IBM announced today that Portland Software, one of New Zealand’s fastest growing technology companies, has created a fully integrated employee benefits administration platform on IBM Cloud.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) annonce aujourd'hui un élargissement de son portefeuille de stockage flash pour aider les clients à extraire beaucoup plus rapidement la valeur issues des données afin d’en tirer un avantage concurrentiel. IBM a lancé trois nouvelles baies « tout-flash » dotées d’une performance de pointe – une latence minimum de 250μs (microsecondes) - afin de résoudre le défi consistant à accéder rapidement à un grand volume de données pour les applications et les workloads cloud.

IBM Security annonce le lancement de QRadar Advisor with Watson, avec de nouvelles fonctionnalités pour les plateformes sécurisées par IA : elles bénéficient désormais d'une meilleure compréhension des comportements cybercriminels et peuvent tirer des leçons des mesures de sécurité mises en place au sein d'une entreprise. IBM Security a également adopté le modèle Open Source MITRE ATT&CK, une base de données qui s'appuie sur les constats concrets de la communauté de sécurité pour soutenir les analystes dans leur compréhension de l'évolution des attaques et de leurs possibles conséquences.

A l’occasion du CES de Las Vegas, IBM annonce le lancement d’Advertising Accelerator with Watson, une solution unique de prédiction d’audiences pour annonceurs.

IBM met à l’honneur 35 femmes exceptionnelles issues de 12 pays, alors qu'une nouvelle enquête mondiale démontre les bénéfices de la diversité pour l'IA - en notant que du travail reste à faire pour combler l'écart entre les genres.

Etude IBM : les directions Marketing doivent adopter la « disruption créative » pour fidéliser leurs clients La nouvelle étude IBM révèle les principaux axes de priorités des directions Marketing pour 2016

lior Banque annonce aujourd’hui avoir choisi l’application IBM MobileFirst sur iOS pour apporter une transformation fondamentale à la façon dont les clients en Pologne interagissent avec leur banque. A l’aide d’un iPad, les professionnels des services bancaires pourront fournir une expérience plus dynamique et personnalisée aux clients en tirant avantage de la puissance de l’analyse prédictive, et ce de façon sécurisée, facile, rapide et disponible 24h/24.

IBM to Lead SAP S/4HANA Project for Department of Defence

The 2009 IBM Cognos Partner Awards recognise Australian channel partners that meet or exceed assigned revenue targets , such as license sales and maintenance deals, and, create successful customer relationships through the delivery of IBM Cognos Performance Management based solutions for the IBM full fiscal year 2008, ended December 31st 2008.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has selected IBM XIV Storage System Gen3 as a key infrastructure component for its ongoing development and delivery of customer-focussed business applications.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Queensland Sugar Limited (QSL), a global leader in raw sugar marketing that manages over 90 percent of Australia’s raw sugar exports, has selected IBM advanced storage systems to support rapidly growing data demands.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the launch of the IBM Institute for Advanced Security in Asia-Pacific, an expansion of its company-wide initiative to provide governments, businesses and other key organisations with a forum to collaborate with IBM’s global network of security research, services, software and technology experts.

North Queensland capital Townsville is among the first cities globally to use a new United Nations&rsquo; Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) disaster resilience scorecard developed jointly by global fully integrated infrastructure firm AECOM and IBM.</p>

Tasmania’s St Virgil’s College has signed a two-year agreement with IBM to equip staff and students with Apple iPads and Mobile Device Management (MDM) software as part of its digital education delivery commitment.

One hundred IBM (NYSE: IBM) employees from 33 countries – including six from Australia and New Zealand – have been selected to participate in the company's new Corporate Service Corps program. The program is part of the Global Citizen's Portfolio initiative announced by CEO Sam Palmisano to develop leadership skills, while addressing socio-economic challenges in emerging markets.

Village Roadshow Limited (ASX: VRL), a leading Australian entertainment company, has selected IBM Cloud (NYSE: IBM) to host its business infrastructure, providing scale and speed to support a premium entertainment experience for customers. The IBM Cloud provides the platform for key operations spanning the diverse needs of Village Roadshow’s four key business divisions - Cinema Exhibition, Theme Parks, Film Distribution and Marketing Solutions.

IBM Research in Australia has announced plans to undertake research with Melanoma Institute Australia to help further advance the identification of melanoma using cognitive technology. This planned research builds on IBM’s existing research agreement with Molemap, which uses advanced visual analytics to analyse more than 40,000 data sets including images and text. IBM Research plans to analyse dermatological images of skin lesions to help identify specific clinical patterns in the early stages of melanoma1. The Australian research aims to help reduce unnecessary biopsies and help clinicians more accurately understand skin cancer, which could help to improve patient care.

