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MISSOULA – The Lady Prospector tennis duo of Jaden Comings and Sarah Goff coasted to their second straight divisional title in doubles tennis Saturday at Play Fair Park in Missoula. The win earns them the right to play this weekend in the state tournament in Great Falls.
“Everyone won their first matches and made it into the second day which was a big success!” said Granite Head Coach Meredith McDonald after the match. “Madison Brabender had a fabulous divisional debut winning her first match.
“All of the girls played hard and with heart. I couldn't be more proud.”
As a team Granite finished second in doubles with 12 points, seven behind Loyola with 19. Third was Valley Christian with seven and Anaconda was fourth with three. The Lady Prospectors were also second in singles play with 26 points. Loyola dominated play with 59 points for first place, with Valley Christian (12) and Anaconda (10) rounding out the field.
While Loyola may have won the team competition, they had no answer for Granite’s seasoned tandem. Comings, a senior, and Goff, a junior, lost just seven games in six sets, sweeping through all three of their opponents. In the opener they defeated Anaconda’s Deinhart/Hendrickson in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0. In the semifinals they defeated one of two Loyola teams of Daniel/Round, 6-0, 6-2. The championship against Loyola’s other duo of Job/Burke was tighter, but still resulted in a 6-4, 6-1 win for Comings and Goff.
Senior Brooke Rouse played well in #1 singles, winning three of her five matches. Her wins included a 6-8, 5-7 (10-6) first round win over Harley Fullmer of Anaconda and a consolation bracket wins over Jing of Loyola (6-2, 6-2) and teammate Sierra Metesh 6-4, 6-4.
Metesh, a junior, played #2 singles and split her four matches. She earned wins over Jett of Anaconda (6-0, 6-0) and Dierking of Valley Christian (6-0, 6-0)
Brabender’s praise from her coach was well-founded. The senior beat Valley’s Dierking 6-2, 6-0 and Jonas of Anaconda 6-0, 6-0 to go 2-2 on the day.
Makayla Pederson played the fewest matches of the day, going 1-2. Her only win came in her opening match over Loyola’s Jing 6-1, 6-7 (7-5).
by Tim Allen, QSPNLive.com


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If you are looking for a casino game with a small house advantage and easy to bet on, then baccarat is an excellent game and wagering on it is practically as easy as betting on the flip of a coin, making it an excellent game for rookie gamblers.
To learn how to win at baccarat banque is easy and we will go through five tips to succeed in this story.
Before we contemplate a winning at baccarat chemin de fer plan, let’s dispel a few of established misconceptions that make many rookie gamblers give up.
Succeeding at Punto Banco – Patterns
Watching for patterns in baccarat banque is as pointless as it is in European and American roulette, they are both games of speculation where the preceding hand or spin not in any way influences the successive play.
This is a simple trap that numerous amateur gamblers all over the world fall into when betting on any game of speculation.
If you were betting on the flip of a coin, and it settled heads up 9 times in a row a good many gamblers would say the chances of tails as the next land have expanded, but of course that is not the case. The odds remain 50/50 for the successive flip.
Winning at Baccarat – Systems
Casino’s hand out pages where you can note down the games past, but this is, actually just entertainment and will not mark up the chance of a gain.
Finally, not ever buy a system for money the sales copy may appear to be excellent but by the makeup of the game they cannot function.
Succeeding at Baccarat – Card counting
Card counting is commonly associated with chemin de fer, as it can be in all respects an effectual strategy when used reliably to shift the expectation in your favor over the long term.
It might then seem to be an excellent strategy in baccarat banque, as it functions off a similar shoe.
The catch is though, the issue of consumed cards being returned to the shoe before a lot of have been dealt. This voids any count the gambler had.
Also, unlike blackjack baccarat banque doesn’t offer opportunities to alter a bet in mid-hand. Vingt-et-un offers this in a number of situations, so you can increase your action if your count changes amid play.
Using card counting in punto banco presents so scant opportunities with an edge against the gambling casino that this won’t succeed.
The House Edge … the Better Bet in Punto Banco
The house has an advantage in baccarat, as in many, casino games but it is a remote one, only 1.24% for bets on player and just 1.06% for bets on banker.
The odds of winning at punto banco are easily superior than a good many casino games like roulette with and without the double zero, video poker, slots and blackjack using basic strategy. The only game with a superior odds wager is the craps odds bet at (0 percent).
Winning at baccarat banque means you need to use the banker wager as it’s the wager with the greatest odds.
Five Hints for Succeeding at Baccarat
1. Number of decks of cards: Decide on the game with as little decks as you can.
2. Commission: Look for the gambling den that places a commission on banker bets below than five % if you are able to find one.
3. Wager on the banker. This wager has the tiniest casino advantage and is the one to go after.
4. Money management. Work out a scheme for the betting session and follow it, do not risk greater money than you need to by following squanderings.
5. Do not use baccarat banque systems. It is pointless to base your betting decisions on results of previous wagers.
There is Only ONE Good Wager
There is simply one beneficial wager for succeeding in baccarat and you should employ it continually.
Employ the banker wager the most, to change things up you might want to wager on the player a few times and not under any condition bet on the tie.
Baccarat, the dignified game, was at first played solely by the rich European aristocracy from the 15th century forward.
Still, today, there is an air of difference about baccarat, but more and more individuals are establishing it as net betting grows more famous.
Baccarat gamblers often wear black tie dress, and the baccarat playing spot is somewhat set confined from the rest of the casino, and the betting limits are customarily way higher than all the other casino games.
Baccarat is definitely an acclaimed game, as the regulations, method of play, and the rewards to be won,is a reminder of the polished and romantic past.
Baccarat is a extremely simple game, … there are few and limited techniques to win. The chances are simple enough to determine, and the play is fairly structured.
Here is how baccarat works; the dealer (and can be any player or a croupier) will deal 2 cards to each candidate, plus the banker (note: in Baccarat, the banker does not have to be the dealer). The set aim of Baccarat is to gain as close to the # nine as plausible.
So, If your 2 cards total nine, or an 8 (both are called "naturals") you are a winner. Should the dealer possess a natural, it certainly is a leveled game.
The rules are clear, should any gambler have a seven or a 6, he must stand. If any candidate has five or less, he is obliged to attain a third card. That is the game.
Card values say that any ten or face cards have no value.
The second digit of the number dictates the value in Baccarat, so a ten equals zero. Likewise, a ten and a 6 = 6. Let us say you receive a 3rd card, the definitive total (called the score) will be the right digit of the sum of the cards. Consequently, the score of three cards equaling 16 will hold a score of six.
Baccarat is played with 8 decks of cards in a shoe. Cards of a value less than ten are said to be worth face value and on the other hand 10, J, Q, K are 0, and A are each applied a value of 1. Bets are placed on the ‘banker,’ the ‘player’ or for a tie (these aren’t actual contenders; they just act as the 2 hands to be given out).
2 hands of two cards shall then be given out to the ‘banker’ … ‘player’. The score for any hand shall be the sum total of the 2 cards, but the first digit is dumped. For eg, a hand of 7 … 5 results in a score of two (sevenplusfive=twelve; drop the ‘one’).
A third card could be dealt depending on the following codes:
- If the bettor or banker has a total score of 8 or nine, the two players stand.
- If the player has 5 or lower, he/she hits. Players stand otherwise.
- If gambler stands, the banker hits of five or lesser. If the gambler hits, a chart shall be used to figure if the banker stands or hits.
The larger of the two scores will be the winner. Successful wagers on the banker payout 19 to 20 (even odds less a five % commission. Commission is monitored and moved out when you leave the table so make sure that you have dollars left over before you leave). Bets on the player that end up winning pay one to one. Winner bets for tie typically pay 8 to 1 but on occasion nine to 1. (This is a bad gamble as ties occur lower than one every ten hands. Definitely don’t try placing bets on a tie. Regardless odds are vastly better – nine to 1 vs. 8 to one)
Played accurately, baccarat offers fairly decent odds, aside from the tie bet ofcourse.
As with all games, Baccarat has some established myths. One of which is close to a misconception of roulette. The past is never actually a predictor of future actions. Tracking of old outcomes on a chart is a total waste of paper as well as a slap in the face for the tree that gave its life for our stationary needs.
The most accepted and feasibly most successful tactic is the one-three-two-6 concept. This tactic is employed to boost successes and cutting back risk.
Begin by gambling one unit. If you win, add 1 more to the two on the table for a total of 3 on the second bet. If you win you will have 6 on the table, subtract 4 so you have 2 on the 3rd gamble. If you win the 3rd bet, add two to the 4 on the table for a value of 6 on the 4th gamble.
If you don’t win on the 1st wager, you take a loss of 1. A win on the 1st bet followed up by loss on the second creates a loss of two. Wins on the first two with a loss on the 3rd gives you a profit of 2. And wins on the first three with a loss on the 4th mean you breakeven. Getting a win on all four bets leaves you with twelve, a profit of ten. This means that you can lose the 2nd bet 5 times for every successful streak of four bets and still break even.
You are currently browsing the Baccarat Secrets blog archives
for February, 2023.

