From: NDPA
Thursday, April 06, 2017
Fwd: NDPA 2017 Conf - Know Before You Go
From: NDPA
Introduction Clinic and Walk-up Games of SKWIM with game's INVENTOR, the evening of Wed., April 12 at Oliver Bath House
Pittsburgh Combined Water Polo Team
http://CLOH.org
412 298 3432 = cell
Tuesday, April 04, 2017
Art All Night's call to volunteers and artists
CALL FOR ARTISTS AND VOLUNTEERS
The 20th annual Art All Night will be held April 29th - April 30th, 2017. This year we have a new location, 85 36th Street in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh PA. The show will be open to the public from 4 p.m. Saturday all night long until 2 p.m. Sunday. View art, hear music, create art, meet friends, enjoy beverages and make memories "All Night" long!
We invite you to submit one (and only one) piece of artwork during this one-of-a-kind neighborhood event attended by over 15,000 people each year. Artist registration instructions are available at www.artallnight.org where you can use the online registration system anytime. We HIGHLY recommend registering online as registration lines at the event can get long. Artists submitting art pieces must show a photo ID during both registration and pick up.
All artwork must arrive READY TO HANG or be displayed. Wall mounted pieces must be ready to hang from a nail(s). A limited number of clips will be available for unframed artwork. Registration is Saturday April 29th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m sharp. We do not accept any artwork after 2 p.m. Pick up is Sunday April 30th, from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Volunteers - We need everyone to help with this wonderful event by volunteering. Shifts are as short as 2 hours and we need YOU. Your help is the only way the show goes on and the only way it continues. Please help us put on one of Pittsburgh's great events. Check out the volunteer section of the website www.artallnight.org.
Build out is Saturday April 8th, 15th and 22nd from 10am to 2pm at the warehouse, 85 36th Street in Lawrenceville. Please bring a ladder and screw gun and help assemble panels.
Video artists - Have you produced a short film, video or animation? Would you like to show off your work at Art All Night this year? The 2017 Video Lounge will feature a revolving playlist of short films by creative artists from around the area. If you have worked on a video or film production, we are looking for a sample of you work. Not your demo reel or product ad; but an example of an actual original production. Whether animated characters or live actors, sound or silent, comedy or drama, documentary or completely abstract, film or video; as long as you can deliver it to us in a digital format, we can add it to our revolving playlist.
Submissions will be included in a playlist running in a continuous loop at the site cinema. Sign up below and deliver your entry in a digital format to Art All Night via mail, appointment or download. The last day for video submissions will be Monday, April 24th.
Mosaic artists - We will again be creating mosaic and glass pieces on-site that will be auctioned off to help support the show. Check out the website for more details.
Art All Night... No fee. No jury. No censorship. 412-235-1950
Fwd: Split apart and despondent
From: John
Last evening I sent out an article entitled This Economy Is Ruined for Many Americans. The attachment in this e-mail explains why. This, of course, is something those limping along in the bottom half of the income spectrum in the nation understand quite well; but far too many of us have little or no appreciation of just how stark the divide has become. Here I am particularly referring to those who condemn the entire group of Trump voters as disreputable racists, deplorables and ignoramuses. As Bernie Sanders said a few days ago: "Some people think that the people who voted for Trump are racists and sexists and homophobes and deplorable folks. I don't agree because I've been there. Let me tell you something else some of you might not agree with, it wasn't that Donald Trump won the election, it was that the Democratic Party lost the election." 'There' is where the great majority of folks have seen their very lives torn asunder by neoliberal policies, implemented by both major Parties, which have destroyed their livelihoods, their hopes for the future and, in far too many instances, reduced them to effective 'debt-peonage' or even drugs and suicide.What the attached article makes very clear is that this is something which has become much more stark in the U.S. than in nations of Northern Europe which are also subject to neoliberal policies. It is certainly true that some nations, like Greece, have become far worse off because of these same policies, but that is more the result of the fact that the nations of the EU do not have sovereign currencies with which they can manage their economies – thus the northern tier countries tend to exploit the weaknesses of those on the southern tier. In this country, no such excuse exists, nor should the policies which have brought us to this sad state of affairs. Sanders went on to say that a "fundamental restructuring of the Democratic party" was needed to win future elections and that problems with party's current setup is why many were quick to support Trump in the election, not because of some of the rhetoric on the campaign trail. At this time, it's not at all clear that a "fundamental restructuring of the Democratic Party" is even possible, but that would be the very minimum of what needs to happen if any real change is to occur down the road.
