Wodicka, N; Steenkamp, H M; Peterson, T; Therriault, I; Whalen, J B; Tschirhart, V; Lawley, C J M; Guilmette, C; Kellett, D A; Weller, O M; Garrison, W; Kendrick, J; Davis, W J. Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 289-293, https://doi.org/10.4095/332501
<a href="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332501.jpg"><img src="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332501.jpg" title="Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 289-293, https://doi.org/10.4095/332501" height="150" border="1" /></a>

Berman, R G; Taylor, B E; Davis, W J; Sanborn-Barrie, M; Whalen, J B. Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 115-158, https://doi.org/10.4095/332497
<a href="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332497.jpg"><img src="https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/images/geoscan/gid_332497.jpg" title="Canada's northern Shield: new perspectives from the Geoscience for Energy and Minerals Program; Geological Survey of Canada, Bulletin 612, 2024 p. 115-158, https://doi.org/10.4095/332497" height="150" border="1" /></a>

Data Stack Evolution: Legacy Challenges and AI Innovation, a global report which included a survey of 775 manufacturing and supply chain IT decision-makers, found that almost three in five (58%) said their data leadership and IT teams work in silo.

Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon can identify with third baseman Nolan Arenado, which puts him in position to offer support rather than advice.

Marcus Stroman made himself available to the media for the first time this spring on Sunday morning, and what followed was an eventful 21 minutes that touched on almost every aspect of his game and the Blue Jays roster.

A unique population of ventral tegmental area (VTA) neurons co-transmits glutamate and GABA. However, the circuit inputs to VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ neurons are unknown, limiting our understanding of their functional capabilities. By coupling monosynaptic rabies tracing with intersectional genetic targeting in male and female mice, we found that VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ neurons received diverse brainwide inputs. The largest numbers of monosynaptic inputs to VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ neurons were from superior colliculus (SC), lateral hypothalamus (LH), midbrain reticular nucleus, and periaqueductal gray, whereas the densest inputs relative to brain region volume were from the dorsal raphe nucleus, lateral habenula, and VTA. Based on these and prior data, we hypothesized that LH and SC inputs were from glutamatergic neurons. Optical activation of glutamatergic LH neurons activated VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ neurons regardless of stimulation frequency and resulted in flee-like ambulatory behavior. In contrast, optical activation of glutamatergic SC neurons activated VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ neurons for a brief period of time at high frequency and resulted in head rotation and arrested ambulatory behavior (freezing). Stimulation of glutamatergic LH neurons, but not glutamatergic SC neurons, was associated with VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ footshock-induced activity and inhibition of LH glutamatergic neurons disrupted VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ tailshock-induced activity. We interpret these results such that inputs to VTA VGluT2+VGaT+ neurons may integrate diverse signals related to the detection and processing of motivationally salient outcomes.

Focusing on one person at a time, John uses everyday life as a way to meet people where they are and journey alongside them.

Two Soter RS full body scanners capable of detecting ingested or hidden contraband have been deployed at the New Bilibid Prison, according to the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).

1. India To Play Intra Squad Match At WACA Ahead Of Australia Tests, Public Not Allowed: Report  News18
2. Black veil of secrecy: India begin training in privacy in Perth  ESPNcricinfo
3. 'No request' from BCCI but Australian media report claims India wanted...  The Times of India
4. Of Coffee Date And Fam-Jam: Anushka Sharma And Virat Kohli's Perth Diaries  NDTV Movies
5. Batting time: India begin preparations in lockdown mode  Hindustan Times

The government contractor's deal is part of a growing strategy focused on acquiring other firms.

It is inevitable that we go into many contractual relationships and get obliged to some particular codes and actions in our daily life. Many times it happens that we don’t even know that...

Today, L&T technology Services Limited, an ER&D service provider to myriad technology continuum, inked a multi-million dollar contract with a giant global semi-conductor company.

Following a recent 0-3 Test series whitewash at home to New Zealand, the team is under pressure to perform well against Australia to maintain their chances of qualifying for the WTC.

Dearness Allowance is a critical part of government employees' and pensioners' earnings, helping to balance rising living costs and providing financial relief in times of inflation

Do you like hearing tech news? A great podcast that I really like is Geek News Central. You can grab the feed here.

