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"Child pornography is great," the man said enthusiastically. "Politicians do not understand file sharing, but they understand child pornography, and they want to filter that to score points with the public. Once we get them to filter child pornography, we can get them to extend the block to file sharing."
The date was May 27, 2007, and the man was Johan Schlüter, head of the Danish Anti-Piracy Group (Antipiratgruppen). He was speaking in front of an audience from which the press had been banned; it was assumed to be copyright industry insiders only. It wasn’t. Christian Engström, who’s now a Member of the European Parliament, Oscar Swartz, and I were also there.
“My friends,” Schlüter said. “We must filter the Internet to win over online file sharing. But politicians don’t understand that file sharing is bad, and this is a problem for us. Therefore, we must associate file sharing with child pornography. Because that’s something the politicians understand, and something they want to filter off the Internet.”
“We are developing a child pornography filter in cooperation with the IFPI and the MPA so we can show politicians that filtering works,” he said. “Child pornography is an issue they understand.” Schlüter grinned broadly.
I couldn’t believe my ears as I heard this the first time. But the strategy has been set into motion worldwide.
Schlüter’s plan worked like clockwork. Denmark was the first country to censor AllOfMP3.com, the (fully legal) Russian music store, and is now censoring The Pirate Bay off the internet. The copyright industry is succeeding in creating a fragmented Internet.
This is why you see the copyright lobby bring up child pornography again and again and again. They are using it as a battering ram for censoring any culture outside of their own distribution channels. You can Google the term together with any copyright lobby organization and see them continuously coming back to it.
In Sweden, the copyright industry lobbyist Per Strömbäck has publicly admitted it being one of his best arguments. Try Googling for the Swedish word for child pornography on the lobby site and see if you get any hits in any articles (over 40).
The reasoning is simple and straightforward. Once you have established that someone who is in a position to censor other people’s communication has a responsibility to do so, the floodgates open and those middlemen can be politically charged with filtering anything that somebody objects to being distributed.
It is not hard to see why the copyright lobby is pursuing this avenue so ferociously.
It doesn’t really matter that filters at the DNS level are ridiculously easy to circumvent. The idea is to create a political environment where censorship of undesirable information is seen as something natural and positive. Once that principle has been established, the next step is to force a switch to more efficient censorship filters at the IP or even the content level.
News reached us this week that Internet Service Providers in the United States have now entered an agreement with the copyright lobby to police the net. This arrangement, it turns out, also stems from the copyright industry’s love of child pornography.
“We pointed out to [the governor] that there are overlaps between the child porn problem and piracy,” Mr. Sherman [The RIAA president] said, “because all kinds of files, legal and otherwise, are traded on peer-to-peer networks.”
Sound familiar? It should. It’s a page right out of the 2007 scene where the Danish Mr. Schlüter talked about the copyright lobby’s policymaking strategy of associating non-monopolistic distribution of culture with the rape of small defenseless children.
This association strategy has now worked in the United States, too.
Just when you think the copyright lobby can’t sink any lower, they surprise you again. And it gets worse. Much worse.
In Europe, the copyright lobby is now pushing Commissioner Malmström to create a similar censorship regime, despite clear setbacks from the European Court of Justice defending human rights and freedom to communicate.
But taking one step back, would censorship of child pornography be acceptable in the first place? Is the copyright industry perhaps justified in this particular pursuit, beyond their real goal of blocking non-monopolistic distribution?
There are two layers of answers to that. The first is the principal one, whether pre-trial censorship is ever correct. History tells us that it plainly isn’t, not under any circumstance.
But more emotionally, we turn to a German group named Mogis. It is a support group for adult people who were abused as children, and is the only one of its kind. They are very outspoken and adamant on the issue of censoring child pornography.
Censorship hides the problem and causes more children to be abused, they say. Don’t close your eyes, but see reality and act on it. As hard as it is to force oneself to be confronted emotionally with this statement, it is rationally understandable that a problem can’t be addressed by hiding it. One of their slogans is “Crimes should be punished and not hidden”.
This puts the copyright industry’s efforts in perspective. In this context they don’t care in the slightest about children, only about their control over distribution channels. If you ever thought you knew cynical, this takes it to a whole new level.
The conclusion is as unpleasant as it is inevitable. The copyright industry lobby is actively trying to hide egregious crimes against children, obviously not because they care about the children, but because the resulting censorship mechanism can be a benefit to their business if they manage to broaden the censorship in the next stage. All this in defense of their lucrative monopoly that starves the public of culture.
It’s hard to comprehend that there are people who are so shameless that they would actually do this. But there are. Every time you think the copyright lobby has sunk as morally low as is humanly possible, they prove you wrong.
— — —
Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at http://falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.
Follow Rick Falkvinge on Twitter as @Falkvinge and on Facebook as /rickfalkvinge. |
DC Has Revealed Its New Movies Slate, And It Looks Incredible By Adam Holmes Random Article Blend Way back in 2014, Warner Bros officially announced that it was entering the cinematic universe game with a lineup of DC films that would comprise the DC Extended Universe. Three years later, a lot has changed, from some projects being delayed to due behind-the-scenes issues to others being prioritized. Well, after numerous movie announcements, Warner Bros has finally unveiled its updated slate of DC movies, and we can't help but get excited. They are as follows: Justice League
Aquaman
Shazam
Suicide Squad 2
The Batman
Justice League Dark
Batgirl
Green Lantern Corps
The Flash: Flashpoint
Wonder Woman 2 Warner Bros showed off quite a bit of DC content at its presentation today, including a new Justice League trailer and Aquaman footage. But this updated slate finally clues us in on exactly what is coming post-2018. DC hasn't been shy about adding new movies to the DCEU, and while we already knew about most of the entries on this list, now we know for sure that they're being prioritized. Given that Justice League is being released in November, Aquaman is coming out in December 2018 and Shazam is reportedly aiming for a 2019 release, it's possible that Warner Bros presented the slate in chronological order, although that hasn't been confirmed yet. Without a doubt the biggest surprise on this list is Flashpoint, which will be based of the 2011 event of the same name. Flashpoint was about Barry Allen, a.k.a. The Flash, traveling back in time to prevent his mother from being killed, only to come back to a present where the world was a twisted version of his normal reality, from Thomas Wayne being Batman to Atlantis and Themyscira embroiled in a war that's devastated half the globe. That story ended with the DC Comics universe being rebooted for the New 52, so no doubt this theatrical adaptation will present its own unique reality change. Whether the Flashpoint movie is intended to be Justice League 2's replacement or a separate epic remains to be seen. Some of the movies teased today, like Shazam and Green Lantern Corps, have been part of DC and Warner Bros' plan for years, while others, like Batgirl and Suicide Squad 2, are newer to the party. It's especially good to see Wonder Woman 2 listed given how critically and commercially its predecessor has been this summer. Among the notable absentees from this slate announcement are Gotham City Sirens, Black Adam, Cyborg, Nightwing and another Superman movie. Given that most of these movies have directors or stars attached, presumably they're just coming later down the line and have not been scrapped entirely. Rest assured, if the slate undergoes any other changes, we here at CinemaBlend will be sure to let you know. The DCEU continues on November 17 with the release of Justice League, and Wonder Woman is still playing in theaters. Aquaman Review: What CinemaBlend Thought Of DC's New Movie Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to top |
Arnold Schwarzenegger is arguing that U.S. President Donald Trump’s rejection of the Paris climate accord doesn’t matter, because companies, scientists and other governments can “pick up the slack” to reduce global emissions.
READ MORE: Arnold Schwarzenegger has a message for Donald Trump and white supremacists
The Hollywood star and former California governor took a spin on a Parisian electric bike Monday as part of events leading up to an international climate summit Tuesday hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Schwarzenegger said “Donald Trump pulled Donald Trump out of the Paris agreement,” but many in the private sector, cities and state governments, engineers and universities remain committed to fighting climate change.
READ MORE: Schwarzenegger has ‘wonderful’ climate change discussion with Macron in Paris
A prominent environmental campaigner, Schwarzenegger acknowledged that many people “don’t understand what global warming or climate change really means,” and urged environmental activists to focus on efforts to fight pollution instead because of its health risks.
WATCH: Activists put on a performance that symbolized a massive wave of oil on Tuesday, in a protest at the start of an international climate summit in Paris. |
BARRINGTON, R.I. -- Two Brown University students who tried to swim from Barrington to the Conimicut Point lighthouse were rescued from Narragansett Bay Sunday evening when they were swept away by the current.
The students, Ashley Whaley, 18, and Katherine Murphy, 20, told police they walked from Rhode Island School of Design's Tillinghast Farm beach on Nayatt Road in Barrington to the end of Nayatt Point, where they decided to try to swim to the lighthouse off Warwick, according to the police report.
Somewhere into their swim, the students realized the lighthouse, about a mile from Nayatt Point, was further away than they thought. Murphy told police she decided to swim back to Barrington while Whaley kept going toward the lighthouse.
As she swam back toward shore, Murphy realized the incoming tide was sweeping her past the point and north toward the Providence River by the strong current, so she began calling for help, according to the police report.
Those calls were heard by several people on shore, including friends of the students, who called police around 7:45 p.m., and John and Jim Anderson, who were having a Mother's Day cookout on Nayatt Road. The Andersons asked neighbor David Beitle if they could use his kayak to reach the swimmer and he agreed to join them in a second kayak.
Thick fog - a Dense Fog Advisory was issued by the National Weather Service - along with chop kicked up by stiff southwest winds made it difficult for rescuers to see the swimmers and it took around 30 minutes to find Murphy. The Andersons pulled her into their kayak and took her to shore, where she was treated by East Providence paramedics, but did not require a trip to the hospital.
Then the search resumed for Whaley, who remained in the water until around 9:30 until her calls for help were heard and she was picked up by a Portsmouth public safety vessel, one of six from the Narragansett Bay Marine Task Force that had joined the search.
"We could hear her but could not see her because of the fog," Beitle said in a phone interview.
When she was finally pulled from the water by the Portsmouth crew, Whaley was taken to Conimicut Point in Warwick, where she was then driven by ambulance to Rhode Island Hospital and treated for mild hypothermia, said Barrington Fire Lt. Jason Fanion.
The water temperature at the mouth of Narragansett Bay Sunday was 51 degrees.
(Correction: An earlier version of this story, based on information from the Barrington Fire Deparment, incorrectly reported that the women had been using kayaks.) |
Look, you don’t need convincing. You don’t need a ton of text here explaining what parties and events you’ll want to attend while enjoying PAX Prime. You don’t need convincing that we’re here to get you the information.
Just bookmark this page, visit the Facebook Group, visit the PAX forums, check out the party map by Cody Albert, and see you in Seattle, because it’s the biggest, brightest and best PAX Prime party list on the planet! Get a FREE RIDE from LYFT, up to $25, by using promo code “PAXPRIME”.
[box_dark]Special thanks to Bryanna again for helping coordinate! Follow her at @GlitterVelocity! And JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP! Parties tend to go up there first![/box_dark]
Official PAX East site: Visit here! PAX Parties Twitter account: Click Here! PAX Forums party discussion: Click HERE!
Contact us or leave a comment below if you know of a party that we’re missing. :) <3 heart heart
Listed by Day
Listed by Day (Abridged)
Wednesday, August 27
Thursday, August 28
Friday, August 29
Saturday, August 30
Sunday, August 31
Monday, September 1
[box_dark]Wednesday, August 27[/box_dark]
[box_light]
SchlitzKrieg 2014
Beer and a Big Yellow Bus
Time: 9AM-6PM
Location: Various locations (See Map)
Tix: $75/person
Info: PAX Forums
Washington state has almost 200 craft breweries, many with small-scale artisan brews that you’re not going to find anywhere else in the world. Seattle is truly Beer Geek Heaven. The SchlitzKrieg is a beer tour for locals and out-of-towners alike, and focused on tiny up and coming nano-breweries that you probably won’t find in the store. Throw in a little local history, an interesting scenic ride, and you’ve got a great way to spend a day outside of the Convention Center, where you can see more of the city than just the downtown.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Microsoft Store Blade Event
Time: 6-10PM
Location: Microsoft Store, 2642 NE University Village St, Seattle, WA 98105
Admission: Free
Info: Website
6:00–8:00PM: Meet and Greet with your favorite professional gamers
8:00–10:00PM: Free-to-play on the Blades in the theater area
First 100 in line receive an exclusive Razer swag bag
*line begins at 3:00PM
Razer prize pack with every Blade purchase
*while supplies last
Arrive early for a wristband to gain access to the
AFTER PARTY
– See more at: http://www.razerzone.com/blade-event#sthash.bBqmFgYv.dpuf
[/box_light]
[box_light]
PopCap PAX Kickoff game dev meet, drink & play
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 7-10PM
Location: PopCap Games, Inc, 2401 4th Avenue #300, Seattle, WA 98121
Tix: Eventbrite
That filled up quick! Thanks everyone. Exhibitors can still sign up at the form linked below but we’re out of attendee spots at his point.
PopCap, the amazing people behind mega-hits Plants v. Zombies and Bejewelled, are opening their doors to local game devs and those visiting Seattle for PAX & PAX Dev for a night of networking, beer, snacks and games. This is a devs only party to kick off PAX week where you can see some old friends, make new ones and play some games made by local Seattle indie devs.
Beer, soda, pizza & snacks will be provided. This is a 21 & over event so please bring photo ID with proof of age. When you arrive at the building look for Bryan in the lobby and he will let you in to the elevator to access the building. Follow the orange Zuma frogs to the party once you exit the elevator.
Registration is free and limited to 100 people so sign up soon.
If you are interested in demoing a game fill out this form. We have enough spots for 10-15 presenters. Mobile/PC/Console, as long as you can bring the equipment necessary for people to play you game then all are welcome.
[/box_light]
[box_dark]Thursday, August 28[/box_dark]
[box_light]
Pre-PAX Board Game Night
Time: 4PM-Late Late Late
Location: The Sheraton Hotel, 2nd Floor in Grand Ballroom B & Willow Room, 1400 6th Ave, Seattle
Tix: Free
Info: PAX Forums
A coordinated meetup the night before PAX for anyone with board games, or anyone who wants to play board games. It’s a great way to kick off PAX and meet some new friends. This is a Free, All-Ages event.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Battle Nations PAX Prime Meetup
Time: 5-7PM
Location: Location TBD
Tix: Contact by email
It’s that time of year again and we couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the annual PAX Prime event held here in our own backyard than with a bunch of our favorite people, you!
From 5-7pm the night of Aug 28th we will be hosting a Battle Nations PAX party, held in a secret location somewhere tucked away in one of Seattle’s favorite neighborhoods.
The festivities will include:
Food and drinks
Door Prizes!!!
Meet and Greet with the Team
Exclusive Sneak Peek into the future of BN
Q&A with the Battle Nations Team
Maybe even a surprise or two
So, if you’d like to come hang out with koolRanch, StockOption, Womabtt and the rest of the Battle Nations Team, RSVP [email protected] with the information below as soon as possible. Space is definitely limited!
RSVP Information:
Name:
Z2 USername:
Address:
Age (Must be over 21)
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Second Annual Pre-PAX SkyHigh Tabletop Play
Benefiting Food Lifeline
Time: 5PM-2AM
Location: Columbia Tower Club, 701 5th Ave, 76th Floor, Seattle, WA
Tix: Shindigg $45 and up
Info: Website
Back for another year! This is not just another board game party! Featuring thousands of dollars in prizes from the gaming and food industry, life-sized versions of some of your favorite games, food, drinks and the chance to match wits with some of the nation’s best game designers, this is THE party to be at on the night before PAX! Every cent – that’s EVERY. RED. CENT. – that we raise on this evening (beyond the costs of producing the event) will be donated to Food Lifeline. Rated by Charity Navigator as 4-star charity, they provide food for homeless people in Western Washington and across the nation. Oh, and it takes place in a swanky private club atop the tallest building in Seattle.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Pre-PAX Dinner
[SALE ENDED]
Time: 6-8PM
Location: Barca’s, 1510 11th Ave Seattle, WA 98122
Tix: Eventbrite $28.48 21+
Info: PAX Forums
This is a really casual dinner held the day before PAX where you can meet and hangout with a whole bunch of other PAXers. If you’re planning on attending the Tri-Wizard Drinking Tournament then this is also a great place to come eat right before the crawl. It ends right when the crawl is gearing up and is right in the middle of all the starting bars (and is a starting bar!).
[/box_light]
[box_light]
XPO Mixer
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 6-8:30PM
Location: Gameworks, 1511 7th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: Free (Eventbrite)
Are you making the journey to Seattle from the middle of America? Let’s meet-up! You may be wrapping up your time at Pax Dev or gearing up for Pax Prime. Either way, you are invited to join other gamers, developers, vendors, and fans for a fun celebration on Thursday, August 28th at GameWorks. No cab needed! GameWorks is right across the street from the Convention Center and in the middle of the action. FREE drinks, FREE snacks, FREE game time, FREE schwag, FREE friends, FREE fun times.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
ID@Xbox Pre-PAX Open House
Time: 6-8:30PM
Location: Microsoft Building 92, 15010 NE 36th Street, Redmond, WA 98052
Admission: Free (18+)
Info: Website
We’re throwing open the doors at the scenic Microsoft Campus – come see where we work, come play our games, and kick off PAX Prime weekend with hundreds of fellow gamers.
Here’s what you need to know:
When: Thursday, August 28th from 6:00 PM til 8:30 PM)
Where: Microsoft Building 92, 15010 NE 36th Street, Redmond, WA 98052 (directions here)
Who: Xbox fans 18 and older (under 18 allowed with parent/guardian)
What you can do: Play over 25 upcoming ID@Xbox titles. Talk to the devs. See the beautiful Xbox campus.
Admission cost: FREE
We know many of you will be in town for PAX Prime, and we’ve got you covered. We’ve commandeered the Sunset Overdrive bus to get you here – Overcharge included! Shuttles will pick up from the Seattle Convention Center area (map here!) at 430pm and 630pm, returning to the Convention Center at 8pm and 930pm.
NOTE: the bus has limited capacity, and are first-come-first-served. If you drive, we’ll have plenty of parking for you on-site.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
MMO Reporter Meetup
Time: 7PM
Location: Elephant & Castle Pub, 1415 Fifth Avenue, Seattle, WA
Info/RSVP: Website
We’ll be recording our annual PAX Preview Podcast live from the meet up, as well as giving away some great prizes from Elder Scrolls Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Guild Wars 2, Wildstar and more!
We’re asking everyone to RSVP if they’re planning on attending so that we can keep track of the number of people attending. If you plan on making your way there, please send an email containing your name and the number of people in your party to [email protected]
[/box_light]
[box_light]
NAPPP5
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Info/RSVP: Website
It’s NAPPP time again! For the past several years we’ve thrown a little get-together on PAX-eve to celebrate with our friends, listeners, and past guests. At this point it has become a tradition of sorts and this year we’ll be throwing yet another Pre-PAX party on the evening of Thursday August 28th in Seattle near the Washington State Convention Center (location TBD). This time we promise to find a larger and better ventilated location for the gathering because we know that last year was a bit of a sweat box.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
The XBA/PST Annual Pre-PAX Party: 2014 Edition
Time: 8PM-1AM
Location: Tap House Grill, 1506 6th Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Age: 21+
Info: Website
Come one, come all, for our fifth annual pre-PAX party at the Taphouse Grill in downtown Seattle. Meet staff members from at least three countries and join us as we try to max out Dan Webb’s credit card by aiming to drink at least one of each of the 300 beers on tap. Play pool, watch the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks destroy the Oakland Raiders, and mingle with all sorts of gamers, geeks, nerds and people who just wander in from the street to see what all the fuss is about.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Pre-PAX Hookah Lounge
Time: 8:30PM
Location: Night Owl Hookah, 4745 University Way, Seattle, WA 98105
Cost: $5.50, 18 yrs & up
Info: PAX Forums
Its time to smoke again. Before we go any further this will be at a Hookah Lounge. No outside substances; tobacco, illegal, or otherwise.
Cover Charge is $5.50, that gives you a year membership so free if you are already a member. You will also need ID to prove your +18. Hookah will run around $20 for a regular bowl more for Premium. Refills are cheaper and we can all pitch in, so if you can only afford the cover charge we can lessen the cost for you while we are there. (see website in spoiler for full menu) There is no minimum ratio for people to Hookah so come out and chill even if you don’t smoke. I can talk to the Lounge closer to the date about discounts once we get a better idea of numbers as well.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Pre-PAX Prime Unicorn Madness
Time: 8PM-???
Location: The Unicorn, 1118 E Pike St, Seattle, WA
Age: 21+
Info: Facebook
Nerds hanging out at a bar.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
The Seventh Annual Triwizard Drinking Tournament!
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 8:30PM
Location: Capitol Hill, Seattle
Age: Eventbrite 21+
Info: Penny Arcade Forums
The Triwizard Drinking Tournament is an annual bar crawl/scavenger hunt that takes place in Seattle and coincides with PAX Prime. Participants are encouraged to come in costume and meet other PAX attendees before the convention begins. Whiskey Wizardry is the quickest way to make new friends.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Indies Need Booze
sponsored by Indie Game Stand
Time: 9PM
Location: Capitol Cider, 818 E Pike St, Seattle 98122
Tix: Eventbrite $10-$30
Get ready for Indies Need Booze PAX Prime 2014 sponsored by Indie Game Stand. This year we are taking over Capital Cider in Seattle Thursday August 28th from 9pm to 2am. Join us for an event featuring developers, prizes and of course swag!
First and foremost this event for people 21 and over! Ticket sales help us cover the cost of putting on an event of this size! Our goal is to raise $6,000 dollars in order for us to even put this event on. With a $10 ticket you get into our event with a flask and game code. Not enough swag for you then purchase our $30 ticket! It comes with three game codes, a flask, and a t-shirt. If that’s not enough for you our friends over at Able Gamers will be hosting charity competitions for awesome prizes!
We will be updating with details on our event via email and at our website! We will be announcing developers, special guests, and of course drinking game competitions so please stay tuned!
[/box_light]
[box_light]
4th Annual Unofficial Pokemon #PAX Kick Off Party
Time: 9PM-2AM
Location: Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St, Seattle, WA 98105
Tix: Eventbrite $2.50+
First 100 tickets are already sold. Get your ticket before it sells out.
It’s Thursday night, the night before PAX! Join us for the 4th Annual Unofficial Pokemon #PAX Kick Off Party #PAXPrime. 3 BLOCKS FROM THE CONVENTION CENTER. The largest night before PAX kick off party.
Pokemon themed shots and drinks – Dancing – Giveaways – Cosplay Contest and more
We hit capacity every year so get your tickets and come early
Watch the video from last year, everyone dancing to the Pokemon theme party
——>Click to watch the instagram video<——
Line out the door last year
[/box_light]
[box_dark]Friday, August 29[/box_dark]
[box_light]
Giant Bomb Premium Member Get-together
Time: TBD
Location: Metropole Seattle, 820 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: Premium Giant Bomb Membership
Info: Website
We’ll be having a little get-together on Friday the 29th at Metropole, a restaurant near the Seattle Convention Center. If you RSVPed, you should’ve gotten an email about this already to confirm your spot. (Subject line was “Giant Bomb Premium PAX Party – Complete your RSVP!” Check your spam filter if you missed it.) If you were on the wait list, we’ll reach out to you no later than Thursday night about attendance. If you didn’t get on the list or the waitlist, we’ll let you know via the Giant Bomb twitter shortly before the event begins if there’s any extra room, but it’s a pretty tight space and it’s likely we’ll be full. If you can’t attend, we’ll be streaming the event in our chat room, starting around 9 PM Pacific on Friday night, and if you can’t catch the stream, we’ll have the archive up sometime in following few days.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
When We Were Young
Time: 5-8:30PM
Location: Gamma Ray Games/Raygun Lounge, 501 E Pine St, Seattle, Washington 98122
Tix: Free Admission
Info: Facebook
Nostalgic Animation Art Show
Cartoons of the 80s/90s
curated by Rhodora Jacob and Nicole Jekich
PAX event at Gamma Ray Games and Raygun Lounge! Only hanging for the duration of PAX! So don’t miss out!
Opening is AUG 29th 5 – 830PM FREE!
and afterwards stay for board games!
Cartoons! we all love them and we all were sculpted by them in our yesteryear!
I am also pleased to mention we will have a
Moon Animate Make-Up screening with Kate Sullivan!
Screening will be at 6:00 PM! Q&A encouraged for all those curious cats X)! Sailor Moon Fanatics are most welcome to come and cosplay!!
There may even be a prize for best cosplay in a few categories ;)!!
Come celebrate art of our fond memories! Over 30 game artists, illustrators, cartoonists and animators will be showcasing their work.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Harmonix Doughnut Party at Top Pot
Time: 7-9PM
Location: Top Pot Doughnuts, 2124 5th Ave, Seattle, WA 98121
Tix: Free Admission
Info: Twitter
REPORT: #PAX attendees, we’re renting Top Pot from 7-9pm on Fri 8/29. Free doughnuts & coffee. Yes, at night. HOLLA.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Trion Community Party
Time: 7-10PM
Location: W Hotel, 1112 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: Free Admission
Info: Website
During the midst of PAX Prime madness, take a break at 7 PM PDT and join the Trion Team for food, drinks and a great time. Be ready for some exciting news about your favorite Trion games, including a very special announcement, and enjoy the chance to get up close and personal with members of the ArcheAge, Trove, RIFT, and Defiance teams. Got a question you’ve always wanted to ask them? This is your opportunity!
So mark your calendars and come hang out with us from 7 to 10 PM. Make sure to get there early; food, space, and loot are limited!
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Bioware Shadow Realms PAX Party
Time: 7-11PM
Location: Grand Hyatt Seattle, 721 Pine Street, Seattle, Washington, 98101
Tix: Free Admission, 21+
Info: Website
Come to our Fan Event at PAX Prime for a chance to get hands-on time with Shadow Realms!
We are excited to announce that we will be holding a Shadow Realms Fan Event at the Grand Hyatt Seattle on Friday, August 29th, 2014 at 7:00pm-11:00pm PDT.
What can you expect at this event? Let me give you a rundown:
A chance to play Shadow Realms
Chat and mingle with the development team and other players
A Q&A session with the Development Team
And last, but certainly not least, complimentary food and drinks*
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Wildstar Community Meetup & Cosplay Contest
Time: 7-11PM
Location: PAX Prime/Location TBD
Tix: Free, 21+
Everyone is welcome at the Meetup so you don’t need to have PAX Badges!
Come dressed to impress in your WildStar Cosplay for a chance at the Cash Prizes!
1st Place – $500
2nd Place – $100
3rd Place – $50
Will have have a limited number of drink tickets (once we run out it will be cash bar) and entrance is first come, first serve!
We will be announcing the venue next week so check back for updates!
Official Rules of the Cosplay Competition.
[/box_light]
[box_light]
Press Start III: Turbo Edition
Time: 7-11PM
Location: Ltd. Art Gallery, 307 E Pike St, Seattle, Washington 98122
Tix: Free Admission, All Ages
Info: Facebook
PRESS START III: TURBO EDITION
August 29th – September 28th, 2013
Our Annual Video Game show is in it’s third year!
As the PAX Prime convention descends upon the city of Seattle yet again, we have put together another amazing art show celebrating the modern era of VIDEO GAMES!
Please join us for the Opening Reception:
Friday, August 29th 7pm-11pm
– Enjoy complimentary beverages, sponsored by Jones Soda and Jameson Irish Whiskey
– Killer Instinct gameplay on XboxOne consoles courtesy of GAEMS Cases
– A Live set from DJ Hojo
***Opening Reception is ALL AGES (you will be carded if you want alcohol) and FREE TO VIEW! ******
Featuring the art of: Marjon Aucoin, Chris Alderson, Trevor Basset, Mark Behm, Mike Bell, Barry Blankenship, Peter Breese Marco Cardonna, Dakota Cates, Daisy Church, Jonathan Cooper, Shawn Coss, Doaly, Jaymee Donnelson, Craig Drake, Braden Duncan, Siames Escalante, Klint Flentge, Colin Foran, Andy Helms, Samuel “Sho” Ho, Claire Hummel, Leslie Gauthier, Pat Jandro, Suzanne Kaufman, Christina Lank, Nan Lawson, Jason Liwag, Dev Madan, Karin Madan, Greggory Metzler, Timo Meyer, Mikeatron, Abraham Morales, Guillaume Morellec, Mr. Benja, Damon O’keefe, Mike Oncley, Willem-Paul Van Overbruggen, Chet Philips, Timothy J. Reynolds, Sara Richard, Kevin Jay Stanton, Meghan Stratman, Brian Thompson, Ania Tomicka, Rich Werner, and Jackie Williams
www.ltdartgallery.com
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Motiga presents: GIGANTIC PAX PARTY
Time: 7PM-12:35AM
Location: LoFi Performance Gallery, 429 Eastlake Ave E # B, Seattle, Washington 98109
Tix: Free Admission
Info: Facebook
Gigantic, a new game from Motiga, is hitting PAX Prime
To celebrate this, we bring you booze, geek music, and fun!
Random aka Mega Ran
Kirby Krackle
Death Star
Shubzilla
Mark Dago
All this nerd music is at the LoFi in Seattle
FREE with a PAX attendee badge!
$3.00 wells
$1.00 beers
PRIZES from Dreaming Comics and Games all night!
Discount coupons offered to attendees (while supplies last!)
And great nerd hip hop and rock!
$8.00 for general attendees. All door proceeds go to charity Able Gamers
ablegamer.com
GoGigantic.com for details on this great game.
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PAX 2014 VR Mixer
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 7PM-2AM
Location: World of Beer, 500 East Pine St, Seattle, WA 98122
Tix: Free (Eventbrite)
Once again it’s time for PAX in Seattle! If you were lucky enough to get tickets and you are interested in Virtual Reality, come join us at the World of Beer in Capitol Hill to experience and celebrate the future of gaming, entertainment and media as we know it! If you didn’t get PAX tickets and you just want to come check out some awesome VR demos, come on by, grab a pint, and be prepared to get your mind blown! We’ll have live VR demos for you to try and even better, bring your own to share!! It’s an exciting time for VR and we hope to see you there!
List of demonstrators TBA soon!
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Hitman: Sniper PAX Prime 2014 Party
Time: 8PM-12AM
Location: Hard Rock Cafe, 116 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101
RSVP: Facebook
Info: Website
Join Unity, Square Enix Montréal and DESTRUCTOID, as we throw a Hitman: Sniper party at PAX Prime 2014!
Play Hitman: Sniper before its release and compete in a high score contest where the grand prize winner will get to have their face and name added into the game as a villain for Agent 47 to eliminate.
Other prizes will be given out over the course of the night including gear provided by Razer, rare collectibles, and free drinks. Plus there will be a poutine bar. POUTINE BAR!
Music performed by:
RAY.VS
http://www.soundcloud.com/rayversus
GRIMECRAFT
https://soundcloud.com/grimecraft
SABREPULSE
https://soundcloud.com/sabrepulse
Party is located on the second floor of the Hard Rock Cafe at the Cavern Club.
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Time: 9PM-Late
Location: The Spectator Sports Bar, 529 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, Washington 98109
Admission: Free (21+)
Info: Facebook
PAX, Karaoke, what more can you ask for? It’s FREE and there’s NO BADGE NEEDED.
baby ketten karaoke – WA has THE BEST selection of nerd songs, Saturday morning cartoon themes, Disney Musicals and MORE.
Come out, sing your heart out, drink some dranks and have a great time.
*THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL PAX PARTY. We’re just taking over the bar.
21+ (This establishment serves adult beverages)
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Give Me a Quest! A PAX Prime Party
Time: 9PM-12AM
Location: Raygun Lounge, 501 E Pine St. Seattle, WA 98122
Tix: Free Admission, all ages
Info: Facebook
Hosted by Bitch Team Alpha with Gamma Ray Games/Raygun Lounge.
No cover and all ages!
BYO Board Games – games also available to borrow from Gamma Ray.
Board game contests throughout the night with three $20 bar tab prizes!
Bring your friends and some games, get some food, booze, or soda and play games with the ladies of Bitch Team Alpha!
Bitch Team Alpha [http://www.bitchteamalpha.com/] is a website and network of podcasts covering all the awesome stuff you love from a female perspective and focuses on bringing diversity and new voices to gaming, movies, television, comics, cosplay, and literature.
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Wargaming Presents: Twitch PAX Party, Powered by Intel
Time: 9PM-1AM
Location: Garage Billiards, 1130 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122
Tix: Free (Eventbrite)
2 drink tickets for first 500+ before 9PM, first come first served until capacity.
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[box_dark]Saturday, August 30[/box_dark]
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PAX Prime 2014 Community Meet & Greet Breakfast at En Masse
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 9-11AM
Location: En Masse Entertainment, 1301 2nd Ave., Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: Free Admission (Eventbrite)
Info: Website
Community Meet & Greet Breakfast with En Masse? What is it?
Note: PAX tickets are NOT required for this meeting! This is open to folks who are or can be in downtown Seattle on Saturday morning, August 30.
Will you be attending PAX Prime 2014? Or are you in the greater Puget Sound area?
En Masse is hosting a community meet & greet breakfast in our downtown Seattle office during PAX Prime!
Join us for a casual meet & greet breakfast in our office! Familiar En Masse faces will be there to chat with you and breakfast will be provided!
Please RSVP here before August 24, we have limited spaces available!
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Reassembly Game Happy Hour hosted by Anisoptera Games
Time: 6-8PM
Location: By Invite Only
Tix: Free for Press, donations accepted and Dinner tickets available for community and everyone else
Info: Eventbrite
Come check out Reassembly, one of the games in the Minibooth section of the Indie Megabooth and get ready for your hardcore partying Saturday night by joining us for Pizza + Beer!
Dev site: http://www.anisopteragames.com/
IndieDB: http://www.indiedb.com/games/reassembly
Send proof of Press credentials, of if you are community-an email of interest to christine[at]indie.voyage
(Tweets to @reassembly_rqd with #partybananas and #paxprime appreciated *nudge*)
Or, buy a ticket for dinner and hang out with us. We’re an Indie, soooo…that ticket gets you food. And probably a free beer from us.
Select few will be so lucky to attend! Details of location sent if you are confirmed to go.
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Orcs Must Die! Community Meetup
Time: 6-9PM
Location: Rock Bottom Brewery, 1333 5th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101
Admission: Free
Info: Facebook
Robot will be hosting an OMDU Community Meet-Up on Saturday 8/30 at PAX Prime! If you’ll be in Seattle, join us!
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Extra Credits PAX Party
Time: 6PM-Late
Location: The Verne & Wells Club, 733 7th Ave, Kirkland, WA 98033
Tix: $15 (Brown Paper)
Join the Extra Credits crew at the exclusive Verne & Wells club for an PAX party. Be whisked away by a private shuttle to the Verne & Wells Club, a club for geek professionals just across Lake Washington in Kirkland. Enjoy board games, video games, and more at the club while socializing with other fans of Extra Credits, and the whole Extra Credits crew!
NOTE: Party starts at 6pm, but you can buy tickets all night long if you hear about us after it’s going.
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Magic: The Gathering Party
Time: 7PM
Location: TBD
Tix: PAX Booth
For the sixth year in a row, Magic will be hosting a party to kick off our new block’s first set! You’ll have to follow a quest to earn your entry to the party, as with every year, and trust me when I say you won’t want to miss the party! And yes, we will have several preview cards there to kick off next week’s Khans of Tarkir preview season!
