Question: Describe the capabilities and uses of OmniTrail's technology.

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 Describe the capabilities and uses of OmniTrail's technology.

OmniTrail's proprietary "passive presence" protocol and corresponding micro-location software leverages in-market infrastructure to enable highly power efficient, accurate (to within 1.5m) and secure positioning solutions without requiring any hardware changes on tracked endpoint devices or on-premise network infrastructure.
OmniTrail also does not require endpoint devices being tracked to have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth switched on.
Physical asset verification and a robust corresponding data sync are becoming increasingly imperative tools for firms in manufacturing, distribution and logistics.
OmniTrail facilitates the precise and real-time tracking of inventory or on-premise equipment which drastically reduces human intervention and subsequent loss/errors.
Flexible APIs allow for real-time exporting of positioning data, further reducing the total cost-of-ownership (TCO) as compared to existing asset tracking solutions.
OmniTrail empowers enterprises across retail, hospitality, manufacturing and logistics sectors to locate their employees with high accuracy, and requires no physical enagagement by staff to start or keep the service turned on.
The results include innovative new ways to export and optimize workforce location data, foster real-time collaboration, and encourage creative communication.
OmniTrail has multiple ongoing initiatives in the public safety domain. Please contact us for more information.
Live demos are available at partner facilities in San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC and London. Please use the contact form to request a scheduled demo.


Question: Respond in 43 sentences. Write an article on separation of concerns in the Semantic Web, HTML5 and frameworks such as Angular and Bootstrap.

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 Respond in 43 sentences. Write an article on separation of concerns in the Semantic Web, HTML5 and frameworks such as Angular and Bootstrap.

The idea of the Semantic Web has been present since 2001. Back at 2006, Tim Berners Lee, widely recognized as the inventor of the World Wide Web came publicly with an initiative that was supposed to make the web a better place. The goal was to form a web of data which would contain elements linked by ontologies. The ontologies are actually a formal way to represent naming, types, and relations between elements.
The benefits of this approach are obvious, it would make the web more searchable and accessible.
Even though that exact idea didn’t get much further, the goal of standardizing the web remains.
One of the efforts in this regard was the adoption of HTML5, which is an HTML specification that has semantics as one of its core ideas. For example, anyone can notice that recently <b> and <i> tags in HTML are replaced with <strong> and <em> tags. This is because bold and italic are too much presentation related, and don’t speak much of the content. Bold and italic wouldn’t matter much on a browser for blind people, for example.
This leads us to the next point which is – the separation of concerns. To be more precise, one of the key Semantic Web concepts is the separation of content and presentation. It’s a philosophy that says that the meaning of any document should be contained in one place, while that the logic for presenting it should be in another.
In the usual setup, it would mean that the content should be covered within the markup language – HTML, while styling should be done with a tool that is intended for such a purpose, such as CSS. I think that this makes sense in practice too, as by structuring HTML around what content actually means, rather than how it looks, you can later change the way it looks without having to edit both the HTML and the CSS.
My intention was to talk generally about the idea in this article. I don’t do much frontend stuff, so I am not going to discuss the actual development of Angular or Bootstrap apps, but rather the consequences it creates.
The most problematic thing to me is that frameworks such as Angular, Ember or Bootstrap clutter your HTML with needless elements, attributes and attribute values which make your HTML not conform to the original specification.
Personally, I don’t see how Angular’s ng-click is better than onclick, as these new attributes are not part of the original HTML specification. Yes, there are workarounds for this, if we are talking about Angular, but unfortunately most people don’t use them.
Bootstrap also has a bad practice of giving non semantic class names and if you thought that class names don’t matter, check this . Class names like “big” and “small” are diminishing the efforts to achieve separation of concerns.
It just doesn’t contribute much to bringing order to something that matters so much to everyone, don’t you think?
Thank you for the bright thoughts on the current front-end state. Although this article dates from mid-2015, the topic still produces sparkles between back-end and front-end colleagues.
Should we bring order to something that matters so much to everyone? Yes, we should. We are developers and that is actually our primary responsibility.
Bootstrap looks completely misunderstood and overused today. It is not a production framework, but a tool for scaffolding web projects and rapidly prototyping. If you are worried about the best practices, Bootstrap offers the ways to achieve them: you can extend custom Sass (now an official port) class names with Bootstrap ones and keep the markup clean.
Bootstrap is great to learn from, even from its weaknesses. Every front-end developer should be able to think in a component-based way. With the help of several CSS naming concepts (BEM, SMACSS, OOCSS), you may create highly flexible and modular front-ends that fit your/company needs. This process may take some time and that is why many companies today rely on a half-baked solution. The benefit of having an internal front-end framework is a lower dependency and higher maintainability.
Angular’s `ng-click` isn’t that bad because it is actually a shortened HTML5 attribute `data-ng-click` but compiler handles it behind the scene. I wouldn’t call it a valid tradeoff but we may prefix all the custom attributes with data-* and validator will be happy. As someone said “single-page apps draw a line in the sand of progressive enhancement” and that might be an issue. The question is what are you building and who is going to use it? If your app is going to be used by a specific organization or banking department people, it may be perfect to use (or create) a framework when you know the exact context and required features.
The web is an evolving medium—our expectations and playful interactions were unimaginative in the 90s, not to mention the range of devices, browsers, operating systems etc. Front-end today has to fit in various development and deployment processes, support different environments, care about security, handle data provided by back-end (REST), communicate asynchronously, and do a lot of stuff that wasn’t intended initially.


Question: Describe the impact of Ukraine's Babchenko hoax on the media. Respond in detail.

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 Describe the impact of Ukraine's Babchenko hoax on the media. Respond in detail.