Hamburg. German developer 4Players has launched ODIN Rooms, a secure, browser-based, decentralized video conferencing platform designed to challenge industry leaders like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Aimed at corporations, educational institutions, and non-profits, ODIN Rooms offers easy access through a simple URL, with no need for accounts or app installations, and enhances social messaging with enhanced privacy and crystal-clear audio quality.

Itzehoe/Tübingen, Germany – Setting the digital course for the future of battery cell production: Under the leadership of Customcells, the joint project TwinTrace brings together partners from industry and research to ensure particularly efficient production processes with the help of a so-called digital twin.

Specialist insurance broker GrECo acquires 100% of MAI CEE Ltd., a major risk, insurance and employee benefits consultant in CEE.

Tweaking the routes of a small number of planes could reduce the warming effect of contrails by half and cost less than €4 per ticket, according to a study.

The question becomes, what would your customer do when they turn to you and then you hire an independent contractor?

You are not ready to bring on a fulltime employee yet. But your customer is thinking at this point, why do not I hire the independent contractor and save some money? Does this scenario sound familiar to you?

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As a small business owner or self-employed individual, you may need to enter into a business contract. A business contract is a legal agreement between you and another party, and may be used in situations where services are rendered for a fee or specific duties are required to be performed. To be legally valid, a contract must contain several key elements.

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So blöd, wie es auf den ersten Blick aussehen mag, war die Frau keineswegs, die am 19.9.2007 einen Ehescheidungsantrag beim Schleswig-Holsteinischen Verwaltungsgericht einreichte. Welches Ziel hatte sie wohl mit ihrer - laut OLG Schleswig rechtsmissbräuchlichen, im Ergebnis aber doch erfolgreichen - Aktion im Auge?

El próximo domingo 24 de noviembre, el reconocido grupo musical Candela & Son ofrecerá un concierto solidario en Toledo con el propósito de recaudar fondos para los afectados por la reciente DANA. El evento, que comenzará a las 19.00 horas en el pabellón del Colegio Nuestra Señora de los Infantes, tiene un costo de entrada […]

Artículo publicado en : Concierto Solidario De Candela&Son En Toledo Por La DANA: ¡Consigue Tus Entradas Ya!

Un document confidentiel de l'ONU, qui fait état de viols sur mineurs par des soldats français, a été transmis par un employé des Nations unies aux autorités françaises. Une enquête préliminaire a été ouverte ainsi qu'une "enquête de commandement" au...

De eerste wielrenner die via het fietsprogramma Zwift een profcontract heeft verdiend is een feit. Team Dimension Data schreef eerder ...... Lees verder: Zwift levert renner profcontract op

Senior Fantasy Baseball Expert Shawn Childs examines the backend of each team in the American League Central.

A hub for all of Week 1's Fantasy Baseball articles and videos by your FullTime Fantasy Sports Experts!

Eine Gruppe von Bundestagsabgeordneten hat Bundestagspräsidentin Bas einen Antrag auf ein Verbotsverfahren gegen die AfD übergeben. Angesichts der vorgezogenen Wahl unterstreicht Mitinitiator Wanderwitz die Dringlichkeit eines Verbots.

Séance photo d’identité cette après-midi. Tout va très vite. Le photographe me tire le portrait sous 5 ou 6 angles différents en moins d’une minute. Il change ensuite de casquette et se transforme en retoucheur d’images sur photoshop. Ses doigts volent...

Radio Centre 2LT, controlled by Lithgow Broadcasters Pty. Ltd. and an offshoot of Western Newspapers Pty. Ltd. commenced entertaining its 26,000 town listeners on June 7th, 1938. As Lithgow's "Sunshine Station," 2LT has won the confidence...

Alexandra's only independently owned radio station is going off air....

Station 2GZ, Central New South Wales, commenced operations on Thursday, October 31st, 1935, with a powerful transmitter situated at Amaroo, twelve miles from Orange. Rapidly 2GZ became one of the most important and popular radio stations...

Concentration Camp Lichterfelde in Berlin was a sub-camp of Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen.

Site in German:
http://www.ikz-lichterfelde.de/

Concentration Camp Lichtenrade in Berlin was a sub-camp of Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen.

