text:
Wednesday 5 February 2020, at the Scottish Parliament
What jobs will there be in a net zero Scotland?
With a climate emergency to respond to while new technology pushes at boundaries and disrupts our lives, many jobs in Scotland will change or disappear completely. New jobs will also emerge.
How can we ensure these jobs support the future of our planet?
This debate on carbon positive jobs, held in partnership with the Edinburgh Hub of the Global Shapers Community and chaired by Maurice Golden MSP, explored how innovation and sustainability will shape how we work in the future.
Participants heard from Teresa Bray, Chief Executive of Changeworks, Georgia Stewart, chief executive of ethical finance company Tumelo, and Dr Simon Shackley, lecturer in climate policy, University of Edinburgh.
An accountant by trade, Teresa Bray is Chief Executive of Changeworks, an environmental charity and social enterprise that delivers on of Scotland’s most successful recycling services Additionally, it advises individuals and organisations on how to reduce their impact on the environment.
Georgia Stewart is chief executive officer and co-founder of Tumelo, which works to deliver an investment system that serves both people and planet. It gives shareholders a voice by showing them exactly which companies they own so they can try to bring about change.
Dr Simon Shackley lectures on climate policy at the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, where he runs the MSc programme in Carbon Management. His main research focus is decarbonisation of the energy system, including innovation, policy, institutional change, dialogue and values.
Maurice Golden MSP has been a Scottish Conservative and Unionist MSP since 2016 and currently serves as Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform. He has experience in the waste and energy sectors and is a passionate advocate for the circular economy.
Teresa Bray, Changeworks
Teresa began by stressing that not all jobs will be carbon positive by 2030—indeed, it is not until 2045 that Scotland is aiming to reach net zero emissions, although we should see a 75% reduction by 2030. She highlighted a concern: we need to think about the type of jobs that involve looking after people, which are not going to disappear any time soon.
She said that, while there will be a role for automation, people will always need interactions with people.
Teresa went on to consider the areas in which new jobs and ways of working might be needed on Scotland’s journey to becoming net carbon positive.
- Homes will require a huge amount of work to make them energy efficient. Many plasterers and joiners currently come from within the European Union, and Teresa questioned how such jobs will be filled in future. In addition, the building trade will need more entrepreneurs to meet demand and develop different ways of working in people’s homes.
- The energy network will be very different. We are already moving away from large-scale generation assets such as big power stations towards much more dispersed methods of energy generation and storage. Innovation and new approaches will be required as we move our grid to the new structures and work out how we monetarise the benefits of energy storage.
- Land use will be different. We will continue to grow food on our land, yet we will need to use peatlands and forests as a means of carbon storage. We will need people to operate smart machines to plant millions of trees.
- Transport will see huge changes. People in cities are already deciding that there is no need to own a car. How can we make transport choices such as car clubs work smartly for people, and move away from fixed bus routes to ensure that people can get around more efficiently?
- The way we live will need to change. For example, people are already looking at their diets and reducing the number of days on which they eat meat. We will need more behaviour change specialists and influencers to change demand and persuade supermarkets to fit in with new requirements. In addition, technology has to keep pace with the need to reduce emissions and with new ways of doing things.
Teresa emphasised that, alongside specific roles in those areas, we will need policymakers, planners, project managers, marketers, data specialists and software developers. She argued that, above all, people who can engage with people will play a really important part in our future.
Using your voice as an employee
Teresa emphasised that people can use their skills to apply their own values to their work. As employees, they can decide to seek to have an impact on their employers. We have to think about how we use our voice, and people will need to be prepared to change jobs.
Using your voice as a consumer
Teresa pointed out that a lot of jobs are driven by consumer demand. We should ask ourselves whether our consumption is encouraging the creation of unsatisfactory or unrewarding jobs, and decide what sort of jobs we, as consumers, are prepared to support.
A just transition
Teresa acknowledged that it is not always possible for people to choose their jobs if they have limited skills or cannot move to other places. We need to think about how society can provide worthwhile livelihoods for those people by upskilling them or enabling them to retrain.
There will be big changes in some sectors, such as the oil and gas industry, and while there will be new jobs in carbon capture and storage, they may not be at the same level. She highlighted a key question: how can we provide a just transition for people whose jobs disappear? Jobs are an important part of people’s lives, and we need to ensure that people can contribute to wider society.
Georgia Stewart, Tumelo
In her presentation, Georgia discussed how influence and communication can shape the labour market of the future.
She described her company’s innovative work as an impact-focused financial technology start-up that aims to help retail investors and ordinary people to engage with their investments. Given that the pensions industry in the UK is worth £2.4 trillion, she argued that there is massive potential for ordinary people to make an impact in that space.
Looking specifically at future jobs, she agreed that artificial intelligence will be influential, and that automation could replace existing narrow process-driven jobs. She emphasised that, while we are aiming to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, we will still be dealing with problems such as climate change, poverty and gender equality. How can we think more broadly about tackling those problems more efficiently?
Interconnected problems require collaborative working
Georgia’s key message was that, in order to tackle big problems such as climate change and gender inequality, we need specialists working in cross-functional collaborative teams. Given that the problems we face are complex and bigger than individual sectors or industries, collaboration is very much required.
As an example, she highlighted the situation in India in which farmers’ use of a particular medication in cows, with vultures feeding on cow carcasses, is causing various conservation, economic, healthcare, social and religious issues.
Collaborative working requires communication
Georgia pointed out that, while there will be a demand for specialists to work in specific areas, we will also need generalists with broader transferable skills—for example, people who are good at communicating. She criticised the false dichotomy that has arisen between people skills and the type of skills that are needed by software engineers, for example, and declared that the best software engineers are ‘people’ people.
Communication requires facilitation
Georgia went on to stress that, in addition to good communicators, we need facilitators who are skilled at helping people to work together. She highlighted this as a useful skill for the leaders of the businesses that will emerge in the future. A leader who is driven by purpose can build a purposeful start-up that becomes a purposeful business, but they also have to consider what drives the people who work for them and the jobs that they create, because it is essential to remember that not everyone is driven by purpose.
How do we bridge the gaps?
Georgia argued that we need to think holistically about what we want to achieve. This might involve taking the good elements in what the private sector is doing and applying them to purposeful organisations. Organisations in the City are run efficiently and productively, and there is a lot to learn from them.
She noted that, while collaboration can be interesting, it is often difficult, and being a good collaborator is a powerful skill for the future. She stressed that, as a small organisation, Tumelo is agile and can move quickly, and collaborating with NGOs that operate differently can be difficult.
The more we can bring different types of organisations closer together and bridge the gaps, the more we can start to collaborate on the big interconnected issues.
Dr Simon Shackley, University of Edinburgh
Having run the University of Edinburgh’s MSc in Carbon Management for 11 years, Simon began by describing some encouraging developments in three areas relating to his work.
While in the past the MSc course has tended to attract those from an environmental science background with a long-term interest in sustainability, he is now seeing new entrants who have worked in other sectors and want to use the course as a stepping stone to a new career in carbon management. They see climate change as the big problem that needs to be addressed, and Simon pointed out that they bring valuable expertise in finance and skills and ask difficult but useful questions about how things are costed.
The MSc course has produced around 400 graduates over the past 10 years. Around half of them tend to go into carbon consultancy, advising large companies on technical areas such as life-cycle assessment, carbon footprint and carbon accounting. However, Simon identified that a growing number of graduates are going into finance and investment, where there is an increasing demand for such capability.
Simon highlighted a trend of increasing internationalisation, with many new students coming from China, among other countries. He argued that that is helpful, given that China will be responsible for a very large percentage of the world’s emissions. Students will understand and think about all these issues, and take their learning back home. However, he noted that we are currently not so good at maintaining links with China to make sure that that learning is being used to its full potential.
Simon concluded by focusing on two areas for action:
1. Improve institutional capabilities.
The raft of energy efficiency programmes over the past 40 years has been somewhat successful, but we need to step up our game massively to get to net zero. We need to improve our institutional capabilities: our ability to work out the design of programmes, measures and policies, how to implement them and how to evaluate, monitor and learn from the experience. There will be fantastic career options opening up in that area, as there will be massive demand.
2. Expand engagement.
Tackling major issues requires skills not only in designing effective programmes, but in engagement. How do we get car users to start using their cars less? How do we get people to stop taking so many international flights? We are lacking the capability to engage with people beyond the usual suspects, and we need to reach communities for whom engagement may be an alien concept. It can be done—there are examples in other areas—but it requires a whole new skill set and a raft of people with the capability to understand how to communicate with various constituencies, including the affluent, that have not always been engaged.
In a wide-ranging discussion, participants explored a number of key themes as building blocks for a strategy around carbon positive jobs. Interlinking aspects such as engagement, education and training, influence, risk-taking, flexibility and collaboration were discussed in term of their relevance for individuals and at an organisational level.
At the heart of the discussion was an acknowledgement of the power of individuals as consumers and citizens to effect change, and the need for engagement and inclusion to bring everyone on board in order to move forward.
Making an impact
There was general agreement that people have agency: they can decide what they do and how they contribute to shaping the future labour market. The discussion focused on the importance of ensuring that people understand the potential impact they can have on society as a consumer, shareholder or employee, or in running their own business.
The question of how influence relates to behaviour change, and how that is bound up with the development of carbon positive jobs, was explored. Participants discussed the idea of using social pressure as a way to shape the job market and encourage sustainable investment. How do we turn people’s natural desire for social kudos and reputational gain to the benefit of society and sustainability goals?
It was argued that individuals can create change in large companies, not only as employees but as discerning job-seekers, as employers will be forced to be more purposeful in order to acquire talent.
It was pointed out that employees in all areas of a company, not just those in sustainability-related jobs, can play a pivotal role. Participants also discussed how we can get those at the top to change their approach. It was posited that senior executives are often influenced by their own children, as well as by wider movements such as the climate school strikes.
Individuals can also have an influence as shareholders in making decisions about which direction a business goes in; companies such as Tumelo provide greater transparency to enable shareholders to exercise influence in that way.
Do people have more avenues for expression as consumers than as citizens? It was noted that consumers have the power to demand more information on the carbon impact of what is consumed.
The importance of holding people to account was emphasised, and it was highlighted that responsibility for doing so does not belong to any one group—it is something that we all need to do in different ways. We can no longer rely on traditional forms of accountability; the process requires more diverse routes, and we need to get more people involved in bringing influence to bear.
Bringing people on board
Building carbon positive jobs for the future will involve big changes, and just transition requires engagement to get everyone involved. Concerns were raised about how the participative element feeds into the system, but on a positive note it was highlighted that there would be specific job opportunities involving communication and facilitation.
The point was made that engagement will be crucial in the adaptations that will be needed as we move towards 2030. It was suggested that infrastructural change needs to be done in a more consultative way, and citizens’ assemblies were mentioned as an option.
Participants discussed how to enable people to see that it is important to provide pressure. It was claimed that the importance of user experience design has been underemphasised.
In some areas, a place-based approach has been adopted, given that people are influenced to a great extent by neighbours and friends. Participants discussed the need for a sophisticated approach, not just a hair-shirt approach, for which different skills will be required.
Skills for the future
Given our ambitions for innovation and carbon positive jobs, participants discussed whether enough training opportunities are being created in different sectors, and what skills should be built into the curriculum to develop a pipeline of future leaders.
There was some optimism about how far schools and universities have come in that regard, but it was emphasised that we need to keep young people engaged. It was asserted that there is definitely a need for more training in specific skills, especially given the shortage of people to fill technology jobs nationwide.
There was a recognition that, for small businesses, investment in training is a big risk to take, and more support is required. It was suggested that universities need to work with industry to find the best ways to educate and train people in skills for the future.
However, concerns were raised around inclusivity and access, especially given the cost of higher education. It was argued that exclusion from education can lead to people not taking up opportunities presented by new carbon positive jobs. Changing careers can be challenging and costly: how do we make opportunities accessible to more people?
It was argued that we need not only to train people for specific jobs, but to educate people more widely about the coming changes and what needs to be done to tackle climate change. What new skills do people need to build a career in what is a rapidly changing field?
In a sense we do not yet know, given that technologies and solutions to big issues are still emerging. Nonetheless, participants agreed that there needs to be a willingness to do things differently, so we need to educate people to be more flexible in their approach to the world of work in order that they can take advantage of new jobs and opportunities as they arise.
A dynamic approach
Flexibility and adaptability was also considered to be important at an organisational and sectoral level, and the concept of ‘nimbleness’ was highlighted. It was argued that while the private sector’s nimble approach has an important part to play, that does not mean that NGOs cannot be nimble.
It was suggested that such an approach can be difficult in the public sector, given the sheer size of organisations and the chain of accountability. Participants suggested there is a risk-averse culture in Scotland, and a safety-first approach makes it difficult for us to address big issues.
Attention was drawn once again to possibilities for new jobs relating to influence and changing approaches, where there will be fantastic opportunities in the future. Overall, it was asserted that, as a country and a culture, we have to be prepared to take risks—if you are never allowed to fail, you are never allowed to learn.
Collaboration is important, given the interconnected nature of the big issues highlighted in the presentations. Participants observed that collaboration can be difficult when organisations and sectors have differing attitudes to risk. How can we can make collaboration between the private sector and NGOs easier?
There are sometimes issues in relation to how NGOs are funded, but it was emphasised that communication and agile working skills above all are crucial in enabling people to work together across sectors.
Participants described both positive and negative experiences of cross-sector working, and agreed that it is necessary to think about how we cross those boundaries. How do we merge areas which currently feel very separate? We need to take a holistic approach to our business and our economy, or we will not stretch and move forward.
There was some discussion of how we can bring the private sector, the public sector and the third sector closer together. It was even suggested that, in future, that separation may not exist at all. It was argued that encouraging the public and private sector to work on projects in combination could be an interesting new route to follow.
There was general agreement that, when it comes to our zero-carbon ambitions, the future is in the hands of us all.
We can all make a difference through the choices that we make in how we work, consume and live our lives.
There is a responsibility on us all to change the way that we do things, and greater collaboration and a risk-taking mindset must be at the forefront of our vision for carbon positive jobs in 2030.


