In 2006 Mencap produced a comprehensive review of short break provision. Now, 10 years on, they are revisiting the support available for family carers to see whether recent policy initiatives and investment have delivered the much-needed change. A total of 264 family carers responded to their survey on short breaks provision and experiences of caring. They also sent Freedom of Information requests to all 152 local authorities in England that provide social care services. This report looks at short breaks provision in a climate of cuts to central and local government budgets. It examines the extent to which these cuts have impacted on the lives of people with a learning disability and their family carers. It also looks at the state of affairs for family carers of children and young people across the full spectrum of learning disability; from people with mild and moderate learning disabilities, to people with severe and profound disabilities.

We seem doomed to confront Christmas displays before the Halloween candy is eaten.

Open thread below...

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As the new year brings in a new peak in COVID cases across the country, we all have a right to feel a little down in the dumps. One trend picked up by surveys earlier in the pandemic was a drop in self-reported happiness. Now, with a new year of General Social Survey data released, […]

Timothy Zahn's Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire was first released in hardcover on May 1, 1991.

It’s a hot and beautiful summer day at the bottom of the Grand Canyon as I stand in line for a sandwich. Our rafting guides have set up an amazing spread of fixings. There’s even vegan cheese for me. All that’s missing are plates and napkins. After washing our hands with river water and soap in a foot-pumped bucket sink, we put our bread on one hand and try to layer on all the sandwich ingredients with the other. Scooping out avocado is especially difficult one-handed. It's clumsy, but admirable when you realize we are generating no paper or plastic[...]

The discovery of an impeccably preserved Celtic burial chamber in southern Germany is a "stroke of luck for archaeology," scientists say.

An analysis looking at the hand bones of australopithecines, apes and humans reveals that tool use likely evolved before the Homo genus arose.

The 36-year-old founder of the Bitcoin Fog cryptocurrency mixer has been sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for facilitating money laundering activities between 2011 and 2021. Roman Sterlingov, a dual Russian-Swedish national, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business earlier this March. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ)

I completed Mass Effect 2 a couple of days ago for the first time. This article contains spoilers…

The post Journey to the Year 1917 When Russia Had a Revolution appeared first on English Russia.

Twenty years ago the first edition of The Practice of System and Network Administration shipped! Since then there has been a 2nd and 3rd edition (2006 and 2014), plus a sequel book The Practice of Cloud System Administration, and many printings. (see the timeline here)

When we started the project we had no idea if it would be a success. There was a real chance it could be a flop. Many people told us that our proposal was illogical: How could you have a book about system administration that is vendor agnostic and talks about process and people instead of specific tools and operating systems? Well, to be honest, we took a deep breath and started writing anyway. It took 2+ years but in Sept/Oct 2001 the book finally shipped!

Instead of a flop, the reaction we got was very positive! It has sold tens of thousands of copies. Many universities have used the book and its future editions as text books. It received the Usenix LISA Outstanding Achievement Award. One DevOps pundit told me she considers it to be "the first devops book" which was quite humbling.

When I visited Google in 2004 (a year before I considered joining) I was told everyone in the "systems operations" team was given a copy on their first day. The person giving me a tour then took me to a supply closet with 30 copies awaiting to be distributed to new hires.

However the real satisfaction comes from how it has helped others. Fans have related many heartwarming stories. Many fans have told us they felt like reading the book was a turning point in their life, that the book "turned me into a professional system administrator".

To thank our readers, our publisher is offering a special deal: 45% off the latest editions now until Oct 31, 2021 What? You still have the 2nd edition and haven't seen the dozens of chapters of new material in the 3rd edition? Or maybe you haven't heard of our Cloud book? Now is your chance to get the 3rd edition or the cloud sequel!

• Use this link: https://informit.com/tposa
• Use this coupon code: TPOSA

Thank you to everyone that gave us feedback on the early drafts! Thank you to all our readers! This book changed our lives and we hope it changed yours too!

P.S. We would love to hear from you! Please post a comment with reflections on the book.

It All Started with Hexie-lust!

Getting Hooked on Crochet

Original Crochet-Along, Frida's Flowers

Bored with making 6 identical flowers - Colors calling us!

Designing Our Afghans

Entering at the San Juan County Fair

Princeton Jazz Vocal Ensemble, directed by Michelle Lordi, presents a series of jazz pieces from the year 1959.

Can paranoia be a mode of historical emplotment? The catastrophe of the First World War produced a genre of pessimistic writing. Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West was among the most widely read. Still, the era produced dozens similar: Francesco Nitti’s The Decadence of Europe: The Path To Reconstruction (1923), Albert Demangeon’s Le Déclin de l’ Europe (1923), Wythe Williams’ Dusk of Empire: The Decline of Europe And The Rise Of The United States (1937), and Arturo Labriola’s Le Crépuscule de la Civilisation: L’Occident et les peoples de couleur (1936). In all, the coming historical consciousness of the colonized world figures significantly. Drawing on Hayden White’s notion of historical emplotment, this presentation will examine the paranoid structure of such writing.

Bouchiba continued getting jobs at major studios like Pixar and Dreamworks even after being added to France's national sex offender registry in 2014.

There is not a soul in the world who doesn’t know about YouTube and this platform is the home of more than 800 million videos. If someone chose to watch every single video that is on this platform, they would need close to 20,000 years to finish them all. Some of the content on this ... Read more

The post 6 Most Popular Music Videos on YouTube in the Last 7 Years appeared first on Star Two.

