“Everyone is encouraged to “act responsibly and remember to reduce, reuse and recycle to help minimise the amount of waste generated by this event” at the Christmas Day celebrations at Elbow Beach. A spokesperson said, “Christmas Day at Elbow Beach, which is organized by the community, has become a family-friendly tradition for many locals, expats […]

Keep Bermuda Beautiful [KBB] appointed Linda Parker as its part-time Education and Community Coordinator. A spokesperson said, “Keep Bermuda Beautiful [KBB] is delighted to announce the appointment of Linda Parker as its part-time Education and Community Engagement Coordinator. “Linda has a wealth of experience in Bermuda’s education sector as a teacher, Head of English, Deputy […]

The parrotfish, a species of marine life abundant in Bermuda’s waters, is singlehandedly working to keep both the coral reefs and beaches surrounding the island healthy, all thanks to their voracious appetite and ability to defecate up to 200 pounds of sand per year, with a recent report highlighting the fact that areas that don’t […]

REVIEW – When we lived in Europe, our home had a heated towel bar in the bathroom. It seemed like such a decadent little thing, but as fall turns to winter I recall just how nice it was to step out of the shower and reach for a warm towel. When the Comfier towel and […]

Discover essential tips for maintaining a clean and hygienic dish rack in our latest article. Learn about the right cleaning methods, frequency, and products to keep your dish rack germ-free. This guide is a must-read for every homeowner seeking a healthier kitchen.

The post Ultimate Guide: Keep Your Dish Rack Sparkling Clean & Hygienic appeared first on Unclutterer.

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The post Keep Your Camera Safe While Traveling: 13 Essential Tips appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

Photographing the wide world can be thrilling, but it’s also not without its dangers. Whether you’re strolling down the streets of Paris or trekking the mountains of Nepal, the threat of losing your cherished (and costly) gear to theft is real. And let’s face it: Losing your gear doesn’t just hurt your wallet. A moment […]

The post Keep Your Camera Safe While Traveling: 13 Essential Tips appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

Many people are concerned that they are specifically targeted by hackers, advertisers, and others. Nope.

Why I Keep Saying You’re Just Not That Interesting from Ask Leo!.
Get the Confident Computing weekly newsletter: https://newsletter.askleo.com

In this episode I'm joined by The Man from East Lower and Andrew Allen to discuss the final few hours of the transfer window. We chat about the goalkeeping position in light of Aaron Ramsdale's expected departure, how we might replace him, and what it might cost. Then there's discussion of midfield with two out and two in, before attention turns to the attacking end of the pitch. We chat about whether we think Arsenal need to bring somebody in, whether we expect that to happen before Friday's 11pm deadline, and lots more.

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I’m meditating now because it slows down time and I only have 14 more weeks until both my kids are at college. When Z is reading on the couch, and Nino is reading next to him, I pull up a chair and meditate with my eyes open because I don’t want to miss this moment. […]

The post How to keep a family together appeared first on Penelope Trunk Careers.

First, welcome to a bunch of new subscribers! Subscriptions are free, and you receive an email whenever I publish something On a computer or tablet, you will see the sign-up box in the right-hand sidebar. On a smartphone, you have … Continue reading →

BBC Sport NI's Andy Gray looks at the goalkeeping options for Michael O'Neill ahead of this week's Nations League matches with Belarus and Luxembourg

McLaren's Lando Norris talks to BBC Sport about why he wants Formula One to retain the "sound and smell" that first sparked his love for the sport.

Several Capitol riot defendants have asked for hearings to be delayed in anticipation of pardons.

Wigan Athletic goalkeeper Tom Watson saves all three penalties in a shootout victory over Nottingham Forest U21s to send them through to the EFL Trophy knockout phase.

The American Civil Liberties Union wanted to keep “finding” more ballots for the election in Arizona ad infinitum, but the state’s Supreme Court finally denied their demands. The deadline for accepting more ballots in Arizona is already an absurd Nov. 10, five full days after Election Day. But the AZ ACLU wanted to keep miraculously […]

The post Court Denies Arizona ACLU’s Bid to Keep Counting More Ballots appeared first on The Lid.

It’s refreshing to see manufacturers still making sedans that the average South African family can afford. The Volkswagen Polo Sedan is one of those cars, but now it’s bigger than the previous generation and a lot more modern.

The rental-car giant fell as much as 12% on Tuesday after posting a deeper-than-expected loss.

Communications and Digital Technology Minister Solly Malatsi will issue a policy direction on equity alternatives to the 30% equity employment rule in the communications industry.