domain: hobby


Steel buildings resist many of the problems that plague wood and concrete construction, allowing them to maintain their strength and integrity for a very long time.
But just how long can a pre-engineered steel building last? The long lifespan of a steel building makes it the ideal choice for many personal, commercial, and industrial needs.
Get in touch with the knowledgeable Titan Steel Structures team now to explore our pre-engineered building kits or to design something new. Our specialists will help you at each step, and we won’t be happy until you are.
What is the Lifespan of a Pre-Engineered Steel Building?
Steel is one of the strongest, most durable construction materials available, and a steel building can last for as long as the owner continues to maintain it. Steel buildings are easy to maintain and aren’t vulnerable to many of the problems that concrete and wood buildings face over time.
The steel framing system utilized in a pre-engineered steel building allows you to customize and adapt your structure easily. Your steel building can be restructured as your business grows, altered for a new purpose, or expanded in all directions to provide additional, usable space.
When you consider the long lifetime of a steel building, thinking about ongoing maintenance is essential. Because steel buildings resist mold, water damage, pests, fires, and damage from severe weather conditions, you’ll spend less time and money on costly repairs for as long as you own it. Steel buildings are also eco-friendly because steel is endlessly recyclable and typically uses less energy than other types of construction.
Choosing a pre-engineered steel building means you’ll have a durable, adaptable structure for life. You’ll reduce your impact on the environment, preserve resources, and spend less time and money maintaining it.
Why Are Steel Buildings So Durable?
Steel is a resilient, tough material that can be used in nearly every element of a pre-engineered steel building. Using steel throughout the entire building allows you to eliminate the need for weaker, more vulnerable materials and ensures your investment will last for decades.
Here are some of the elements that make steel buildings’ lifespan so long.
Elements of a prefabricated steel building are coated in a corrosion-resistant barrier coating that prevents direct contact with oxygen and water. These elements have the power to cause significant damage to wood and concrete buildings, resulting in costly repairs.
Corrosion detracts from a building’s integrity and makes it more vulnerable to wind, earthquakes, and other destructive forces. The careful construction and corrosion-resistant coating ensure your steel building will stand strong for a lifetime.
Tensile strength refers to a material’s ability to stretch without fracturing, and it’s essential to the overall durability of a building. Steel’s excellent tensile strength allows it to withstand jolting from powerful winds or seismic forces.
Concrete and wood buildings are often reinforced with steel to improve tensile strength, but these materials alone often fail to hold up to the elements. Because a pre-engineered steel building is made entirely from steel, the entire structure’s tensile strength is unparalleled.
Excess moisture, condensation, and flooding are destructive to wood and concrete buildings. Water can cause corrosion, mold, and structural damage that threatens the integrity of the entire building. Poor construction practices, age, and damage can allow moisture into the walls, creating severe damage in very little time.
A pre-engineered steel building easily resists water damage, corrosion, condensation, and other water-related problems.
Termites can destroy a building from the inside out faster than you think. By the time you notice a problem, these pests have likely done some severe damage to your walls. Getting rid of them and repairing the damage can be time-consuming and expensive.
One of the most significant benefits of choosing a steel building is not having to worry about termites. Because no wood is involved in a pre-engineered steel building, you can rest easy knowing termites will never make their home in your walls.
A fire can quickly destroy everything inside a structure and threaten the lives of people working or living there. Wood buildings are especially vulnerable to the effects of fire, causing flames to grow and spread quickly.
Steel buildings resist fire and slow the progression, allowing people more time to evacuate and emergency services to arrive. Steel buildings are so effective at resisting fire that they are often less expensive to insure.
The properties of steel and the way steel buildings are constructed mean that your structure will last as long as you want it to with less maintenance and worry than other types of construction.
Get a Custom Quote Now
Contact the team at Titan Steel Structures now to learn more about the benefits of steel buildings or to start a customized quote. Call today to explore our selection of prefabricated steel building kits or build something unique.


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Alvechurch Middle School today paid tribute to maths teacher Peter Rippington who died when a coach carrying schoolchildren home from a ski trip crashed in northern France.
Mr Rippington was described as a "dedicated and inspirational teacher" by Bryan Maybee, chairman of governors of Alvechurch Middle School, during a statement read outside the school today.
"He will be so sadly missed by all those who knew him," he said.
"Our condolences and thoughts at this time are for everyone affected by this tragic accident.
After confirming that staff and children who were well enough to travel arrived back from France last night, Mr Maybee added: "We continue to wish for the swift recovery and safe return of those who are currently being treated for injuries abroad.
"The school is open today and I can reassure you that specialist support is in place for children and staff.
"The headteacher's focus at this time, as I am sure you will understand, is being available to all who need her within the school.
"She joins me in praising Peter Rippington for all he has done for the school and local community over the years and her thoughts, as are mine, are with his family at this tragic time."
The Rector of Alvechurch, the Reverend David Martin, also paid his own tribute to Mr Rippington.
Issuing a statement near the school's main gate, he said: "The church community are holding all those affected by yesterday's shocking crash in our prayers, especially Peter's family.
"Peter was very much part of the wider community in Alvechurch and was known and liked by many.
"He gave his whole life to Alvechurch Church of England Middle School and will be sadly missed."
Dozens of children were injured when the bus flipped over and plunged to the bottom of a motorway embankment near Reims in the Champagne-Ardenne region in the early hours of yesterday.
Initial tests on the coach driver, who received minor injuries, showed he was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and local police are believed to be investigating whether he might have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Police in France said the driver was being questioned by police in Chalons-en-Champagne.
Mr Rippington's wife Sharon and daughter Amy were also injured in the crash, which involved 29 pupils from the school in Alvechurch, Worcestershire.
Chalons-en-Champagne prosecutor Christian de Rocquigny said today that 11 people remained in hospital, six of them seriously injured but he added that their condition was not life-threatening.
He said a 13-year-old girl had been transferred for treatment at the Necker children's hospital in Paris, where she had undergone an operation.
A statement from the Rippington family said: "We, as a family, are devastated at the tragic loss of Peter, a wonderful husband, father, son, brother, son-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle, friend and teacher.
"We are still extremely concerned about the health of his wife Sharon, who was injured and is still recovering in hospital in France.
"Sharon is accompanied by her daughter Amy, who escaped the incident with minor injuries."

domain: news


DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Pressure Vessel Market by Type (Boiler, Reactor and Separator) Material (Steel Alloys and Composites) Heat Source (Fired and Unfired), End User (Power, Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Oil & Gas and Fertilizers) and Region-Global Forecast to 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.
The global pressure vessel market size is projected to reach USD 53.3 billion by 2025 from an estimated USD 42.7 billion in 2020, at a CAGR of 4.5% during the forecast period. The installation of new pressure vessels in aging power plants is creating demand opportunities for pressure vessels.
Also, the development of refineries and chemical plants and expanding the fertilizer industry are driving the pressure vessel industry growth. However, high capital requirements and maintenance costs and strict emission standards hinder the growth of pressure vessels.
Steel alloy, by material, is expected to be the largest and the fastest-growing market from 2020 to 2025.
Steel alloys account for the largest share in the global pressure vessel market in 2019. The increase in the number of industrial power projects and the replacement of existing pressure vessels are the major factors driving the growth of the market.
Steel alloys include carbon steel, chromium-molybdenum alloys, and stainless steel. Carbon steel is a combination of iron & steel, whereas stainless steel is an iron alloy with a minimum of 10.5% chromium. Other elements are added to stainless steel to enhance its structure and properties such as formability and strength.
High corrosion resistance is the main characteristic of good grade stainless steel. Asia Pacific and the Middle East region are expected to offer lucrative opportunities for the pressure vessel market in the near future.
The chemicals & petrochemicals segment, by the end-user, is expected to be the fastest-growing market from 2020 to 2025.
The chemicals industry is growing globally owing to increasing consumption of goods such as fertilizers and other agrochemical products, LED lightings, coatings & adsorbents, plastics & man-made fibers, and research laboratory chemicals. The petrochemical industry is experiencing heightened demand from numerous construction projects in the Asia Pacific region. More than 20 refineries are expected to be constructed in the Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific region in the next five years. All these factors are driving the growth of the pressure vessel market for the chemicals & petrochemicals industry.
Asia Pacific: The largest and the fastest-growing region in the pressure vessel industry.
The region is developing into the fastest-growing end-market for energy, power, and technologies. Also, substantial growth in related industries such as metallurgy, chemical manufacturing, food and beverages, and energy & power, drive the growth of pressure vessel market. China and India are the fastest-growing countries in the region, generating massive demand for pressure vessels.
Moreover, the region has many countries importing natural gases, which boost the trade as well as the market for pressure vessels. Japan is the largest importer of LNG, along with many other developing nations of the region. These countries are expected to increase their trade, considering the low cost of conventional fuels. All these factors drive the demand for pressure vessels in Asia Pacific.
The global pressure vessel market is dominated by a few major players that have an extensive regional presence. Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises (US), General Electric(US), Larsen & Toubro (India), IHI Corporation (Japan), Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems (Japan), Hitachi Zosen (Japan), Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (India), Doosan Mecatec (South Korea), Dongfang Turbine Co., Ltd. (China), Samuel, Son & Co. (US), Westinghouse Electric Company (US), and Halvorsen Company (US), Pressure Vessels (India), and Kelvion Holdings GmbH (Germany) are some of the leading players.
The report defines, describes, and forecasts the pressure vessel market, by type, material, heat source, end user, and region. It also offers a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market. The report provides a comprehensive review of the major market drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges. It also covers various important aspects of the market, which include the analysis of the competitive landscape, market dynamics, market estimates in terms of value and volume, and future trends in the pressure vessel market.
Key Topics Covered
2 Research Methodology
3 Executive Summary
3.1 Scenario Analysis
3.1.1 Optimistic Scenario
3.1.2 Realistic Scenario
3.1.3 Pessimistic Scenario
4 Premium Insights
4.1 Attractive Opportunities in Pressure Vessel Market
4.2 Pressure Vessel Market, by Type
4.3 Pressure Vessel Market, by Material
4.4 Pressure Vessel Market, by Heat Source
4.5 Pressure Vessel Market, by End-user
4.6 Pressure Vessel Market, by Region
4.7 Asia Pacific Pressure Vessel Market, by End-user & Country
5 Market Overview
5.2 Market Dynamics
188.8.131.52 Growing Adoption of Supercritical and Ultra-Supercritical Power Generation Technology
184.108.40.206 Increasing Refinery and Chemical Plant Construction Activities in Asia Pacific and Middle East
220.127.116.11 Expanding Global Fertilizer Industry
18.104.22.168 Increase in Decommissioning Activities of Nuclear Reactors
22.214.171.124 Significantly Higher Capital Requirements and Maintenance Costs
126.96.36.199 Installation of New Pressure Vessels in Aging Power Plants
188.8.131.52 Technological Advancements in Materials, Testing Methodologies, and Designs
184.108.40.206 Strict Emission Standards Related to Pressure Vessels
5.3 Supply Chain Overview
5.3.1 Key Influencers
220.127.116.11 Raw Material Providers
18.104.22.168 Equipment Manufacturers
6 Pressure Vessel Market, by Type
6.2.1 Initiation of Refinery Projects and Aging Power Infrastructure to Drive Boilers Market
6.3.1 Phase-Out of Nuclear Power Plants to Affect Market for Reactors
6.4.1 Growing Oil & Gas Operations in Middle East and Asia Pacific to Drive Separators Market
6.5 Other Types
7 Pressure Vessel Market, by Material
7.2 Steel Alloys
7.2.1 High Demand for Steel Alloys-Based Pressure Vessels from Asia Pacific Driving Market Growth
7.3.1 Technical Advancements Fuel Demand for Lightweight Composite Pressure Vessels
7.4 Other Alloys
8 Pressure Vessel Market, by Heat Source
8.2 Fired Pressure Vessel
8.2.1 Requirement for Boiler Replacement from Conventional Power Plants Boosts Demand for Fired Pressure Vessels
8.3 Unfired Pressure Vessels
8.3.1 Increased Demand for High-Efficiency Pressure Vessels Accelerates Unfired Pressure Vessel Market Growth
9 Pressure Vessel Market, by End-user
9.2.1 Aged Thermal Power Infrastructure Boosting Demand for Pressure Vessels in Power Industry
9.3 Oil & Gas
9.3.1 Fluctuations in Upstream Oil & Gas Industry to Affect Demand for Pressure Vessels
9.4 Chemicals & Petrochemicals
9.4.1 High Demand for Chemicals and Petrochemicals Propel Pressure Vessel Market Growth
9.5.1 Slackened Demand for Fertilizers from Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa Due to Covid-19 Outbreak Affecting Demand for Pressure Vessels
9.6 Other End-user
10 Pressure Vessel Market, by Region
10.2 Scenario Analysis
10.3 Asia Pacific
10.5 North America
10.6 Middle East & Africa
10.7 South America
11 Competitive Landscape
11.2 Competitive Leadership Mapping
11.2.1 Visionary Leaders
11.2.3 Dynamic Differentiators
11.2.4 Emerging Companies
11.3 Ranking of Players and Industry Concentration, 2019
11.4 Competitive Scenario
11.4.1 Contracts & Agreements
11.4.2 Partnerships, Collaborations, Alliances, and Joint Ventures
12 Company Profiles
12.1 Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises
12.2 General Electric
12.3 Larsen & Toubro
12.4 Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems
12.5 Hitachi Zosen
12.6 IHI Corporation
12.7 Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
12.8 Doosan Mecatec
12.9 Dongfang Turbine Co. Ltd.
12.10 Samuel, Son & Co.
12.11 Westinghouse Electric Company
12.12 Halvorsen Company
12.13 Pressure Vessels (India)
12.14 Kelvion Holding Gmbh
12.15 VI Flow
12.17 Gladwin Tank
12.18 Robinson Pipe & Vessel
12.19 Titan Metal Fabricators
12.20 Alloy Products
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/m48bmz


