By Ireland Owens Toyota’s North American Chief Operating Officer (COO) Jack Hollis criticized U.S. policies promoting electric vehicle adoption (EV) on Friday, according to Bloomberg. The Toyota COO said that electric vehicle policies are “de facto mandates” that are not in sync with consumer demand, according to Bloomberg. Hollis also said that EV mandates such as […]

The post Major Automaker Exec Flatly Says Liberals’ EV ‘Mandates’ Are ‘Impossible’ To Meet appeared first on Liberty Unyielding.

Meet McLaren's first female development driver, Bianca Bustamante, who says she shares her hopes and ambitions to become a professional Formula 1 driver.

Vinay Menon knew nothing about football when he went for a meeting at a west London mansion in 2009. A few weeks later he was in the heart of the Chelsea dressing room.

velocityconf: RT @suzaxtell: #WomeninTech You're invited to a women's meetup on Tues May 28 in SF w/ @courtneynash @mjawili, more http://t.co/MsMZ0IK8L2

velocityconf: S Bay Area #WomeninTech (+ allies!) pls come to the #VelocityConf women's communities meetup on 6/19 http://t.co/xSY7jcyPXV

I don’t know about anyone else, but I have a feeling I’m not alone. My cabin fever is getting worse the longer I’m staying home. The only thing keeping me sane is a pile of books that stimulate lots of ideas and inspire various activities. I’ve just gone through some recent books for kids and thought I’d share a few thoughts about how books can encourage creativity and help build a sense of community, right there at home.  

Trump has started filling key White House roles, starting with Susie Wiles as his chief of staff.

I met two debut authors at a summer conference and was taken with their warmth and earnestness. Their book, Black Boy, Black Boy, is an affirmation that celebrates both past accomplishments by Black men and the limitless possibilities for a child’s future. Their book is sure to encourage discussion with children and families, whether they are Black or not. Both authors graciously agreed to a blog interview.

Here is a link to a recent post by Roger Courville on his "The Virtual Presenter" blog. It reads

A VFAQ (VERY frequently asked question) I get is “what’s the difference between web conferencing, webinars, and webcasts?”

The short answer, these days, is “not very much and a whole bunch.”

Seriously, the lines have blurred from the days that “webcasting” was akin to broadcasting (using streaming media) with virtually no interactivity, whereas web conferencing was (and remains) live, totally realtime (you don’t want any delay when you’re talking on a phone conference, right? In many use cases, you don’t on the web either).

Webinar is simply a portmanteau of web seminar – arguably a use case rather than a technology. That is brief, but it’s as deep as I’m going as I introduce IVT and their enterprise video communications.

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Mitch, Hugh, Jim, and Ryan, all at the same time. In addition to the knowledge and passion and history (Hugh’s a fellow ex-Microsoftie with some common connections), what I’m most enthused by is their clarity of mission.

Hello software

First, IVT’s a software company. You can host the software, but for reasons I’ll not get into, you want to take advantage of the fact that they host the software for you. What’s interesting here isn’t a “right or wrong,” it’s a commitment to a business model. Many (if not most) companies who have solutions for webcasting also provide professional production/event management services. IVT is committed to their robust partner community who deliver value-added services atop the IVT platform. Again, this isn’t a right or wrong, but you have to appreciate focus.

Hello production tools

It’s hard to tell you how important the backend of a product is. It’s what economists call an “experience good” …you have to have been there to get it and appreciate it. As it just so happens I spent many years running organizations in the production business, let me say the two words that will bring any accountants to their needs and get the producers all excited: labor and labor. Labor is expensive. Technology, especially over time, often gets less expensive. If you’ve ever produced an event, let alone a bunch of them, you know that the project management time can create a big sucking sound in your budget. This is where producers get excited… not only will they find the flexibility on the back end of IVT’s platform a joy when meeting numerous and disparate client/stakeholder needs, but it’ll save them time.

