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Update On 2024 Cahow Breeding Season

The Nonsuch Expeditions website provided an update on the 2024 breeding season of the critically endangered Cahow, saying that it has “entered what is arguably it’s most exciting phase, with the return of the breeding pairs.” Senior Terrestrial Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros said, “The 2024 breeding season of the Bermuda petrel or Cahow, which is critically endangered, […]




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Gymnastics Challenge Dates Announced

The Bermuda International Gymnastics Challenge will be held at the Training Centre in St David’s in March next year. Organised by Bermuda Gymnastics, the competition is from March 16 to 17, with male and female athletes judged under USA Gymnastics rules, all Xcel levels and levels 1 to 10. The entry deadline for gymnasts is […]




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Gencom Updates On Fairmont Renovation Work

Westend Properties and its managing partner, Gencom, provided an update on the “preliminary work being carried out at the Fairmont Southampton property in preparation for the extensive renovations planned for the hotel and Beach Club.” A spokesperson said, “These early phases of demolition and site preparation are crucial to enabling the complete overhaul of the […]




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Minister Updates On BHC Housing Initiatives

“The Government through the BHC are making steady progress and we intend to see the completion of all 105 of these housing projects as quickly as possible,” Minister of Public Works David Burch said in the House of Assembly today [May 31] as he provided an update on housing initiatives. The Minister’s full statement follows […]




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Minister Burch Updates On Affordable Housing

Speaking in the House of Assembly today [Sept 27], Minister of Public Works Lt/Col David Burch provided an update on “one of the most pressing challenges we as a country face – the shortage of affordable housing.” The Minister’s full statement follows below: Mr. Speaker, I rise to report on one of the most pressing challenges […]




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Clarien Bank Unveils ESG Strategy Updates

Clarien Bank announced the latest updates in its commitment to Environmental, Social, and Governance [ESG] considerations, a field they said is “quickly becoming indispensable for businesses worldwide, including those in the banking sector.” A spokesperson said, “Recognising that adopting robust ESG practices is no longer a matter of choice but a necessity, Clarien Bank has decisively […]




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Ministry Announces New Flu Express Dates

The Ministry of Health has set Flu Express dates for October 19, 22, and 23, offering free shots for seniors and $20 for others. A Government spokesperson said, “The Ministry of Health announces new Flu Express dates. The Hamilton Health Centre is on Saturday, October 19th, from 10 am—2 pm [for seniors 65 and older]; […]




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Hospital Provides Update On Oncology Services

[Updated] The Bermuda Hospitals Board said they are “close to bringing two new oncologists to Bermuda.” A spokesperson said, “BHB is close to bringing two new oncologists to Bermuda. The new oncologists are in the final stages of recruitment having completed their local registration with the Bermuda Medical Council and we are in the process of […]




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Live Video & Updates: 2024 Throne Speech

[Updating] The Convening of Parliament is taking place this morning [Nov 8], with Governor Rena Lalgie delivering the 2024 Throne Speech, which outlines the Government’s Legislative Agenda for the year ahead. The proceedings are set to get underway later this morning and we will provide what coverage we are able to while it is live, […]




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Police Update On Three Vehicle Collision

The police provided an update following a three vehicle collision in Warwick last week. A police spokesperson said, “A Government van driver involved in a collision with two cars on Middle Road, near the junction with Longford Road in Warwick around 3pm Tuesday, 9th July 2024, was arrested on suspicion of impaired driving and later […]




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New Year, New Season! Prime Video Announces Premiere Date for "Harlem" Season Three

After a shocking Season Two finale cliffhanger that left audiences on the edge of their seats, the news is finally out that Harlem will return for Season Three at the top of next year on January 23, exclusively on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide.




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blind date




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Apple Music Classical Updated With CarPlay and Siri Support

Apple Music Classical was updated today with CarPlay and Siri support, as well as stability and performance improvements, according to Apple.


CarPlay support was briefly added to a previous version of Apple Music Classical earlier this year, but it was removed just hours later. Starting with version 2.1 today, the app is once again available on CarPlay, as shown in our screenshot below.

CarPlay support provides Apple Music Classical listeners with access to their playlists, library, recommendations, and more on their vehicle's infotainment display. And with Siri on iOS 18.1 and later, users can also search via CarPlay for composers, artists, works, and instruments in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch, according to Apple. Additional languages will follow over time.