Need Of Scientists In Sarawak For Country’s New Economy: Dr. Sim
He revealed that despite versity’s thousands of graduates, a local university vice chancellor has stated that the number of graduates in science and engineering subjects is declining.
Sarawak requires more scientists and engineers to support its new economy based on digital technology, green energy, and hydrogen, according to Sri Dr. Sim Kui Hian. He stated that efforts must be made to increase the number of students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), which is currently low.
He revealed that despite the university’s thousands of graduates, a local university vice chancellor has stated that the number of graduates in science and engineering subjects is declining.
He praised IKM Sarawak for its efforts to promote STEM seminars and roadshows, including those held in schools. He singled out IKM’s recent Karnival Kimia Malaysia (K2M) programme in remote Long Bedian as an excellent effort to inspire and provide opportunities for rural students in particular.
“Next year, in 2023, as we start embarking on hydrogen, we will need about 1,500 chemical engineers. We hope to get the federal government to agree to Sarawak building our cancer hospital next year; we will also need biochemists”.
“Chemistry is very important and we need to get the young people interested. And these are all high paying jobs,” he said at the Malaysian Institute of Chemistry (IKM) Sarawak’s Chemistry Night on Tuesday (Dec 20).
“We need every Sarawakian to help us achieve the Post COVID-19 Development Strategy 2030 aspirations and objectives,” he added. More scientists and engineers are required for new economy of Sarawak.
According to Dr. Sim, federal leaders have recognised Sarawak’s efforts to transition to the new economy under PCDS 2030.
According to the Minister of Economy, the country’s economy must transition from a commodity- and low-value manufacturing-based economy to a 21st-century economy based on digital technology, added value, creativity, and innovation.
“Finally, someone in KL (Kuala Lumpur) understands what Sarawak is planning,” he said.
IKM president Datuk Dr Soon Ting Kueh and Sarawak chairman Dr John Chan were among those present at the dinner themed Chemistry of Cultures. The dinner’s agenda included the formation of IKM Sarawak regional sub-committees as well as the presentation of IKM Merit Awards 2022.
IKM is a statutory professional organisation that was established on November 1, 1977, under the Chemists Act 1975, and is governed by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation.


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Meghan Markle ‘treading a fine line’ says Palmer
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The Duchess of Sussex publicly spoke in the wake of the extraordinary decision taken by the US Supreme Court in late June to overturn the Roe v Wade ruling, which since 1973 had conferred the right to have an abortion to people across the 50 states. In a candid chat with journalist Jessica Yellin and feminist Gloria Steinem, Meghan discussed what she thinks may happen next in the States and how to react to the judges’ decision.
In the interview published by Vogue, Meghan also spoke about her fight to see a proposed amendment to the US Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex, known as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), ratified.
However, the Duchess’ decision to speak up about these causes close to her heart could end up widening the distance between herself and the Royal Family in the UK, according to a royal author and professor of marketing and consumer research.
Pauline MacLaran, professor at Royal Holloway and author of Royal Fever: The British Monarchy in Consumer Culture, told Express.co.uk: “This more overt political direction is likely to take her further away from the Royal Family and mean that the rumours of her and Harry taking on some royal role once again are unlikely to come to fruition.”
Meghan and Prince Harry bowed out of the Firm as its full-time working members at the end of March 2020.
The pair have since established their new lives in California, where they live with their children Archie Harrison and Lilibet ‘Lili’ Diana.
While they struck profitable deals with streaming platforms Netflix and Spotify and the Duke was hired as chief impact officer at mental fitness and coaching firm BetterUp, Meghan and Harry also continue to also focus their attention on causes they deeply care about.
Powering their humanitarian efforts through their Archewell Foundation, launched in late 2020, they have continued to work on mental health, female equality and the support to veterans and military personnel among other issues.
While the Sussexes appear to be solidifying their presence in the US, leading royal biographer Tina Brown said last month a return of Meghan and Harry into the royal fold should not be ruled out.
The author of the book The Palace Papers told The Times Prince Charles may ask the Duke and Duchess to represent the monarchy in the Commonwealth once he accedes to the throne as part of his efforts to modernise the Firm.
She said: “It’s not too late to have another go.
“(Meghan) and Harry have a great connection to the young and could be successful ambassadors for ‘the new Commonwealth.’
“Meghan can speak to the need for diversity in a way no one else in the Royal Family can.”
Professor MacLaran also said Meghan’s latest interview is helping the Duchess position herself “closer to the political arena”.
The expert said: “Meghan is certainly cementing her role as a humanitarian and activist through this role but she is also positioning herself closer to the political arena.
“These aspects all dovetail with each other as to be an activist is also to be political.
“Here we should remind ourselves that she is adhering to a key feminist principle reflected in the slogan, ‘the personal is political’.
“In other words, the personal experiences of women have their origins in their political situation and gender inequality.”
While the Duchess of Sussex has remained strictly neutral on politics during her years as a senior royal, she started discussing more openly topics such as voter registration and the US elections since returning to California two years ago.
Moreover, as she supported the campaign in favour of enforcing paid parental leave across the States, last autumn Meghan cold-called some Republican senators using her royal title to ask them to support the relevant legislation.
She also penned an open letter to Majority Leader Charles Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
After being criticised by some commentators in the UK, who accused her of breaching the rule of political neutrality normally abided by members of the Firm, the Duchess defended herself during the New York Times’ DealBook Summit last November.
During the event, she acknowledged there is a “precedent” among the Royal Family of “not having any involvement in politics”.
However, Meghan said her campaigning on the issue of paid parental leave is “just a humanitarian issue” rather than a political one.
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Out of WhitbyBy Mark Pender
The North Moors Steam Railway runs through beautiful countryside between Whitby and Pickering. This area is one of the most beautiful in Britain. I tried to capture the magnificence of the engine and the colours of the countryside (this was late October).<br />
This is an oil painting on stretched canvas fitted to be hung without a frame (as sold) but a frame could easily be fitted.

domain: geography


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Big Country Raw Chicken Dinner Ontario raised free-range chicken is a rich source of essential amino acids perfect for dogs, and with added nutrient rich beef liver and blended with our signature blend of organic fruits and vegetables containing powerful antioxidants this dinner contains only the good stuff!!
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domain: food


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The Crimson Tide followed up national championship No. 15 last month with another recruiting national championship this month. Alabama signed the top class in the country, just as it did last year, which means for anyone wishing for a Tide backslide, it won’t happen due to a regression in the total talent level anytime soon.
In the sixties and seventies, Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant established a “dynasty” at Alabama that made them the team of those decades. He ended his 25 year career at Alabama with six national titles.
But is Nick Saban about to establish his own dynasty and what are the chances that it could surpass those of the legendary “Bear” Bryant’s best decades?
You decide…Continue reading …


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Ingredients: Cocoa Beans, Cocoa Butter, Natural Sugar, Emulsifiers, Flavourings. Vegan.
- Didier And Frank Chocolate – The Best Chocolate in the World
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- Chocolate was invented in 1900 BC by the Aztecs in Central America. We at Didier & Frank bring you those exotic flavours and hand crafted chocolates that the Aztecs enjoyed secretly.