text:
New World Champion Tunc Hamarat
Tunc Hamarat of Austria has won the World Championship Final XVI and is our newest correspondence chess world champion. For many months I. Samarin of Russia remained in mathematical contention with far fewer finished games, but when he finally registered his first loss the title was determined. Hamarat has scored 7 wins and 8 draws (no losses) with one remaining game. The final started play in 1999.
May we look forward to seeing a book or two from our world champion? I believe so, since he has talked publicly about the kind of books we would like to see. I'll be in line to get the first book off the line when he publishes. You can find the crosstable for this event at the ICCF web site http://www.iccf.com. Congratulations to our new world champion!
Favorite Chess Book
Most of us have read (or at least owned) many chess books through the years. And many of us have a favorite book. In my over 40 years of chess I have had a number of favorite books. At first it was MCO (Modern Chess Openings, a one-volume opening guide), the first opening book I had seen. It was very helpful for a beginner who didn't understand openings very well. Then it was Ruben Fine's Basic Chess Endings, a book that made sense of the endings. Then it was Dr. Emanuel Lasker's Chess Manual, which I read cover to cover. It made me a better chess player. Dr. Mikhail Botvinnik's book on the 1941 Absolute Championship of the USSR was my favorite for some time, and I must mention our own USA world champion Dr. Hans Berliner, who wrote my bible for correspondence chess on the tournament where he won his title (World Champion V). I used his favorite Alekhine's Defense in many of my early cc games based on his play in this tournament. In recent years my favorite has been World Championship at the Third Try by Grigory Sanakoev, a wonderful book full of great games and an enthusiasm for cc seldom displayed anywhere.
Now my favorite book is J. H. Donner's The King, a collection of Donner's columns. I don't study the opening books much these days, but I enjoy reading about the experience of chess. Donner combines the two qualities of having been a strong chess player (and mingled with the very best, facing them in tournament play in the major tournaments) and also being an excellent writer. Another writer I can whole heartedly recommend is Genna Sosonko, who writes regularly for New in Chess magazine, the publisher of The King.
Here is an example of the kinds of insights you'll find in this book, from his column "What Makes You Not Make a Move?":
This brings to mind Botvinnik's advice that to improve you must publish your analysis. It seems the Russians had taken this point of view seriously. Donner's book is full of insights like this which are thought provoking and very, very interesting. It's a nicely bound hard cover book with a built in bookmark to allow you to keep your place. Since I do most of my reading on the move, such as at the dentist or while waiting for a car to be serviced, this is an appreciated feature. I like this book and recommend it highly. There are some games and a few B&W photos, but the real merit is in the words. It is beautifully written, and the author was fully immersed in the world of top level chess.
Here is another quote from The King describing a "live" chess game played in Heerenveen, The Netherlands during a heavy rain. Just a few excerpts are included here to give you a flavor of Donner's entertaining writing style.
Now an obvious subject arises. What are your favorite books? I would be pleased to receive comments from you describing your favorite books telling us why you like them so much. Emails are appreciate, but regular mail is OK too. Share your opinions with us so we can zero in on some great books (there are so many titles available now that finding the gems is very difficult). Check the top of this column for contact information, and send your input right away so I can include it in my next column!
SIM Jason Bokar Appointed NAPZ Deputy Director (ICCF)
ICCF has directed that every Zone must have a Deputy Director with responsibility to take over if the Director should become unable to function. In fact, this exact problem happened recently in the European Zone. This necessitated some quick re-organization work. Recently elected NAPZ Director Ruth Ann Fay (USA) has appointed SIM Jason Bokar (USA) as her Deputy Director. Jason is known for his work as a tournament director for the NAPZ Email Higher Class sections. He also maintains a chess website at http://webpages.charter.net/jasonbokar/www/myweb2/index.htm
The other ICCF Zones are Europe, Latin America, and Africa/Asia. The North American/Pacific Zone consists of these countries: Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, USA.
Chess Players are Easily Annoyed
In recent discussions on The Correspondence Chess Message Board http://correspondencechess.com/bbs/ I've been struck by how easily some players are annoyed (feel harassed). In ICCF rules it is illegal to annoy or harass your opponent, but how do you define "harass"? Some are very liberal with their definition. Chess Mail publisher Tim Harding, who is very knowledgeable about ICCF rules, stated, "A long conditional string (more than 4-5 moves) could be construed as harassing the opponent". Other players have complained about opponents who do not resign promptly or who offer draws multiple times. Certainly, anything taken to ridiculous extremes can be annoying, but it seems to me that some players are just too sensitive. They appear to expect their opponents to harass them. It's likely that such players will never be disappointed.
Another problem that is frequently mentioned is of opponents who try to trick you with bad "if" moves (conditionals). In a position where you have an excellent move they will suggest an inferior move, apparently meant to mislead you down an inferior line. Is this attempt to mislead just a part of the game, a technique the player must be alert to so as to avoid making a bad move? Or is it an underhanded attempt to unfairly trick the opponent, something that should be labeled bad sportsmanship?
In my opinion this claim of harassment or bad sportsmanship is a case of applying "unwritten rules." For instance, in ICCF play there is no rule against consulting other players. Many cc competitors feel consultation with others is unethical, alien to the spirit of chess competition. For them it is an unwritten rule … thou shalt not consult. But many players disagree, living in a culture where consultation is natural and expected. "Unwritten rules" are fine to apply to yourself. For instance, I choose not to consult in ICCF competition. It's legal to do so, but for me it doesn't give me personal satisfaction. For me to avoid consultation is a logical thing to do. What wouldn't be logical is for me to condemn opponents who choose to consult. It's perfectly legal in ICCF competition, so I have no basis for accusing my opponents of unethical behavior, just because they do not choose to follow my "unwritten rule."
Of course, APCT play explicitly forbids consultation. In the case of APCT competition this is not an "unwritten rule." People who consult in APCT competitions ARE unethical and are cheating. It's very easy to confuse the rules when you play in multiple organizations. Before accusing an opponent of breaking a rule be sure it is a real rule and not an "unwritten rule". On the other hand, in your personal play you may have such unwritten rules that you should apply to yourself. For instance, if you feel you must not take advantage of an opponent's notational error then you should be true to yourself. If doing so would ruin the game for you, then by all means apply your "unwritten rule" to yourself. However, do not make the mistake of insisting that your opponent follow your "unwritten rule." This would lead to confusion (which "rules" are we following today?) and unfair accusations. Also, try not to be too sensitive when an opponent does something you find annoying. Perhaps it is not his fault that you feel annoyed.
Comparing CC and OTB Skills
APCT'er Steve Weeks (Georgia) wrote:
It's well known that many chess competitors have cc ratings much, much higher than their OTB ratings. This is not surprising since a different set of skills is required to do well in cc. Given the extra time available for analysis you would expect to play better. Many people don't have the memory skills to remember reams of analysis while sitting at the board. Also, the ability to move the pieces about on the board removes the importance of being able to visualize the positions without touching the pieces. Add the use of databases and books and you naturally should expect to play much better. However, many players do not have the skills or temperament necessary to succeed at cc. They don't have the patience, careful bookkeeping capabilities, and research capabilities that allow many players to excel in cc. Many very strong OTB competitors have tried cc only to give up in disgust when they are defeated. Not all players will have a cc rating higher than their OTB ratings since their OTB skills give them a much greater opportunity to win in OTB event than in cc events.
I recommend considering your cc and OTB ratings as completely different things. Don't use one rating to form your expectations about the other type of chess competition. Without a good deal of competition in either form of chess you can't expect to do well, so if you plan to play in some OTB events be sure to get some practice playing OTB beforehand.
As far as adapting things learned in cc to your OTB play it's difficult for me to say. The basic chess skills are the same, of course. Superior pawn formations, avoiding weak squares around your King, obtaining the Bishop pair or causing your opponent's Knight to be "bad" are applicable to both forms of chess competition. Many OTB players claim cc is a good way for them to develop their opening skills for OTB, but I'm skeptical. Some openings that work well in one form do not work so well in the other, at least in my experience. Perhaps you can practice important OTB skills while playing cc. For instance, when you analyze a position before sending a move you could analyze without touching the pieces or looking up any references. However, I would suggest this just as an exercise. Many people try playing cc the same way they play OTB, and they get their heads handed to them by people using more sensible cc techniques.
More on Clerical Errors
Walter J. Lewis (Soledad, CA) wrote:
Walter's approach agrees completely with my personal viewpoint. There is absolutely nothing incorrect about insisting on an opponent living with an error, in my opinion, whether it is clerical or a chess mistake. I see little difference myself in whether a player overlooks a threat, makes a clerical error, or sets up the board wrong and analyzes the wrong position. Here I guess I disagree with both Walter and the quoted Stephan Gerzadowitz. However, I believe a player has a right to offer his opponent a take-back as a personal preference. Here Walter applies an additional test … if by doing so he may hurt the competitive position of another player he does not offer a take-back. This is a very good extension to my viewpoint, and one I now accept as correct. Thanks to Walter J. Lewis for his well expressed views.
The Great Shot Game
I received this interesting note from Stephan Gerzadowitz. Please refer to Richard Pyle's comments in my previous column on Chess-a-hol.
Message Board Quotes
I always have my eyes open for interesting stuff for this column. One source is The Correspondence Chess Message Board on the Internet. Peter Coleman (ENG) gave me permission to use the following posting that states a very balanced and fair position on players taking a while to resign a "lost" position.
"Amici Sumus" refers to the ICCF motto (We are Friends). Another good source of quotes is the Chess.FM coverage of major chess events. During the 2004 Corus Super GM tournament in Wijk aan Zee the expert commentator was NM Dennis Monokroussos. GM Vladimir Kramnik was trying out some new openings at this tournament, apparently trying to fit some more aggressive openings into his repertoire.
Referring to rd.2 Topalov vs. Sokolov after 20...Nh6
Kramnik-Leko Match Back On
If you've been following the OTB world of championship chess you're aware of the plan to get the world championship back on track. The plan was for FIDE champion Ruslan Ponomariov to play a match with the top rated Garry Kasparov and the Classical world champion Vladimir Kramnik to play the winner of the Dortmund qualifier Peter Leko. The winners of these two matches would play for the unified world championship. However, not all has gone as planned. FIDE and Ponomariov couldn't agree to terms so FIDE threw out their official world champion. Now Kasparov is scheduled to play the winner of the next FIDE world champion, to be determined by a series of knockout tournaments. The Kramnik-Leko match has been left in limbo without a sponsor.
The Brazilian Dannemann tobacco company, which recently sponsored the Alexandra Kosteniuk vs. Sergey Karjakin match and the Kramnik vs. German Olympiad Team clock simul, has announced that it will sponsor the Kramnik-Leko match September 25 to October 18, 2004. If you missed it, Kramnik beat the German team with one win (vs. Robert Hübner) and draws vs. Klaus Bischoff, Rustem Dautov and Uwe Bönsch. If you go to the Dannemann web site (http://www.dannemann.com/) be prepared to listen to some music, though. I couldn't find a way to turn it off (putting music on your web pages is on my list of no-no's).
copyright © 2004 by J. Franklin Campbell
|Home||Column Menu||Previous Column||Next Column|