It sounds like an oxymoron: “How to keep blood-sports interesting?” You’ve got blood and you’ve got sports, the term does its own advertising! And yet, fighting promotions rise and fall, where Pride and Strikeforce once reigned, now stand One and Bellator, but one promotion stands above all its competitors. The world of MMA knows one promotion which has clawed its way to the international top and established itself as the gold standard upon whose hallowed surface skulls are crushed and blood is poured. I’m talking about none other than the UFC.

Having established itself over the years as a beacon of both quality matches and consistent drama, the UFC attracts the lion’s share of international talent in the MMA world, and with it the eyes and ears of MMA fans everywhere. Having well and truly stroked the ego of the promotion, you might be wondering what on earth any of this has to do with writing or fantasy?

Well, does your world happen to feature prizefighting, ritual combat, or the eternally popular fantasy fixture called the gladiatorial arena? If so, there are a lot of writing and worldbuilding lessons you can learn from observing the biggest promotion in the biggest modern blood-sport of the world.

Continue reading Lessons from the UFC: How to Keep Blood-Sports Interesting at Mythic Scribes.

China’s economic policy pendulum has swung towards stimulus – but keep expectations low Expert comment jon.wallace 14 October 2024

Beijing historically swings between stimulus and frugality. But Xi Jinping’s ambition for self-reliance will constrain any new efforts to boost the economy.

Policymakers in Beijing have spent the past three weeks trying to convince the world that they are determined to deliver meaningful support to China’s sagging economy. 

Since late September statements have come from the central bank, which promised to cut interest rates, release liquidity, and provide funding to securities firms; from the politburo, which said it wanted to stabilize the real estate market, boost the capital market and shift towards looser fiscal and monetary policy; from the government’s main planning body, which promised a package of policies to support domestic demand; and from the finance minister himself, who at the weekend committed to issue more debt to recapitalize banks, support local governments and aid unhappy consumers.

Though details have been scant, the Chinese stock market has responded enthusiastically to this flurry of rhetoric. But the bigger question for the global economy is whether a boost in Chinese demand can return the country to its former status as a reliable destination for global exports and capital.

With that measure of success in mind, it is worth keeping expectations low. For the past 15 years, Chinese authorities have been wrestling with two conflicting objectives: to grow the economy, and to minimize the risk of financial instability. Those goals sit uneasily with each other because the effort to boost growth has relied on borrowing; and yet a rise in debt can increase the risk of a debt crisis.  

Chinese policymaking has responded to this dilemma by taking on a pendulum-like quality. Sometimes the authorities boost the economy by funding more investment spending. At other times that stimulus gets reined back as policymakers worry about the economy’s indebtedness.

In the aftermath of the great financial crisis of 2008, for example, Beijing’s over-riding priority was to protect the Chinese economy from the risk of recession by implementing a huge credit-financed stimulus to spur investment in infrastructure and real estate. 

By 2012, though, concerns about over-indebtedness began to dominate, and a withdrawal of stimulus saw the Chinese economy sag. In late 2015,a new round of stimulus measures emerged, only to be withdrawn again around 2018.

With that pendulum in mind, the optimistic take on what policymakers have said in recent weeks is that we are now back in stimulus mode. That’s true in part, but three factors suggest that this time is a little different.

Different times

First, China’s rising debt burden increases authorities’ worries about financial stability. Data from the BIS show that China’s private sector debt almost doubled in the past 15 years to 200 per cent of GDP at the end of 2023. The comparable debt stock for the US and the Eurozone was much lower, at 150 per cent each.

Second, ideology is playing a growing role in shaping Chinese economic policy. The most visible effect has been to prioritize Chinese state-owned enterprises, at the expense of the private sector. This became especially visible in 2021 with a campaign against the ‘unrestrained expansion of capital’ – Beijing’s way of expressing its anxiety that China’s corporate sector was behaving in a manner inconsistent with Chinese Communist Party goals. 

Although that phrase is no longer current, entrepreneurs’ animal spirits remain in the doldrums. They are likely to stay there as long as President Xi Jinping’s preference is for ‘bigger, better, stronger’ state-owned enterprises, which use capital much less efficiently than private firms.

Third, today Chinese policy is shaped by Beijing’s perception of geopolitical risks that it faces. Those risks became starkly apparent in February 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, when essentially every country that prints a reserve currency joined to freeze Russia’s access to its foreign exchange reserves. That enveloped the Russian economy in a network of sanctions that sharply constrained its access to a whole range of imports.

