Tuesday, March 22, 2011
0 A.D. is a historical, open source, strategy game, published by Wildfire Games. It focuses on the period between 500BC and 500AD. The game will be released in two parts: the first covering the pre-AD period, and the second running to 500AD. With development well underway, Wikinews interviewed the development team.
Aviv Sharon, a 24-year-old Israeli student responsible for the project’s PR, compiled the below Q&A, which the full team approved prior to publication.
Submitted by: Tim Wright
Its always wise to have an idea of what type of property youre looking for when considering an investment and this article outlines 8 of the different factors to consider when researching specific locations.
1. Infrastructure
Its important to consider a towns infrastructure when looking for an investment property, especially in terms of what future investment is to be made in that area.
Local Authorities and Councils will have an annual budget for both the maintenance of current infrastructure and also for the construction of new infrastructure projects. Finding out how much the annual budget is and future investment will give you an idea of how proactive the authority is in attracting new residents, extra funding and business opportunities.
Most councils will be happy to provide most of the information and a lot of it will appear on their websites. Also look at the websites of local big businesses to get information on their future plans which will attract investment and create new jobs in the area.
2. Proximity to Amenities
In most cases, the main purpose in buying an investment property is to attract tenants who will pay a weekly or monthly rent.
Its important to know what type of tenants you are looking to attract and so any potential investment property will need to be close to the amenities required by the tenants. A city worker will want to rent a property close to shops and transport whereas a farmer will have different requirements.
Most properties in close proximity to the town will rent fairly easily compared to those which are a 15 minute drive outside of the town. Properties close to the town will also attract tenants who dont have their own transport.
So its best to know what your tenants requirements will be before you purchase.
3. Local Employers
It will always be easier to find tenants in towns where there are large employers in the vicinity. These include factories, large shopping malls, hospitals and universities.
With hospitals, many of the employees may be employed on a temporary basis and so owning or buying their own property in the area may not be a choice for them and renting is the easier option. Also, in the case of universities, a lot of the students will come from out of town and so renting is again the best option. This offers them more flexibility however it also means that your investment property could be vacant during certain months of the year and may switch tenants on a regular basis.
Again, be sure to research the future plans of these employers. If a major employer is due to shutdown or relocate in the near future then there will be a glut of empty properties with landlords doing whatever they can to fill them including drastically reducing the rent.
4. Geographic Location
This will determine both the type of tenant you get and also how easy your investment property will be to rent out.
Holiday properties near the ski fields will command a higher rent than a property in the city however it may only rent out for a few weeks per year. A beach house will also be in the same position. Again, its important to understand the type of tenants in the area, what they are looking for, how much they are willing to spend, etc.
A beach house may command a high rent but may only attract retirees who are willing to pay top dollar and so this narrows the number of potential tenants. Properties closer to cities and amenities will likely attract a higher number of tenants willing to pay a lower weekly rent.
5. Demographics
Spend time understanding the demographics of the areas population and you will have a better idea of the type of tenant you can expect.
Find out the populations average salary, the different age brackets, percentage of those married and single and the percentage of the population that rent.
The demographic information will show if the towns population has been growing or declining over the past number of years and therefore if an investment is a safe bet. It will give you an idea of the earning capacity of tenants and how much rent you can expect.
It may also show movements of parts of the population to new parts of the same area due to factory closures, increase in crime etc.
6. Property Median Prices
Historical property prices will be a good indicator to the fluctuations in property values in the area over time.
A property may look like a bargain at first glance but with a little research you may discover that the same or similar properties changed hands previously for a lot more money. There may be a simple explanation for this such as a vendor wanting a quick sale but it may also reflect a dive in the local property market for various reasons.
Median prices will give an indication of what you can expect to pay for the different types of properties (no. of beds, land size, etc) in the area and the figures may also show the number of recent sales. The historical figures will also give a pattern of historical growth or decline in the area over time and this could be used to indicate a propertys future value.
7. Occupancy/Vacancy Rates
Each area will have a certain percentage of rental properties tenanted (occupied) and the remainder without tenants (vacant). Towns with a high vacancy rate (normally deemed to be more than 4%) will make it possibly harder to find tenants to fill your rental property as it shows a lot of competition for too few renters.