Apple Music Classical first launched in March 2023, offering users with a standard Apple Music subscription access to over five million classical music tracks at no additional cost. The streaming app features advanced search functionality, exclusive artwork, extensive metadata, curated listening recommendations, and more.

The app is available for the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android. It is based on Primephonic, a classical music streaming service acquired by Apple in 2021.


This article, "Apple Music Classical Updated With CarPlay and Siri Support" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums




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Chrome for iOS Gets Google Lens Update, Shopping Insights and More

Google today announced several new features for the Chrome browser that's available on the iPhone and the iPad, with the new additions aimed at providing users with more intuitive ways for finding information and completing tasks.


Google Lens now supports searching with images and text at the same time, rather than search being limited to just an image. Users can add words to a visual query to refine results and conduct more complex searches.

Google Drive and Google Photos users can now save content from the web directly to those services from Chrome, freeing up on-device storage space. To save a file to Google Drive from Chrome, tap on the Google Drive option. Saving an image to ‌Photos‌ from Chrome can be done by long pressing on the image and then selecting the Save in Google ‌Photos‌ option.

For U.S. users, Chrome on iOS is gaining Shopping Insights, which are designed to better surface deals. If Chrome has Shopping Insights for a product that a user is searching for, there will be a "Good Deal Now" notification in the address bar. The feature requires signing into Chrome and toggling on "Make Searches and Browsing Better."

When viewing a map of an address in Chrome, users will soon be able to tap an underlined address and see a more detailed mini-map of the location directly in the browser without having to swap over to Google Maps. Google says that it is experimenting with this feature and will roll it out globally over the coming months.

Tags: Chrome, Google

This article, "Chrome for iOS Gets Google Lens Update, Shopping Insights and More" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums




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September 2021 Site Update

I've kind of been ignoring this blog for a while. That's nothing new... there have been multi-year periods with no posts. I'm still writing stuff...



  • General/Random Stuff

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Newsletter subscription update

 I have to change platforms for the newsletter.

Mailchimp cuts off free use at 2000 subscribers and there were (a lot!) more of you than that.


I've switched to TinyLetter, but they ask that instead of just importing names, people subscribe.

It prevents a lot of bounce backs from stale addresses.


So, if you want to get the newsletter (and of course the reason this is happening is there's one in the works) just click here to resubscribe.


If you don't, no worries.




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'Untitled Mystery' the untitled mystery update: now titled.



Do you happen to remember I said last year I was writing a murder mystery puzzle in the form of a box of postcards? Well... I've written it. I'm very proud of it. And this is what it's called:

 


Alt text: A trailer, made by the excellent people at Stage Fright Films, which eventually tells you it's called 'The Researcher's First Murder', and revealing the excellent cover illustration by Tom Gauld.

You can pre-order it here, and I won't at all mind if you do. 




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WordStar for DOS 7.0 archive updated

I’ve updated my WordStar for DOS 7.0 archive, based on feedback from the thousands of people who downloaded the initial public release (which was version 1.4, dated July 30, 2024).This new version is 1.5, dated August 12, 2024. The new version has the file size of the PDF manuals reduced (which cuts the archive size […]




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I Am A Bananupdate

Is it hypocritical of me to say that I miss when people used to write long-form blog posts when I’ve been really bad at doing so myself? Probably, but something something do as I say not as I do. The … Continue reading




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Cop 29: Leaders to address summit after report finds climate pledges not kept – live updates - The Guardian

  1. Cop 29: Leaders to address summit after report finds climate pledges not kept – live updates  The Guardian
  2. Live Briefing: Greta Thunberg calls site of COP29 climate summit ‘beyond absurd’  The Washington Post
  3. COP29 gets underway in Azerbaijan  ABC News
  4. Oil and gas are ‘a gift of God’: COP29 leader  The Australian Financial Review




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Update

As some have noticed, I haven't put on too many posts of late, due mostly to my slightly dodgy health and to family commitments.. In addition I am weeks away from my enforced retirement as a JP when I hit 70 at the end of October.

I shall keep the blog going as long as people click on to it, and I shall take the chance to say a few things that might have got me into hot water as a magistrate. 

Stay tuned, and it might be worth your while. If not, at least it's free!





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New insights into asteroid properties: A STEP Grant update

A Planetary Society-funded project to understand asteroids achieved its main goals and scientific objectives this year.