domain: hobby


Kaitlyn Smith, Somers, Conn.
The Winter Classic is a great way to sell the NHL and NHL teams to viewers who are not all ready fans, but the 2011 version should not have the Penguins in it again.
Washington is a good choice, but it is time to use other teams who have not taken part. And they should throw a West Coast team in it, too.
It is time to market other players and teams that many viewers might not know are out there.
The NHL’s goal should to be to market the whole league, including the Canadian teams, but they keep sticking to the Penguins.
Enough is enough.


CASPER, Wyo. — The Natrona County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday identified Armand Jamal Watson, 26, as a suspect in a shooting that occurred in the parking lot of the Northern Dreams Bar, a strip club in Natrona County.
NCSO allege that Watson was the shooter in the incident which occurred at around 12:30 am May 31.
“Watson should be considered armed and dangerous,” NCSO says. “If Watson is seen, please call 911 immediately and do not approach him.”
Article continues below...
NCSO says Watson is 5’7” tall and weighs 140 pounds. He has black hair and brown eyes.
Earlier on Thursday, the NCSO identified Shy Abeyta, 31, as the alleged victim in the shooting. Abeyta was reported to be in stable condition.
Earlier this week the NCSO confirmed they were investigating the shooting incident at Northern Dreams, which is located near Ormsby Road and I-25 in Natrona County.
Upon arrival at the bar on May 31, deputies reported finding an injured person who was transported to a local hospital with critical injuries. Sgt. Taylor Courtney with the NCSO described the injuries as involving a gunshot wound.
The investigation also led to an increased law enforcement presence on the 2500 block of South Jefferson Street at around 7:10 pm Tuesday, June 1, to serve a search warrant. A Natrona County Sheriff’s Special Response vehicle left the scene shortly before 9:00 pm.
All of those cited or arrested are presumed innocent until convicted in a court of law. Charges are subject to change following official filings from the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office.


text:
Lost in Yonkersby Neil Simon, directed by Robert Whiteman
March 26, 27, 28, 2010 (Fri.-Sun.)
Set in 1942 Yonkers, NY, this comedy-drama is the story of two teen-age brothers who are left in the care of their domineering grandmother and sweet, but simple-minded, Aunt Bella by their desperate father, a traveling salesman, after the death of their mother. Uncle Louie, a small-time hoodlum, is on the run from the mob and uses the house as a hideout. This highly dysfunctional family is both sad and funny. Premiering in 1991, it won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Best Play.
- Steamer No. 10 Theatre, 500 Western Ave, Albany, NY.
- ( Map )
- Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 PM
- Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3:00 PM.

