to put it in a .zip, but if not it'll need to stay like this. I don't find it too bad, it makes installing new versions easy and I'd probably put it in an installer once it's complete anyway (since it's more user-friendly than .zips, and user-friendliness is the whole point of the GUI).
@puggsoy: Interesting that it only spits out installers, but imo it's not that big of a deal. What I'd personally gripe about is that you have it hosted on some ad-ridden site like Mediafire. Have you looked into a hosting service you can direct-link to, like Dropbox?
Also seconded for having an installer rather than a .zip; makes it more easy-to-use and professional in my opinion. Have you looked into an icon for it yet? One of our awesome artists (or even me) could make you one.
The packer module is still buggy. Audio encoder (converted from @allan's C++ source by hand) often throws an AccessViolationException. Though my program will ignore the error and retry immediately, the output file will be probably messed up. (if luckily no exceptions are thrown, the program will works fine) You can decrease the core number to 1 to decrease the probability of the exception. If you wouldn't like to edit these ugly codes, I hope it will be of some value one day.
P.S. These code wasn't changed since 12/22/2012 so it doesn't support some new features that is included in liTools. I spent a whole day to try to solve that bug but failed. And after that I decided to use Daxar's liTools.
@Daxar: Sorry about that: with AdBlock it's always hard to remember which sites have ads and which don't. The thing is that someone recommended Mediafire a while back, and since I didn't see any problem with it I just chose it. Back then I didn't host much (just zips for video game sound effects), but now I'm doing much more and I can see how it'd be a problem.
I'll check out Dropbox, since it can do direct links that's probably best. I'll have to take the time to move all my other things over as well though (since I don't want my files spread over separate hosts).
I'm pretty rubbish at icons (or computer art in general: hoping to remedy that eventually), so I don't think I'll make my own. It's not so high on my priority list yet so I haven't really looked around or asked anyone, but if you or anybody here is willing, feel free to whip something up. Something like a Little Inferno-themed matchbox (heh) would be cool.
EDIT: Relinked my previous posts, they're now direct links from Dropbox.
Oh crap, how did I miss all that... I used the previous version of liTools which didn't have the itemsmanifest.dat.xml part. Got to try it out now! You've done more than I thought!
@Mygod: Thanks for your source. I'll look into that!
EDIT: Ahaa, I see. It does yet extract only some of the data, not yet the item names and descriptions etc. I'll see if I can crack some other files we don't know yet.


This is an excellent workshop for anyone thinking about looking to the UK or further to sell their craft work in the future.
Lunch will be provided in the Tea Rooms of CORE (centre of excellence for craft & design) which is directly opposite the Community Centre.
Experience Westmeath craft classes 2013.
Trade Fair and Pop up shop dates….
No Replies to "Craft Workshops"


The Web may contain almost every possible problem, puzzle, and article imaginable, but it's decentralized nature makes it's hard to locate good content in a sea of endless tutorials, amusing pictures, and commercial promotions. If you're trying to find extracurricular mathematical materials you need to know where to look, but more importantly, what to look for. Knowing an erudite guide makes life much easier. Alexander Bogomolny, a professional mathematician and curator of mathematical recreations and other topics, is that guide. His site Cut-the-Knot is an enormous collection of fascinating articles, illustrations, and animations covering a wide range of mostly non-advanced mathematics. One of the defining features of his articles are the interactive Java applets that illustrate a problem or principle. The site has been continuously updated since 1997, which makes it among the most comprehensive such repositories online. Unfortunately, because it was created more than fifteen years ago, its age shows in the design and technology used (Java applets are no longer the preferred delivery mechanism for interactive media). Although Cut-the-Knot has garnered over twenty awards, including one from Scientific American, it is not as well known as it should be. If you're looking for a source of enrichment for regular math classes this is one of the best places to start.
Students often ask about the existence of the largest, smallest, or most distance objects that exist. These questions undeniably provide intellectual entertainment, especially when we can visualize the answers with ease. Take a look at this beautiful interactive animation created by Cary and Michael Huang to get a sense of the the kinds of distances and sizes that exist in the universe, and then look at the Royal Museums Greenwich animation that introduces the physics of measuring distances to macroscopic objects in the Universe. The video skips the details of how some of the distances are calculated but is a good starting point for further geometrical explorations that are not beyond the school curriculum.


text:
Three Score and Ten in Retrospect: I. Boyhood Days; II
by James W. Hooper
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Original Title:Three Score and Ten in Retrospect: I. Boyhood Days; II
Author:James W. Hooper
Publisher:Published May 24th 2016 by Palala Press (first published September 27th 2015)
Format:Hardcover, 102 pages
Understanding Love for Relationship
Army Regulation AR 600-20 Army Command Policy November 2014
Drakanea: Die Berufung
A Study Guide for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (Novels for Students)
Motor Matt's Makeup


The G-Shock Gravitymaster has long been the timepiece series at the forefront of timekeeping. Now these new aviation watch models take this one step further with designs that provide the accuracy and function required during flight. The large LCD was designed in the image of a glass cockpit of a passenger aircraft which provides pilots with a clear view of information. Five side buttons and a front light button help to simplify operation by providing more direct access to functions.