The party starts at 7 p.m. on Saturday. To start your journey to get your ticket to the party, make your way to the tournament area, where you’ll find a booth that is the start and the end of the quest. Keep in mind tickets to the party are limited on both Friday and Saturday.
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Hyrule Warriors Event
Time: 7-10PM
Location: Renaissance Seattle Hotel, 515 Madison St, Seattle, WA 98104
Tix: Free Admission
Info: Website
After PAX Prime shuts down at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 30, people eager to check out the upcoming Hyrule Warriors game for Wii U can visit the Renaissance Seattle Hotel at 515 Madison St. from 7 to 10 p.m. This event will be open to the public, and a PAX badge is not required for entry. Attendees will be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis, as space allows. Cosplaying fans dressed as characters from The Legend of Zelda series will be able to fast-track into the event ahead of the general public. Anyone dressed in The Legend of Zelda gear or wearing a Hyrule Warriors T-shirt (available at the event while supplies last) can enter a drawing for a chance to win some cool original Hyrule Warriors concept artwork. Fans can enter by taking a picture against a special backdrop and tweeting the image with specific hashtags. The winner will be chosen at random toward the end of the event, and the winner must be present to claim prize.
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Alienware Alpha Tour Experience
Time: 7-11PM
Location: Fremont Foundry, 154 N 35th St, Seattle, 98103
Tix: RSVP
Info: Website
You’re invited to an exclusive PAX afterparty featuring the new alpha console and a surprise EDM performance. First 100 guests will receive free steam codes from our partners, Alienware hats and bags. One Alpha console will be given away each hour!
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IGN Meet and Drink
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 7-11PM
Location: Amber Lounge Seattle, 2214 1st Ave, 2nd Floor, Seattle, WA
Tix: Free (Eventbrite)
Info: Website
Come drink and party with us! Signing up does not guarantee entry into the IGN section.
Our space on the second floor holds up to 150 people, but if we hit capacity you can hang out at the main bar.
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FANGAMER ♥ ATTRACT MODE
Time: 7PM-Midnight
Location: 1927 Events, 1927 3rd Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: $15
Info: Facebook
The third annual Fangamer & Attract Mode art show! The 2014 Edition of Game Art/Chiptune/Indie Arcade/Drinkathon Seattle Special shall is dubbed… Fangamer ♥ Attract Mode! The theme of the show (just to be clear) is love in all its many forms!
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Cards Against Humanity and Friends
Time: 8PM
Location: The Triple Door, 216 Union St, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: $20 (Triple Door)
Info: Website
Join the creators of Cards Against Humanity and some surprise guests for a night of comedy humor jokes. Also The Nerdologues will be there.
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MMORPG + Arenanet Meet N Greet
Time: 8-11PM
Location: Gordon Biersch, 600 Pine Street, Seattle, WA
RSVP: Facebook
Info: Website
MMORPG.com is partnering with ArenaNet for a meet and greet at this year’s PAX Prime event in Seattle! Clear out your plans for this Saturday evening and come hang out with the MMORPG.com team, your fellow readers, and, of course, Guild Wars 2 fans and developers!
The folks at ArenaNet will also be raffling off some awesome swag and giving away Guild Wars 2 Scarlet t-shirts (sizes and supplies limited) so you definitely don’t want to miss out.
Food and two drink tickets per guest (supplies limited) will be provided.
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The Evil Within Experience
Time: 8PM-12AM
Location: The White Room, 608 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98104
Admission: Free, 18+
Info: Website
Being held at “The White Room” in the historical Seattle Underground – a less than 20 minute walk from the PAX Exhibit Hall – the place will be prepped for madness as Saturday at PAX Prime winds down. From 8pm – midnight, you’ll be able to play The Evil Within! Enjoy food & drink, and soak up the blood-stained atmosphere of our event.
In addition to being able to play the game, our first 700 attendees will receive a PAX-exclusive t-shirt commemorating The Evil Within.
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2nd Annual H.P. Pubcraft Lovecrawl
[SOLD OUT]
Time: 8:30PM-???
Location: Hilliard’s Beer, 1550 NW 49th St, Seattle, WA 98107
Tix: Eventbrite $5/$11 21+
Info: Facebook
An unspeakable pubcrawl and megagame set in the cobblestone streets of Innsmouth…er…Ballard. Be a hero, become a cultist, or go insane!
The night will take you on a harrowing journey of epic importance. Save Seattle! Save the world! (There will be prizes)
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All Your Dance Are Belong To Us
Time: 9PM
Location: Club Contour, 807 1st Ave, Seattle, Washington 98104
Tix: $5 at door 21+
Info: Facebook
Join DJ PsyOp and guests for the nerdiest dance party Seattle’s ever seen at Club Contour. You do not need a PAX badge to attend this event!
Only $5 at the door. Themed drink specials all night. Featuring performances by select cast members of Super Burlesque World. Stay tuned for more details and announcements!
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Seattle Geeks PAX Prime Party
Time: 9:30PM-1:30AM
Location: The Lobby Bar, 916 E Pike St, Seattle, WA 98122
Tix: Free (Eventbrite)
Join Seattle Geeks (https://www.facebook.com/seattlegeeks) for our PAX party on Saturday. It’s free, 21+ and we got the upstairs bar at Lobby Bar reserved just for us. We’ll have Smash Brothers and Mario Kart to play. When you get into the bar, take the stairs up.
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Fortnite Storm Chasers Event
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Admission: Email
Info: Website
The Fortnite team is pleased to announce the next Storm Chasers event will be in Seattle during PAX Prime. We’ll be playing tons of Fortnite, hanging out and enjoying delicious Durrr-foods and beverages. If you are going to be in the area on Saturday, August 30 or Sunday, August 31 we want to hear from you!
Shoot us an email at [email protected] if you are interested (and 13 years or older.)
Can’t wait to meet you!
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[box_dark]Sunday, August 31[/box_dark]
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PAX Prime Girls’ Meetup 2014
Time: 10AM
Location: Diller Room, 1224 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: $TBD, all ages
Info: Facebook
Welcome ladies to the fifth annual PAX Prime Girls’ Meetup. What is the girls’ meetup? You might ask. Well, it is a fantastic event where the ladies of PAX get together for brunch, morning cocktails and nerdy chatter Sunday morning at 10am.
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Devs and Bevs
Time: 6-10PM
Location: Hard Rock Cafe, 116 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: Free Admission 21+
Info: Website
Drinks? Yep. A quintet of game developers? You betcha. If you’re coming to PAX or are in the greater Seattle, WA area, come join us at Devs & Bevs!
Five independent game developers—including us, naturally—are hosting a bar night at theHard Rock Cafe on Sunday, August 31st from 6:00 to 10:00.
The lineup for the evening is extraordinary.
6:00—Fantasia from Harmonix
6:30—Firewatch from Campo Santo
7:00—Tharsis from Choice Provisions
7:30—Below from Capy
8:00—MASSIVE CHALICE from Double Fine
8:30—Costume Quest 2 from Double Fine
9:00—Gang Beasts from Boneloaf
And more!
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Super Burlesque World
Time: 7:30PM/9:30PM
Location: Can Can Cabaret, 94 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: StrangerTickets $25 (Early show 18+, late show 21+)
Info: Website
From the minds that brought you Tails from the Crypt and Starving Artists on Parade comes an all new adventure through the vast world of video games. Super Burlesque World brings together a collection of some of Seattle’s best performers: for two back to back performances on August 31st before it disappears forever (or at least until next year!). Join host Morgue Anne as M4R10 on an exploration beyond the borders of the Mushroom Kingdom and into a wild assortment of video game universes in her journey to rescue the princess. This strip-tacular celebration of gaming culture takes place at the historic Can Can cabaret in Pike Place Market one night only, 7:30 and 9:30pm. Grab your tickets while you can, this is one side quest you don’t want to miss!
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Pink Party Prime
Time: 9PM
Location: Neighbours Seattle, 1509 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122
Tix: StrangerTickets $15/$30, 21+
Info: Facebook | Website
It’s back and it’s bigger than ever! It’s the 6th Annual Pink Party, and it’s now Pink Party Prime! Bring your PAX party to our party, where you can explore drinks, game tables, dancing, and prizes. All of the hottest queer gaymers geeks and nerds will be there. If you only come out of your parent’s basement once a year, then this’ll be the place to go.
Queer Geek‘s Pink Party Prime will feature actress and voice-over artist Jennifer Hale, smokin’ hot DJs Krot and Futurewife, along with gogo studs Bolt and Tyler Rush, and a $1,000 cosplay contest. There will also be a dedicated gaming space and a VIP lounge where you’ll be able to mix and mingle with the amazing Jennifer Hale, along with a VIP drink specials and a VIP gaming space featuring playable demos of the hottest new games.
*PAX attendance not required for admission.
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PoroPalooza
Time: 9PM
Location: Q Nightclub, 1426 Broadway, Seattle, Washington 98122
Admission: $5 (Free for cosplay) 21+
Info: Facebook
AOD’s Second annual PAX after party and Cosplay Competition. Come shake ya booty and party down with the Finest Champs in the tightest club in Seattle!
Feet get swore after a long day of PAX lines? No worries Party bus runs from the Con to the Club from 8:30 to 11pm.
Cosplay Competition Sponsored by PNTA 11pm
Grand Prize: $100 cash and $100 gift cert to PNTA
6 Runner ups will get $25 dollar gift certs to PNTA
PNTA is the largest suppler of theatrical and film quality make-up and prosthetic in the Pacific Northwest.
Guest Judges Natsumiii Britthebadger and PNTA Cosplay Envoy Sammy Scott!
Seattle Biscuit Company Will be pulling their food truck up around 11pm and selling Biscuits for all your tummies!
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Fortnite Storm Chasers Event
Time: TBD
Location: TBD
Admission: Email
Info: Website
The Fortnite team is pleased to announce the next Storm Chasers event will be in Seattle during PAX Prime. We’ll be playing tons of Fortnite, hanging out and enjoying delicious Durrr-foods and beverages. If you are going to be in the area on Saturday, August 30 or Sunday, August 31 we want to hear from you!
Shoot us an email at [email protected] if you are interested (and 13 years or older.)
Can’t wait to meet you!
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[box_dark]Monday, September 1[/box_dark]
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Seattle Indies Expo
Time: 10AM-6PM
Location: Melrose Market Studios, 1532 Minor Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101
Tix: Eventbrite (Free)
Info: Website
SIX (Seattle Indies Expo) is a one-day exhibition for independent game developers to get together, socialize, and show off their stuff. At SIX, you’ll get to play some seriously cool games and talk to some of the friendliest and most down-to-earth devs around. What better way to unwind on the last day of PAX than with indie games?
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Post-PAX CheapAssGamer Meetup
Time: 7PM
Location: Rock Bottom Brewery, 1333 5th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101
RSVP: CAG (Forum Members)
PAX meetup for CAG forum members. RSVP in their thread.
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The 1st RockBand Afterparty
Time: 7:30PM-1AM
Location: The Unicorn, 1118 E Pike St, Seattle, WA
Tix: Free Admission
Info: Facebook
We have come to an agreement with the Unicorn to do The 1st Rock Band After Party!
We chose to go our own way simply because we didn’t want to be compared to the PPP. This is an entirely different event, by Rock Band fans, for Rock Band fans. granted, there will be Rock Band at the freeplay stage at PAX, we are THE premier Rock Band hosts in the entire state, if not west coast (not counting Ümloud).
The Unicorn will have their regular menu, and special drinks just for this event. cosplay/costumes are encouraged and possibly rewarded! (most likely extra raffle tickets) The last 2 years that we did the Rock Band portion of the PPP it was amazing, and people rocked hard. but this year, we have practically DOUBLED the time of the event, promising the most epic Rock Band party ever of our 7 year history!
Even if you don’t like Rock Band, or think you can’t sing or play it, or in fact never have played at all, it will be a fun time as long as you show up, and jump in with both feet. Hell, it could just be the regular Rock Band crew we entertain every week and it would still be great, but let’s make a little history and benefit the kids while starting a new tradition!
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MC Frontalot
Time: 8PM
Location: El Corazon, 109 Eastlake Ave. East, Seattle, WA 98109
Tix: eTix $8, 21+
Info: Website
MC Frontalot
With:
Dr. Awkward
Corn Mo
Area Of Defect
plus more guests
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Invisible Arcade – Afterparty Edition
Time: 8PM-1AM
Location: Fred Wildlife Refuge, 128 Belmont Ave E, Seattle, WA 98102
Tix: $5 (Eventbrite) 21+
Info: Website
DOUBLECROSS and
FRED WILDLIFE REFUGE present
Invisible Arcade
A video game expo / concert mashup to delight your senses.
Featuring:
Sentris
Memory of a Broken Dimension
FRACT OSC
Panoramical
Shader
Video games are dead, long live video games.
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LOS ANGELES - One morning in May 2008, an eighth-grader walked into Janice Hart’s office at a Beverly Hills middle school crying.
She was upset and humiliated, and couldn’t possibly go to class, the girl told the counselor. The night before, a classmate had posted a video on YouTube with a group of other eighth graders bad-mouthing her, calling her “spoiled,’’ a “brat,’’ and a “slut.’’ Text and instant messages had been flying since. Half the class must have seen it by now, the girl told Hart.
Hart took the problem to the school’s vice principal and principal, who took it to a district administrator, who asked the district’s lawyers what they could do about it. In the end, citing “cyber-bullying’’ concerns, school officials suspended the girl who posted the video for two days. That student took the case to federal court, saying her free speech rights were violated.
Last month, a US District judge in LA sided with the student, saying the school went too far. Amid rising concerns over cyber-bullying, and even calls for criminalization, some courts, parents, and free speech advocates are pushing back - students, they say, have a First Amendment right to be nasty in cyberspace.
“To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul [of the law],’’ judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote in a 60-page opinion.
“The court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young persons are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments,’’ he wrote.
Schools’ ability to limit student speech is an age-old issue that has been repeatedly tried and tested in the courts, from armbands protesting the Vietnam war to banners promoting marijuana use.
But with teens’ social lives moving increasingly to cyberspace, where what previously might have been a private bickering is reproduced, publicized and documented for all to see, school officials find themselves on unfamiliar grounds in dealing with e-mails, instant messages, profile pages, videos, and the like that may result in hurt feelings or something more serious.
Free-speech advocates said the notoriety of highly publicized cases, such as the Missouri girl who committed suicide after a mean-spirited MySpace message, have led to schools overreacting and excessively cracking down on student expression when it comes to the Internet.
“It’s better to have a lawsuit and lose some money than have a situation where a student commits suicide,’’ said Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar and law professor at the UCLA who has criticized a bill in Congress that would make cyber bullying punishable by as long as two years in prison.
“People don’t appreciate how much the First Amendment protects not only political and ideological speech, but also personal nastiness and chatter. . . . If all cruel teasing led to suicide, the human race would be extinct,’’ Volokh said.
The murkiness of this area of law and educational policy has led to legal challenges across the country over school officials’ restriction or discipline of student speech.
Attorneys and analysts said court decisions have been “all over the map’’ on such cases, offering little clarity to confused school administrators.
The US Supreme Court has yet to take up a case involving student speech online; the governing decision is from the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines School District case, which held that student speech could not be limited unless it causes substantial disruption on campus.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company. |
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The girlfriend of a Manchester United player who was the subject of a cruel Twitter jibe by a betting company has hit back at haters online.
Aussie firm Oddschecker AU sparked outrage with their tweet about a snap of striker James Wilson and girlfriend Frankie Barwell at the club's Player of the Year Awards on Tuesday.
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It accompanied the photo with the mean caption: "Sure she's a lovely girl but someone needs to remind James Wilson he's a pro fooballer.
"Start abusing this privilege."
(Image: Getty)
Far from raising a smile from their followers, the firm was soon flooded with angry tweets, denouncing the comments as "childish" and "disgusting".
Now Manchester Metropolitan University student Frankie has hit back on Instagram, posting a picture of herself and the caption: “Remember, people only rain on your parade because they’re jealous of your sun and tired of their shade.”
Other Instagrammers added their support, saying: "Ignore the haters. James Wilson is lucky to have you" and "He a lucky boy! Stunning."
James also added a heart emoticon.
But far from raising a smile from their followers, Oddschecker Au was soon flooded with angry tweets, denouncing the comments as "childish" and "disgusting".
The firm has since deleted their tweet, and posted an apology, writing: “Apologies for the offence caused by our earlier tweet”.
Click through the gallery below to see more from the Manchester United player of the year awards: |
Getty Images
A narrative has emerged from the relaxation of the celebration rules, and it should cause the league’s players to keep one hand on their wallets.
As explained by Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com, the effort to change the “No Fun League” to the “Now, Fun League” comes from a desire by Commissioner Roger Goodell to mend fences with players.
“The Commissioner has made an effort to do it,” Giants co-owner John Mara told Breer. “Going around and meeting with them on the celebration rule, I think, is just one example. That’s important. We try to engage with them on the Competition Committee with the rules changes every year. We get good feedback and put a lot of that into effect.
“So I think that’s always important to do that, and I know Roger has made that a priority, and hopefully that’ll pay off for both sides in the end.”
“Pay off” is the key word, because it doesn’t take an excessive dose of cynicism to realize that the NFL realizes that the labor deal expires in less than four years. And so before Goodell and his partners can once again be the “bad cop” at the bargaining table, Goodell needs to spend some time playing the role of “good cop.” Especially since the fumes are still lingering from Goodell’s Judge Dredd approach to the bounty scandal and #DeflateGate — not to mention a fairly blatant instance of the NFL playing fast and loose with the accounting.
“The players’ perspective is important — we truly are partners in the business,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt told Breer. “And that’s something certainly from an ownership standpoint that we’ve never lost sight of. I think the Commissioner’s initiative here in recent years to try and include them more in the decision-making process is a positive. That should serve us both well going forward.”
It will definitely serve the owners well if the players can be persuaded to believe that take-and-take has become give-and-take until the time comes to take and take and take some more. And that time comes in fewer than four years. |
On Monday, Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt posted a video apologizing to his fans. Why? What did he do? Did he insult them? Did he use a racial slur? No, of course not. Pratt had the temerity to post an Instagram video telling his fans to “turn up the volume” and “listen” rather than just reading the incomplete subtitles.
This, it turns out, offended some of his deaf and hearing-impaired fans. This forced him to post this on Instagram:
Of course, it’s obvious that this video is intolerant to the blind and illiterate. Clearly, Pratt has sinned by not specifically instructing each and every possible user group how to watch his video.
This is the insane length to which political correctness has taken us: if you tell people that they might want to “listen” to a video in order to get all of its information, you’re considered insulting. It’s not Pratt’s fault that he caved to the PC crowd here – he’s a movie star, and the last thing movie stars need is to deal with the nutty blowback from the far left crowd. This is the second time in the last few weeks Pratt has been forced to apologize; a few weeks ago, he was forced to apologize after noting, correctly, that Hollywood does a terrible job of portraying blue collar Americans.
But it does demonstrate the hypocrisy of Hollywood that the same people who will cheer Pratt’s repeated apologies have no problem with the incessantly and objectively offensive material emanating from their community. They laugh and scream when Stephen Colbert makes an oral sex joke about Donald Trump or Bill Maher makes an incest joke about Ivanka, clap ridiculously as Bill Nye treats religious Americans like garbage. But Chris Pratt said something true about Hollywood and told people to “listen”?
Unacceptable.
It’s become cliché at this point, but here’s another clipping for the “Why Trump Won” scrapbook. |
That's Rich: China Accuses Google Of Censorship
from the look-inward... dept
China, of course, is famous for massive censorship of the internet. Google, on the other hand, is well known for fighting censorship in many cases. Even in China, where it was required to block some searches, Google tried to take as permissive an approach as possible, even letting users know when a site was being blocked (yes, this was quite controversial, but the company did more than many other search engines). So, it does seem a bit surprising to see a headline claiming that China is accusing Google of censorship . Isn't that backwards?It isn't "China" so much as it's the Chinese Communist Party's main newspaper (so, basically, the paper of record from the government) claiming that Google is not finding a report it put out suggesting that Google's book searching project might violate Chinese authors' copyrights . Of course, that claim is a bit amusing as well, given China's general attitude towards copyright over the last couple of decades... but that's another story.Google claims that it did no censorship at all, and that there was an automated block put on the site via its StopBadware service, which makes sense. Google has long used StopBadware to try to protect users from malware sites, and the service does sometimes make errors. While it seems unlikely that Google would purposely block the report, that doesn't make it any less strange for a Chinese government publication to accuse Google of censorship. Given the government's happy embrace of censorship, how does it have any sort of moral claim here?
Filed Under: book scanning, censorship, china, stopbadware
Companies: google |
School is back in session, college and pro football is upon us, and in some places that means fall is right around the corner. Cooler weather, heartier food, sweaters (though we hear sweater vests are out this season), and a decreased need for cold beer. Here, however, we're getting hit by wave after wave of heat, and September doesn't mean much beyond more weekend hours spent indoors watching football. To help you beat the heat and kick your gamedays up a notch, we're prepared to share with you our latest discovery: beer popsicles.
If you ever turned juice into popsicles as a kid, you can probably imagine how to make beersicles. If you happen to have one of the plastic trays with deep wells and sticks to hold your popsicles, perfect. Just pour the beer in and stick it in the freezer. If you don't have a popsicle mold, a plastic cup with a spoon or stick in it will surely do just fine. You can cut a hole in a paper plate or use plastic to keep your stick upright in the freezer. But, really, why don't you have a popsicle mold? Where's your sense of fun and whimsy?
As for which beers to use, the possibilities are endless, though not every beersicle is created equal. We made several unfortunate choices before finding our groove. Let us first and foremost caution you against beers with too much alcohol, or beers that are overly bitter, because those flavors seem to be magnified by the freezing. Our first attempt was a mistake on both counts. We hoped the combination of pine flavor and roasted malt in Stone's 15th Anniversary Imperial Black IPA would make for a tasty frozen treat, but it turned out extremely harsh, with both the bitterness and alcohol even more pronounced than they are in the liquid version. Similarly, The Bruery's Marrón Acidifié, a quite sour Oud Bruin-style beer, sounded refreshing in frozen form, but again turned out extremely harsh and unpleasant. Bud Light, mostly a gag beersicle, was predictably gross. The freezing made it taste stale and even worse than its liquid counterpart. |
Prior Chapter
“Wow. So what happened after that?” Marza asked. “She talks to Stateman Taylor every day, you said. Did she have Albert connect them together to talk again? What did Stateman Taylor say? Do you know?”
All the adults of my family, Marza, Marza’s ma, pa, and granma were crowded around our kitchen table, listening to the story. I hadn’t sworn secrecy about anything other than what Albert wanted me to avoid discussing. I also didn’t know much.
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. She almost chased me out of the tent, telling me to find her officers for an emergency meeting. She also told me to have the kitchen deliver strong hot tea to the tent. She very emphatically informed me that I wasn’t to attend the meeting.”
From across the crowded table, Zeke responded. “Must have been a ‘bumpkin-free’ meeting.”
I pretended to throw something at him with my uninjured left arm. He ducked, pretending to avoid a projectile.
Zeke and I smiled at each other. “I’m sure you’re right, Zeke. Two Statemen talking about how to defuse a war between our states and create a coalition of states to push back against Second Landing?” I pointed at my chest with my left index finger and raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have wanted me in the room for a political conversation like that. I’m good with ideas, but I have a hard time holding my tongue.”
All of my family and Marza started nodding like I’d said something self-evident. Marza’s family didn’t nod, but they were all clearly amused.
I looked around the table. “Hmm. I was hoping for at least a couple dissenting opinions.”
Pa chuckled, and Ma reached across the table from my right and touched my nose in admonishment. “We taught you to always tell the truth or say nothing. Wouldn’t be right for us to break that rule.”
Granpa interjected. “And it’s too funny to hear you admit it for us not to react.”
After that comment, my family didn’t just nod, they laughed. Even Marza’s family joined in, now that they recognized it was safe. Marza, of course, laughed as well, but she was leaning into me with her hand across my back, giving me a one-armed hug as she laughed.
I sighed, deeply, expressing the vastness of my patience with a smile. “Well, before I left the tent, she did tell me that if I thought of anything to contribute, I was to tell Doctor Sven, who would be outside the tent with the tent guards. The doctor would be there to make sure nothing less than critical interrupted the discussions she would be hosting. I have no idea what happened in the meeting.”
“So, that was it? That’s all you know?” Edward looked at me, askance.
“Not quite. Before she chased me out of the tent, I asked her if I could have my mail back, so I’d have something to do while she saved the world.”
Marza slapped her forehead. “You said those exact words, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I wanted my mail, and I was still unhappy with her for the mental shenanigans she was making the officers inflict on me. I’m still not entirely over that. It was painful.”
Marza smacked me on the back of my head, lightly. “What did she do?”
I rubbed my head in pock-pain and smiled at her. “She stared at me with beady eyes for about three seconds, laughed, and then told Tany to go get my file from her carriage. Then she poked me in the chest and told me to go get the officers, and order the tea. She was clear that I’d better move as fast as my gimp arm would let me, and let me know I could pick up my mail in an hour from Doctor Sven.” I smiled a little at the memory. “Doctor Sven had my mail an hour later. I figured she had to make sure nothing important had gotten mixed into my information.”
“Like whatever notes she had written up about you.” Marza’s Granma muttered, mostly to herself.
Zeke replied slowly. “Probably. She was constantly scribbling on the ride there as she asked me about you, Allen. No idea how she could write in a carriage with all the wobbling and bouncing, but she looked to be doing more drawing than writing. Lots of circles and lines. I never dared try to peek at what she was doing directly, and she was careful not to show it to me.”
That made a lot of sense, and I nodded back to Zeke. “You’re probably right. Everything in the pouch I was given was either a duplicate of mail I had sent or an original from someone I’d written to. Except two things.”
I waited, silently, and looked at Marza with an innocent expression that definitely didn’t work.
Marza leaned over next to my ear, and mock-whispered. “We’re not married yet, but if you keep teasing me, I’m going to ask Edward and Zeke to throw you in your irrigation pond. They might even do it.”
Edward and Zeke looked at each other and smiled slightly, then back at me.
“Fine, fine.” I briefly raised both of my hands in surrender, despite the twinges in my bandaged right arm. After I was done play-surrendering, I reached into my pouch and pulled out two envelopes. One dyed green, and the other dyed blue. They were both marked with a stylized map of New Charleston. Official state documents.
Pa and Granpa stared at the green note, but I saw Ma and Marza’s family staring at the blue note.
Granpa spoke first. “The land office replied already? What did they say?”
Pa shot Granpa a meaningful look, clearly irritated that he had taken the lead, but Ma poked him in the ribs and he relaxed.
I picked up the green envelope and opened it, looking at Pa. Pa made a small gesture with his finger towards Granpa, and I passed the thick, high-quality paper to Granpa.
Granpa looked at Pa, nodded, and muttered “sorry” with an apologetic look on his face.
Marza bumped me lightly in the ribs with her elbow, dragging my attention away from the byplay between Pa and Granpa. “Spill it.”
“Fine, fine, the answer is yes. The land grant was accepted.”
“But it still has to be ratified by the Office of Land Management,” Granpa said. “The Stateman signed this, but that’s not enough. It’s usually processed first by the OLM, and then stamped by the office of the Stateman.”
“Yes. When I talked to her later, she said it should be a formality. Unless someone else had already applied for the land before us.”
Granpa slowly nodded as he folded the note and handed it to Pa. After Pa had looked at it, the paper started making rounds around the table from there, everyone quickly glancing through it.
With a sober look at me, Granpa admonished. “Be careful making plans until you know for sure.”
I acknowledged him with a nod. “Yes, sir.” I looked a little nervously at Marza. “The blue note is more complex. And it impacts the land grant.”
I picked up the blue envelope, pulled out the letter, and started reading it out loud.
As Stateman Urda and I had practiced, I started imagining myself shucking corn as I read. It was still a little hard. I could talk and shuck corn all day long, but reading and thinking about shucking corn was still a challenge.
Allen Rickson,
For your service, my office is prepared to offer to pay the entirety of your tuition and expenses for full-time attendance at New Charleston State University for five years, or until you complete a bachelor’s degree, whichever comes first.
Ma gasped, put one hand over her mouth, and gripped Pa’s arm with her other.
This scholarship is contingent upon your being available to my office as a consultant for brainstorming sessions, up to six hours per week, on non-violence-related topics. You may choose to follow any curriculum you wish, but I suggest not making a decision until you have completed your first-year studies.
For the duration of your scholarship, you must maintain passing marks in every class you take. If you fail a single class, you will be on academic probation and lose discretionary spending money for six months. If you fail two classes, the scholarship will be revoked. You must also take one minor elective per half-year that encourages calmness and proper deportment. If you accept this offer, I shall send a letter to the Dean of Students so she will be aware of the challenges and potential I see in you. I trust her to help you find elective classes that will be both interesting, and useful. In your best interest, I require you to continue working to control your anger management issues even after I have done what I can to keep you from frightening your professors or fellow students when they anger you.
Regards,
Stateman Urda
My family was looking thrilled. Marza’s family was looking very stone-faced, trying to suppress emotion. I desperately continued thinking about shucking corn.
Marza’s hand gripped my arm, hard. “Allen. Five years? What about…” She looked down at the table and spoke with a flat tone. “You would be a fool to reject it.”
I tapped her hand with the note held in my free hand and spoke quietly. “I didn’t finish reading it all. Why don’t you read the postscripts?”
She looked up from the table, and slowly met my gaze, looking confused. She slowly took the letter from me. A moment later, her eyes were rapidly scanning down the page.
Any second now…
Gently, I put my hand on her lips as she turned to face me with huge eyes.
Shucking corn. Shucking corn.
As she started opening her mouth to speak, I interrupted her, shaking my head slightly. “Nope. I read my part out loud. You should too.”
Marza looked up at me, dry-swallowed, looked at her parents, and started to read out loud.
P.S.
I was impressed with Marza Gonzalez in the brief time I was able to speak to her. Albert verified that her grades in school were far more than sufficient to allow for university attendance. In fact, according to him, she’s significantly more capable than you academically. She could have attended on a scholarship if she had applied for one. I will freely admit to cynical manipulation if so accused, as I attempt to use her to better ensure your success while simultaneously cultivating a second individual with much promise.
Therefore, please advise Marza Gonzalez that she may accept a scholarship nearly identical to yours if she so desires, even if you decline to accept the scholarship I have offered you. I will speak to her privately after you, Marza, and your respective families have had an opportunity to discuss plans amongst yourselves.
This time, everyone at the table reacted. A lot of held breath was released, and there was some tense laughter. Marza’s mother wiped away tears.
Marza had stopped reading during the interruption but continued as the room grew quiet again. Her fingers were trembling and she was having a difficult time holding the paper steady, so I put my hand lightly on her lower forearm and barely squeezed, offering support.
She started reading again.
For so long as you two remain a couple, I will require Marza’s presence with you at the up to six hours of brainstorming sessions per week that I mentioned above. I expect that her presence will help you remain calm in meetings where people will argue loudly with you, and I will not be surprised at all if she contributes constructively. Additionally, for as long as you remain together as a couple, she must take the exact same elective classes (on the same days and times) that the Dean of Students assigns to you for your social control issues. I want you as motivated as possible to do well in those classes. Other than that, she may choose any academic course of study that she wishes. I want to make it clear that if the two of you do not remain a couple, the only requirement for her to keep her scholarship will be to maintain passing grades in all courses, with one failed class allowed, as mentioned above.
I was a little irritated to note that Marza’s granma smiled and visibly relaxed even more during the reading of that paragraph. I couldn’t fault her. It made sense that she would be concerned. I had to look away from Marza’s family and think about shucking corn again.
P.P.S
You two are young. I will not tie you together with codependent academic requirements. In a more normal situation, I would not need to mention this, but I want to be very certain anyone who sees this knows you two are academically independent if you choose to go separate ways. From what I have seen, there is no need for me to be concerned about this possible eventuality. Even without seeing you two together, I’ve spoken to you both. You are tied to each other so tightly, a sailor would be confused by the knots. At the same time, going to university is a huge lifestyle change from rural life, and even strong relationships can change.
Please note that if either of you accept the scholarship offer, it will void the land grant. That will not stop you from getting another land grant later, if you so desire. I know it would be a terrible decision for one of you to be at university, and the other trying to start a new farm.
Both Granpa and Pa frowned at that, but Ma smiled. Predictable.
P.P.P.S
Finally, Allen, while I have been advised by a few people that your swine are fascinating, you will not be allowed to bring your carriage nor your entire group of swine to the university. That said, I have been advised that your breed of swine can be indoor pets, with the proper training. You may bring a single swine, but it must be housebroken. Marza, if she chooses to join you, may bring a single dog, which must also be housebroken. If they are not housebroken now, they will have to be left behind with your families until they are. The housing which my office will provide you is owned by a very unforgiving individual when it comes to animal excrement. That individual is a professional colleague and friend of mine.
Marza dropped the paper on the table and looked down at it, rubbing her temples with both thumbs. “I can’t believe-”
I interrupted her. “Surprise!”
Marza’s head abruptly turned. She leaned her temple heavily into her right hand. Her left hand fell to the table on top of the paper. After staring at me for about a second with a thoughtful expression, she lifted her left hand and poked my nose with her index finger. I pretended to try and bite her finger. “That woman has only known you for two days, and you managed to read the first half of that letter without broadcasting that there was something this important in the postscripts.” She scowled. “You conspired, I know it! There’s more postscript than letter. The letter didn’t mention me at all.”
I tried for an innocent look. From the laughter around the table, I failed miserably, so I smiled and admitted guilt. “Yes. Guilty as charged. The Stateman taught me to control excitement by holding an image of a repetitive, boring activity in my head. I imagined shucking corn.”
Granpa slapped his good leg and said “Ha!”
“Clearly you haven’t mastered hiding guilt yet,” Ma interjected, with a giggle.
Jan, sitting beside Edward, laughed a little at that. She was typically reticent. I was happy to see her engaging other people a little.
Even Edward smiled as he and Jan shifted their held hands slightly on the table.
Marza’s pa spoke for the first time since I had told them about the idea to create an alliance of states. “That skill is a blade sharpened on both sides, Allen. Handy at times, when you forget something on the honeydo list, but I’d strongly suggest that you not do anything that would require you to practice it too often.” He looked sideways at his wife. “Been there. Done that.”
I did not look at Marza’s ma to see her reaction to her husband’s statement as I replied. “Yes, sir. Marza knows me well, and everyone seems to agree she’s smarter than me. I suspect she’ll pick up my expressions no matter how good I get, especially if she knows I’m trying to get better at hiding them.”
“That’s one thing I’m fairly sure I don’t want him to be able to hide from me, Pa,” Marza said. “If he gets too good at looking innocent, I’ll have to make him sleep on the couch once in a while. Just to be sure I’m properly punishing him for things I don’t know about, of course.”
I know I went beet red. For a couple minutes, I suffered quite a few jokes about needing to work on hiding embarrassment before Pa pushed back his chair and stood.
The obvious pain on Pa’s face just from standing startled me until I realized that everyone had probably been pushing themselves hard. With the possibility of a lean winter, everyone who could be spared would be searching out forest mast. Everyone else would be closely monitoring the late planted crops for the best harvest possible. Pa couldn’t push himself hard without a great deal of pain due to his badly-healed ribs.