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Quicklisp news: October 2024 Quicklisp dist update now available

 New projects: 

  • adp-github — ADP extension to generate github markdown files. — MIT
  • adp-plain — Add Documentation, Please... using plain text. An extension of ADP to generate files with barely additional features. — MIT
  • allioli — Alliolification — MIT
  • alternate-asdf-system-connections — Allows for ASDF system to be connected so that auto-loading may occur. This is a fork of asdf-system-connections and incorporates a load-system-driven mechanism for loading dependencies and also loads the dependencies of the connections. — MIT
  • cbor — CBOR encoder/decoder — MIT
  • charje.documentation — Documentation is an opinionated yet customizable docstring parsing library. — AGPL V3 or any later version
  • chipi — House automation bus in Common Lisp — Apache-2
  • cl-aseprite — Aseprite file format parser — GPLv3
  • cl-astar — A heavily optimized yet flexible A* pathfinding algorithm implementation — MIT
  • cl-ceigen-lite — A Common Lisp wrapper around CEIGEN-LITE - which is itself a C wrapper around the C++ Eigen library. — MIT
  • cl-cf — Computations using continued fractions — GPL-3
  • cl-concord — CONCORD implementation based on Common Lisp — LGPL
  • cl-duckdb — CFFI wrapper around the DuckDB C API — MIT License
  • cl-fastcgi — FastCGI wrapper for Common Lisp — BSD License
  • cl-flx — Rewrite emacs-flx in Common Lisp — MIT
  • cl-frugal-uuid — Common Lisp UUID library with zero dependencies — MIT License
  • cl-gog-galaxy — A wrapper for the GOG Galaxy SDK — zlib
  • cl-lc — List comprehensions — MIT
  • cl-naive-ptrees — Functions to make it easier to work with plist(s) and plist trees. Works with plist(s) pairs as units and not as individual list items. — MIT
  • cl-qoa — An implementation of the Quite Okay Audio format. — zlib
  • cl-reddit — Reddit client api library — BSD
  • cl-resvg — An up-to-date bindings library for the resvg SVG rendering library — zlib
  • cl-trivial-clock — Common Lisp library to get accurate wall-clock times on multiple platforms — MIT License
  • clack-cors — A Clack middleware to set CORS related HTTP headers. — Unlicense
  • clack-prometheus — Clack middleware to serve stats in Prometheus format. — Unlicense
  • clith — Common Lisp wITH macro. A general WITH macro. — MIT
  • clj-arrows — Implements Clojure-styled threading/transformation macros. — MIT
  • clos-encounters — A collection of OOP patterns benefiting from the CLOS MOP. — Unlicense
  • coalton — An efficient, statically typed functional programming language that supercharges Common Lisp. — MIT
  • cocoas — A toolkit library to help deal with CoreFoundation, Cocoa, and objc — zlib
  • com.danielkeogh.graph — A fast an reliable graph library. — MIT
  • fast-mpsc-queue — Multi-Producer Single-Consumer queue implementation. — MIT
  • file-finder — File finder. Enable rapid file search, inspection and manipulation. — GPL3+
  • golden-utils — A utility library. — MIT
  • hiccl — HTML generator for Common Lisp — MIT
  • hsx — Hypertext S-expression — MIT
  • hunchentoot-stuck-connection-monitor — Monitors hunchentoot connections and logs the connections stuck in the same state for a long time (due to slow or inactive clients and network stream timeouts that hunchentoot tries to utilize not working properly). Offers an option to shutdown the stuck connections sockets manually or automatically, thus unblocking the connection threads and preventing thread and socket leak. See https://github.com/edicl/hunchentoot/issues/189 — BSD-2-Clause
  • incless — A portable and extensible Common Lisp printer implementation (core) — BSD
  • inravina — A portable and extensible Common Lisp pretty printer. — MIT
  • invistra — A portable and extensible Common Lisp FORMAT implementation — BSD
  • knx-conn — KNXnet/IP implementation in Common Lisp — GNU GPL, version 3
  • machine-state — Retrieve machine state information about CPU time, memory usage, etc. — zlib
  • myweb — simple web server written in common lisp for educational reasons — LGPLv3
  • noisy — Perlin noise for arbitrary numbers of dimensions. — MIT
  • nontrivial-gray-streams — A compatibility layer for Gray streams including extensions — MIT
  • open-with — Open a file in a suitable external program — zlib
  • openai-openapi-client — Openai API client — AGPLv3+
  • openrpc — CI for Common Lisp OpenRPC library. — BSD
  • parse-number-range — Parses LOOP's convenient "for-as-arithmetic" syntax into 5 simple values: from, to, limit-kind (:inclusive, :exclusive or nil if unbounded), by (step) and direction (+ or -)). Further related utilities are provided. Intended for easy implementation of analogous functionality in other constructs. — Public Domain
  • precise-time — Precise time measurements — zlib
  • pregexp — Portable regular expressions for Common Lisp — MIT-like
  • progressons — Display a progress bar on one line. — MIT
  • quaviver — A portable and extensible floating point string library — MIT
  • quilc — A CLI front-end for the Quil compiler — Apache License 2.0 (See LICENSE.txt)
  • qvm — An implementation of the Quantum Abstract Machine. — Apache License 2.0 (See LICENSE.txt)
  • random-sampling — Functions to generate random samples with various distributions — zlib
  • rs-dlx — Knuth's Algorithm X with dancing links. — Modified BSD License
  • scrapycl — The web scraping framework for writing crawlers in Common Lisp. — Unlicense
  • smoothers — Statistical methods to create approximating functions that attempt to capture important patterns in the data, while leaving out noise or other fine-scale structures/rapid phenomena. — MS-PL
  • trivial-adjust-simple-array — A tiny utility to change array size ensuring it is simple. — MIT
  • trivial-system-loader — A system installation/loading abstraction for Common Lisp — MIT
  • trivial-toplevel-commands — Trivial Toplevel Commands allows to define toplevel commands available on most implementations in a portable fashion. — BSD-3 Clause
  • trivial-toplevel-prompt — Portability library to customize REPL prompts. — BSD-3 Clause
  • utf8-input-stream — A UTF-8 string input stream over a binary stream for Common Lisp — MIT
  • whereiseveryone.command-line-args — Automatically create a command-line-argument parser for a given Common Lisp function definition. — AGPL v3 or any later version