domain: artistic


Indraratna B.,University of Wollongong |
Kianfar K.,Coffey |
Rujikiatkamjorn C.,University of Wollongong |
Perera D.,University of Wollongong
Australian Geomechanics Journal | Year: 2014
Application of vacuum pressure with prefabricated vertical drains in soft clays is a popular and effective ground improvement method. Application of vacuum pressure via vertical drains generates a negative excess pore water pressure (PWP) resulting in an immediate increase in effective stress. This paper summarises the recent advancements in vacuum preloading based on laboratory studies, using the conventional and modified Rowe cells. Location and the magnitude of the average PWP and degree of consolidation during vacuum preloading are investigated. Based on the laboratory experiments a new radial consolidation model is proposed for vacuum preloading incorporating non-Darcian flow. Source
Discussions of lab vapor management in the context of sustainability tend to focus on energy conservation without compromising personnel safety. Fume hoods use a lot of energy to protect users from noxious vapors, so we look for safe ways to reduce that energy burden. What we don’t talk about is where all the exhausted vapors go, though we know they don’t just disappear. Thoughtful observers of pollution-control strategies have long-since dismissed the notion that “the solution to pollution is dilution.” Yet, isn’t this what we are doing with our labs, relying on powerful roof fans to pump these noxious vapors into the air, to disperse them away from our work areas? Aren’t we just ignoring the fact they eventually fall back on our neighbors? We propose giving more attention to the emissions from lab facilities that strive for sustainability. It’s easy to dismiss lab building emissions as small compared with industrial discharges, and so not worth attention. And it’s true waste vapor streams vary greatly in amount and character, making them difficult to characterize for control. It’s also true we dilute them with lots of fresh air, so the emitted concentrations are low. Yet, these observations simply evade the question, even as there are indications the problem may be bigger than we assume. As an example, while the EPA defines “de minimis” releases as up to a ton per year of any one hazardous air pollutant, there are many different chemicals, and many labs. Published studies estimate that 10 to 30% of all solvents used in labs are lost as emissions, which isn’t surprising, since the goal of many lab processes is to evaporate solvents and exhaust them through fume hoods. The problem is we don’t have good information about total volume of waste vapors emitted from labs, or even mass balance data on individual labs, much less the health effects of the persistent releases of small quantities of pollutants. These releases are the “second-hand smoke” of lab operations. The toxicity of the solvents used in labs gives us good reason to pump them out of our workspaces, but don’t we have a responsibility to evaluate the risks to our neighbors by doing so? We contend the goal should be to collect as many of these waste vapors and prevent their release. Let’s briefly touch on two technologies that can help. Filtered fume hoods are one such technology; condensers on vacuum pumps are another. Filtered fume hoods don’t have exhaust ducts. Instead, they use carbon-based chemical filtration to trap chemicals used in the hood (and the lab). In many cases, there’s no incremental investment in filtered hoods compared with standard ducted hoods, despite the higher unit costs; reduced volumes of exhausted air yield savings on HVAC infrastructure. As for operating costs, building energy savings offset the costs of periodic filter replacement. Meanwhile, replaced filters and their contaminants are destroyed by high-temperature incineration with 99.99% efficiency. Filtered fume hoods aren’t an appropriate replacement for ducted hoods in all circumstances, but used where appropriate they can dramatically reduce total building emissions at no incremental cost. A second way to reduce releases of waste solvent vapors is to equip vacuum pumps with condensers. Many lab operations are vacuum-driven evaporative processes: drying, concentration, distillation. Even a well-managed rotary evaporator, however, will capture only about 85 to 90% of the vapors passing through its condenser; 10 to 15% of waste vapors are exhausted through fume hoods and roof fans. Alternatively, an oil-free pump equipped with an exhaust condenser can capture 90% of the residual vapors. In combination with the rotary evaporator’s condenser, that amounts to 98% solvent recovery. Use a similarly equipped pump on a local vacuum network supporting multiple vacuum workstations, and you can collect most of the vacuum process vapors in the lab, before they are exhausted. Neither technology cited gets us to 100% recovery, but we can remove a large fraction of solvent vapors before sending them out the top of lab buildings. We contend a sustainable lab building can’t ignore its “second-hand smoke” problem. Click here for more information on lab vacuum technology. Peter Coffey joined VACUUBRAND in 2009 with the mission of bringing to North America energy- and water-saving lab vacuum technology developed by VACUUBRAND of Germany. Earlier, Coffey served as VP of Marketing for BrandTech Scientific Inc. and has held various sales and marketing positions in companies supplying to the scientific markets.
One of the most notable trends in lab vacuum technology is the movement away from central vacuum supply in new science buildings. This trend is consistent with owners’ objectives to have facilities that are adaptable as science changes, as budgets rise and fall and programs respond. Central vacuum relies on large pumps and ballast tanks, supporting building-wide networks of copper piping. It is often a technology that runs 24/7, that is, including nights and weekends. And as most lab buildings are only occupied about 40 hours a week, this means 70% of the time central vacuum systems are operated without anyone using the vacuum in order for it to be available in the event someone does use the system. And due to its constant operation, central vacuum uses a lot of energy. “Some central vacuum pumps can adapt somewhat to demand, but the pump that responds is a very large pump and it can rarely get below 50% of full capacity,” says Peter Coffey, VP of Marketing, VACUUBRAND, INC. “Because building-wide central vacuum installations are so inflexible, they are usually oversized to ensure vacuum can be made available anywhere in building should the need arise in the future.” The approach consumes a lot of resources to preserve an option of adaptability in the future. Vacuum and plug loads “There are a lot of energy solutions to account for in designing a building, such as the building envelope, the way the HVAC system operates and the engineering of fume hood controls,” says Coffey. “But once a building is in place, then the plug loads are an operational issue.” Plug loads offer an opportunity to reduce energy consumption by choosing the right equipment and managing it properly. Lab vacuum technology can represent 15% of the plug loads in a lab, making vacuum plug loads important to energy efficiency in a lab. Variable-speed vacuum pumps can use 70 to 90% less energy for bench production of vacuum. The technology does this by having a motor turn only as much as needed to create or maintain the vacuum. “A chance to save 70% of 15% of total plug loads means an overall 10% savings opportunity in total plug loads. This and the move from central vacuum to local vacuum can make a big difference in how much energy is used for vacuum in a lab building,” says Coffey. In fact, by using variable-speed pumps as “server” pumps for multi-user local vacuum networks, labs have an efficient, sustainable vacuum system that can reduce energy consumption by 90% or more. The combination can also save lab space and offers the adaptability to accommodate future needs without overbuilding. Vacuum technology evolution Central vacuum can produce a level of vacuum suitable for simple suction. This modest level of vacuum is appropriate for aspiration, cell culture and filtration application. “But it isn’t sufficient for deeper vacuum applications, like those in the chemistry labs” says Coffey. Central vacuum is also a highly variable source of vacuum, meaning the actual pressure conditions can change dramatically over the course of the day. “What happens here is people have central vacuum in their buildings, but when they need stable, deeper vacuum, or vacuum they can control electronically, they have to purchase a pump in addition,” says Coffey. “So they end up paying twice for vacuum—once for a general-purpose vacuum and once for a vacuum that accomplishes a specific purpose.” This is driving lab owners to decide, not only because this idea of duplication, but because of the increasing presence of dry labs, that many labs might not need central vacuum supply. “If you want a flexible space, if there’s a way you can produce vacuum locally, instead of centrally, that’s a good chance to significantly reduce the energy devoted to vacuum,” says Coffey. It should be noted that when people reference dry labs, they are speaking of computers used in order to simulate scientific chemical or biological processes, or for analysis of massive data troves. These dry labs are used to handle the data that’s produced by the wet labs. The wet labs aren’t obsolete. They produce the data the dry labs analyze; they complement the wet labs. “For lab planning, it used to be 100% wet lab, and it’s now moved to a mix of wet and dry lab, and that generally depends on the nature of the science done,” says Coffey. However, when designers are designing a building, they are never sure what the future will bring, both in terms of type of wet lab, but also wet lab versus dry lab space. And if they aren’t certain about what the proportion will be, they will want the flexibility going forward to supply the wet lab when it needs vacuum, “but without putting in all the investment that’s necessary to support wet labs for spaces that may never be built out,” says Coffey. Also driving this move away from central vacuum utilities is the movement toward multidisciplinary science buildings, both for academic institutions and for “problem-focused” research. “Since the vacuum needed by the various scientific disciplines varies greatly, and dry labs are becoming increasingly important, one-size-fits-all vacuum seems less appropriate,” says Coffey. This trend is also evident in other modular utilities like point-of-use ultrapure water systems and ductless fume hoods. The future of lab vacuum One of the oldest options for producing lab vacuum is the water jet aspirator, a device where cold water rushes through a tube attached to a faucet and the rush of water causes suction on a side arm connected to the vacuum application. While these devices are inexpensive to buy and produce a fairly deep vacuum that could be applied in common chemistry labs, they suffer in water efficiency. A single aspirator operating at 2 gpm for 10 hours a week wastes 50,000 to 60,000 gallons of water per year to produce vacuum. This can add up to a million gallons or much more per year in a lab building. Because of this, LEED standards restrict the use of such technology in their certification program. So while central vacuum is “greener” in terms of water use, it fails in terms of energy consumption. “The future of lab vacuum technology is very much towards local supply of vacuum, either an individual pump on the bench or local networks that are built into labs and provided a lab at a time,” says Coffey. The trend toward buildings without central vacuum, for the reasons described above, also serves flexibility goals, and makes a safer environment for researchers and those in the lab. Beyond safety, advances in control and automation of lab vacuum have led to pumping units that automatically respond to demand for vacuum, and systems that can automate evaporative processes without user programming. The automation saves researchers time, protects samples, reduces wear on pumps and reduces energy use. “With budgets tight in both academic and industrial research, process automation in labs frees up the most precious resource in the lab—the attention and creativity of the researcher,” says Coffey. The result: Energy and water efficiency, as well as greater productivity and convenience for the scientist.
Several major rivers, including the Mississippi, were expected to crest at or above record levels as flood waters rushed toward the Gulf of Mexico, the National Weather Service said. Flooding has closed many roads and parts of Interstate 44, a major artery running from west Texas to St. Louis. Water rose to the rooftops of homes and businesses in Missouri, where Governor Jay Nixon called the flooding "historic and dangerous." About 300 people in Valley Park, Missouri, west of St. Louis, were evacuated because a levee that protects the community might be breached by the Meramec River, said Chief Rick Wilken of the Valley Park Fire District. "We have seven people who are going to wait it out," Wilken said. "Some people just want to hang onto their homes." The American Red Cross had seven shelters open in St. Louis on Wednesday, and spokesman Zach Collins said people were trying to help each other. "There was one lady who only had $67 in her bank account but gave 34 of it for cereal and pop tarts and that sort of thing, just to give back," Collins said. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency as the waters moved south toward his state. Flash flood warnings were issued for parts of the Carolinas and Georgia. At least 24 people have died in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and Oklahoma in flooding after days of downpours that brought as much as 12 inches (30 cm) of rain to some areas. Most of the deaths resulted from people driving into flooded areas. In Eureka, Missouri, along the Meramec River, Mayor Kevin Coffey said a man was rescued from atop the cab of his pick-up truck after spending the night in a parking lot to watch over his gun shop business. "This is 4 feet (1.2 meters) above the worst flood we ever had," Coffey said after helping to put sandbags around a school. "The town looks like one huge lake." Historic floods on the Mississippi in 1993, 1995 and 2011 occurred during warm weather, after snow melts in the north. AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski called it highly unusual to have heavy flooding in winter and said it could presage trouble for the spring. "The gun may be loaded again for another major flooding event," said Sosnowski, who cited the El Nino weather pattern as the source of recent heavy rains. "You're not supposed to get this kind of heavy rainfall during the wintertime." Agriculture experts said that water standing more than a week could kill the soft red winter wheat crop. Export premiums for corn and soybeans were at their highest levels in weeks because of stalled barge traffic on swollen rivers. Livestock also has been hard hit. About 2,500 hogs drowned in an Illinois barn after a creek overflowed its banks, said Jennifer Tirey, a spokeswoman for the state's Pork Producers Association. "There was no electricity and roads were impassable. It was just impossible to get to those pigs,” she said. The U.S. flooding is occurring at the same time as historic El Nino-related flooding across northern England. The El Nino weather phenomenon tends to disturb global weather patterns as ocean water temperatures rise above normal across the central and eastern Pacific, near the equator. Several major rivers, including the Mississippi, and tributaries in Missouri and Illinois were poised to crest at record or above-record levels, the National Weather Service said, but parts of the region were already inundated. Flood warnings were issued from eastern Oklahoma into southeastern Kansas, southern Missouri, central Illinois and parts of Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Florida panhandle. While the rains have stopped for now, freezing weather is setting in, which will make the cleanup a miserable undertaking, Sosnowski said. At the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, about 20 miles (32 km) north of St. Louis, residents of the towns West Alton and Arnold were told to evacuate on Tuesday. About 400 residents and businesses in the town of Pacific also have evacuated. The U.S. Coast Guard closed a 5-mile (8 km) stretch of the Mississippi near St. Louis on Tuesday to all vessel traffic due to hazardous conditions. The Mississippi River, the third longest river in North America, is expected to crest over the weekend at Thebes, Illinois, at 47.5 feet, more than a foot and a half (46 cm) above the 1995 record, according to the National Weather Service. The severe weather has stranded tens of thousands of people during one of the busiest travel times of the year. More than 750 flights were canceled and 4,760 delayed as of mid-afternoon on Wednesday, according to FlightAware.com.
To help people who have lost their sense of taste or have difficulty monitoring what they eat, a team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University is working on an artificial taste-sensing system. The design will both monitor and manage the user's diet and also potentially help modify eating behaviors. "The first app is something simple," said Richard Costanzo, Ph.D., professor of physiology and biophysics and director of research in the Department of Otolaryngology in the School of Medicine. "Like, why not set up a detection system for something like salt, which is pretty easy to detect and may help people with hypertension." Costanzo is an expert in taste and smell, and first conceived this idea for an artificial taste-sensing system that goes inside the mouth a few years ago. His original design was a tooth with a miniaturized sensor that fits like a filling. Since then, he has brought in collaborators to bring his idea to life, including Woon-Hong Yeo, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in the School of Engineering. Yeo specializes in flexible electronics and low-profile biosensors and has been developing the exact kind of nanotechnology-driven electronics needed for Costanzo's idea. Instead of large electrodes, a tangle of wires and bulky control stations for health monitoring, Yeo works in the miniature. He designs nano-tattoos—small, ultralight, wearable monitoring devices that feel like a second skin and move with the human body. "We miniaturize everything," he said. "Microscopes are our friends." Yeo and Costanzo received funding from the MEDARVA Research Foundation in Richmond to develop a sodium-sensing system in the oral cavity. Instead of the tooth mount of Costanzo's first design, this device is designed to be worn inside the mouth, mounted on an orthodontic retainer created by James Coffey, D.D.S., associate professor of prosthodontics in the VCU School of Dentistry. Think of it as a Fitbit for the mouth. In the case of the Fitbit, the technology measures acceleration and translates that information into data such as distance, steps and calories burned. It also will encourage you to move if you've been idle too long. For the sodium-sensing device, the technology measures the concentration of sodium ions coming in through the mouth and transmits the data to a smartphone or other monitoring system. Once the sodium threshold is reached for the day, the user is alerted. So if an elderly woman with hypertension is eating potato chips (while wearing the taste-sensing retainer), and she reaches her sodium maximum for the day, she will get an alert so she knows to stop eating sodium. "This is a serious problem, hypertension—diabetes is another problem but that's more sugar related—and right now there are no devices out there that are bionically monitoring this information, feeding back this information, or beeping and saying, 'Hey, you've had enough,'" Costanzo said. He believes it could also teach people to modify their eating behavior in the way that other biofeedback apps do, again like the Fitbit. The app with feedback alert system is being developed through a collaboration with Wei Cheng, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science in the VCU School of Engineering, and the Websmith Group in Richmond. The sodium-sensing system starts with a microcircuit pattern that Yeo designed on the computer with illustration software. There are then more than 50 steps in the microfabrication process that took Yeo a year to devise. The final sensor consists of a copper membrane circuit that's 200 nanometers thick (that's 100 times thinner than a strand of human hair), a data-processing chip that converts the analog data from the sensors into digital data, and a Bluetooth chip that transmits the digital data to a wireless receiver or smartphone. All of it fits onto a thin piece of flexible elastomer slightly thicker than a Band-Aid measuring about 2 by 1 inches. "The advantage is that it can be bendable and stretchable without fracturing the material so we can put it on pretty much any surface," Yeo said. He'll work with the retainer mount for now, but he mentions the possibility of the sensor simply being glued to the roof of the mouth. Yeo will eventually expand the taste sensor to include the other four tastes: sour, sweet, bitter and umami. "I'm working on the sodium sensor and trying to add a pH sensor for sour, and the three other tastes will come later," Yeo said. "Umami is the hardest." Eventually, Costanzo and Yeo want to connect their sensor with the body. Much like a cochlear implant stimulates cochlear nerves to help a deaf person hear again, an internal taste implant would receive data from the food molecules coming in and then stimulate the appropriate nerves to create a perception of that taste. "We're approaching an era in the next couple decades where we will be interfacing with the brain and our perceptions with electronic devices," Costanzo said. "Maybe we can even trick our brains into liking broccoli."