Too few renters will also mean that landlords will have to be more creative in attracting tenants and may need to reduce the rent and offer other incentives to entice renters.
Areas with high employment and a strong outlook for the future are likely to have a higher occupancy rate and this may even cause competition amongst renters, allowing landlords to set higher rents.
8. Property Managers
Finding a trustworthy property manager is important if you will not be looking after the property yourself in terms of finding tenants and collecting the weekly or monthly rent.
Good property managers will communicate regularly, carry out periodic property inspections, arrange repairs and, most importantly, regularly deposit the rent (minus expenses) to your bank account.
There are also many other duties a property manager can carry out and its important to question those managers in the potential area to find one or more likely candidates that are going to take care of your investment.
Find out how many rental properties they manage, how long theyve been in business and ay other questions you deem necessary until you find one you are happy with.
In closing, the above points are only guides for you to learn more about an area before you make an investment. There may be more factors youll need to consider depending on your situation but if you research the above you naturally increase the amount of knowledge you have about the area. And the more knowledge you have will reduce the risk of a potentially poor investment.
About the Author: Tim Wright is a property investor and ‘Green’ renovator. For more information check out
Greenscape Homes
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Sunday, July 22, 2007
Virginia – Joshua Brady, a former Sprint Nextel customer, has had his cellular phone account shut off, but not because he wasn’t paying the phone bill, or even because he was late on payments, but because a customer service representative who assisted him, began to call him outside of her job, and make death threats to him in September of 2006. She was never fired for her actions, Brady says.
Brady has agreed to be interviewed by Wikinews to tell his story. All information and claims have been logged with Brady’s attorney and federal authorities.
The representative from Sprint Nextel, who for safety reasons is only being identified as Jessica, was working at the company’s call center in Ontario, Canada where Brady’s call to customer service was directed. According to Brady, Jessica then began to call him outside of her job duties at the call center after their first contact.
Brady called the center around 6:00 p.m. (eastern time) on a Saturday and attempted to receive help on a billing question and to find a way to stop prank calls. Brady requested a “soc code”, a code placed into the phone, that would allow for the number that was pranking him to be blocked. Unfortunately, Jessica did not know what that was, but tried unsuccessfully to find it. According to Brady, the only thing she could find was “the ANI feature call centers have.”
Brady then described to Jessica the billing issue he was having. He was being charged “for text messages I was not making”, even though he had unlimited text messaging with his billing plan. Meanwhile, Jessica called for a supervisor to help locate the code. As this customer service request over the phone was taking quite a bit of time, the two of them then started to discuss what two people would normally discuss if just chatting; sports, the weather, movies and music and if Virginia was a nice place to go on vacation. The supervisor then came by Jessica’s station with no luck on finding a code.
Later that night, around 10:30 p.m., Brady received a call. He answered it and much to his surprise, it was Jessica. He answered the phone with the usual “hello” and the voice on the other end answered with “hello Josh.” Brady was “surprised” that she had not said “hello Mr. Brady.”
“I then asked who it was, and she said Jessica. She told me about her day, and hoped that I did not mind her calling.” Then according to Brady, she started to describe how much she hated working in a call center, and how the job “pays the bills”, and asked if she could “come visit me sometime”. Brady said that he “immediately started to record” the call. Brady also stated that Jessica was not aware she was being recorded, and that further conversations were recorded without her knowing.
The call lasted about 15 minutes, but Brady said she “spoke so fast and moved along through things” that he “didn’t have a chance to talk if I wanted to. It [the call] ended with me interrupting her and telling her I had to go to dinner with a friend.”
Brady immediately called customer care back and reported Jessica’s actions to a supervisor (Jason), and the Floor Manager (Also named Jessica) at the Coos Bay call center, which is where his call happened to be directed. The advice he received was to “play along” and continue to report her actions until they could locate someone “better equipped” to handle the situation.
Jessica then began to call “about every other day or so” which turned out to be almost 30 calls, according to Brady who reported each call she made to Sprint Nextel.
Sprint Nextel then told Jessica to cease and desist all contact with Brady, but that didn’t stop Jessica from contacting him. She somehow found out the screen-name of his AOL Instant Messenger account, and left messages threatening to kill him. Brady logged the messages and faxed them to Sprint, who about a week later sent Brady a letter, saying that his accounts have been terminated.