5 fee Turtle Nodes! turtle.japakar.com Germany location 35.199.160.13 US West Location Thanks for using the nodes!
Come and join to turtle.casa mining pool!
Poike Stompers#3053 – You guys do an amazing job out there!!
Sabo (Revolutionary) – Everyone go use the turtle-completo local explorer! Be a turtle node, explore locally!!
Barelycloakedish – Shoutout to @Rocksteady for some kickass motivational speeches. Thanks for being the coach we need in our locker room.
rashedmyt – Huge shoutout to dsanon for using my RPC package in his webwallet shellnet.pw which is TurtleCoin's first production ready webwallet..


Srinagar, Feb 26: Former trade union leader and PDP leader Abdul Qayoom Wani expressed serious concern over what he termed as terrorizing Kashmiri people within and outside the state by different ways and mass arrest of religious leaders, scholars and activists.
Wani while interacting with media persons at his residence after returning from Jammu said that "such type of unwarranted actions will serve no purpose." He termed the mass arrest campaign as 'undemocratic and unwarranted'.
He said any type of tinkering with Article 35 A will have serious repercussions and the people of J&K state irrespective of party affiliation, region and religion will fight tooth and nail against any nefarious design.


text:
Virtual Reality Lab
100% Otero
Home » New Mexico Learn Blog » Vygotsky and Schema
Vygotsky and Schema
By michelle perry May 13, 2021 Into the Wilderness
Recently, I've been re-introduced to some the educational theoretical brainiacs of history. Let's see…There's Dewey, Piaget, Freire, and good ole' Lev Vygotsky (and tons others). Vygotsky was known in education circles only after his death in 1934. He was Russian and lived through the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, which basically caused him to research and write to the political tunes of Communist Russia. He was a psychologist by trade. His research late in his life extended more in depth into the field of education. He was critical, yet admiring, of Jean Piaget who, about that same time, published the stages of cognitive development of which we still use today. You know: sensorimotor ( birth to 2), preoperational (2-6 years), concrete operational (7-11 years), and formal operational (12-adult).
Well, Vygotsky had this crazy idea that learning was heavily influenced by a child's culture and language, and if we would use these elements as building blocks to "construct" a child's learning through a scaffolding approach, the learner would be better for it. This theory became known as constructivism, and is still discussed and debated today. The need to prepare children for standardized tests have taken us far away from constructivism. Typically, classroom teachers are more interested in where a student is going, versus where the student has come from. Is this fair? Isn't there some serious SENSE in using a scaffolding approach, using a child's "funds of knowledge" to increase learning potential. What do you think?
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CERAMICA LA MEJOR
Ceramica La Major is a full service ceramic studio producing work for artists and brands. This state of the art studio elevates clay and craftsmanship to the level of luxury line production. www.ceramicalamejor.mx
CERAMICA LA MEJOR is a full service ceramic studio producing work for artists and brands. This state of the art studio elevates clay and craftsmanship to the level of luxury line production. I got to interview one of the founding partners, Tony Moxham, who was an art director at the magazine Interview before starting La Mejor. He told me about La Mejor's background -
Mauricio Paniagua and myself originally created La Mejor back in 2010 in a small town outside of Cuernavaca called Tres de Mayo, which is one of the biggest producers of everyday, popular ceramics in Mexico (it's where Disney had ceramic factories in the '60s, and a lot of our crew come from that type of background.) In Tres de Mayo they specialise in everyday slip-casting, model making, and low-temperature ceramic production. Our current clientele of artists and designers looking for eccentric, complex, small-run production allow for these skills to really shine, and for our crew to push themselves technically further than they'd be allowed if they were producing for more conventional clients and in larger runs. We're super proud of the work they create. When La Mejor moved production to Mexico City, we partnered with two additional young designers, and in the last year have taken on 4 additional partners as we've grown. Today, we have a crew of around 10 full-time young artisans working with us, some of whom came from Tres de Mayo with us when we moved into the current location in 2014.
What is something that I would be surprised to find in your space?
A 3D printer. One of the best things about working in Mexico is the level of old-skool hand-modelling and artisanal skills in general that haven't been lost to automated production or larger production lines.
What is your dream project?
To create ceramic architectural details, like gargoyles, chimneys, door frames, tile reliefs . . . anything to bring back interest in figurative architecture and this type of decoration.
Describe your ideal workspace in three words?
For ceramic production, all we really need is a large, open, airy, well-lit space with solid floors. We got lucky with this one, as there's fewer commercial loft spaces available to creatives in this city than you'd imagine. It's also super important for our crew that our space is a safe one, so we try and keep things clean and take care of their health. Artisanal ceramic production sounds romantic, but in reality working conditions for ceramic artisans in small towns can be extremely toxic. We've seen folks working in 2 feet of ceramic dust, beside vintage ovens and with no safe exit in sight. While we want to preserve traditional skills and techniques, we also prioritise finding ways to work as safely as possible with toxic materials and the very demanding physical labor that hand production at a high level requires from the crew themselves.
Does the space you work in have an interesting story?
The building itself is a former button factory, and we've watched it slowly fill with younger businesses and creative studios over the last four years. Our own space was formerly the studio of architect Emmanuel Picault (who also created probably Mexico city's coolest nightclub, the brutalist M.N. Roy. in Roma.) That's why we have a bunch of triangular divisions in the space, which of course we kept after we moved in. The lightning bolts that decorate the space were leftovers from an exhibition at the Zona MACO art fair, and were hand-painted by a commercial sign painter we love working with.
What's the best advice you've been given and from whom?
Murray Moss said: "Good taste doesn't exist. It's not what I would want if it did exist." We're living in an age of makers where so many people are designers, and so many people are designing great, everyday stuff. We love how Mr. Moss champions eccentric, fragile, and useless design as an equal to functional design. That's sort of what we do at La Mejor.