Monday after the final day of the regular NFL season is referred to as “black Monday”. It has received that designation because it is the day when some coaches receive their “pink slips”.
Philadelphia made the formal announcement that Andy Reid has been fired today after 14 seasons as their head coach. Team owner Jeffrey Lurie says, “it is time for the Eagles to move in a new direction.”
This was not unexpected. Romeo Crennel of the Kansas City Chiefs and Pat Shurmer of the Cleveland Browns have also been released. But they will not be the last. Norv Turner of the San Diego Chargers is also expected to be released, In addition, several general managers’ jobs are at risk.
The NFL is a cruel master. Being the most profitable sports venue in the world, success becomes a must. When the stands are not full for Sunday’s games the blame usually rests on the shoulders of the general manager and head coach.
Head coaches are often tied to their quarterbacks. Reid’s relationships with Donovan McNabb and Michael Vick cost him dearly. Their inabilities to find a way to make the Eagles a Super Bowl contender not only cost them their jobs, but also placed Reid’s job in jeopardy.
Romeo Crennel simply did not have a quarterback with the skills to lead the Chiefs. As for Norv Turner, he and Phillip Rivers were joined at the hip. Rivers has all the physical skills to be a winner in the NFL, but I have always questioned his ability to make quick and accurate decisions.
Between former NFL coaches and coaches in the college ranks, there are many choices. College coaches have had some problems with the transition to the pros, but more and more of them are playing a style that is similar to that of the NFL.
If they want to return to coaching, there are three good prospects for teams in need of a new coach. Bill Cowher, Brian Billick, and Steve Mariucci are all commentators now, but could miss being on the field enough to be coaxed into a return.
Fired head coaches often return to assistant coach positions with another team. Turner had formerly been the offensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys, and conversely, Todd Haley, offensive coordinator for the Steelers had been the head coach in Kansas City.
Watch for more changes. Analysts think there will be at least three more, but where and who remains to be seen.