Arkady Babchenko, the Russian journalist apparently gunned down in his Kiev home on Tuesday, is alive. The journalist, who had twice moved city with his family following threats against his life, revealed in a shock press conference on Wednesday that his death had been staged as part of an elaborate hoax in conjunction with Ukrainian authorities.
This came hours after Ukraine’s prime minister condemned his “murder”, holding the Russian state responsible for the death of another critical journalist. Reporters who had met and worked with Babchenko grieved his death and condemned his killing. NGOs spoke out against it. And then the hoax was revealed.
Let us be clear: it is an unequivocally good thing that Babchenko is alive, and if the Ukrainian state played a role in preventing his death, it is to be applauded. But on the facts that we know at this stage, that’s where the good news ends: Ukraine’s audacious hoax has handed Russia a once-in-a-generation propaganda victory that it is perfectly suited to exploit.
In the simplest terms, Russia now has the perfect distraction any time it stands accused of wrongdoing. When someone wants to ask about Russia’s role in poisoning the Skripals in Salisbury, it can point to Ukraine’s false flag operation and ask what proof we have this wasn’t another – as useful idiots on social media have already begun to do.
When it is confronted with its stealth invasion of Crimea, it can point to the Babchenko hoax. When asked about the shooting down of MH17 by a Russian-armed militia group, it can point to Babchenko. Whenever, for the next decade, someone tries to hold the Russian mafia state responsible for its wrongdoings, it – and its media outlets, bots, and supporters – can point to Ukraine’s hoax and demand an impossible burden of truth.
That would be an impossibly good PR victory for any state looking to hide its sins, but – as Ukraine should know better than any other country – Russia’s entire international propaganda approach relies on exactly this kind of tactic. It creates a surreal “infosmog” in which there is never a clear narrative and no-one is ever sure of who to trust. By hoaxing the world’s media (and many international allies) in an intelligence-backed operation, Ukraine has made the smog all the denser.
Russia’s information war tactics are detailed in public Nato documents, but are perhaps best summarised by former Nato press officer as “dismiss, distort, distract, dismay” – rather than trying to push one counter-narrative, the country offers up dozens, releases lists of dozens of impossible-to-answer but reasonable seeming questions challenging the narrative, and engages in whataboutery to change the issue at hand. The Nato handbook on such tactics notes this is accomplished by “exploiting vulnerabilities in the target society, particularly freedom of expression and democratic principles”.
Ukraine – which has been the prime target of so many of these tactics – has made that job vastly easier for Russia. It has also made the work of investigative journalists much harder, and further risked the safety of many. One of the most common charges used to discredit journalists – and to make them “legitimate” targets – is to suggest they are either working as spies, or are in league with them. By so publicly aligning with an independent journalist, this allegation is seemingly confirmed, threatening the very legitimacy of the profession.
There could yet be a third act to this surreal tale – and we should hope that there is. If Ukraine has somehow managed to shake loose a Russian assassination network, arresting not just one would-be killer but handlers and more, through this stunt, it could perhaps still turn this around. If it has evidence to support its claims – that could be verified, as no-one will take Ukraine’s word for much anymore – and will release it, perhaps this can be turned around.
But at the press conference, Ukraine’s representatives offered nothing more than childish grins, at a stunt done well.
As it stands, some people online have likened Ukraine to the boy who cried wolf – a reference to the old tale of the shepherd who falsely cries wolf, only to be ignored when his herd is actually attacked. The reality is worse than that: Ukraine is the boy whose flock has been savaged by wolves more than once, who the world believed and stood ready to support – who then decided to cry wolf anyway. What will the world do next time Ukraine wants its attention?


Question: Describe a situation in which a person might benefit from using Paradromics's brain-machine interface technology.

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 Describe a situation in which a person might benefit from using Paradromics's brain-machine interface technology.

Prototype of Paradromics brain-machine interface Paradromics Inc.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a warehouse district here, a few young engineers fueled by ramen and energy bars are inventing the future of mind reading.
Paradromics has big ambitions: It wants to squeeze a device the size of a mobile phone into a chip small enough to insert into a human brain, where it would “read” nerve signals and replace senses and abilities lost due to injury or diseases.
August 29, 1987, 30 years ago, I was hit HEAD-ON on my way back to college. I had a SEVERE TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY. I lost my RIGHT FIELD of VISION from BOTH EYES. I would LOVE to be able to SEE to the RIGHT AGAIN. DO they need a volunteer?


Question: Explain China's increasing hostility towards "Western values."

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 Explain China's increasing hostility towards "Western values."

China Campaigns Against 'Western Values,' but Does Beijing Really Think They're That Bad?
The anti-Western campaign comes as an increasing number of Chinese students head overseas for study. Around 300,000 Chinese students have flocked to American schools. Chinese President Xi Jingping’s own daughter attended Harvard University, while many offspring of China’s political elite also study abroad. Still, the antiforeign rhetoric continues back at home. Earlier this month, cartoon posters in Beijing entitled “Dangerous Love” warned Chinese women off dating Western men, lest they turn out to be foreign spies. A video produced by the Chinese Ministry of State Security also portrayed Western comic-book characters, such as the Joker and Wonder Woman, as foreign moles. After just a month’s operation, Apple’s online book and film services were blocked in China earlier last week, a presumed victim of a mounting crackdown on Internet freedom and online publishing.
On April 28, China’s legislature passed a controversial law giving the Ministry of Public Security broad oversight of foreign NGOs starting next year. The assumption girding the law is that some foreign non-profits — which fund everything from poverty alleviation and environmental awareness to health and legal initiatives — may be national security threats. “A minority of foreign NGOs, through the means of funds and some methods, are able to harm China’s national security interests and [undertake] some other illegal criminal activity,” Hao Yunhong, head of the Ministry of Public Security’s foreign-NGO-management office, said at a press conference on Thursday, according to state media. Hundreds of China’s own civil-society activists have been silenced or detained since President Xi took power in late 2012.


Question: Tell me about Desmond Doss.

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 Tell me about Desmond Doss.