Updated projects: 3b-bmfont, 3bgl-shader, 3bmd, 3d-math, 3d-spaces, 40ants-asdf-system, 40ants-slynk, access, acclimation, action-list, adhoc, adopt, adp, agnostic-lizard, alexandria, alexandria-plus, anatevka, anypool, april, arc-compat, architecture.builder-protocol, array-utils, arrow-macros, assoc-utils, async-process, atomics, auto-restart, aws-sdk-lisp, babel, bdef, bike, binary-structures, binding-arrows, birch, blackbird, bordeaux-threads, calm, carrier, caveman, ccldoc, cephes.cl, cepl, cerberus, cffi, cffi-object, cffi-ops, chanl, chunga, ci, ci-utils, ciao, cl-6502, cl-algebraic-data-type, cl-all, cl-ansi-term, cl-async, cl-atelier, cl-autowrap, cl-base32, cl-bmas, cl-bmp, cl-bnf, cl-brewer, cl-buchberger, cl-cmark, cl-collider, cl-colors2, cl-confidence, cl-containers, cl-cookie, cl-csv, cl-custom-hash-table, cl-cxx-jit, cl-data-structures, cl-dbi, cl-digraph, cl-dot, cl-enchant, cl-environments, cl-fast-ecs, cl-fbx, cl-fluent-logger, cl-form-types, cl-forms, cl-freetype2, cl-gamepad, cl-github-v3, cl-gltf, cl-gobject-introspection, cl-graph, cl-grip, cl-gserver, cl-hamcrest, cl-hash-util, cl-html-readme, cl-i18n, cl-info, cl-ini, cl-ipfs-api2, cl-kanren, cl-lib-helper, cl-liballegro, cl-liballegro-nuklear, cl-log, cl-markless, cl-marshal, cl-migratum, cl-mixed, cl-modio, cl-mount-info, cl-mpg123, cl-mssql, cl-mustache, cl-mysql, cl-neovim, cl-netpbm, cl-oju, cl-opengl, cl-opensearch-query-builder, cl-opus, cl-patterns, cl-plus-ssl-osx-fix, cl-ppcre, cl-project, cl-protobufs, cl-pslib, cl-pslib-barcode, cl-rashell, cl-readline, cl-sat.minisat, cl-sdl2-image, cl-sdl2-mixer, cl-sdl2-ttf, cl-sendgrid, cl-sentry-client, cl-skkserv, cl-smtp, cl-ssh-keys, cl-steamworks, cl-str, cl-svg, cl-telegram-bot, cl-threadpool, cl-tiled, cl-torrents, cl-tqdm, cl-transducers, cl-transit, cl-unicode, cl-unification, cl-unix-sockets, cl-utils, cl-vectors, cl-vorbis, cl-wavefront, cl-webdriver-client, cl-webkit, cl-webmachine, cl-who, clack, clack-pretend, clad, classimp, clast, clath, clavier, clazy, clerk, clgplot, climacs, clingon, clip, clj-con, clj-re, clobber, clog, clog-ace, clog-collection, clog-plotly, clog-terminal, clohost, closer-mop, clss, cluffer, clunit2, clx, cmd, codata-recommended-values, codex, coleslaw, collectors, colored, com-on, common-lisp-jupyter, commondoc-markdown, compiler-macro-notes, conduit-packages, consfigurator, contextl, croatoan, ctype, cytoscape-clj, damn-fast-priority-queue, dartscluuid, data-frame, data-lens, datafly, dbus, decompress, defenum, definer, definitions, deflate, defmain, deploy, depot, deptree, dexador, dissect, djula, dns-client, doc, docs-builder, dsm, dufy, easter-gauss, easy-audio, easy-macros, easy-routes, eclector, equals, erjoalgo-webutil, erudite, esrap, event-emitter, external-program, external-symbol-not-found, fare-csv, fare-scripts, fast-http, fast-websocket, file-attributes, file-notify, file-select, filesystem-utils, fiveam, fiveam-matchers, flexi-streams, float-features, flow, fn, fset, functional-trees, fuzzy-dates, gadgets, generic-cl, github-api-cl, glfw, glsl-toolkit, harmony, hashtrie, helambdap, http2, hunchentoot, imago, in-nomine, inferior-shell, introspect-environment, ironclad, jose, js, json-mop, jsonrpc, jzon, khazern, lack, lass, lemmy-api, letv, lichat-protocol, lichat-tcp-client, linear-programming, lisp-binary, lisp-chat, lisp-critic, lisp-pay, lisp-stat, lispcord, lla, local-time, log4cl-extras, logging, lru-cache, magicl, maiden, maidenhead, manifolds, math, mcclim, memory-regions, messagebox, method-combination-utilities, mgl-pax, misc-extensions, mito, mk-defsystem, mmap, mnas-package, mnas-string, moira, multiposter, mutility, mutils, named-closure, ndebug, neural-classifier, new-op, nibbles, nibbles-streams, ningle, nodgui, north, numerical-utilities, nytpu.lisp-utils, omglib, ook, open-location-code, openapi-generator, orizuru-orm, overlord, papyrus, parachute, parse-number, pathname-utils, petalisp, phos, picl, plot, plump, plump-sexp, pngload, policy-cond, polymorphic-functions, postmodern, ppath, prometheus-gc, psychiq, purgatory, py4cl, py4cl2, py4cl2-cffi, qlot, qoi, query-fs, quick-patch, quickhull, quri, random-state, reblocks, reblocks-auth, reblocks-file-server, reblocks-lass, reblocks-navigation-widget, reblocks-parenscript, reblocks-prometheus, reblocks-typeahead, reblocks-ui, reblocks-websocket, rove, s-dot2, sandalphon.lambda-list, sb-fastcgi, sc-extensions, sel, select, serapeum, shasht, shop3, si-kanren, sketch, slime, slite, sly, snooze, spinneret, staple, static-vectors, statistics, stepster, stmx, stripe, swank-crew, swank-protocol, sxql, symath, system-locale, taglib, teddy, ten, testiere, tfeb-lisp-hax, tfm, tiny-routes, tooter, trivia, trivial-arguments, trivial-clipboard, trivial-file-size, trivial-gray-streams, trivial-main-thread, trivial-octet-streams, trivial-package-locks, trivial-package-manager, trivial-sanitize, trivial-shell, type-templates, typo, uax-15, uiop, usocket, vellum, vellum-binary, vellum-csv, vellum-postmodern, verbose, vernacular, vom, websocket-driver, winhttp, with-branching, with-contexts, woo, xhtmlambda, xml-emitter, yason, zippy, zpb-ttf.