text:
Robert Kessler at Yahoo Celebrity 3 hrs ago
While Kim and Kanye are away, North West will play. In a backyard fit for the World's Most Important Toddler.
On Wednesday, X17 got photos of workers installing a behemoth jungle gym behind Kim and Kanye's $20 million Hidden Hills home. This thing's got everything: there are two sets of monkey bars, several slots for slides, and presumably a swing or two will be installed later.
The jungle gym is just the latest addition to what was already a dream home. Kim and Kanye bought the house in August of last year. It has two pools, a vineyard, eight bedrooms, a 1,050 square foot outdoor patio for entertaining, and a guest house, which the couple has converted into a recording studio for Kanye. The new jungle gym is behind the pool house on the edge of the 3.5-acre property.
Mallory Schlossberg at Yahoo Celebrity 4 hrs ago
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had a wacky, whirlwind trip to the Brit Awards. Or, as they like to call it, Wednesday.
At around 2 p.m. London time — or 6 a.m. Los Angeles time —Kim touched down at Heathrow Airport. That's love for you — flying all night to see your man perform his new song. Kanye was a last-minute fill-in for Rihanna after she failed to show up for rehearsals, per the U.K.'sDaily Mail.
JUST SEEN KANYE WEST IN NANDOS OH MY GODDDDD
Kanye, however, was not half as delighted.
Perhaps that fast food didn't sit so well. Maybe try a kale shake next time?
...Even though she failed before utlimately snapping that photo.
Taryn Ryder at Yahoo Celebrity 5 hrs ago
The estate of Elizabeth Taylor is in a dispute with Christie's auction house over the actress's heart-shaped "Taj Mahal" diamond, which is set inside a ruby border of a pendant given to Taylor by then-husband Richard Burton in 1972 for her 40th birthday.
In 2011, the New York auction house sold the 17th century piece of jewelry for $8.8 million to an anonymous buyer following Taylor's death. The original owner of the diamond was believed to be Shah Jahan, from the Mughal Empire, who built the Taj in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.
The Los Angeles Times reports the buyer demanded the sale be canceled months later based on his or her belief that the stone was not from the Mughal period.
Per the lawsuit filed by trustees of Taylor's estate, Christie's canceled the sale even though the auction house never guaranteed the age of the diamond, only describing it as being of Indian origin.
An attorney representing the estate of Elizabeth Taylor declined to comment.
Mallory Schlossberg at Yahoo Celebrity 6 hrs ago
People were surprised in 2009 when Ivanka Trump converted to Judaism for her fiancé, businessman and New York Observer owner Jared Kushner. They tied the knotlater that year, but until now, the powerful businesswoman and designer hadn't divulged much about her choice to convert or her life as a Jewish wife and mother.
And it makes sense why. After all, religion isn't exactly prime for small talk — you don't just bring it up in an elevator after you comment on the hazy weather or during an interview about The Apprentice . However, in a new profile in Vogue, she opened up about the matter, but not without commenting on just how personal the topic is.
Elizabeth Durand Streisand at Yahoo Celebrity 6 hrs ago
Six months after Robin Williams took his own life, his daughter Zelda is opening up about what hers is like now that he's gone. And while she's certainly still recovering from the tragedy, she isn't dwelling on the past or trying to figure out what drove him to it.
"I don't think there's a point. It's not important to ask," she told Kate Snow on the Today show on Thursday morning. Looking put-together, but understandably somber, Zelda contined on. "There's no point questioning it and no point blaming anyone for it and there's no point blaming yourself or the world or whatever the case may be because it happened and you have to continue to move and you have to continue to live and manage." That task hasn't been easy for the 25-year-old actress, but she remains optimistic that she will find peace and joy again with time.
She's also keeping Robin's memory alive by continuing his charitable work.
Taryn Ryder at Yahoo Celebrity 21 hrs ago
The Brown family is asking for prayers.
On Wednesday, doctors treating Bobbi Kristina Brown attempted to rouse her from a medically induced coma, but, according to CNN and People, she began having seizures when taken off the medications, and she was put back into the coma.
"Bobby [Brown] is beside himself," a source tells People of the latest development.
Bobbi Kristina, the 21-year-old daughter of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, had remained in a medically induced coma since she was found unresponsive in a bathtub on Jan. 31. Last week, doctors removed her breathing tube, allowing Brown to be ventilated through a hole in her throat.
Mallory Schlossberg at Yahoo Celebrity 23 hrs ago
My heart was heavy today. For ever [sic] let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazi murdered about one and a half million men, women and children mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz - Birkenau 1940-1945 "The one that does not remember history is bound to live through it again" George Santayana.
Perry struck a remarkably more respectful tone than Justin Bieber did when he visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam in 2013 and wrote in the guestbook: "Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber."
Additional props to Perry for refraining from posting a selfie. Perhaps she learned a lesson from the young woman who caused an uproar this summer when she took a selfie at Auschwitz — and it went viral.
Are you paying attention, Justin?
Robert Kessler at Yahoo Celebrity 1 day ago
It stands to reason that Chelsea Handler, who ran her own hit television show from 2004 to 2014 and has written four New York Times bestselling books, is fairly busy. But absolutely not busy enough to explain why it took her 10 years to get her medical marijuana card.
Handler tweeted Tuesday that she's officially licensed to light up, in celebration of her 40th birthday Wednesday. Ten years after medical marijuana was legalized in California. Girl, what have you been doing?
I'm a legal marijuaner. Just in time for my 40th bday tomorrow. Now I just need to get a lighter pic.twitter.com/vJKy47MR3A
Back in 2011, Handler talked with Roseanne Barr on Chelsea Lately about the necessity of a prescription for marijuana.
It's great to see she's finally taking Roseanne's advice.
Anyway, happy birthday to Chelsea Handler. Remember to share the wealth.
Taryn Ryder at Yahoo Celebrity 1 day ago
If you're pregnant in Hollywood and you don't announce it on Twitter or Instagram, are you even pregnant at all?
Celebs are all about finding cute and (sometimes) creative ways on social media to let their fans know a little one is on the way. Case in point: Naya Rivera, who made her happy proclamation yesterday. " We’re having a baby! Ryan and I feel so blessed and can’t wait to welcome the newest member of our family," the Glee actress, 28, shared along with the above photo.
For you future expectant moms in Hollywood, these seem to be the five trendiest ways to share your news.
1. You can't go wrong with a bun pun : Naya wasn't the first celeb to pun and post. Last year, Stacy Keibler got a little more literal with her pregnancy announcement by sharing a picture of an actual bun in her oven. " Look what we've got cooking! A Bun'dle of love!"
But don't be discouraged if you don't already have a cute little kid to photograph. Carrie Underwood did just fine with her pups: " In honor of "Labor" Day...Ace & Penny would like to make an announcement. Their parents couldn't be happier!"
Robert Kessler at Yahoo Celebrity 1 day ago
Lindsay Lohan is going back to community service.
Wednesday morning, a Los Angeles judge threw out more than half of the hours the actress had reported completing, calling them "unacceptable," according to the Los Angeles Times. Lohan will have to do another 125 hours of community service to complete her probation following a 2012 reckless-driving charge.
The prosecutor in Lohan's case was furious that Lohan had registered time-served for performing onstage in a London production of Speed-the-Plow . Judge Mark Young agreed and invalidated most of the community service Lohan had reported. Santa Monica Deputy City Attorney Terry White previously threatened to seek jail time for Lohan.
Lohan's attorney, Shawn Holley said the actress would cooperate.
"She's enjoying doing community service," Holley told the Times . "Her passion is really working with kids ... and kids really respond to her."

domain: celebrity


text:
With only a few days to count down to the new year, I wanted to share things that I have learned and been thankful for this year.
This year solidified my long-term goal. I won’t share too much about that, but this is something that I really want and will continue to work towards. I still have a lot more to learn and there are a few things I need to work on to ensure that I survive what comes next. I need to work on communicating my feelings, my thoughts and frustrations a lot clearer and know that it’s okay to tell people what’s wrong so that I don’t end up drowning in work. In order to contine on this path, I definitely need to build character, but not letting go of trying to be a kind person. So I’m thankful to know that it’s what I really want.
I’m thankful that my family’s health has been on the right track. There have been a few years of stressing out and this year, I have high hopes that it will be okay. Without going into too many details, it’s been really rough not knowing whether everything would be okay. I have definitely gone through some personal struggles trying to cope with it.
I’m thankful for my job. It’s not where I see myself staying long-term but for now, I’m learning more and experiencing a lot of things that I hadn’t before. Again, I have to work on communicating better. I also have to understand that just because I’m new, I shouldn’t let people walk all over me. I don’t have to try and absorb everything so fast and that will get better in time.
I’m thankful for my friends. I don’t have a large group of friends, but the few that I have make me so happy. I love them all for various different reasons, but in the end, they all make my happy. They all have their own personal stories that make me proud of them, they’ve endured their own struggles, they teach me to be a better and braver person. I love them forever.
I will always be thankful for my little family. It has always been us five. We survived a lot of things together. A lot of things that people do not know and probably wouldn’t believe that it happened to us. People call me spoiled, but have no idea as to why I am treated or given things. There have been rough patches with my family–like most families there will be disagreements, frustrations, but at the end of the day, I am happy.