I hope Ma is keeping him from pushing himself till his lungs bleed.
And I hope he’s listening to her.
I mentally cursed Albert for not doing a little more to help Pa. It was very possible Granpa would outlive him.
After he was standing mostly straight, Pa spoke. “I motion that everyone but Marza and Allen adjourn to the living room and play some cards while these two put their heads together in the far corner here and have some private talk time.”
The motion was seconded by several people all at once, with smiles.
A couple minutes later, Zeke was showing off fancy shuffling tricks on the card table for an audience of six. Jan opted out of the game so there would be even teams, and started doing some sewing work. Granpa and Marza’s granma did not join the game. They sat in chairs next to one another, in a good position to watch us, quietly talking to each other.
Marza and I had pulled two kitchen chairs together into a corner so they were facing one another, and away from the living room. We both leaned forward, holding each other’s hands as we whispered. At first it was a repeat of what we’d said when we’d first seen each other again, without the flying hug.
The first order of business was a very long kiss that got some chuckles from Granpa after the first few seconds, but after about thirty seconds, he threw Abe’s tiny stuffed toy bear at us. “Don’t make me get a bucket of water.”
I looked back at him, slightly resentful.
He shook his finger at us. “Plenty of time for that later, don’t you think? Talk, don’t do vacuum experiments.”
Marza’s granma poked Granpa in the ribs. “Enough making fun of them, Simon.” She reached into a box next to Granpa’s chair, and turned towards us, holding one of Molly’s stuffed horses. “It’s my turn next time.”
The two of them were clearly enjoying themselves. Marza and I both gave them both dirty looks but Granpa was right, we needed to talk. We both started talking at the same time.
“What do-” I began.
“-you want to do?” Marza finished for me.
We both stared at each other for a second. I didn’t want to answer first, and neither did she. I reached over to the table for one of the little notepads we used around the farm for things too important to trust only to memory, like documenting stocks of repair supplies or shopping lists.
I tore out a single page, folded it in half, and tore it along the crease. Then I wrote what I wanted to do on my half sheet of paper, and folded it so Marza couldn’t see it. I handed her the other half and the short pencil with it.
“Your turn. I either wrote ‘University’, or ‘Farm.’ If you do the same, it will make starting the discussion easier. If we disagree, we discuss. If we agree, we don’t have to stumble around trying to figure out how to start talking about it.”
She looked at the paper, and then at me. For a moment she frowned, but that expression faded as she nodded and took the writing utensils, putting the paper on her knee and nibbling at the unsharpened end of the pencil.
I looked away so she could write without me being able to see it, and heard her scribble something.
“Done,” she announced a couple seconds later.
As I turned back to face her, her hand snaked out and grabbed my sheet of paper before I realized what she was doing.
“Hey. Where’s yours?”
She ignored me as she unfolded my paper and read it.
I tapped her forehead. “That’s not the way it was supposed to work.”
She sat up straight and poked out her chest, pointing between her breasts, which suddenly had nearly all of my attention, and not because of the piece of paper I couldn’t see. “In a safe place.”
She reached between the objects of my attention and pulled the folded half-sheet out, slowly, clearly having fun with me. “I don’t have to be difficult. We agreed.” She handed me the paper right as Molly’s stuffed horse hit her on the side of her head and rebounded onto the table.
The cackle of overly amused old people came out of the other room. We both stared at the two of them, who were laughing and carrying on like children.
Marza huffed and complained. “Granma, I think the stuffed toys are infecting you two with excessive childishness.”
Granpa laughed harder for a few seconds, then gasped a response. “Plenty more where those came from, you two.” He reached down into the toy box and pulled out a stuffed man made with paisley cloth and real hair that was waist length on the decimeter-tall figure. I remembered that doll quite explicitly. Molly had insisted that Jan needed to make it with my hair.
Marza’s granma reached down as well and picked up a fist-sized leather hackey ball. “Next time you get a double!”
The two of us looked at each other and sighed theatrically, before turning away from our tormentors.
The old people laughing noises in the other room got louder. The card game had apparently stopped. There was some muttering and laughing as people who knew what was happening told people who didn’t. The card game started back up almost immediately, with noises of encouragement directed at the elderly children.
I looked down at the sheet of paper in my hand and unfolded it. Written on it was ‘University.’ I lifted the paper to my nose. It smelled like strawberries. Marza smiled at me as I sniffed the sheet.
One more month until we’re both sixteen and can marry.
As I turned my head slightly, expecting stuffed animal projectiles, Granpa very conspicuously pretended like he wasn’t ready to throw Paisleyman at me.
Marza grabbed my head with both hands and turned my head so I couldn’t see our chaperones. “I was afraid I would never see you again. You got hurt twice before there was even an official war! Please tell me that the Stateman is going to keep you away from the fighting from now on.”
“That’s the plan. She wants me around her instead of near combat, as long as I can learn to control my mouth and deportment.”
She tilted her head slightly. “And if you can’t?”
“I can. I think. She’s threatened to send me to the Messenger’s Guild to ‘run my butt off’ if I don’t behave.”
Marza’s eyes bugged out slightly as she strained to keep from laughing for a second before she broke out into laughter. “Oh, no, brer Stateman, please don’t throw me in the briar patch!”
We both laughed together for a little while before I continued. “The Stateman knows it won’t bother me to run, Marza. She seems to want people where they can do things they are good at. If she can’t make me good at working with her and her people, she’ll have me doing something else I’m good at.” I shrugged. “I can’t really argue with that.”
“No, I suppose not.” She started to whisper. “How was Granpa when you last saw him?”
“He was fine. Healthy, uninjured, and he’s captured the ear of Captain Marko. Even if he’s not an officer, he’s being consulted a lot, not just being given orders.” I smiled at her, teasingly. “That reminds me. I have something to tell you that I can’t tell you until after the conflict is resolved. I promised him.”
Marza poked me in the stomach lightly as she lowered her voice and grumbled at me. “Why tell me that, when you can’t tell me now.”
I poked her on the knee. Twice. “Revenge. For the strawberry-scented paper, which came from somewhere I can’t touch now.”
“We both agreed to wait, you know. But I never agreed not to tease you.”
“No, you didn’t. Just wait, short stuff, you shall reap what you sow.”
“I’m counting on it, Allen.” She met my eyes with her own for a few seconds, and neither of us spoke. Imagination was all we could do. After breaking eye contact, we held each other’s hands and leaned one against the other without saying a word, or moving at all, for several minutes.
Eventually, we started trying to begin a new five-year plan that would leave us in a position to be able to return to farm life if we didn’t like city life. I already knew without a doubt that I was going to study something that would teach me more about genetics. Marza had always been fascinated with chemistry. Neither one of us knew exactly what sorts of degrees might best suit our educational goals, never mind our life goals. Especially considering that our options for life goals had suddenly been expanded immensely. The five-year plan had holes you could drive wagons through, but we had time.
Wait a second.
“The note said you could have gone to the university on a scholarship. Why didn’t you?”
She snuggled up to my side a little. “You’re smart enough to figure that one out, I think.”
Oh.
**
The next morning, the Stateman arrived three hours after dawn, as she had promised. I had already been up for four hours, discussing with various people what would happen with my swine.
Edward was up before dawn and out in the fields to make sure he had started the hardest work before Pa was able to get there. I managed to speak to him, briefly, as he left the house with a handful of cornbread biscuits. He was preoccupied and had no interest in Speedy or any of my other swine. I wasn’t upset. He was going to be inheriting the farm and had little to do with the swine. More and more, he was running the farm instead of Pa. It was very clear that family politics was going to get even more complex as Pa’s health degraded and he eventually handed over the running of the farm to Edward. Three people on the same farm, two who used to be in charge and were dominant personalities, and a third who was in charge, but tended to be stubborn and quiet. Molly and Abe were going to grow up in a scrambled, confusing hierarchy.
Granpa agreed to try to housebreak Speedy. First in one of the unused storage sheds, and then, if she did well, in our own house.
Ma and Pa were not thrilled with the idea of Speedy in their house, but they knew as well as I did, that our swine could be housebroken. A lot of the swine we sold were kept indoors, at least partially.
That wasn’t enough to convince them. I had to make the point that even if Marza and I decided not to return to farm life, I wanted to reminder where we came from. Speedy certainly wouldn’t let me forget that.
Pa had relented with a smile. Ma, however, made it very clear that she knew exactly how I had pushed their buttons, but agreed anyhow. Abe and Molly were, of course, thrilled at the prospect of having a pet pig in the house. Granpa laughed at all of us during the whole process.
Abe and Molly would both start tending my sounder, with Granpa’s help. I took the two of them out and introduced them to the sows up close. Abe and Molly had, of course, been around my swine before, and even helped me tend them, but never in their enclosures. Granpa would see if either of them had a knack for working with swine.
Zeke was a little upset with me for arranging to take Speedy away from the farm and reminded me of my promises to allow him to breed her to his boars. He was right. I had promised. So we compromised. I would return Speedy to the farm every year for breeding. She would breed, farrow, and nurse her squeakers long enough that they could be safely weaned or transferred to other nursing sows. Then I could come retrieve her. That would have her on the farm for about a third of every year, covering the end of fall to the beginning of spring. Thinking about how hard it might be to take Speedy out safely for walks every day on icy city roads made me realize that this was actually a better idea for her to overwinter on the farm. Swine and ice do not mix.
Jan, in one of very few moments of forcefulness on her part that I could remember, made it very clear that Speedy would not be living in the house after her child was born. I could understand completely, and didn’t argue at all. Granpa agreed to move Speedy to an empty shed if Jan went into labor.
Marza came over and we sat on the front step of the house. Granpa was sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, whittling some mortise and tenon pieces for one of the carts. He had miraculously discovered something important that he could do while watching us. I suspected that an inspection of the farm carts would find none with damaged mortise and tenon joints. Eventually, however, we’d surely need them. His work wouldn’t be wasted.
At least he doesn’t have a box of stuffed animals today.
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I have to admit, it was funny.
We were behaving today, content to lean against one another, shoulder-to-shoulder as we sat on the bottom step of the porch.
“What was that for?” Marza commented, apparently having seen my smile.
“Just thinking about the stuffed animals last night.”
After a brief giggle, Marza confided in a whisper. “Granma started collecting a bag of old stuffed animals this morning.”
“That’s rich.” I squeezed her hand lightly, purposefully avoiding looking at the carriage approaching up the drive. I could, and would, ignore it until it parked. My luggage had been removed from the swineherd carriage and was in a pile at my feet.
In a cloud that smelled of horse and dust, the carriage stopped in front of our house. The driver climbed down from her seat to get a bucket and carry water from one of the livestock building’s cisterns to the small watering trough for the horses.
Bill opened the carriage door and stepped to the ground, holding the door and offering his arm for support as Tany and the Stateman stepped down.
The Stateman was wearing Albert’s flattened sphere as an impressive pendant around her neck, explaining how that version of Albert could move around without the rug he had used back in the officer’s tent.
“You two are adorable, but I am in a hurry to get back to my offices. Working out of a carriage or inn requires three times as much effort and takes twice as long to get anything done, even with Albert’s help.” She gestured to Marza with a crooked finger. “I need to talk to you now, as I promised in the letter.”
We stood, and kissed briefly. Then Marza followed the Stateman a few meters away and they started talking.
Bill nudged my uninjured shoulder. “I don’t mind helping you secure your gear, but I’m not doing it by myself.”
“Sorry, Bill.” I looked away from Marza and Stateman Urda as they talked, picking up one of my three bags and following Bill, who had the other two. Between the two of us, we had the bags secured to the back of the carriage in only a couple minutes. I mostly held bags in place with my left hand as Bill tied knots. My right shoulder was healing nicely, and quickly, but I still had to be moderately careful.
When Bill and I were done tying up the luggage, the Stateman’s driver was checking harness as the horses drank. Tany was walking towards the carriage with Ma, Jan, Abe, and Molly from the house. Granpa was standing next to the watering trough on his crutches. I saw Zeke, Edward, and Pa approaching from the direction of the equipment shed.
Marza returned to me with a huge grin on her face, giving me a big hug, her arm around my left arm, but inside my right. She seemed to be doing her best to break my ribs without hurting my right shoulder. She whispered in my ear. “University, Allen. It’s real.”
I looked at Stateman Urda suspiciously. When I talked to her, I rarely wanted to smile afterward.
All she did was confirm the letter. Stop being suspicious of her every action.
The Stateman smiled as she walked up. “Five minutes for goodbyes, since we seem to have harvested a full crop of Ricksons here, suddenly. Then we really need to go.” She used Bill’s offered arm to enter the carriage.
“We’ve done this a few times recently,” I commented as she was sitting. “Not so many words needed this time around, I don’t think.”
There were mutters of agreement. There weren’t many words, but there were many hugs, kisses, backslaps and promises. The first and last person I interacted with was Marza, a healthy kiss each time.
This time, there was no comment from family as the second kiss dragged on. Well, nobody except Abe, who proclaimed “Eww, they’re kissing!” before Jan managed to get a hand over his mouth.
The Stateman coughed from inside her carriage.
Marza and I blushed, and stepped away from each other. As we separated, I brushed her cheek lightly with my left hand. “Soon. So many things, soon.”
She trapped my hand with hers. “Soon seems so far away.” After a second she rubbed my hand and spoke again. “I’m sure the Stateman needs to go. We shouldn’t take any more of her time.”
We both rubbed wetness from our cheeks as I took a step back and prepared to enter the carriage.
The Stateman’s voice from inside spoke in an admonishing tone. “Allen, there was a promise you made, which I don’t think you were able to fulfill yet.”
I stopped, searching my memory for promises made and not delivered on.
My mind blanked. I could think of no unfulfilled promises. “What promise?”
“While I regret the need to have read your mail, I doubt you were able to buy hard candy for the little folk who so bravely protected the fields from crows.”
I turned quickly, embarrassed, to look at Abe and Molly. They looked at each other, nodded, and then crossed their arms and stared at me, pouting.
From behind me, the Stateman continued to speak. “I believe Zeke said in the last letter that the count was up to seventeen for one, and fourteen for the other. I can’t remember who it was that was seventeen.
Molly.
Molly started to say something, but the Stateman continued talking over her. “So I got seventeen for both of them, so you could be sure to settle your debt. Abe, Molly, come here for your rewards. They come from Allen, through me. He couldn’t go to the store to buy them before he had to go with me again.”
Ma and Jan released the two and they charged the carriage, Molly arrived first. She accepted her bag and stepped back as she said “Thank you, Ma’am!”
Abe looked up into the carriage for a second before stepping closer to receive his little bag of candies. “What kind are they?”
There was a chuckle from the Stateman. “I don’t know, Abe. I asked for a mixture. I wanted to be sure you got some you liked. Maybe you and Molly can trade each other for your favorites?”
“Sure!” Abe immediately turned around and ran a few steps to Molly, who was already untying the string holding the top of her bag closed.
“Abe! You thank the Stateman right now!” Ma was on the job.
“Sorry, Ma!” Abe turned to face the carriage and ran back. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I mean, Thank you, Ma’am.”
The Stateman reached her hand out and patted Abe on the head. “No need to be sorry, young man. You’re welcome.”
Abe nodded and dashed back to Molly where he started to open his own bag.
Ma and Jan moved forward to herd Abe and Molly away from the carriage and make sure they behaved with the candy.
“One piece now, then you give me the bags,” Ma demanded.
An echoed “Aw, Ma!” came from the two.
“If I let you eat all the candy, you will be too jittery to hit more crows with your slings. You want to and earn more candy, right?” Ma spoke, with a slightly sly tone to her voice.
The two looked at each other suspiciously, then at Granpa, who nodded and verified Ma’s statement. “It’s true. Too much sugar can ruin your aim.”
Pa just shook his head and smiled as he stepped up behind Abe and Molly and put one hand on the shoulder of each child, gripping them very lightly. “You listen to your Ma. One candy, then I want you in the fields again after Allen is gone. You can have another after every meal if you behave. More crows, more candy.”
The two looked up at him. “Yes, Pa.” Then they looked at Ma. “Sorry, Ma.” Both of them talking at the same time.
I was convinced the two practiced simultaneous speech but had never caught them doing it. I suspected Granpa encouraged it. It was possible he had intentionally started them doing it, but I doubted it. One of the two would have let it slip.
“It’s time to go now, Allen.” The Stateman said, from inside the carriage.
Marza and I managed one more quick kiss and a shared goodbye before I entered the carriage.
As the carriage started moving, I waved until I couldn’t see anyone from the window.
When the waving was done, I leaned back in the padded seat opposite the Stateman, with a smile. “You forgot?”
“I forget sometimes.” She was relaxed, watching me with no expression on her face.
“So you say. I can’t remember it happening before.”
I’m not falling for it. You have a soft spot.
“It happens, ask Tany and Bill. That’s why I have them around, instead of less skilled people.”
Tany nodded with a little smile. “She forgot something. Twice, that I can remember.”
“It’s true. She forgets.” Bill raised his eyes, looking at the roof of the carriage, obviously pretending innocence.
I snorted and turned back to Stateman Urda. “Right. Thank you. I’m sure the family would have made it right for me, but I’m glad they didn’t have to. How will I repay you?”
“Consider it a perk. I didn’t buy a meal for you yesterday like I would have done if you had been present.” Still nothing more than a relaxed expression
“I see.” I hadn’t been fooled. “You’re a softie for little kids. I suppose everyone has their weaknesses.”
“That’s a possibility.” The Stateman replied. “Perhaps you need to gather more evidence before your accusation?”
I laughed, and she smiled back at me.
“There is another reason why I am in a good mood today, Allen.”
“What reason?” I asked cautiously.
Corn. Shucking corn.
She relaxed against her seat. “Last night, I received word that Stateman Taylor convinced Stateman Dela of New Dublin to join us and threaten Second Landing’s northern border. I convinced Statemen Mario and Zan of New Ecuador and New Singapore to join us as well. Stateman Fellows of First Landing is interested, and they trade heavily with many states.”
I whistled. “No reaction from Second Landing yet?”
She looked at me like I had said something silly. “No. They won’t know until we’ve firmed up our alliance. Stateman Taylor and Stateman Dela will lead that conversation with Stateman Kelog when the time comes.”
“I see why you’re in a good mood then.”
“That is not all. I received an angry call from Stateman Taylor this morning. Stateman Kelog sent a written document to her. As we were beginning to suspect, he offered to open his granaries to New Tokyo at standard market pricing if New Tokyo agreed to join Second Landing in a federation of states.”
“How is an angry call good?”
She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and then her face went blank. “I forget how young you are, at least when you’re behaving properly. Sorry. The angry call isn’t good. The written offer isn’t good. However, later today, when the allied and interested states speak again, that written offer is going to make a lot of people angry, and more likely to stand with us. The end result is good.”
“I see.” I rubbed my forehead. “I wish I knew if we were doing what Albert wanted.”
“I’m glad I don’t.” Statemen Urda countered me.
I stared at her. “How can you lead a state and not want to know what Albert is doing.”
“That wasn’t what you said the first time.” She waved her finger at me. “You don’t have perfect recall so you need to be more careful with your words, not less. Remember that we already know what Albert is doing. He’s slowly culling violent aggression out of humanity. I have never seen evidence to indicate otherwise.”
She looked at me for a second with her head tilted slightly. “As for knowing if we were doing what Albert wants, that information could be dangerous. I’m an aggressive leader. Put me in a position of following, and I’m going to try to lead again. It’s my nature. I prefer to think that I am likely following a path that Albert prefers, not one he has prepared.”
I thought about it for a second. The difference was significant. “Another comment then. Albert doesn’t seem upset that we’re gathering an alliance of states to threaten another state.”
“There’s a difference between gathering together to defend each other, as opposed to using one’s strength for conquest. One opposes aggression, the other exemplifies it. You, of all people, should understand it is far more acceptable to be aggressive in defense.”
I blinked, and was silent for a few seconds, thinking about my relationship with Rikard. “I concede that point. Isn’t the end result the same? A federation of states? When people start working together, and it works, it’s natural to want to work together more. Even if there was aggression to create a federation of states, does Albert really think we’d remain aggressive with one another after that?”
“Albert has indicated on several occasions that he would not support a federation of the states. I’m confident that we aren’t going to get that far, even if we wanted to.” She paused and looked out the window. “Would we want to? Agreements to trade? Yes. Agreements to assist one another? It’s beginning to look like that will happen. Agreements to suborn our own legislative prerogatives to a greater government? Not so much.”
She took a breath and held it a second before continuing. “Even though Stateman Taylor and I are friendly, I would be extremely irked if she asked a federated government for corn to be taxed more heavily, to help rice farmers. She would certainly feel the same way if a heavier tax on rice taxes was suggested by me.”
“Wasn’t the original colony government a federation?”
“Yes. But they were barely need-based. Machines did almost all the work. Computers did most of the thinking. Humanity provided inspiration and maintenance. From what I’ve read, most of the maintenance was also done by machines. Humanity was almost unnecessary for the production of human needs. The ancients were coddled with technology in ways we can’t even imagine. What did they have to fight and argue about? They didn’t even collect taxes except on extravagant requests, and those taxes were paid in work, not fisc.”
She looked away from the window, to face me. “If we raise taxes on corn, farming families like yours can lose their farms for lack of a willing market to sell to. People will buy cheaper grains instead. Corn farmers that change crops would interfere with the other markets, leading to more instability.”
She waved her hand as I opened my mouth. “Stop. I know you rotate crops and don’t always grow the same thing, but you do almost always grow corn in at least one of your large fields, correct?”
She was right. “Yes. So a federation of states worked for them, but it won’t for us because we’re too agriculturally-based?”
She nodded. “Roughly seventy percent of the population works either growing, gathering, preserving, packing, or transporting food. Most of the rest of our labor force is in critical industries. Quarries, glassworks, shipbuilding, masonry take up almost all of our labor that’s not involved in feeding people. Historically, the least expensive federal governments absorbed roughly ten percent of the income of a nation. Nirvana’s current government takes about half of that. We can’t afford to double our governmental expenses, or worse, not without backsliding into barbarism.”
“Didn’t the Romans have a republic with about our same technology level, and a lot less knowledge?”
“They did. But they were also expansionist, used slaves, most of which were captured outside their own borders, and traded with other nations outside their borders. If we formed a world republic, we can’t do the first, the second is unthinkable, and the third would be entirely internal.”
Turning my head, I watched a road marker pass. “How did the ancients do it here then? They had no outside source of wealth to draw on.”
The Stateman looked at me and smiled. “I already told you that.”
I thought about it for a few seconds before looking back at her. “Slavery. They used machines instead of slaves.”
“Exactly. They had almost no human labor needs while we have few needs that don’t require human labor.” She made a throwing away motion with her right hand. “That’s why we’re modeled after a constitutional monarchy, with Albert enforcing benevolence on Statemen and helping us control graft and fraud.”
“So what was the purpose of all this then, ma’am?”
“I don’t know. Not for sure, but I have guesses. We’ve had several wars since Albert downgraded our technology. Every one of them has been over food. Each war has killed thousands of people directly in combat and many more people due to starvation and disease.”
“Are you saying the states have never worked together as a single body to avoid war before?”
Stateman Urda shook her head. “As far as I know, every global food crisis led to bloodshed. There were definitely cases in the past where states refused to share their food surpluses at reasonable costs. The records are vague enough that I’m not sure if any of the prior scenarios were as clear-cut as what we have today.”
She took a deep breath and released it. “We Statemen work together to solve problems. We cooperate to ease trade. We even collaborate to create infrastructure and maintain a uniform education and language.” She stared at me. “The entire population has been conditioned to avoid violence. The very idea of states working together to offer violence is completely outside our thinking. Stateman Taylor and I considered combining our militias against Second Landing because we were both going to be fighting each other anyway, because of Second Landing. Expanding to involve other states just didn’t cross our minds.” She pinched her nose. “It still gives me a headache to think about it. Our primary goal is to avoid conflict, not create it. Violence-based politics just wasn’t in our toolbox as an option.”
She tapped her chin. “That’s what I think is the highest probability answer to what this was for. Albert wanted to see if we would think about using the threat of violence as a counter to aggressive state actors. It explains a lot of things, including why he sent you back to camp with loose lips, rather than afraid to talk, like most people who have a conversation with Albert outside of Statemen and Countymen. The next logical test is whether or not we can actually make it work, and it seems as if that answer might be yes.”
“Hmm.” I turned to the window. “And we’re creating verbal traditions now, which Albert can’t easily remove. He seems to be cooperating with you?”
“Yes. He definitely is. He’s even suggested a few books about mnemonics.”
“You are implementing a governance verbal tradition as well, after what Albert did to the militia, aren’t you?”
She frowned at me. “I didn’t tell you that.”
I closed my eyes. “It makes sense.”
“What makes sense?”
I opened my eyes again and looked at the roof of the carriage, my mind spinning.
The best firearms we can make today are crude. The balance of power between states would be roughly the same as now. We’ve set a precedent for interstate cooperation to threaten bad actors. That will find its way into verbal traditions.
Without looking at the Stateman and Albert’s remote she was wearing, I spoke slowly. “Albert, you just neutralized the danger of the idea I had, didn’t you?”
“Not entirely. I expect you to adhere to our agreement, Allen Rickson.” Albert’s voice came out of his remote, causing everyone in the carriage to jump, even me. I hadn’t expected him to answer, but it was an important question.
“Will you de-civilize humanity if I fail to honor the agreement?”
Silence. I stared at the remote.
Is it too much to ask for a straight answer?
Apparently so. Maybe something just as important, but less direct?
“When we spoke the first time, you mentioned roughly eleven thousand possible solution states that might occur within the next five hundred years. Has the number of possible solution states in the next five hundred years gone up, or down?”
“There are now roughly five thousand possible solution states that might occur within the next five hundred years.”
I looked at Albert’s remote around the Stateman’s neck in horror.
I made things worse! More than twice as bad!
Stateman Urda raised a finger in a clear sign for me to say nothing. Her voice cut through the silence. “Albert, has the overall probability of reaching a viable solution state to the problem Allen has referenced increased or decreased as the number of possible solution states dropped from eleven thousand to five thousand?”
“Possibility of matching a solution state in the next five hundred years is now between ninety and ninety-five percent. This is approximately twice the probability I calculated before my first communication with Allen Rickson.”
The Stateman stared at me. “Why are you answering questions asked by Allen, in the presence of others, without my consent?”
“I advised Allen Rickson that I considered him worthy of grooming for a position of leadership. I will choose how and when I groom individuals for leadership, Stateman Alice Bay Urda. In this case, the intervention was appropriate.”
Stateman Urda’s nose flared. “Understood, Albert. Please warn me next time, before you begin speaking to someone else from your remote if I am wearing it, unless there is an emergency.”
“If there is a benefit to doing so, Stateman Urda, I shall. As you know, I do monitor your health, you need not fear cardiac arrest while in office.”
“That won’t make it hurt less,” she muttered under her breath before she shook her head.
But it does make it clear who holds power, even if he rarely uses it.
I had an idea, suddenly, and carefully phrased the question. “Albert, a question. Marza and I are considering what degrees to pursue at the university. What degrees would be best for us to acquire, if we wished to offer the greatest improvement in chances for a solution state within the next five hundred years?”
Stateman Urda raised both eyebrows at me and nodded approvingly.
For nearly two seconds, there was no response. Just as I was beginning to think Albert had stopped talking to us, he spoke again. “Based on the spoken and implied parameters of the request and the preferences and capabilities of the individuals, Allen Rickson should pursue a degree in marine biology. Marza Gonzalez should pursue a degree in metallurgy.”
That works. And it even sounds interesting.
Wait. He knows what Marza’s preferences are?
I was certain he wouldn’t answer a question about Marza, and didn’t want to draw the Stateman’s attention to her. After a few seconds, I replied. “Thank you, Albert.”
After several seconds, there was no reply.
Stateman Urda looked at me. “Solution state for what?”
“Albert’s goal for humanity.” I answered quietly.
“Oh. I thought so. Intriguing. Ninety to ninety-five percent chance in the next five hundred years.” She sighed. “Time to start a five hundred year plan.” The Stateman reached into the bag next to her left thigh on the seat. Her hand emerged with a lap desk, a thick notebook, and a pencil. She started scribbling with gestures far larger than writing movements, just how Zeke had described it.
Five hundred year plan? I stared at the Stateman for at least a minute before I turned away and watched the side of the road through the window.
A five-year plan is bad enough. How do you even start to think about a five hundred year plan?
The next several hours in the carriage were quiet. Tany and Bill were reading from a large bag of broadsheets with the names of cities from around the world. Stateman Urda was alternating between nibbling the end of her pencil and scribbling.
I continued staring out the window and tried to figure out ways to improve the rough five-year plan Marza and I had started working on. This included explaining to her how Albert had mentioned metallurgy as a choice for her.
A thought suddenly struck me out of the blue as I remembered an encounter at the beach, years ago during a full-day school trip to the ocean.
How would Speedy and a dolphin react to one another in shallow water?
The Stateman glowered at me over her notebook as I broke out laughing.
Her expression made me laugh even harder.
I spent the rest of the day exiled from the inside of the carriage, sitting next to the driver.
It was worth it.
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Dolmabahçe Palace (Turkish: Dolmabahçe Sarayı, IPA: [doɫmabahˈtʃe saɾaˈjɯ]) located in the Beşiktaş district of Istanbul, Turkey, on the European coast of the Bosphorus, served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and 1909 to 1922 (Yıldız Palace was used in the interim).
History [ edit ]
Selamlık Facade of the
Dolmabahçe Palace was ordered by the Empire's 31st Sultan, Abdülmecid I, and built between the years 1843 and 1856. Previously, the Sultan and his family had lived at the Topkapı Palace, but as the medieval Topkapı was lacking in contemporary style, luxury, and comfort, as compared to the palaces of the European monarchs, Abdülmecid decided to build a new modern palace near the site of the former Beşiktaş Sahil Palace, which was demolished. Hacı Said Ağa was responsible for the construction works, while the project was realized by architects Garabet Balyan, his son Nigoğayos Balyan and Evanis Kalfa (members of the Armenian Balyan family of Ottoman court architects).
The construction cost five million Ottoman gold lira, or 35 tonnes of gold, the equivalent of ca. $1.5 billion in today's (2013) values.[1][2] This sum corresponded to approximately a quarter of the yearly tax revenue. Actually, the construction was financed through debasement, by massive issue of paper money, as well as by foreign loans. The huge expenses placed an enormous burden on the state purse and contributed to the deteriorating financial situation of the Ottoman Empire, which eventually defaulted on its public debt in October 1875, with the subsequent establishment in 1881 of financial control over the "sick man of Europe" by the European powers.
The palace was home to six Sultans from 1856, when it was first inhabited, up until the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924: The last royal to live here was Caliph Abdülmecid Efendi. A law that went into effect on March 3, 1924 transferred the ownership of the palace to the national heritage of the new Turkish Republic. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey, used the palace as a presidential residence during the summers and enacted some of his most important works here. Atatürk spent the last days of his medical treatment in this palace, where he died on November 10, 1938.
Today, the palace is managed by Milli Saraylar Daire Başkanlığı (Directorate of National Palaces) responsible to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
Location [ edit ]
Close-up view of the palace from the Bosphorus
The site of Dolmabahçe was originally a bay on the Bosphorus which was used for the anchorage of the Ottoman fleet. The area was reclaimed gradually during the 18th century to become an imperial garden, much appreciated by the Ottoman sultans; it is from this garden that the name Dolmabahçe (Filled-in Garden) comes from the Turkish dolma meaning "filled" and bahçe meaning "garden." Various small summer palaces and wooden pavilions were built here during the 18th and 19th centuries ultimately forming a palace complex named Beşiktaş Waterfront Palace. The area of 110,000 m² is confined by Bosphorus on the east side, while a steep precipice bounds it on the west side, such that after the building of the new 45,000 m² monoblock Dolmabahçe Palace a relatively limited space has remained for a garden complex which would normally surround such a palace.[3][4]
Design and layout [ edit ]
Fountain in the garden
Floor plan of the palace
Dolmabahçe is the largest palace in Turkey. It has an area of 45,000 m2 (11.1 acres), and contains 285 rooms, 46 halls, 6 baths (hamam) and 68 toilets.[3][4]
The design contains eclectic elements from the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical styles, blended with traditional Ottoman architecture to create a new synthesis. The palace layout and décor reflect the increasing influence of European styles and standards on Ottoman culture and art during the Tanzimat period. The exterior, in particular the view from the Bosporus, shows a classical European two-wing arrangement which is divided by a big avant-corps with two side avant-corps.
Functionally, on the other hand, the palace retains elements of traditional Ottoman palace life, and also features of traditional Turkish homes. It is strictly separated structurally in a southern wing (Mabeyn-i Hümâyûn, or Selamlık, the quarters reserved for the men) which contains the public representation rooms, and a northern wing (Harem-i Hümâyûn, the Harem) serving as the private residential area for the Sultan and his family. The two functional areas are separated by the big Ceremonial Hall (Muayede Salonu) with a floor area of 2,000 m2 (22,000 sq ft) and a 36 m (118 ft) high dome. Since the harem had to be completely isolated from the outside world, the main entrance for the visitors is located on the narrow southern side. There, the representation rooms are arranged for receptions of visitors and of foreign diplomats. The harem area includes eight interconnected apartments for the wives of the sultan, for his favourites and concubines, and for his mother, each with its own bathroom.
Décor and equipment [ edit ]
Ceremonial Hall, with the chandelier said to have been given by Queen Victoria
Süfera Salonu) with two bearskin rugs Ambassador's Hall () with two bearskin rugs
Sultan's hamam decorated with Egyptian alabaster
Whereas the Topkapı has exquisite examples of Iznik tiles and Ottoman carving, the Dolmabahçe palace is extensively decorated with gold and crystal. Fourteen tonnes of gold were used to gild the ceilings.[5] The world's largest Bohemian crystal chandelier is in the Ceremonial Hall. The chandelier was assumed to be a gift from Queen Victoria, however in 2006 the receipt was found showing it was paid for in full. It has 750 lamps and weighs 4.5 tonnes. Dolmabahçe has the largest collection of Bohemian and Baccarat crystal chandeliers in the world. The famous Crystal Staircase has the shape of a double horseshoe and is built of Baccarat crystal, brass and mahogany.
Expensive stones such as Marmara (Proconnesian) marble, Egyptian alabaster (calcite, also known as onyx-marble), and Porphyry from Pergamon were used for the decoration.
The palace includes a large number of Hereke palace carpets made by the Hereke Imperial Factory. Also featured are 150-year-old bearskin rugs originally presented to the Sultan as a gift by Tsar Nicholas I.
A collection of 202 oil paintings is on display in the palace. A highlight of the collection are 23 paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky which he created as a court painter during his stays in Istanbul.[6] The collection also includes paintings by Gustave Boulanger, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Eugène Fromentin, Stanisław Chlebowski, Félix Ziem, Karl Joseph Kuwasseg, Fausto Zonaro, Théo van Rysselberghe and Alexander Sandor Svoboda. There are also paintings by Turkish painters such as Osman Hamdi Bey, Halil Pasha and Osman Nuri Pasha in this art museum.
From the very beginning, the palace's equipment implemented the highest technical standards. Gas lighting and water-closets were imported from Great Britain, whereas the palaces in continental Europe were still lacking these features at that time. Later, electricity, a central heating system and an elevator were installed.