Hello customization

Okay, so many different solutions offer degrees of customization, but far fewer have down-to-the-pixel capabilities. When clients demand that, you’ve got to deliver. Further, there’s customization of user experiences, such as different tools you might make available to a presenter versus what the marketing department sees when they need to pull down a report. And then there are web services for the data integration geeks (I say that with love, mind you).

Hello remote presenters – but wait, there’s more

A point of differentiation here is multiple presenters, each with different camera types. One can have a webcam in Sydney, one can be standing in front of a hi-def broadcast camera at a conference in a New York hotel…you get the idea. Need to switch back and forth like a television newscast? Can do.

As is my style, my goal isn’t a vendor-by-vendor shootout, to talk about price, or make a recommendation. I’m excited and privileged to be independent, talk to great people with their own angle on the market, and share with you my own spin on it. It sounds like IVT has a solution if you need to reasonably reach 100 people and the horsepower to reach 20K if you need. If you need flexibility and reach and a commitment to knowing their core biz, IVT (or one of their partners) might be someone to add to your must-investigate list.

A couple weeks ago, my pals at Twitter were kind enough to invite me in to visit with their (rapidly growing) team. The topic was meetings, so I used it as an opportunity to publicly premiere a talk I've been presenting to private clients over the past few months.

I hope you'll enjoy, Broken Meetings (and how you'll fix them).

Slides:

Supplementary links and commentary forthcoming, but I wanted to go ahead and post the talk as quickly as the video was available. Special thanks to Michelle, Jeremy, and the crackerjack Twitter crew for a swell afternoon.

I really like this talk and sincerely hope you will find it useful in helping to un-break your own meetings.

The extracellular matrix encompasses a reservoir of bioactive macromolecules that modulates a cornucopia of biological functions. A prominent body of work posits matrix constituents as master regulators of autophagy and angiogenesis and provides molecular insight into how these two processes are coordinated. Here, we review current understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying hyaluronan and HAS2 regulation and the role of soluble proteoglycan in affecting autophagy and angiogenesis. Specifically, we assess the role of proteoglycan-evoked autophagy in regulating angiogenesis via the HAS2-hyaluronan axis and ATG9A, a novel HAS2 binding partner. We discuss extracellular hyaluronan biology and the post-transcriptional and post-translational modifications that regulate its main synthesizer, HAS2. We highlight the emerging group of proteoglycans that utilize outside-in signaling to modulate autophagy and angiogenesis in cancer microenvironments and thoroughly review the most up-to-date understanding of endorepellin signaling in vascular endothelia, providing insight into the temporal complexities involved.

Prices, Products and Priorities: Meeting Refugees’ Energy Needs in Burkina Faso and Kenya Other resource sysadmin 24 January 2018

As the number of displaced people increases, and aid budgets come under further pressure, the imperative to identify cost-effective and sustainable solutions for delivering energy to refugees is more pressing than ever.

This paper examines the issue of energy and displacement in detail, using insights from refugees in camps in Burkina Faso and Kenya. It seeks to promote a better understanding of their energy needs, priorities and preferences, and explores how increased access to energy might help to achieve lasting impact in the two camps surveyed. The paper is based on primary research from the Goudoubo camp in Burkina Faso and the Kakuma I camp in Kenya, but the analysis and conclusions are pertinent in the wider context of camps for forcibly displaced people.