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Daab Design uses scorched pine wood to clad a French cabin
The exterior of Pine Nut Cabane, a wooden retreat in the south of France designed by London studio Daab Design in collaboration with cabin manufacturer Moustache Bois, is clad in scorched wood planks.
The 35 sq m cabin was built for a family who needed a versatile space for their existing farmhouse that could be used as a painting studio, guest house, or gathering space.
Pine Nut Cabane is located in the family's favourite spot on the rural property, a small clearing between a pine forest and an olive grove where they paint and play petanque.
Daab Design clad the cabin in scorched pine wood planks that take cues from the area's farming vernacular to complement its setting.
The glazed corner of Pine Nut Cabane faces eastwards to capture the rising sun over a nearby valley, while the pine forest acts as a shield from the harsh southern sun.
The black timber-lined entrance area and limestone-paved terrace, which are sheltered by the deep eaves along the cabin's northern edge, are defined by a cut in the northeastern corner of the structure.
Inside, two simple rooms with large windows are positioned at either end of the cabin and designed to accommodate a variety of potential uses.
The spaces can easily be transformed from guest bedrooms to studios for painting or yoga thanks to built-in storage and desks.
A central bathroom pod, finished in matte black wood and featuring a cave-like shower lined with terracotta tiles, sits between the two rooms.
Matte black wood was also used for full-height doors that can be closed to create a central corridor and cross ventilate the cabin when needed, or left open to create a central corridor and cross ventilate the cabin when needed.
The eastern room of Pine Nut Cabane has a glazed corner that leads to a wood-decked terrace with a seating area and firepit, as well as dramatic views of the landscape.
Internal finishes include plywood panelling and polished concrete floors, which contrast with the matte black finish of the doors, bathroom pod, and window frames to create a sense of calm and respite from the harsh sun.
Pine Nut Cabane
Daab Design
Moustache Bois
scorched pine wood planks
black timber
The exterior of Pine Nut Cabane, a wooden retreat in the south of France designed by London studio Daab Design in collaboration with cabin manufacturer Moustache Bois, is clad in scorched wood planks. The 35 sq m cabin was built for a family who needed a versatile space for their existing farmhouse that could be used as a painting studio, guest house, or gathering space. Pine Nut Cabane is located in the family's favourite spot on the rural property, a small clearing between a pine forest and an olive grove where they paint and play petanque. Daab Design clad the cabin in scorched pine wood planks that take cues from the area's farming vernacular to complement its setting. The glazed corner of Pine Nut Cabane faces eastwards to capture the rising sun over a nearby valley, while the pine forest acts as a shield from the harsh southern sun. The black timber-lined entrance area and limestone-paved terrace, which are sheltered by the deep eaves along the cabin's northern edge, are defined by a cut in the northeastern corner of the structure. Inside, two simple rooms with large windows are positioned at either end of the cabin and designed to accommodate a variety of potential uses. The spaces can easily be transformed from guest bedrooms to studios for painting or yoga thanks to built-in storage and desks. A central bathroom pod, finished in matte black wood and featuring a cave-like shower lined with terracotta tiles, sits between the two rooms. Matte black wood was also used for full-height doors that can be closed to create a central corridor and cross ventilate the cabin when needed, or left open to create a central corridor and cross ventilate the cabin when needed. The eastern room of Pine Nut Cabane has a glazed corner that leads to a wood-decked terrace with a seating area and firepit, as well as dramatic views of the landscape. Internal finishes include plywood panelling and polished concrete floors, which contrast with the matte black finish of the doors, bathroom pod, and window frames to create a sense of calm and respite from the harsh sun. Image Source
Samruddhi Mahamarg township to become a reality in Arvi Tehsil
Top Regional Architects and Builders You Need to Know!