It is not difficult to consider a similar scenario confronting China. Beijing’s approach to economic policy is therefore heavily influenced by the need to insulate itself from that kind of risk (though Chinese policy had in any case been tilting in this direction for years).

‘Asymmetric decoupling’

This policy can be described as ‘asymmetric decoupling’: a simultaneous effort on the one hand to reduce China’s reliance on the rest of the world by substituting imports with domestic production; and, on the other hand, to increase the rest of the world’s reliance on China by establishing itself as a ‘zhizao qiangguo’, or manufacturing powerhouse.

This is the right context in which to understand a central economic goal of the authorities, which is to reduce the economy’s dependence on real estate investment. 

The intention is to allow capital and credit resources to migrate to new sectors of the economy that will help to build that manufacturing powerhouse: high-tech and green energy, in particular. What that means in practice is that any forthcoming support for the real estate sector will be rather limited.

Rodney Kizito from U.S. Department of Energy discusses solar energy, mathematics, and microgrids. When you flip a switch to turn on a light, where does that energy come from? In a traditional power grid, electricity is generated at large power plants and then transmitted long distances. But now, individual homes and businesses with solar panels can generate some or all of their own power and even send energy into the rest of the grid. Modifying the grid so that power can flow in both directions depends on mathematics. With linear programming and operations research, engineers design efficient and reliable systems that account for constraints like the electricity demand at each location, the costs of solar installation and distribution, and the energy produced under different weather conditions. Similar mathematics helps create "microgrids" — small, local systems that can operate independent of the main grid.

Billy Napier will remain in place as head football coach at Florida, despite the Gators producing another lackluster campaign during his third season, athletic director Scott Stricklin announced Thursday.

President Joe Biden on Monday addressed a Veterans Day crowd at the national cemetery in Virginia where he revealed newly-expanded veteran benefits and urged Americans to "come together" and "keep faith."

Spending millions to guard against COVID-19 spread, district leaders also must convince parents school buildings are safe.

The rocky shift to remote learning has exacerbated inequities for the nation's 5 million English-learners. An army of multilingual liaisons work round the clock to plug widening gaps.

Convinced that the show must go on, many high school theater troupes are turning to livestreamed productions, outdoor performances, and radio plays.

Collaboration doesn’t require turning parents into math experts, classroom teachers say.

Math teachers share advice for making remote instruction work.

Board members didn't act on a resolution to revoke Alabama's version of the Common Core State Standards.

The shooting death of a 10-year-old spectator at a high school football game exposes a critical vulnerability and crucial responsibility for schools: keeping people safe at events outside school buildings.

Florida's governor declares a standards overhaul would "remove all vestiges" of the common core. But it remains unclear how much is really changing under the Florida Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking.

Arming some school staff provides a needed safety option for rural districts far from law enforcement, educators told the Federal School Safety Commission during an Arkansas site visit Wednesday.

Confusion reigns when it comes to finding and reporting data on school-related coronavirus infections. That's a problem for school leaders weighing shutdowns.

The rocky shift to remote learning has exacerbated inequities for the nation's 5 million English-learners. An army of multilingual liaisons work round the clock to plug widening gaps.

Recruiters already are offering bonuses, free housing, and airfare to entice teachers to their remote districts—and the competition is about to get worse.

Confusion reigns when it comes to finding and reporting data on school-related coronavirus infections. That's a problem for school leaders weighing shutdowns.

Soils are essential to life [...]

To find out, we need to get down to the basics. Eric Schulze explains

Are you the kind of person who needs to know what keeps satellites from plummeting to the Earth in a big, fiery ball? Then you need to watch this one-minute video, where Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze gives us the lowdown on what-in-the-name-of-science makes those satellites stay up.

Man’s best friend is also one of his oldest.

Even as they fundraise for other community organizations, some legions across Canada are having trouble keeping their own lights on amid rising inflation and maintenance costs.

While people gather around the Gore Park Cenotaph in his hometown of Hamilton, Tyrell will be one of nine Canadians serving as a peacekeeper in the United Nations mission in South Sudan.

Every November, Jan Diehl adorns her Martensville, Sask., home with a special Remembrance Day tribute.

Nikolaj Ehlers scored the winning goal 1:26 into overtime, and the Winnipeg Jets remained unbeaten this season with a 4-3 win over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night.

Not only does Mary the Asian elephant prefer to shower herself, but she's really good at it. So good, in fact, that her dexterous bath-time ritual is the subject of a new study about animal tool use.