The IBM Research findings achieve the highest recorded accuracy of 86 percent by using deep learning and pathology insights to identify the severity of diabetic retinopathy.

IBM today announced the signing of a new five-year infrastructure services agreement with The Westpac Group, which marks a key step in Westpac’s technology transformation program.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the University of Melbourne, a world class research university, has selected IBM to design and install a high efficiency, high density cooling solution to support new IT initiatives such as Cloud and Research computing, in its new data centre, Data Hall 2.

IBM positioned as the Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Outsourcing and Hybrid Infrastructure Managed Services, Asia Pacific

Leading Australian insurer Suncorp today announced it has successfully integrated IBM (NYSE: IBM) Watson artificial intelligence technology into its online claims process.

IBM collaborates with academia and industry to educate and prepare IT professionals, telecommunications engineers, and electrical power engineers for the electricity networks of the future

Hyro Limited group company, Synergy Plus Pty Ltd (“Synergy”) has been named winner of the award for “Leadership in Optimizing IT Infrastructure” in the annual IBM Beacon Awards competition, honoring IBM Business Partners for their ingenuity, innovation, customer satisfaction and outstanding achievements in providing business solutions.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is adopting IBM social software to support the way thousands of employees connect and interact.

Study Reveals Australian Office Workers Stressed by Irrelevant Email Overload

ehoradote:

Conte de printemps (1990) Éric Rohmer

interiores

На сегодняшний день напольная плитка имеет большую востребованность при ремонте многих объектов. Дело в том, что когда она будет выбрана правильно, то непременно будет служить долго. Уже давно подобный вид керамической плитки используется во время ремонта из-за присутствия ряда следующих плюсов: • Экологичность. • Прочность. • Влагостойкость. • Износоустойчивость. • Практичность. Когда я затеял ремонт у себя в квартире, то сразу поразмыслил о том, что превосходно было бы положить керамическую плитку на кухне. Я принял такое решение для создания нового дизайна. Когда я предложил это своей супруге, то она со мной сразу согласилась. Мне было нужно только лишь отыскать подходящую компанию, где я мог бы купить качественную, но в то же время недорогую керамическую плитку. Также, мне нужно было, чтобы фирма обладала огромным списком продукции, из-за того что я планировал выбрать плитку к уже имеющемуся дизайну. По какой причине я выбрал именно эту фирму Нужно подметить, что в Интернете я подобрал подходящую компанию быстро. Можно сказать, практически сразу же натолкнулся на официальный сайт компании «CeramTrade». Чтобы определить, подходит она для меня или нет, я принялся просматривать портал. Хотелось бы подметить, что на сайте имеется большой ассортимент плитки, произведенной в различных странах популярными производителями. Любой товар сделан с учетом европейских стандартов, которые демонстрируют гарантию качества. Достоинством работы компании является то, что она выполняет доставку не только по Москве и области, но и в разные регионы. Для этого компания использует услуги проверенных транспортных компаний. В случае если вас интересует керамогранит https://www.ceramtrade.ru/catalog/keramogranit/ – это то, что Вы искали! Каким образом купить плитку и оформить доставку В данной фирме приобрести плитку очень просто. Я нашел подходящий для меня вариант, а затем по номеру телефона связался с менеджером и расспросил все вопросы, связанные с приобретением и доставкой. Еще, я уточнил подходящий метод оплаты. После оплаты товар доставили на мой адрес. У меня этот процесс отнял три дня. Если у покупателя есть возможность, то он может лично забрать товар со склада. После покупки керамической плитки в данной компании и окончания ремонта я был очень рад, что подобрал как раз эту фирму. Дело в том, что я получил не только товар по достаточно доступной цене, но еще и отличного качества. В дальнейшем я хочу купить настенную плитку в Москве, и уже точно решил, что обращусь только лишь в данную фирму!

The war is over and Ginny returns to school, but it isn't easy to pretend like everything is the same as before.

[sequel to 'all your fumble words']

In case you hadn't noticed recently, Fashionable Reader, I've been lax about posting to this blog.

 Maintaining two blogs has gotten a bit overwhelming for me. Something has got to give. Much as I love fashion, it isn't actually my primary working world. Writing is, so that has to take most of my focus.

What's Going On?

I have been migrating and posting my historical fashion stuff, which ties to my books, over on my main blog, at my gailcarriger.com website.

There is a Victorian fashion tag there if you want to see all my posts on the subject.

And I have been posting pictures of myself in my outfits there as part of the footers there.