Rooms [ edit ]
Blue Hall
Pink Hall
Medhal (Main Entrance) Hall [ edit ]
A visit to the Dolmabahce Palace begins at the Medhal Hall. Rooms leading off the Medhal are towards the sea and the land. The rooms facing the sea were used by the leading Ottoman officials, the Grand Vizier and the other state ministers, while the rooms facing the land were used by various administrators of the palace and the state, such as the Palace Marshall, Şeyhülislam, and members of the House of Representatives (Meclis-i Mebusan) and the Senate (Meclis-i Ayan).
Guests would first wait in this hall and then would be led inside at the proper time by a palace protocol officer. On entering the Medhal, one sees Boulle tables on both sides of the room, which bear the monogram of Sultan Abdülmecid on top. The royal monogram of the sultan is also on the fireplace. The English chandelier hanging in the middle of this room has sixty arms. The Hereke fabrics used as upholstery for the furniture and as draperies are in the royal shade of red.
The secretariat's rooms [ edit ]
The second room after the Medhal to the right is the Clerk's Hall, also referred to as the Tiled Room. The largest painting in the palace collection, a depiction of the Surre Procession by Stefano Ussi, hangs on the left wall of this hall. Surre was used to refer to the caravans which travelled from Istanbul to Mecca during the religious month of Recep, bearing the monetary aid used to support the maintenance and the decoration of the Kaaba and to provide financial assistance to the local population of Hejaz.
On the wall to the right is a painting signed by Rudolf Ernst depicting the fire at the Paris Municipal Theater and another painting of a Dutch Village Girl by Delandre. Decorated with French style furniture, this room also contains very valuable porcelain vases.
Atatürk's room [ edit ]
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk spent the last days of his life in the palace as his health deteriorated. He died at 9:05 A.M. on November 10, 1938, in a bedroom located in the former harem area of the palace. All the clocks in the palace were stopped and set to 9:05 after his death. The clocks outside of his room now are set to the actual time in Turkey, but the clock in the room in which he died still points to 9:05.
Gates [ edit ]
Gate of the Sultan ( Saltanat Kapısı )
Gate of the Treasury ( Hazine-i Hassa Kapısı )
Gate to the Bosphorus
Adjacent buildings [ edit ]
A number of further residential buildings are located near the palace including the palace of the Crown Prince (Veliaht Dairesi), the quarters of the gentlemen-in-waiting (Musahiban Dairesi), the dormitories of the servants (Agavat Dairesi, Bendegan Dairesi) and of the guards (Baltacilar Dairesi), the quarters of the Chief Eunuch (Kizlaragasi Dairesi). Further buildings include imperial kitchens (Matbah-i Amire), stables, an aviary (Kusluk), a plant nursery (Fidelik), a flour mill, a greenhouse (Sera), a Hereke carpet workshop (Hereke dökümhanesi), a glass manufactory, a foundry, a pharmacy etc.[7][8]
A baroque style mosque designed by Garabet Balyan was built near the palace in 1853—1855. It was commissioned by queen mother Bezm-i Âlem Valide Sultan. Since 1948 the building housed the Naval Museum, but the museum was moved to another location in 1960 after the coup d'état of May, 27th. In 1967 the mosque was returned for worship.
A clock tower (Dolmabahçe Saat Kulesi) was erected in front of the Imperial Gate (Saltanat Kapisi) on a square along the European waterfront of Bosphorus next to the mosque. The tower was ordered by Sultan Abdülhamid II and designed by the court architect Sarkis Balyan between 1890 and 1895. Its clock was manufactured by the French clockmaker house of Jean-Paul Garnier, and installed by the court clock master Johann Mayer.
Literature [ edit ]
Sultan's library
Yücel, İhsan; Sema Öner (1989). Dolmabahçe Palace . Istanbul: TBMM National Palaces Trust. ASIN B000GYA5C8.
Akat, Yücel (1988). The Dolmabahçe Palace . Istanbul: Keskin Color. ASIN B000GW7QYA.
Yücel, İhsan (1995). Dolmabahçe Palace . Istanbul: TBMM Department of National Palaces. ISBN 975-7479-42-X.
Gülersoy, Çelik (1990). Dolmabahçe Palace and its environs . Istanbul: İstanbul Kitaplığı. p. 257. ISBN 978-975-7687-03-0.
Keskin, Naci (1975). The Dolmabahçe Palace . Istanbul: Keskin Color. ASIN B000OSH36M.
Dolmabahçe Palace . Istanbul: Do-Gu Yayınları. 1998. ASIN B000E1S49O.
İskender Pala. The Jewel on the Bosphorus; Dolmabahçe Palace . TBMM Milli Saraylar Yayınları, Istanbul, 2006.
. TBMM Milli Saraylar Yayınları, Istanbul, 2006. İhsan Yücel, Sema Öner, F. Yaşar Yılmaz, Cengiz Göncü, Hakan Gülsün. Dolmabahçe Palace . TBMM Milli Saraylar Yayınları, Istanbul, 2005.
. TBMM Milli Saraylar Yayınları, Istanbul, 2005. İpek Fitöz. European Lights In Dolmabahçe Palace. TBMM Milli Saraylar Yayınları, Istanbul, 2007. |
Palestinians in Gaza appealed directly to Italy not to allow the Israeli military to take part in exercises on its soil. BDS Movement
The Israeli air force has been removed from the list of armed forces now taking part in multinational military training exercises on the Italian island of Sardinia following a campaign by anti-war activists.
During Israel’s deadly 51-day bombing campaign on Gaza in July and August, anti-militarization and Palestine solidarity groups mobilized against the military drills in general, and Israel’s participation in particular.
Palestinians in Gaza, standing in the rubble of destroyed homes, posted photographs appealing directly to Italy not to “train the pilots who bombs us.”
The prospect of Israeli F-16s using the island to train for bombing missions, combined with the ill-timed delivery to Israel of two Italian trainer jets just after the attacks on Gaza began, created public outrage in Italy, with multiple calls for an embargo on weapons cooperation with Israel.
On 31 July, the Italian defense ministry published a note in an attempt to calm the waters. Without mentioning Israel, the ministry note stated that the planning stages for the drills had not yet been completed and only upon completion would the participating countries be confirmed.
The drills started last month and are scheduled to run until December.
As speculation on the possible exclusion of Israel continued, so did the mobilizations. A demonstration on 13 September at the Capo Frasca firing range, where Israel was to train, saw large-scale participation.
More than 350 people broke into the military area in an act of civil disobedience.
Contradiction
On 25 September, Gioacchino Alfano, Italy’s deputy defense minister, responded to a parliamentary question by claiming that military drills with the Israeli air force were never in the plans and therefore could not have been suspended.
That statement contradicted a March 2014 document from the Capo Frasca firing range, which clearly indicated that Israel was to take part in drills during the second half of 2014.
Furthermore, Israel has participated in similar drills undertaken in Sardinia in recent years, as photographs posted by the Israeli military prove.
Israeli air force jets take part in a 2010 military exercise on the Italian island of Sardinia. (Israel Defense Forces/Flickr)
A source at the Italian defense ministry told The Electronic Intifada that “no Israeli military personnel will be involved in the exercises.”
“We can consider this a small victory. It demonstrates that grassroots pressure can affect government decision-making,” commented Fawzi Ismail, president of the Sardinia-Palestine Friendship Association. “Public opinion had its say and apparently the Italian government and NATO felt it inopportune to have Israel participate after the attacks on Gaza.”
Ismail noted that the mobilizations against the training exercises will continue. The Italian, German and US militaries are all participating in the drills.
During the exercises, bombs, missiles and artillery rounds are being fired across the island from tanks, helicopters, combat jets and warships.
Power of action
Further demonstrations are planned over the next few weeks.
Sardinians have made it clear that they intend to continue campaigning against the takeover of their land by military forces.
A number of private firms are also involved in the exercises. Among them are Alenia Aermacchi, part of the Finmeccanica group, Italy’s top weapons manufacturer. Alenia will be testing its M-346 trainer jet.
Two of those jets were delivered to Israel in July. They were part of a consignment of thirty jets that Israel has ordered from the company as part of a $1 billion deal, which gives Italy the dubious honor of being Europe’s top weapons provider to Israel.
It would be naive to see the exclusion of Israel as a change in direction for the Italian government, considering the strong ties between the two countries. But it is a testament to the power of grassroots action.
Stephanie Westbrook is a US citizen based in Rome, Italy. Her articles have been published by Common Dreams, Counterpunch, The Electronic Intifada, In These Times and Z Magazine. Follow her on Twitter: @stephinrome. |
On September 21st 2011 Team Dignitas ventured into the North American League of Legends scene by picking up an upcoming team called Rock Solid. The team led by captain William 'Scarra' Li quickly established their spot as one of NA's top teams by placing second at IEM Season VI World Championship and at the Season 2 NA Regionals. Just over three years later only two members of the original lineup remain although Scarra has taken on the role of Coach earlier this season.
During his stay Scarra also made cool videos with Team Dignitas and HyperX!
However, Scarra has decided that it is time for him to move on to new opportunities and he will not renew his contract at the end of the season. We would like to wish Scarra the best of luck with his future but more importantly we want to thank him for his services over the last three years. |
This is a debate about the merits of regulation versus a system without any control, says Nick Clegg
In 1926, an American trade unionist, William Roberts, gave evidence on the effects of alcohol prohibition to the Senate Judiciary Committee:
“Everywhere we went there was plenty of distilled liquor, but seldom real beer. We found that the homes of the people had been turned into breweries and distilleries which turned out dangerous decoctions that if drunk to any extent would ruin the health of those who drank them. When asked why they drank such stuff they said there was nothing else to be obtained, and they invariably asked when were Members of Congress going to realize that the manufacture and sale of beer would make for true temperance.”
Far from controlling and eliminating alcohol use, the “noble experiment” of prohibition drove users towards increasingly potent and dangerous drinks. With no regulatory levers in place except the threat of arrest (which had to be set against the promise of handsome profits for those who defied the law), there was no effective way to control the market. The ensuing public health crisis was one of the key motivations behind the repeal of prohibition in 1933, when President Roosevelt signed a new law allowing the sale of beer with a maximum alcohol content of 4%.
For spirits in 1926, read “skunk” in 2017. [1] “Skunk” is a direct result of prohibition. New cultivation methods have pushed up potency over the past 20 years. Just as 1920s-era bootleggers didn’t bother to produce and smuggle high volume, low alcohol beer, so the illicit cannabis industry has responded to criminal enforcement by developing products that maximise profit, with no consideration for the health of its customers.
That last point is crucial. In the pursuit of maximum tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content, an unfortunate consequence has been to breed a protective component, cannabidiol (CBD), out of the plant. CBD may mitigate many of the negative heath effects of THC, from anxiety and paranoia to the risk of dependency.
The impact of this re-engineering of cannabis has only recently become apparent. A 2015 study in south London found that “skunk” was a factor in a quarter of patients with first-episode psychosis; people smoking lower-potency hash showed no increased risk.
Skunk is now sold without any effective restriction to about two million UK consumers a year, including large numbers of children. As with prohibition-era users of illicit alcohol, people use it because there is no alternative: the market is saturated by a high-strength product associated with severe mental health problems. And prohibition may deter people with drug use disorders from seeking the help they need.
Politicians typically respond with a shrug of the shoulders. Instead of looking for real solutions, they expect us to believe that the criminal law will prevail, despite no evidence that this approach has ever worked anywhere in the world.
This is irresponsible and unimaginative. But there is an alternative, as the United States found in 1933: legalise and regulate the milder forms of the drug.
Regulation would allow us to control the product, capping maximum strength and requiring that all varieties contain CBD. Labelling requirements would end the lottery where cannabis users have no idea what they are buying. Sales from licensed outlets would be taxed, capturing £1bn a year which is currently lost to organised crime.
Regulation would also allow us to apply the lessons learned from the control of tobacco and alcohol. The risks of unfettered commercialisation are real, but instead of allowing the industry to establish itself and then rein it in, we would impose strict rules from the start. Plain packaging for all cannabis products and a ban on advertising would prevent manufacturers from stimulating demand. Users could be nudged away from smoking and towards vaping, as we have done with tobacco. Vendors could finally be properly policed, with licenses withdrawn for selling to under-18s as we do with pubs. And some of the tax revenue could be used to support clearer public health messaging.
Unlike the Conservative and Labour election manifestos, which make no mention of the cannabis problem, the Liberal Democrat manifesto includes a clear commitment to regulate the market. We believe that regulation would reduce crime and improve public health. We have studied the legal markets that already exist in North America, and have accepted the recommendations of a panel of experts, including former and serving chief constables.
We are not arguing to “liberalise” drug laws: cannabis of unknown content and potency is already available to any adults and children who want it. This is a debate about the merits of regulation versus a system without any control. The opponents of regulation should ask themselves this: what other public health problem do we contract out entirely to organised criminals?
Nick Clegg is a Liberal Democrat politician who served as deputy prime minister in the coalition government from 2010 to 2015 and as leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015. Until the General Election was called he was member of parliament for Sheffield Hallam, where he was first elected in 2005. He has a long standing interest in drug policy reform and is a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy.
Competing interests: None declared.
References:
[1] “Skunk” in the recent scientific literature is a term used to describe cannabis which contains a high percentage of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, an intoxicant) but little to no Cannabidiol (CBD, an antipsychotic). |
A Brockton man has been charged with pulling a gun on another motorist in an apparent road-rage incident, police said.
Derek Horner, 34, was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was being held at the Quincy police station Friday night and is due to be arraigned Monday morning in Quincy District Court.
Quincy police Capt. Greg Goyette said the incident was reported at 3:08 p.m. at the intersection of Hancock Street and Furnace Brook Parkway.
“It was some type of road-rage incident where one vehicle cut off another,” Goyette said.
The woman who was driving one of the vehicles alleges the man in the other pointed a gun at her, Goyette said.
Horner’s vehicle was stopped by State Police at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Washington Street in Braintree. Quincy and Braintree police also responded to the scene.
No gun had been recovered as of early Friday evening and the case is under investigation by Quincy police detectives. |
ZAWIYAT ABU MUSALLEM, Egypt (Reuters) - Kasbana Abdelaziz’s house guests had barely arrived when the mob was upon them, hurling petrol bombs and smashing holes through the roof of her home.
A blood-stained slipper is seen in front of a house, where four Egyptian Shi'ites were killed, in the suburb of Zawiyat Abu Musallem, on the outskirts of Cairo, June 24, 2013. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
The attackers then dragged four men - Shi’ite Muslims who had come to this Cairo suburb for a religious festival - out into the street and beat them to death.
President Mohamed Mursi condemned the “heinous crime” that happened on Sunday and promised swift justice, but his opponents accuse him and his Muslim Brotherhood of allowing ultraconservative Salafist allies to whip up anti-Shi’ite sentiment in return for their support.
“They called us infidels,” Abdelaziz, said, sitting on her floor amid broken concrete, shattered glass and splintered wood. Two of her daughters stood weeping in the room behind her.
The mob killing in Zawiyat Abu Musallem has caused outrage among opposition leaders in Egypt at a time of deep political tension in the Arab world’s most populous country.
Little is left of Abdelaziz’s house in the Cairo suburb, an area of mud-brick and concrete-block homes, narrow dirt alleyways and fields of date palms in view of the Giza pyramids.
The kitchen is stripped bare; a battered refrigerator door lies amid dust, scraps of cloth and bricks on the floor. Daylight pours in through holes in the ceiling. An image of the shrine of Imam Ali in Iraq, one of the holiest sites in Shi’ite Islam, hangs on a wall in the ransacked bedroom.
Abdelaziz had no doubt who was behind the destruction. “It was the Salafists and the Brotherhood - they’re the ones who attacked us,” she said. “They did things you can’t imagine.”
“INFIDELS”
Shi’ites are a small minority in Egypt - though still number in the hundreds of thousands - and they keep a low profile in the overwhelmingly Sunni country of 84 million. But the war in Syria, which pits mostly Sunni rebels against President Bashar al-Assad and his Shi’ite allies, has worsened sectarian hatreds across the region.
The violence in Zawiyat Abu Musallem started in the early afternoon, Abdelaziz and her daughters said, just after Hassan Shehata, a Shi’ite dignitary, arrived as a guest of her husband, a plasterer from the area.
Hundreds of men gathered in the rubbish-strewn alley outside the house when they learned Shehata was inside. “He’d only just entered and come up when we found all the people upon us,” Abdelaziz said. “There was chanting - ‘you Shi’ites, you infidels’. People were chanting and people were throwing bricks.”
A video posted online showed a crowd dragging four men wearing robes from the house and beating them with fists and rods until they fell, bloodied and motionless, in the alley.
One comment on the video, which has gained several hundred “likes” on YouTube, addressed Shehata: “May your filthy soul lie in hell forever and ever. Amen.”
Another video posted by rights activists showed dozens of men and youths looking on as several others drag the bloodied body of at least one man along a street, one pulling on what may be a rope around his neck.
In other sequences, a group of black-robed women on a crowded, narrow street chant “No God but God!” Riot police are present in the video, which shows an officer yelling out in frustration: “They’re beating us!”
Abdelaziz said she did not know what had become of her husband, Farhat, but he may have been taken to hospital after the attack.
Bahaa Anwar, a leader in Egypt’s Shi’ite community, was quoted by state newspaper al-Ahram as saying Mursi and the Brotherhood were using the Shi’ites as a “scapegoat” to appease their Salafist allies.
Slideshow (7 Images)
Liberal opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood also accused the movement of stirring up sectarian passions by joining in Sunni calls for jihad against Syria’s Assad and his Shi’ite allies from Lebanon and Iran.
Mursi and the Brotherhood angered Salafists by trying to improve relations with Shi’ite Iran after Mursi was elected a year ago but this month the Islamist group threw its weight behind calls for “holy war” against Assad, at a conference in Cairo.
Mursi’s opponents are planning mass rallies on June 30 to call for his resignation and early presidential elections - he and the Brotherhood have staged their own shows of strength, prompting Egypt’s army to warn it may step in to impose order. |
In recent weeks the Left — which is of course not a singular herd, though it sometimes acts like one — has rushed adoringly to the former PM’s aid. Her upcoming appearance at the Sydney Opera House with Anne Summers sold out on the day it was announced. Her op-ed in the Guardian was lauded as if it were this century’s On Liberty. It was a fine essay, yes — you’d hope so seeing it was more than two months in the making.
The resurgent interest in Gillard is hardly surprising. The bloodletting to come will be pornography for politics junkies. The book deal is thought to be worth $500,000 and I’m certainly looking forward to her take.
But it should be considered no more than that: one perspective on what went wrong for Labor during those six tumultuous years. Gillard is no less responsible for that failure than anyone else, no less steeped in political intrigue and machination. She may not have been leader on the day but it was still Gillard (and her backers) who lost Labor the 2013 election.
It began, of course, with her urging for the emissions trading scheme to be dumped in the early months of 2010. Both Gillard and Wayne Swan were guilty in this, and it seems to me that if you are on the Left and you believe in action on climate change, then you should regard this as unforgiveable.
So it’s amusing to see Gillard now urge the party to maintain the rage and not roll over on carbon pricing, the very opposite of what she advocated back in 2010. A lesson learned, you might say.
That decision, for which Rudd shares a great deal of responsibility, destroyed the PM and created the need for rescue, a call Gillard subsequently took up. The narrative of a sudden and reluctant coup has been thoroughly debunked. But regardless, this act destroyed the government. It ruined not one but two good prime ministers, for Gillard may have been wonderful in a few more years. And surely this, for the true believers, should be deemed unforgiveable too.
Gillard’s Guardian essay accused Rudd of running a campaign which lacked big ideas and ignored the achievements of the government under her leadership. That assessment is pretty much beyond dispute, but it mirrors Gillard’s own disastrous 2010 campaign. People’s Assembly? Sustainable Australia? They too were thought bubbles more than ideas. And the Rudd government’s management of the GFC barely rated a mention.
Gillard may have closed many deals as PM, but she opened few conversations. Is it not possible that Rudd’s dearth of big ideas in 2013 reflects a great deal on Gillard’s failure to embrace any in government? When given the opportunity to lead progressive change on drug reform, the Newstart allowance, gay marriage or the republic, she shirked it every time.
So while Gillard should enjoy deafening applause on the NDIS and education funding, she cannot make a claim to have established a third-term agenda for Labor. Her essay’s thoughtful discussion of progressive purpose is dramatically undermined by the notable lack of purpose with which the government limped along from 2010.
The former PM acquits herself quite reasonably on asylum seekers by arguing the need to find a policy that satisfies the public’s many whims — from despair at a boat sinking to anger at a detention centre riot. What is missing is any consideration of establishing a new norm, taking the voters with you to where you think they should be.
Gillard simultaneously chastises Labor for its failure after 1996 to defend the Hawke/Keating legacy, pandering instead to the public’s warped memory of the negative over the positive. It requires a lot of cognitive dissonance to believe that you should defend some values against public scepticism, like free markets and enterprise bargaining, and not others, like onshore processing or marriage equality.
And it was amusing to see Gillard criticising Rudd’s foray into economic nationalism when it was she who ushered in the crackdown on 457 visas amid a dog-whistling sojourn to Western Sydney (Rudd, it should be noted, allowed the legislation to pass).
What’s most disappointing about Gillard’s essay is that it shows the colossal potential she had as a leader. There is talk of purpose and vision, reasserting policy over politics, and an interest in the big picture. In a mere paragraph she bats away the missed surplus as the unimportant footnote that it is. But she never made that argument in government. The surplus fetish and its corresponding narrative of failure flourished under her leadership.
As did the perception that Labor was wedded to its sectional interests, facilitating the demands of unions and old comrades-in-arms instead of moving toward the modern and accessible. Gillard versus Rudd seemed very much like a proxy war for old Labor versus new, and Gillard unquestionably won that battle. It’s unsurprising, then, that she wants the incumbent power structures to remain.
The former PM’s essay is brilliant as a piece of writing, but the cheer squad has blithely ignored its total contrast with her time in the job. It is as clear attempt as any to retrospectively establish a legacy; to be remembered as the Labor hero and master negotiator who fell victim to the most drawn out revenge plot Australian politics has ever seen.
It is remarkable that people, many of whom might be described as part of the intellectual elite, could be so gullible.
They should at least be able to appreciate the counter-narrative: that Gillard had no values which were not for sale, that her negotiations frequently produced lacklustre and untenable outcomes (the mining tax and the Malaysia Solution come to mind) and that she clung to power when it was obvious she needed to stand aside.
Memory is one of the surest casualties of the modern media cycle, where it seems a well-crafted but hypocritical essay can nullify the sins of the past. If Gillard’s leadership comes to be remembered as some sort of high watermark for the Left, it will be a sad and undeserving epitaph indeed. |
Writing exclusively for our new book Chic Stays, the singer-songwriter reveals why she loves the legendary Los Angeles star-magnet
I remember the first time I stayed here. It seemed like the haunted hotel ride at Disneyland and had an air of faded glamour about it - a sense of being lost and found at the same time. I remember singing at the piano one night, in the darkened living room, and I had the distinct impression that all the Chateau Marmont's hallways and passages led to rooms that were full of bright and brilliant yet chaotic people, all of whom had somehow converged at this one place on Sunset Boulevard: half sanctuary, half madhouse.
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I love the big, beautiful blue rooms on the top floor, with their plush sofas and fires that I can never figure out how to turn on. I was at the Chateau around the time of the Grammys one year, and we all went to one of the after-parties, an occasion that resulted in me lying face down in a bathtub - luckily it was empty. My other memory from that night is of Baz Luhrmann doing a spectacular Mick Jagger impression far too close to the balcony for my liking. Then a few days later, we managed to miss all the Oscars after-parties, and I ended up back in my room at the Chateau dressed like a superhero unicorn from a Seventies sci-fi series. There was another occasion, a rather embarrassing moment, when I ended up doing squat thrusts in front of Josh Hartnett.
Florence Welch Tom Beard
Read next Brilliant hotels for weekend breaks in the UK and Ireland Places To Stay Brilliant hotels for weekend breaks in the UK and Ireland
Chateau Marmont in LA. Richard Powers
The garden is a great place to people-watch, to see which producer or actress or model or befuddled pop star (i.e. me) is sitting out there. I once even bumped into the guy who wrote 'You've Got the Love'. So my advice is to head here after you check in, jet-lagged and feeling pretty weird; it settles you nicely into LA. Then you should check out Musso & Frank's, on Hollywood Boulevard. The tuna salads are to die for. At the Chateau I usually have arancini and fresh lemonade. When we're being civilised, the band and I drink dirty Martinis, though there have been nights when we've ordered oversized bottles of vodka at ungodly hours. Oh, how I'd like to thank and apologise to all those lovely members of staff who catered to us on those somewhat saturated mornings! As for sleep, well, if there has been a big party, I leave a little shaken, though shaken up in a good way.
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Taken from our beautiful new travel book 'Chic Stays: Condé Nast Traveller's Favourite People on Their Favourite Places' (£55, published by Assouline), out on 24 September 2016. Pre-order now at www.assouline.com/chic-stays/
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The payment of "commuting costs" at 45p-a-mile appears to be a generous quirk of the Holyrood allowances system which does not exist for MPs at Westminster.
According to strict HMRC guidelines, most ordinary taxpayers are not entitled to be reimbursed for the cost of travelling between their homes and workplaces either.
With MSPs returning to the Scottish Parliament after the nine-week summer recess, the claimants - including several cabinet ministers - were last night accused of unfairly "lining their pockets".
Analysis by the Scottish Sunday Express shows that at least 46 parliamentarians were paid expenses last year for travel between their home and their local office.
The biggest beneficiary was SNP Justice Secretary Michael Matheson, who claimed £2,079 for 154 30-mile journeys between his home and his office in Falkirk.
On one occasion the allowances office even paid out a 'double claim' of £54 for the return 60-mile journey, instead of the correct amount of £27.
Conservative chief whip John Lamont claimed for 134 30-mile journeys between his home and his constituency office in Hawick. However, he received £1,449 as some of the journeys were reimbursed at the lower rate of 25p-a-mile.
Health Secretary Alex Neil was the third largest claimant, paid £21.15 for each of his 67 47-mile commutes between his home and his office in Airdrie - a total of £1417.05.
Tory grandees Alex Fergusson and John Scott make up the top five claimants, followed by Highlands and Islands independent Jean Urquhart who has the longest commute at 59 miles. |
As the phenomenon of the sharing economy grows it will be good for consumers and jobs, but a headache for the federal government as tax receipts are eroded.
The sharing economy - or the more wordy online peer-to-peer platform - has made household names of Airbnb and Uber as people seek cheaper and more convenient accommodation and travel.
Research released by the Grattan Institute on Wednesday calculates ride-sharing businesses such as Uber can cut at least $500 million a year from Australians' taxi bills, while providing flexible work for drivers.
Other activities will provide work and income for many thousands of people, while operations like Airbnb puts thousands of under-used homes to work.
"It will increase output and income because any time you make the market economy more efficient you boost output," the institute's Jim Minifie told AAP.
As more people find work through online service platforms it will increase taxable income, as well as government tax revenue.
Unlike the black economy, where cash-in-hand is the norm, transactions in online services are usually done electronically and where the Australian Taxation Office has a high visibility.
However, Dr Minifie does not believe increased personal tax receipts will offset a subsequent decline in GST and corporate tax revenue as the sharing economy grows.
While small operators might displace the business of traditional larger firms, they will likely fall below the GST registration threshold of $75,000 for everything other than car sharing which, like taxi drivers, pay GST on the first dollar earned.
At the moment, the ATO is treating accommodation through Airbnb as a residential rent rather than a hotel stay, which does attract GST.
However, anyone who rents out a room in their main residence would be liable for capital gains tax when they sell the property.
A growing sharing economy will also force the government and the ATO to intensify efforts in cracking down on multinationals using tax avoidance schemes with services platforms being run by large international companies. |
WELCOME TO THE YARD SALE, BROS & WOMEN.
Before you read this, you should watch the video above. Seriously. It'll tell you everything you need to know without you having to go through the arduous task of READING something. If you hate moving pictures and love text, however, then, by all means, continue reading:
My name is Ryan Peters but a lot more people know me as the rapper Spose. If you want the detailed rundown on my career, go read the wikipedia page someone made for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spose. To put it succinctly: I'm a rapper from Maine who raps about the triumphs and perils of middle class life. I'm three albums, two mixtapes, and one gold single ("I'm Awesome") into my career thus far.
I released my most recent album "The Audacity!" in April and, although it was well-received by my fans, peaking at #6 on the iTunes Hip-Hop Albums chart, I think it could've done a lot better. Ever since I left Universal Republic Records in late 2010, I've been risking almost every dollar I have to push my music to as many new listeners as possible. However, once I've paid for all my own recording, mixing, mastering, promotion, duplication, artwork, merchandise, Taco Bell, and food for my daughter, I'm usually not left with much left for videos (Read: I'm broke!!!).
So, here I am again, 6 months after The Audacity! with two new releases ready to go. The first is called Dankonia and it's a mixtape I made of me rapping entirely over instrumentals of one of my favorite groups of all time: Outkast. It's one of the most unique and lyrical projects I've ever taken on and I'm enthralled with how dope the final product is sounding. It's a true homage to the pure hip-hop I wanted to make when I started out, before "pop-rap" became the dominant music of the time. The second release is called "The Peter Sparker Mixtape," something I started in 2010 and is finally nearing it's completion. Even though it's called a "mixtape," it's all original, brand new Spose songs, including some collaborations with some artists and producers you may be familiar with outside of my normal PDank circle.
Even though I'm stoked about the great music I'm about to release, I'm worried that, without the right promotion, both Dankonia and The Peter Sparker Mixtape might meet the same fate as The Audacity! - as in, everybody that hears it loves it, but not enough people hear it to begin with. That's why I've started this Kickstarter.
In 2012, a video is more important than a song. However, as an artist who still cares very deeply about his songwriting and lyrics, I want to make sure I can get my songs to the people who would enjoy them. To do that, I need videos. I need dope videos. And I need to make sure those videos end up on as many blogs and websites as possible. To do that requires quite a bit of money. So, that's where we're at. I'm looking for $25,000 to make sure my new music reaches as many new listeners as possible and, obviously, as always, to make sure I'm able to continue doing creative, independent, quality music and videos for the fans who've already stuck with me from the start.
In exchange for your generosity, I've got a lot of dope shit to offer including over 20 unreleased Spose songs for only $5, a ton of Spose & PDank clothing that has never been available before anywhere, and a lot of sweet, one-of-a-kind Spose memorabilia, your own personal Spose concert or song, and a shitload more sweet stuff. There's a column to the right that has all the information you'll need. Here's a quick breakdown, with pictures, of all the shit I've got to offer in exchange for your hard-earned cash:
Exclusive Spose and PDank merchandise including the classic "PDank" shirt and hoodie as well as other brand new items.
Get "The Yard Sale : 20 Unreleased Spose Tracks" for $5 or "The Yard Sale" and THE ENTIRE SPOSE CATALOG for only $20 exclusively through Kickstarter!
Hang out with Spose - play Roomball or Catan - or get your own personal Spose song or concert!
Get the Snuggies from the "I'm Awesome" video, the artwork for "The Audacity!" and many more exclusive items!
JUST ADDED:
SPOSE/PDANK STICKERS AND LIGHTERS JUST ADDED 11/10!
Tried to photograph the Spose skateboard available for $150 but I got mugged by this bandit.
The CD version of "Spose Unplugged" added on 10/31 available exclusively thru the Kickstarter till 11/23!
That just about sums it up. I'm giving us 30 days to pull this off, so please, beg, borrow, or steal (as long as it's from the rich, not the poor) to help me reach this goal so I can continue to make honest music about OUR lives and spread the gospel of Spose and PDank all the way to the castle walls.
Thank you so much to my fans for their help with this and with everything else. I hope "The Yard Sale" gives you some things you've been looking to hear for years as well as hope for the future. I'm stoked to be able to release these new projects with the potential to make sure people actually know about it this time!!
PDANK FOREVER,
- Spose
Ps. I'm also embarking on "The Yard Sale Tour" starting on Nov. 26 in Philadelphia with Cam Groves, Kristina Kentigian, and Jay Caron and Mike B of Educated Advocates. Here are the tour dates:
11/25 - BOSTON, MA - GREAT SCOTT
11/26 - PHILADELPHIA, PA - KUNG FU NECKTIE
11/28 - TOLEDO, OH - FRANKIES
11/29 - DEKALB, IL - HOUSE CAFE
12/01 - MINNEAPOLIS, MN - HELL'S KITCHEN
12/02 - IOWA CITY, IA - GABE'S
12/04 - ST. LOUIS, MO - FUBAR
12/05 - CLEVELAND, OH - PEABODY'S
12/06 - PITTSBURGH, PA - SHADOW LOUNGE
12/07 - ALLENTOWN, PA - CROCODILE ROCK
12/08 - STATEN ISLAND, NY - FULL CUP
12/09 - HARTFORD, CT - WEBSTER UNDERGROUND
12/27 - PORTLAND, ME - THE BIG EASY
WITH MORE TO COME! HOPE TO SEE YOU OUT THERE IN AMERICA! |
Skyrim: Pardon the Interruption
This is a quick one. I have seen this numerous times in my few hours of playing, but I haven’t captured as many of them on video as I would like.
“They neglect to take any sort of context into account.”
People in Skyrim obviously have a proximity trigger with your character. If they have something to say, they will say it either when you get in range of them or vice versa. While this makes for some great immersion at times, they neglect to take any sort of context into account. They don’t observe what is going on and decide whether or not they should talk to you.
I don’t recall anyone doing it while I was in an active dialog tree, but there are certainly times when I am listening to something important — and especially if I am obviously part of a group discussion (such as in the two examples in the video). People doing their random walks will pass close enough to me to trip their trigger (so to speak) and say their piece. It’s horribly distracting.
“Real people have an awareness of unwritten social rules.”
The reason that this breaks immersion is that (real) people have an awareness of unwritten social rules. This is notoriously hard to get right in games. Richard Evans has been working on it for years — most notably with his work in The Sims 3. However, we aren’t solving for behaviors such as “don’t walk in on someone where they are taking a leak.” We are simply saying, “if I’m involved in something important, don’t interrupt me.”
If it is, indeed, the case that there is a boolean to not interrupt when a dialog is active, this is a simple fix. Apply the same boolean flag to when something important is going on that the player must listen to. In the case of the street preacher in Whiterun, this isn’t as big of a deal. By definition of his role, he is going to repeat himself. However, in the cases shown in the video, this is a one-time thing with important information… don’t play your random engagements.
“If I’m not
looking at you,
don’t speak to me.”
Another way of solving this is through a slightly more complicated method of simulating “eye contact”. That is, if I’m not looking at you, don’t speak to me. Let’s face it… that’s a common one that we all use in public anyway. In the case of the examples in the video, the 2nd one would have fallen into this category. The guard just happened to be walking by — behind me — and decided based on proximity to say his line. In the first video, at least I looked at the guy.
In effect, many of these rules can be combined together in some form of rule-based system… even an additive one using cumulative values. By assigning values to the various considerations (including a value on the importance of the message itself) you can define a threshold above which you are allowed to say the line. That solution would be much less brittle than the simplistic one that is being used here, and yet it is still lightweight and easily customizable by designers and programmers.