In the Star Trek universe, Scotty can ”beam you up” and teleport you to a location. Even though science fiction is yet to be reality, is teleporting still possible? Recently, we have developed a robotic platform that is capable of teleporting the behavior of fish from one tank to another through biologically-inspired robotic replicas which map the behavior of a fish from a tank to the other one. Our results indicate that behavioral teleporting is a promising tool to study the biological determinants of behavior. Here we demonstrate its use in pharmacological research, by investigating the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors of social interactions.
|ALIFE : proceedings of the artificial life conference. International Conference on Artificial Life


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Like someone whose eyes, when lifted up after staring at a book for a long time, wince at the mere sight of a naturally bright sun, so too, when I lift my eyes from looking at myself, it hurts and stings me to see the vivid clarity and independence-from-me of the world outside, of the existence of others, of the position and correlation of movements in space. I stumble on the real feelings of others. The antagonism of their psyches towards mine shoves me and trips up my steps. I slide and tumble above and between the sounds of their strange words in my ears, the hard and definite falling of their feet on the actual floor, their motions that really exist, their various and complex ways of being persons who are not mere variants of my own.
— Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (trans. R. Zenith)
Deviser of the voice and of its hearer and of himself. Deviser of himself for company. Leave it at that. He speaks of himself as of another. He says speaking of himself, He speaks of himself as of another. Himself he devises too for company. Leave it at that. Confusion too is company up to a point. Better hope deferred than none. Up to a point. Till the heart starts to sicken. Company too up to a point. Better a sick heart than none. Till it starts to break. So speaking of himself he concludes for the time being, For the time being leave it at that.
— Beckett, from ‘Company’
River-dweller: I cannot get to the other bank without your help. Ferryman, tell me of the other bank.
Ferryman: For me, it is the bank to get to, just like this one is when I am over there.
River-dweller: Is it like the banks of my childhood? It is so far I cannot tell form here.
Ferryman: What matter what the country is like if it excites your imagination. What matter what its banks are like. It is your country as long as you think of it, your banks.
River-dweller: I would like to know where this country begins and ends, if its vegetation is related to ours. The shape of its trees and rocks. I would like to know what happens there.
Ferryman: There is life, like here, and life in death. Like here, there is darkness in the light of the Name.
— Jabés, The Book of Questions (trans. R. Waldrop)
X tells me he thinks some malevolent spirit must have visited him in the womb, a bad ghost. I can feel it now, is it you? he asks me. Something went wrong somewhere, he says, probably as far back as the womb. You slipped out of the womb with me, didn’t you? he asks. Or maybe you slipped into the womb, grew with me, then slipped back out with me, he says. That’s why you’re still here, like a dead twin, he says, that’s why I can’t get rid of you.