domain: sociology


text:
The new audiovisual piece explains in a close and illustrative way what the project consists of Romeo Project, the European initiative for the development of the offshore industry wind renewable energy, has now his own corporate video, in which is explained in a visual way everything related with it.
The video explain how the project was born from the European Union`s goal that by 2030 the 32% of energy consumption comes from clean sources because of the benefits it has to the environment and populations welfare.
In this context, one of the most powerful clean source to obtain energy nowadays is offshore wind, with a potential capacity to produce 15,8 GW using the huge air currents that are generated in the sea.
One of the main obstacle of this type of energy is the elevate Operations and Maintenance costs. That`s the being reason of this project, to develop techniques and process to reduce the costs and become offshore wind power generation into something viable.
For this purpose, the European Union has granted 10 million euros of the program Horizon 2020, which becomes this project in one of the most ambitious R&D initiative.
Now, from its beginnings at 2017 until its ends at 2022, the consortium of the project will develop solutions as new methods to bootstrap the machine learning models with the engineering models or methods to diagnose and predict failures in wind farms technological systems.
But this is only the opening of this revolutionary adventure to change the present and achieve a better future. If you want to see more press play button and enjoy!

domain: news


text:
I got my start in professional photography working in a studio where I mostly photographed children. When I received my first DSLR, I started doing band photography, because that was what I was into at the time. When I got a little older, I started doing engagement photography, because I was surrounded by college student love. I eventually started doing wedding photography.
Now that I've had a baby myself, I feel like I'm going back to my roots by going back to children/family photography. I've been blessed by the opportunity to work with 3 families in the past 2 weeks, including the Kiser boys.
These two kept me on my toes! It was amazing!
Love these boys! Thank you for bringing them out, Kristin!
Mama Bear of one Baby Bear, Bean, who both love Papa Bear, and live in a crafty, gluten-free cozy den.


text:
Its anonymous reviewer posed a question later repeated by many others: This union occurs just at that point in the story Mixail's ascension to the spiritual from the material world when these two planes seem most distinct from one another. All subsequent citations to this work will be abbreviated as PSS.
Sometimes, out of curiosity, he would lead her to talk on religious sub- jects, just as he would have tried to analyze a remedy whose effects sur- prised him, or to seek for some ingre- dient in it whose presence he sus- pected. Countess Natalya Ilyinichna "Natasha" Rostova: He would be securing him- self a splendid crown.
At both sides very consider- able harbor works are in course of con- struction, and on the western side the ice-breaker is being built by Russian workmen, under the superintendence of engineers from Newcastle-on-Tyne. I accept that compliment for all doctors. Will you not obey his wishes, Stannie?
Russian President, government and Parliament which is called Duma sit in Moscow. But the defect of this school was its propensity to take an hilarious or sar- donic view, not only of mediseval ro- mance, but of quaint old times gener- ally; and one leading embodiment of this mocking spirit was Punch, founded in They each discover the ineffectuality of the individual in a mass situation.
Let me attend to them, he said. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified.
Noth- ing like them had been written before, and nothing equal has been written after them,-with the exception of Rom- ola and John Inglesant.
According to Berlin, Tolstoy was by nature a fox, but he believed himself to be a hedgehog when confronted with the problem of freedom and necessity.
A terrible reaction had taken place in her. Myriad explanations have been provided. All the important bridges are of iron, but many smaller ones are of wood, and wisely so. Is not forgetfulness the true, the only separation?
Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances.
In the category of those who dis- play In their writings their tastes and prejudices, their feelings and the special bent of their mind, we may cer- tainly place Thackeray, who was a moralist and a satirist, very sensitive to the ills and follies of humanity, and impressionable in the highest degree.
He had come as fast as possible. Pierre Pyotr Kirilovich Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy countwho is dying after a series of strokes.A War and Peace for our time Read more 3 The novel has a particular technical feature; it passes from mind to mind, showing us the world as a consciousness moves through it.
Acco rding to Tolstoy's brand of metaphysical idealism.m War and Peace. just as we teachers were when we first read it. albeit partial.
His public stance notwithstanding. are the ones who have access. Tolstoy’s War and Peace and the Meaning of Life and Death Umberto Eco asserts in his wonderfully thought-provoking book On Literature ()1 that we humans write and read literature in. Aug 20, · Im looking to get my hands on Tolstoys War & Peace and Anna Karenina, I've been looking online at the reviews of the different versions, some books get rated poorly for material condition and poor translation so im just wondering if anyone can.
Publisher Description In the fifty-one-year-old author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina came to believe that he had accomplished nothing and that his life was meaningless. Marking a shift in his career from the aesthetic to the religious, Tolstoys Confession relates this spiritual crisis, posing " -- grandeagleretail @ Ohio, United.
quotes from War and Peace: ‘We can know only that we know nothing.
And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.’.Download

domain: library


text:
See here for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyfi7B4E9AQ.
It is Brexit Day,
29th of March 2019, and hundreds of thousands of people took to the
streets of to protest
against the government's inability to push for British independence and their betrayal
of the people's democratic decision to leave the European Union. London
See here for background: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-2016-matters.html.


Ad blocker interference detected!
Wikia is a free-to-use site that makes money from advertising. We have a modified experience for viewers using ad blockers
Wikia is not accessible if you’ve made further modifications. Remove the custom ad blocker rule(s) and the page will load as expected.
The Fork of Horripilation can be found at Longtooth Camp, a little northeast of the Xaselm Secret Entrance. It can be found in a jewelry box in front of a small bust of Sheogorath or on one of the Heretics at the camp, and can be given to Big Head in Bliss for a skill increase in either Alchemy, Blade, or Sneak.
- This is one of the only weapons that can place an enchantment on the Hero; the others are the Sword of the Crusader and the Mace of the Crusader.
- This weapon has a Stunted Magicka enchantment when equipped.
- This is the only named silverware found in Oblivion, unlike Skyrim which has three.


text:
These are all the Teen Talk Blog posted in July, 2008.
Your Favorite Season
In our most recent poll we asked about your favorite season of the year. Here are the results:
52% - Autumn
27% - Winter
12% - Summer
9% - Spring
Be sure to participate in our current poll and let us know what you think.
Posted By Logan Library - Teen Talk at 3:40 PM / Category:Survey
New Books: June
Looking for something new to read, watch, or listen to? Take a look at our list of new teen materials purchased in the month of May. We have two lists:
We post a list of new items on the first day of each month, so check back for more reading suggestions.
Posted By Logan Library - Teen Talk at 12:20 PM / Category:Books & Reading
The Latest Talk!
May 13, 2016
» Get Your Game On @ Comic Con Mar 23, 2016
» Teens' Top Ten Reads Announced Feb 29, 2016
» Teen Tuesdays...
Every Tuesday Kicked Up a Notch


text:
And dolphins make us happy. Find out more about our cookies policy here.
Everything was wonderful. Ricardo was very communicative leading up to the trip. That day, the guys were very helpful and willing to do anything for us to have a great day. They took us to 3 locations, 2 for snorkeling and the last was a sandbar near a secluded beach where we had lunch. The food was great and the locations were beautiful. Very professional. Highly recommend!
Excellent vessel. Wonderful crew. Good value. We had a group of 14 and thoroughly enjoyed our time on the boat. The crew was very attentive and accommodating to all our needs. Will definitely be using Derek’s services again.
The experience was great. They picked us up on time, we’re very accommodating, kept the drinks flowing and we had an awesome time even though the weather wasn’t the best. Not their fault at all. Would definitely book again. The boat was clean, nice and food was delicious
Perfect experience. Captain and crew were absolutely perfect. We snorkeled. Sea Kayaked. Saw dolphins. It could not have been better. The food and beverage was perfect too. We could not have had a more amazing day. Oh! The sunset viewing location was like a dream. Thank you!
Firstly, the pictures don't do this vessel justice in my opinion. We had a group of 17, and had plenty of lounging room inside, in the aft and nose of the boat. My favorite experience was jumping and floating in the warm Costa Rican waters, and then coming back on-board to a freshly made authentic Costa Rican lunch! Dylan and the crew were amazing! I am missing them already. The energy we felt on the water and among our new friends was second to none. I have cruised waters all around the world, and this was one of the best experiences I've had on a yacht. A MUST DO! Blessings.
Literally one of the best experiences. Tanya worked with me for my birthday to help set up the best yacht experience I’ve ever had. She had round trip transportation to bring my friends and me from Tulum to Cancun. Once we got there it was the cutest set up. She had birthday decorations for me, appetizers, drinks and everything ready for as soon as we boarded. The yacht was super clean, very spacious, and very first class. The crew was very attentive and there for our every need. If we asked for drinks, they brought us drinks, if we asked for a snack the brought us the snacks, they never let us lift a finger.( We tipped the crew of course because they were amazing). Once we stopped in the area where all of the yachts were, they chef prepared us an amazing dinner along with a birthday cake that they brought me. We also had complete control of the music and the speakers were bumping lol. They have a diving board where you can jump in the water along with life jackets and the crew assisted us the whole time we were in the water. All in all I definitely recommend boating with Tanya. Everything was so professional, clean, and fun. And I felt so cool in front of friends because they were so impressed on how amazing the yacht experience was. Don’t hesitate to book with Tanya. It was definitely at 10/10 experience.
When one day just isn't enough, why not stay overnight? Make the most of your experience in Liberia, Guanacaste Province with a sleep aboard boat rental. Renting a houseboat is a wonderful option for groups looking to spend a few nights exploring a new area and relaxing among good company. Houseboats comfortably accommodate large groups and are great for hosting family reunions or annual friend trips.
Experiencing the water has never been easier thanks to GetMyBoat. GetMyBoat allows you to quickly search, compare prices, submit rental inquiries, and pay for your rental or charter from the convenience of your phone or computer. We offer a secure platform for renters to facilitate a seamless rental transaction. For boat owners, we connect millions of renters to their boat and provide the security and safe checks on each rental transaction.
Search for the perfect experience now and book your dream day out on the water.
GetMyBoat has 24 listings for Houseboats & Sleepaboards experiences in Liberia with 733 reviews.Search Liberia