On April 1, 1942, Desmond Doss joined the United States Army. Little did he realize that three and a half years later, he would be standing on the White House lawn, receiving the nation's highest award for his bravery and courage under fire.
Of the 16 million men in uniform during World War II, only 431 received the Congressional Medal of Honor. One of these was placed around the neck of a young Seventh-day Adventist, who during combat had not killed a single enemy soldier. In fact, he refused to carry a gun. His only weapons were his Bible and his faith in God.
President Harry S. Truman warmly shook the hand of Corporal Desmond Thomas Doss, and then held it the entire time his citation was read aloud to those gathered outside the White House on October 12, 1945. "I'm proud of you," Truman said. "You really deserve this. I consider this a greater honor than being president."
The journey that had brought young Desmond to this day had been a challenging one. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was working at the Newport News Naval shipyard and could have requested a deferment—but he wanted to do more for his country. He was willing to risk his life on the front lines in order to preserve freedom.
When he joined the Army, Desmond assumed that his classification as a conscientious objector would not require him to carry a weapon. He wanted to be an Army combat medic. As luck would have it, he was assigned to an infantry rifle company. His refusal to carry a gun caused a lot of trouble among his fellow soldiers. They viewed him with distain and called him a misfit. One man in the barracks warned him, "Doss, as soon as we get into combat, I'll make sure you won't come back alive."
Desmond served in combat on the islands of Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa. In each military operation he exhibited extraordinary dedication to his fellow men. While others were taking life, he was busy saving life. When the cry, "medic" rang out on the battlefield, he never considered his own safety. He repeatedly ran into the heat of battle to treat a fallen comrade and carry him back to safety. All this, while enemy bullets whizzed past and mortar shells exploded around him. Several times, while treating a wounded soldier, Desmond was so close to enemy lines, he could hear the whispering of Japanese voices.
In May, 1945, as German troops were surrendering on the other side of the world, Japanese troops were fiercely defending, to their last man, the only remaining barrier (Okinawa and the Maeda Escarpment) to an allied invasion of their homeland. The men in Desmond's division were repeatedly trying to capture the Maeda Escarpment, an imposing rock face the soldiers called Hacksaw Ridge. After the company had secured the top of the cliff, the Americans were stunned when suddenly enemy forces rushed them in a vicious counterattack. Officers ordered an immediate retreat. Soldiers rushed to climb back down the steep cliff. All the soldiers except one.
Less than one third of the men made it back down. The rest lay wounded, scattered across enemy soil—abandoned and left for dead, if they weren't already. One lone soldier disobeyed orders and charged back into the firefight to rescue as many of his men as he could, before he either collapsed or died trying. His iron determination and unflagging courage resulted in at least 75 lives saved that day, May 5, 1945, his Sabbath.
Eventually, the Americans took Hacksaw Ridge. Okinawa was captured inch by bloody inch. Several days later, during an unsuccessful night raid, Desmond was severely wounded. Hiding in a shell hole with two riflemen, a Japanese grenade landed at his feet. The explosion sent him flying. The shrapnel tore into his leg and up to his hip. He treated his own wounds as best he could. While attempting to reach safety, he was hit by a sniper's bullet that shattered his arm. His brave actions as a combat medic were done. But not before insisting that his litter-bearers take another man first before rescuing him. Wounded, in pain, and losing blood, he still put others ahead of his own safety. He would choose to die so another could live. After all, that's what he read in his Bible. Such was the character demonstrated by Jesus Christ.
In addition to his Medal of Honor, Desmond Doss received a Bronze Star for valor with one Oak Leaf cluster (signifying he received 2 Bronze Stars); a Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf clusters (signifying he received 3 Purple Hearts); the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three Bronze Stars, and beachhead arrowhead (signifying he served in 4 combat campaigns including an amphibious landing under combat conditions); the Good Conduct Medal; the American Defense Campaign; and the not so common, Presidential Unit Citation given to the 1st Battalion, 307Inf, 77th Infantry Division for securing the Maeda Escarpment.
The Medal of Honor was established during the Civil War under President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. At the one hundredth anniversary in 1962, the other recipients of that award selected Desmond Doss to represent them at a White House ceremony. He had a pleasant chat with President John F. Kennedy.
Before being discharged from the Army in 1946, Desmond developed tuberculosis. He would spend most of the next six years in hospitals. Cold, wet, sleepless nights, shivering in a muddy foxhole on the islands of the Pacific, had taken their toll. As the illness progressed his left lung had to be surgically removed along with five ribs. For the rest of his life, he survived on a single lung, until it too failed. At the age of 87, Corporal Desmond Thomas Doss died on March 23, 2006, after being hospitalized with difficulty breathing. He is buried in the National Cemetery, Chattanooga, Tennessee.


Question: Respond in 11 sentences. What do you think the near future holds for Detroit, Michigan?

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 Respond in 11 sentences. What do you think the near future holds for Detroit, Michigan?

-RoboCop (1987): In the near future, Detroit, Michigan is on the verge of collapse due to financial ruin and unchecked crime.
The mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) enters into a contract with the city to run the police force utilizing Project "RoboCop."
-The city of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy on July 18, 2013 estimated to be $18–20 billion in debt.
-RoboCop (2014 film): A reboot has been confirmed depicting the multinational conglomerate OmniCorp who specializes in drone warfare and crime fighting technology.
Please note, the reboot will has been rated PG-13, more than likely to make the film more accessible for the masses to become spell-bound & entertained, to obtain a glimpse into the very "near future" for art tends to intimidate real life.
Starring Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, and (you guessed it...) Samuel L. Jackson .
Google will secure a contract with Detroit, outfit Cops with Google Glasses and other drone toys.
Thus domesticating the "War on Terror" franchise by stimulating the American economy and job-creation, capitalizing on purposeful/strategic disparity between citizens.
...A stark contrast of presented opportunity, turning an economic frown upside-down.
I wonder if this was God's plan to smite those pesky heathens and thieves (the unemployed & homeless) bound by the purposeful constructions of Conflict Theory.
"You have 20 seconds to comply"


Question: Describe the Songkran revelers celebrating in Bangkok during April 2014.

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 Describe the Songkran revelers celebrating in Bangkok during April 2014.

Songkran revelers celebrate April 2014 on Khaosan Road in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — The Thai New Year festival, or Songkran, will be as fun as ever despite the ongoing mourning period for His Majesty the Late King, a top tourism official said Friday.
In Bangkok, the usual festivities will play out on Khaosan and Silom roads as usual, and state-sponsored events will be held nationwide for the festival’s days, which fall April 13 to 15, said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, though he added that revelers are advised to observe customs and behave appropriately.


Question: Provide an overview of recent news related to the DigixDAO platform.

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 Provide an overview of recent news related to the DigixDAO platform.

We kickstarted Carbon Votes 1 and 2 a few weeks ago.
Minimum amount of DGDs that moderators require to lock in.
Following some request from the community, we have added custom HD wallet path for Carbon Vote 1.
Carbon Vote 2 (https://digix.global/carbonvote/2/#/) ends in approx. 6 days. We opened Carbon Vote 2 with our request to release USD 20 MM from the DigixDAO Crowdsale Funds that we raised back in early 2016.
We first put up an initial proposal on Friday 17 August and looked out for the feedback and comments that came in from the community over the weekend. Since then, we had updated the proposal with new details, to the extent that we could reasonably provide these, and also added in clarificatory comments on our channels (Discord, Reddit, Medium).
Do participate and vote in both Carbon Votes 1 and 2 if you haven’t done so!
Just a recap of our update last week, we are excited to have DGX gotten into the top 3 tokens of the latest Ethfinex Community Listing vote. DGX has been listed on both Ethfinex and Bitfinex, alongside Banyan Network (BBN) and Autonio (NIO).
More information can be found on Bitfinex. Head over to the exchanges at https://www.bitfinex.com/ and https://www.ethfinex.com/.
We earlier announced that ETHLend has listed DGX for use as collateral on its platform, which is a decentralised and secure Ethereum-based financial marketplace that enables lenders and borrowers to create p2p digital asset-backed loans.
In commemoration of Digix and ETHLend’s new partnership, DGX is currently featured as the Token of the Week during ETHLend’s ongoing HODL Challenge, from August 27 until September 3.
During this week, for each loan request created pledging DGX as collateral, users will be rewarded with 500 LEND tokens. The user with the most loan requests during the campaign period — who gets funded — will obtain the most LEND tokens and also receive two tickets to Web Summit in Lisbon, the largest tech conference in the world.
Do pledge DGX as collateral to obtain your LEND tokens and a chance to win the tickets!
We have also started a UX focus group to bring together members of our community who are interested in working closely with us to help envision design for the DigixDAO governance platform that will make the user experience the best possible.
This will be a small group of approx. 10 users, and we will schedule Skype interviews with selected applicants over September and October, on a rolling basis.
If you are interested, please sign up here and more information can be read in our previous blast at https://medium.com/@Digix/new-digix-ux-focus-group-open-for-sign-ups-from-the-community-39d16d263e28.
On Thursday 30 Aug this week, KC Chng (CEO) and Shaun Djie (COO) are organising with Kenetic Capital ( an event on the theme of institutionalising crypto assets and professional trading. The event is sponsored by Caspian, an asset management solution that provides a single interface into all major crypto exchanges with a sophisticated full suite of trading algorithms, real-time and historical P&L and exposure tracking and professional customer service.
There will be two panel sessions, each moderated by KC and Shaun, with panelists hailing from various renowned projects.
Last but not least, we are looking to expand and recruit more members into the team.
If you are interested in our project, believe in the mission of digital gold and asset tokenisation, do keep a lookout for details that will be shared in due course.