Summary points

• There is a low level of energy access in the refugee camps of Kakuma I and Goudoubo, which contributes to poverty and hampers relief and development efforts. Trying to meet basic cooking, lighting and phone-charging needs is costly for refugees, consuming a significant share of stretched monthly budgets.
• The predominant cooking solution consists of basic improved cookstoves burning wood and charcoal. The ‘three-stone fire’ method also remains commonplace. Three out of five families in Kakuma I report health problems due to smoke from cookstoves.
• Street lighting is a high priority for residents, due to concerns about security and safety in camps. In Goudoubo, 86 per cent of survey respondents said that more household members would go out after dark if there were better public lighting.
• A significant proportion of refugees would pay for cleaner and more efficient energy technologies, but many lack the financial resources required, and the development of markets for such products remains partially contingent on sustained financial support.
• There is a need for a diversity of energy technologies that give varying levels and qualities of service; a ‘one size fits all’ approach is inappropriate if universal access to sustainable energy is to be achieved.
• Clean cookstoves and fuels (LPG, ethanol, biogas, etc.) are in high demand, but require much greater investment if they are to be introduced at scale. Solid biomass and improved cookstoves will continue to be important cooking solutions in Kakuma I and Goudoubo, as well as in other refugee camps. A shift to more efficient cooking can be achieved at little or no extra cost for the significant proportion of people who still cook on three-stone fires.
• Users of quality-verified household solar products spend dramatically less on light and power than do people using inferior technologies. Strong brand recognition and a high willingness to pay indicate a large market and a significant opportunity for the solar private sector.
• Centralized electricity supply solutions – mini-grids or grid connections – are more economic than multiple standalone diesel generators. The current piecemeal and ad hoc approach, with each facility managing its own power supply, is inherently wasteful. Greater coordination among humanitarian clusters is required so that centralized solutions can be assessed, designed, financed and implemented.
• Collecting data on energy expenditure and use, as well as quantification of the wide ranging impacts of improved technologies, is necessary to build a compelling case for investment in electricity infrastructure. In addition, engaging refugees on their needs, preferences and willingness to pay can improve the sustainability and impact of energy interventions.
• Private-sector and market development approaches offer long-term, cost-effective solutions for refugees and can also benefit host communities. As the number of displaced people in the world increases, and as aid budgets come under further pressure, the imperative to identify cost-effective and sustainable solutions is more pressing than ever.

Chatham House is a part of the Moving Energy Initiative, a consortium working towards clean energy for refugees. For more information visit movingenergy.earth

This emotion can push people to overcome obstacles, though results are best when people keep their long-term aims in mind

President Joe Biden will hold a White House meeting with President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia on Tuesday to celebrate 75 years of U.S.-Indonesian relations and discuss ways to strengthen their countries' cooperation.

President Joe Biden and Israeli President Isaac Herzog met at the White House on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the war against Hamas and Hezbollah and other Middle East concerns.

Keeping up with students’ growing mental-health needs was a concern for districts long before the pandemic began. It’s even harder now, educators and psychologists say.

Schools and staff confront a welter of employment laws and regulations when it comes to on-site work under the pandemic.

Keeping up with students’ growing mental-health needs was a concern for districts long before the pandemic began. It’s even harder now, educators and psychologists say.

Keeping up with students’ growing mental-health needs was a concern for districts long before the pandemic began. It’s even harder now, educators and psychologists say.

"I'm running because I'm not happy with the state of education," said veteran educator Kevin Leineweber, who is one of several teachers running for the state's legislature this year.

Bethany Hill, the principal at Central Elementary School in Cabot, Ark., shuns a formal office in favor of roving around classrooms, hallways, the playground, and the cafeteria, where she can be as close as possible to teachers and students all day.

The [...]

Rome - Governments ought to review the [...]

FAO Director-General Graziano da Silva today opened the 150th session of the FAO Council, highlighting the successful conclusion of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), held last month in [...]

The Pre-Summit will bring together the global efforts to shape the transformation of agri-food systems.

Smithsonian.com's puzzle master and your gaming adventure guide

Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Ronald Drever | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winners for Physical Sciences In February, physicists announced the first-ever detection of gravitational waves—a phenomenon Albert Einstein predicted back in 1915. The faint reverberation, from two merging black holes 1.3 billion light-years ago, registered in the two giant detectors that make up the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO. It took decades for LIGO’s founders—Weiss, of MIT, and Thorne and Drever, of Cal Tech—to amass the necessary funding and brainpower. Barish, a particle physicist at CalTech, became LIGO’s director and expanded its work to include more than 1,000 researchers worldwide. Their revolutionary achievement opens the way for a new understanding of the universe, perhaps even a glimpse of the Big Bang. Read more about their work: http://smithmag.co/FZBFeP | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy

Photojournalist Lucian Perkins reunites Naval Academy graduates Sandee Irwin and Don Holcomb, 30 years after his photo captured the new gender dynamics at the school (Photography Interview and Production by Lucian Perkins; Music: Kevin MacLeod; Photos from World War II, Korea and Vietnam by the U.S. Army and Air Force). Read more at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/up-in-arms-over-a-co-ed-plebe-summer-30290895/

Read more about elephants at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/How-Male-Elephants-Bond.html Keepers and pachyderms alike are enjoying the new Asian elephant exhibit, Elephant Trails, at the National Zoo.