Tags: conversation, dialogue, random behavior, RPG, Skyrim |
The Justice Department announced today that it found reasonable cause to believe that the Ville Platte, Louisiana, Police Department (VPPD) and the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office (EPSO) engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The department found that VPPD and EPSO used a procedure the agencies called an “investigative hold” to detain individuals without probable cause during criminal investigations. As a result of this pattern or practice, people in Louisiana’s Evangeline Parish have been arrested and placed in holding cells without probable cause. Often, individuals were in holding cells for several days at a time, where they were unable to contact family, friends or employers and had limited access to food and personal items.
“When police officers investigate criminal activity, they must do so responsibly and within the boundaries of the law,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Civil Rights Division. “The violations we found in Ville Platte and Evangeline Parish demonstrate a disturbing pattern of officers overstepping legal boundaries by placing residents in holding cells for days at a time without probable cause. We look forward to working with both agencies and the local municipalities to ensure that officers can effectively protect their communities and safeguard the liberties of the residents they serve.”
The Justice Department’s findings result from a comprehensive review of EPSO and VPPD’s relevant policies, procedures, training and accountability systems. The review included meetings with the leadership of both agencies and the city of Ville Platte, interviews with officers throughout the chain of command at both agencies and conversations with other members of the local community. Throughout the department’s investigation, VPPD, EPSO and the city of Ville Platte provided their full cooperation and were receptive to the department’s initial feedback. VPPD and EPSO leadership acknowledged that the investigative holds are unconstitutional and have taken laudable steps to begin eliminating their use. The department will continue to work closely with these law enforcement agencies and municipalities to remedy the issues identified in the report.
The Civil Rights Division’s Special Litigation Section conducted the investigation. Since the start of the administration, the Special Litigation Section has opened 25 investigations into law enforcement agencies. The department is enforcing 19 agreements with law enforcement agencies, including 14 consent decrees and one post-judgment order.
For additional information, please visit the Civil Rights Division’s website at www.justice.gov/crt.
Ville Platte and Evangeline Parish Findings |
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – Actor-comedian Tracy Morgan was very emotional after settling his lawsuit against Wal-Mart over a highway crash that killed one man and left Morgan and two friends seriously injured.
Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday, Morgan’s lawyer, Benedict Morelli, said Morgan is happy to put the litigation behind him and have closure. Morgan is scheduled to appear live on the program on Monday, in his first interview since the accident.
Terms were not disclosed, but Morelli said money was involved.
Morelli says Morgan tells him he has a new lease on life.
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A Wal-Mart truck slammed into the back of a limo van carrying Morgan and the others last June. Comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair was killed. Morgan suffered head trauma, a broken leg and broken ribs and is still recovering.
Wal-Mart called the settlement amicable. |
IN the latest entry about women who use profanities and believe it’s good, partly because men do it, Sven writes:
Abigail is essentially denying that separate roles apply to men and women, and that good manners are important. In a nutshell, “If it feels good, do it.”
Women have traditionally been keepers of the home. The home is a place of refuge, a place of safety and comfort, separate from a rough, cruel world. Men ventured out to make a living in that world to preserve the home and hearth. How many men throughout history have felt the soreness and care of a long day at a mine or field or mill melt away as they returned to a loving wife and well-kept house? Introducing swearing into a home pollutes it with the roughness of the outside, which is why a man who swears like a pirate captain’s parrot would hang the curses up outside when he came back to his women folk. It didn’t belong in the house, just like his dirty boots.
On the deck of a ship and on the floor of an oil rig, the Anglo Saxon word that begins with “F” can be like breathing. I’m not saying it is right, but it is appropriate to the context. Women who swear constantly are degrading themselves and their role as women. |
Offensive coordinator
Charlie Weis
has left Florida to become the head coach at Kansas.
Now who will succeed Weis at Florida?
One of the targets might be
Mike Shula
, the former Alabama quarterback and head coach, according to
.
Shula, now the quarterbacks coach with the Charlotte Panthers, is one of six names mentioned as possibilities in the report, which said he already has been contacted by Florida head coach
Will Muschamp
and might be the No. 1 target.
The other candidates mentioned are former Florida quarterback
Kerwin Bell
, now the head coach at Jacksonville University;
Todd Monken
, the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma State;
Jedd Fisch
, the offensive coordinator at Miami;
Brian White
, the running backs coach at Florida; and
Al Borges
, the offensive coordinator at Michigan. Borges was the offensive coordinator at Auburn when Muschamp was the defensive coordinator there.
Shula, 46, was Alabama's head coach from 2003-06. In four seasons, his record was 26-24, although it officially is recognized as 10-24 because of victories vacated by an NCAA ruling. His only winning season was in 2005, when the Crimson Tide went 10-2.
Shula, the son of Pro Football Hall of Fame coach
Don Shula
, was Alabama's starting quarterback from 1984-86. |
When it comes to climbing waterfalls, the Nopili rock-climbing goby really puts its teeth into it.
The inch-long (2.5 centimeter) fish uses suckers in its mouth and belly to move up steep cliffs in its rugged Hawaiian habitat. (Related "pictures: "'Walking' Fish a Model of Evolution in Action.")
Rock-Climbing Fish Studied Watch a video of the fish climbing.
Because its freshwater habitat is easily disturbed—by a big storm, for instance—the fish often crawl up waterfalls to return upstream.
But how this odd creature evolved to trek vertical distances of up to a hundred feet (30 meters)—the energetic equivalent of a person running a marathon—was unknown, said Richard Blob, an evolutionary biologist at Clemson University.
Now, a new paper by Blob and colleagues in the journal PLOS ONE shows that the fish uses the same movements to climb as it does to eat algae.
Before Blob and his student team could study the fish, however, they had to catch one. That proved a bit tricky. For instance, a goby would watch as a wetsuited scientist, struggling against the current, inched closer—and then would scoot away. "You don't want to attach too much personality to these animals," but they almost had a mocking expression, Blob said with a laugh.
When enough fish were eventually caught, they were taken to a field laboratory in Hawaii. There the scientists filmed them feeding on algae-covered glass and—stimulated by falling water—climbing. "They'd climb up a garden hose if you gave it to them," Blob quipped. (Also see pictures: "Nine Fish With 'Hands' Found to Be New Species.")
By watching videos of both behaviors, the team concluded that the fish uses the same overall movements. For instance, the angle and distance at which the front part of the upper jaw protrudes are nearly identical during both behaviors.
This suggests that, at some point in its evolution, the Nopili rock-climbing goby repurposed one behavior for another—a known evolutionary phenomenon known as exaptation, in which a species will "take a structure or behavior and co-opt to do something totally different."
View Images The Nopili rock-climbing goby has two suckers for climbing. Photograph courtesy Takashi Maie
The classic example of exaptation is bird feathers, said Blob, "which may have evolved as an insulation structure before they were co-opted, or exapted, with some evolutionary changes for use in flight."
Though it's still unknown which behavior came first, the end result is a perfectly adapted fish. |
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is running out of insults. The Germans, he insists, are “Nazis” and the Dutch are “fascists,” all because they blocked Turkish officials from campaigning in their countries for Turkey’s upcoming referendum. More than 2 million Turks living in Europe are eligible to participate in the April 16 ballot that will determine whether Turkey should move from a parliamentary to a presidential system, giving Erdogan more power. Austria and Switzerland have also blocked Turkish rallies, angering Erdogan.
The E.U. has responded with caution to Erdogan’s attacks, but its leaders might well find it ironic that these slights come from a man who rules under an extended state of emergency. More than 40,000 Turks have been arrested in response to the failed coup attempt in July 2016, and Turkey has become the world’s biggest jailer of journalists as Erdogan cracks down on dissent.
Yet the E.U. continues to maintain the fiction that Turkey might one day gain membership to its club. To join, a would-be member must meet requirements in 35 areas, known as chapters. A unanimous vote of every E.U. leader is needed to open a chapter, and another to close it. In almost 18 years of formal candidacy, Turkey and the E.U. have opened 14 chapters. Just one has been closed.
If Turkey became a member, the E.U.’s borders would extend to Syria, Iraq and Iran. It’s not hard to see why European voters wouldn’t want that. Turkish membership would also allow 80 million Muslims to move freely across E.U. borders. That’s hardly the direction European politics is headed.
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Nevertheless, talks continue. E.U. officials say they want to encourage reform in Turkey, but there’s little chance that Germany, France, Austria or Greece will allow it to join the bloc in the foreseeable future. Knowing this, Erdogan has moved Turkey toward a more autocratic kind of reform. Now the President, eager to impress Turkish voters with his defiance against a perceived global elite, is threatening to break off political ties with the bloc, and possibly abandon the E.U. bid altogether.
That should worry Europe, which has much invested in keeping the status quo. The E.U. is currently paying Turkey large sums to house Middle Eastern migrants rather than passing them along to Europe, with promises of more rapid accession to sweeten the deal.
But the charade that Turkey will one day join the E.U. is becoming increasingly transparent, with populist Islamophobes making inroads across the Continent. Europe’s willingness to play this cynical game threatens to isolate further a country that E.U. leaders once hoped to reform.□
Contact us at [email protected].
This appears in the April 10, 2017 issue of TIME. |
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We have the another SPOILER for the Fall 2017 FabFitFun box!
Each box will include:
Private Party Gym Bag – Retail Value $59
You’ll get one of three phrases on the bag. Select members (annual subscribers) will be able to pick the bag of their choice!
It’s denim with cotton straps, an outer zip pocket, and measures about 20 inches long.
Here it is in hand to give you a better sense of scale:
Which bag do you want?
And in case you missed the first spoiler:
Mer Sea Cozy Wrap – Retail Value $98
This cozy wrap is 100% polyester knit (SUPER soft) and measures about 93″ by 21″ (counting fringe).
You’ll receive one of three colors:
Select members (annual subscribers) will be able to pick the color of their choice on the 21st.
Here is a better look at the other color options:
And here is the wrap on:
It is SO cozy and soft! The knit has a good weight to it, too. (One word of caution, it sheds. Make sure to have a lint roller the first time you wear it or pre-wash it!)
And FabFitFun also suggested using it as a bed runner when you aren’t wearing it.
If you are a new subscriber, and you sign up now, your first box will be the Fall Box. This box is regularly $49.99, but you can use coupon code MSA10 to save $10 off your first box!
Check out all of my FabFitFun reviews to see what’s been in past boxes! |
Star Wars fans raise £9000 to help a poorly Princess Leah
Four-month-old is suffering from a mystery condition
Not long ago, in a galaxy called L.A.
Star Wars-mad parents Zev and Franchesca Esquenazi found the force was well and truly with them after their baby Leah fell ill with a mysterious condition.
When the concerned couple decided to write a blog about her plight, caring sci-fi fans responded in truly epic proportions by donating £9000 towards her medical costs.
The force is with you: Baby Leah Esquenazi and her Star Wars-mad father Zev
Four-month-old Leah is unable to move properly. Although she is clearly unwell doctors have struggled to diagnose her condition.
The poorly tot, who her parents insist was named after an aunt and not the character Princess Leia in the classic films, has had to undergo five spinal taps as well as biopsies and drug treatments.
Her parents started the blog princessleahdiaries.blogspot.com when they found themselves struggling for money to pay for all the costly hospital bills.
And as soon as fellow Star Wars fanatics heard about their situation they started making donations.
Leah's parents insist she is named after an aunt and not Carrie Fisher's character Princess Leia, seen here with co-stars Harrison Ford and Mark Hammill in a scene from the classic film
P eter Mayhew, who played Wookie Chewbacca in the movies, also made a donation after hearing about Leah's plight.
Others have helped out by donating valuable Star Wars memorabilia such as vintage dolls, film costumes and props, which will be sold to raise more funds.
Thanks Chewwie: Peter Mayhew, who played Harrison Ford's sidekick Chewbacca, was among those who dontaed money for Leah |
Wildlife
The shiny black, orange-spotted adults can approach two inches in length. Offspring beg both parents for food, inducing regurgitation by stroking their jaws like wolf pups. They’re federally endangered American burying beetles, largest of the 31 species of North American carrion beetles.
Riding on the adults like oxpeckers are orange mites that keep them and their larval food supply free of fly eggs and microbes.
With his orange-tipped antennae the male beetle scents carrion (usually a bird or small mammal) sometimes from two miles away. Often there’s a fight for possession. The winning male attracts a mate by releasing a pheromone from the tip of his abdomen.
After elaborate courtship the couple moves their prize, which may weigh 200 times more than they do, to an appropriate site and buries it. Then they strip feathers or fur, coat the carcass with oral and anal secretions to discourage bacterial and fungal growth and repel any maggots they don’t kill with their mandibles. They stay with the carcass, feeding pieces to 10 to 30 grub young until they pupate in 12 to 14 days.
Historically, the species occupied at least 35 eastern and mid-western states and the southern fringes of Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario.
Now natural populations remain only in parts of Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Rhode Island. Reintroduction, yet to prove successful, is ongoing in Massachusetts, Ohio and Missouri.
Probable causes for the species’ demise are artificial lighting that confuses nocturnal scavenging, proliferation of competitors like raccoons, skunks, opossums and feral cats, and reduction of larval food items — most notably extinctions of the passenger pigeon (thought to have been more numerous than all other North American birds combined) and the heath hen, a subspecies of greater prairie chicken adapted to the Atlantic coastal plain.
Nowhere Near Recovery Goals
The gravest current threat is the gas and oil industry, not so much because of the habitat it degrades (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permits require mitigation), but because of the push by the industry and allies to get the species taken off the endangered species list.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, uses the American burying beetle as Exhibit A in his ongoing campaign to emasculate the Endangered Species Act, which he defines as a “Trojan horse of private land use.” He warns that even harassing a beetle would limit “your activities on your private land.” “So-called harassment can be as simple and innocuous as bird-watching,” he wrongly asserts.
The American Stewards of Liberty, Independent Petroleum Association of America, and Texas Public Policy Foundation have filed a petition to delist. So the Fish and Wildlife Service has begun a species status assessment which it expects to publish in the fall.
The petitioners argue that there’s been “a 100-fold expansion” of known range since the 1989 listing and that “the species is easily raised in captivity and reintroduction efforts are underway.” But the expansion in known range is the result of the Endangered Species Act’s requirement that developers planning to disrupt possible habitat of a listed species conduct surveys to determine if it’s present. There probably has been no expansion in the range itself.
One high-ranking Interior Department official who requested anonymity describes the petition as “mostly fluff.” “The recovery plan [hatched in 1991] is dated,” he says. “It has no delisting goal, only a goal to downlist [from endangered to threatened]. And the beetle’s current distribution doesn’t comply with that. No significant populations have been found east of Arkansas. Beetles are very difficult to get good numbers on and only live one year, so you have limited confidence in numbers that carry over from one year to the next.”
A prime example is Texas, listed in the petition as one of the states in the allegedly expanded range. But no beetle has been seen there since 2008. The species is indeed “easily raised in captivity,” and reintroduction efforts are indeed “underway” in three states. That doesn’t mean the species has been reestablished.
Raising Beetles
Lou Perrotti of the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island leads the American Burying Beetle Species Survival Plan for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. He and his team raise beetles from the only remaining natural population in the East — on 6,000-acre Block Island. With that stock they’ve established beetles on the eastern half of Massachusetts’ Nantucket Island in the longest-running reintroduction effort. But Perrotti offers this: “We’re still not at the point where we can claim it’s a self-sustaining population.”
The petitioners are not similarly constrained, claiming the beetle’s range includes not just Texas but also Massachusetts, Ohio and Missouri.
“We are nowhere near recovery target numbers,” declares Scott Comings, Rhode Island’s associate director for The Nature Conservancy, which manages a 600-acre Block Island tract for beetles.
The reason beetles didn’t disappear from Block Island is probably because pheasants were introduced there in the 1930s. The chicks hatch in June when beetles are looking to reproduce; and they’re exactly the right size.
“Our population is strong,” says Comings. “But the end model is scary any time you’re working with a single island population. So we monitor it each spring by mark and recapture, and we do lots of carrion supplementation.” That involves digging ten-inch holes, each with a soft-ball-size escape chamber in case of flooding, inserting a dead quail and a male and female beetle in each hole, covering them with dirt and, finally, sealing everything with poultry fencing to discourage competing scavengers.
In southwest Missouri beetle reintroduction has been happening for five years on The Nature Conservancy’s Wah’Kon-Tah Prairie. Partnering with the Conservancy are the Saint Louis Zoo, which raises beetles for release, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “We’re collecting data; but we haven’t assessed what those data mean because we haven’t been doing it long enough,” says Bob Merz, who directs beetle breeding for the zoo. “We have three release sites far away from each other in case something happens to one. We do know beetles are reproducing and surviving the winter. And we’re finding more beetles every time we survey.”
One of the beetle’s strongholds is the Conservancy’s 39,000-acre Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northern Oklahoma. “Our focus is to create a heterogeneous landscape — different patch types, using the historic interaction between grazing and fire to restore original dynamics of the ecosystem,” says preserve director, Bob Hamilton. “Beetles and/or the animals providing them with carrion seem to really like that historic cycle of natural disturbance and recovery.”
About two-thirds of the preserve is managed with fire and bison, the rest with fire and cattle. This “patch-burn grazing” model is a long-term research project with Oklahoma State University to see if innovative fire-cattle management can yield the same biodiversity benefits provided by fire-bison.
Hamilton describes the lush native vegetation regrowth that proliferates after fire as “ice cream” for bovines. “You can move animals around with fire rather than fences,” he says. “At the same time some patches on the landscape have been recently disturbed by fire and are being actively grazed, other patches that have not been burned for several years or more are receiving little to no grazing pressure. The resulting landscape heterogeneity, or variability, provides habitat for the complete array of native plants and animals.”
With beetle mitigation funds paid to the Fish and Wildlife Service by the oil and gas industry and other developers the Conservancy has bought up 1,005 acres of private inholdings that had fragmented the preserve.
The State Insect of Rhode Island
People working to remove the American burying beetle from the endangered species list and thereby, most likely, from the planet have much to learn from Rhode Islanders — especially the fourth-graders at St. Michael’s Country Day School in Newport.
As third graders, they realized their state was one of only four that didn’t have an official insect. So to raise public awareness about the plight of the American burying beetle they got a bill introduced to designate it as the official state insect. They testified at House and the Senate hearings, lobbied their legislators, and on July 15, 2015 joined Governor Gina Raimondo at the Roger Williams Park Zoo for the bill’s ceremonial signing. |
BALTIMORE (WJZ) — The U.S. Department of Justice busts pain clinic owners and their accomplices running so-called “pill mills” here in Maryland.
Amy Yensi has more on the federal investigation.
More than a dozen suspects are accused of using pain clinics to allegedly sell prescription-strength pain killers.
A 15-month investigation, wire taps and covert informants dismantled four pain clinics in our area.
“The most significant drug dealers that we’re charging today are not people who were standing on street corners handing out dime-bags of heroin, they’re people who were wearing suits and ties and managing medical offices,” said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein.
The Department of Justice charges 16 people with running pain clinics or so-called “pill mills” to illegally distribute Oxycodone pills for a profit.
“The clients would come in, and they would comment about what was going on in the parking lot,” said Bill Wolf, who works near a suspected pill mill.
In Maryland — PG Wellness Center, First Priority Health Care, MPC Wellness Center — and in Washington, D.C. — A-Plus Pain Center — are all alleged pill mills.
Their owners are accused of hiring runners to pose as patients in pain to fill the prescriptions sell the pills. Authorities say the suspects were aware of the possibly deadly consequences.
In one taped call, a suspect admits: “…You’re killin’ people… They don’t need it…”
The owners of First Priority Health Care are also accused of planning to open up their very own pharmacy and radiation center that could verify phony prescriptions and MRI reports.
One woman says she’s been suspicious about the Elkridge clinic for months.
“They would conduct drug deals in the parking lot in plain sight,” she said.
Officials say Oxycodone is a gateway drug to heroin and in the last few years they’ve noticed a spike in heroin overdoses in Maryland.
The DOJ is still investigating whether others were knowingly participating in the scheme. |
Bruce Arena and Avram Grant are on the shortlist to take over as USA coach
Bruce Arena is the favourite to replace Jurgen Klinsmann as USA coach
Bruce Arena and Avram Grant are on a two-man shortlist to become the new United States coach, according to Sky sources.
LA Galaxy head coach Arena is the favourite to replace Jurgen Klinsmann who was sacked on Monday.
Arena was the USA coach from 1998 to 2006 and led his country to two World Cups.
Avram Grant is also on the shortlist for the USA job
Grant is the other candidate after impressing the US Soccer Federation with the job he has done coaching Ghana.
Grant led Ghana to the final of last year's African Cup of Nations where they were beaten on penalties by Ivory Coast.
The former Portsmouth and West Ham United manager also led Chelsea to the final of the 2008 Champions League where they lost on penalties to Manchester United in Moscow.
Klinsmann was sacked as USA boss with his team bottom of their World Cup qualifying group following recent defeats to Mexico and Costa Rica.
Klinsmann was sacked as USA coach on Monday
The German, who was appointed to the role in 2011, led the US to the Round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
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Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
by Mary C. Zornio If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.
Gus Grissom (John Barbour et al., Footprints on the Moon (The Associated Press, 1969), p. 125. Lieutenant Colonel Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom had been part of the U.S. manned space program since it began in 1959, having been selected as one of NASA's Original Seven Mercury Astronauts. His second space flight on Gemini III earned him the distinction of being the first man to fly in space twice. His hard work, drive, persistence and skills as a top notch test pilot and engineer had landed him the title of commander for the first Apollo flight. Yet for Grissom, Apollo I was to be just the beginning. He had been told privately that if all went well, he would be the first American to walk on the moon. Although Grissom already had stacked up a very impressive list of career accomplishments, being first on the moon would be the ultimate achievement for the man who grew up in a small town during the lean years of the Great Depression. Virgil Ivan Grissom was born on April 3, 1926 in Mitchell, Indiana, a tiny Midwestern community of about three thousand residents tucked away in the southern half of the state. Virgil was the eldest of Dennis and Cecile Grissom's four children, which included two brothers, Norman and Lowell and one sister, Wilma. Dennis Grissom managed to hold on to his job at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in spite of the numerous layoffs which were going on all around him. Although they were far from being wealthy, Mr. Grissom's twenty-four dollar per week salary allowed his family to live comfortably in their white frame house in town. Although Grissom was too short to participate in high school sports, he found a niche for himself in the local Boy Scout troop where he eventually served as leader of the Honor Guard. To earn spending money, he delivered newspapers twice a day throughout the year and, in the summer, he was hired by the local growers to pick peaches and cherries in the orchards outside of town. Throughout high school, Virgil used a good portion of his money to take Betty Moore to the late shows at the local theater. He had first met her during his sophomore year and he immediately knew that she was the girl for him. "I met Betty Moore when she entered Mitchell High School as a freshman, and that was it, period, exclamation point! It was a quiet romance, as far as anyone could see, but a special closeness started then and has developed into something light years beyond the power of mere words to describe."1 Grissom was, in his own words "not much of a whiz in school."2 Without having set specific goals for himself, he simply seemed to drift through his classes. He excelled in math, but only pulled average grades in his other subjects. His high school principal remembered him as "an average solid citizen who studied just about enough to get a diploma."3 However, World War II helped Grissom start forming some personal and career goals. He enlisted as an aviation cadet as a high school senior and reported for duty in August 1944 following graduation. He took a short leave during July 1945 to marry Betty Moore and returned to the base with high hopes of receiving flight instructions and flying combat missions. However, Japan surrendered a short time later and the war ended before he could receive his training. Grissom found himself going from one routine desk job to another. Knowing that he had joined the Air Force to fly and not to type, he decided to leave the service. His discharge came through in November 1945. Grissom soon realized that his limited military career was going to get him nowhere. Eventually, he found a job at Carpenter's Bus Body Works. However, he knew that he did not want to spend the rest of his life installing doors on school buses in Mitchell, Indiana. Therefore, he set another goal for himself. He would earn a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue University. While Gus attended classes during the day, Betty worked as a long distance operator. After class, Gus worked thirty hours a week flipping burgers at a local diner. Their combined incomes plus a small grant from the GI Bill financed the cost of his education and their "pint-sized apartment near the campus."4 After three and one half years of study, Grissom graduated in 1950 with a BS in mechanical engineering. Many years later, Gus still was quick to give credit to Betty, for "she had made my degree possible."5 After graduation, Gus made several half-hearted attempts to find employment. At one point, he considered accepting a mechanical engineering position at a brewery. However, because his heart was set on becoming a test pilot, he re-enlisted in the Air Force, finished air cadet training and won his wings. Less than one year later, Grissom was shipped out to Korea to complete one hundred combat missions with the 334th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron. He ignored the tradition of naming a jet after one's wife or girlfriend and chose to fly his F- 86 Sabre jet with the name "Scotty" boldly printed on it in honor of his son who had been born the year before. Another code of conduct existed on the bus ride which transported pilots from the barracks to the flight line. Pilots who personally had been shot at by a MIG were allowed to sit. Those who had not yet experienced a real piece of the action were unworthy of a seat and forced to stand. After only two missions, Gus took a seat on the bus. His first experience of being shot at came as a bit of a surprise. "I was flying along up there and it was kind of strange. For a moment I couldn't figure out what those little red things were going by. Then I realized I was being shot at."6 Grissom "usually flew wing position in combat, to protect the flanks of other pilots and keep an eye open for any MIGs that might be coming across."7 He was proud to be able to say, "I never did get hit and neither did any of the leaders that I flew wing for."8 After spending six months in Korea, Gus reached the one hundred combat missions mark. His request to fly twenty-five additional missions was denied and he was sent back to the states, having earned both the Air Medal with cluster and the Distinguished Flying Cross during his tour of duty. The next few years brought a variety of assignments and changes for Grissom. He served as a flight instructor for new cadets, a task which Gus soon learned could be even more dangerous than the combat missions he had flown in Korea. "At least you know what a MIG is going to do. Some of these kids were pretty green and careless sometimes, and you had to think fast and act cool or they could kill both of you."9 The family of three became a family of four when a second son, Mark arrived in 1953. In addition to his duties as an instructor, Grissom spent as much time as he could racking up extra flight hours and honing his flying skills. He "gained the reputation among his peers as one of the best jet jockies in the business."10 Finally, after receiving additional instruction at the Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson AFB, Grissom attended test pilot school at Edwards AFB. He received his test pilot credentials in 1957 and was transferred back to Wright-Patterson, where he specialized in testing new jet fighters. "This was what I wanted all along, and when I finished my studies and began the job of testing jet aircraft, well, there wasn't a happier pilot in the Air Force."11 Then, out of the blue, Grissom received an official teletype message instructing him to report to an address in Washington, D.C. wearing civilian clothes. The message was classified "Top Secret" and Grissom was not to discuss its contents with anyone. "Well, in the Air Force you get some weird orders, but you obey them, no matter what. On the appointed day, wearing my best civilian suit, and still as baffled as ever, I turned up at the Washington address I'd been given... I was convinced that somehow or other I had wandered right into the middle of a James Bond novel."12 Nonetheless, as bizarre and surreal as the order might have seemed at the time, it would change Grissom's life completely. Grissom discovered that he was one of 110 military test pilots whose credentials had earned them an invitation to learn more about the space program in general and Project Mercury in particular. Gus liked the sound of the program but knew that competition for the final spots would be fierce. "I did not think my chances were very big when I saw some of the other men who were competing for the team. They were a good group, and I had a lot of respect for them. But I decided to give it the old school try and to take some of NASA's tests."13 Taking some of NASA's tests turned out to be more of an ordeal than Grissom could have imagined. He was sent to the Lovelace Clinic and Wright-Patterson AFB to receive extensive physical examinations and to submit to a battery of psychological tests. Grissom was nearly disqualified when doctors discovered that he suffered from hay fever. Without missing a beat, Grissom informed them that his allergies would not be a problem because "there won't be any ragweed pollen in space."14 Since no one could argue that point, they passed him on to the next series of tests. Grissom was pleased with his performance in all but one of the physical tests. "I was real disappointed in myself, and I thought that I should have done better" on the treadmill test.15 Like most of his colleagues, Grissom had an intense dislike and distrust of the psychological exams. It simply did not seem logical to him for grown men to be asked who they perceived themselves to be or what hidden figures or meanings they saw lurking in random blots of ink or blank sheets of paper. "I tried not to give the headshrinkers anything more than they were actually asking for. At least, I played it cool and tried not to talk myself into a hole. I did not have the slightest idea what they were trying to prove, but I tried to be honest with them...without getting carried away and elaborating too much."16 The number of test pilots had dwindled steadily since the initial invitation to Washington had been issued. Finally, seven were chosen. On April 13, 1959, Air Force Captain Virgil Grissom received official word that he had been selected as one of the seven Project Mercury astronauts. Six others received the same notification: Lieutenant Malcolm Scott Carpenter, U.S. Navy
Captain LeRoy Gordon Cooper, Jr., U.S. Air Force
Lieutenant Colonel John Herschel Glenn, Jr., U.S. Marine Corps
Lieutenant Commander Walter Marty Schirra, Jr., U.S. Navy
Lieutenant Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr., U.S. Navy
Captain Donald Kent Slayton, U.S. Air Force "After I had made the grade, I would lie in bed once in a while at night and think of the capsule and the booster and ask myself, 'Now what in hell do you want to get up on that thing for?' I wondered about this especially when I thought about Betty and the two boys. But I knew the answer: We all like to be respected in our fields. I happened to be a career officer in the military and, I think, a deeply patriotic one. If my country decided that I was one of the better qualified people for this new mission, then I was proud and happy to help out."17 Having made the decision to accept NASA's invitation to join Project Mercury, Grissom moved his family to Langley AFB, Virginia and considered himself a very fortunate man to be participating in such a "weird, wonderful enterprise."18 The next two years involved a constant round of crisscrossing the globe for flight training, planning and preparations, survival skills training, additional education, engineering work, monitoring spacecraft design and production and, of course, public relations. Sixteen hour days were not uncommon. After the first year, Grissom tallied up the number of days that he had spent away from home. He was surprised to discover that he had been gone for 305 of the past 365 days. Yet, the pressure was on to win the prize for being the first nation in space. Grissom and his colleagues knew that hard work and long hours were integral parts of the job. They kept their eyes on the prize and worked to get the job done. However, the prize which awaited NASA's team as a reward for all of their grueling work and training was snatched right out from under their noses on April 12, 1961. History would forever record that date as the day that Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first man in space when he completed his successful orbital flight aboard Vostok I. The space race had begun and we had been left behind, still stuck at the starting gate. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he successfully piloted a suborbital flight on board the Freedom 7 spacecraft. His flight closed the gap a bit, but his fifteen minute suborbital flight could not compare with Gagarin's one and three quarter hour orbital flight. Gus Grissom had missed out on the opportunity to be the first American in space; he had been selected to fly the second flight. Shepard's flight had been a very successful one. However, before the U.S. manned space program could move on to orbital flights, it was up to Grissom to prove that Shepard's successful suborbital flight had not been just a fluke. Grissom named his MR-4 spacecraft Liberty Bell 7. It seemed a logical choice "because the capsule does resemble a bell."19 It had three significant improvements over Shepard's spacecraft. The control panel had been redesigned to accommodate future orbital flights. A large picture window replaced the small portholes used in MR-3. This allowed the pilot to enjoy a better view but more importantly, it offered an improved capability for visual orientation of the spacecraft. Finally, Liberty Bell 7 was the first Mercury spacecraft to include a newly designed explosive hatch. Although the hatch had not been tested previously, it was considered to be superior in design to the older model used on Shepard's capsule. The explosive hatch was held in place by seventy bolts and was opened by triggering a Mild Detonating Fuse, or MDF. By delivering a five pound blow to a special plunger, the pilot could activate the MDF which would blow the hatch completely off of the spacecraft, enabling the pilot to make a quicker and easier egress from the capsule. After two postponements because of poor weather, Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 finally was given the go ahead for launch on July 21, 1961. Grissom patiently waited out two holds during the countdown while strapped into his couch inside the spacecraft. The first hold was called so that a misaligned explosive bolt on the capsule's hatch could be replaced. The second hold became necessary when cloud cover blocked the tracking cameras. Gus reported a very smooth liftoff. The new picture window offered a panoramic view, and Grissom was mesmerized by the contrasting blackness of the sky with "the blue of the water, the white of the beaches and the brown of the land."20 The only difficulty Grissom experienced during the actual flight was with the attitude controls, which he described as "sticky and sluggish."21 G forces reached a peak of 11.2 during the re-entry period but were not a major problem for Grissom, who had handled up to sixteen G's during training. The successful flight ended approximately fifteen minutes after lift-off when Liberty Bell 7 popped its chutes and landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean. After splashdown, Grissom began final preparations for egress. "I opened up the faceplate on my helmet, disconnected the oxygen hose from the helmet, unfastened the helmet from my suit, released the chest strap, the lap belt, the shoulder harness, knee straps and medical sensors. And I rolled up the neck dam of my suit."22 Grissom then turned his attention to preparing the hatch for egress by completing standard procedures for arming the detonator. He notified the recovery helicopter, code named "Hunt Club," that he would need a few more minutes to mark all of the switch positions on the capsule's instrument panel. Grissom's final transmission was to the helicopter. "As soon as I had finished looking things over, I told Hunt Club that I was ready. According to the plan, the pilot was to inform me as soon as he had lifted me up a bit so that the capsule would not ship water when the hatch blew. Then I would remove my helmet, blow the hatch and get out."23 Grissom was lying in his couch, waiting to receive final confirmation that it was time for him to blow the hatch and exit the spacecraft "when suddenly, the hatch blew off with a dull thud."24 Water flooded the cabin. Grissom automatically threw off his helmet, grabbed the sill of the hatch, hauled himself out of the sinking capsule and swam furiously to get away from the spacecraft. The capsule had been equipped with a special dye marker package which would spew out its bright green contents in order to help recovery vehicles locate the spacecraft once it splashed down. The package was attached to the capsule by a set of lines. Once he was in the water, Grissom got tangled up in those lines and thus remained attached to the sinking spacecraft. He finally managed to extricate himself and swam away from the capsule. When the recovery chopper finally hooked on to the spacecraft, Grissom figured that both he and Liberty Bell 7 were home free. The helicopter made a valiant effort to recover the spacecraft but with the added weight of the water which had flooded it, the capsule proved to be too heavy a load. Red warning lights flashed on the control panel, signifying that the extra weight was putting too much strain on the chopper and that an engine failure was imminent. The recovery team had no choice but to cut the spacecraft loose. Grissom watched helplessly as Liberty Bell sank from sight. By now, Gus realized that he was having a hard time just keeping his head above the water. "Then it dawned on me that in the rush to get out before I sank I had not closed the air inlet port in the belly of my suit, where the oxygen tube fits into the capsule. Although this hole was not letting much water in, it was letting air seep out, and I needed that air to help me stay afloat."25 With his suit quickly losing buoyancy, Grissom wished that he could dump the souvenirs he had stored in the left leg pocket of his space suit. "I had brought along two rolls of fifty dimes each for the children of friends, three one dollar bills, some small models of the capsule and two sets of pilot's wings. These were all adding weight that I could have done without."26 Unaware of the difficulty Grissom was having in staying afloat, none of the helicopters surrounding him were dropping him a life line. Their rotor blades were churning up the surface of the water, making it necessary for Grissom to swim even harder to keep from going under. He took a salty swill of the Atlantic with every wave that washed over his head. As exhaustion set in, he thought, "Well, you've gone through the whole flight, and now you're going to sink right here in front of all these people."27 Fear gave way to anger as he tried once again to wave for help, but no one seemed to respond. Finally, a third helicopter approached and dropped Grissom a horse collar. He managed to loop it over his neck and arms, albeit backwards, and was hoisted up. Grissom was so exhausted that he could not even remember that the chopper had to drag him fifteen feet across the water before he finally started going up. As soon as he was safely inside the helicopter, he grabbed the nearest life jacket and made sure that it was buckled on securely. After the ordeal he just had experienced, Grissom simply wanted to be certain that if the recovery helicopter went down and he went for another swim in the choppy waters of the Atlantic, he would be well prepared for the dunk. Once he was on board the carrier, Grissom received a telephone call from President Kennedy. The President expressed relief that Gus was safe, but his words offered little consolation to the pilot who had flown a perfect flight but came back without his spacecraft. "It was especially hard for me, as a professional pilot. In all of my years of flyingincluding combat in Koreathis was the first time that my aircraft and I had not come back together. In my entire career as a pilot, Liberty Bell was the first thing I had ever lost."28 After the flight, Grissom participated in a conventional debriefing during which he recounted the details of the flight. Grissom met his family upon returning to Patrick AFB. He was welcomed by NASA officials and held a press conference with reporters. Gus was never comfortable speaking with the press. In fact, he went to great lengths to avoid them whenever possible. On one occasion, he went so far as to disguise himself in a floppy straw hat and dark glasses in order to slip by reporters. Some members of the press crew responded by tagging him with the titles "Gloomy Gus" and "The Great Stone Face." The press conference turned out to be an uncomfortable experience because "the reporters skipped over the successful aspects of the flight... and probed around the question of whether Grissom had contributed to the loss of the Liberty Bell by accidentally bumping the plunger which blew the hatch."29 Grissom repeated his account. "I was just laying there minding my own business when, POW, the hatch went. And I looked up and saw nothing but blue sky and water starting to come in over the sill."30 The second question which Grissom had to field dealt with whether or not he had felt that his life was in danger at any time. Characteristically, his response was honest and to the point. "Well, I was scared a good portion of the time. I guess this is a pretty good indication."31 His reply made good sense. It also made good headlines and within no time, newspapers and magazines across the country shouted out variations on the same basic theme: "Astronaut Admits He Was Scared!" The press conference finally drew to a close and James Webb presented Grissom with NASA's Distinguished Service Medal. Although a review board determined that Gus did not contribute in any way to the premature detonation of the hatch, questions surrounding the incident simply would not go away. "Engineers spoke of a transient malfunction but were helpless to identify it because the capsule and the hatch were now on the bottom of the ocean."32 Grissom was frustrated by the lack of a technical explanation. "We tried for weeks afterwards to find out what had happened and how it had happened. I even crawled into capsules and tried to duplicate all of my movements, to see if I could make the whole thing happen again. It was impossible. The plunger that detonates the bolts is so far out of the way that I would have had to reach for it on purpose to hit it, and this I did not do. Even when I thrashed about with my elbows, I could not bump against it accidentally."33 Grissom did not like the idea of being unable to come up with a concrete reason for the hatch blowing prematurely. Yet, he was not going to waste precious time worrying about it. "It remained a mystery how that hatch blew. And I am afraid it always will. It was just one of those things."34 The important thing was that he had flown a successful flight which corroborated Alan Shepard's experiences and the program could move ahead. As preparations continued for the first American orbital flight, NASA announced its plan to develop an intermediate phase space program. It would feature a spacecraft that would use the Titan II as a booster and be designed to carry a two man crew. NASA officially named the program Gemini, after the constellation represented by the twin stars Castor and Pollux. "When my Mercury flight aboard the Liberty Bell capsule was completed, I felt reasonably certain, as the program was planned, that I wouldn't have a second space flight. By then Gemini was in the works, and I realized that if I were going to fly in space again, this was my opportunity, so I sort of drifted unobtrusively into taking more and more part in Gemini."35 Gus liked to be in on a project from its inception and he was able to do that with Project Gemini. He combined his skills in mechanical engineering and test piloting to help produce a manned system which was designed to rely on the input of its pilots. "Gemini would not fly without a guy at the controls... It was laid out the way a pilot likes to have the thing laid out... Gus was the guy who did all that."36 In response to NASA's plan to build its new Manned Space Center near Houston, the Grissom family left Virginia and moved into a three bedroom home in Timber Cove, one of the new housing developments outside of Seabrook, Texas. Grissom took steps to help shield his family from the onslaught of media attention and curiosity seekers. He had a pool installed in their backyard so that they could relax and swim in privacy. Additionally, "Grissom built a house...with no windows on the side facing the street. He simply did not want people peering into his windows."37 Grissom greatly valued being home with his family, stating that "it sure helped to spend a quiet evening with your wife and children in your own living room."38 Betty accommodated his hectic schedule by completing major chores and errands during the week so weekends would be free for family activities. She did not wear him down by constantly grilling him about the details of his job. In turn, Gus refused to let work problems intrude on his time at home and tried to complete technical reading or paperwork after the boys were asleep. The family made what little time they had together count. They went boating and water skiing on Clear Lake. In the winter, the entire family traveled to Colorado so Gus and the boys could ski. An annual trip to the Indianapolis 500 was always a highlight and offered a chance to visit family members back in Mitchell. Gus also introduced his sons to hunting and fishing, two of his favorite hobbies. In spite of the fact that the public had thrown the Grissoms into the spotlight, Gus demanded a normal life for his family. "Betty and I run our lives as we please. We don't care anything about fads or frills or the P.T.A. We don't give a damn about the Joneses."39 Once the Gemini spacecraft was completed, Alan Shepard was selected as commander for its first manned flight. Grissom was his back up. The program was progressing steadily when everything came to a screeching halt for Alan Shepard. Shepard began to experience severe nausea, vomiting and dizzy spells. The symptoms vanished after the first episode. Shepard felt fine and saw no reason to stop working. Then the symptoms came back again... and again... and again. Shepard knew that something definitely was not right so he had the flight surgeons check him over. Much to his dismay, he wound up with a diagnosis of Meniere's Syndrome, an inner ear disorder that caused periods of nausea, dizziness and disorientation. With symptoms like that and with no immediate cure available, it did not take long for Alan Shepard to be grounded. As a result, the commander's seat in the first manned Gemini spacecraft would be occupied by Gus Grissom. The pilot's seat went to Lieutenant John W. Young, a Navy test pilot with a BS in aeronautical engineering who had been part of the second group of astronauts selected in September 1962. Grissom took his role as commander very seriously. "I was responsible for my own skin in my Mercury flight, but now that I'm going up for a second flight... I'm responsible for two. This will mean some of the decisions will come a little harder but I've asked for the responsibility and I've got it."40 Grissom and Young, plus their backups, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford immersed themselves in the intensive training schedule. "I had thought training for Mercury was rigorous. Once we got caught up in the Gemini training program, our Mercury training looked pretty soft."41 Initially, Gus wanted to name his spacecraft Wapasha after a Native American tribe that had lived in Grissom's home state of Indiana. "Then some smart joker pointed out that surer than shooting, our spacecraft would be dubbed the Wabash Cannon Ball. Well, my Dad was working for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and I wasn't too sure just how he'd take to the Wabash Cannon Ball. How would he explain that one to his pals on the B & O?"42 Wapasha got scratched off the list of prospective names and Grissom began a new search. The Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown provided him with a source of inspiration. With the loss of Liberty Bell still on his mind, Gus decided to poke fun at the whole incident. Molly Brown had been strong, reliable and most importantly, unsinkable. It was a perfect name for Liberty Bell's successor. However, some of Grissom's bosses insisted that he choose a more respectable name. Gus replied, "How about the Titanic?"43 It was clear that Grissom was not going to back down on this one. Given a choice of Molly Brown or Titanic, disgruntled officials backed off. Without further ado, Gemini-Titan 3 became known as Molly Brown. On March 23, 1965, Molly Brown successfully lifted off from Pad 19 with Grissom and Young at the controls. Gus carried with him two specially engraved watches for Scott and Mark. Betty's souvenir, a new diamond ring, hung safe and sound on a string around Gus' neck. The main objectives for the five hour flight were to test all of the major operating systems and to determine if controlled maneuvering of the spacecraft was possible. Being able to change orbit and flight path was crucial to upcoming rendezvous missions, so a lot was riding on Molly's performance. She did not let her crew down. "To our intense satisfaction we were able to carry out these maneuvers almost exactly as planned...The longer we flew, the more jubilant we felt. We had a really fine spacecraft, one we could be proud of in every respect."44 Scientific experiments were also part of the flight plan and Grissom had to perform one of them. "It was pathetically simple. All I had to do was turn a knob, which would activate a mechanism, which would fertilize some sea urchin eggs to test the effects of weightlessness on living cells. Maybe... I had too much adrenaline pumping, but I twisted that handle so hard I broke it off."45 Ironically, at the same time as Gus was performing his test, a ground controller was conducting an identical experiment on earth. The controller broke off his handle as well. Another experiment that needed to be completed was testing the new array of specially packaged space food. Because future Gemini missions were scheduled to last several days, supplying the crew with an adequate diet was critical. John Young had been assigned to conduct this important experiment . Grissom constantly complained about the dehydrated delicacies concocted by NASA nutritionists. He was willing to eat the reconstituted food only because there was nothing else available. Or so he thought. Gus had no idea that John Young had more than just souvenirs stowed in his space suit pockets. "I was concentrating on our spacecraft's performance, when suddenly John asked me, 'You care for a corned beef sandwich, skipper?' If I could have fallen out of my couch, I would have. Sure enough, he was holding an honest-to-john corned beef sandwich."46 John had managed to sneak the deli sandwich, which was one of Grissom's favorites into his pocket. As Gus sampled the treat, tiny bits of rye bread began floating around the pristine cabin and the crew was just about knocked over by the pungent aroma of corned beef wafting through the small confines of the spacecraft. "After the flight our superiors at NASA let us know in no uncertain terms that non-man-rated corned beef sandwiches were out for future space missions. But John's deadpan offer of this strictly non-regulation goodie remains one of the highlights of our flight for me."47 Molly Brown splashed down at 2:15 PM after flying eighty thousand miles and completing three successful orbits around the earth. Grissom and Young were ecstatic about their textbook flight. "I do know that if NASA had asked John and me to take Molly Brown back into space the day after splashdown, we would have done it with pleasure. She flew like a queen, did our unsinkable Molly, and we were absolutely sure that her sister craft would perform as well."48 The flight was followed by an enthusiastic reception and parade at Cape Kennedy. The following day Grissom and Young, accompanied by their families, flew to Washington. President Lyndon Johnson awarded both men NASA's Distinguished Service Medal. "For me, personally, the finest award I received was the opportunity for my wife and two sons to meet and shake hands with the President of the United States and Mrs. Johnson and with Vice President Humphrey. It was, I know, a moment that Scott and Mark Grissom will remember for the rest of their lives."49 Ticker-tape parades in New York and other cities followed. "After all the Russian space spectaculars, the United States was back in the manned space flight business with probably the most sophisticated spacecraft in the world, or out of it. Our reception was the public's way of expressing pride in a national achievement."50 Molly Brown's flight was followed by nine other manned missions. Each flight gave the program a wealth of knowledge, techniques and much-needed confidence. With each successful mission, we advanced closer to the moon. Grissom remained directly involved with the Gemini program for quite some time, including several months of training as backup commander for the Gemini 6 mission. At the same time, work on the Apollo spacecraft was already well in progress. In March 1966, NASA publicly announced that Gus Grissom had been assigned as commander for the first Apollo Earth-orbit mission. Ed White would serve as Senior Pilot and Roger Chaffee was named Pilot. Jim McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart were assigned as backups. By the time Gus was freed up from his duties on Project Gemini to jump on board the Apollo program, the spacecraft and its systems were well advanced in terms of production and testing. Unlike Gemini, Grissom and his crew inherited a spacecraft that had been designed for them, but not with them. Although they did not have a hand in the basic design process, Grissom and his crew were able to exert some influence on Spacecraft 012, which was scheduled for an October 1966 launch. "He and Ed White and Roger Chaffee, along with their supporting staff of engineers and technicians, participated directly in the progressive design and manufacturing reviews and inspections as Spacecraft 012 neared completion. Some of the things Gus saw he did not like."51 As the pressure mounted and dissatisfaction grew, Grissom, for the first time, began to bring his work problems home. "When he was home he normally did not want to be with the space program. He would rather be just messing around with the kids. But now he was uptight about it."52 The arrival of Spacecraft 012 to the Cape only brought more problems. It soon became obvious that many designated engineering changes were incomplete. The environmental control unit leaked like a sieve and needed to be removed from the module. As a result, the launch schedule was delayed by several weeks. The Apollo simulator which was used for training purposes had its own set of problems and was not in any better shape than the actual spacecraft itself. According to Astronaut Walter Cunningham, "We knew that the spacecraft was, you know, in poor shape relative to what it ought to be. We felt like we could fly it, but let's face it, it just wasn't as good as it should have been for the job of flying the first manned Apollo mission."53 Nonetheless, the crew made do with what they had and by mid January of 1967, preparations were being made for the final preflight tests of Spacecraft 012. On January 22, 1967, Grissom made a brief stop at home before returning to the Cape. A citrus tree grew in their backyard with lemons on it as big as grapefruits. Gus yanked the largest lemon he could find off of the tree. Betty had no idea what he was up to and asked what he planned to do with the lemon. " 'I'm going to hang it on that spacecraft,' Gus said grimly and kissed her goodbye."54 Betty knew that Gus would be unable to return home before the crew conducted the plugs out test on January 27, 1967. What she did not know was that January 22 would be "the last time he was here at the house."55 Top Carpenter | Cooper | Glenn | Grissom | Schirra | Shepard | Slayton 1. Virgil Grissom. Gemini: A Personal Account of Man's Venture Into Space (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1968), p. 18. 2. Ibid., p. 17. 3. Betty Grissom and Henry Still. Starfall (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1974), p. 24. 4. Grissom, p. 18. 5. Ibid., p. 19. 6. Grissom and Still, p. 38. 7. M. Scott Carpenter, et al., We Seven (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), p. 55. 8. Ibid., p. 56. 9. Ibid. 10. Grissom and Still, p. 42. 11. Grissom, pp. 19, 21. 12. Ibid., pp. 2122. 13. Carpenter, et al., p. 57. 14. Grissom and Still, p. 56. 15. Carpenter, et al., p. 57. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., p. 58 18. Grissom, p. x. 19. Carpenter, et al., p. 214. 20. Ibid., p. 221. 21. Ibid., p. 222. 22. Ibid., p. 224. 23. Ibid., p. 225. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., p. 226. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid., p. 227. 29. Grissom and Still, p. 106. 30. Turner Home Entertainment. Moon Shot (Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., 1994). 31. Ibid. 32. Grissom and Still, p. 106. 33. Carpenter, et al., p. 227. 34. Ibid. 35. Grissom, p. 73. 36. Donald Slayton with Michael Cassutt. Deke!U.S. Manned Space: From Mercury to the Shuttle (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1994), p. 185. 37. Henry Dethloff. Suddenly Tomorrow Came... A History of the Johnson Space Center (Houston: Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1993), p. 124. 38. Grissom, p. 84. 39. Editors, Life magazine. Project Mercury (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964), p. 29. 40. Grissom and Still, p. 144. 41. Grissom, p. 73. 42. Ibid., p. 94. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid., p. 112. 45. Ibid., p. 110. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid., p. 111. 48. Ibid., p. 116. 49. Ibid., p. 115. 50. Ibid., pp. 115116. 51. Grissom and Still, p. 179. 52. Ibid. 53. Turner Home Entertainment, Moon Shot. 54. Grissom and Still, p. 182. 55. Ibid. Carpenter | Cooper | Glenn | Grissom | Schirra | Shepard | Slayton Top |
Abstract
Police use of force is at the forefront of public awareness in many countries. Body-worn videos (BWVs) have been proposed as a new way of reducing police use of force, as well as assaults against officers. To date, only a handful of peer-reviewed randomised trials have looked at the effectiveness of BWVs, primarily focusing on use of force and complaints. We sought to replicate these studies, adding assaults against police officers as an additional outcome. Using a prospective meta-analysis of multi-site, multi-national randomised controlled trials from 10 discrete tests with a total population of +2 million, and 2.2 million police officer-hours, we assess the effect of BWVs on the rates of (i) police use of force and (ii) assaults against officers. Averaged over 10 trials, BWVs had no effect on police use of force (d = 0.021; SE = 0.056; 95% CI: –0.089–0.130), but led to an increased rate of assaults against officers wearing cameras (d = 0.176; SE = 0.058; 95% CI: 0.061–0.290). As there is evidence that cameras may increase the risk of assaults against officers, more attention should be paid to how these devices are implemented. Likewise, since other public-facing organisations are considering equipping their staff with BWVs (e.g. firefighters, private security, traffic wardens), the findings on risks associated with BWVs are transferrable to those occupations as well. |
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah lawmakers will not consider a law that would ban discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the workplace and in housing, and will instead spend the next year studying the issue, key lawmakers said Friday.
In exchange, opponents of gay-rights legislation will drop any effort to prevent local governments from passing their own nondiscrimination laws this legislative session.
Gay-rights advocates had hoped to build on recent momentum created by the Salt Lake City Council, which passed nondiscrimination ordinances last year. Those ordinances passed after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it would support the measures.
In Utah, few law changes occur if the church disapproves. More than 80 percent of state lawmakers are Mormon, including Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Mr. Herbert has said he disapproves of discriminating against gay men and lesbians, but that he does not think it should be illegal. |
Decades After Henrietta Lacks' Death, Family Gets A Say On Her Cells
Morning Edition talks with NIH's Dr. Francis Collins Listen
The family of the late Henrietta Lacks finally got the chance to weigh in on how scientists use cells taken from her — without consent — more than 60 years ago.
The National Institutes of Health and the Lacks family have agreed to give scientists access to the genetic sequence of the cells, with some restrictions to safeguard her relatives' privacy. NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins described the agreement covering these so-called HeLa cells Wednesday, and how it came to be in the journal Nature.
The situation, he says, shines a bright light on a rising ethical issue in biomedicine: How do researchers protect people's privacy when they donate samples for genomic sequencing and scientific experiments?
Enlarge this image toggle caption Tom Deerinck/NCMIR Tom Deerinck/NCMIR
The guidelines governing this issue were drawn up in the 1970s. And they clearly lag behind the technology. The ability to decode a whole genome quickly and cheaply makes it virtually impossible to hide a donor's identity when they give specimens for research.
"Science moves forward, advances happen in biology based upon resources that have been donated," Collins tells NPR. "Policy reforms have to be undertaken in order to keep up with the science."
The same was true back in 1951 when Henrietta Lacks unwittingly made available to scientists one of the most useful tools in research: cells that replicate and grew indefinitely in the lab. These cells are among the most widely used in biomedical research worldwide.
At age 31, the African-American mother of five had an unusually aggressive form of cervical cancer. The doctors treating her passed a piece of her tumor along to researchers down the hall, without permission from her or her family.
Henrietta died shortly afterward. But her cells lived on and have helped scientists develop the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization and an array of treatments for cancer and other diseases. More than 70,000 published scientific papers mention these cells.
These HeLa cells are so important that several laboratories have spent years trying to sequence their DNA.
Last March, German scientists published the HeLa genome — again without consent from Henrietta's family — and controversy erupted.
The scientists hadn't broken any laws. But they did trample on the Lacks family's privacy.
Hidden in the sequence is potential biomedical information about Henrietta's descendents, such as their risk for getting Alzheimer's disease or bipolar disorder.
"The cells contain within them the original information that Henrietta was born with," Collins says. "And it is possible to go back and discern some of the hereditary information, which, of course, is then information she may have passed on to her children and grandchildren."
The German group quickly apologized and took down the DNA sequence from the Web.
The NIH then set up a committee that included the Lacks family to figure out a way to publish the HeLa genome, while still respecting the family's privacy.
The committee agreed to provide the DNA sequence to researchers on a case-by-case basis. Scientists will apply to get access to the code, and a group at NIH that includes Collins and two members of the Lacks family will review each request.
This controlled-access strategy is already used for other genomes deposited in NIH databases. But in many cases, donors give up their rights to know how their genomes will be used and distributed. |
UPDATE Aug. 15, 6:30 a.m.: Police have made an arrest in the killing of Maulama Akonjee and Thara Uddin, according to the New York Post.
According to the report, the NYPD has taken a 35-year-old from Ozone Park into custody. However, the man has yet to be charged.
Imam Akonjee and his brother-in-law, Uddin, were gunned down on Saturday afternoon just after leaving their mosque in Ozone Park.
ORIGINAL STORY
OZONE PARK, QUEENS, NY — A Queens imam and his assistant were killed Saturday in a shooting in Ozone Park as they left a prayer service, but police say they have not determined a motive for the attack.
The shooting occurred just before 2 p.m. on 79th Street and Liberty Avenue, within the confines on the 106th precinct. Both men, dressed in traditional Muslim garb, were walking down 79th Street and were turning onto Liberty Avenue, when they were approached from behind by a male with medium complexion dressed in a dark polo shirt and shorts, police said. At a brief press conference Saturday evening, NYPD officials said the male suspect fled on 79th Street and witnesses reported he had a gun in his hand.
The imam killed in the shooting was identified as 55-year-old Maulama Akonjee. The second man gunned down in the shooting was identified as 64-year-old Thara Uddin. Both men resided in Queens.
Police have released a sketch of the suspect and are asking for the public's help in identifying the man. He is described by police as a man with "medium" complexion last seen wearing a dark colored shirt and blue shorts.
Witnesses speaking to the New York Daily News called the attack "targeted." Police say they have not established a motive in the shooting and said so far there is nothing to indicate that the two men were targeted because of their Muslim faith.
The gunshots rang out near the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque. An area nonprofit leader told The New York Times the imam was shot as he walked away from the mosque with his brother-in-law after leading a prayer. A second mosque, Masjid Al-Aman, is also within walking distance of the scene of the shooting.
Police say they are not ruling out that the shooting was related to the men's faith and the investigation is ongoing.
Witnesses described the imam as a peaceful and scholarly man.
Members of the community congregated near the scene of the shooting demanding justice.
Rally/vigil on Liberty Ave., near fatal shooting scene of Queens imam and companion (w/ @NYCCouncil's @eric_ulrich). pic.twitter.com/kEsHEfpuHp
— Matthew Chayes (@chayesmatthew) August 13, 2016 "The perpetrator of these senseless killings must be swiftly apprehended and face the full force of the law," Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement. "We ask anyone with information about this attack to contact appropriate law enforcement authorities."
Patch will update this breaking news story.
Image via Google Street View, intersection of 79th Street and Liberty Avenue |
We are live from LG’s satellite event in San Francisco, where the company showed off the brand new G3 to US press. We have been fortunate enough to receive hands-on time with the device, and so far, Kellen and I are both loving the G3.
If you have not been paying attention, the G3 features a 5.5″ QHD display (2560 x 1440), Snapdragon 801 processor, 2GB or 3GB of RAM depending on the storage option, a 13MP OIS+ rear-facing camera, special Selfie camera on the frontside, 3,000mAh battery, an absolute ton of proprietary LG software, and comes running Android 4.4. To say it is a top-tier device might be a bit of an understatement at this point.
Check out the full hands-on video and picture gallery below.
Full impressions post coming from K and I shortly. |
"IBM PC" redirects here. For general IBM-like PCs, see IBM PC compatible
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981. It was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida.
The generic term "personal computer" ("PC") was in use years before 1981, applied as early as 1972 to the Xerox PARC's Alto, but because of the success of the IBM Personal Computer, the term "PC" came to also mean more specifically a desktop microcomputer compatible with IBM's Personal Computer branded products. Since the machine was based on open architecture,[1][2] within a short time of its introduction, third-party suppliers of peripheral devices, expansion cards, and software proliferated; the influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market was substantial in standardizing a platform for personal computers. "IBM compatible" became an important criterion for sales growth; after the 1980s, only the Apple Macintosh family kept a significant share of the microcomputer market without compatibility with the IBM personal computer.
History [ edit ]
Rumors [ edit ]
International Business Machines (IBM), one of the world's largest companies, had a 62% share of the mainframe computer market in 1982.[3] In the late 1970s the new personal computer industry was dominated by the Commodore PET, Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, Tandy Corporation's TRS-80, and various CP/M machines.[4] With $150 million in sales by 1979 and projected annual growth of more than 40% in the early 1980s, the microcomputer market was large enough for IBM's attention. Other large technology companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Texas Instruments (TI), and Data General had entered it, and some large IBM customers were buying Apples,[5][6][7] so the company saw introducing its own personal computer as both an experiment in a new market and a defense against rivals, large and small.[8][9]
In 1980 and 1981 rumors spread of an IBM personal computer, perhaps a miniaturized version of the IBM System/370,[10] while Matsushita acknowledged that it had discussed with IBM the possibility of manufacturing a personal computer for the American company.[11] The Japanese project, codenamed "Go", ended before the 1981 release of the American-designed IBM PC codenamed "Chess", but two simultaneous projects further confused rumors about the forthcoming product.[12]
Competitors [ edit ]
Data General and TI's small computers were not very successful,[7] but observers expected AT&T to soon enter the computer industry, and other large companies such as Exxon, Montgomery Ward, Pentel, and Sony were designing their own microcomputers.[13] Whether IBM had waited too long to enter an industry in which Radio Shack, Atari and others were already successful was unclear.[14][6][15]
An observer stated that "IBM bringing out a personal computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance."[16] Successful microcomputer company Vector Graphic's fiscal 1980 revenue was $12 million.[7] A single IBM computer in the early 1960s cost as much as $9 million, occupied one quarter acre of air-conditioned space, and had a staff of 60 people;[16] in 1980 its least-expensive computer, the 5120, still cost about $13,500.[17] The "Colossus of Armonk" only sold through its internal sales force, had no experience with resellers or retail stores,[18][19][20][21] and did not introduce the first product designed to work with non-IBM equipment until 1980.[14]
Another observer claimed that IBM made decisions so slowly that, when tested, "what they found is that it would take at least nine months to ship an empty box".[22] As with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development.[7][23][24][18] IBM had to learn how to quickly develop, mass-produce, and market new computers. While the company traditionally let others pioneer a new market—IBM released its first commercial computer a year after Remington Rand's UNIVAC in 1951, but within five years had 85% of the market—the personal-computer development and pricing cycles were much faster than for mainframes, with products designed in a few months and obsolete quickly.[7][6][25]
Many in the microcomputer industry resented IBM's power and wealth, and disliked the perception that an industry founded by startups needed a latecomer so staid that it had a strict dress code and employee songbook.[26][22] The potential importance to microcomputers of a company so prestigious, that a popular saying in American companies stated "No one ever got fired for buying IBM", was nonetheless clear.[12][27][22][28] InfoWorld, which described itself as "The Newsweekly for Microcomputer Users", stated that "for my grandmother, and for millions of people like her, IBM and computer are synonymous".[29] Byte ("The Small Systems Journal") stated in an editorial[12] just before the announcement of the IBM PC:
Rumors abound about personal computers to come from giants such as Digital Equipment Corporation and the General Electric Company. But there is no contest. IBM's new personal computer ... is far and away the media star, not because of its features, but because it exists at all. When the number eight company in the Fortune 500 enters the field, that is news ... The influence of a personal computer made by a company whose name has literally come to mean "computer" to most of the world is hard to contemplate.
The editorial acknowledged that "some factions in our industry have looked upon IBM as the 'enemy'", but concluded with optimism: "I want to see personal computing take a giant step."[12]
Predecessors [ edit ]
Desktop sized programmable calculators by HP had evolved into the HP 9830 BASIC language computer by 1972. In 1972–1973 a team led by Dr. Paul Friedl at the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small CRT, and full-function keyboard. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer to run APL\1130.[30] In 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC. Because it was the first to emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single-user computer, PC Magazine in 1983 designated SCAMP a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer".[30][31] The prototype is in the Smithsonian Institution. A non-working industrial design model was also created in 1973 by industrial designer Tom Hardy illustrating how the SCAMP engineering prototype could be transformed into a usable product design for the marketplace. This design model was requested by IBM executive Bill Lowe to complement the engineering prototype in his early efforts to demonstrate the viability of creating a single-user computer.[32]
Successful demonstrations of the 1973 SCAMP prototype led to the IBM 5100 portable microcomputer in 1975. In the late 1960s such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton.[30] The 5100 was a complete computer system programmable in BASIC or APL, with a small built-in CRT monitor, keyboard, and tape drive for data storage. It was also very expensive, up to US$20,000; the computer was designed for professional and scientific customers, not business users or hobbyists.[33] BYTE in 1975 announced the 5100 with the headline "Welcome, IBM, to personal computing",[34] but PC Magazine in 1984 described 5100s as "little mainframes" and stated that "as personal computers, these machines were dismal failures ... the antithesis of user-friendly", with no IBM support for third-party software.[20] Despite news reports that it was the first IBM product without a model number, when the PC was introduced in 1981 it was designated as the IBM 5150, putting it in the "5100" series[35] though its architecture was not directly descended from the IBM 5100. Later models followed in the trend: For example, the IBM Portable Personal Computer, PC/XT, and PC AT are IBM machine types 5155, 5160, and 5170, respectively.[36]
Following SCAMP, the IBM Boca Raton, Florida Laboratory created several single-user computer design concepts to support Lowe's ongoing effort to convince IBM there was a strategic opportunity in the personal computer business. A selection of these early IBM design concepts created by industrial designer Tom Hardy in the infancy of personal computing is highlighted in the book DELETE: A Design History of Computer Vapourware. One such concept in 1977, code-named Aquarius, was a working prototype utilizing advanced bubble memory cartridges. While this design was more powerful and smaller than Apple II launched the same year, the advanced bubble technology was deemed unstable and not ready for mass production.[32]
Project Chess [ edit ]
Some employees opposed IBM entering the market.[37] One said, "Why on earth would you care about the personal computer? It has nothing at all to do with office automation." "Besides", he added, "all it can do is cause embarrassment for IBM".[38] The company studied personal computer designs—Walden C. Rhines of TI, for example, in 1978 met with a Boca Raton group considering the TMS9900 for a secret 16-bit microprocessor-based project[39]—but had determined from studying the market for years, and building the prototypes during the 1970s, that IBM was unable to internally build a personal computer profitably.[18][6][32]
IBM President John Opel was not among those skeptical of personal computers. He and CEO Frank Cary had created more than one dozen semi-autonomous "Independent Business Units" (IBU) to encourage innovation;[19][37][21] Fortune called them "How to start your own company without leaving IBM".[25] After Lowe became the first head of the Entry Level Systems IBU in Boca Raton[21] his team researched the market. Computer dealers were very interested in selling an IBM product, but told Lowe that the company could not design, sell, or service it as IBM had previously done. An IBM microcomputer, they said, must be composed of standard parts that store employees could repair.[15] While dealers disliked Apple's business practices, including a shortage of the Apple II while the company focused on the more sophisticated Apple III, they saw no alternative because they doubted that IBM's traditional sales methods and bureaucracy would change.[20]
Atari in 1980 proposed that it act as original equipment manufacturer for an IBM microcomputer. Aware that the company needed to enter the market quickly[40]—even the schools in Broward County, near Boca Raton, purchased Apples[41]—in July 1980 Lowe met with Opel, Cary, and others on the important Corporate Management Committee.[18][6] Lowe demonstrated the proposal with an industrial design model by Tom Hardy based on the Atari 800 platform, and suggested acquiring Atari "because we can't do this within the culture of IBM".[32][37][16][15]
Cary agreed about the culture, observing that IBM would need "four years and three hundred people" to develop its own personal computer; Lowe, however, promised one in a year if done without traditional IBM methods.[22] Instead of acquiring Atari, the committee allowed him to form an independent group of employees—"the Dirty Dozen", led by engineer Bill Sydnes—which, Lowe promised, could design a prototype in 30 days. The crude prototype barely worked when he demonstrated it in August, but Lowe presented a detailed business plan that proposed that the new computer have an open architecture, use non-proprietary components and software, and be sold through retail stores, all contrary to IBM practice.[32][37][16][15]
The committee agreed that Lowe's approach was the most likely to succeed. With Opel's strong support, in October it approved turning the group into another IBU codenamed "Project Chess" to develop "Acorn", with unusually large funding to help achieve the goal of introducing the product within one year of the August demonstration. After Lowe's promotion Don Estridge became the head of Chess.[42][21][37] Told by Cary to do whatever necessary to develop an IBM personal computer quickly,[43] by January 1981 the team made its first internal demonstration of the computer.[18] Other key members included Sydnes,[37] Lewis Eggebrecht,[44] David Bradley,[45][46] Mark Dean,[47] and David O'Connor.[48] Many were already hobbyists who owned their own computers[23] including Estridge, who had an Apple II.[49] After the team received permission to expand to 150 by the end of 1980, it received more than 500 calls in one day from IBM employees interested in joining the IBU.[6]
Open standards [ edit ]
IBM normally was vertically integrated, only purchasing components like transformers and semiconductors.[50][43] It internally developed all important hardware and software[23] and discouraged customers from purchasing third-party products compatible with IBM products.[29] For the PC the company avoided doing so as much as possible; choosing, for example, to license Microsoft BASIC despite having a BASIC of its own for mainframes. (Estridge said that unlike IBM's own version "Microsoft BASIC had hundreds of thousands of users around the world. How are you going to argue with that?")[51] Although the company denied doing so, many observers concluded that IBM intentionally emulated Apple when designing the PC.[26][48][20] The many Apple II owners on the team influenced its decision to design the computer with an open architecture[44] and publish technical information so others could create software and expansion slot peripherals.[19]
Although the company knew that it could not avoid competition from third-party software on proprietary hardware—Digital Research released CP/M-86 for the IBM Displaywriter, for example[14]—it considered using the IBM 801 RISC processor and its operating system, developed at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. The 801 processor was more than an order of magnitude more powerful than the Intel 8088, and the operating system more advanced than the PC DOS 1.0 operating system from Microsoft. Ruling out an in-house solution made the team’s job much easier and may have avoided a delay in the schedule, but the ultimate consequences of this decision for IBM were far-reaching.