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Q: GetSystemMetrics return wrong value for my screen I have a sample code to get the hight and width in pixels.
But it shows the wrong resolution for my screen.
I have 3840 x 2160.
But the application says: 1920 x 1080.
Code:
#include <windows.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int CDECL MessageBoxPrintf(TCHAR * szCaption, TCHAR * szFormat, int in, int in2)
{
    TCHAR szBuffer[1024];
    va_list pArgList;
    // The va_start macro (defined in STDARG.H) is usually equivalent to
    // pArgList = (char *) &szFormat + sizeof (szFormat) ;
    va_start(pArgList, szFormat);
    // The last argument to wvsprintf points to the arguments
    _vsntprintf_s(szBuffer, sizeof (szBuffer) / sizeof (TCHAR),
    szFormat, pArgList);
    // The va_end macro just zeroes out pArgList for no good reason
    va_end(pArgList);
    return MessageBox(NULL, szBuffer, szCaption, 0);
}
int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hTnstance, HINSTANCE hPreVInStane,PSTR szCmdLine, int iCmdShow)
{
    int cxScreen=0, cyScreen=0;
    cxScreen = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CXSCREEN);
    cyScreen = GetSystemMetrics(SM_CYSCREEN);
    MessageBoxPrintf(TEXT("ScrnSize"), TEXT("Wide %i High %i"), cxScreen, cyScreen);
    return 0;
}

Is this funtion outdated (GetSystemMetrics) or im i doing something wrong?

A: The issue is due to your display DPI/scailing settings
Please see GetSystemMetrics() returns wrong value for SM_CXSCREEN
And also SetProcessDPIAware and SetProcessDpiAwareness API

