Viral marketing is different from conventional marketing in that it contains elements that are exceedingly attractive to the audience and compel those exposed to it ...

The post 10 Sure-fire Viral Marketing Tips That Will Get You Noticed appeared first on Saleschase Stories.

To develop a successful marketing plan, you must know your target customers. With this knowledge, you can increase sales and improve profits.  One way to ...

The post How to Segment Your Customer Demographics in a Marketing Plan appeared first on Saleschase Stories.

How delicious it would be to have a world that did not require all this thinking — where instinct and emotion were enough to carry civilizations from birth to death — where guns and brawn were acceptable in the face of disease — where fear of the unknown was codified into quick and dirty law […]

He’s standing in the dead middle of the meat section at Price Chopper screaming “HOW CAN THERE NOT BE ANY FUCKING STEAK?”  Someone comes out bearing chicken from behind the steel clad gates of the backroom where they cut meat and stage the cases. “Hey, you got any steak back there?” “Steak? No sir. None.” […]

Picking and choosing



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Totally America



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It's genetic



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  Feeling a little peckish? What’s your pleasure? If you’re craving something savory, perhaps we should zip on over to Illinois for some deep dish pizza and pierogies. Something a little more substantial? Well, we could feast on chicken fried steak in Oklahoma and bison burgers in Wyoming, before topping everything off with a platter … Continue reading [tasty review] United Tastes of America by Gabrielle Langholtz, Jenny Bowers, and DL Acken

So pleased to welcome NYC author Erin Yun to the blog today. Her debut middle grade novel, Pippa Park Raises Her Game (Fabled Films Press, 2020), is a contemporary reimagining of the Dickens’s classic Great Expectations.     Life is full of great expectations for Korean American Pippa Park. It seems like everyone, from her … Continue reading [spicy guest post] Pippa Park’s Favorite Korean Stew by Erin Yun

I have often been surprised how dangerous it is to cross a street in Malta, especially if there is not a pedestrian crossing. It appears that motorists among themselves have a contest to see who can scare the pedestrians most.  It is not surprising that Malta is among the countries with the highest accident rates in traffic in Europe. If the roads were in a better condition the victims would, due to possible higher speed, probably be many more.
Another thing that amazes a foreigner from northern Europe, is the constant honking. If honking were an Olympic event Malta would undoubtedly win a medal of high value. Many people I have discussed this matter with have expressed a thought that may be Maltese driving licenses are issued by Disney World or come withe the cereal packages from Scotts.
Another thing that is surprising to a foreigner is the rule that cars, that have been involved in an accident, must not be moved before the police has arrived and documented the damages even how small these are. For instance I saw two cars touch each other at Tigné Seafront in Sliema. It was only a small dent on one car. Both cars stopped traffic so that no vehicles could pass the place of the accident. This happened in rush hour. A motorcycle police arrived after about 10 minutes and marked the cars position by spraying marks on the road. It took about ten seconds. The queue, which was formed, probably reached St. Julians. But, of course, many young Maltese men were excited; there was a good reason to honk!

In today's The Times, you can read in an article by David Pace O’Shea, that, in general, Maltese are a helpful people, generous, hardworking, humble, careful with their money, welcoming, peaceful and unaggressive and that they love their families and, especially, their children. In the Observer’s opinion, anyone who states that he or she has all those qualities also might add the words conceited and boastful. The word humble is not the first that comes to one’s mind when reading all the other characteristics Mr. O’Shea states that Maltese in general possess. Thank God (just an expression!) that most Maltese do not consider themselves to have all those qualities (and I do not know of any other country’s citizens that would claim all these good characteristics). Since the article is written by a convinced catholic believer it might be interesting to hear his humble view, from a moral and Christian standpoint, on prostitution in Malta. Every time one passes the area around the closed Empire Stadium one can see prostitutes hanging out from windows or standing on the street offering men their services. In Malta it is allowed to buy and sell sexual services; such services are forbidden in many other EU states. One can ask how this complies with the Maltese character as described in today’s Times. The Maltese government and the Church might not officially be in favor of prostitution but they certainly do not try hard to solve the problem. Prostitution is closely connected with criminality such as trafficking and drug related crimes. There is no reason whatsoever to let young women be treated like slaves in any country and especially not in a country like Malta, which is said to be one of the most Christian in the world. It is a shame for Malta!