Question: What do you think about the government's increased military spending?

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 What do you think about the government's increased military spending?

Much attention has focused on a new attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. The Graham-Cassidy bill is being pushed without hearings or a Congressional Budget Office score that would estimate how many would lose coverage and any budget impact.
But while eyes had turned to another attack on the current structure of healthcare, one that reportedly could heavily cut healthcare funding for low-income people, something else happened. The Senate took up the $696.5 billion defense bill that the House passed in July with support of 60% of Democrats.
Let's review how the numbers got this high.
Obama's budget for 2017, which runs through this month, looked for a defense budget of $582.7 billion. Donald Trump wanted an additional $54 billion, which would have been $636.7 billion. The Department of Defense actually asked for a total of $639.1 billion.
That amount would have been the single largest defense authorization in the history of the country. But apparently that wasn't enough. The House upped the amount by another $57.4 billion. It saw Trump's raise and called.
Remember, please, that the Department of Defense is the only federal agency that is incapable of passing a financial audit. That should be the basic level of performance that is required of organization being entrusted with that much money. Last year, the Pentagon tried to hide $125 billion in wasted spending that took place over a five-year period.
And yet, both the House and the Senate voted for this bloated bill at time when there may be enough votes to end healthcare support for millions. Even Trump's lower defense request was going to require significant cuts in domestic spending. What is an increase twice the size going to need?
The Republicans claim to be devotees of fiscal responsibility. The Democrats say they want to improve life for everyone. And not every senator voted for this. Four Democrats (Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Ron Wyden from Oregon, and Vermont's Patrick Leahy), three Republicans (Bob Corker from Tennessee, Utah's Mike Lee, and Rand Paul from Kentucky), and one independent (Bernie Sanders of Vermont) voted against it. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) didn't vote.
But, for the most part, both parties are really interested in funneling more money into military spending. The size of the figure is virtually incomprehensible to grasp. It raises the question of exactly what is being planned that would need that large a sum.


Question: Have Nigerian football supporters been taking live chickens into stadiums for good luck?

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 Have Nigerian football supporters been taking live chickens into stadiums for good luck?

Nigerian football supporters have been left bemused by reports of a request to Russian officials to have live chickens taken into the World Cup venues as good-luck charms.
It was reported last week, on various platforms, that Nigerian fans had been denied their requests to take chickens into the stadiums, but it's a request the supporters say did not come from them.
According to reports, Andrei Yermak, Kaliningrad's minister for culture and tourism, said: "It was explained to the fans that according to safety regulations, it is not permitted to enter the stadium with live animals."
While many African countries do have intriguing rituals and superstitions, taking live chickens to games is not a tradition Nigerians tend to follow, according to the supporter groups.
Both the Nigerian Football Supporters Club and the Nigerian Eagles Supporters Club told KweséESPN they have no idea where the request, supposedly made ahead of Nigeria's opening game against Croatia, originated.
"That is ridiculous," Rafiu Ladipo, president of the NFSC, said. "I have been leading this group for decades, and we have never carried a live chicken into any stadium.
"The only things we carry are our musical instruments and we pray. Prayer is the only charm we have. Why should we need a chicken? Maybe someone just wants to deceive them [the Russians]."
Vincent Okumagba, who heads the rival NESC, was equally amused by the reports, though he did concede that it was possible a fan went rogue, so to speak, and asked officials for permission on his own.
"We read it just like everybody else, and we were a bit surprised. We would never make such a request, and we never did," Okumagba told KweséESPN.
"Perhaps somebody on his own decided that he wanted to take a chicken into the stadium for his own purposes, or maybe he is just having fun. But we do not take chickens into the stadium.
"Maybe somebody somewhere did not understand each other properly, I don't know."
Nigeria lost their opening game of the World Cup against Croatia on Saturday and now need a win against Iceland to keep their tournament dreams alive.


Question: Tell me about Andrej Babis and his plans for the Czech Republic. Respond in 353 words.

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 Tell me about Andrej Babis and his plans for the Czech Republic. Respond in 353 words.

PRAGUE (Reuters) - The Czech Republic must seek partners beyond the central European Visegrad Group to find common ground on issues including migration and food quality, Czech parliamentary election winner Andrej Babis told Reuters.
He said the country needs to seek an active role in the European Union and look for allies for a common goal of halting illegal migration.
The billionaire businessman, who won 29.6 percent of the vote in this weekend’s election, is against deeper EU integration and adoption of the euro, and has raised concerns he may join Poland or Hungary on a collision course with the EU.
But he insisted on Saturday that the ANO party which he leads was pro-European and ready to take on an active role in the EU.
“We have to prepare topics, propose to the European Council (of EU leaders) what we want to change. Double food quality, solution to migration, the fight against migration and other issues,” Babis told Reuters in a brief interview at ANO headquarters after the election results were counted.
“We certainly have an ally in Austria, Mr Kurz, who has the same view as we do on migration,” he said, referring to Austrian conservative election victor Sebastian Kurz.
“The Visegrad group must find other allies, we need Austria and other countries, in the Balkans, or Slovenia, Croatia and perhaps others,” Babis added.
ANO won 78 seats in the 200-seat lower house and will need partners to form a majority. Several parties have however rejected joining an ANO-led government because they say Babis poses a threat to democracy due to his accumulation of business and political power.
Some said they could not join a cabinet led by Babis personally because he faces fraud charges over a 2-million-euro subsidy a decade ago. He denies wrongdoing.
This has led to the possibility that, failing other options, Babis may form a government which would depend on parliamentary support from the Communist Party or the far-right, anti-EU Freedom and Direct Democracy party.
Babis said this was something he did not want to do.
“I do not want to cooperate with them,” he told Reuters.