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Section 11.15 of the FCC's Rules requires that a copy of the EAS Operating Handbook be located "at normal duty stations or EAS equipment locations when an operator is required to be on duty." In addition, Section 11.35(a) of the Rules states that EAS participants are responsible for ensuring that EAS equipment, such as encoders and decoders, are installed such that "monitoring and transmitting functions are available during the times the stations and system are in operation." Also, Section 11.52(d)(1) requires EAS participants to monitor two EAS sources.
A June 2013 FCC inspection of the station's main studio revealed several violations of the FCC's EAS Rules. Specifically, the FCC agent found that the station (1) did not have an EAS Handbook; (2) did not have properly operating EAS equipment (because the programming and identification of the station's EAS device was for another station); and (3) was only monitoring one EAS source.
In addition, the agent found numerous violations of the FCC's other broadcast rules, including: (1) failure to post a valid license as required by Section 73.1230; (2) failure to maintain a public inspection file as required by Section 73.3527; (3) failure to retain the logs required by Section 73.1840; (4) failure to maintain a main studio staff under Section 73.1125(a); (5) inability to produce documentation designating a chief operator as required by Section 73.1870; and (6) failure to ensure that the station was operating in accordance with the terms of the station authorization or within variances permitted under the FCC's technical rules, as required by Section 73.1400.
The FCC subsequently issued a Notice of Violation ("NOV") to the station in August 2013. When the FCC did not receive a response from the station within the 20-day deadline specified in the NOV, the FCC sent a Warning Letter to the station in September 2013, and issued two additional NOVs in November 2013 and April 2016 directing the station "to provide information concerning the apparent violations described in the August 2013 NOV." Despite signing a receipt for the April 2016 NOV, the station again failed to respond.
The base fine amounts for the apparent EAS violations, broadcast violations, and failures to respond to the NOVs total $11,000, $23,000, and $16,000 respectively. The FCC may adjust a fine upward or downward after taking into account the particular facts of each case. Here, citing the station's failure to respond to FCC documents of four occasions, the FCC concluded that a 100 percent upward adjustment of the base fine for the failures to respond, or an additional $16,000, was warranted. As a result, the FCC proposed a total fine against the station of $66,000.
A Florida man's spoofing campaign has earned him a proposed $120 million fine. The man apparently caused the display of misleading or inaccurate caller ID information ("spoofing") on millions of calls to perpetrate an illegal robocalling campaign.
This advisory is directed to television stations with locally-produced programming whose signals were carried by at least one cable system located outside the station's local service area or by a satellite provider that provided service to at least one viewer outside the station's local service area during 2016. These stations may be eligible to file royalty claims for compensation with the United States Copyright Royalty Board. These filings are due by July 31, 2017.
Under the federal Copyright Act, cable systems and satellite operators must pay license royalties to carry distant TV signals on their systems. Ultimately, the Copyright Royalty Board divides the royalties among those copyright owners who claim shares of the royalty fund. Stations that do not file claims by the deadline will not be able to collect royalties for carriage of their signals during 2016.
In order to file a cable royalty claim, a television station must have aired locally-produced programming of its own and had its signal carried outside of its local service area by at least one cable system in 2016. Television stations with locally-produced programming whose signals were delivered to subscribers located outside the station's Designated Market Area in 2016 by a satellite provider are also eligible to file royalty claims. A station's distant signal status should be evaluated and confirmed by communications counsel.
Both the cable and satellite claim forms may be filed electronically or in paper form. Paper forms may be downloaded from https://www.crb.gov/cable/; however, with the recent introduction of the Copyright Royalty Board's new online filing system, eCRB, claimants are strongly encouraged to file claims online. Prior to filing electronically, claimants or their authorized representatives must register for an eCRB account at https://app.crb.gov/.To submit claims, stations are required to supply the name and address for the filer and for the copyright owner, and must provide a general statement as to the nature of the copyrighted work (e.g., local news, sports broadcasts, specials, or other station-produced programming). Claimants should keep copies of all submissions and confirmations of delivery, including certified mail receipts.
Those filing paper forms should be aware that detailed rules as to how the claims must be addressed and delivered apply. Claims that are hand-delivered by a local Washington, D.C. commercial courier must be delivered between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm (those hand-delivered by a private party must arrive by 5:00 pm). Claims may be sent by certified mail if they are properly addressed, postmarked by July 31, 2017, and include sufficient postage. Claims filed via eCRB must be submitted by 11:59 pm (EDT) on July 31. The Copyright Royalty Board will reject any claim filed prior to July 1, 2017 or after the deadline. Overnight delivery services such as Federal Express cannot be used. Stations filing paper claims should verify the proper procedures with communications counsel.
Please contact any of the group's attorneys for assistance in determining whether your station qualifies to make a claim and in filing the claim itself.
A PDF version of this article can be found here.
This Broadcast Station Advisory is directed to radio and television stations in California, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin, and highlights the upcoming deadlines for compliance with the FCC's EEO Rule.
August 1, 2017 is the deadline for broadcast stations licensed to communities in California, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin to place their Annual EEO Public File Report in their public inspection file and post the report on their station website. In addition, certain of these stations, as detailed below, must electronically file their EEO Mid-term Report on FCC Form 397 by August 1, 2017.
Nonexempt SEUs must prepare and place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the public inspection files and on the websites of all stations comprising the SEU (if they have a website) by the anniversary date of the filing deadline for that station's license renewal application. The Annual EEO Public File Report summarizes the SEU's EEO activities during the previous 12 months, and the licensee must maintain adequate records to document those activities. Nonexempt SEUs must submit to the FCC the two most recent Annual EEO Public File Reports with their license renewal applications.
In addition, all TV station SEUs with five or more full-time employees and all radio station SEUs with more than ten full-time employees must submit to the FCC the two most recent Annual EEO Public File Reports at the midpoint of their eight-year license term along with FCC Form 397 – the Broadcast Mid-Term EEO Report.
Exempt SEUs – those with fewer than five full-time employees – do not have to prepare or file Annual or Mid-Term EEO Reports.
Consistent with the above, August 1, 2017 is the date by which Nonexempt SEUs of radio and television stations licensed to communities in the states identified above, including Class A television stations, must (i) place their Annual EEO Public File Report in the public inspection files of all stations comprising the SEU, and (ii) post the Report on the websites, if any, of those stations. LPTV stations are also subject to the broadcast EEO rules, even though LPTV stations are not required to maintain a public inspection file. Instead, these stations must maintain a "station records" file containing the station's authorization and other official documents and must make it available to an FCC inspector upon request. Therefore, if an LPTV station has five or more full-time employees, or is part of a Nonexempt SEU, it must prepare an Annual EEO Public File Report and place it in the station records file.
According to a newly-released Public Notice, the FCC has directed the U.S. Department of Treasury to pay all broadcasters who had winning bids in the recently concluded spectrum incentive auction. The only exceptions are those broadcasters that failed to submit sufficient banking information to the Commission for payment to be made. Since the FCC does not control the actual release of funds, it indicates it will deem the amounts as paid five business days from the release of yesterday's Public Notice (ie, July 27). Any broadcaster expecting to be paid that is not listed in the attachment to the Public Notice will want to promptly fix any issues with its banking information so that it too can receive payment.
The Public Notice also establishes the deadline for each category of auction winner to go off-air after getting paid. For the fewer than a dozen stations actually terminating service and going permanently dark, yesterday's announcement is a major milestone, establishing their last day of operation as October 25, 2017. These stations can actually cease operating as early as late August, but only if they start airing their required notices to viewers and sending their notices to MVPDs immediately. Those needing a longer goodbye can ask for additional time to remain on air as long as they can show the FCC good cause for continuing to operate beyond the deadline.
The approximately 30 stations that elected to move to a high or low VHF channel obviously do not face a "go dark" deadline. Instead, they will transition to their new channel much the same way as stations being involuntarily repacked. In other words, these stations will start operations on their new channels according to the FCC's previously-announced transition phase assignments. They'll just do so with lighter hearts and heavier pockets than repacked stations.
The majority of the stations listed in the Public Notice as being eligible for an auction payment indicated at the start of the auction (in their Form 177) that they had entered into or intended to enter into a channel sharing agreement for post-auction operation. These stations have until January 23, 2018 to cease operating on their current channel and commence operations on their shared channel. If a station's "intention" to enter into a channel sharing agreement has not yet been realized, it will have until January 23, 2018 to get that done. In addition, the FCC is allowing channel sharing stations to request up to two 90-day extensions (until July 2018) if they need it.
The timing of yesterday's announcement effectively means that auction winners whose channel sharing partner was assigned to a new channel as part of the repack will have to transition twice—once to their sharing partner's pre-transition channel, and a second time to their partner's repacked channel. Since the first transition phase testing period does not begin until September 14, 2018, even a channel sharee obtaining both 90-day extension periods would have to get special dispensation from the FCC or go dark for some period of time if it wants to avoid having to do a two-step transition.
While bidding in the first-ever broadcast incentive auction has been over for months now, today's Public Notice is a major step in finally closing the book on that auction. The U.S. Treasury will be sending auction payments out over the next few days, and once that is done, all eyes will be on the repack itself. Given last week's implosion of the FCC's filing system under the strain of the initial round of repack construction permit applications and reimbursement claims, the repack promises to be a challenging endeavor for both broadcasters and the FCC. However, for those broadcasters whose pockets are flush with auction payments, the repack might seem just a little less burdensome.
The next Children's Television Programming Report must be filed with the FCC and placed in stations' public inspection files by July 10, 2017, reflecting programming aired during the months of April, May, and June 2017.
The next Quarterly Issues/Programs List ("Quarterly List") must be placed in stations' public inspection files by July 10, 2017, reflecting information for the months of April, May, and June 2017.