IBM had recently developed the Datamaster business microcomputer, which used a processor and other chips from Intel; familiarity with them and the immediate availability of the 8088 was a reason for choosing it for the PC. The 62-pin expansion bus slots were designed to be similar to the Datamaster slots. Differences from the Datamaster included avoiding an all-in-one design while limiting the computer's size so that it would still fit on a standard desktop with the keyboard (also similar to the Datamaster's), and 5.25" disk drives instead of 8". Delays due to in-house development of the Datamaster software was a reason why IBM chose Microsoft BASIC—already available for the 8088—and published available technical information to encourage third-party developers.[46][21] IBM chose the 8088 over the similar but superior 8086 because Intel offered a better price on the former and could provide more units,[52] and the 8088's 8-bit bus reduced the cost of the rest of the computer.[46]
The design for the computer was essentially complete by April 1981, when the manufacturing team took over the project.[16] IBM could not only use its own hardware and make a profit with "Acorn". To save time and money, the IBU built the machine with commercial off-the-shelf parts from original equipment manufacturers whenever possible, with assembly occurring in Boca Raton at a plant Estridge designed. The IBU would decide whether it would be more economical to "Make or Buy" each manufacturing step.[6][50][19][43] Various IBM divisions for the first time competed with outsiders to build parts of the new computer; a North Carolina IBM factory built the keyboard, the Endicott, New York factory had to lower its bid for printed circuit boards, and a Taiwanese company built the monitor.[6][37][42] The IBU chose an existing monitor from IBM Japan and an Epson printer. Because of the off-the-shelf parts only the system unit and keyboard has unique IBM industrial design elements. The IBM copyright appears in only the ROM BIOS and on the company logo,[53][19] and the company reportedly received no patents on the PC,[29] with outsiders manufacturing 90% of it.[50] Because the product would carry the IBM logo, the only corporate division the IBU could not bypass was the Quality Assurance Unit.[23][42] A component manufacturer described the process of being selected as a supplier as rigorous and "absolutely amazing", with IBM inspectors even testing solder flux. They stayed after selection, monitoring and helping to improve the manufacturing process. IBM's size overwhelmed other companies; "a hundred IBM engineers" reportedly visited Mitel to meet with two of the latter's employees about a problem, according to The New York Times.[50]
Another aspect of IBM that did not change was its emphasis on secrecy;[41] employees at Yorktown knew nothing of Boca Raton's activities.[54] Those working on the project, within and outside of IBM, were under strict confidentiality agreements. When an individual mentioned in public on a Saturday that his company was working on software for a new IBM computer, IBM security appeared at the company on Monday to investigate the leak.[55] After an IBM official discovered printouts in a supplier's garbage, the former company persuaded the latter to purchase a paper shredder. Management Science America did not know until after agreeing to buy Peachtree Software in 1981 that the latter was working on software for the PC.[56] Developers such as Software Arts received breadboard prototype computers[57] in boxes lined with lead to block X-rays and sealed with solder, and had to keep them in locked, windowless rooms;[58] to develop software, Microsoft emulated the PC on a DEC minicomputer and used the prototype for debugging.[21] After the PC's debut, IBM Boca Raton employees continued to decline to discuss their jobs in public. One writer compared the "silence" after asking one about his role at the company to "hit[ting] the wall at the Boston Marathon: the conversation is over".[41]
Debut [ edit ]
IBM is proud to announce a product you may have a personal interest in. It's a tool that could soon be on your desk, in your home or in your child's schoolroom. It can make a surprising difference in the way you work, learn or otherwise approach the complexities (and some of the simple pleasures) of living. It's the computer we're making for you. IBM PC advertisement, 1982[59]
After developing it in 12 months—faster than any other hardware product in company history[43]—IBM announced the Personal Computer on 12 August 1981. Pricing started at US$1,565 (equivalent to $4,313 in 2018) for a configuration with 16K RAM, Color Graphics Adapter, and no disk drives. The company intentionally set prices for it and other configurations that were comparable to those of Apple and other rivals;[60][23][19][37][16] what Dan Bricklin described as "pretty competitive" pricing surprised him and other Software Arts employees.[54] One analyst stated that IBM "has taken the gloves off",[3] while the company said "we suggest [the PC's price] invites comparison".[61] Microsoft, Personal Software, and Peachtree Software were among the developers of nine launch titles, including EasyWriter and VisiCalc.[60] In addition to the existing corporate sales force IBM opened its own Product Center retail stores. After studying Apple's successful distribution network, the company for the first time sold through others, ComputerLand and Sears Roebuck.[60][18][25][20][19] Because retail stores receive revenue from repairing computers and providing warranty service, IBM broke a 70-year tradition by permitting and training non-IBM service personnel to fix the PC.[6]
BYTE described IBM as having "the strongest marketing organization in the world",[14] but the PC's marketing also differed from that of previous products. The company was aware of its strong corporate reputation among potential customers; an early advertisement began "Presenting the IBM of Personal Computers".[59][62][19] The advertisements emphasized the novelty of an individual owning an IBM computer, describing "a product you may have a personal interest in"[59] and asking readers to think of "'My own IBM computer. Imagine that' ... it's yours. For your business, your project, your department, your class, your family and, indeed, for yourself."[63]
The Little Tramp [ edit ]
After considering Alan Alda, Beverly Sills, Kermit the Frog, and Billy Martin as celebrity endorsers[64] IBM chose Charlie Chaplin's The Little Tramp character—played by Billy Scudder—for a series of advertisements based on Chaplin's films.[65][66] The very popular and award-winning $36-million marketing campaign made the star of Modern Times—a film that expresses Chaplin's opposition to big business, mechanization, and technological efficiency—the (as Creative Computing described him) "warm cuddly" mascot of one of the world's largest companies.[67][66][65][19][68]
Chaplin and his character became so widely associated with IBM—Time stated that "The Tramp ... has given [it] a human face"[67]—that others used his bowler hat and cane to represent or satirize the company.[69][70][71][72][66] Although the Chaplin estate sued those like Otrona who used the trademark without permission, PC Magazine's April 1983 issue had 12 advertisements that referred to the Little Tramp.[65]
Third-party products [ edit ]
Perhaps Chess's most unusual decision for IBM was to publish the PC's technical specifications, allowing outsiders to create products for it.[43] "We encourage third-part suppliers ... we are delighted to have them", the company stated.[29] Although the team began managing its own business operations on prototypes before the PC's debut,[43] IBM did not sell internally developed PC software until April 1984,[73] instead relying on already established software companies.[60] The company contacted Microsoft even before the official approval of Chess,[18] and it and others received cooperation that was, one writer said, "unheard of" for IBM.[74] Such openness surprised observers;[48] BYTE called it "striking"[60] and "startling",[14] and one developer reported that "it's a very different IBM".[35] Another said "They were very open and helpful about giving us all the technical information we needed. The feeling was so radically different—it's like stepping out into a warm breeze." He concluded, "After years of hassling—fighting the Not-Invented-Here attitude—we're the gods."[35]
Most other personal-computer companies did not disclose technical details;[62] TI, for example, intentionally made developing third-party TI 99/4A software difficult,[75][76] even requiring a lockout chip in cartridges.[77] IBM itself kept its mainframe technology so secret that rivals were indicted for industrial espionage.[29] For the PC, however, IBM immediately released detailed information. The US$36 IBM PC Technical Reference Manual included complete circuit schematics, commented ROM BIOS source code, and other engineering and programming information for all of IBM's PC-related hardware, plus instructions on designing third-party peripherals.[62] It was so comprehensive that one reviewer suggested that the manual could serve as a university textbook,[78] and so clear that a developer claimed that he could design an expansion card without seeing the physical computer.[29]
IBM marketed the technical manual in full-page color print advertisements, stating that "our software story is still being written. Maybe by you".[79] Sydnes stated that "The definition of a personal computer is third-party hardware and software." Estridge said that IBM did not keep software development proprietary because it would have to "out-VisiCalc VisiCorp and out-Peachtree Peachtree—and you just can't do that".[48]
Another advertisement told developers that the company would consider publishing software for "Education. Entertainment. Personal finance. Data management. Self-improvement. Games. Communications. And yes, business."[80] Estridge explicitly invited small, "cottage" amateur and professional developers to create products[60] "with", he said, "our logo and our support".[81] IBM sold the PC at a large discount to employees, encouraged them to write software,[20] and distributed a catalog of inexpensive software written by individuals that might not otherwise appear in public.[82][83]
Reaction [ edit ]
BYTE was correct in predicting that an IBM personal computer would receive much public attention. Its rapid development amazed observers,[23] as did the willingness of the Colossus of Armonk to sell as a launch title Microsoft Adventure (a video game that, its press release stated, brought "players into a fantasy world of caves and treasures");[54][84][20] the company even offered an optional joystick port.[60] Future Computing estimated that "IBM's Billion Dollar Baby" would have $2.3 billion in hardware sales by 1986.[85] David Bunnell, an editor at Osborne/McGraw-Hill, recalled that[48]
None of my associates wanted to talk about the Apple II or the Osborne I computer anymore, nor did they want to fantasize about writing the next super-selling program ... All they wanted to talk about was the IBM Personal Computer—what it was, its potential and limitations, and most of all, the impact IBM would have on the business of personal computing.
Within seven weeks Bunnell helped found PC Magazine,[86] the first periodical for the new computer.[62]
Competitors were more skeptical. Adam Osborne said "when you buy a computer from IBM, you buy a la carte. By the time you have a computer that does anything, it will cost more than an Apple. I don't think Apple has anything to worry about." Apple's Mike Markkula agreed that IBM's product was more expensive than the Apple II, and claimed that the Apple III "offers better performance". He denied that the IBM PC offered more memory, stating that his company could offer more than 128K "but frankly we don't know what anyone would do with that memory". At Tandy, John Roach said "I don't think it's that significant"; Jon Shirley admitted that IBM had a "legendary service reputation" but claimed that its thousands of Radio Shack stores "can provide better service", while predicting that the IBM PC's "major market will be IBM addicts"; another executive claimed that Tandy could undersell a $3,000 IBM computer by $1,000. Many criticized the PC's design as not innovative and outdated, and believed that its alleged weaknesses, such as the use of single-sided, single-density disks with less storage than the computer's RAM, existed because the company was uncertain about the market and was experimenting before releasing a better computer.[61][87][15][88] (Estridge later boasted, "Many ... said that there was nothing technologically new in this machine. That was the best news we could have had; we actually had done what we had set out to do."[51])
Rivals such as Apple, Tandy, and Commodore—together with more than 50% of the personal-computer market[61]—had many advantages. While IBM began with one microcomputer, little available hardware or software, and a couple of hundred dealers,[89] Radio Shack had 14 million customers and 8,000 stores—more than McDonald's[90]—that only sold its broad range of computers and accessories. Apple had five times as many dealers in the US as IBM, an established international distribution network, and an installed base of more than 250,000 customers. Hundreds of independent developers produced software and peripherals for both companies' computers; at least ten Apple databases and ten word processors were available, while the PC had no databases and one word processor.[91][89] The computer had very limited graphics capability, and customers who wanted both color and high-quality text had to purchase two graphics cards and two monitors.[92]
Steve Jobs at Apple ordered a team to examine an IBM PC. After finding it unimpressive—Chris Espinosa called the computer "a half-assed, hackneyed attempt"—the company confidently purchased a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal with the headline "Welcome, IBM. Seriously". Microsoft head Bill Gates was at Apple headquarters the day of IBM's announcement and later said "They didn't seem to care. It took them a full year to realize what had happened".[93]
Success [ edit ]
The IBM PC was immediately successful. The PC was small, light weight, and easy to use. Because it was advertised as a personal computer for anyone and not just large corporations, and because it was small and could fit easily into people's home, it became a device of popular choice for many people. It couldn't have hurt that IBM also advertised it with the lovable Charlie Chaplin's tramp character, who after seeing the computer, falls in love with it and purchases the PC. Chaplin's character became the face of the company's PC.[94]
BYTE reported a rumor that more than 40,000 were ordered on the day of the announcement;[14] John Dvorak recalled that one dealer that day praised the computer as an "incredible winner, and IBM knows how to treat us — none of the Apple arrogance".[95] One dealer received 22 $1,000 deposits from customers although he could not promise a delivery date.[16] The company could have sold its entire projected first-year production to employees, and IBM customers that were reluctant to purchase Apples were glad to buy microcomputers from their traditional supplier.[20] The computer began shipping in October, ahead of schedule;[88] by then some referred to it simply as the "PC".[96]
BYTE estimated that 90% of the 40,000 first-day orders were from software developers.[14] By COMDEX in November Tecmar developed 20 products including memory expansion and expansion chassis,[97] surprising even IBM.[48] Jerry Pournelle reported after attending the West Coast Computer Faire in early 1982 that because IBM "encourages amateurs" with "documents that tell all", "an explosion of [third-party] hardware and software" was visible at the convention.[76] Many manufacturers of professional business application software, who had been planning/developing versions for the Apple II, promptly switched their efforts over to the IBM PC when it was announced. Often, these products needed the capacity and speed of a hard-disk. Although IBM did not offer a hard-disk option for almost two years following introduction of its PC, business sales were nonetheless catalyzed by the simultaneous availability of hard-disk subsystems, like those of Tallgrass Technologies which sold in Computerland stores alongside the IBM 5150 at the introduction in 1981.
One year after the PC's release, although IBM had sold fewer than 100,000 computers,[98] PC World counted 753 software packages for the PC—more than four times the number available for the Apple Macintosh one year after its 1984 release—including 422 applications and almost 200 utilities and languages.[98] InfoWorld reported that "most of the major software houses have been frantically adapting their programs to run on the PC", with new PC-specific developers composing "an entire subindustry that has formed around the PC's open system", which Dvorak described as a "de facto standard microcomputer".[29] The magazine estimated that "hundreds of tiny garage-shop operations" were in "bloodthirsty" competition to sell peripherals, with 30 to 40 companies in a price war for memory-expansion cards, for example.[99] PC Magazine renamed its planned "1001 Products to Use with Your IBM PC" special issue after the number of product listings it received exceeded the figure.[29] Tecmar and other companies that benefited from IBM's openness rapidly grew in size and importance, as did PC Magazine; within two years it expanded from 96 bimonthly to 800 monthly pages, including almost 500 pages of advertisements.[100][19]
Gates estimated that IBM would sell "not far from 200,000" PCs in 1982.[24] By the end of that year the company was selling one every minute of the business day.[28] It estimated that 50 to 70% of PCs sold in retail stores went to the home,[101] and the publicity from selling a popular product to consumers caused IBM to, a spokesman said, "enter the world" by familiarizing them with the Colossus of Armonk. Although the PC only provided two to three percent of sales[6] the company found that it had underestimated demand by as much as 800%. Because its prices were based on forecasts of much lower volume—250,000 over five years, which would have made the PC a very successful IBM product—the PC became very profitable; at times the company sold almost that many computers per month.[37][46][21] Estridge claimed in 1983 that from October 1982 to March 1983 customer demand quadrupled. He stated that the company had increased production three times in one year, and warned of a component shortage if demand continued to increase.[51] Many small suppliers' sales to IBM grew rapidly, both pleasing their executives and causing them to worry about being overdependent on it. Miniscribe, for example, in 1983 received 61% of its hard drive orders from IBM; the company's stock price fell by more than one third in one day after IBM reduced orders in January 1984. Suppliers often found, however, that the prestige of having IBM as a customer led to additional sales elsewhere.[50]
By mid-1983, Yankee Group estimated that ten new IBM PC-related products appeared every day.[8] In August the Chess IBU, with 4,000 employees, became the Entry Systems Division, which observers believed indicated that the PC was significantly important to IBM overall, and no longer an experiment.[8][37][21] In November the Associated Press stated that the PC "in two years [had] effectively set a new standard in desktop computers".[102] It surpassed the Apple II as the best-selling personal computer[43] with more than 750,000 sold by the end of the year,[21] while DEC only sold 69,000 microcomputers in the first nine months of the year despite offering three models for different markets.[103] Retailers also benefited, with 65% of BusinessLand's revenue coming from the PC. Demand still so exceeded supply two years after its debut that, despite IBM shipping 40,000 PCs a month, dealers reportedly received 60% or less of their desired quantity.[104] Pournelle received the PC he paid for in early July 1983 on 1 November,[105] and IBM Boca Raton employees and neighbors had to wait five weeks to buy the computers assembled there.[41]
Domination [ edit ]
Yankee Group also stated that the PC had by 1983 "destroyed the market for some older machines" from companies like Vector Graphic, North Star, and Cromemco.[8] inCider wrote "This may be an Apple magazine, but let's not kid ourselves, IBM has devoured competitors like a cloud of locusts".[106] By February 1984 BYTE reported on "the phenomenal market acceptance of the IBM PC",[107] and by fall concluded that the company "has given the field its third major standard, after the Apple II and CP/M".[108] Some rivals speculated that the government might again prosecute IBM for antitrust, and Ben Rosen claimed that the company's dominance "is having a chilling effect on new ventures, a fear factor".[109]
By that time, Apple was less welcoming of the rival that inCider stated had a "godlike" reputation.[106] Its focus on the III had delayed improvements to the II, and the sophisticated Lisa was unsuccessful in part because, unlike the II and the PC, Apple discouraged third-party developers. The head of a retail chain said "It appears that IBM had a better understanding of why the Apple II was successful than had Apple."[20] Jobs, after trying to recruit Estridge to become Apple's president,[93] admitted that in two years IBM had joined Apple as "the industry's two strongest competitors". He warned in a speech before previewing the forthcoming "1984" Super Bowl commercial: "It appears IBM wants it all ... Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?"[110]
IBM had $4 billion in annual PC revenue by 1984, more than twice that of Apple and as much as the sales of Apple, Commodore, HP, and Sperry combined,[111] and 6% of total revenue.[112] A Fortune survey found that 56% of American companies with personal computers used IBM PCs, compared to Apple's 16%.[113] A 1983 study of corporate customers similarly found that two thirds of large customers standardizing on one computer chose the PC, compared to 9% for Apple. IBM's own documentation described the PC as inferior to competitors' less-expensive products, but the company generally did not compete on price; rather, the study found that customers preferred "IBM's hegemony" because of its support. Most companies with mainframes used their PCs with the larger computers, which likely benefited IBM's mainframe sales and discouraged their purchasing non-IBM hardware.[114][115]
In 1984, IBM introduced the PC/AT, unlike its predecessor the most sophisticated personal computer from any major company.[19][109] By 1985, the PC family had more than doubled Future Computing's 1986 revenue estimate, with more than 12,000 applications and 4,500 dealers and distributors worldwide.[116] The PC was similarly dominant in Europe, two years after release there.[115] In his 1985 obituary, The New York Times wrote that Estridge had led the "extraordinarily successful entry of the International Business Machines Corporation into the personal computer field". The Entry Systems Division had 10,000 employees and by itself would have been the world's third-largest computer company behind IBM and DEC,[43] with more revenue than IBM's minicomputer business despite its much later start. IBM was the only major company with significant minicomputer and microcomputer businesses,[116] in part because rivals like DEC and Wang did not adjust to the retail market.[117]
Rumors of "lookalike", compatible computers, created without IBM's approval, began almost immediately after the IBM PC's release.[14][35] Other manufacturers soon reverse engineered[citation needed] the BIOS to produce their own non-infringing functional copies. Columbia Data Products introduced the first IBM-PC compatible computer in June 1982. In November 1982, Compaq Computer Corporation announced the Compaq Portable, the first portable IBM PC compatible. The first models were shipped in January 1983.
IBM PC as standard [ edit ]
The success of the IBM computer led other companies to develop IBM Compatibles, which in turn led to branding like diskettes being advertised as "IBM format". An IBM PC clone could be built with off-the-shelf parts, but the BIOS required some reverse engineering. Companies like Compaq, Phoenix Software Associates, American Megatrends, Award, and others achieved fully functional versions of the BIOS, allowing companies like Dell, Gateway and HP to manufacture PCs that worked like IBM's product. The IBM PC became the industry standard.
Third-party distribution [ edit ]
Because IBM had no retail experience, the retail chains ComputerLand and Sears Roebuck provided important knowledge of the marketplace.[118][19][42][20] They became the main outlets for the new product. More than 190 Computerland stores already existed, while Sears was in the process of creating a handful of in-store computer centers for sale of the new product. This guaranteed IBM widespread distribution across the U.S.
Targeting the new PC at the home market, Sears Roebuck sales failed to live up to expectations. This unfavorable outcome revealed that the strategy of targeting the office market was the key to higher sales.
Models [ edit ]
IBM Personal Computer IBM 5150 PC with IBM 5151 monitor
All IBM personal computers are software backwards-compatible with each other in general, but not every program will work in every machine. Some programs are time sensitive to a particular speed class. Older programs will not take advantage of newer higher-resolution and higher-color display standards, while some newer programs require newer display adapters. (Note that as the display adapter was an adapter card in all of these IBM models, newer display hardware could easily be, and often was, retrofitted to older models.) A few programs, typically very early ones, are written for and require a specific version of the IBM PC BIOS ROM.[citation needed] Most notably, BASICA which was dependent on the BIOS ROM had a sister program called GW-BASIC which supported more functions, was 100% backwards compatible and could run independently from the BIOS ROM.
Original PC [ edit ]
IBM PC 5150.
The CGA video card, with a suitable modulator, could use an NTSC television set or an RGBi monitor for display; IBM's RGBi monitor was their display model 5153. The other option that was offered by IBM was an MDA and their monochrome display model 5151. It was possible to install both an MDA and a CGA card and use both monitors concurrently[121] if supported by the application program. For example, AutoCAD, Lotus 1-2-3 and others allowed use of a CGA Monitor for graphics and a separate monochrome monitor for text menus. Some model 5150 PCs with CGA monitors and a printer port also included the MDA adapter by default, because IBM provided the MDA port and printer port on the same adapter card; it was in fact an MDA/printer port combo card.
Although cassette tape was originally envisioned by IBM as a low-budget storage alternative, the most commonly used medium was the floppy disk. The 5150 was available with one or two 5 1⁄ 4 " floppy drives – with two drives the program disc(s) would be in drive A, while drive B would hold the disc(s) for working files; with one drive the user had to swap program and file discs into the single drive. For models without any drives or storage medium, IBM intended users to connect their own cassette recorder via the 5150's cassette socket. The cassette tape socket was physically the same DIN plug as the keyboard socket and next to it, but electrically completely different.
A hard disk could not be installed into the 5150's system unit without changing to a higher-rated power supply (although later drives with lower power consumption have been known to work with the standard 63.5 Watt unit). The "IBM 5161 Expansion Chassis" came with its own power supply and one 10 MB hard disk and allowed the installation of a second hard disk.[122] The system unit had five expansion slots, and the expansion unit had eight; however, one of the system unit's slots and one of the expansion unit's slots had to be occupied by the Extender Card and Receiver Card, respectively, which were needed to connect the expansion unit to the system unit and make the expansion unit's other slots available, for a total of 11 slots. A working configuration required that some of the slots be occupied by display, disk, and I/O adapters, as none of these were built into the 5150's motherboard; the only motherboard external connectors were the keyboard and cassette ports.
The simple PC speaker sound hardware was also on board.
The original PC's maximum memory using IBM parts was 256 kB, achievable through the installation of 64 kB on the motherboard and three 64 kB expansion cards. The processor was an Intel 8088 running at 4.77 MHz, 4/3 the standard NTSC color burst frequency of 315/88 = 3.57954[a] MHz. (In early units, the Intel 8088 used was a 1978 version, later were 1978/81/2 versions of the Intel chip; second-sourced AMDs were used after 1983)[citation needed]. Some owners replaced the 8088 with an NEC V20 for a slight increase in processing speed and support for real mode 80186 instructions. The V20 gained its speed increase through the use of a hardware multiplier which the 8088 lacked. An Intel 8087 coprocessor could also be added for hardware floating-point arithmetic.
IBM sold the first IBM PCs in configurations with 16 or 64 kB of RAM preinstalled using either nine or thirty-six 16-kilobit DRAM chips. (The ninth bit was used for parity checking of memory.) In November 1982, the ROM for the IBM PC was changed to allow the use of 64 Kbit chips (as opposed to the original 16 Kbit chips) -- the same RAM configuration as the soon-to-be-released IBM XT. (64 kB in one bank, expandable to 256kB by populating the other 3 banks.)
Although the TV-compatible video board, cassette port and Federal Communications Commission Class B certification were all aimed at making it a home computer,[46] the original PC proved too expensive for the home market. At introduction, a PC with 64 kB of RAM and a single 5.25-inch floppy drive and monitor sold for US $3,005 (equivalent to $8,281 in 2018), while the cheapest configuration (US $1,565) that had no floppy drives, only 16 kB RAM, and no monitor (again, under the expectation that users would connect their existing TV sets and cassette recorders) proved too unattractive and low-spec, even for its time (cf. footnotes to the above IBM PC range table).[123][124] While the 5150 did not become a top selling home computer, its floppy-based configuration became an unexpectedly large success with businesses.
XT [ edit ]
The "IBM Personal Computer XT", IBM model 5160, was introduced two years after the PC and featured a 10 megabyte hard drive. It had eight expansion slots but the same processor and clock speed as the PC. The XT had no cassette jack, but still had the Cassette Basic interpreter in ROMs.
The XT could take 256 kB of memory on the main board (using 64 kbit DRAM); later models were expandable to 640 kB. The remaining 384 kilobytes of the 8088 address space (between 640 KB and 1 MB) were used for the BIOS ROM, adapter ROM and RAM space, including video RAM space. It was usually sold with a Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) video card or a CGA video card.
The eight expansion slots were the same as the model 5150 but were spaced closer together. Although rare, a card designed for the 5150 could be wide enough to obstruct the adjacent slot in an XT.[125][126] Because of the spacing, an XT motherboard would not fit into a case designed for the PC motherboard, but the slots and peripheral cards were compatible. The XT expansion bus (later called "8-bit Industry Standard Architecture" (ISA) by competitors) was retained in the IBM AT, which added connectors for some slots to allow 16-bit transfers; 8-bit cards could be used in an AT.
The "IBM Personal Computer XT/370" was an XT with three custom 8-bit cards: the processor card (370PC-P) contained a modified Motorola 68000 chip, microcoded to execute System/370 instructions, a second 68000 to handle bus arbitration and memory transfers, and a modified 8087 to emulate the S/370 floating point instructions. The second card (370PC-M) connected to the first and contained 512 kB of memory. The third card (PC3277-EM), was a 3270 terminal emulator necessary to install the system software for the VM/PC software to run the processors.
The computer booted into DOS, then ran the VM/PC Control Program.[127][128]
PCjr [ edit ]
The "IBM PCjr" was IBM's first attempt to enter the market for relatively inexpensive educational and home-use personal computers. The PCjr, IBM model number 4860, retained the IBM PC's 8088 CPU and BIOS interface for compatibility, but its cost and differences in the PCjr's architecture, as well as other design and implementation decisions (chief among these was the use of a "chiclet" keyboard, which was difficult to type with), eventually led to the PCjr, and the related IBM JX, being commercial failures.
Portable [ edit ]
The "IBM Portable Personal Computer" 5155 model 68 was an early portable computer developed by IBM after the success of Compaq's suitcase-size portable machine (the Compaq Portable). It was released in February 1984, and was eventually replaced by the IBM Convertible.
The Portable was an XT motherboard, transplanted into a Compaq-style luggable case. The system featured 256 kilobytes of memory (expandable to 512 KB), an added CGA card connected to an internal monochrome (amber) composite monitor, and one or two half-height 5.25" 360 KB floppy disk drives. Unlike the Compaq Portable, which used a dual-mode monitor and special display card, IBM used a stock CGA board and a composite monitor, which had lower resolution. It could however, display color if connected to an external monitor or television.
AT [ edit ]
The "IBM Personal Computer/AT" (model 5170), announced August 15, 1984, used an Intel 80286 processor, originally running at 6 MHz. It had a 16-bit ISA bus and 20 MB hard drive. A faster model, running at 8 MHz and sporting a 30-megabyte hard disk[129] was introduced in 1986.[130]
The AT was designed to support multitasking; the new SysRq (system request) key, little noted and often overlooked, is part of this design, as is the 80286 itself, the first Intel 16-bit processor with multitasking features (i.e. the 80286 protected mode). IBM made some attempt at marketing the AT as a multi-user machine, but it sold mainly as a faster PC for power users. For the most part, IBM PC/ATs were used as more powerful DOS (single-tasking) personal computers, in the literal sense of the PC name.
Early PC/ATs were plagued with reliability problems, in part because of some software and hardware incompatibilities, but mostly related to the internal 20 MB hard disk, and High Density Floppy Disk Drive.[131]
While some people blamed IBM's hard disk controller card and others blamed the hard disk manufacturer Computer Memories Inc. (CMI), the IBM controller card worked fine with other drives, including CMI's 33-MB model. The problems introduced doubt about the computer and, for a while, even about the 286 architecture in general, but after IBM replaced the 20 MB CMI drives, the PC/AT proved reliable and became a lasting industry standard.
IBM AT's Drive parameter table listed the CMI-33 as having 615 cylinders instead of the 640 the drive was designed with, as to make the size an even 30 MB. Those who re-used the drives mostly found that the 616th cylinder was bad due to it being used as a landing area.
The "IBM Personal Computer AT/370" was an AT with two custom 16-bit cards, running almost exactly the same setup as the XT/370.
Convertible [ edit ]
The IBM PC Convertible, released April 3, 1986, was IBM's first laptop computer and was also the first IBM computer to utilize the 3.5" floppy disk which went on to become the standard. Like modern laptops, it featured power management and the ability to run from batteries. It was the follow-up to the IBM Portable and was model number 5140. The concept and the design of the body was made by the German industrial designer Richard Sapper.
It utilized an Intel 80c88 CPU (a CMOS version of the Intel 8088) running at 4.77 MHz, 256 kB of RAM (expandable to 640 kB), dual 720 kB 3.5" floppy drives, and a monochrome CGA-compatible LCD screen at a price of $2,000. It weighed 13 pounds (5.9 kg) and featured a built-in carrying handle.
The PC Convertible had expansion capabilities through a proprietary ISA bus-based port on the rear of the machine. Extension modules, including a small printer and a video output module, could be snapped into place. The machine could also take an internal modem, but there was no room for an internal hard disk.
Next-generation IBM PS/2 [ edit ]
The IBM PS/2 line was introduced in 1987. The Model 30 at the bottom end of the lineup was very similar to earlier models; it used an 8086 processor and an ISA bus. The Model 30 was not "IBM compatible" in that it did not have standard 5.25-inch drive bays; it came with a 3.5-inch floppy drive and optionally a 3.5-inch-sized hard disk. Most models in the PS/2 line further departed from "IBM compatible" by replacing the ISA bus completely with Micro Channel Architecture. The MCA bus was not received well by the customer base for PC's, since it was proprietary to IBM. It was rarely implemented by any of the other PC-compatible makers. Eventually IBM would abandon this architecture entirely and return to the standard ISA bus.
Technology [ edit ]
Electronics [ edit ]
Original IBM Personal Computer motherboard, IBM 5150. It has five expansion slots (an interface later called "PC/XT-bus" by IBM and "8-bit ISA " by other manufacturers of compatible computers), and two DIN connectors for keyboard and cassette interface.
The main circuit board in a PC is called the motherboard (IBM terminology calls it a planar). This mainly carries the CPU and RAM, and has a bus with slots for expansion cards. Also on the motherboard are the ROM subsystem, DMA and IRQ controllers, coprocessor socket, sound (PC speaker, tone generation) circuitry, and keyboard interface. The original PC also has a cassette interface.
The bus used in the original PC became very popular, and it was subsequently named ISA. While it was popular, it was more commonly known as the PC-bus or XT-bus; the term ISA arose later when industry leaders chose to continue manufacturing machines based on the IBM PC AT architecture rather than license the PS/2 architecture and its Micro Channel bus from IBM. The XT-bus was then retroactively named 8-bit ISA or XT ISA, while the unqualified term ISA usually refers to the 16-bit AT-bus (as better defined in the ISA specifications). The AT-bus is an extension of the PC-/XT-bus and is in use to this day in computers for industrial use, where its relatively low speed, 5 volt signals, and relatively simple, straightforward design (all by year 2011 standards) give it technical advantages (e.g. noise immunity for reliability).
Quadram Quadboard.
A monitor and any floppy or hard disk drives are connected to the motherboard through cables connected to graphics adapter and disk controller cards, respectively, installed in expansion slots. Each expansion slot on the motherboard has a corresponding opening in the back of the computer case through which the card can expose connectors; a blank metal cover plate covers this case opening (to prevent dust and debris intrusion and control airflow) when no expansion card is installed. Memory expansion beyond the amount installable on the motherboard was also done with boards installed in expansion slots, and I/O devices such as parallel, serial, or network ports were likewise installed as individual expansion boards. For this reason, it was easy to fill the five expansion slots of the PC, or even the eight slots of the XT, even without installing any special hardware. Companies like Quadram and AST addressed this with their popular multi-I/O cards which combine several peripherals on one adapter card that uses only one slot; Quadram offered the QuadBoard and AST the SixPak.
Intel 8086 and 8088-based PCs require expanded memory (EMS) boards to work with more than 640 kB of memory. (Though the 8088 can address one megabyte of memory, the last 384 kB of that is used or reserved for the BIOS ROM, BASIC ROM, extension ROMs installed on adapter cards, and memory address space used by devices including display adapter RAM and even the 64 kB EMS page frame itself.) The original IBM PC AT used an Intel 80286 processor which can access up to 16 MB of memory (though standard DOS applications cannot use more than one megabyte without using additional APIs). Intel 80286-based computers running under OS/2 can work with the maximum memory.
Peripheral integrated circuits [ edit ]
The set of peripheral chips selected for the original IBM PC defined the functionality of an IBM compatible. These became the de facto base for later application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) used in compatible products.
The original system chips were one Intel 8259 programmable interrupt controller (PIC) (at I/O address 0x20), one Intel 8237 direct memory access (DMA) controller (at I/O address 0x00), and an Intel 8253 programmable interval timer (PIT) (at I/O address 0x40). The PIT provides the 18.2 Hz clock ticks, dynamic memory refresh timing, and can be used for speaker output;[132] one DMA channel is used to perform the memory refresh.
The mathematics coprocessor was the Intel 8087 using I/O address 0xF0. This was an option for users who needed extensive floating-point arithmetic, such as users of computer-aided drafting.
The IBM PC AT added a second, slave 8259 PIC (at I/O address 0xA0), a second 8237 DMA controller for 16-bit DMA (at I/O address 0xC0), a DMA address register (implemented with a 74LS612 IC) (at I/O address 0x80),[133] and a Motorola MC146818 real-time clock (RTC) with nonvolatile memory (NVRAM) used for system configuration (replacing the DIP switches and jumpers used for this purpose in PC and PC/XT models (at I/O address 0x70).[134] On expansion cards, the Intel 8255 programmable peripheral interface (PPI) (at I/O addresses 0x378 is used for parallel I/O controls the printer,[135] and the 8250 universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) (at I/O address 0x3F8 or 0x3E8) controls the serial communication at the (pseudo-)[136] RS-232 port.
Joystick port [ edit ]
IBM offered a Game Control Adapter for the PC,[60] which supported analog joysticks similar to those on the Apple II. Although analog controls proved inferior for arcade-style games, they were an asset in certain other genres such as flight simulators. The joystick port on the IBM PC supported two controllers, but required a Y-splitter cable to connect both at once. It remained the standard joystick interface on IBM compatibles until being replaced by USB during the 2000s.
Keyboard [ edit ]
The original keyboard for the IBM 5150 and XT
The keyboard that came with the IBM 5150 was an extremely reliable and high-quality electronic keyboard originally developed in North Carolina for the Datamaster.[46] Each key was rated to be reliable to over 100 million keystrokes. For the IBM PC, a separate keyboard housing was designed with a novel usability feature that allowed users to adjust the keyboard angle for personal comfort. Compared with the keyboards of other small computers at the time, the IBM PC keyboard was far superior and played a significant role in establishing a high-quality impression. For example, the industrial design of the adjustable keyboard, together with the system unit, was recognized with a major design award.[53] Byte magazine in the fall of 1981 went so far as to state that the keyboard was 50% of the reason to buy an IBM PC. The importance of the keyboard was definitely established when the 1983 IBM PCjr flopped, in very large part for having a much different and mediocre Chiclet keyboard that made a poor impression on customers. Oddly enough, the same thing almost happened to the original IBM PC when in early 1981 management seriously considered substituting a cheaper and lower quality keyboard. This mistake was narrowly avoided on the advice of one of the original development engineers.