Removed projects: abstract-arrays, ahungry-fleece, cl-cheshire-cat, cl-darksky, cl-epoch, cl-naive-store, convolution-kernel, dense-arrays, extensible-compound-types, extensible-optimizing-coerce, fast-generic-functions, flac-metadata, freebsd-ffi, listoflist, luckless, one-more-re-nightmare, postmodern-localtime, stumpwm-dynamic-float, stumpwm-sndioctl, unicly.

To get this update, use:

 (ql:update-dist "quicklisp")

Sorry this update took so long. My goal is to resume monthly releases.

Enjoy!




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Romanian election candidates use fake accounts to smear opponents

Fake social media accounts are being used in Romania's ongoing presidential and parliamentary election campaigns to artificially boost the popularity of certain candidates and promote content targeting their opponents, according to an analysis by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). The SRI…




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JPL Workforce Update

JPL statement issued on Nov. 12, 2024: While we have taken various measures to meet our current FY’25 budget allocation, we have reached the difficult decision to reduce the JPL workforce through layoffs. This reduction affects approximately 325 of our colleagues, an impact of about 5% of our…




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Seven & i's reported offer and the biggest management buyouts to date

Japan's Seven & i Holdings said on Wednesday it has received a buyout proposal from its vice president who is a member of its founding Ito family.




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Factbox-Seven & i's reported offer and the biggest management buyouts to date

In This Article: By Kane Wu HONG KONG (Reuters) - Japan's Seven & i Holdings said on Wednesday it has received a buyout proposal from its vice president who is a member of its founding Ito family. The statement follows a Bloomberg report that the 7-Eleven owner was considering a management buyout…





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Are you Ready for the Next Round of EMD Updates?

Empowering Spam While this may seem like a good ideal, I believe it to be a problem at this point. Could be wrong, but it would seem that these domain names are targeting keywords and not so much opening the door to new domain names for businesses. Of course as you may or may not […]




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Disney+ announces official 'Andor' Season 2 premiere date and teases TIE fighter heist

Disney+ announced an official premiere date for "Andor" Season 2, which will return to the streaming service on April 22, 2025.




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Date2

Fantasy Date! I met her in a petshop while buying buying fish food, not quite 5', her short stature was perfect for her chubby busty body. She had a halo of soft light strawberry blond hair, her bright hazel eyes and sweet round baby face hid her real age. She had piercings in her full...




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Weekend Update’s Best Jokes Trying to Make Sense of the Election

By Matt Solomon Published: November 10th, 2024




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We Finally Have A Date for the ‘Abbott Elementary’/‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Crossover Episode

By Carly Tennes Published: November 12th, 2024




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What Security Software Do You Recommend? (2024 Q4 update)

Here are my latest recommendations for specific security software and techniques.

What Security Software Do You Recommend? (2024 Q4 update) from Ask Leo!.
Get the Confident Computing weekly newsletter: https://newsletter.askleo.com




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It's A Date!

So, it's settled. Tea at my house later ... Bring the whip...






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Pupdate

This is Rylan. How (Not) To Buy A Puppy There’s a meme wandering around Twitter/Facebook at the moment:…




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Google’s ‘Where to Vote’ Search Result Reflects Quirk of Candidate Surname, Not Bias

Social media users alleged bias against former President Donald Trump when a Google search on Election Day for “where to vote” returned an interactive map to find a person’s polling station when including the word “Harris” but not “Trump.” The reason is because “Harris” is a county in Texas, whereas “Trump” is not a location.

The post Google’s ‘Where to Vote’ Search Result Reflects Quirk of Candidate Surname, Not Bias appeared first on FactCheck.org.




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Updated BP Texas City Animation

This isn't directly sysadmin-related, but it made me think of how a really good outage retrospective can teach others how to prevent problems in the future.

"On the 15th anniversary of the incident, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board is announcing a forthcoming interactive training application based on one of the worst industrial disasters in recent U.S. history--the March 23, 2005, explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, which killed 15 workers, injured 180 others, and caused billions of dollars in economic losses. This updated animation will be included in the training, which will focus on OSHA's Process Safety Management standard. Look for it soon at CSB.gov."