In other words, I'm fading this one away.

However! I promise there are ways to stay in touch with me and my fashion.

Instagram

Of course I am also on Instagram. I would truly LOVE it if you follow me there. Apparently there are secret things you can unlock and have access to if you get over 10k followers and I am ... almost ... there.

Pinterest

Alternatively I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to my Retro Style & Looks and their inspiration, you can always follow that board. Or I have one that is all my Steampunk outfits.

Facebook

I always post pictures of my event outfits to Retro Rack's Facebook group.

I know that's not ALL the platforms, but again, writing and lack of time mean I have to be selective about where I spend my online chips.

Anyway! Thank you for sticking with me for almost 10 years, and I hope you will not lose touch.

I will keep this blog's old posts, particularly the useful ones like eShakti shopping tips and how to prepare for breast reduction surgery, and links alive as long as Blogger will let me.

I might move some of my popular ones of these plus steampunk DIYs over to my author blog eventually. I won't be deleting this blog, I will just stop posting to it. 

Stay in touch, please.

Yours,
Miss Gail

Woohoo!!! SPARK made the Florida Sunshine State Young Readers Award 2020-21 list! Thanks so much, Florida librarians! You have absolutely made my day!

https://www.floridamediaed.org/ssyra.html 

 

You may recall that some time ago I had felt out of shape and was unhappy with it. After hitting a high weight of nearly 200 pounds, and also feeling tired walking up stairs, I set a goal of getting down to 170 pounds. With regular exercise and calorie counting, I hit that goal last […]

The voice of Ahsoka Tano tells StarWars.com about writing the new Little Golden Book and rewatching Star Wars: The Clone Wars for inspiration.

Download the Padmé-starring novel at no charge from May 1 - 8.

The award-winning title from ILMxLAB heads to PlayStation VR this summer.

Emmy Nominee Leslye Headland to write, produce, and serve as showrunner for new untitled Star Wars series for Disney+.

That second slice of cheesecake when the Cheesecake factory was running their $0.88 a slice promo. The late night boardgame marathon when I had to work early the next morning. Hosting a dinner party every night for 12 days during the 12 days of Christmas. I fell in love with the idea of all these things, but once I experienced them, I realized they were mismatched to my temperament. They were so enticing, and they whispered to me with promises of fun, but I couldn’t love them the way I wanted to. That’s what Shadows in Kyoto did to me too. I picked up a copy of the game based solely on the artwork. It’s beautiful, as we have come to expect from Maisherly Chan. I should have known what I was getting into because we already own other games that lean heavily toward the abstract - such as Hanamikoji (another game for which Maisherly provided artwork; see my review for it here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1718238/what-jenni-said-about-hanamikoji) - and I have never come to love those games the way I do others in my collection. Perhaps it is because my frustration tolerance is pretty low for repeatedly losing game after game and that’s what happens with these 2-player abstract games in my collection. I play them against my husband (who holds a PhD in statistics) and I bend and twist and strain my brain to outwit him and it doesn’t work. I just end up with a headache and feelings of self-loathing. That’s exactly what happened every time we played Shadows in Kyoto.

The game puts players in the roles of Spy vs Spy in a battle between Oniwaban agents (backed by the Japanese Shogunate or military government) and ones employed by the new government that replaced the Shogunate. It’s a great theme that wraps around the strategic gameplay well. In our household there was much speculation as to whether the designers started with the historic theme and designed a game that fit it or created a theme around an abstract game they designed first.

The components are well made and include a sturdy center board, high quality thick cards, and wooden pawns.

The gameplay for Shadows in Kyoto is deceptively straightforward. Each player places their six pawns on the six starting locations on their side of the board as they see fit, with the markings for which ones are carrying real intelligence and which ones are carrying fake intelligence facing the player, so that the opposing player cannot see the markings. To win, a player must complete one of the following objectives:

• trick the opponent into capturing three of the player’s agents carrying fake intelligence
• capture both of the agents carrying real intelligence from the opponent
• get one of their agents carrying real intelligence to the back row of the opponent

Movement is controlled, in part, by playing location cards, which allows players to move to the designated type of space, following the movement rules (move only forward, move only 1 space at a time, cannot move into a space already occupied by your own agent). Instead of playing a location card, players can also play tactic cards that trigger movement. For example, the tunnel card allows a player to move any 1 of their agents horizontally to any other space on the same row, stopped only by an encounter with another pawn.