domain: literature


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October 12th, 2017
Here’s a game I play sometimes when I wake up in the early hours and can’t fall back asleep. Imagine you made a different choice at one of the crossroads of your life. For instance: imagine I chose a university based on what I loved (literature) rather than what I thought I loved (wildlife science). Imagine I didn’t spend my late teenage years smoking so much pot. Imagine I stayed in one place rather than moving constantly. Imagine I visited Italy in the summer of 2001 rather than early spring, and never met the Australian I would end up marrying. Imagine my first birth was easy, and I never had postnatal depression. Imagine I never fell pregnant, and never married, and lived alone in the mountains somewhere, with mismatched teacups and rescued shelter dogs.
Perhaps I love this game because it reminds me of what I have learned as a fiction writer: that so much of our lives can turn on a single moment – a strange and random fate.
In my university days I was a strict vegetarian, and once a Hare Krishna from a farm in North Carolina came to our animal rights club meeting and spoke to us in his quiet, calm voice about the intentional community he lived on. I was enthralled. I was still figuring out who I was but I knew, at that stage, what I rejected: the consumer culture, the status quo, the production line of matching sorority and fraternity kids with the same hair and sweatshirts and cans of Miller Light. I wanted something different. I wanted to do meaningful work – I just didn’t yet know what that work was.
There was something remarkable in the Hare Krishna’s differentness. He had a shaved head except for a small patch at the back of the crown – a tiny high rattail. He had clear blue eyes, crinkled at the edges from smiling. His skin was tanned from working outdoors, cheeks wind-burned. He spoke with a soft southern twang, asking as many questions as he answered. He wore distinctive saffron robes and was probably the age that I am now. Afterwards we walked out of the meeting together and he invited my friend and I to come and visit his farm. We could stay for the weekend, he said. We would love how beautiful it was: the land, the mountains, the goats.
I nodded. Yes, I would come. We talked more outside in the gathering dusk, it was that time of year where you can wear sleeveless shirts and shorts and marvel at the soft warm air against your skin. If it had been chilly I might have left then, and gone home, but instead we lingered and asked more questions, personal questions about his life.
He was married, he told us, with children. A lot of children, I think it was four or five. He said that in the faith, a man and woman only had sex for the purpose of procreation. His wife’s duty, he said, was to be a mother and wife, the more devoted she was the more likely she would be reborn a man in another life. The husband, on the other hand, should not be too attached. His duty was to Krishna, and if he was too interested in his wife or other women, he might come back in the body of a woman in his next life.
Gosh, and who’d want that? I said, or something similar, and he backtracked. I heard his voice rise and tighten, try to smooth those earlier words. You would be surprised, he said, at the equality with men and women. Both could be priests. Come to the farm and we would see for ourselves the way it worked. The beauty of it all.
We said goodbye, gave him our phone numbers, made loose plans. It was dark when I walked to the dining hall to eat, then to finish my assignments back in my dorm room for the following day.
I remember looking at the plastic dining hall trays and the salad bar of stale croutons and browning iceberg beneath the fluorescent lights. The sallow skin of students who spend too much time indoors, the pimples and pizza grease, the smell of bleach and wasted food where you bus your tray.
I was overcome with desire for a simpler, wholesome life. Not to wake up in a loft bed hungover at 11am on a Sunday, wondering where my weekend had gone. Away from a dorm room scattered with crushed pizza boxes, discarded outfits, paper towel rolls with dryer sheets rubber banded on the end, empty jugs of Carlo Rossi burgundy beside the sink.
But when the phone rang the next day, when the Hare Krishna called in his sweet, serious voice and asked was I coming, I said no. I told him I had an assignment due. These were the years before I knew that truth was easier, because you only had to speak it once. Instead I kept making up lies. He called again and again, for weeks he called, until finally I think he realised what was going on. He stopped trying to convince me to visit the farm.
But I was so close to saying yes for a moment; I teetered on the edge. Had I seen the farm first, before learning about their chaste marriages and chafing patriarchy I would have been easy to convince. Because more than anything then I wanted out. I wanted something or someone to come along to take me as far as imaginable from ordinary life. Fuck what was expected of me, I wanted something strange and wonderful, a totally different path. But it turned out that so many of the countercultures I considered kept to those same screwed up systems I wanted out of.
The wolf was still there – he just wore a different disguise: orange robes, a tie-dyed shirt, yoga pants.
In that early hour – the time before dawn – I like to imagine what would have happened had I gone to the Hare Krishna farm. When I fall back to sleep I dream of goats and physical labour, sun ravaged faces and great big pots of vegetarian food. When I wake up I wonder, how long would I have lasted?
What other lives might you have lived?
October 10th, 2017
As happens in publishing, the title of my third novel has changed. It was Birds & Ships. It is now The Passengers – a title which has fewer personal connotations for me but is even more evocative (and easier to say out loud). And if you’ve read any Roland Barthes, you know that it matters less what the author wants than what the reader finds in a text.
Meanwhile, here is the absolutely beautiful cover which has fallen into my lap. I can’t wait to share the entire book with you, but until May 2018 this will have to suffice.
February 16th, 2017
One month ago I deactivated my Facebook account. I had a book to finish writing by the end of January, but I also was feeling overwhelmed by the Trump presidency. It was bleak and there it was again and again on my Facebook feed.
I admit that I checked Facebook far too often during the day – often without even realising I was doing it until I was there on the page. Because I work from home, alone, Facebook was my virtual watercooler. It was where I caught up on everyone’s news, where I congratulated those with birthdays and new partners and babies and said I was there for those going through a hard time. It made me feel connected. I live in Australia but am from the US, with lots of family and friends still there, so this feeling of connection was addictive.
I first joined Facebook the year my daughter was born, 2007, because of my Sydney-based mothers’ group. We used it to organise our get-togethers, and as more and more friends joined it became a way to share baby photos and catch up on everyone’s news in a single place. Before that I had kept in touch with a dozen or so university and high school friends, mostly through emails and in person every few years. Now I was suddenly connecting with friends who I hadn’t seen since 1995, when I graduated from high school. Then friends from primary school, or people who I only met once. Work colleagues in Sydney, ex-work colleagues, mother’s group members and friends-of-friends became connected via Facebook, and my feed was filled with all of these lives which I otherwise hardly would have known.
I have always been the type of person with a few close friends. I’m loyal and love their company, but I’m an introvert and this makes me poor at maintaining lots of friendships. Facebook, on the surface, makes it easy, but I began to question whether it was real as well. Was liking a post maintaining a friendship? Would I actually recognise some of these people if I saw them on the street? If we were in the same city, would we catch up for coffee?
Is it right that I know so much about their lives? Should I be telling them this much about my own?
So I culled some of the people I didn’t really know, and I ticked a few as acquaintances. I wasn’t one of those people with 1000 friends, my number hovered somewhere around 250.
But when I caught up with some of those 250 I realised our conversations became predictable. ‘How was your holiday? I saw you went to Sri Lanka. Beautiful photos.’
‘Thanks! And how was your trip to Perth? It looked amazing.’
What’s there to talk about when you’ve seen the highlights already, scrolling down your screen? I always had friends who weren’t on Facebook, and when we caught up for dinner or coffee the conversations were filled with genuine surprises. We were actually curious about one another’s lives because we had been living them in isolation from each other – we didn’t know.
That said, now that I’ve signed off I find that people expect me, still, to know what’s happening in their lives. ‘I’m not on Facebook these days,’ I have to say, for them to fill me in. A few have asked if I defriended them. ‘Did I do something to offend you?’ one mum asked at the school gates.
‘No!’ I said, feeling awful. ‘I’m not on Facebook at all. But you can still message me. I’m sorry.’ I do feel like I need to apologise for not already knowing their news.
So I do miss out – no question – on some of what goes on in the lives of people I care about. But how much are we meant to actually know? My mother, who is retired, spends at least an hour, sometimes two a day on Facebook. She clicks on all of the silly animal videos and looks at all the photographs from everyone’s weddings. She comments and sometimes has discussions with others in the comment sections and posts photographs of all of her trips. She also reads a lot, does Zumba, volunteers for several worthy organisations, cooks delicious meals and manages her finances – but I wonder what she’d do if she weren’t spending that time on Facebook. Would she email or write letters, talk on the phone more? Would she catch up with more people or fewer?
I haven’t even gotten to the best thing about being off Facebook. It’s not that the Trump disaster isn’t constantly there for me to see – it is, I still read the news. It has to do with my subconscious, which is directly related to creativity. When I was checking Facebook approximately 20 times a day I knew far too much about an eclectic collection of people. They were people who would normally just be on the periphery of my life, but because they posted a lot on Facebook they were in my life at least once a day, sometimes more than my husband (who is also one of those people not on social media). I found myself thinking about their families at odd times, dreaming of them, wondering how they’d gone with their job interview, their breakup, their new tattoo.
I knew them but I didn’t know them – I knew that carefully curated selection of what they chose to broadly share (some people on Instagram actually call this their portfolio). They took up space in my subconscious which is now freed for the characters from my novels or short stories, or the topics or projects I want to write about. I have kept my author page, and given my mother administrative powers. I don’t see her quitting Facebook any time soon. Will I go back one day? Not sure yet. I’m still enjoying being gone.
And those friends I still find myself wondering about? I do what I did in those pre-Facebook days. I send an email, or a text. If I’m feeling especially brave, I give them a call.
Update: I only lasted about three months, but it was a very productive three months. I’m hoping to make it an annual break.
December 5th, 2016
Now that it is summer here in Australia I’m reminded of how lucky I was to have two summers this year, and that I have yet to write about the research I did for my novel in the United States in July. I have taught a few seminars about researching for writing and spoken to many writer friends about this over the years, but I haven’t written about how I use different types of research while writing a novel. So here goes.
My initial purpose of travelling to the US was to attend the Tin House Summer Workshop, but once I was well into the draft of this novel I realised how worthwhile it would be to research the gaps in my story as well. I am writing a novel about a war bride from Australia who meets and marries an American GI during World War II and subsequently moves to the US. Through Dr Robyn Arrowsmith, author of the fascinating social history All The Way To The USA: Australian WWII War Brides, I was introduced to several WWII war brides, two of whom I was able to visit with during my trip.
First I flew into Los Angeles, for the dual purpose of visiting an old friend and to see the Queen Mary,
a retired ocean liner from the Cunard line which was used as a troop ship during WWII and also transported war brides from the UK to the USA after the war was over in 1946. While the Queen Mary was never used to transport Australian war brides, the original art deco interiors were similar to some of the ships which Australian war brides sailed on. The ship is permanently docked in Long Beach now as a hotel and tourist site, and my friend (who was eight months pregnant and had a two-year-old in tow) was kind enough to share me with the ship. We stayed on board (though she had heard it was haunted). We didn’t see ghosts, but I was delighted to see that the cabins were largely unchanged, with original built-ins and taps in the bathroom for seawater or freshwater.
To write a novel I have to inhabit a character, and so much of this means imagining myself in situations they might have been in, placing myself in environments similar to those they experienced. This allows the detail of their life to creep through my imaginings. It’s a kind of talismanic research – where the things around me are what allow me to inhabit them. Just walking around the areas of the ship – the infirmary, the bridge, the engine room, the ballrooms – I was able to get a sense of what three weeks at sea on such a vessel for my character would have been like.
Once I left Long Beach behind I travelled to San Francisco, staying by Fisherman’s Wharf, where the (fictional) war bride I am writing about sailed into in 1946 from Sydney. I walked around the Hyde Pier with its historic ships and then over to the SS Jeremiah O’Brien a WWII Liberty troopship which also carried war brides at one point. The SS O’Brien was such a stark contrast to the Queen Mary – it is a utilitarian ship in every way – purely built for the purposes of war. While in San Francisco I took a tourist ferry on the harbour, simply to get that perspective of what it was like to approach the city from the sea.
Little details like what the Golden Gate Bridge looks like from underneath are important to me. The war brides I have spoken to and those I have read interviews with emphasise how the journey was such an adventure – and how it was like they were seeing the world for the first time.
From San Francisco I took the commuter train to visit my first war bride, Mrs Dorothy Pence Berry in San Jose. Her daughter Beverley picked me up from the station and drove me to Dorothy’s house. When she was 19 Dorothy met American Naval Petty Officer Roy Pence in Brisbane. They married in 1943 and she had already had her daughter Beverley when she got passage on the troop ship SS General Mann to the US in December 1944. The war was still on and she remembers the mines they dodged at sea, and the bunk she shared with her baby. At night the whole ship would be in blackout, and there were no facilities for babies, no baby food, and only 27 war brides and 10 babies on board.