In todays The Times the public is given a good explanation why the Maltese courts do not have time for unimportant cases like murders, trafficking, rapes, smuggling of narcotics etc. The courts have far more important cases to deal with, namely cases of insulting. A circus agent felt insulted after being called a clown. This terrible crime was rather soon brought to court for judgment. AlphaThe Observer is confident that the public feel great gratitude that the legal system makes such wise priorities.

1. ICMR partners with Bharat Biotech International Limited for developing indigenous coronavirus COVID-19 vacc...  Zee News
2. Bharat Biotech to lead monoclonal antibodies project for Covid-19 therapy  The Financial Express
3. Bharat Biotech to lead project on monoclonal antibodies therapy for COVID-19  The New Indian Express
4. ICMR teams up with Bharat Biotech to develop Covid-19 vaccine  Times of India
5. CSIR approves project to develop human monoclonal antibodies that can neutralize COVID-19 in patients  Times Now
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan want BCCI to allow Indian players to participate in foreign T20 leagues  Times of India
2. "Such A rHAIR Picture": CSK Troll Shikhar Dhawan For His Throwback Photo With Suresh Raina  NDTV Tamil
3. Wish BCCI plans with ICC: Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan want Indian players to participate in foreign T20...  Hindustan Times
4. Indian selectors made me an oldie at 30, didn't communicate with me: Irfan Pathan  CricTracker
5. MSK Prasad didn't speak to me at all: Suresh Raina responds to former chief selector's claims  CricTracker
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Kareena Kapoor is missing her shopping sprees with Saif Ali Khan, shares throwback pic from Morocco  Hindustan Times
2. A Glimpse Of Kareena Kapoor's "Saturday Mood" With Saif Ali Khan  The Newsopedia
3. Bollywood actors share their secret workout moves amid lockdown  NEWS9 live
4. Sara Ali Khan says brother Ibrahim is ‘definitely interested’ in joining Bollywood: ‘It’s a dream right...  Hindustan Times
5. Sara Ali Khan on Ibrahim Ali Khan’s acting aspirations: It’s a dream right now, making it a reality is on him  PINKVILLA
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Strategic oil storage to be full by mid-May: Dharmendra Pradhan  Livemint
2. India's fuel demand nearly halves in April amid national lockdown  Hindustan Times
3. Dharmendra Pradhan hints at new gas policy, says low oil prices no answer  Zee News
4. India has ample crude oil reserves: Pradhan  The Tribune India
5. India's Fuel Consumption Falls 46% To Lowest Since 2007  NDTV Profit
6. View Full coverage on Google News

1. Not anticipating worst situation in India: Harsh Vardhan on Covid-19 pandemic  Hindustan Times
2. Health ministry says learn to live with coronavirus as India's COVID-19 count crosses 56,000  India Gone Viral
3. Government Tweaks Rules For Testing As COVID-19 Cases Rise. Details Here  NDTV
4. 80 per cent of Telangana will be rid of coronavirus soon: Eatala  The New Indian Express
5. ‘We must learn to live with the coronavirus,’ says health ministry  Scroll.in
6. View Full coverage on Google News

ICMR teams up with Bharat Biotech to develop COVID-19 vaccine  The Financial ExpressView Full coverage on Google News

Yep, it on!

Safe Dynamic Memory Management in Ada and SPARK by Maroua Maalej, Tucker Taft, Yannick Moy:

Handling memory in a correct and efficient way is a step toward safer, less complex, and higher performing software-intensive systems. However, languages used for critical software development such as Ada, which supports formal verification with its SPARK subset, face challenges regarding any use of pointers due to potential pointer aliasing. In this work, we introduce an extension to the Ada language, and to its SPARK subset, to provide pointer types (“access types” in Ada) that provide provably safe, automatic storage management without any asynchronous garbage collection, and without explicit deallocation by the user. Because the mechanism for these safe pointers relies on strict control of aliasing, it can be used in the SPARK subset for formal verification, including both information flow analysis and proof of safety and correctness properties. In this paper, we present this proposal (which has been submitted for inclusion in the next version of Ada), and explain how we are able to incorporate these pointers into formal analyses

For the systems programmers among you, you might be interested in some new developments in Ada where they propose to add ownership types to Ada's pointer/access types, to improve the flexibility of the programs that can be written and whose safety can be automatically verified. The automated satisfiability of these safety properties is a key goal of the SPARK Ada subset.

Histogram: You have to know the past to understand the present by Tomas Petricek, University of Kent

Programs are created through a variety of interactions. A programmer might write some code, run it interactively to check whether it works, use copy and paste, apply a refactoring or choose an item from an auto-complete list. Programming research often forgets about these and represents programs as the resulting text. Consequently, thinking about such interactions is often out of scope. This essay shifts focus from programs to a more interesting question of programming.