John
Link
Fwd: Four for the price of three
From: John H
It is so difficult these days to keep up with the tide of events impacting all of our lives that it's hard to know which way to turn. In that spirit, attached are four articles of relevance in three attachments. They are all, in one way or another, relative to the current political nausea sweeping the nation and the globe. In some stations the fall of Trump is imminent; in others it is unlikely and undesirable. I find myself in the middle on this – I believe it will happen but that the outcome will be undesirable in that we will be left with Pence, who, whatever one may think of Trump, is even more adept at ushering in irrational and terribly dangerous policy prescriptions floating through the Republican hierarchy. Time will tell, but neither option appears to be particularly desirable. The only beneficial aspect I can foresee is that the Republican Party is finally going to be seen by many of its supporters as the terminally destructive force that it has become over the past forty or so years. It's not much to hang a hat on, but it's all I can come up with in the way of optimism.
John
Links
Sunday, April 02, 2017
Fwd: Oligarchy in America
Link:
Saturday, April 01, 2017
Friday, March 31, 2017
macSVG
very nice.
http://macsvg.org <http://macsvg.org/>
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Fwd: What Can YOU Build With LiveCode?
What Can YOU Build With LiveCode?
Hi Mark,
I'd like to share with you three very different examples of what our customers have achieved with LiveCode. Join us and you can start building your own great apps!
3000 Malaysian School Children Learn Programming
Fadillah Iskandar is the lead trainer and content developer for the Coding@Schools program, a government funded initiative aimed at introducing primary school children in Malaysia into the world of computing and programming, to encourage them to become contributors to and creators of the Internet rather than mere consumers.
Fadillah told us "As a trainer, I am very excited about introducing young students to computer programming. Instead of just playing with games and apps, students get to go behind the screen and create their own website and apps. I hope this will spark their interest and give them a foothold in the programming world."
She goes on to describe the National Code Challenge "25 teams with 133 students from all over the country were placed under one roof in Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC). It was an overwhelming atmosphere to see young people working together to refine their projects and doing their best to make it happen. Nothing beats seeing them confidently pitch their ideas and present their prototypes built on LiveCode!"
"The event was even more special and memorable when our Prime Minister himself presented the prizes to the winners. I am sure this momentous occasion meeting the Prime Minister will be forever remembered by the participants of NCC."
Read the full interview here. LiveCode is used in schools in many countries around the world, including here in my home country of Scotland where 1/3 of the schools now teach with it and report an impressive doubling of uptake for computer science.
Halo Co-Creator Chooses LiveCode to Create Graphic Novel Experience
Bungie co-founder and former head of game development at Disney Interactive Alex Seropian has embarked on a new adventure. Industrial Toys, based in Los Angeles, is focused on creating games for core gamers on mobile. The team features Tim Harris (formerly of Seven Lights) as its president, together with talent formerly from Marvel and DC Comics.
Midnight Rises is an interactive graphic novel that allows you to explore their game world and interact deeply with the characters. It's an incredibly rich experience, featuring parallax animation, choices of paths to follow, objects to find and some fascinating background on the characters.
Tim told us that "LiveCode was really easy-to-use. It gave us the speed to market we needed. And most importantly, it let us make something really robust. This is such an incredibly rich world we're creating and we needed to be able to do a lot to get the interactivity right. We were able to do all the things we wanted to do. Signup, profiles, server calls, analytics, transferring states, in app purchases, there is so much going on inside the app."
He went on to explain that LiveCode allowed Alex to write the app. "We have a team of world class engineers across the room working on the 3D shooter and we have Alex [Seropian] making this graphic novel. He's a world class game designer. He really appreciated having such an easy-to-use tool to create the gameplay quickly and do all the things we wanted to do."