Beverley prepared a beautiful lunch for us while Dorothy told me about her journey, about her memories of Australia and the difficulties she faced as a new war bride in the US. She showed me photographs and her Australian memorabilia, and it struck me how memories of a place can suspend it in time, so that it is as much that place as that time in your life that you miss.
“Australia will always be home to me,” Dorothy said, showing me her Arnott’s biscuit tins. She has imbued her children with this love, one lives in Australia, another is the president of the US World War II War Brides Association, and another has a travelling exhibition of war bride wedding dresses.
After San Jose I returned to San Francisco to take the train up to Portland for the writing workshop and to meet another war bride. First I was going to catch up with a few friends, and they were curious as to why I insisted on taking the Coast Starlight Amtrak rather than flying – why take a 22-hour train when I could take a (less than) two-hour flight? More research, I insisted, since my character took a train across the US after sailing into San Francisco. It had been many years since I took a long distance train journey and though I know it is different now, I wanted to immerse myself in that pace again – the way the scenery passes and the time takes on a different quality. The sounds, the dining cars and the restrooms and the way strangers talk to one another– no one is rushed and stressed like we are in airports or on freeways.
To prove this point, the train was delayed about six hours and no one even seemed to mind (besides my poor friends waiting for me in Portland). There was a band travelling across the US playing music on the train, a Santa Claus impersonator and a woman who was taking her stuffed teddy bear across the US and taking photographs of him in different scenic spots. The Amtrak staff were some of the friendliest I’ve met, and while it’s probably not a good option if you’re in a hurry, I loved my slow journey up the coast.
After visiting with my dear, patient friends and checking in to my dormitory at Reed College, I had one more war bride to meet in Portland. I met Mrs Joann Patterson and three of her five children for brunch at a French restaurant in Portland. She met her American serviceman, Joe Patterson in Melbourne in 1942, when he followed her and her friend out of a restaurant and then waited for her outside of the night school class she was attending. Joann joined the AWAS (Australian Women’s Army Service in the Signal Corps) and Joe was relocated to Townsville. They got to know one another by letter and he would come and find her when he could get leave. They married in 1944 in Brisbane and honeymooned for a week before having to part again. They didn’t see each other again for 16 months, until she sailed into San Francisco aboard the Monterey. He was driving across the country from Ohio to pick up his bride, but his car broke down en route and he was not there when the brides disembarked from the ship. Luckily he was able to call a friend, who drove up from San Jose and picked up Joann the day after the ship had pulled into port. Joe arrived the next day. Joann and her children and grandchildren have travelled to Australia many times, partly because her husband Joe (who was in the US Air Force) went on to become a commercial airline pilot.
Joann had me to her house at the end of my week in Portland and cooked dinner for me and three of her children, no small feat for a 92-year-old. While she had her own difficulties as a war bride fitting in to her husband’s Catholic family, she was also keenly aware that her experience was easier than many because she was able to fly back to Australia frequently to visit. Her children all feel closely connected to Australia and have kept in contact with relatives there.
While the main character of my novel is not based on either of the war brides I interviewed or any one particular story I read, I felt as though speaking to these generous and adventurous women gave me so much insight into the story I was writing, the motivations and the challenges, the implications for future generations. I was lucky to have been invited into their homes, to have heard their stories and seen their old photographs and newspaper clippings.
I can read until my eyes are tired, but to hear these women tell their stories given an extra dimension to the book I am writing – this is the kind of research that no library can hold.
Funding from the Australia Council for the Arts and the Copyright Agency Creative Individuals Career Fund allowed me to travel to the USA.
July 20th, 2016
For years I’ve thought about attending one of the many summer writing workshops in the US: Bread Loaf, Tin House, Iowa, Sewanee. I’ve studied their programs and the lists of authors and talks and envied the immersive creative community. Since I grew up (part of the time) in America I knew the college atmosphere from my undergrad days, but I moved to Australia in my early 20s and never experienced a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program. We just don’t have them here.
The Doctorate of Creative Arts which I finished last year gave me a wonderful supervisor who read, advised and guided my project, but never the intensive workshop structure which is available in the US. My scholarship gave me the financial freedom to write, but I never felt part of a community of writers, and even working from my desk at the university the other writers I came into contact with existed in the bubble of their own work. I think there is something to be gained from reading others who are still figuring things out, learning from each other’s mistakes and being pushed by their inventiveness. I love being challenged – critiqued – questioned. Being asked: what’s at stake for you here? What’s your vulnerability? How can you push this further?
So this year I made my plans far in advance to apply to the Tin House Summer Workshop, in part because of their reputation and the quality of the writers they publish, and in part because the timing fit perfectly with my kids’ school holidays. I blocked out two weeks – one to attend the workshop and one to conduct interviews with Australian WWII war brides for the novel I am working on, and visit WWII-era ships on the West Coast (more about this in a later post). Only when I received my acceptance did I start to question my decision. Was I really ready to leave my children for two weeks? What if my workshop hated my writing? What if everyone was so much more meta than me? Although I had taught workshops recently I hadn’t workshopped my own work in so long that it made my stomach flip with fear. Even though I’ve had two novels published, I still feel like every time I’m beginning again.
So it was that my first night on the campus of Reed College in Portland Oregon I lay in my single bed, the plastic mattress squeaking beneath me, the bathroom door across the hall creaking and clicking, thinking “what the fuck have I done?”
Would I just have been better off taking a week alone to write? Was I going to feel comfortable enough with a group of strangers to bear hearing them talk about my work?
I wouldn’t have and I did. I was in the novel workshop with Dana Spiotta, an author I’ve read and admired. This interview with her in the New York Times earlier this year made me think she would be a damn good teacher too (and quietly subversive – right up my alley).
I won’t go into detail of my workshop group here, just that I came to trust them and their judgement, to feel safe with them, to know that they would have insight into things which in my own work I couldn’t see. We all came from such different places, we wrote wildly different kinds of fiction, but we also had many of the same problems and structural challenges. We bonded over oddly descriptive cafeteria food and quite a bit of alcohol. I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in a long time.
But it wasn’t just the workshops every day: it was the seminars, panels and readings which filled me to overflowing. Sarah Manguso talking about the power of omission. Steve Almond talking about how our stories suffer from emotional cowardice – how too often we look away just at the moment of turmoil. Kiese Laymon questioning the act of representation and what our responsibilities are as writers. Alex Chee on what drives our characters and how we make this into plot. Gregory Pardlo reading a poem about his father (“like America his fist only rose on occasion”). I was struck by the joy and vitality Sharon Olds communicated when she talked about her work, about how after graduate school she decided “I will give up all I have learned if I can just write my own poems.”
How important it is to keep our roughness, our “skin in the game”, our voice which communicates our own particular vision of the world.
I took a lot of notes but hardly wrote a thing of my own when I was there. What I did was experience, fill like a sponge until I couldn’t hold another thing. Now I’m wringing myself out, clinging to each drop.
So here is my advice if you are thinking about attending the Tin House Summer Workshop, or pushing yourself into some other unfamiliar territory with your writing. Swallow your fear and do it. For me, just one day would have been worth the trip.
I was able to attend Tin House Summer Workshop thanks to funding from the Copyright Agency Limited Career Fund and the Australia Council for the Arts.
March 17th, 2016
I saw Brooklyn a few days ago and I am still in its thrall. Those neat drab streets of Enniscorthy, the mother and sister at the wharf, the transformation of Eilis (played by the divine Saoirse Ronan) from girl into woman and oh yes, that yellow dress.
But it was also the sense of being torn between two places which I thought Brooklyn communicated so beautifully, so viscerally, through Eilis’ character. Colm Tóibín wrote about the filming of the adaptation in the Guardian recently, saying it was about feeling the pull “between the easy familiarity of home and the hard-won familiarity of away”.
I’ve been waiting years for someone to say that so succinctly. Thank you Colm.
And here is my shameful admission: I have not read the novel the film is based on. I tried six or seven years ago and put it down after a few chapters. Why? I can’t even recall. I promise I will try again.
The plot of Brooklyn is an age-old one. Young person leaves home for new opportunities. They return changed, and must decide which path their life will take, pulled in two directions. They are forced to stop being a child and to become a person accountable for their own decisions. Eilis goes to Brooklyn from Ireland to find work, her sister has organised it for her through an Irish priest she knows there. She isn’t certain she wants to go but there are no chances for her at home. Once in Brooklyn, Eilis is brought to her knees by homesickness, but this abates when she meets Italian-American plumber Tony Fiorelli (played by Emory Cohen) at a dance. Called back to Ireland for family reasons, she is torn between whether to stay or return. Between the “easy familiarity of home and the hard-won familiarity of away”.
In other hands, this film could have become trite, I can almost hear the sappy violins crescendo, but luckily the director John Crowley (Boy A, Intermission) and the scriptwriter (Nick Hornsby) allowed the quietness, the focus on Eilis’ internal life and the small visual detail which was nostalgic without being twee.
This film does not have grand messages but small, familiar ones. Eilis is a woman of the 1950s and while she gains independence with her travel, this is ultimately a story about love. She is going to be a wife and mother. She is just not sure with whom.
Meanwhile she is disloyal, she keeps secrets, she has a dark moment during which she does not know which way to turn. And when turn she finally does, I realised I had been holding my breath. How close it all was. How real it felt.
Maybe part of my love of Brooklyn is because it mirrors my own struggle with homesickness, being torn between countries, having moved to Australia for love. The America I know is changed now, not least because I have changed too. But still every time I return I feel the pull. That easy familiarity. As simple as driving again on the right side of the road. Creamer in my coffee. Lemon in my tea.
At one point in Brooklyn the priest tells Eilis that homesickness is like any sickness: you get over it more quickly than you anticipate.
I would say it is more like a broken bone, even years after it has healed it will suddenly, without warning, begin to ache.
February 1st, 2016
A man came to my house today to install new blinds on the windows, and I was reminded immediately of a joke that my Grandpa Bob used to tell. I’ve always been a terrible joke-teller – I forget the punch line or some other crucial aspect which makes it funny – but this joke I remember perfectly.
My Grandpa Bob died when he was in his seventies and I was about 16. He died of prostate cancer. Before that, he was a lawyer, a cigar smoker, a martini drinker, a motorcycle aficionado and a sharp-witted, gruff, sarcastic man. His nickname for me was Dingbat, because I was a scrawny kid and when he looked up the definition of dingbat it said “object suitable for throwing”. He was not (obviously) the hugging, praising, affectionate sort of grandpa. When the grandchildren came to him freshly bathed and pyjama-clad for a goodnight kiss, he gave goodnight chokes. It sounds strange (maybe I should be telling this to my therapist?) but he’d wrap his leathery, gin-and-tobacco-smelling hands around our skinny little necks and give us the gentlest, barest little squeeze, complete with choking sounds from us and growling sounds from him. It was a superb piece of bedtime theatre and probably served to hype us up rather than calm us down, but it was Grandpa Bob at his finest.
So was this joke. Inappropriate, of course, and not in the slightest bit politically correct, which is probably why I’ve remembered it all these years.
A woman is having a shower when the doorbell rings. She gets out to answer the door but can’t find her towel, so peeks through the blinds. There, standing at the front door is a man wearing sunglasses and a shirt that reads BLIND MAN. “Well,” she thinks, “doesn’t matter about the towel, then,” and she goes to answer the door naked. She opens the front door.
The man says: “Nice tits, lady, I’m here to fix your blinds.”
I still can’t believe that my adolescent self used to recite that joke. I can’t believe I’m telling it to you. I wish I could remember if he told it to me, or if he told it to the other grown-ups and I just overheard it. I almost repeated it to the man who came to install our blinds today, but using my better judgement I decided not to.
I guess you can tell how much I adored my Grandpa Bob. He was never going to conform to anyone else’s expectations, but in his own way, he let you know how much you were loved.
December 16th, 2015
This is going to be my last post for a little while, as school holidays begin tomorrow and so ends my time to write.
Or does it? How do you write with small people around? I have always found it exceedingly difficult to write fiction when there is any possibility for distraction around me. And my children are not just possibilities for distraction, they are experts in it. They might be elbow-deep in Lego or cubby-building with sofa cushions and bedsheets, but the moment I sit in a chair and open my laptop, they hover around my shoulders, sticky fingers plucking my clothes.
“Can we watch funny dog videos on YouTube?” my daughter asks.
“Can we watch the trailer for the BFG?” my son asks.
I should have known when introducing them to the world of cute animal videos and movie trailers that I would one day regret it. This bulldog chasing his lead is a metaphor for my ability to focus while my children are home from school.
So what can be done? I have learned to just let go and not expect to do anything over these stretches of time, having discovered from experience that if I have unrealistic goals of working while the kids are home I become a cranky, short-tempered troll because I’m not doing what I’m MEANT TO GET DONE!