domain: travel


Large eddy simulations on well-known 7-7-7 fan shaped cooling hole have been carried out. Film cooling methods are generally applied to high pressure turbine, of which flow condition is extremely turbulent because high pressure turbines are generally located downstream combustor in gas turbines. However, different to RANS simulations, implementing turbulence at the main flow inlet is not simple in LES. For this reason, several numerical techniques have been devised to give turbulence information at the inlet boundary condition in LES. In this study, rectangular turbulator was located in front of the cooling hole to generate turbulent boundary flow in the main flow. Another method used in this study is transient table method to simulate turbulent flow at the main flow inlet. Without turbulent velocity components in approaching flow, laterally discharged cooling flow touches wall while it forms a vortex structure. Then high film cooling effectiveness region around the cooling hole appears. In the meanwhile, when approaching flow is turbulent, the laterally discharged cooling flow no more forms vortex structure and dissipated to the main flow and resultant high effectiveness region disappears. Both turbulence generation methods showed that turbulent intensity of the main flow affects effective range of the cooling flow and resultant film cooling effectiveness distributions. Also high turbulence intensity of the main flow stimulates early break down of the vortex structure coming out of the cooling hole and its dissipation to the main flow. It means high turbulent intensity restricts film cooling flow coverage. Another lesson from the study is that vortex generated from the cooling hole, its development and dissipation to the main flow, have an important role to understand film cooling effectiveness distributions around the cooling hole.


text:
Studies & Degrees in Geographical Information Systems
Choose where you would like to study Geographical Information Systems:ArgentinaAustraliaCanadaFranceIndiaNetherlandsSpainSwedenThe United KingdomThe United States
Geographic Information System (GIS), Geographical Information System or Geospatial Information System is defined as the control of everything regarding geographical references. It is a compilation of all the gathered and collected data. Geographic Information System helps us in understanding and locating. It also allows us to question and it interprets. It visualizes and displays maps, charts, reports, globes and their connection or role to each other. Information can multiply and/or be unified with system framework. GIS is very much digitally structured and its information is computer-based.
GIS has four components and it is: Hardware (the moderator of everything you need to support the past, present and future activities of GIS), Software (a variety of this is very important to GIS, we use this for creating and analyzing), Data (this what makes up any GIS, without this, there is nothing to show) and People (of course, we made GIS and we are the ones to operate).
A geographic information system developed for a particular purpose may not be compatible to another GIS that has a different application cause. Geographical information system is also an SDI or Spatial Data Infrastructure. As a Spatial Data Infrastructure that has a main idea of having no limits whatsoever, GIS has no limits in its system.
GIS is really helpful for a number of purposes. Navigation, public utility management, geography, archaeology, urban planning, emergency management and landscape architecture are some of them that rely on GIS.
One of the first few persons that used geographic method was John Snow; he laid out and presented how the cholera epidemic passed on in London, 1854. It led him to discover the contaminated water pump (Broad Street Pump) which he closed so the spreading of the current epidemic could be put to a stop.
The first true development of GIS was in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1960 by Dr. Roger Tomlinson. Dr. Tomlinson worked for the Federal Department of Forestry and Rural Development. Because it was located in Canada, they called it the Canada Geographic Information System (or CGIS). They used it to manipulate, analyze and store gathered data. It was made for the Canada Land Inventory or CLI. Because the CGIS of Dr. Tomlinson was the first and most advanced in terms of using geographic methods, he was called the “father of GIS”.
Because the GIS’ system is within a computer system, you have to be skilled or at least take time to study the operation of this special kind of computer. You have to be familiar with many different geographical skills. Analyzing, researching, observing, map scaling and presenting gathered data are just a few skills needed to be a Geographical Information System Specialist.
The salary of a GIS Specialist in the US is $39,069 to $53,723 while the Senior GIS Specialists earns from about $45,417 to $69,674. Salary depends on skill, education and work experience as well.

domain: geography


text: this little bit was an experiment in shading as well as simply a creative outlet. i like her eyes a lot. she is more 'cartoonish' than most of my other peices, though. i know that she is extremely thin, but that's just the way i tended to draw when i started out. and she's fey, not human, so there are proportional differences allowed.


text:
In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.
Webster defines a valley as: an elongate depression of the earth's surface usually between ranges of hills or mountains; a low point or condition.
Do you ever find yourself going through some sort of valley time...but don't feel the liberty to expound on it's makeup? That is where I find myself today. The road to this valley has SO many facet's, it's hard to pinpoint the start of the decline. But in here, it's jagged, dingy, random pebbles and rocks that will cause an even further stumble. I do see the daylight as I stare up to the crest of the next height. Not sure what it will take to begin the ascent, I look around. Pondering. Dreaming. Questioning. But most of all, praying.... seeking direction from the only ONE that can truly guide.
But today. Today I need the reminder to KEEP seeking...praying....resting.
While here, I have begun to see that I don't want this time to be for naught. So I dig. I am digging, like Isaac's servants....for some FRESH water in this valley. I pray that my perspective is well enough that I find it. (Genesis 26:19 Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there.)
We seem to often associate the valley with something hard or negative. But as I was searching through scripture, I cam upon some positive references to valleys:Psalm 65:13, Psalm 84:6, Psalm 104:8, Isaiah 28:4. That is just the surface. This may be a wonderful topic for further study at some point.
But for now, I leave you with lyrics to this song by Jard of Clay, which has been resonating with me of late...
And if you've stuck with me this far...a question.
What does a valley look like/mean to you?
Valley Song Lyrics (click to play)
You have led me to the sadness
I have carried this pain
On a back bruised, nearly broken
I'm crying out to you
I will sing of Your mercy
That leads me through valleys of sorrow
To rivers of joy
When death like a Gypsy
Comes to steal what I love
I will still look to the heavens
I will still seek your face
But I fear you aren't listening
Because there are no words
Just the stillness and the hunger
For a faith that assures
While we wait for rescue
With our eyes tightly shut
Face to the ground using our hands
To cover the fatal cut
And though the pain is an ocean
Tossing us around, around, around
You have calmed greater waters
Higher mountains have come down
Mercy. Your mercy


text:
National Lottery Players Raise £40 billion for Good Causes
It was announced this week that, since its initial launch on the BBC back in 1994 featuring TV star Noel Edmunds and a huge pile of cash, that the National Lottery has managed to raise in excess of £40 billion for good causes.
The £40 billion figure only encompasses the money handed out to charities and good causes around the UK, making it an incredible amount raised over the last 25 years and while problem gambling is a hot topic in the country right now, there is no disguising the good things that have been done with players’ cash as the amounts far exceed the old betting tax previously added to bet slips in high street bookmakers.
Contributions to Good Causes Maximised
Those playing weekend and midweek lotteries, as well as any of the plethora of scratchcards available in thousands of outlets around the country, only get to see a fixed price for their ticket and see it as fair value as they attempt to change their own lives via a big, lucky win.
The organisers however have a duty to ensure that returns to good causes are fully maximised and this strategy remains a priority for them.
Lottery regulators are not looking the change this outlook either as they look to what the future brings to the National Lottery, as new technology and new innovations take hold it’s hoped they can not only ensure the lasting success of the Lottery but also further enhance its charitable contributions.
The Positive Side to Gambling
Far from castigating those who essentially gamble on a system they have no control over, unlike those betting on horses, football or dogs for example and are able to read form, the National Lottery Family Forum believe players can feel immensely proud of what they have done over the last 25 years.
Those buying tickets have been anonymously but relentlessly contribution billions of pounds to charities and good causes every single week, strengthening communities, funding sports teams, encouraging creativity and even helping out the environment and all without needing to choose a charity themselves or choose an amount to give.
Not that funding is just dished out willy-nilly nationally however. Grants have been given out to over 565,000 individual projects so far, the equivalent of 200 projects per postcode which is a huge achievement by both the organisers and the players.
All lottery players know full well that a huge chunk of their money goes to good causes and helps communities, proving the point that those wishing to gamble absolutely are willing to help, they just don’t trust centralised politicians to use any form of tax on gambling to use the money in the right way.
With there being no let-up in the number of people playing the National Lottery’s various games and the entity continuously moving forward as new tech becomes available, it seems good causes are in for more billion-pound windfalls over the coming years too and that can surely only be a good thing.