Summing up their experience with LiveCode, Tim said "Everything has turned out nice and smooth. We couldn't be happier."
Read the full interview here.
University Management System for University of Vienna
With 91,000 students and 9400 employees, Vienna University is the largest in central Europe. They required a robust and fit for purpose management system to address the day to day running of this thriving learning environment and chose LiveCode. Every single aspect of functioning for the entire university is included in the system. A few of the functions include:
- A scheduler for course timetables
- A room allocation system
- The enrollment details for every student
- Staff Payroll
We spoke to Hartmut Eich, from the software development team at the University about their choice of LiveCode.
Hartmut told us "The project originated as a system for the creation of a database-based applications. One of the key features of the system is the way that the data and the code is stored in the database itself. The database stores all of its own meta-structure – a description of the table structure, together with the relationships between the tables, along with all the code for the user interface."
"LiveCode was an ideal choice for this project for many reasons. At the heart of the system is an augmented version of SQL that ties SQL together with the LiveCode language model. This is essentially a domain-specific language, tailored to fully support the needs of this application."
"The design of the system makes it easy for a team to work on the project. Each module is completely independent and stored in the Oracle database. This makes it straightforward to work on it in parallel."
Read more here.
What will you build? Join us today.
Kind regards,
Kevin
PS. There are just 2 days left to take advantage of your exclusive offer. Don't miss out - get it now.
Copyright © 2017 LiveCode Ltd, All rights reserved.
You joined this list upon creating an account and confirming your email address at LiveCode.com.
Our mailing address is:
LiveCode Ltd
25A Thistle StSouth West LaneEdinburgh, EH2 1EW
United Kingdom
Add us to your address book
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Join in.... See the google calendar at CLOH.org. Let's get to the swim pool
Pittsburgh Combined Water Polo Team
http://CLOH.org
412 298 3432 = cell
Fwd: Should My Child Play Up Against Older Kids?
From: John O'Sullivan of changingthegameproject.com
Subject: Should My Child Play Up Against Older Kids?
CLICK HERE TO READ ARTICLE ONLINE, AS WELL AS SEE IMAGES AND SHARE
Please join us for our Way of Champions Coaching Conference, to be held June 2-4 in Princeton, NJ! You will be joined by John O'Sullivan from Changing the Game Project, Dr. Jerry Lynch from Way of Champions, and other top coach educators.
Act now and you can save $100 on your registration fee! Click here to check out our video from last years event
Should My Child Play Up? The Do's and Don'ts of Moving Kids to Older Age Groups
by John O'Sullivan
Manchester United's Carrington Training Center is not only one of the finest youth soccer academies in the world. On every field, the future of the club is evident, as aspiring young players dodge, weave, pass and move the United way. At the same time, everywhere you turn you stare at history. Images of Ryan Giggs, George Best, Bobby Charlton, and David Beckham adorn the walls, and words of wisdom from United legends of the past are plastered on most flat surfaces. One such quote has always stood out to me and I snapped a picture of it on my last visit:
"If they're good enough, they're old enough. If you don't put them in, you can't know what you've got" proclaimed Sir Matt Busby many years ago. "The Busby Babes" as his 1955-56 team was affectionately known, won the English title that season with an 11-point cushion, and an average age of 22. He is credited with creating a tradition at Manchester United of developing and promoting youth into the first team, one famously continued by Sir Alex Ferguson and his famous Class of 1992 that included long time first team stalwarts Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Nicky Butt, and brothers Phil and Gary Neville. Since 1937, Manchester United has had a youth academy product in every single matchday squad.
It takes a special kind of 16-19 year old to have the skill, game understanding, and mental strength to play in front of 80,000 fans in the English Premier league. Christian Pulisic, the rising 18-year-old star of the US Men's National team and Borussia Dortmund, is another example of a youth player who has jumped straight to the top. But what about youth players, especially very young ones? Should the most talented ones play up an age or two? Should girls train and play with boys? When does this additional challenge help a player's development, and when does it hinder? These are all questions that are well worth exploring so that parents, coaches and clubs can make the right decisions for the young athletes in their care. But let's start with this:
Any decision regarding a child playing up an age should be based on what is best for the child.