PRZOOM - Newswire (press release) - Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:00:00 -0500, Nanterre Hauts-de-Seine France - VINCI Construction through its subsidiaries VINCI Construction Grands Projets (lead contractor), GTM Sud-Ouest TP GC and Chantiers Modernes Nouvelle-Aquitaine, has been awarded by Veolia the design and build of a new household-waste-to-energy plant

Salish Excavation and Trucking LLC has launched a new website, designed by Prospect Genius, to provide customers with easy access to their full range of excavation and trucking services. The updated, mobile-friendly site includes detailed service information and allows customers in the Port Angeles area to connect easily for free estimates. [PR.com]

The contract on the land settled today. As of 12:00pm we are the proud owners of another 330 sqm (about 3700 sq ft) of vacant land. It all happened today without any interaction on my behalf, other than receiving a phone call from the real estate agent, the home loan broker, and the conveyancer all telling us the contract had settled.

Went and saw the salesman in his office today to sign the building contract. First piece of good news was that the house plan was given the preliminary go ahead from the local council despite the problems I discussed yesterday. Of course there is a chance that they may change their mind and we may end up having to alter the plan to comply with some bureaucratic requirement. This could potentially mean more costs.

The building contract we signed was the standard contract offered by the Housing Industry Association here in Australia. Using the standard contract, written in plain English makes the whole process a lot easier to understand. The salesman was great and took us through every section of the contract and explained its purpose and potential effects on us. Key things that came out of it are:

The whole process took a bit over an hour and included some preliminary selections for the house such as the shape of internal archways. It would have taken longer but the salesman's printer ran out of ink and some of the paperwork was not signed. This will be mailed to us in the next week.

In spite of not signing some paperwork with the main contract signed and the deposit paid the actual process of building can start. This will include drawing up a site plan, conducting soil tests and writing engineering reports, and submitting the plans to council for development and building approval. We've been told 3-4 months from today we can expect the foundations to go down. Here's hoping it's only that long!

(Telecompaper) Vodafone Ireland ended Q2 FY25 with 2.15 million mobile customers, with contract customers accounting for 65.7 percent...

(Telecompaper) Synchronoss Technologies has renewed its contract to provide French operator SFR with the Synchronoss Personal Cloud storage platform...

1. GOP Rep. Valadao holds Central Valley, California, swing seat  POLITICO
2. Republican David Valadao wins re-election to US House in California's 22nd Congressional District  Fox News
3. Republican David Valadao secures California House wins  Newsweek

1. US defense contractor to pay former Iraqi detainees $42 million for its role in torture at notorious Abu Ghraib prison  CNN
2. Abu Ghraib torture survivors win US civil case, $42m damages  Al Jazeera English
3. US jury awards $42m to ex-detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib  BBC.com
4. How a Troy lawyer convinced U.S. jury to award $42 million to 3 Iraqi prisoners  Detroit Free Press
5. U.S. Jury Awards $42 Million to Iraqi Men Abused at Abu Ghraib  The New York Times

Summary: In session after session, attendees at EIC are hearing the message that decentralized identity is the answer to their identity problems.

I'm at European Identity Conference (EIC) this week. I haven't been for several years. One thing that has struck me is how much of the conversation is about decentralized identity and verifiable credentials. I can remember when the whole idea of decentralized identity was anathema here. The opening keynote, by Martin Kuppinger is Vision 2030: Rethinking Digital Identity in the Era of AI and Decentralization. And all he's talking about is decentralized identity and how it's at the core of solving long standing identity problems. Another data point: Steve McCown and Kim Hamilton-Duffy ran a session this morning called Decentralized Identity Technical Mastery which was a hands-on workshop. The rather large room was packed—standing room only.

I attended a couple of sessions on decentralized identity where I didn't know the companies, the speakers, or the specific platforms they were using. The space is too big to keep track of anymore. Identity professionals who were ignoring, or talking down, decentralized identity a few years ago are now promoting it.

This truly feels like a tipping point to me. At IIW, it's identity geeks talking with other identity geeks, so it's no surprise to see lots of discussion about new things. EIC is a different kind of conference. There are about 1000 people here I'd guess. Most of them aren't working on new standards or open source projects. Instead they're the folks from companies who come to conferences like EIC to learn how to solve the problems their organization is facing.

In the keynotes and in numerous sessions, the message that they're hearing is "decentralized identity will solve your problems." Martin closed his talk with the proclamation that "decentralized identity is the new paradigm for identity."