Content warning: Death




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‘Many Minds, Many Stripes’ conference sets 2025 date to celebrate Graduate School alumni

The conference has been scheduled for Oct. 9-11, 2025. All Princeton alumni are invited back to campus for the gathering. 




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2024 Budget Update

Throughout the year, the OTW Finance team has continued its work of ensuring that the organization's bills are paid, tax returns filed, and all standard accounting guidelines and financial compliance requirements met. Preparation for the audit of 2023 financial statements continues!

The team has also been diligently working on the 2024 budget update and are happy to present it here: (access the 2024 budget spreadsheet for more detailed information):

2024 Expenses

Archive of Our Own (AO3)

  • US$250,381.02 spent so far out of US$416,441.01 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • 55.1% of the OTW's expenses go towards maintaining the AO3. This includes the bulk of our server expenses—both new purchases and ongoing colocation and maintenance—website performance monitoring tools, and various systems-related licenses, as well as costs highlighted below (access all program expenses).
  • This year's projected AO3 expenses also include US$120,000 to purchase new servers, as well as US$15,000 in additional server related equipment to increase the capacity of existing servers to handle expected site traffic growth through the year.

Open Doors

  • US$6,899.70 spent so far out of US$9,344.33 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • Open Doors' expenses consist of hosting, backup, and domain costs for imported fanwork archives, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Transformative Works and Cultures

  • US$3,488.74 spent so far out of US$5,444.70 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • Transformative Works and Cultures' expenses are the journal's website hosting, publishing, and storage fees, as well as an allocated share of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).
  • Additionally, the University of Amsterdam provided £1,000 (US$1,061) to Transformative Works and Cultures in 2023, which will be used to help fund the Fans of Color Research Prize.

Fanlore

  • US$13,986.47 spent so far out of US$24,160.27 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • Fanlore's expenses are its share of allocated server hardware, maintenance and colocation costs, as well as its portion of various OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Legal Advocacy

  • US$304.50 spent so far out of US$2,892.15 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • Legal's expenses consist of registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access all program expenses).

Fundraising and Development

  • US$107,433.57 spent so far out of US$152,399.47 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • Our fundraising and development expenses consist of transaction fees charged by our third-party payment processors for each donation, thank-you gift purchases and shipping, outreach work by volunteers at various fan conventions, and the tools used to host the OTW's membership database and track communications with donors and potential donors, as well as an allocated share of OTW-wide productivity tools (access fundraising expenses).

Administration

  • US$111,698.97 spent so far out of US$147,099.75 total this year, as of September 30, 2024.
  • The OTW’s administrative expenses include hosting for our website, trademarks, domains, insurance, tax filing, and annual financial statement audits, as well as productivity, management, and accounting tools (access all admin expenses).

2024 Revenue

  • The OTW is entirely supported by your donations—thank you for your generosity!
  • We receive a significant portion of our donations each year in the April and October fundraising drives, which together will account for about 33.8% of our income in 2024. We also receive donations via employer matching programs, royalties, and PayPal Giving Fund, which administers donations from programs like Humble Bundle and eBay for Charity. If you'd like to support us while making purchases on those websites, please select the Organization for Transformative Works as your charity of choice!
  • Thanks to your generosity in previous years, we have a healthy amount of money in our reserves, which we can use to pay for larger than usual purchases and keep on hand for legal contingencies. As mentioned previously, we plan to continue to upgrade the capacity of the Archive's servers, which significantly increases server equipment and server hosting expenses. As the Archive and other projects of the OTW grow, we also spend more on tools and technology to support our volunteers, such as the tools used by various committees to communicate with and aid users and to track internal projects, further increasing expenses.
  • US$651,741.98 received so far (as of September 30, 2024) and US$762,433.91 projected to be received by the end of the year.

Got questions?

If you have any questions about the budget or the OTW's finances, please contact the Finance committee. We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

To download the OTW's 2024 budget update in spreadsheet format, please follow this link.