Question: What is I2IT?

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 What is I2IT?

The International Institute of Information Technology, Pune, I²IT (pronounced as I Square IT,Pune), is a higher education institute located at Rajiv Gandhi Infotech Park, Hinjawadi, in Pune, Maharashtra, India. The institute is affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University formerly known as University of Pune and is approved by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), New Delhi; and is recognized by Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), Govt. of Maharashtra (Institute code – 6754). The institute offers four-year degree program in engineering in three domains: computer, information technology and electronics & telecommunication.
In the late 1990s, to control the outflux of graduates as well as to reduce if not arrest the brain drain to US and European countries, Mr. P.P. Chhabria, then the president of MCCI (A). Shri P P Chhabria sought advice from scientists like Padma Bhushan, Dr R A Mashelkar and Padma Shri Dr Vijay P Bhatkar, who have been closely associated with this institute over the years. On 28 May 2003, Bharat Ratna Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, the former President of India, visited I2IT and dedicated this institute to the service of the nation.


Question: Describe the increase in the number of millennials in the American workforce. Respond in 140 words.

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 Describe the increase in the number of millennials in the American workforce. Respond in 140 words.

Millennials have now surpassed Generation X to become the largest generation in the American workforce, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
Adults between the ages of 18-34 now make up one in three American workers, Pew reports. They outnumbered working adults in Generation X, who were 18-33 in the year 1998, in early 2015 after overtaking Baby Boomers last year.
The estimated 53.5 million millennials in the work force are only expected to grow as millennials currently enrolled in college graduate and begin working. The generation is also growing thanks to recent immigration, as more than half of new immigrant workers have been millennials.
The millennial generation as a whole, not just those in the labor force, is also expected to surpass the Baby Boom generation as the largest living generation in the U.S.


Question: What do you know about Lion's Arch?

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 What do you know about Lion's Arch?

Scarlet is on the attack! After months of preparation, the arch-villain descends on Lion’s Arch with all of her deadly forces. Now is the time to rally together and defend the besieged city.
Scarlet’s troops are attacking from airships over Lion’s Arch.
Save as many citizens as you can before the miasma overwhelms the city!
As Scarlet fills the port city with lethal miasma, your priority is clear: you must join forces with the Lionguard to evacuate as many of the citizens and merchants of Lion’s Arch as possible. From the great Commodore Lawson Marriner down to the smallest child, people are the most precious resources of Lion’s Arch.
Tyria’s three orders, the Durmand Priory, the Vigil, and the Order of Whispers, have joined with the Lionguard to set up temporary shelters to house the city’s refugees. Visit these camps to talk with refugees and ensure the safety of the fleeing citizens. The Vigil Keep has become an impromptu service hub; head there to find relocated Lion’s Arch vendors.
The challenge is great, but so are the rewards!
As you help citizens flee Lion’s Arch, gather up lost belongings and return them to refugees in the camps. Collect supplies from your foes, which you can use to craft new back items. More rewards await those who come to the defense of Lion’s Arch, from new utility feasts to endless quaggan tonics! The more citizens you save, the higher your reward level – the most effective defenders even have a rare chance at rewards from past releases!
Get free, immediate access to the new Captain’s Airship from any PvE map! With every conceivable convenience from Black Lion Traders to crafting stations to our own Mystic Forge, this is a one-stop shop for all your needs! Purchase a one-week pass to try it out or a permanent pass for a life of luxury! Act quickly – the permanent pass is available this week only!
Put on a one of the brand-new Zodiac armors and let the real you shine through! These stellar new armors are the most daring we’ve created to date!
Summon a horde of vengeful Ascalonian spirits to trample your vanquished foes! Nothing stings quite like being trampled by an ectoplasmic army.
Black Lion Chests now have a chance to drop a Mini Marjory Delaqua or Mini Mai Trin. In addition to all the normal Black Lion Chest rewards, you’ll also get five Bags of Alliance Supplies every time you open a Chest!
My stock manager assures me that this lovable little golem is at the absolute cutting edge of plant-harvesting technology!
Captain Magnus the Bloody-Handed is a remarkable man! Not everyone has a legend to match his, but you can borrow his sense of style with his new Eye Patch universal helm skin – get both left and right patches for the price of one!


Question: Provide a summary of the Turkish TV series "Yüksek Sosyete." Respond briefly.

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 Provide a summary of the Turkish TV series "Yüksek Sosyete." Respond briefly.

Yüksek Sosyete (English: "High Society") is a Turkish television series based on the South Korean drama "High Society", it began on 16 June 2016 and ended on 24 December 2016. It is one of the first works of Burak Sağyaşar's Production (Bi Yapım) aired with his second work Aşk Laftan Anlamaz.


Question: Have you heard about Zico's contract with Seven Seasons?

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 Have you heard about Zico's contract with Seven Seasons?

Seven Seasons has given an additional statement in response to reports of Block B member Zico’s contract ending.
Block B’s Zico may be parting ways with his current agency soon.
News reports on September 18 claimed that Zico’s contract with Block B’s agency Seven Seasons will end in November, and he has caught the interest of other labels and crews. Zico reportedly expressed that he wishes to try managing himself instead, and already started to do so for his activities for the rest of the year after this month according to one reported source.
Zico will soon be embarking on the Europe and U.S. legs of his solo world tour “King of the Zungle,” beginning with a concert in Madrid on September 26. He is also set to perform in North Korea for the upcoming inter-Korean summit on September 18-20.


Question: Describe the latest poll results in the West Virginia Senate race between Patrick Morrisey and Joe Manchin.

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</answer>
 Describe the latest poll results in the West Virginia Senate race between Patrick Morrisey and Joe Manchin.