We represent programs as lists of interactions such as triggering an auto-complete and choosing an option, declaring a value, introducing a variable or evaluating a piece of code. We explore a number of consequences of this way of thinking about programs. First, if we create functions by writing concrete code using a sample input and applying a refactoring, we do not lose the sample input and can use it later for debugging. Second, if we treat executing code interactively as an interaction and store the results, we can later use this information to give more precise suggestions in auto-complete. Third, by moving away from a textual representation, we can display the same program as text, but also in a view inspired by spreadsheets. Fourth, we can let programmers create programs by directly interacting with live previews as those interactions can be recorded and as a part of program history.

We discuss the key ideas through examples in a simple programming environment for data exploration. Our focus in this essay is more on principles than on providing fine tuned user experience. We keep our environment more explicit, especially when this reveals what is happening behind the scenes. We aim to show that seeing programs as lists of interactions is a powerful change of perspective that can help us build better programming systems with novel features that make programming easier and more accessible. The data exploration environment in this interactive essay may not yet be that, but it gives a glimpse of the future.

Let's talk about Blockchain. Goal is to use this forum topic to highlight its usefulness to programming language theory and practice. If you're familiar with existing research efforts, please share them here. In addition, feel free to generate ideas for how Blockchain could improve languages and developer productivity.

As one tasty example: Blockchain helps to formalize thinking about mutual knowledge and common knowledge, and potentially think about sharing intergalactic computing power through vast distributed computing fabrics. If we can design contracts in such a way that maximizes the usage of mutual knowledge while minimizing common knowledge to situations where you have to "prove your collateral", third-party transactions could eliminate a lot of back office burden. But, there might be benefits in other areas of computer science from such research, as well.

Some language researchers, like Mark S. Miller, have always dreamed of Agoric and the Decades-Long Quest for Secure Smart Contracts.

Some may also be aware that verification of smart contracts is an important research area, because of the notorious theft of purse via logic bug in an Ethereum smart contract.

Antilichamen in uw bloed zijn geen belofte dat u veilig bent  Het Belang van LimburgHele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. Het laatste woord is nog niet gezegd: "Niet ondenkbaar dat KBVB en clubs zich burgerlijke partij stellen in strafonderzoek naar Moeskroen”  Het Laatste Nieuws
2. Peter Vandenbempt over Moeskroen: "Het failliet van de licenties"  sporza.be
3. BAS-arbiter die Moeskroen laat gaan was debutant  Het Nieuwsblad
4. Belgische voetbalbond: “Principieel oneens met beslissing BAS om Moeskroen licentie toe te kennen”  Het Laatste Nieuws
5. Verbazing alom over licentie voor Moeskroen: “Hier laat Westerlo het niet bij, de strijd barst nu écht los”  Gazet van Antwerpen
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

1. Pionier van de rockmuziek Little Richard (87) overleden  De Morgen
2. Rock-n'-rollpionier Little 'Tutti Frutti' Richard (87) overleden  Het Laatste Nieuws
3. Rock 'n' roll-pionier Little Richard is overleden, herontdek zijn grootste hits  VRT NWS
4. Grondlegger rock-'n-roll Little Richard (87) overleden | Show  AD.nl
5. Muzieklegendes over Little Richard: “Als ik zijn muziek beluisterde, kon ik God horen”  Het Laatste Nieuws
6. Hele verhaal bekijken via Google Nieuws

Man die fietspad bezaait met prikkeldraad, spijkers en glas praat zichzelf aan de galg tegen visser die stiekem filmt  Het Laatste Nieuws

Experts, economen en politici: iedereen is nu al bezig met een tweede coronagolf. “Zolang er geen vaccin is, zal het nieuwe normaal blijven bestaan”  Het Nieuwsblad

Over on Facebook, Samuel R. Delany, answering a question in a post, offered the best and most succinct writing advice anyone has ever codified. Here, in its entirety, it is:

Writing advice: Read and reread. Think of a story you have never read but wish you had; then write it as carefully as you can. Finish it, and send it around till it's published.

The third sentence, as Chip noted at the time, was a condensation of advice that Robert A. Heinlein offered. So what you have above is the combined wisdom of two of the greatest careers science fiction has ever seen.

I could unpack that brief paragraph at enormous length. But, honestly, there's no need. You read it and you understood it. Now you only have to live it.