“The purpose of this letter is to inform our that our office has received a complaint regarding your recent questionable interactions with our customer care group. Recent interactions with our company have prompted us to formally contact you. Sprint Nextel terms and conditions state that “termination of services. consistent with this agreement…”, said the letter from Sprint Nextel.
Brady states that Jessica is still employed with Sprint Nextel, despite the fact that all instant messages left by Jessica were forwarded to Sprint Nextel.
As recently as July 10, 2007, as many as 1,000 accounts were terminated by Sprint Nextel because customers were complaining too much and asking too many questions about billing.
“While we have worked to resolve your issues and questions to the best of our ability, the number of inquiries you have made to us during this time had led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs,” said one letter to a sprint customer as recent as June 29, 2007. The letter states that the service will be terminated just one day after the letter was written despite saying they “understand switching to a new carrier causes an inconvenience.”
Two weeks ago, Sprint addressed the media about the mass-cancellations. “These accounts have been researched very carefully,” Sprint spokeswoman Roni Singleton said. “We feel strongly that the decisions we made, we stand by them. These decisions weren’t made lightly.”
“If the average person is calling less than once per month and these people are calling 40 or 50 times more, that takes away from customer service,” Singleton said. “Our priority is to improve the customer experience.”
Wikinews sent e-mails to Sprint Nextel on July 20 regarding the Brady incident; to date no response has been received.
Update: On July 23, 2007, Wikinews received an email response from a Sprint representative, going to some length to explain the termination of the customers who were calling up to hundreds of times a month. No information was given on the Brady case covered in this article; “customer privacy considerations” were cited as the reason and “no comment” was Sprint’s reply.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Wikinews has obtained a letter by Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to former Conservative justice spokesman John Lamont in response to questions raised by our correspondent about the Mikaeel Kular murder case. Wikinews has investigated possible contempt by media publishing potentially prejudicial material, and MacAskill wrote he has “been following the case of Mikaeel Kular and [is] acutely aware of the unusual publicity this case has attracted.”
When Mikaeel Kular, three, vanished from his Edinburgh home last month police and volunteers scoured the capital for him. His body was found in Fife just before midnight on January 17, and his mother was arrested on January 18. That’s when Wikinews first reported on possible widespread contempt by UK and Scottish media.
Our correspondent is based in Scotland and has been advised by a lawyer not to identify anybody detained until they have appeared in court, even if they have been arrested and charged. Professor James Chalmers of the University of Glasgow has since reviewed our coverage and confirmed this position. Despite that a large number of major media outlets identified Rosdeep Adekoya, nee Kular, 33, as the arrested individual.
Adekoya has since been in Edinburgh Sheriff Court charged with murdering her son. She is in custody pending indictment and trial, but any eyewitness evidence may be tainted because her image has been widely published. This is common practice elsewhere in the UK but Scottish justice works differently and courts have viewed publication of photos as potentially prejudicial. Professor Pamela Ferguson of the University of Dundee notes “journalists do seem to be walking a dangerous line if publishing photos etc of suspects.” Crown Office, which is in overall charge of prosecutions, has indicated to journalists that no further comment will be made at least until indictment.
MacAskill however expressed confidence in the Scottish court system to deal with the situation. “I am confident… the courts themselves will intervene if they believe publicity is in danger of being prejudicial.” He also wrote to Lamont that he has faith in the court to successfully direct any jury that may try the case in order to maintain fairness.
| The courts have said that the only safe route to avoid committing a contempt is to avoid publishing a photograph | ||
The Contempt of Court Act 1981 is designed to prevent prejudicial material going in front of juries before trial. Although UK-wide legislation, the law is interpreted differently north of the border than in England and Wales. Witnesses in Scotland may be asked to identify accused persons standing in the dock. The BBC College of Journalism advises legal advice be sought ahead of publishing photos and notes it has previously been ruled contempt. The BBC used the accused’s photo prominently in their own online coverage.