Dear Friends, At this special time of the year, RSS Ground team would like to send you its best greetings and wish you happy holidays. We express you our sincerest appreciation for being with RSS Ground. And we thank you for making our job enthralling and enjoyable. May God bless you and may the new […]

The post Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! appeared first on RSSground.com.

May this Christmas be a fitting ending to a successful year for you. May the New Year bring fresh hopes and bright beginnings!

The post Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! appeared first on RSSground.com.

Dear RSS Ground Users! We sincerely wish you happy holidays! May peace and prosperity always stay in your homes, May joy and happiness always follow you in your life. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The post Merry Christmas And Happy New Year!!! appeared first on RSSground.com.

Dear Friends, RSS Ground team wishes you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! May all your current plans and projects be successful and bring you joy and happiness. We have a lot of exciting plans for 2022 and will continue developing our service to make your work online easier. Happy Holidays!

The post Merry Christmas And Happy New Year! appeared first on RSSground.com.

There is no perfect moment to take action for success, always strive to bring your ambition to life.  Wishing you great inspiration and success!

The post Merry Christmas And Happy New Year! appeared first on RSSground.com.

The magic of the holiday season is upon us, and it’s the perfect time to reflect on the year that has flown by. Here at RSS Ground, we’ve been on an incredible journey, one that would not have been possible without you, our dedicated users. Your trust has empowered us to continuously enhance our offerings, […]

The post Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! appeared first on RSSground.com.

The new books capture all the storylines of the 2024 racing season in stunning photography, reporting and analysis
( Photos: 15, Comments: 15 )

The oldest DNA ever retrieved, preserved in sediments in northern Greenland, reveals that Arctic and temperate species once commingled in an ecosystem unlike anything that exists today.

After the initial shock had worn off and the country began pulling together, people were looking for ways not only to express themselves but also to uplift others.

Virgin Atlantic and British Airways have announced further suspension of routes

Microsoft is planning to no longer support the Windows Mail, Calendar, and People apps later this year. The Verge: The software giant has been moving existing users of these apps over to the new Outlook for Windows app in recent months, and now it has set an end of support date for the Mail, Calendar, and People apps of December 31st. Once the apps reach end of support later this year, Microsoft warns that users who haven't moved to the new Outlook app "will no longer be able to send and receive email using Windows Mail and Calendar." Microsoft has been rolling out the new Outlook for Windows app for years, with it officially reaching the general availability stage in August. The new web-based Outlook is designed to eventually replace the full desktop version of Outlook too, and Microsoft plans to provide enterprise customers a 12-month notice before it starts to move people away from the desktop version of Outlook.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: Former Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years for stealing classified information from the Pentagon and sharing it online, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts announced. Teixeira received the sentence before Judge Indira Talwani in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. In March, the national guardsman pleaded guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. He was arrested by the FBI in North Dighton, Massachusetts, in April 2023 and has been in federal custody since mid-May 2023. According to court documents, Teixeira transcribed classified documents that he then shared on Discord, a social media platform mostly used by online gamers. He began sharing the documents in or around 2022. A document he was accused of leaking included information about providing equipment to Ukraine, while another included discussions about a foreign adversary's plot to target American forces abroad, prosecutors said. [...] While the documents were discovered online in March 2023, Teixeira had been sharing them online since January of that year, according to prosecutors.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It is also set to be the world's first breach of 1.5C of warming across an entire calendar year.

Over the past year, Aya and Khalid have been filming their lives for a BBC documentary.

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.

F1 in 10 Years is a new BBC Sport series that talks to the decision-makers in Formula One about the future they would like to see.

In the latest 'F1 in 10 Years' video, BBC Sport asks young fans what changes they would like to see in the sport over the next decade.

Body camera footage shows the moment a boy was saved from his home in Texas after his mother couldn't reach him in the fire.

Teixeira leaked highly classified Pentagon documents to an online platform popular with gamers.

Watch: First time Gary Lineker presented Match of the Day

Mika Ap Ellis was reunited with her dad after 30 years of being estranged.

The princess has begun to return to some public duties since finishing chemotherapy in September.

Nadezhda Buyanova denied making the remarks and called the case absurd.

Kieran McKenna describes Ipswich's 2-1 victory at Tottenham - their first Premier League win in 22 years - as a "massive moment" and validation for the players' hard work.

Tennessee’s third set of test scores from the pandemic era improved again across all core subjects and grades, even exceeding pre-pandemic proficiency rates in English language arts and social studies. The academic snapshot suggests that Tennessee’s early investments in summer learning camps and intensive tutoring are paying off to counter three straight years of COVID-related disruptions. But the performance of historically underserved students — including children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — still lags.

A few tips for ensuring that students—particularly those with disabilities and English learners—and their families get the year off to a good start.

A pro shares things you shouldn't do when buying a bra, like not switching up cup styles and assuming the clothing shouldn't leave marks on your skin.

Marilyn Chinitz has worked with celebs like Tom Cruise, Michael Douglas, and Wendy Williams. She has been happily married for 38 years.

Companies have continued to cut jobs in 2024 after a wave of layoffs last year. Meta, Goldman Sachs, Google, and Tesla are among those shedding staff.

Côte d'Ivoire is sub Sahara Africa's biggest importer of wine, says the US department of agriculture, and it is time American companies take advantage of the market.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has raised the alarm over climate change, reporting 2024 is the world's hottest year yet.

It’s been quiet here for a few months. Yesterday I posted a longish piece on LinkedIn explaining why, and for those of you wondering what I’ve been up to lately, I figured I’d repost it here…. — DOC – The First Chapter More than 200 eclectic, incisive, and peripatetically curious folks gathered last week, bound … Continue reading "What I’ve Been Up To This Past Year: DOC"