Republican Senate candidate Patrick Morrisey is up two points over Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), according to a new poll.
A new poll shows Republican challenger Patrick Morrisey inching ahead of Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia’s pivotal Senate race.
The poll, commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, shows Morrisey, the state attorney general, leading Manchin 44 percent to 42 percent. Libertarian Rusty Hollen takes 3 percent, and 12 percent are undecided.
Take Hollen out of the equation, and Morrisey leads Manchin 47 percent to 45 percent, with 8 percent undecided.
Morrisey said Monday during a campaign rally with Donald Trump, Jr. he was within the margin of error in his race to upset the Democratic incumbent Manchin.
Fabrizio, Lee & Associates conducted the poll on behalf of the NRSC. Six hundred likely voters were surveyed between Oct. 16 and Oct. 18.
Morrisey takes the lead in a poll that oversampled Democrats and women. Of those polled, 44 percent identified as Democrat, 38 percent as Republican, and 16 percent independent. Fifty-three percent of respondents were women.
The Republican campaign distributed the poll to its campaign supporters.
"West Virginians know that dishonest Washington liberal Joe Manchin stood with Hillary Clinton, and continues to side with the impeach, obstruct, and resist circus in Washington," said Morrisey for Senate spokesperson Nathan Brand. "Voters and President Trump trust only one candidate, Patrick Morrisey, to stand with West Virginians for the right to life, the Second Amendment, and the Make America Great Again agenda."
This entry was posted in National Security and tagged 2018 Election, Joe Manchin, Patrick Morrisey. Bookmark the permalink.


Question: Describe Lithuania's participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.

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 Describe Lithuania's participation at the Eurovision Song Contest 2019.

Lithuania participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019. The Lithuanian broadcaster LRT televizija (LRT) organised the national final "„Eurovizijos“ dainų konkurso nacionalinė atranka 2019" in order to select the Lithuanian entry for the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel.


Question: How has the cryptocurrency market been affected by the recent hack on Bithumb?

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 How has the cryptocurrency market been affected by the recent hack on Bithumb?

Cryptocurrency hacks are becoming so popular that it has become a daily occurrence. The latest is on one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Bithumb. The apparent hack has cost Bithumb a reported loss of $30 million.
Bithumb is a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in Seoul, South Korea and is a leader in the cryptocurrency market regarding daily transactions. At the end of 2017, the average daily liquidity turnover at Bithumb was equivalent to $ 1.3 billion. It controls most of South Korean’s cryptocurrency trading.
Bithumb has been active on social media Twitter since the hack today morning, posting updates about the precautions to take.
Bithumb suspended the acceptance of deposits at around 00:53 UTC and started transferring the assets to cold wallets to ensure no further damage was caused.
Confirmations about how the hack took place have still not been revealed, but the nature of it was hinted by a professor at Korea University’s Blockchain Research Institute. He believed that that the hacker gained access to an internet connected ‘hot wallet’ of an insecure smaller asset listed on the platform.
“Since coins in the cold wallets are not at all wired to the internet, it would have been impossible for hackers to steal those in cold wallets unless they physically broke in,” the blockchain expert at the research institute said.
Bithumb is the world’s sixth largest cryptocurrency exchange, and thus such a hack sends a message of caution to several traders of the digital coins in using popular cryptocurrency exchanges.
Bitcoin was enjoying a bull run the last few days; however, after the hack of Bithumb, it fell by nearly $200. The current price of Bitcoin at the time of writing is $6630.
Another South Korean Exchange called Coinrail was hacked earlier in the month, which led to a loss of $37.2 million worth of coins.


Question: Respond in 4 sentences. Provide a brief biography of the current Ethiopian Minister of Transportation, Siraj Fegessa.

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 Respond in 4 sentences. Provide a brief biography of the current Ethiopian Minister of Transportation, Siraj Fegessa.

Siraj Fegessa is the current Ethiopian Minister of Transportation. He was the former Minister of Defense of Ethiopia. He is a Muslim, a member of the Silte people, as well as a member of the South Ethiopian Peoples' Democratic Front, which is part of the ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. From 2006 until his appointment as Defense Minister on 30 October 2008, Siraj was Minister of Federal Affairs.


Question: Tell me something interesting about wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Respond in detail.

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 Tell me something interesting about wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Respond in detail.

In 1926, there were no longer wolves in Yellowstone, once the natural habitat of this species. Between 1977 and the re-introduction in 1995, we have reliable reports of wolves being seen throughout the park. Most of them were either lone wolves or pairs, probably only transiting. Finally, in 1995, grey wolf packs were reintroduced in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park and Idaho.
Before the extermination, the wolves living within the park belonged to the subspecies Northern Rocky Mountains wolf, Canis lupus irremotus. The reintroduced species of 1995 belong to the subspecies Mackenzie Valley wolf, Canis lupus occidentalis.
The reintroduction of the wolves produced a more significant impact on the biodiversity of the Yellowstone than anticipated.
The wolves’ predation on the elk population, until then unchallenged, produced a significant increase of new-growth in various plants. Aspen and willow trees, previously grazed by the elks more or less at will, got suddenly a chance to grow. With the presence of the wolves, the elks stopped venturing into deeper, and for them dangerous, thickets where they could easily be surprised. They began to avoid areas of low visibility, which would increase the chances of wolf attacks.
The elks began avoiding open regions such as valley bottoms, open meadows, and gorges, where they would be at a disadvantage in case of an attack from a wolf pack. William J. Ripple and Robert L. Bestcha dubbed this process top-down control. In ecology, top-down control denotes that top predators regulate the lower sections of the trophic pyramid. In other words: a top predator controls the structure or population dynamics of a particular ecosystem.
With new vegetation growing and expanding came subtle changes in the waterways running through the park. That had an impact on other species as well. Various bird species came back to Yellowstone national park with the increased number of trees. The beaver, previously extinct in the region, returned to the park. Their dams across the rivers attracted otters, muskrats, and reptiles.
Probably due to the wolves keeping the coyote populations at bay, the red fox got suddenly a chance to survive because the number of rabbits and mice grew considerably. The raven, always the wolf follower, came back to the park as well, now able to feed on the leftovers of the wolves.
The wolves changed the rivers in as much as they readdressed the lost balance within the region, one we had created when we exterminated them. With a better balance between predator and prey, top meat eaters and top grazers, came the possibility for other species to thrive. With the increased vegetation growth, erosion decreased, and the river banks stabilized.
Every time we produce drastic changes in nature, we interfere deeply with the whole eco-system.
Nature is indeed a beautiful act of balance.
Chase, Alton (1986). Playing God in Yellowstone—The Destruction of America’s First National Park. Boston, MA: The Atlantic Monthly Press.
Murie, Adolph (1940). Fauna of the National Parks of the United States-Ecology of the Coyote in the Yellowstone National Park (Report). U.S. Department of the Interior.
Ripple, W; Beschta R: “Wolves and the Ecology of Fear: Can Predation Risk Structure”, page 761, “Bioscience”, 2004 Vol. 54 No. 8.
Urbigkit, Cat (2008). Yellowstone Wolves: A Chronicle of the Animal, the People, and the Politics. Blacksburg, VI: McDonald & Woodward Publishing.
The Reintroduction of Gray Wolves to Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho-Final Environmental Impact Statement (PDF) (Report). Denver, CO: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 1994.
“Technical Publications on Wolves, 1995–2004” (PDF). Yellowstone Science 13 (1): 42–43. Winter 2005.
Featured image: The wolves changed the rivers of the Yellowstone. Picture by photographer Ronan Donovan, NG.