Chalmers explains: “It may be a contempt of court to create a substantial risk of serious prejudice to someone’s right to a fair trial. A photograph might do this in a case where identification is an issue; on the face of it, that does not seem especially likely in this case, but it is impossible to know for certain at this point. The courts have said that the only safe route to avoid committing a contempt is to avoid publishing a photograph, but that does not mean that publishing a photograph is automatically a contempt.” MacAskill noted “the kind of issue that publicity might raise may become apparent only during the trial itself.”
Contempt has been a considerable issue in the UK in recent years after high-profile cases. In one instance a charge against serial killer Levi Bellfield was dropped owing to publicity while the jury were deliberating; in another, newspapers were fined and sued for libel over reporting on the arrest of a suspect who turned out to be innocent in a prominent investigation.
A proposal was mooted to ban identification of suspects arrested anywhere in the UK, but this was subsequently shelved. MacAskill confirmed “the Scottish Government is content with the way the courts are operating the rules on contempt of court in Scotland at the moment and has no plans to make changes.” He also wrote of the difficulties with trying to individually cover all eventualities with prescriptive legislation, saying “A trial for a sexual offence will raise very different issues — particularly of protecting victims — from those that are raised by a tax fraud trial.”
MacAskill says it is the Scottish Government’s position that the task of “counterbalancing the public interest in reporting with upholding the criminal law should be left to those whose job it is to do so — the courts and the judiciary, acting in the individual circumstances of the case”.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A1 Team New Zealand has won the feature race at the A1 Grand Prix in Shanghai, China today, followed by A1 Team Great Britain and A1 Team Germany. The third place win for Germany has secured the 2006/2007 championship.
In qualifying for the sprint race, Great Britain’s driver Robbie Kerr managed to secure the pole position with the fastest lap time recorded this weekend. New Zealand’s driver, Jonny Reid, started in second position, narrowly missing out on what would have been his third pole position of the season. Third and fourth place starters are the United States and Germany respectively.
Great Britain managed to win the sprint race, thus securing a first place start in the feature race. During the entire sprint race, Great Britain were the leaders, with a “comfortable” lead, always maintaining their position in front of New Zealand. Germany replaced America, becoming the third place sprint-race winners.
During the feature race Jonny Reid, driving New Zealand’s Black Beauty car, passed Great Britain on lap number 16 of the 50-lap race.
byAlma Abell
Bees are a vital part of nature. Like many animals, they have a mechanism to defend themselves if they feel their home is under attack. While this defense is useful for animal predators who love the honey, it is not so welcome when their hive is located in the backyard or inside your walls. Trying to get rid of them through traditional means such as poisonous sprays will really only aggravate them and bring out more of their defensive side. Thus, the only way to get rid of them, and potentially spare the hive, is to remove the honeycomb completely.
One of the first steps in bee removal in Oceanside is to dress up in bee protective gear. Since bees target the eyes and nose first, bee veils are absolutely necessary when working with bees. That is why you see many bee removal experts don this protective gear before the approach the hive. They will also ensure the rest of their clothing prevents angry bees from coming in contact with them. If the bees are very angry because of other removal efforts, they will attack regardless of their strain.
Another step is to use the smoking gun. The smoking gun helps as a means to calm down the bees. It simulates a fire, and bees will scurry to consume a lot of honey. This makes it tougher for them to actually sting a person. The smoke is used judiciously to calm the outside bees so the bee remover can get to the honeycomb the bees have built.
Getting to the honeycomb is the next step of bee removal in Oceanside . This may require the removal of drywall, framing and anything else the bees have built their honeycomb on. Getting rid of it completely is essential because bees will return if there is even a tiny bit of honeycomb left.
While not all strains of bees are aggressive, they can become that way if they aren’t properly removed. All bees will defend their homes, but it is important to save as many honey bees as possible because they are important pollinators. So many honey bees can find new homes with beekeepers and don’t have to be completely eradicated during removal.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
By a narrow vote late in the evening on December 21st, 2005 the US Senate blocked opening the nation’s oil reserve in National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska . This vote delivers a victory to environmentalists and denies the Bush administration their top energy priority. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) attached the drilling plan to a measure to fund ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the Senate late last night agreed to pass the defense bill, without the drilling provision.