Photo Credit: Credential Tipping Point by DALL-E (public domain) Prompt: Draw a rectangular picture that shows a credential at a tipping point. Make the credential look like a lifelike credential, include cartoon picture, and some writing. Use bright friendly colors.

Tags: identity ssi decentralized+identity verifiable+credentials

Summary: What is decentralized identity and why is it important? My attempt at a simple explanation.

In Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, nah, Alan Mayo references my recent blog post, Decentralized Identity Comes of Age, and says:

My challenge to the decentralization community is for them (someone) to explain how it works in relatively simple and reasonable terms. I say relative because identity is not simple, so we should not expect simple solutions.

This post is my attempt to do that for Alan and others.

Identity is how we recognize, remember, react to, and interact with other people, organizations, and services. Put another way, identity is about relationships. Online we suffer from a proximity problem. Since we're not near the parties we want to have relationships with, our natural means of recognizing, remembering, and interacting with others can't be used. Digital identity systems are meant to provide us with the means of creating online relationships.

Traditional identity systems have not served us well because they are owned and controlled by companies who build them for their own purposes. The relationships they support are anemic and transactional. We can't use them for any purpose except what their owner's allow.

Decentralized identity systems¹ on the other hand allow you to create online relationships with any person, organization, or service you choose and give you the tools to manage and use those relationships. They help you recognize, remember, react to, and interact with them. The most important tool is a decentralized identity wallet. The world of decentralized identity wallets is still young, but organizations like the Linux Foundation's Open Wallet Foundation give me hope that useful, interoperable wallets are a tool we'll all be able to use soon. They are as foundational to decentralized identity as a browser is to the web.

Besides helping you manage peer-to-peer relationships with others online, wallets hold verifiable credentials, the digital analog to the credentials and cards you carry in a physical wallet. One of the most important aspects of digital relationships is providing information about yourself to those you interact with. Sometimes that information can come from you—it's self-asserted—but many times the other party wants to reliably know what others say about you. For example, if you establish a banking relationship, the bank is legally obligated to verify things like your name and address independent of what you say. Decentralized identity wallets allow you to prove things about yourself using credentials others provide to you. At the same time, they protect your privacy by limiting the information disclosed and forgoing the need for the party you're interacting with to directly contact others to verify the information you provide.

In summary, decentralized identity systems allow you to create digital relationships with other parties independently, without relying on any other organization or service. These relationships are direct, private, and secure. They also provide the means for you to prove things about yourself inside these relationships so that even though you're operating at a distance, you and the other party can have confidence in the relationship's authenticity.

How Does It Work

The preceding paragraphs say what decentralized identity is, and provide its benefits, but don't say how it works. Alan and others will likely want a few more details. Everything I describe below is handled by the wallet. The person using the wallet doesn't need to have any more knowledge of how they work than the operator of a browser needs to understand HTTP and HTML.

The foundation of a peer-to-peer, decentralized online relationship is an autonomic identifier like a peer DID. Identifiers are handles that someone else can use to identify someone or something else online. Peer DIDs can be created by a wallet at will, they're free, and they're self-certifying (i.e., there's no need for a third party). A relationship is created when two identity wallets create and exchange peer DIDs with each other on behalf of their owners. Peer DIDs allow the parties to the relationship to exchange private, secure messages.

There are four primary interaction patterns that wallets undertake when exchanging messages:

1. DID Authentication which uses the DIDs to allow each party to authenticate the other
2. Single-Party Credential Authorization where the same party issues and verifies the credential.
3. Multi-Party Authorization where the credential issuer and verifier are different parties.
4. Generalized Trustworthy Data Transfer which uses a collection of credentials to aid the wallet owner in completing online workflows.

Verifiable credentials make heavy use of cryptography to provide not only security and privacy, but also confidence that the credential data is authentic. This confidence is based on four properties a properly designed credential presentation protocol provides:

1. The identifier of the credential issuer
2. Proof that the credential is being presented by the party is was issued to
3. Proof that the credential has not been tampered with
4. The revocation status of the credential

The credential presentation can do all this while only disclosing the information needed for the interaction and without the verifier having to contact the credential issuer. Not having to contact the issuer ensures the credential can be used in situations with poor connectivity, that the issuer needn't be online, and preserves the credential subject's privacy about where the credential is being used.