Question: Describe the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), how it affects small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and why continuity of standards can be difficult to guarantee.

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 Describe the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), how it affects small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and why continuity of standards can be difficult to guarantee.

Indivigital | When lawmakers, governments and regulators are terrible at complying with the GDPR, why should anyone else bother?
When lawmakers, governments and regulators are terrible at complying with the GDPR, why should anyone else bother?
They want to infer consent, they want to craft new rules for their own data collection activities and they want to fine themselves less than they demand private organizations be fined. When regulators and lawmakers are this bad at implementing data protection practices, what hope does anyone else have?
What do a host of EU institutions and data protection authorities, upwards of thousands of lawmakers and the chair of the UK Parliamentary committee tasked with investigating Facebook have in common?
They are all operating in contravention of the GDPR (at least they would be if the GDPR applied to their activities as it applies to private organizations).
Of course, lawmakers and institutions aren’t just harvesting users’ data.
They are on one-hand endlessly disparaging social media platforms to further their own careers and political objectives, often via grandiose or theatrical public hearings, while on the other hand taking advantage of every feature said platforms have to offer.
Numerous governmental websites, including Gov.uk and Europa.eu, are serving like buttons, share buttons, video embeds or analytics scripts to their users.
Some of this content, when requested from their websites, shares swathes of data with the third-party platforms that are, on any politically advantageous day, primary targets for lawmakers’ ire.
Some lawmakers have also determined that public bodies should be able to infer consent under the GDPR while others have determined they aren’t subject to the same laws private organizations are subject to but regulations that broadly mirror the new privacy regulations (albeit with important caveats).
Lawmakers and institutions have also determined they aren’t subject to the same level of fines private organizations are subject to and they have crafted new legislation that extends the definition of what is or is not a lawful basis for their own data collection efforts.
Moreover, none of the lawmakers’ websites we’ve analyzed stipulate a lawful basis for each processing activity, preferring instead to bundle all activities under a collection of bases e.g. consent, legitimate interest and “public task”.
Of course, EU institutions don’t even need to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation but a regulation that comes into force later this year. Under that regulation, EU institutions can be fined 500,000 EUR but only “as a last resort”.
Under the GDPR, private organizations can be fined upwards of 20 million EUR or 4 percent of annual turnover, whichever is higher.
Meanwhile, as lawmakers and institutions wield a heavy hand from up high while failing to comply with their own rules, private organizations have been turned upside down by the GDPR, with popular forums and social networks awash with perplexed webmasters confused by how the GDPR applies to their activities.
While the activities of Google, Facebook and other large tech organizations may be the motivation behind the new far-reaching privacy regulations, with upwards of hundreds of thousands of personnel at their disposal they are unlikely to be disproportionately affected by them.
Rather, it’s startup organizations with little to no resource, let alone the time or legal expertise to devote to interpreting 99 Articles and 173 Recitals of impenetrably vague legalese, that will likely feel the harshest burden, at least on a relative basis.
As we’ve already witnessed, Google has liberally interpreted its role as that of a mere data processor for many of its services, thus placing the burden of obtaining consent, as well as the technological solutions that must be implemented to do so, onto SMEs.
Therefore, SMEs reliant on Google’s services to, for example, track the effectiveness of their marketing spend, or to monetize their web presence, are left in a land of subjective legal interpretations and ifs, buts and maybes.
They are left to interpret a vague regulation, with the promise that another vague regulation is forthcoming in 2019 (the ePrivacy regulation), while public institutions squabble with internet platforms over the moral legitimacy of their services and theoretical issues entirely divorced from any practical realities on the ground.
The problems are heightened by the vague definitions outlined in the new regulations. For example, according to Professor Lilian Edwards, an expert in internet law, the modern definition of personal data is “beginning to swallow everything”.
It becomes more challenging for SMEs when personal data isn’t just defined as what’s collected but what can be inferred from what’s collected i.e. what it says about an individual if they visit a particular website or engage in a particular activity.
Many developments need to occur before it becomes clearer how the GDPR applies in a practical sense however, until that point, SMEs can sleep easier knowing that those who enact and enforce the regulations that have precipitated widespread upheaval across the web are just as incapable of complying with the regulation as they are.


Question: Who is Andrew Tylecote? Respond in 2 sentences.

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Andrew Tylecote (born 3 January 1946) is a British economist based at The University of Sheffield School of Management. He is best known for his work on the economics of technological change, and for his contributions to long wave economic theory.


Question: Hi there, why should I learn Te Reo Māori? Respond in 48 sentences.

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 Hi there, why should I learn Te Reo Māori? Respond in 48 sentences.