Encounters between pawns (when a pawn of one player moves into the space of the opposing player, “attacking” it) are resolved by revealing the markings on the back of the defender’s pawn and then comparing it to the markings on the back of the attacker’s pawn (which remains visible only to the attacker). If the comparison reveals the attacker’s pawn wins the encounter (3>2, 2>1, 1>0, and 0>3), then the attacker captures the defender’s pawn. Alternatively, if the defender’s pawn wins the encounter, it stays in its location on the board with its markings revealed and the attacker moves his pawn back to the location it was in before the encounter.

To spice up the game, Shadows in Kyoto also includes Charisma and Equipment cards. These cards can be distributed to the players to provide enhanced powers or abilities that alter some aspect of the rules in favor of the player. For example, the Ayane card allows a player to return a location card to their hand after playing it instead of putting in their discard pile.

No matter which way I placed my pawns initially, my husband was able to deduce my hidden information (i.e. the markings on the back of my pawns) after just a few encounters or find a way to move one of his agents carrying real intel quickly to the back row of my board. Again and again, I tried to make some kind of strategic progress and always failed to do so. I wanted to cry. I’m pretty sure I did cry at one point.

How could something with so few components and such basic rules be so difficult? Really, that’s the beauty of the game, if you’re one for elegant logic puzzles. In this way, Shadows in Kyoto is a fantastic game that should be highly appreciated by its target audience. It’s simple to learn, plays quickly, and requires a great deal of reasoning and strategy, both in the initial placement of one’s pawns and the ensuing gameplay. And the artwork is an exquisite bonus. The game’s just not right for me though, and that’s why I’m giving it one “oui”.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher: Deep Water Games
Players: 2
Actual Playing Time (vs the guideline on the box): About 20 minutes
Game type: abstract deduction
Rating:

Jenni’s rating scale:
OUI: I would play this game again; this game is ok. I probably would not buy this game myself but I would play it with those who own it and if someone gave it to me I would keep it.
OUI OUI: I would play this game again; this game is good. I would buy this game.
OUI OUI OUI: I LOVE THIS GAME. I MUST HAVE THIS GAME.
NON: I would not play this game again. I would return this game or give it away if it was given to me.

Podle odhadu Evropské komise se česká ekonomika letos propadne o rekordní 6,2 procenta. To je více než za finanční krize v roce 2009. Se špatnými výsledky počítá odhad, který Brusel zveřejnil ve středu. Oproti evropskému průměru bude dopad koronaviru na HDP v Česku menší.

Firmy si budou moci odložit platby za sociální pojištění za tři měsíce. Odvody za květen, červen a červenec smí uhradit až do 20. října, rozhodla vláda. Odložená částka se však bude úročit.

Mezinárodní ratingová agentura Fitch Ratings snížila hodnocení úvěrové spolehlivosti Slovenska o jeden stupeň na úroveň A se stabilním výhledem. Důvodem jsou hlavně dopady koronaviru na slovenskou ekonomiku. Jde o první změnu ratingu země v době pandemie.

Koronavirová pandemie srazila návštěvnost v turistických destinacích po celém světě na minima. Po rozvolnění pravidel by se však cestovatelé měli do rekreačních oblastí vrátit. Jde o to, zdali a jak se podaří letní dovolenou u moře i v Alpách zachránit.

Trump’s Failed Coronavirus Response

The Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been a deliberate disaster from the beginning. But don’t take my word for it – just look at the facts.

Here’s the timeline: 

In 2018, he let the pandemic-preparedness office in the National Security Council simply dissolve, and followed up with budget cuts to HHS and CDC this year. That team’s job was to follow a pandemic playbook written after global leaders fumbled their response to Ebola in 2014. Trump was briefed on the playbook’s existence in his first year - had he listened, the government would’ve started getting equipment to doctors two months ago.

The initial outbreak of the coronavirus began in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019.  

By mid-January, 2020, the White House had intelligence reports that warned of a likely pandemic.

On January 18th, HHS Secretary Azar spoke with Trump to emphasize the threat of the virus just as US Diplomats were being evacuated from Wuhan.

Two days later, the virus was confirmed in both the US and South Korea.

That week, South Korean officials immediately drafted medical companies to develop test kits for mass production. The WHO declared a global health emergency. But Trump … did nothing.

As Hubei Province went on lockdown, Trump, who loves any excuse to enact a racist travel ban, barred entry of any foreigners coming from China (it was hardly proactive) but took no additional steps to prepare for infection in the United States.

He said, “We pretty much shut it down, coming in from China,”

He didn’t ramp up production of test kits so we could begin isolating the virus.

By February, the US had 14 confirmed cases but the CDC test kits proved faulty; there weren’t enough of them, and they were restricted to only people showing symptoms. The US pandemic response was already failing.