A properly designed credential exchange protocol has four important properties:

1. The system is decentralized and contextual. There is no central authority for all credentials. Every party can be an issuer, an owner, and a verifier. The system can be adapted to any country, any industry, any community, any set of credentials, any set of trust relationships.
2. Issuers are free to determine what credentials to issue and whether or not to revoke them.
3. Wallet owners are free to choose which credentials to carry and where and when they get shared. While some verifiers require a specific credential—such as a customs agent requiring a passport—others will accept a range of credentials. Therefore owners can decide which credentials to carry in their wallet based on the verifiers with whom they interact.
4. Verifiers make their own decisions about which credentials to accept. For example, a bar you are trying to enter may accept any credential you have about your date of birth. This means some credentials (e.g., passports, driving licenses, birth certificates) may be much more useful than just for the original purpose for which they were issued.

These properties make a decentralized identity system self sovereign.

Why is Decentralized Identity Important?

Decentralized identity systems are designed to provide people with control, security, and privacy while enhancing the confidence we have in our online relationships. Some time ago, I wrote the following. I think it's an apt way to close any discussion of decentralized identity because unless we keep our eyes on the goal, we'll likely take shortcuts in implementation that fail to live up to their promise.

Presently, people don't have operational relationships anywhere online.² We have plenty of online relationships, but they are not operational because we are prevented from acting by their anemic natures. Our helplessness is the result of the power imbalance that is inherent in bureaucratic relationships. The solution to the anemic relationships created by administrative identity systems is to provide people with the tools they need to operationalize their self-sovereign authority and act as peers with others online. Peer-to-peer relationships are the norm in the physical world. When we dine at a restaurant or shop at a store in the physical world, we do not do so under the control of some administrative system. Rather, we act as embodied agents and operationalize our relationships, whether they be long-lived or nascent, by acting for ourselves. Any properly designed decentralized identity system must provide people with the tools they need to be "embodied" in the digital world and act autonomously.

Time and again, various people have tried to create decentralized marketplaces or social networks only to fail to gain traction. These systems fail because they are not based on a firm foundation that allows people to act in relationships with sovereign authority in systems mediated through protocol rather than by the whims of companies. We have a fine example of a protocol mediated system in the internet, but we've failed to take up the daunting task of building the same kind of system for identity. Consequently, when we act, we do so without firm footing or sufficient leverage.

Ironically, the internet broke down the walled gardens of CompuServe and Prodigy with a protocol-mediated metasystem, but surveillance capitalism has rebuilt them on the web. No one could live an effective life in an amusement park. Similarly, we cannot function as fully embodied agents in the digital sphere within the administrative systems of surveillance capitalists, despite their attractions. The emergence of self-sovereign identity, agreements on protocols, and the creation of metasystems to operationalize them promises a digital world where decentralized interactions create life-like online experiences. The richer relationships that result from properly designed decentralized identity systems promise an online future that gives people the opportunity to act for themselves as autonomous human beings and supports their dignity so that they can live an effective online life.

Notes

1. I prefer the term self-sovereign to decentralized because it describes the goal rather than the implementation, but I'll stick with decentralized here. All self-sovereign identity systems are decentralized. Not all decentralized identity systems are self-sovereign.
2. The one exception I can think of to this is email. People act through email all the time in ways that aren't intermediated by their email provider. Again, it's a result of the architecture of email, set up over four decades ago and the culture that architecture supports.

Photo Credit: Young Woman Using a Wallet from DALL-E (public domain) Prompt: draw a rectangular picture of a young woman using a wallet.

Tags: identity ssi decentralized+identity verifiable+credentials

Fr. Tom teaches on this significant feast at the beginning of the Nativity season.

In the first 20 episodes of Worship in Spirit and in Truth, Fr. Thomas gave us the background and basis for our eucharistic worship. He now begins his walk through the Divine Liturgy itself beginning with the entrance of the bishop and clergy leading up to the start of the Liturgy.

The first procession in the Divine Liturgy is referred to as the "Little Entrance" where the Gospel Book is brought into the altar and the call to worship is proclaimed.

As the Little Entrance is concluded a transition is taking place to the proclamation of the Word of God. Today Fr. Tom comments on that transition as well as the choice of readings for the Divine Liturgy.