Why should we learn Te Reo Māori?
In December, a controversy blew up about the use of te reo Māori on Radio New Zealand’s National’s Morning Report. A group of old white men – and, yes, they were predominantly old white men – were apparently incensed that they had to listen to so much te reo Māori on the radio before their parakuihi (breakfast).
The tirade was led by Don Brash, in his role as spokesperson for Hobson’s Pledge, a racist and militantly anti-Māori lobby group. Of course, there was the usual tiresome canard of ‘political correctness gone mad’ levelled at this development – as if meaningful acknowledgement and recognition of one of New Zealand’s official languages was somehow unconscionable.
But the key point for Brash and his cronies had to do with their views of te reo Māori itself. As Brash commented at the time: “I’m utterly sick of people talking in Māori on RNZ in what are primarily English-language broadcasts”. For them, hearing, let alone learning, te reo Māori was simply a waste of time.
As it happens, most RNZ listeners disagreed with this view. But the deeply entrenched negativity towards te reo Māori represented by Brash and his ilk clearly still holds some sway, even after – or, perhaps, because of – over 30 years of Māori language revitalisation.
Why is this? First, because of a negative, and spectacularly ill-informed view of bilingualism that is most apparent among first language English speakers. Second, where bilingualism is countenanced, there is a view that this is only useful with respect to prestigious ‘international’ or ‘trading’ languages. Let me look at each of these misplaced premises in turn.
The majority of the world’s speakers are bilingual and many of them are multilingual – between 70-80 percent on current estimates. Bi- or multilingualism is the norm internationally. And yet, the majority of first language English speakers are monolingual – again, about 70 to 80 percent. This perhaps explains why so many English speakers see bilingualism as a problem – primarily, because they have no knowledge or experience of it.
This negative view is most often demonstrated in ideas that learning another language is ‘confusing’, amounting to the related notion of ‘cognitive overload’. But this is simply wrong. Sixty years of research supports the fact that bilingualism is a cognitive, educational, and social advantage. It is monolinguals who are consistently disadvantaged.
To take just one example: bilinguals consistently demonstrate greater ‘metalinguistic awareness’ than monolinguals. Metalinguistic awareness is knowledge of how language works. Bilinguals are much more aware of this because, in constantly moving between the languages they use, they necessarily have to pay close attention to both their similarities and differences.
Recent research has also shown that bilingualism mitigates both the onset and rate of dementia. In short, bilingualism is good for you and your brain. Meanwhile, the idea that one can get by in only English in this increasingly globalised world has also been found wanting. English monolinguals are consistently disadvantaged in cross cultural trading contexts in relation to their bilingual peers.
This leads us to the second issue, which is the idea that if bilingualism is to be countenanced, only international/trading languages are ‘useful’ and thus worth learning. However, the research mentioned above shows that bilinguals are consistently advantaged irrespective of the particular languages in their repertoires. Bilingualism is an advantage in any combination of languages.
And then there is the notion of usefulness itself. One could argue, for example, that the most useful language to know other than English in Aotearoa New Zealand is not an international language, which we would only use occasionally, but actually te reo Māori, the language outside of English that we are most likely to encounter on a daily basis.
Like the person who complains that they don’t understand what is being said at a pōwhiri, there is thus a deep irony in Brash et. al.’s dismissal of te reo Māori as worthless, while simultaneously complaining that they don’t understand it. Just learn it then! Add to this the fact that te reo Māori is our indigenous language and there is even more reason, surely, to embrace learning te reo Māori. This accords with the widely attested advantages of bilingualism, as well as honouring the language spoken (only) here, unique to us and this land of the long white cloud.
Stephen May is a Professor in Te Puna Wananga at the University of Auckland. He is also an international authority on language rights, bilingualism, and language learning.
This article was originally published in the Autumn edition of of Ingenio.
In the autumn edition of its alumni magazine, Ingenio, the University of Auckland published an opinion article by Professor Stephen May titled ‘Why we should learn te reo’. The article used as its starting point the recent debate about the use of te reo on Radio New Zealand and referred to an interview of Dr Don Brash, representing the Hobson’s Pledge lobby group, by Kim Hill. The article went on to argue for the benefits of bi- and multi-lingualism. The article contained a sentence which described the objections by some (including Hobson’s Pledge members) in the following terms: “The tirade was led by Don Brash, in his role as spokesperson for Hobson’s Pledge, a racist and militantly antiMāori lobby group.” Dr Brash, on behalf of himself and the founding members of Hobson’s Pledge, has complained that the description of him and his members as “racist and militantly anti-Māori” was incorrect and defamatory and that Hobson’s Pledge was established with the express purpose of opposing racism. The University and Professor May accept that the sentence was incorrect and should not have appeared in the article. They sincerely apologise to Dr Brash and other members of Hobson’s Pledge, and withdraw the sentence.


Question: Do you know anything about "The Odd Couple" TV show? Respond in 3 sentences.

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 Do you know anything about "The Odd Couple" TV show? Respond in 3 sentences.

"The Odd Couple" is a television situation comedy broadcast from September 24, 1970 to March 7, 1975 on ABC. It starred Jack Klugman as Oscar Madison and Tony Randall as Felix Unger. The following is a list of episodes.


Question: Explain the European fund for strategic investment (EFSI), its purpose, and the recent EU decisions on it.

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 Explain the European fund for strategic investment (EFSI), its purpose, and the recent EU decisions on it.

EU finance ministers approved on Tuesday (6 December) the extension of the European fund for strategic investment (EFSI) until 2020, provided some changes are made in the way it works.
"We are deliverning on one of our top priorities to boost investment," Slovakia's Peter Kazimir, who chaired the meeting, told journalists.
He said that the extended fund, which will include projects in the fields of defence and security, was "a crucial step in the right direction," following the so-called Bratislava roadmap set out by EU leaders in September in reaction to the Brexit vote.
The EFSI was launched in 2015 by the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Commission to pump up to €315 billion over three years into the EU economy by supporting risky projects that were unable to find financing.
It is also known as the Juncker fund after Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
The commission proposed mid-September to extend the fund for two years, in order to raise investment capacities to €500 billion.
Ministers endorsed the plan, but made changes to the way EFSI worked, in order to address shortcomings that were recently highlighted by several reports.
It turned out, for instance, that the EFSI had funded projects that had the same risk profile as others usually funded by the EIB.
This means that it did not trigger additional investments, but only helped projects that would have been financed anyway.
Ministers insisted that the EFSI had to focus on "sub-optimal investment situations", in order not to crowd out private investors from profitable projects that do not need special support.
According to an EIB study, 92 percent of EFSI operations have been located in the 15 richest EU countries.
Ministers also asked the bank to support more countries that needed investment, by setting up advisory services and concluding cooperation agreement with national banks.
They approved the 2020 extension despite the lack of a full impact assessment from the commission, but said that "any new proposal extending the investment period after 2020 should be based on reports" to assess its results.
Member states reached their common position just a few weeks after the commission proposal in September.
They wanted to go quickly because they believed that "this plan works well, even if it is not perfect," a diplomat said.
Another source pointed out that diplomats worked under "pressure from investors and the private sector, who want to have more clarity on the future of the plan."
The extension plan will now be examined by the European Parliament, which will make its own assessment of the Juncker plan between January and April, before setting out its position in May.
Discussions in the parliament, and later with member states and the commission to find a final agreement, could prove difficult.
In a message posted on Twitter after Tuesday's meeting, one the parliament's negotiators, German Social-Democrat Udo Bullmann, said that member states were "closing their eyes to difficulties."
NGOs expressed disappointment at the ministers' plan, which now allows the EFSI to finance motorways in all member states without restrictions. In its original proposal, the commission had limited funds for motorways to the 15 EU poorest countries.
"We thought that it does not make any sense to have a blank exclusion of a specific kind of project," said a diplomat.
He said ministers also proposed a "better" target of at least 40 percent of EFSI projects to contribute to climate action in line with the Paris climate agreement.
The target is only indicative, however, with the plan saying only that the EIB "shall aim" to reach it.
Anna Roggenbuck, from the Bankwatch NGO, said the 40-percent threshold was not enough, and that more precise and binding targets were needed.
Climate Action Network Europe said in a statement that "while [the plan] contains some good elements on climate action, the council still falls short of ensuring EFSI’s investments are in line with the EU’s climate goals."
The EU executive says that several evaluations strengthen the case to extend the length and funding of the plan, despite a lack of impact assessment.
The EU institutions have started the last round of discussions to extend the EU investment plan to 2020, with MEPs already asking for a longer-term mechanism.