You don't coach a sport, you coach a person, and thus every decision is an individual one. It always bothers me when I see organizations with blanket policies disallowing playing up. It equally bothers me when organizations have no policies at all and athletes are scattered across multiple ages for no rhyme or reason. Every youth sports organization should have well-thought out policies in place that allow for athletes to compete not simply against players their chronological age, but their developmental age.This merits some further explanation.
Chronological age is self-explanatory. Most sports separate athletes based on their birth year, or some other arbitrary calendar cutoff such as school year. As we know from the "relative age effect," this gives a large advantage to those children born closest to that cutoff, especially at very young ages where a January birthday 8-year-old is 11% older than a December-born child. The earlier we make talent selections, the more important this calendar difference becomes. In fact, in a recent conversation with a youth coach from Barcelona's famed La Masia Academy, I was told that 92% of their Academy kids are born between January and June, with only 8% coming from the latter half of the year!
Developmental age is the age at which children function emotionally, physically, cognitively and socially. We also know that children grow at different ages. Have you ever coached a 12-year-old boys game in any sport? Did you notice that some look like 10-year-olds and others look like young men? A 12-year-old boy can have a 5 year developmental age swing, as the picture on the left from my friend Nick Levett shows. Those are two 12-year-old boys born a few weeks apart. One certainly has some physical advantages over the other, wouldn't you say?
Before we discuss playing up specifically, there is one more piece of background needed: Long Term Athletic Development. LTAD models have been developed in most every sporting nation (in the US we call them our ADM, the Athlete Development Model) and outline the various ages and stages of development Our ADM gives us a research-based approach to the physical, social and psychological development of athletes at various stages of their lives. The Canadian LTAD model is best known and is the basis for many others (click here to see it). You can see the US lacrosse ADM here.
Notice how there are age ranges for each stage? That allows for the differences in developmental age for each child. US Lacrosse's Foundations stage ends around age 12, while the Emerging Competition begins at 11. Basically, that overlap allows for children who start puberty earlier than others (for example, girls usually hit their growth spurt sooner). The importance of these models is they provide a great guide for children playing up vs. those who are held back.
In education, Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development is the typical model to use regarding where a child's developmental sweet spot is. In layman's terms, some children are reading at a 5th grade level in 1st grade and others may be reading right on grade level. The educator is to place the children in these zones where they find the most chance at development - the Zone of Proximal Development. They are challenged, but not overwhelmed. They are also not bored to death. This is really what most organizations dance around but do not understand. Each child should be placed in his own ZPD.
We are often asked about children playing up in age. We have met many parents suffering from FOMO - the fear of missing out - who were worried that if their child did not play up an age, they would be overlooked for high school sports, and have no chance to play in college. They've seen other kids who did play up and think that their child should as well. They've rarely considered exactly what would make it beneficial for their child, or why it might hinder his or her development. They basically said, "others are doing it, so my kid should too."
What are some reasons that a child should play up in age? Here are a few factors a coach, a parent, and a sports club should look for in considering whether it is beneficial for a child, and some things to look out for to see if he should remain playing up:
- A child is developmentally (physically) ahead of his or her peers, and tends to rely on physicality rather than technique or thought to have success. This player should be challenged by teammates and opponents who are physical equals. Caution: This child may be socially and cognitively behind, and thus exposed to situations that he/she should not be maturity wise. Some kids struggle with tactical development and understanding the movement and interaction of players. Some are not physically ready to perform certain tasks even though they are big.
- A child is technically and tactically so far ahead of his or her peer group that there is no challenge. This child should be given the opportunity to play against players with the same technical ability and guile so that he/she is challenged to perform at a higher speed of thought and action. Caution: If the physical differences are such that a technically gifted child stops playing the game the right way (i.e. is afraid to dribble or shoot, stops playing confidently) the situation should be re-evaluated. Many players struggle with the physical disadvantage and can develop bad habits.
- When a child starts playing up, they should be eased into the situation. The speed of play at an older age can significantly ramp up the training and playing load on an athlete. Even if they practice and play the same amount of minutes, overuse injuries can happen if you are not careful.