What I have learned is to expect little, but to keep myself attuned to possibility. That might mean keeping a notebook around to scribble ideas and scraps of information which come to me while we’re immersed in craft or cleaning out their cupboards. I do have to inform them this is MY notebook though, and please don’t scribble, draw, tear pages out for paper airplanes or write magic spells in it. I have found I’m able to take commission for a few short articles or reviews and plan to write them in the evenings or early mornings.
Another trick I’ve learned is to fill in research gaps in my writing – if there is a place or a museum I wanted to visit and it is even remotely kid-friendly, I’ll take them along. My kids have a better understanding than most six and eight-year-olds of early 20th century Sydney and the history of its transportation, gaols and police from when I was researching Long Bay. I still remember our visit to the Sydney Tramways Museum fondly. They didn’t find it quite so exciting.
Writer Ali Luke wrote (in this helpful article) that it is better to focus on the smaller projects rather than the big ones. This might be a good time to try writing a poem which has been eluding me, or to finish an unfinished short story. Is it the time to structure my next novel? Probably not.
Penn also suggests not to feel guilty, which is most important, and not to compare yourself with others who seem to be getting SO much done. I sometimes get asked how I wrote my first novel, What Was Left, while my son was two and my daughter four. When people ask how I could possibly write a novel while looking after young children, I tell them the truth.
The novel came from an idea I had floating around in my head for a year and I really wanted to explore, but every time I tried I was interrupted. And so I paid a babysitter to come every morning five days a week, from 9am to 1pm. Half of the time she was there I wrote the novel, the other half I worked on paid freelance work. Did I make money? Only enough to pay her wages! But it was a choice I made, and one I don’t regret.
Writing is an integral, essential part of me, but so are my children. The right balance will always feel elusive, but I am going to enjoy this break from writing, this unencumbered time with them. What I have realised is that they are just old enough to let me read for short periods uninterrupted. Which I will be doing plenty of in these coming weeks. Hopefully they will as well!
Have you got any secrets of writing with children around? I’d love to hear them.
November 20th, 2015
I was telling a trainer at the gym about my dog getting sick, about how he had two seizures in a few hours and we drove him to the vet hospital. They put him on anti-seizure medication and recommended we get an MRI of his brain.
“Will you get another dog, if he dies?” the trainer asked. I couldn’t believe he was asking.
There was another trainer beside us and he did a double take as well. “Hang on,” he said, “you’re talking about your dog? I thought you were talking about a person. You must really love your dog. An MRI?”
To me there was never a question. Our dog, Illy, was part of our family. We sometimes called him our first (and best behaved) child because he was almost 13 when he died. Our daughter and son are 8 and 6, so Illy was our first shared responsibility. When Illy was a tiny pup, his first night away from his mum and siblings my partner and I argued. My previous dog had slept in my bed. Simon thought that dogs should sleep outside. A tiny puppy, his first night alone, and we were going to put him outdoors? We finally agreed Illy could sleep in the laundry. He cried half the night, and I ended up on the floor of the laundry beside him. It didn’t take long for his bed to end up in our room. I compromised, Illy never slept in our bed, just beside it, and I was glad for that when he grew to be 30-kilogram dog.
As a pup Illy would wag his whole body when he was happy. He sat and waited before crossing roads, watching you expectantly, waiting for permission to cross and then bounding, barking – flying almost – across the road. He could run for hours but lay down with a grunt and a sigh at the end of the day, content to snore until morning.
There was a time, before we had him neutered, when he lifted his leg on anything – including people, small dogs, and potted plants. I’ll never forget the day at the Glebe Street Fair when, after watching a capoeira demonstration, Illy lifted his leg and urinated on a tanned, bare-chested Brazilian man’s white capoeira pants. The man was not pleased. We were mortified, but laughed later at the expression of horror on the guy’s face, watching the spreading stain of yellow on his pristine white pants.
Another time, when Illy was just a little puppy and still in his chewing phase, we had a houseguest come from the US, travelling on a British passport. This man was not a dog person, and probably didn’t appreciate sharing space with a boisterous, sharp-toothed pup. The night before he was leaving we all went out to dinner and left Illy at home. We came home to discover that Illy had chewed the man’s passport – not just chewed it but actually ripped out and chewed up the page with the photograph and identification information. We still took the guest to the airport in the morning but the customs officers refused to allow him to travel. He had to stay another week while getting an emergency replacement for his passport. I remember how careful he was to put his belongings in a place where Illy could no longer reach them during the rest of that week.
The story of Illy’s birth is as extraordinary as he was – he was born on December 10 2002 to my mother-in-law’s dog Piglet on a farm on the South Coast of NSW, near Milton. That was day Piglet disappeared from the house. She returned several days later, her belly loose, teats hanging low. Where were the puppies? Eventually, my mother-in-law followed Piglet to a wombat hole where she had decided to give birth, where eight small, pink, squirming puppies were carefully dug out of the dry, hot, tunnelled earth.
Piglet was a good mother after that incident, and she dutifully fed them in a pen protected by chicken wire to keep out the foxes and wild dogs. At Christmas we came to stay for a week and I was given a small, red collar and the offer to choose one of the pups. I chose the fattest, greediest boy.
This was Illy, and he moved back to Sydney with us when he was old enough, carefully shredding our once lush garden at Glebe and keeping us constantly entertained. He graduated from puppy preschool at the local vet, and we joined a doggie playgroup at the park when he ran into its midst, grabbing a bag of Schmackos out of someone’s hand and wolfing it down, packet and all.
He settled down after puppyhood into an extraordinarily gentle and well-behaved dog, his only escapade when he would leap, Dukes-of-Hazzard style, through the window of our neighbour Mark’s car when he drove past the house. Mark used to take Illy for walks with his dog Oi, so small wonder Illy jumped through his car window every time he heard Mark’s car drive past. Fortunately Mark was tolerant and often let Illy join him for a drive, whether or not he had been taking Oi for a walk.
There was also the occasional incident with a birthday cake/roast leg of lamb/butter dish left too close to the edge of the bench top which disappeared, but no dog was perfect. We learned to keep temptation out of reach.
When I became pregnant I noticed how Illy became more protective of me, following me from room to room, lying as close as possible. When our daughter was born he immediately took on the same status as protector to her. In photographs he sleeps with his chin on her play mat, or sits watchfully nearby as she learns to crawl. He loved the pram because it meant we were going on a walk, and my only frustration was when he would bark with excitement, waking the baby I’d just spent ages trying to get to sleep.
When we moved to Maroubra and our second child was born, Illy took it all in stride, in spite of the proliferation of bindies in our new suburb and the tendency of our son to attempt occasionally to ride him – shouting “yee-haw horsey”. Illy endured, and enjoyed the many treats dropped beneath high chairs and by clumsy children at backyard barbecues. He knew where to position himself beneath the kitchen table and as a result I rarely had to sweep between mealtimes.
When the children started school I was glad for his companionship while I wrote, the sense that the house was not completely empty and I had an excuse to get out for little walks frequently. He and I shared companionable silences, and when I had to read a passage aloud he was kind enough to keep his eyes open, most of the time.
Besides the usual hearing loss, arthritis and stiffness, Illy seemed to be ageing well, until the day when he began fitting. We had all the tests run to make sure he hadn’t been poisoned. His MRI did not show a brain tumour, so his seizures were assumed to simply be late onset epilepsy and he was medicated. The medication made him thirsty, hungry, and weak in his back legs. He had always been well behaved (within reason), but suddenly he was sticking his head in the trash bin, grabbing food from the kitchen table and weeing in the house. The medication never fully controlled his seizures, it just made them less severe, so we were woken at night once every week or two by the guttural sound of him fitting. It was a low, throat constricting sound, something between a growl and a howl.
Simon and I would stumble out of bed to find him downstairs, on his side on the wooden floorboards, his legs paddling spasmodically and his body shaking. He would be completely unresponsive to us. We would surround him with towels. Along with urinating on himself, he was often foaming at the mouth with drool, sometimes blood because he’d bitten his tongue.
For a while, a teaspoon of peanut butter with a half tablet of his medication hidden inside was the magic cure to bring him out of these seizures. We’d place the teaspoon beside his nose, speaking gently to him, and after a minute or two he would start sniffing rather than groaning. Then his eyes would blink, focusing, and he’d struggle to sit up. He’d devour the peanut butter sloppily, still groggy, sometimes trying to eat the spoon as well. Then he would struggle to his feet and start stumbling around the house like a drunkard, bumping into furniture, glassy eyed, barking at nothing. His hyperactivity after a seizure was often as distressing as the seizure itself, since it was generally 1 or 2 in the morning.
Still, when Illy wasn’t having a seizure he enjoyed his walks, particularly taking the children to school in the morning, and he loved mealtimes and ear scratches. He wagged his tail and curled up at my feet when I wrote. His ability to hold his urine was deteriorating, but we let him wee on the balcony and flushed it out with water, or he would bark at the front door. The children were patient with him and learned that since he couldn’t hear any longer, if they wanted him to come they had to stand somewhere he could see them or pat him to get his attention. They loved it when he still rolled around on their carpet on his back like a puppy, all four legs in the air, head askew, tongue lolling out in a doggy grin.
We were away for a weekend and Illy was being looked after by my brother and sister-in-law when we got a call on Sunday. My brother-in-law said that Illy wasn’t looking well, he was refusing to take his tablets. They tried it with bread and butter, cheese, lamb, crushed in raw egg, and still he was not having it. Also his tail was between his legs and his back legs seemed particularly weak. We hurried back from the Blue Mountains, and he seemed glad to see us. He came upstairs from the garden and urinated on the balcony. He ate a little bit, took his medication, and fell asleep on the floor.
He did not eat his dinner that night and through the night he was restless, going outside, trying to wee and unable to. In the morning I realised that he was dripping urine everywhere as he walked around the house. I followed him with a towel and I tried to put him outside but he just barked at the front door, so finally I gave up and let him in, convincing him to lie down rather than drip around the house. The kids were ready for school and I told them to say a nice goodbye to Illy before they left, as he was sick and might have to stay at the vet for a few days. They gave him gentle pats under the kitchen table, he licked their faces in gratitude. After dropping them off at school I came back and took him to the vet.
It was our regular clinic but a vet I had never seen before. He was kind and listened carefully. He took one look at Illy and seemed very concerned, and then asked me to come back to help them get x-rays. I calmed him while they x-rayed his bladder. They couldn’t find any kidney stones but it was uncomfortably full. I told him of Illy’s medical history, and he said he was worried. “We have to operate right away, but I can’t guarantee that it would fix this problem,” he told me. “And that other problems wouldn’t come.”
I told him we’d been thinking about when would be the right time to euthanize, and he told me he thought this might be the right time. I called Simon. He agreed with the vet, and I asked him to come. Twenty minutes later we were in a consulting room with Illy, who had just had a needle to relax him and make him sleep. He fell asleep while we stroked him, after feebly munching a few last treats from my hand. Then the vet came in and inserted a cannula, giving him a last overdose of barbiturates, which would stop his heart. We watched him take his last breaths, snoring a little then stopping forever. It was one of the hardest things, leaving him. His body on the floor of the vet clinic, completely still. His tail which would never again thump.
There is little to prepare you for the passage of such a dear companion, as much as you might have come to expect it and know it will come. I had told myself many times that Illy would one day die, I had told the children as well, but I still feared and dreaded the day. That afternoon the house seemed empty. I sent out messages, posted to Facebook and was grateful for all the calls, emails and texts I received in return – people around the world had known and loved this dog. I sorted through photographs and picked out ones which showed him in every stage of his life, often they were photographs of the children or other family but he was there, sticking close, always in the background.
Together Simon and I walked to get the children from school at 3pm, dreading how we would tell them. We told them in the front garden, before we came into the house, and in the house I had the photographs out. We looked through them together, laughing and crying, telling our favourite Illy stories. They went and told their cousins and came back telling us more stories. The time Illy had eaten someone’s fish and chips on the beach; the time on a walk where he had eaten his own poo.
Photographs and stories are all that we have now – besides an empty water dish, a dog bed which needs a wash and a frayed collar and lead. My son, who used to ride Illy and shout “yee-haw” said: “I miss him so much. I feel empty, mum.”
My daughter said: “What will we do without him?”
I really don’t know. But I had to say something, so I said: “We’ll think of him. We’ll cry, sometimes we’ll laugh. We’ll love other dogs, have other dogs, but none will take his place. He’ll always be your first dog.”
“Picture him running through a field,” a friend posted on Facebook when I wrote of Illy’s death.
This is how I picture him instead. He’s flying through the air, paws outstretched, landing in the passenger seat of our old neighbour Mark’s pale blue 80’s Corolla hatchback. Only Mark’s not driving, I am, and I turn to him. His mouth is open in a wide doggy grin.