Two key Republicans, Lincoln D Chafee (R-R.I.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio), joined Democrats in opposing the drilling. Senator Lieberman (D-Conn) said yesterday that Stevens was to blame for holding up money for the military. By including the drilling measure in the defense spending bill, it was hoped to twist the senators’ arms into voting for both provisions together in the scramble to finish the important business before the Senate’s Christmas break.
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Submitted by: Aaditya Aggarwal
India being a largest population country is experiencing exceptional growth in healthcare sector and the medical skills are well known across the globe. The global recognition in medical sector had benefitted India in medical tourism with the reduced costs and quality healthcare services people from diverse corners of world are approaching Indian medical services. This multi-billion dollar industry expansion is owing to cost effective treatment, availability of latest medical technology and increase in awareness about alternative treatments of Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Yoga, and other similar treatments.
In healthcare services as the practice grows patients call volume also increases. The Advanced technology and virtual call center in healthcare sector in India have managed patients and the calls effectively, so virtual call center is also a factor for boosting Indian Healthcare services.
Big V Telecom, first company incubated by Tata Elxsi has virtual call center solutions like YOCC it is highly affordable, authentic and easily accessible solution for high and random call traffic for hospitals. Its automated receiving and routing of calls and multiple call handling makes sure there is no call waiting or busy tone providing patients round the clock support.
YOCC provides multi language support feature which enables patients all over India to select their desired option for communication. And its 24×7 availability helps no interruption for any emergency call. Cloud telephony is active management tool to streamline daily operations. Virtual call center such as YOCC helps in decision making for any industry on marketing strategy front by quantifying ROI.
Managing calls with one unique numbe
Managing calls with single virtual number is possible with YOCC as multiple extensions enables to connect different departments across the medical center and its call transfer facility directs the calls on any mobile or landline number of hospital representative.
Complete Automation for Advanced Patient Care
Healthcare evolves and intensifies on patient care within and outside of hospital; a streamlined communication between patients and care teams for scheduling appointments, patient support information, billing and other emergency enquiries is an extensive task. With automated virtual call center patients can schedule appointments any time and from anywhere without call waiting and manual interaction.
Customized virtual call center maintain centralized service standards for registration, scheduling, patient referral and other forms. It benefits with multi specialty hospitals where hundreds of patients call every day. Hospitals can send reminders to patients about appointment schedule or vaccination for children and other details about billing and so on. The doctors can also be alerted by voice message or text messages in case of emergency. This will retain patients goodwill and will prompt them to refer others thus building hospital reputation and quality of medical service.
YOCCs virtual contact center benefits hospitals with their multi language feature, live call monitoring and real time database. With its web based portal management can check every call detail and maintain service standards by monitoring call log analytics.
The convenience of cloud telephony is not just limited to large scale healthcare providers. Small and mid size clinics, pathology labs and individual healthcare professionals can avail benefits of tailored and reasonable cloud communication services. A healthcare center pays only for the facilities it requires and yet portrays itself as a professionally managed one.
About the Author: Aaditya Aggrawal is a noteworthy author who has unparalleled knowledge about cloud technology and virtual call center, written a number of informative contents on cloud telephony companies in India.
bigv.in/
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Monday, June 25, 2018
On Sunday, R Praggnanandhaa became the youngest Indian chess player to earn the title of Grand Master. At the age of twelve years, ten months and thirteen days, Praggnanandhaa was the second youngest person to earn the title.
Praggnanandhaa earned his third norm on Sunday as he faced Dutch Grand Master Roeland Pruijssers with Elo rating of 2514 at the fourth Gredine Open in Italy. Having won the first norm in November and second in April, Praggnanandhaa had to face a player with at least 2482 Elo rating for the third norm. For the Grand Master title, a player requires three norms and Elo rating of at least 2500.
Praggnanandhaa with Elo rating of 2529 finished second at the competition, losing the tie-breaker for the winning spot. In 2016, at the age of ten years, ten months and nineteen days, Praggnanandhaa became the youngest player to receive the title of an International Master.
In 2002, at the age of twelve years and seven months, Ukraine’s Sergey Karjakin became the youngest recipient of the Grand Master title. Previously, India’s Parimarjan Negi was the youngest Indian to earn the Grand Master title.