Here are a few reasons that some parents have given me over the years that ARE NOT sufficient to allow playing up to happen, especially as children advance to more competitive environments:
- The kids on that team are part of our carpool (I get it, but hopefully you can form a new carpool. If the carpool is that important, ask permission to go to a practice once in awhile, but don't play up full time)
- Her best friend is on the team (I am sure they will get plenty of time to play together)
- That team is coached by his favorite coach (it is good to be exposed to many coaches)
- He plays up in other sports (Should an advanced reader should be taking advanced math?)
- Her older siblings were allowed to play up (every child is evaluated as an individual, and perhaps her siblings were older, bigger, stronger, or in an age group where kids were not as good).
- He is in the same grade as those kids on the older team (great, they will get to play together in high school, and perhaps you can guest play once in awhile but in the meantime, we can give the spot to a kid who is the correct age and develop him too)
- Our team has been together for 3 years (often heard when kids transition from recreational to travel programs. Please be patient, and it's likely that you can make some new friends, and be faced with new challenges instead of being comfortable).
- Parents are generous financial donors (hit like if you feel like you just bit into a lemon!)
I am sure there are many more excuses to play up, but you can get the gist. When it comes to athletic development, the only sufficient reasons for allowing children to play up an age full-time are based on technical, tactical and developmental criterion, and what puts a child in his or her ZPD, not on the whims or dreams of the child's parents. Every case should be decided on an individual basis, and yes, there are exceptions to every rule (ie. the team at the younger age disbanded). In the end, though, youth sports organizations must be consistent and make these decisions for the benefit of the athlete.
One final caveat is this. If you have a talented athlete playing up a year, or a female who competes with boys, don't be afraid to slide them down once in awhile and let them remember what it is like to compete against their chronological peers. We tend to only evaluate ourselves against our current peers (i.e struggling Harvard math majors don't look at themselves as 1%'s, they see themselves as the dumbest kid in the class), so sometimes talented youngsters can lose confidence when always playing against older kids. An age-appropriate game they can dominate from time to time, or allowing talented girls to play against other girls their age, is not a bad thing at all. Again, it must be monitored on an individual basis with parents and coaches working together!
I will leave you with this story. At one of my former clubs, we had a talented, late maturing U15 boy. Not only did he not play up, but we held him back on the club B team that year so he could continue to play the game the right way. He could be a leader, he could take free-kicks, and he could play his preferred position. We let him guest play from time to time, but he was a full-time B team player. He was not happy, nor were his parents initially, but we worked hard to help everyone understand how this benefited the athlete.
One year later he grew and made the top team. Two years he started on a team that won the US Developmental Academy National Championship. Three years on he was the starting center midfielder at an ACC soccer powerhouse. Everyone has their own path. Do not panic when your child's journey is not the same as another's.
I realize that "playing up" is a touchy issue for many parents and youth sports organizations, and I hope that we have touched on a few of the issues here. I am sure we have not hit them all, so please, if you have any ideas to share please do so below. Let's get a great conversation going so when the next talented young player comes along, we can make the decision that best serves his or her needs.
______________________________
______________________________ ________________
Upcoming Speaking Events: (email John@ChangingTheGameProject.
com to learn how to host one on your community. We are now booking Summer and Fall 2017 events, so if you are interested please email us ASAP)April 5-6: Edmonton Youth Lacrosse, AB (Glen)
April 6: Live Active Summit, Edmonton, AB (Glen)
April 8-9: Calgary Youth Lacrosse, AB (Glen)
April 11: Highland (IL) Parks and Recreation District (John)
April 20-21: City of Midland (TX) Aquatics (Reed)
May 8: Medford (OR) Chamber of Commerce (John)
May 17: Laguna Beach PTA, CA (John)
We hate to see you go, but if you no longer want to receive these emails, please let us know why so we can serve you better next time. You can go to the link below to stop all emails. Click here to Unsubscribe
Changing the Game Project 61662 Thunder Rd. Bend, Oregon 97702 United States (541) 977-5494