Trump then began actively downplaying the crisis and baselessly predicting it would go away when the weather got warmer.

Trump decided there was nothing to see here, and on February 24th, took time out of his day to remind us that the stock markets were soaring.

A day later, CDC officials sounded the alarm that daily life could be severely disrupted. The window to get ahead of the virus by testing and containment was closing. 

Trump’s next move: He compared Coronavirus to the seasonal flu…and called the emerging crisis a hoax by the Democrats.

With 100 cases in the US, Trump declined to call for a national emergency.

Meanwhile, South Korea was now on its way to testing a quarter million people, while the US was testing 40 times slower.

When a cruise ship containing Americans with coronavirus floated toward San Francisco, Trump said he didn’t want people coming off the ship to be tested because they’d make the numbers look bad.

It wasn’t until the stock market reacted to the growing crisis and took a nosedive that Trump finally declared a national emergency.

By this time, South Korea had been using an app for over a month that pulled government data to track cases and alert users to stay away from infected areas.

Over the next weeks, as the virus began its exponential spread across the US, and Governors declared states of emergency, closing schools and workplaces and stopping the American economy in its tracks –  Trump passed on every opportunity to get ahead of this crisis.

Trump’s priority was never public health. It was about making the virus seem like less of a nuisance so that the “numbers” would “look good” for his reelection.

Only when the stock market crashed did Trump finally begin to pay attention…and mostly to bailing out corporations in the form of a massive $500 billion slush fund, rather than to helping people. And then, with much of America finally and belatedly in lockdown, he said at a Fox News town hall that he would “love” to have the country “opened up, and just raring to go” by Easter.

At every point, Trump has used this crisis to compliment himself.

This is not leadership. This is the exact opposite of leadership. 

The matriarch of the brown dog pack got another year older on Saturday! Maizy Anne is now seven years old! Even with an arthritic hind end, she is LOVING our Chicago weather and is showing up the younger dogs racing around the backyard like she's got springs in her paws!

This may sound funny, but in the nearly 1.5 years that Dan and I have been dating, we have yet to fully integrate our dog packs. Well, mostly we have avoided fully introducing Maizy and Greta, our two bossy ladies.

I had a gift certificate for some dog training and we recently used it to meet with a trainer and work on the relationship between those two and I have to say, it was very promising!

So, now we are taking them for walks and letting them in the yard together (with Maizy on a leash still) and things are going great. Greta is getting confident enough that Maizy is not annoyed and Maizy is realizing that she cannot be the boss of everyone.

What a great spring it's going to be!

Probert was adopted 6 years ago at about 11 months old from a rescue in Columbus, OH called Measle's Animal Haven. He was a scrawny little pup who had been abused, rescued, and then contracted a mild case of parvo (mild due to being an older puppy) and been bitten by another dog in rescue. Now he's a little snugglebutt who still has issues from his past, but over just the past couple of years is really learning to be a DOG. Finally.


Wrigley was adopted 7 years ago at about 5 months old. He was a direct rescue from people who didn't want him. They said they were watching him for someone who went out of town and never returned to pick him up. Wrigley was living life underneath a trailer at the end of a tow chain and had never even been given a name. The people who had him did doxie rescue and had about 9 rescue dogs in their house, but never thought to bring Wrigley indoors because of his breed. To their credit, they did make some effort to rehome him and I was happy to invite him into my pack! Now he is a wiggly goofball. Definitely the most challenging of my dogs due to his guard barking, but he makes up for it by being one of the most genuinely sweet souls I've ever encountered.





So, there it is. Happy Adoptaversaries to all of my babies. My life would simply NOT be the same without you. I love you all so so much.

In the latest episode of their podcast of many things, Ken and Robin talk magical artifacts, the Shakespeare riots, Dr. Jekyll, and Dick Nixon, FBI.

In the latest episode of their always activated podcast, Ken and Robin talk sandbox encounters, our top 2019 movies, and the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz.

U.S. Unemployment Reaches 14.7 Percent – Chart from Great Depression Shows Risks Ahead

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 8, 2020 ~   The data is out this morning and it’s not pretty. Nonfarm payrolls collapsed by 20.5 million jobs in April and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent. The United States is now seeing the worst unemployment rates since the Great Depression. We prepared the above chart from data available at the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) archives at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Following the stock market crash of October 29, 1929, it was not until August 1931 that the unemployment rate reached 15.01 percent. We’re now at 14.7 percent unemployment from a rate of 3.5 percent just two months ago in February. Consider using the chart above to figure out just how much cash on hand you need to maintain.

-