Above: The photo by James Hamilton was lifted from The Nation, where it illustrated a typically thoughtful and enlightened interview with Chip. You can find it here.

Look what came in the mail! My contributor's copies of The Postmodern Adventures of Darger and Surplus. Which I can now honestly tell you are beautiful books. Marianne--owner, reditor, and sole entrepreneur of Dragonstairs Press, remember--especially admired the texture of the endpapers.

This is the first Darger and Surplus collection of short, and it collects everything except the two novels. But I should caution you that it is a slim book--five previously published stories, four related short-shorts, and "There Was an Old Woman..." a story written expressly for this collection.  Bloated this volume is not.

Subterranean Press has created, as I said, one lovely volume. It costs $40, because it's a high-quality collector's item, published in a limited edition of one thousand. But for a high quality collector's item, published in a limited edition of one thousand, that's pretty cheap.

Here's the table of contents:

Introduction:

• Mother Goose’s Errant Sons

Stories:

• The Dog Said Bow-Wow
• The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport
• Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play
• Tawny Petticoats
• There Was An Old Woman

• Appendix:

• Introduction to Appendix: A Little Smoke and a Mirror or Three
• Smoke and Mirrors: Four Scenes from the Postutopian Future

If you're interested, you can buy a copy of the book here.

Or you can buy an e-book version for $5 here.

Oe you can simply go the the Subterranean website and poke around here.  Mine isn't the only book there you want. Far from it.

The solution is not to scold drivers but to make structural solutions.

  I must confess: I was tempted to write a column along the lines of “Yes, it’s a war on the car, and it’s a just war!” But we don’t need a war on the car. What we need is an intervention. We need a serious conversation about our collective, structural addiction to this substance, […]

The post Our addiction to driving is costing lives, and more appeared first on Torontoist.

For those who care about data, the City’s new Open Data Master Plan is about to change everything.

One Saturday afternoon earlier this month, more than 100 people gathered at the Toronto Public Library for an annual gathering called CodeAcross, the city’s annual open data and civic tech event. This year, the theme was the Future of Work. One of the challenges centred on the City of Toronto’s freshly approved Open Data Master […]

The post Civic Tech: Hackers! To Your Stations! appeared first on Torontoist.

Divestment is “more urgent” in Toronto than NYC

A growing list of large institutional investors around the world – state and provincial pension funds, university endowments, and most recently, New York City itself, have been aggressively divesting from fossil fuel investments so as to do their part in mitigating against climate change. Here in Toronto, it’s been a different story. Prominent institutional investors, […]

The post Habitat: Environmentalists eye city’s investment policies appeared first on Torontoist.

Why all the secrecy?

If you follow the news in Toronto or if you’re interested in technology, you’ve probably heard of Sidewalk Toronto by now. It’s a joint project of Sidewalk Labs, a sister company of Google, and Waterfront Toronto. This is the tech giant’s first foray into urban development and infrastructure, with Toronto hosting the pilot project. In […]

The post Civic Tech: We tried to get a copy of the Sidewalk Toronto agreement appeared first on Torontoist.

WWE Money In The Bank Kickoff begins at 6 pm ET/3 pm PT on Sunday, May 10.

Unable to stage its big fundraiser because of the pandemic, Figure Skating in Harlem is going from the ice to the internet

Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh penned a two-page open letter advocating flexibility for college athletes looking to enter the NFL Draft.

Analysis: Tennis pros' US return amid pandemic no true model

The 1996 Ig Nobel Prize for biology was awarded to Anders Barheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen, Norway, for their tasty and tasteful report, “Effect of Ale, Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches.” Recently, Bradley Allff, writing in Atlas Obscura, looked at the role medical leeches sometimes play in medicine in the USA. […]

‘Sentiment mining’ – i.e. trying to gauge the Public’s attitude towards an institution, product, firm (etc. etc.) though automatic analysis of Social Media posts (etc. etc.) is now considered an essential tool for market researchers and ‘reputation managers’. But there are problems. One of which is sarcasm. Given its prevalence, serious errors can be introduced […]

Vi Hart, adept at mathematics, music, and explaining things, made this video that explains the point (and the lack of point, too) of 12-tone music:

Harrisburg University proudly announces, in a press release: HU facial recognition software predicts criminality A group of Harrisburg University professors and a Ph.D. student have developed automated computer facial recognition software capable of predicting whether someone is likely going to be a criminal. With 80 percent accuracy and with no racial bias, the software can […]

A new comic strip—in Russian and in English—about some of the curious characters who have won Ig Nobel Prizes. The series appears on Instagram.