The dear, departed bees in the ivy flowers last fall.
My beloved beehive died this year after five successful seasons, so it was with some trepidation that I decided to watch "Lawyers, Guns and Honey," the first episode of Netflix's original documentary, Rotten. Just what I needed to see, I thought, the wonders of bees, as I looked out at my empty, silent hive. But I will tell you, after five minutes, I was immersed, shocked, dismayed.
So here are some sobering facts. Worldwide, honey demand has been rising exponentially, while globally the productivity and number of hives have been falling sharply as more and more environmental issues arise to confront bee populations. Yet the amount of honey on the market continues to increase. How could this be, you ask? Simple answer: adulteration. A number of countries in Asia, in particular China, are dumping vast quantities of honey on the US market. More often than not, these honeys are adulterated with rice-based sugar syrups, which are hard to detect in the tiny amount of testing that goes on. So chances are the honey you buy in the supermarket is not what it claims to be. Worse, this dumping has actually driven down US honey prices, forcing American producers to rely on fees they receive when they ship their hives to farms in the spring to supply pollinators for food crops.
As it turns out, this trucking process involves a staggering 80% of all US hives, and a large majority of these wind up together in California's central valley pollinating almond trees, which is one of the fastest growing (and most ecologically harmful in terms of water usage) sectors in California agriculture. This annual concentration of bees results in exactly what you would expect if you concentrated 80% of the US human population in one place: the perfect vector for disease transference. In addition to the damage, abuse and destruction the bees endure in the shipping process, they all come together once a year in California to intermingle maladies and parasites from every corner of the US.
No wonder the bees are in such trouble.
There is a very simple answer to all this: Buy local honey! Period. Make it so your local or regional honey producers don't have to ship their bees all over the country just to stay financially afloat. Or better yet, get a hive of your own.
I've already ordered my replacement (two actually, after watching this) for the spring.
So what rotten tale is next in Rotten? Well, I have watched part of the episode on garlic, which I will be commenting on next, as it involves — unbelievably — a garlic cartel that uses prison labor to peel bulbs for US import.
Good work, Michael. I've forwarded this article to many bee-friendly friends and neighbors.
Yes! Encourage local beekeepers. In Paris, there are plenty: the nuns running a nursing home, the state employees who maintain Luxembourg Gardens, folks with hives on apartment building roofs. The urban honeys their bees produce are considered particularly good because the flowers visited, in public gardens and in window boxes, are pesticide-free.
Such a pleasure to taste honey that comes from somewhere, rather than living in the belly of a squeeze-bottle bear.


On a night when three Matadors put up career numbers, CSUN (3-2) fell to No. 6 ranked Penn State (5-0) Saturday evening at home in the final round of the Radisson Hotel Chatsworth Thanksgiving Basketball Classic 2012 despite mounting an early 17 points lead.
Freshman guard Marta Masoni, sophomore guard Ashlee Guay and sophomore center Camille Mahlknecht all had career bests in three separate categories, but the team couldn't close out as they allowed the Lady Lions to finish the game on a 13-1 run to secure a 85-73 victory.
Masoni went 7 of 18 from the field, nailing five out of her whopping 14 attempts from beyond the arc en route to career-high 22 points. Guay, who set a personal best in the assists category by dishing out 12, completed a double-double by scoring 15 points on 6 of 15 shooting to go along with five rebounds and three steals on the night. Mahlknecht matched her career-high in rebounds, pulling down 13 to go along with eight points and two blocks.
A bucket by senior forward Violet Alama – who finished with a season-high 11 points on 5 of 8 shooting to go along with four rebounds – gave Northridge a 33-16 lead with 5:52 left in the first half, but the Lady Lions responded with 9-0 run of their own to close out the first 20 minutes of action, cutting CSUN's lead to just six.
Penn State continued its scoring burst as it started the second half putting in eight straight to take the lead, extending its run to 17 straight unanswered points. The Matadors maintained their poise, however, and stood toe to toe with the Lady Lions up until 3:28 left in the game, where a Guay layup would be the final field goal put in the basket by CSUN.
Despite Mahlknecht's rebounding prowess, the Matadors were unable to control the glass, allowing the Lady Lions to pull down 16 offensive rebounds — 10 of them coming from opposing forward Nikki Greene who had a monster 21 point (13 of 14 from the charity stripe) and 20 rebound performance.
Northridge hits the road for its next two contests, playing Santa Clara on Nov. 26 and San Jose State on Dec. 1, before coming back home to face off against San Francisco.