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Open Comment Period for AO3 Terms of Service Updates

In order to make AO3's rules clearer to our users, we intend to update the AO3 Terms of Service (TOS) in mid-November 2024. Once this occurs, all users will need to agree to the updated TOS to continue using AO3. The full text has been posted for public review, as well as a detailed explanation of what has (and hasn't) changed:

Summary of changes

As part of reorganizing the TOS for better clarity, the new TOS is structured differently than the old one. A detailed explanation of what was changed and why is available in the update guide. These are the highlights:

  • We've clarified the Content Policy, but we haven't changed what works are or are not allowed. If your fanwork was allowed on AO3 before, then it is still allowed.
  • The TOS has been split into three pages (General Principles, Content Policy, and Privacy Policy). This should make it easier to find what you're looking for when you want to know about a specific part of the TOS.
  • We've simplified the language throughout the TOS and removed redundant or overly specific phrases and passages. When longer explanations would help to provide clarity, we've added new questions to the TOS FAQ instead.
  • We've updated the descriptions of how we and our subprocessors collect and process user information (including personal information) in the Privacy Policy.
  • The Abuse Policy has been generalized to provide the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee with greater flexibility to determine how to address TOS violations, while still providing protections for fanworks in accordance with AO3's mission.
  • The "Underage" Archive Warning, which is used for works that depict or describe underage sex, is being renamed to "Underage Sex". This does not change the meaning of this warning or how it is enforced. When the TOS update occurs, all works with the "Underage" Archive Warning will be recategorized automatically to display the new "Underage Sex" Archive Warning label instead. If you have a work that carries the "Underage" warning and you don't want it to display the "Underage Sex" label, you can replace it with the "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" label at any time.

You can read the proposed changes and comment here on this news post with any questions, suggestions, or feedback you might have about the new TOS or TOS FAQ. Comments will remain open until November 18th, 2024. After comments close, the Board of Directors for the OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works, which is AO3's parent organization) will vote on the proposed changes to the Terms of Service. If the Board votes in favor, the Terms of Service will be updated and all users will be required to agree to the new TOS to continue using AO3.

To make your opinion heard prior to the Board vote, make sure to submit your comments here before November 18th.


ETA: We appreciate that all of you have many ideas, but please keep in mind that the Policy & Abuse committee handles AO3 rules, not AO3 features. If you have ideas for a feature (for example, improvements you want to see to Search and Filtering), please contact the Support committee about them instead. We won't be responding to feature requests on this news post.




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Lovesick Season 4 – Review and Release Date 2024

The release of a third season, although not confirmed, is highly anticipated by the fans. To know everything about the upcoming season, make sure you read till the end. A Peek Into The Story The plot of the story is centered on three friends, Dylan, Luke, and Evie inhabiting a common house in Glasgow. The ... Read more

The post Lovesick Season 4 – Review and Release Date 2024 appeared first on Star Two.





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Amazon Feeds Generator Updates

With continuation of our development process we are glad to introduce several updates for one of our most popular affiliate feeds generators – Amazon Feeds. Here is what’s new: New Amazon local stores Now we have a full list of Amazon local stores. You can find it in Advanced settings of Amazon Feeds generator. Each […]

The post Amazon Feeds Generator Updates appeared first on RSSground.com.



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  • amazon affiliate feeds
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CJ Affiliate Feeds Update. Action Required!

After the recent changes in CJ Affiliate developers API, we had to update our CJ Affiliate Feeds generator. If you have  CJ Affiliate feeds in your Feeds Box, they may have stopped working and require action on your part. From now on, in order to generate CJ Affiliate Feeds besides the Personal Access Token you […]

The post CJ Affiliate Feeds Update. Action Required! appeared first on RSSground.com.




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A Personal Feeds Update is Coming

The holiday season is over and we are back to work.  We are finishing up the final steps before introducing you our first update of the year. Next week we will release a major update for Personal Feeds (To finally make it what it was intended for). At last, you will be able to compose […]

The post A Personal Feeds Update is Coming appeared first on RSSground.com.




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RSS Ground Updates in July 2021

In July, we have prepared a list of updates that will help you manage your automated posting campaigns much easier.  Show If Feed Item Was Already Published. In posting campaign editor, you can use  “Feed Preview” option [], and find out which feed items were already published in that posting campaign. If you use “Recycle” […]

The post RSS Ground Updates in July 2021 appeared first on RSSground.com.




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Posting Campaigns Major Interface Update

We are excited to introduce posting campaign editor’s new interface. All changes are based on your notes and suggestions.  Now a posting campaign editor has 3 main sections: Content, Posting and Automation.  In the Content section you add your content feeds. Advanced settings will fine tune the algorithm of selecting  content from your feeds for […]

The post Posting Campaigns Major Interface Update appeared first on RSSground.com.



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