text:
n South African Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Review - Look to the cloud to innovate : pharmaceutical focus | IT
|Article Title||Look to the cloud to innovate : pharmaceutical focus | IT|
|© Publisher:||New Media Publishing|
|Journal||South African Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Review|
|Publication Date||Jun 2015|
PPD, a leading global CRO, reduces the costs of clinical trials by migrating data to the Oracle Health Sciences Cloud. This has seen the global company gaining real-time and actionable insight into studies with simplified data exchange and monitoring.
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domain: medical


text:
Toyota Motor Corp. plans to sell ethanol-powered vehicles in the United States by 2008, following the lead of domestics General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed company executive.
A Toyota spokeswoman in Tokyo acknowledged that Japan’s top auto maker was developing flexible-fuel vehicles, mainly for the ethanol-smitten Brazilian market for starters, but declined to disclose specific product plans.
“We’re proceeding with development of ethanol-based cars for Brazil, but for other markets we are gauging what needs there are first,” she said.
Toyota, a market leader in gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, has resisted the technology amid worries about the impact of highly corrosive ethanol on rubber seals in the engine, the Financial Times said.
U.S. automakers have produced about 6 million flexible-fuel vehicles, with many running on E85, or a fuel blend consisting of 85 percent ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, and 15 percent gasoline.
Toyota’s new vehicle would be fitted with anti-corrosive parts to meet U.S. regulations, but the automaker suggested that a less ambitious strategy of mixing only 10-15 percent ethanol into gasoline might produce greater savings, the paper said.
Toyota is still keen to spread the use of hybrid vehicles, which save fuel by twinning a conventional engine with an electric motor, the spokeswoman said.
President Bush has called for more ethanol use to reduce foreign oil imports, but fewer than 1,000 of the nation’s 170,000 filling stations currently sell E85.
Bush has set a six-year goal for making ethanol practical and competitive as an alternative fuel, and vowed to fund additional research into ways to make it not just from the commonly used corn but also from wood chips or grasses.


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of Washington) and Winkel (architect and building codes
and regulations expert) note that this third edition of the reference on the 2009 international building code
(IBC) is intended to help readers understand and follow current codes, and that it is not a replacement for the IBC.
Summary: ABU DHABI - A new building code
conforming to international standards will be implemented across Abu Dhabi emirate before the end of this year, a senior government official has said.
House has approved the Community Building Code
Administration Grant Act (H.R.
Our client was also doing a two-story addition off the back of the home, but everything about that portion of the work was compliant with both the zoning and building codes
. But the front porch wasn't.
Indeed, when it comes to commercial codes, New Hampshire is the most out-of-date state in the entire Northeast, according to the Building Codes
Assistance Project, and it shares that distinction with Maine when it comes to residential codes, according to the BCAP, and energy codes, according to the U.S.
Program manager PEECA Abdul Rehman said, 'Punjab is the first province to take initiative in this regard and energy conservation building codes
(ECBC) are being prepared and we believe that PEECA will be able to manage and make bridge between demand and supply of energy in future.
Consider this: As companies grow and expand throughout the world, they are often faced with constructing a new building in a country where they have little experience or may not have a deep understanding of the customs and building codes
of this region.
This would include identifying areas of agreement on energy efficiency and energy requirements in building codes
, and supporting deployment across the region.
In response, Florida enacted one of the strictest building codes
in the country in 2001.
ISLAMABAD -- Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Law and Justice, Senator Mohammad Javed Abbassi has stressed for legislation related to building codes
and to adopt comprehensive strategy on it after consultation with all stakeholders.
set the baseline for the safe design and construction of our homes, schools and workplaces, providing the minimum requirements to adequately safeguard the health, safety and welfare of occupants," the Obama administration noted in a statement on last month's Conference on Resilient Building Codes
Meanwhile, the CDA is planning to revise building codes
after seeking recommendations from structure assessment consultants aiming to overcome short-comings and avoiding future losses.
The commercial and industrial property insurance company has just published its 2015 FM Global Country Building Codes
Index, calling it the "first ever" resource yet to be made available to date.
The enactment and enforcement of tough standards for building codes
, property development and other loss prevention and mitigation requirements are key components to long-term natural catastrophe preparation.

domain: law


LONDON, Ont. -- The frustration of their experience at the Canadian Curling Trials, it seems, has been put behind them.
CANADA 10 NOVA SCOTIA 4
The kidney stones, poor play, lack of sharpness in Halifax in December seem a distant memory now that Winnipeg's Jennifer Jones will attempt to defend her Team Canada title in the final of the Scott Tournament of Hearts versus B.C.'s Kelly Scott today at 11:30 a.m. (CBC-TV).
Jones advanced to the final by blasting Nova Scotia's six-time national champion Colleen Jones 10-4 in the semifinal played before 6,163 fans at the John Labatt Centre yesterday.
"Absolutely, we were disappointed after the Olympic trials," said Jennifer Jones. "We didn't play the way that we could but regardless, playing a world championship in Canada is unbelievable and something I would love to experience and the rest of us would love to, too. So hopefully, we'll have that chance."
Today's winner will represent Canada at the women's world championship in Grande Prairie, Alta., March 18-26.
And the Team Canada skip has started to light it up in the playoffs after coughing and sputtering through the round robin. She outshot Colleen Jones 91% to 63% in the semifinal.
"Jen played great," said Canada's all-star lead Georgina Wheatcroft. "She played excellent and Colleen may have struggled a little more than you would normally see her. Jen just capitalized on every opportunity she got from the other skip and that's what you've got to do to win big games -- capitalize on other people's mistakes."
Canada cracked a three in the sixth end to take a 6-3 lead, avoided giving up a three on the ensuing end, then punctuated its victory with a four in the eighth and final end.
"We seem to be getting better in the playoffs, which I think is the right time," said Jennifer Jones, who praised teammates Cathy Overton-Clapham, second Jill Officer and Wheatcroft. "So, I thought we were even sharper (yesterday) than we were (Friday) and I think we'll come out even sharper (today)."
Not so sharp was her opposing skip.
"I didn't have a good game and Jennifer was on fire," said Colleen Jones.
"I felt my team definitely put me into situations where we could score multiple points but I had a bad game. So, there's not a lot you can do when it's just not your day at the office.
"She (Jennifer Jones) couldn't do anything wrong so, maybe I'll take a little consolation in that, even if I played the lights out, too, she was just going to one-up me all the time.
"When a skip's not drawing, you're not winning and I definitely didn't have draw weight. That was obvious from the first draw for two (that she blew). You have to have it, that's your bread and butter."
Earlier in the week, Jennifer Jones seemed to be missing bread some games, butter others but never felt she would fail to at least make it to the final.
"I thought we were playing really well," she said. "You look at the stats and they probably weren't as good as you probably thought they should be. But I felt really great out there and I was just rubbing on every guard and I knew eventually that that would turn around and we'd get it going our way. We've got it going our way right now so, it's great."
Wheatcroft, who replaced Cathy Gauthier at lead for Team Canada this year, could apparently become the first non-skip to win three different Scotts with three different teams.
"Excellent, let's just do that then," she joked.