We have further improved the ATOMYC. The entry area has been completely redesigned to provide even greater on/off convenience. The ATOMYC 2's heel now incorporates a larger rubber component to offer even greater grip when hooking. The shoe not only has a VIBRAM XS grip sole but also an extremely soft, pre-tensioned midsole that promise a precise foothold and secure grip. The two-part sole structure further adds to the shoe's flexibility. The ATOMYC 2 has an aggressive downturn to optimally support the feet muscles on steep routes. The leather footbed offers a comfortable fit and the upper is made from low-stretch microfibre material.


Sydney will be starting her second year at Rutger's University studying marine biology. Her favorite thing to do on Ocean Star is coil the peak and throat halyards. Allie will be continuing her gap year traveling around Asia, including China, Thailand, and Vietnam. She is the resident banana bread baker on board. Emma (that's me!) will be entering her third year at Oberlin College studying psychology, education, and gender studies. Her favorite holiday is other people's birthdays. Ian L. will be taking classes at the University of South Florida and applying for the Coast Guard Academy. He eats his cereal with peanut butter instead of milk. Sam will be going to Fort Lauderdale to get his STCW certification. His favorite movie is Megamind. Dasha will be continuing her gap year in New Zealand on a whitewater rafting and sea kayaking trip. Her favorite spot on Ocean Star is underneath the anchor light and her best thinking is done while flaking the anchor chain. Will will also be continuing his gap year doing a finance internship in Dublin. He just swooped the salty bin for the last utensils as I write this post. Sinclair will be taking online classes through the University of Wisconsin Madison so that she can travel and hopefully WOOF. She has the most expressive eyebrows on board. Zach will be continuing his gap year working and traveling. He once went to a concert every day for 13 days straight. Carolyn will be captain of Ocean Star next semester. She is the first person in at least three years to sail Ocean Star off the anchor! Ian M. will be the first mate on Argo. He writes his "e"s as a "c" with a loop. Steph will be program manager on Argo next semester. She can do a human jump rope with her arms. Steve will be the first mate on Ocean Star. Giraffes have the same number of vertebra in their necks as humans.
Sweet! I am beyond thrilled for all of my wonderful shipmates to go on their next adventure. Stay tuned for all the excitement in store during our final days together. It has been a pleasure blogging for all the folks back home – see you soon!


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Episode: Grizzly Bear - Four Cypresses
Podcast: Song Exploder
Grizzly Bear - Four Cypresses
Between 2004 and 2012, Grizzly Bear put out four critically-acclaimed albums. Their newest album is called Painted Ruins, and it features this song, Four Cypresses. In this episode, two members of the band, Chris Taylor and Daniel Rossen, tell the story of how the song came together.
songexploder.net/grizzly-bear
Song Exploder listener survey: surveynerds.com/songexploder
— Song Exploder
Song Exploder > Fleet Foxes - Mearcstapa
Fleet Foxes formed in Seattle, Washington in 2006. In 2011, they put out their second record, which was nominated for a Grammy, and then, the band went on hiatus. The lead singer and songwriter, Robin Pecknold, moved to New York to go to Columbia University. After six years, in 2017, the band returned with their third album, Crack-Up...
Song Exploder > Slowdive - Sugar for the Pill
Slowdive formed in 1989 in Reading, England. They put out 3 albums between 1991 and 1995, and their sound helped define the shoegaze genre. In 2017, the band released a critically-acclaimed self-titled album, their first in over twenty years. In this episode, singer and guitarist Neil Halstead takes apart the song "Sugar for the Pill...
Chats that encourage women to live well > Women's Health: Nutrition, Diet, and Supplementation (Part 4 of 4)
A series, Women's Health: Nutrition, Diet, and Supplementation continues to look at the various stages of a woman's life and the nutritonal needs they pose. We are looking at the fact that specific nutritional requirements become especially important at particular times of our lives. Today's topic is stress...


They Grow Up Fast. Can Your College Fund Keep Up?
Long before your child was even born, you have been planning. What will we name her? What color should we paint his room? Where will they go to school? When is the right time to start saving for college?
You have big dreams for your child's future and with all the demands and decisions new parents face, one important aspect often overlooked is planning for college.
At Kenvin Financial Services we are here to help you know your options and chose the best planning for your family. With our knowledge and professional guidance, we can help you give your child the opportunity for a bright future.