After reviewing more than 30,000 photos, the editors of Smithsonian Magazine are proud to announce the Grand Prize Winner. #shorts

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was the only unit comprised entirely of Black women to have been deployed overseas during World War II, and it had served a critical function: clearing the backlog of mail that marked the only line of communication between American soldiers in Europe and their loved ones back home. In this episode, we speak with retired Army Colonel Edna Cummings, who made it her business to get the 6888 their belated recognition, and with Smithsonian magazine senior writer Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, who wrote about Col. Cummings' quest (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-all-black-female-WWII-unit-saved-morale-battlefield-180981540/) for the March 2023 issue of Smithsonian. NOTE: In the interval since we recorded our interview with Col. Cummings, another veteran from the 6888 has died. With the passing of Crescencia J. Garcia last month at the age of 103, there are now five women who served in the 6888 during World War II who remain alive. Learn more about the women of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion at the Women of the 6888th site (https://www.womenofthe6888th.org/) . Find prior episodes of our show here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast/) . There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Terence Bernardo, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Music by APM Music.

In this clip from the documentary, see how Cassady embodied the spirit of Jack Kerouac's iconic character from On the Road

Most adult king penguins weigh between 31 and 37 pounds. At nine months old, a 51.8-pound Pesto is already looming over his parents

Milagra, Spanish for “miracle,” was hatched and raised in captivity by foster condor parents after her mother died of avian flu in April 2023

Born October 30 to parents Gloria and Otto at the Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, the hippo is already gaining popularity, following in the footsteps of viral sensation Moo Deng

Renaissance paintings, medieval archives, cloistered orchards—how one Italian scientist is uncovering secrets that could help combat a growing agricultural crisis

The mayor of the eastern P.E.I. town of Three Rivers says comments on social media have become so 'aggressive' that council has decided to hold Tuesday night’s meeting virtually instead of in-person out of concerns for their own safety.

Ryan Dinwiddie and the Toronto Argonauts have been down this road before. Toronto will be minus starting quarterback Chad Kelly, the CFL's outstanding player last season, on Sunday when it faces the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Grey Cup.

That Figure Skating Show goes through Canada's Olympic figure skating team and speculates medal chances in Beijing.

The Interior B.C. city is reviewing its policies for public hearings following the incident.

The agenda for Planning Commission on 2019-12-16 7:00 PM - Special Meeting dated Monday, 16 December 2019 has been archived. Access it here:
https://oregon-city.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2360 Download File

The agenda for City Commission - Special Emergency Meeting dated Sunday, 26 April 2020 has been archived. Access it here:
https://oregon-city.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2415 Download File

The agenda for City Commission - Special Meeting dated Monday, 27 April 2020 has been archived. Access it here:
https://oregon-city.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2416 Download File

The agenda for City Commission - Special Emergency Meeting dated Sunday, 07 June 2020 has been archived. Access it here:
https://oregon-city.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2430 Download File

The agenda for City Commission - Special Emergency Meeting dated Tuesday, 09 June 2020 has been archived. Access it here:
https://oregon-city.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=4&clip_id=2432 Download File

Brad Gushue, Mark Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker discuss their team dynamics and what gives them the edge heading into the Beijing Olympics.

After curling together for so many years and heading back to yet another Olympics, Jennifer Jones, Kaitlyn Lawes, Jocelyn Peterman and Dawn McEwen are much more than teammates. They're family.

Space tourism pioneer Burt Rutan, developer of the world's first privately manned spacecraft, to discuss the role of 3D design tools in shaping the future