Led Zeppelin were an English rock band active in the late 1960′s originally as the New Yardbirds in 1968, the band consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham.
They are widely considered to be one of the most successful, innovative and influential rock groups in history.
After changing their name, they signed with Atlantic Records who allowed artistic freedom. Led Zeppelin disliked releasing their songs as singles; they viewed their albums as indivisible and complete listening experiences. Due to the heavy, guitar-driven blues rock sound of their first two albums, Led Zeppelin are frequently recognised as the progenitors of heavy metal andvhard rock.
However, the band's individualistic style drew from a wide variety of influences, including folk music, which they incorporated into their next two albums. Their untitled fourth album, which features the track "Stairway to Heaven", is among the most popular and influential works in rock music, and it cemented the status of the group as "superstars".
Led Zeppelin disbanded following Bonham's unexpected death in 1980.
Frédéric François Chopin (1810- 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of French-Polish parentage. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music.
Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola, a village in the Duchy of Warsaw. A renowned child-prodigy pianist and composer, Chopin grew up in Warsaw and completed his music education there; he composed many mature works in Warsaw before leaving Poland in 1830 at age 20.
He settled in Paris during the remaining 19 years of his life, Chopin gave only some 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon; he supported himself by sales of his compositions and as a piano teacher.
For most of his life, Chopin suffered from poor health; he died in Paris in 1849 at age 39.


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Who is Carter Page?
Updated on: February 2, 2018 / 4:40 PM / CBS/AP
GOP memo released
After heated partisan debate, controversial memo released 01:12
Carter Page is a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser whose surveillance by the FBI is at the center of a declassified Republican memo released by House Intelligence Committee Republicans Friday. He's one of several Trump campaign associates who have been under scrutiny by the FBI and by lawmakers probing Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The memo focuses in part on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that authorized the surveillance of Page. Federal law enforcement sources as well as congressional sources briefed on the intelligence during the 2016 campaign have said that well before Page joined the Trump campaign, there were concerns about his contacts with Russian spies. The memo aims to connect information gathered for the Trump "dossier" alleging links between Donald Trump and Russia, to those FISA warrants.
After the memo was released, Page released a statement praising GOP congressional leaders for releasing the memo and suggested he'd use some of the information in it to update "my pending legal action in opposition to DOJ this weekend in preparation for Monday's next small step on the long, potholed road toward helping to restore law and order in our great country."
Carter Page on Russian meddling, "completely false" allegations 07:03
The GOP-authored memo says that on Oct. 21, 2016 the DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order authorizing electronic surveillance on Page. The FBI and DOJ obtained three FISA warrants targeting Page and three FISA renewals, according to the memo.
Then-FBI Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one, according to the memo. The memo says then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of the DOJ.
Page was a little known investment banker when Mr. Trump announced him as a member of his foreign policy advisory team early last year. Trump aides insist the president has no relationship with Page and did not have any dealings with him during the campaign.
His relationship with Russia began to draw scrutiny during the campaign after he visited Moscow in July 2016 for a speech at the New Economic School. While Page said he was traveling in a personal capacity, the school cited his role in the Trump campaign in advertising the speech.
Page was sharply critical of the U.S. in his remarks, saying Washington has a "hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change." During this visit, Page was suspected of meeting with Russian officials, and later, in October 2016, the FBI and Justice Department sought and were granted the power to electronically wiretap Page.
Days later, Page talked with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. at an event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention. Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke with the Russian envoy at the same event, a conversation he failed to reveal when asked about contacts with Russians during his Senate confirmation hearings.
The campaign began distancing itself from Page after his trip to Russia, saying he was only an informal adviser. By the fall, he appeared to have cut ties to the Republican campaign.
It's unclear how Page got connected with the Trump campaign. One campaign official said Page was recruited by Sam Clovis, an Iowa Republican operative who ran the Trump campaign's policy shop and is now a senior adviser at the Agriculture Department. Those who served on the campaign's foreign policy advisory committee also said they had limited contact with Page.
But in a letter Page sent to the Senate intelligence committee in March 2017, he cast himself as a regular presence in Trump Tower, where the campaign was headquartered.
"I have frequently dined in Trump Grill, had lunch in Trump Café, had coffee meetings in the Starbucks at Trump Tower, attended events and spent many hours in campaign headquarters on the fifth floor last year," Page wrote. He also noted that his office building in New York "is literally connected to the Trump Tower building by an atrium."
Page, a former Merrill Lynch investment banker who worked out of its Moscow office for three years, now runs Global Energy Capital, a firm focused on energy sectors in emerging markets. According to the company's website, he has advised on transactions for Gazprom and RAO UES, a pair of Russian entities.His interest in Russia came about when he studied in Moscow while he was a Navy midshipman in the early 1990s, and later in his career, he also worked in Russia for a few years. Media stories have pointed out that Page is the sole employee of his firm, and a New York Times Magazine profile of Page said that his company's headquarters were a windowless "corporate co-working space" that he rents by the hour.
Page also briefly worked for the Eurasia Group. The president of the Eurasia Group, Ian Bremmer, memorably tweeted about Page in April 2017, calling him "the most wackadoodle @EurasiaGroup alumn in history. #SoFar."
Carter Page going down as the most wackadoodle @EurasiaGroup alum in history. #SoFar
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) April 13, 2017
VA urges millions of veterans exposed to burn pits to file claims