However, the original 1981 IBM PC 83-key keyboard was criticized by typists for its non-standard placement of the Return and left ⇧ Shift keys, and because it did not have separate cursor and numeric pads that were popular on the pre-PC DEC VT100 series video terminals. In 1982, Key Tronic introduced a 101-key PC keyboard, albeit not with the now-familiar layout. In 1984, IBM corrected the Return and left ⇧ Shift keys on its AT keyboard, but shortened the Backspace key, making it harder to reach. In 1986, IBM introduced the 101 key Enhanced Keyboard, which added the separate cursor and numeric key pads, relocated all the function keys and the Ctrl keys, and the Esc key was also relocated to the opposite side of the keyboard. The Enhanced Keyboard was an option for the PC XT/AT in 1986, both of which were also available with their original keyboards, and introduced the key layout that's still the industry standard.
Another feature of the original keyboard is the relatively loud "click" sound each key made when pressed. Since typewriter users were accustomed to keeping their eyes on the hardcopy they were typing from and had come to rely on the mechanical sound that was made as each character was typed onto the paper to ensure that they had pressed the key hard enough (and only once), the PC keyboard used a keyswitch that produced a click and tactile bump intended to provide that same reassurance.
The IBM PC keyboard is very robust and flexible. The low-level interface for each key is the same: each key sends a signal when it is pressed and another signal when it is released. An integrated microcontroller in the keyboard scans the keyboard and encodes a "scan code" and "release code" for each key as it is pressed and released separately. Any key can be used as a shift key, and a large number of keys can be held down simultaneously and separately sensed. The controller in the keyboard handles typematic operation, issuing periodic repeat scan codes for a depressed key and then a single release code when the key is finally released.
An "IBM PC compatible" may have a keyboard that does not recognize every key combination a true IBM PC does, such as shifted cursor keys. In addition, the "compatible" vendors sometimes used proprietary keyboard interfaces, preventing the keyboard from being replaced.
Although the PC/XT and AT used the same style of keyboard connector, the low-level protocol for reading the keyboard was different between these two series. The AT keyboard uses a bidirectional interface which allows the computer to send commands to the keyboard. An AT keyboard could not be used in an XT, nor the reverse. Third-party keyboard manufacturers provided a switch on some of their keyboards to select either the AT-style or XT-style protocol for the keyboard.
Character set [ edit ]
The original IBM PC used the 7-bit ASCII alphabet as its basis, but extended it to 8 bits with nonstandard character codes. This character set was not suitable for some international applications, and soon a veritable cottage industry emerged providing variants of the original character set in various national variants. In IBM tradition, these variants were called code pages. These codings are now obsolete, having been replaced by more systematic and standardized forms of character coding, such as ISO 8859-1, Windows-1251 and Unicode. The original character set is known as code page 437.
Storage media [ edit ]
Cassette tape [ edit ]
IBM equipped the model 5150 with a cassette port for connecting a cassette drive and assumed that home users would purchase the low-end model and save files to cassette tapes as was typical of home computers of the time. However, adoption of the floppy- and monitor-less configuration was low; few (if any) IBM PCs left the factory without a floppy disk drive installed. Also, DOS was not available on cassette tape, only on floppy disks (hence "Disk Operating System"). 5150s with just external cassette recorders for storage could only use the built-in ROM BASIC as their operating system. As DOS saw increasing adoption, the incompatibility of DOS programs with PCs that used only cassettes for storage made this configuration even less attractive. The ROM BIOS supported cassette operations.
The IBM PC cassette interface encodes data using frequency modulation with a variable data rate. Either a one or a zero is represented by a single cycle of a square wave, but the square wave frequencies differ by a factor of two, with ones having the lower frequency. Therefore, the bit periods for zeros and ones also differ by a factor of two, with the unusual effect that a data stream with more zeros than ones will use less tape (and time) than an equal-length (in bits) data stream containing more ones than zeros, or equal numbers of each.
IBM also had an exclusive license agreement with Microsoft to include BASIC in the ROM of the PC; clone manufacturers could not have ROM BASIC on their machines, but it also became a problem as the XT, AT, and PS/2 eliminated the cassette port and IBM was still required to install the (now useless) BASIC with them. The agreement finally expired in 1991 when Microsoft replaced BASICA/GW-BASIC with QBASIC. The main core BASIC resided in ROM and "linked" up with the RAM-resident BASIC.COM/BASICA.COM included with PC-DOS (they provided disk support and other extended features not present in ROM BASIC). Because BASIC was over 50 kB in size, this served a useful function during the first three years of the PC when machines only had 64–128 kB of memory, but became less important by 1985. For comparison, clone makers such as Compaq were forced to include a version of BASIC that resided entirely in RAM.
Floppy diskettes [ edit ]
Tandon 5.25-inch Diskette Drive with a partially inserted double-density diskette containing DOS 1.1.
The first IBM 5150 PCs had two 5.25-inch 160 KiB single sided double density (SSDD) floppy disk drives. As two heads drives became available in the spring of 1982, later IBM PC and compatible computers could read 320 KiB double sided double density (DSDD) disks with software support of MS-DOS 1.25 and higher. The same type of physical diskette media could be used for both drives but a disk formatted for double-sided use could not be read on a single-sided drive. PC-DOS 2.0 added support for 180 KiB and 360 KiB SSDD and DSDD floppy disks, using the same physical media again.
The disks were Modified Frequency Modulation (MFM) coded in 512-byte sectors, and were soft-sectored.[137] They contained 40 tracks per side at the 48 track per inch (TPI) density,[138] and initially were formatted to contain eight sectors per track. This meant that SSDD disks initially had a formatted capacity of 160 kB,[139] while DSDD disks had a capacity of 320 kB.[140] However, the PC-DOS 2.0 and later operating systems allowed formatting the disks with nine sectors per track. This yielded a formatted capacity of 180 kB with SSDD disks/drives,[141] and 360 kB with DSDD disks/drives.[142] The unformatted capacity of the floppy disks was advertised as "250KB" for SSDD and "500KB" for DSDD ("KB" ambiguously referring to either 1000 or 1024 bytes; essentially the same for rounded-off values), however these "raw" 250/500 kB were not the same thing as the usable formatted capacity; under DOS, the maximum capacity for SSDD and DSDD disks was 180 kB and 360 kB, respectively. Regardless of type, the file system of all floppy disks (under DOS) was FAT12.
After the upgraded 64k-256k motherboard PCs arrived in early 1983, single-sided drives and the cassette model were discontinued.
IBM's original floppy disk controller card also included an external 37-pin D-shell connector. This allowed users to connect additional external floppy drives by third party vendors, but IBM did not offer their own external floppies until 1986.
The industry-standard way of setting floppy drive numbers was via setting jumper switches on the drive unit, however IBM chose to instead use a method known as the "cable twist" which had a floppy data cable with a bend in the middle of it that served as a switch for the drive motor control. This eliminated the need for users to adjust jumpers while installing a floppy drive.
Fixed disks [ edit ]
The 5150 could not itself power hard drives without retrofitting a stronger power supply, but IBM later offered the 5161 Expansion Unit, which not only provided more expansion slots, but also included a 10 MB (later 20 MB) hard drive powered by the 5161's own separate 130-watt power supply. The IBM 5161 Expansion Unit was released in early 1983.
During the first year of the IBM PC, it was commonplace for users to install third-party Winchester hard disks which generally connected to the floppy controller and required a patched version of PC-DOS which treated them as a giant floppy disk (there was no subdirectory support).
IBM began offering hard disks with the XT, however the original PC was never sold with them. Nonetheless, many users installed hard disks and upgraded power supplies in them.
After floppy disks became obsolete in the early 2000s, the letters A and B became unused. But for 25 years, virtually all DOS-based PC software assumed the program installation drive was C, so the primary HDD continues to be "the C drive" even today. Other operating system families (e.g. Unix) are not bound to these designations.
OS support [ edit ]
IBM Disk Operating System version 1.1 by Microsoft
Which operating system IBM customers would choose was at first unclear.[81][23] Although the company expected that most would use PC DOS[48] IBM supported using CP/M-86—which became available six months after DOS[143]—or UCSD p-System as operating systems.[60] IBM promised that it would not favor one operating system over the others; the CP/M-86 support surprised Gates, who claimed that IBM was "blackmailed into it".[81] IBM was correct, nonetheless, in its expectation; one survey found that 96.3% of PCs were ordered with the $40 DOS compared to 3.4% for the $240 CP/M-86.[144]
The IBM PC's ROM BASIC and BIOS supported cassette tape storage. PC DOS itself did not support cassette tape storage. PC DOS version 1.00 supported only 160 kB SSDD floppies, but version 1.1, which was released nine months after the PC's introduction, supported 160 kB SSDD and 320 kB DSDD floppies. Support for the slightly larger nine sector per track 180 kB and 360 kB formats arrived 10 months later in March 1983.
BIOS [ edit ]
The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) provided the core ROM code for the PC. It contained a library of functions that software could call for basic tasks such as video output, keyboard input, and disk access in addition to interrupt handling, loading the operating system on boot-up, and testing memory and other system components.
The original IBM PC BIOS was 8k in size and occupied four 2k ROM chips on the motherboard, with a fifth and sixth empty slot left for any extra ROMs the user wished to install. IBM offered three different BIOS revisions during the PC's lifespan. The initial BIOS was dated April 1981 and came on the earliest models with single-sided floppy drives and PC DOS 1.00. The second version was dated October 1981 and arrived on the "Revision B" models sold with double-sided drives and PC DOS 1.10. It corrected some bugs, but was otherwise unchanged. Finally, the third BIOS version was dated October 1982 and found on all IBM PCs with the newer 64k-256k motherboard. This revision was more-or-less identical to the XT's BIOS. It added support for detecting ROMs on expansion cards as well as the ability to use 640k of memory (the earlier BIOS revisions had a limit of 544k). Unlike the XT, the original PC remained functionally unchanged from 1983 until its discontinuation in early 1987 and did not get support for 101-key keyboards or 3.5" floppy drives, nor was it ever offered with half-height floppies.
Video output [ edit ]
IBM initially offered two video adapters for the PC, the Color/Graphics Adapter and the Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter. CGA was intended to be a typical home computer display; it had NTSC output and could be connected to a composite monitor or a TV set with an RF modulator in addition to RGB for digital RGBI-type monitors, although IBM did not offer their own RGB monitor until 1983. Supported graphics modes were 40 or 80×25 color text with 8×8 character resolution, 320×200 bitmap graphics with two fixed 4-color palettes, or 640×200 monochrome graphics.
The MDA card and its companion 5151 monitor supported only 80×25 text with a 9×14 character resolution (total pixel resolution was 720×350). It was mainly intended for the business market and so also included a printer port.
During 1982, the first third-party video card for the PC appeared when Hercules Computer Technologies released a clone of the MDA that could use bitmap graphics. Although not supported by the BIOS, the Hercules Graphics Adapter became extremely popular for business use due to allowing sharp, high resolution graphics plus text and itself was widely cloned by other manufacturers.
In 1985, after the launch of the IBM AT, the new Enhanced Graphics Adapter became available which could support 320×200 or 640×200 in 16 colors in addition to high-resolution 640×350 16 color graphics.
IBM also offered a video board for the PC, XT, and AT known as the Professional Graphics Adapter during 1984–86, mainly intended for CAD design. It was extremely expensive, required a special monitor, and was rarely ordered by customers.
VGA graphics cards could also be installed in IBM PCs and XTs, although they were introduced after the computer's discontinuation.
Serial port addresses and interrupts [ edit ]
The serial port is an 8250 or a derivative (such as the 16450 or 16550), mapped to eight consecutive IO addresses and one interrupt request line.
COM port IRQ Base port address [Hex] COM1 IRQ4 3F8 COM2 IRQ3 2F8 COM3 IRQ4 3E8 COM4 IRQ3 2E8
Only COM1: and COM2: addresses were defined by the original PC. Attempts to share IRQ3 and IRQ4 to use additional ports require special measures in hardware and software, since shared IRQs were not defined in the original PC design. The most typical devices plugged into the serial port were modems and mice. Plotters and serial printers were also among the more commonly used serial peripherals, and there were numerous other more unusual uses such as operating cash registers, factory equipment, and connecting terminals.[citation needed]
Printer port [ edit ]
IBM made a deal with Japan-based Epson to produce printers for the PC and all IBM-branded printers were manufactured by that company (Epson of course also sold printers with their own name). There was a considerable amount of controversy when IBM included a printer port on the PC that did not follow the industry-standard Centronics design, and it was rumored that this had been done to prevent customers from using non-Epson/IBM printers with their machines (plugging a Centronics printer into an IBM PC could damage the printer, the parallel port, or both). Although third-party cards were available with Centronics ports on them, PC clones quickly copied the IBM printer port and by the late 80s, it had largely displaced the Centronics standard.
Reception [ edit ]
BYTE wrote in October 1981 that the IBM PC's "hardware is impressive, but even more striking are two decisions made by IBM: to use outside suppliers already established in the microcomputer industry, and to provide information and assistance to independent, small-scale software writers and manufacturers of peripheral devices". It praised the "smart" hardware design and stated that its price was not much higher than the 8-bit machines from Apple and others. The reviewer admitted that the computer "came as a shock. I expected that the giant would stumble by overestimating or underestimating the capabilities the public wants and stubbornly insisting on incompatibility with the rest of the microcomputer world. But IBM didn't stumble at all; instead, the giant jumped leagues in front of the competition ... the only disappointment about the IBM Personal Computer is its dull name".[60]
In a more detailed review in January 1982, BYTE called the IBM PC "a synthesis of the best the microcomputer industry has offered to date ... as well designed on the inside as it is on the outside". The magazine praised the keyboard as "bar none, the best ... on any microcomputer", describing the unusual Shift key locations as "minor [problems] compared to some of the gigantic mistakes made on almost every other microcomputer keyboard". The review also complimented IBM's manuals, which it predicted "will set the standard for all microcomputer documentation in the future. Not only are they well packaged, well organized, and easy to understand, but they are also complete". Observing that detailed technical information was available "much earlier ... than it has been for other machines", the magazine predicted that "given a reasonable period of time, plenty of hardware and software will probably be developed for" the computer. The review stated that although the IBM PC cost more than comparably configured Apple II and TRS-80 computers, and the insufficient number of slots for all desirable expansion cards was its most serious weakness, "you get a lot more for your money" and concluded, "In two years or so, I think [it] will be one of the most popular and best-supported ... IBM should be proud of the people who designed it".[62]
In a special 1984 issue dedicated to the IBM PC, BYTE concluded that the PC had succeeded both because of its features like an 80-column screen, open architecture, and high-quality keyboard, and "the failure of other major companies to provide these same fundamental features earlier. In retrospect, it seems IBM stepped into a void that remained, paradoxically, at the center of a crowded market".[108]
Longevity [ edit ]
Many IBM PCs have remained in service long after their technology became largely obsolete. In June 2006, IBM PC and XT models were still in use at the majority of U.S. National Weather Service upper-air observing sites, used to process data as it is returned from the ascending radiosonde, attached to a weather balloon, although they have been slowly phased out. Factors that have contributed to the 5150 PC's longevity are its flexible modular design, its open technical standard (making information needed to adapt, modify, and repair it readily available), use of few special nonstandard parts, and rugged high-standard IBM manufacturing, which provided for exceptional long-term reliability and durability.
Some of the mechanical aspects of the slot specifications are still used in current PCs. A few systems still come with PS/2 style keyboard and mouse connectors.
Collectability [ edit ]
The IBM model 5150 Personal Computer has become a collectable among vintage computer collectors, due to the system being the first true “PC” as we know them today. As of 2007 , the system had a market value of $50–$500.[145] The IBM model 5150 has proven to be reliable; despite their age of 30 years or more, some still function as they did when new.[146]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Cited references
General references
Norton, Peter (1986). Inside the IBM PC. Revised and enlarged . New York. Brady. ISBN 0-89303-583-1.
. New York. Brady. ISBN 0-89303-583-1. August 12, 1981 press release announcing the IBM PC (PDF format).
Mueller, Scott (1992). Upgrading and Repairing PCs, Second Edition , Que Books, ISBN 0-88022-856-3
, Que Books, ISBN 0-88022-856-3 Chposky, James; Ted Leonsis (1988). Blue Magic - The People, Power and Politics Behind the IBM Personal Computer . Facts On File. ISBN 0-8160-1391-8.
IBM (1983). Personal Computer Hardware Reference Library: Guide to Operations, Personal Computer XT . IBM Part Number 6936831.
. IBM Part Number 6936831. IBM (1984). Personal Computer Hardware Reference Library: Guide to Operations, Portable Personal Computer . IBM Part Numbers 6936571 and 1502332.
. IBM Part Numbers 6936571 and 1502332. IBM (1986). Personal Computer Hardware Reference Library: Guide to Operations, Personal Computer XT Model 286 . IBM Part Number 68X2523.
. IBM Part Number 68X2523. This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.
Further reading [ edit ] |
Sara McClellan
twitter.com/worldneedshope
For some people, uncertainty and loss can be debilitating. For Sara McClellan, she chose to turn hard times into a positive message anyone can benefit from, by writing and self-publishing the recently released book, The World Needs Hope. The 36-year-old Gilbert resident, with about 20 years of professional writing experience, crafted 19 chapters of how hope can be interpreted, with a desire to inspire readers to integrate hope more into their own lives. The book also features art by 20 contributors, all who have lived in Arizona, who visually showed what hope means to them. In addition to writing and editing a blog related to the book at www.theworldneedshope.com, McClellan will be releasing book-related merchandise starting Thursday, January 31. She talked about her inspiration for the book, what she hopes people take away from it, and why she loves living in the Valley, below.
What brought you to Arizona?
My father was relocated for a job, so we moved in high school, having never been in Arizona. My grandparents were here, and it was an opportunity to start completely fresh in a new climate. I was born in Wisconsin.
When did you first get the idea for The World Needs Hope?
I first got the idea for the book more than a decade ago, around the transition of y2k. Everyone was in this state of distress, and they were all fearing what the world might bring. The moment after 2000 came, there was this wave of relaxation, and people kind of surrendered and embraced hope. Seeing people refocus their lives got my attention, and I started thinking about how powerful hope was. Through a lot of trials and the loss of family members, I was able to refine the principles of hope and how you have to climb out of a very dark place sometimes to redefine your life. The book was a gradual process over the years.
How did the book evolve since you first conceived it?
I was experiencing the world as I was creating the book. Chapters would come based on what I was going through — for example, the chapter on healing came after I lost my father. The chapter on acceptance came when I had to redefine my personal character in this world. Sometimes, there would be months where the writing just flowed, and then there would be months where I’d have a great life experience or travel. I came to an understanding that the book needed to be written through that time so I could see the world through the eyes of other people.
I started doing grief facilitation because I really wanted to share the level of compassion that I had harnessed, and I wanted to understand these levels of how people find hope in their lives and what it means to them. People think of hope as this unrealistically optimistic Pollyanna principle. Hope is what you need when things are going horribly, and there are challenges. The 19th chapter, Surrender, was actually my biggest accomplishment of the book, because it was such a lesson to me that surrender is not giving up. It’s accepting the world and focusing your energy in a more positive way. It comes with a certain ability to say that you don’t have to be in control of everything, but you can still make wise choices.
Why did you decide to include contributors in the book?
I’d be talking to people, and I’d watch them visualize hope in their minds, and I was curious about what they were thinking. I also found myself developing kindred friendships with different creatives, and, often, their primary form of expression is a visual medium. So, I could achieve the most sincere form of their stories by giving them the opportunity to put what hope meant to them into sculpture, painting, photography. I realized in the last year I didn’t want my voice to be the only voice, but to show that hope should be a community, and when you look at it from any angle, you can find something meaningful.
What was the writing process like for you?
Every day was a surprise. There are moments when the muse smiles on you, and everything flows, and then there are moments when you’re on a completely different continent. I have this idea with writing that, when things are flowing, whether you’ve got a napkin or a notepad, you’ve got to be open to capturing it, even by using voice memos or scribbles. I didn’t do a whole lot of editing in the beginning — it was more stream of consciousness.
How did you decide how to organize the book?
I wrote the chapters in exactly the order they’re in now, almost like a fingerprint to my journey and my life. The hardest part was writing about myself and making sure my message at the end of the book was sincere and as moving as I wanted it to be. The themes came up over time — sometimes I’d wait for the universe to tell me what those next chapters were going to be and let the circumstances influence me. I’m a very curious soul, so seeing it come to life in that way was very fun.
What do you hope people take away from the book?
I hope people love themselves. Hope is such a crucial thing in this world. It’s one of the few things that can’t be taken away from you. If you look around the world, and you have a hopeful perspective, your way of treating people is better, and your quality of living is better. I believe we can then open ourselves up to be the best, most creative, most fulfilled versions of who we are. Having seen people in a state of grief and trial, there is nothing more powerful than seeing the day when hope comes home again.
Did writing the book help you cope with losing your dad?
My father was a mentor, a best friend, my cheering section. He was one of the most amazing people you would have ever met, very giving — he would take the shirt off of his back, and then some. In 2004, he died very suddenly of a heart attack while I was on a ski trip, and I didn’t get to say good-bye. I think by writing, we have a chance to vocalize what we’re not always able to in person. Through the book, I also was able to remember I’m his daughter, and there’s a certain strength in the ability to stand and say, “Yes! This is who I stand for, and this is who I am!”
I can genuinely stand next to someone who’s having a hard time and say, “I know what the darkness feels like. I know what it is to question how easy it is to get out of bed. I know what it is to have to say good-bye to someone and to want to have a legacy for them.” I’ve lost a variety of other people along the way, my grandparents, friends to cancer, lots of other people who meant something to me, and each one has left an imprint. Each one shows up in the book in a certain way, but out of all of it, I think the book itself was both cathartic for me as a creative, and also reassuring for me as a daughter, to be able to say I did it.
What techniques would you recommend for people to become more hopeful in their lives?
I try not to prescribe hope because it’s so unique to the person, but I can tell you, hope is a choice. You can embody hope in the things you do. Some of the things I mention in the book are word choice. Using words that support and uplift can be so powerful in our lexicon. We choose to put people down, out of fear and frustration and misunderstanding. Just switching a few key words, such as “I can’t” and “I hate,” to “I love” and “I appreciate,” can open an entire door.
You can’t have a feeling of negativity if you’re holding a feeling of gratitude in your mind at that moment — they don’t coexist. I think if you’re having a hard time, and hope just doesn’t seem to be connecting with you in that moment, start writing down what it actually means to you. We don’t often think of hope as a tangible part of our lives, but it is. Hope can be as simple as, “I hope I have a great haircut,” or, “I hope the sun shines today,” or “I hope this first date goes really well.” Hope can start as small as that, and it’s like any muscle — when we find a way to bring it into our lives on a day-to-day basis, we start living it.
For those who are having an especially hard time, reaching out to others, finding out what they’re hoping for, talking about fears and moving past things that hold us back from being hopeful is incredibly important. If you’re holding woe, worry, fear, grief, frustration, and bitterness in your circle of hope, you’re not leaving room for the things that might actually propel you to that next step of happiness.
There’s nothing wrong with being content. I tell people all the time that happiness is a mood or feeling that ebbs and flows in life, but be content with the moment and really be present with what you’re experiencing, since that’s the only moment that you’re sure to have.
What are three of your biggest hopes?
My constant hope is that my family and friends stay healthy. I hope people will choose to love themselves more. Really loving and knowing yourself is the greatest of all blessings. People can’t put you down or take things away from you, and moreso, you can have such an amazing glow that people will connect with and want to be around. A general hope is that the world remembers the word “unity.” We get into an us-versus-them mentality that’s very caustic. We’re allowing it to corrode who we are, and instead of saying, “They’re different, and I want them to live by my rules,” I would much rather that people band together and think of ways they’re similar and how they can help each other. We do feel mutual pain and mutual happiness, and we’re connected more than we allow.
How would you advise people cope with disappointment?
Setbacks are natural. Every single day, I have to choicefully decide hope is the direction I want to go in. We all have bad days, we all have really rough spots. We meet unfortunate people. The things we’re hoping for, if it’s something that’s truly important to us, there’s no reason we can’t keep hoping. A setback, a stumbling block, being forced to take a step back, doesn’t mean that it’s failure — it just means that we sometimes have to realign with the direction we’re going in. Hope is not merely one of those principles that is forward-thinking alone. I challenge people to think that hope is right now. Journaling is a great way to do that. When you journal, you can look back and have a better perspective on your world and see hope in individual, everyday moments.
What was the book publishing process like?
For any aspiring author, I would give you two pieces of advice. One is, be patient with yourself. There is always something you didn’t realize that you didn’t know. Two, I did a lot of front-end research with other indie authors and just talked to people in the publishing world in general. 20 years ago, writers would submit huge manuscripts, pray that a publisher would look at them, and cross their fingers. Today, just like we have open source code, we have all this content that’s coming from people. Everyone has a right to publishing.
What challenges did you face as a self-published author?
The challenges I faced were really understanding how many rounds of review you have to go through, especially when you have 20 contributors who all have very different character traits. That’s a lot of coffee, that’s a lot of meetup’s, that’s a lot of review, and that’s a lot of prayers and understanding. In the creative space in general, there are a multitude of online publishing tools and virtual proofs. There are very few things in this world that are quite as impactful to an author as getting something in the mail where you see your book for the very first time. If I could still do cartwheels at my age, I would do them, but you have to be willing to know it’s not going to be perfect the first time. Marketing is a whole other avenue that takes a lot of spirit and determination.
What are your goals with the book?
This book was not a mission of fame or a monetary exercise. I’m nowhere near making money on this book at this point, which is just fine. It’s really an opportunity to spark people and inspire them to hopefully be present and compassionate. It’s available online worldwide now, but I want to physically get it into bookstores and start donating it to hospices and shelters. Another adventure for an author is to see your book in five or six different formats, such as Kindle Fire — it almost has a whole different landscape. I hope to some day have it translated to different languages.
There’s a lot of white space in the book. What was the purpose of that?
One of the reasons was to give people a space to make notes. Plus, today’s society is packed with words. We have sensory overload in every way, shape and form. One of the things I was hearing from people is, “I don’t have time to read.” When I went about writing the book 10 years ago, I wanted to make sure each of the lines could stand on its own. I didn’t want to do the standard prose, where I felt like I was simply telling my story, as a diary. I wanted to make it more approachable for people. What I’m finding from feedback from readers so far is that sometimes they’ll settle on a certain line or page, and it’ll stick with them during the day. I’d like the book to be with people like a close confidant.
Another reason is that during grief facilitation and in my own journey, I learned that you process at such a slower speed when you’re in a state of grief because you’re so overwhelmed, that often it pushed me to make sure the information is palatable in a way that allows you to work through it at a steady pace. I wanted people who are faced with a certain challenge or fear to not feel like the book is intimidating but also find meaning in each of the words.
What’s the most meaningful line to you in the book?
One of my present favorites is that hope is “to acknowledge that character-building mistakes are blended into life.” It’s to understand that mistakes are sometimes our greatest lesson and that life is that much more interesting when you don’t get it right the first time. It makes us want to try more and be better, and there’s motivation to create something beautiful, like hope for the next day, next step or next encounter.
For people who want to write a book themselves, what advice would you have for them?
Don’t edit as you go along — just write in your own voice. If something is not flowing, consider it a nice little break to go out and experience something in the interim. Life is often the best muse, and when you allow yourself to take a breather, a lot of times, that inspiration will flow back in. You should always be true to who you are, and that’s what people are going to connect with. It’s going to be true to you as a brand and as a person and will have the most meaning in the world.
Why choose to publish a hard copy book rather than just do one online?
I wanted to create something that had a tangible presence for those moments when we all need to hold hope in our hands. Also, I wanted to feature the contributing artists in a manner that honored their personal journeys.
Why would you encourage people to check out the book?
Hope is like a diamond — when you look at it from each of the facets, you see something different and brilliant, and I think the way people cultivate hope in this world is how they choose to see it. My hope for people is that as they go through the book, they’ll realize that to be a hopeful person, everything doesn’t have to be going right. They can choose, in very small ways, to make hope find a home with them. |
@bfwriter tweeted us a link to a college design student’s photograph that has gone viral. Rosea Lake posted the image to her tumblr and it struck a chord.
What I like about the image is the way it very clearly illustrates two things. First, it reveals that doing femininity doesn’t mean obeying a single, simple rule. Instead, it’s about occupying and traveling within a certain space. In this case, usually between “proper” and “flirty.” Women have to constantly figure out where in that space they’re supposed to be. Too flirty at work mean’s you won’t be taken seriously; too proper at the bar and you’re invisible. Under the right circumstances (e.g., Halloween, a funeral), you can do “cheeky” or “old fashioned.”
The second thing I like about this image is the way it shows that there is a significant price to pay for getting it wrong. It’s not just a faux pas. Once you’re “‘asking for it,” you could be a target. And, once you’re reached “prudish,” you’ve become socially irrelevant. Both violence and social marginalization are serious consequences.
And, of course, all women are going to get it wrong sometimes because the boundaries are moving targets and in the eye of the beholder. What’s cheeky in one setting or to one person is flirty in or to another. So women constantly risk getting it wrong, or getting it wrong to someone. So the consequences are always floating out there, worrying us, and sending us to the mall.
Indeed, this is why women have so many clothes! We need an all-purpose black skirt that does old fashioned, another one to do proper, and a third to do flirty… at the very least… and all in casual, business, and formal. And we need heels to go with each (stilettos = provocative, high heels = flirty, low heels = proper, etc, plus we need flats for the picnics and beach weddings etc). And we need pants that are hemmed to the right length for each of these pairs of shoes. You can’t wear black shoes with navy pants, so you’ll need to double up on all these things if you want any variety in your wardrobe. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Women’s closets are often mocked as a form of self-indulgence, shop-a-holicism, or narcissism. But this isn’t fair. Instead, if a woman is class-privileged enough, they reflect an (often unarticulated) understanding of just how complicated the rules are. If they’re not class-privileged enough, they can’t follow the rules and are punished for being, for example, “trashy” or “unprofessional.” It’s a difficult job that we impose on women and we’re all too often damned-if-we-do and damned-if-we-don’t.
Cross-posted at Business Insider and The Huffington Post. |
Treatment of depression, a common comorbidity in patients with epilepsy, is restricted as certain antidepressants are considered to be proconvulsants. In contrast, anticonvulsant effects have been reported with some antidepressants. In the present study, the effect of tianeptine, an antidepressant, was evaluated against pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced seizures, cognitive impairment and oxidative stress in rats. Tianeptine was administered in three doses (20, 40 and 80 mg/kg) 30 min before PTZ (60 mg/kg, intraperitoneally). MK801, an N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist, and naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, were administered with tianeptine to evaluate the involvement of N-methyl-D-aspartate and opioid receptors, respectively. Morris water maze, elevated plus maze and passive avoidance tests were performed for behavioural assessment. Brain malondialdehyde and reduced glutathione levels were estimated as markers of oxidative stress. Tianeptine showed dose-dependent protection against PTZ seizures. Coadministration of tianeptine with MK801 potentiated the anticonvulsant effect of tianeptine. The protective effect of tianeptine against PTZ seizures was mitigated when tianeptine was administered with naloxone. Impairment of learning and memory by PTZ was prevented by tianeptine. Tianeptine also attenuated the seizure-induced increased oxidative stress. Thus, tianeptine showed an anticonvulsant effect along with amelioration of seizure-induced cognitive impairment and oxidative stress. Hence, tianeptine could be a useful drug in epileptic patients with depression, with the advantage of having both antidepressant and antiepileptic effects. |
In Mpls., now you can use your phone to pay for parking
The city of Minneapolis is rolling out a new meterless parking payment option: the smartphone.
Customers can use the MPLS Parking app to plug in their parking-spot number and pay through their phone. They can also add more time to their meter while they're away from the parking spot. The city is testing the app out in 975 spots in the North Loop and Downtown West.
Mark Read, assistant parking manager for the city, pointed out that "more and more people are using smartphones to pay for things. It's becoming much more acceptable and this really is another way of using that phone and using that technology to allow the resident to pay for his parking."
Read said if the rollout is successful, the city will add the capability to all spots in the city this fall. Parkmobile USA, the company that built the app, says it already serves cities in 42 states. There is an extra charge; MPLS Parking app users pay an extra fee of 15 to 25 cents per transaction. |
Ted Cruz, one of the U.S. Senate’s most extreme and conspiratorial members, told sympathetic commentator David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network today that he plans to run a “positive, optimistic, hopeful” campaign for president that will stay out of the gutter.
“There may be other candidates who get down and nasty, who get personal, who go into the gutter and launch attacks. I ain’t going to be one of them, and I’m not going to reciprocate,” Cruz said, before clarifying that he does plan to “contrast” his record with that of other candidates. “The Scripture gives us guidance; the word tells us ‘you shall know them by their fruit.’”
When Brody asked the senator if he agrees with evangelicals who “believe that this is a Christian nation,” Cruz said that America was “built on Judeo-Christian values” and “built by people of faith, men and women of faith, who were fleeing persecution.” |
On Friday the Dallas News published a Q&A with Mason Crumpacker. You’ll remember Mason from an earlier post as the girl who, at the Texas Freethought meetings, asked Christopher Hitchens to recommend some books; Hitch took the time to answer her in detail.
Anyway, the piece is behind a paywall, and that ticked me off a bit, so I’ll put the whole thing up here.
You’ll want to read this, for the child is amazing. It’s hard to believe, from her answers, that she’s only nine. Whatever her parents are doing, they’re doing right (and of course her genes play a role. . . .).
* * * * *
Point Person: Our Q&A with 9-year-old Mason Crumpacker
When atheists and “freethinkers” gathered in Houston this month to hear noted atheist and author Christopher Hitchens speak, Mason Crumpacker of McKinney, who just turned 9, drew international attention by asking Hitchens a question about what books she should read. Points recently caught up with Mason and her parents to ask some questions of our own. Note: This is a longer version of the Q&A in the Oct. 30, 2011, Points section of The Dallas Morning News.
What is the difference between a freethinker, an agnostic and an atheist?
An agnostic is someone who says that they can never be sure [about God’s existence], that it’s something unprovable. And they’re right. An atheist is someone who says the same thing, but they’re probably going to go with “no.” A freethinker is somebody who thinks outside of the church.
Does a freethinker not believe in God, or just not believe in religion?
It means you don’t believe in religion. … It doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t believe in God. I don’t really believe in religion. It treats kids very badly.
How so?
When we were at the atheist convention, a man … talked about a 15-year-old who had a brain tumor, and her mom didn’t believe in modern science. So she [the child] never really got [the tumor] out. So she died. She [the mother] only believed that God would make it better.
Why did you decide to go to an atheist convention?
I thought it would be interesting to meet different freethinkers and see what they thought about the world. I just wanted to boost my intellectual curiosity.
If someone invited you to a Christian convention, or a Buddhist convention or Hari Krishna convention, would you go?
Probably. I’d like to experiment with different religions. I just like to see what they believe and see if they make sense or not.
What do you think is the role of religion in people’s understanding of right versus wrong?
Religion is a way to get their children to behave. The world is kind of scary without religion, for them because they don’t know what is going to happen.
How does a religion have to “make sense”?
If someone questions [a religious belief] and just says, how do you know this is right? The priest says: Well, it’s in the Bible, isn’t it? Everything revolves around the Bible. Some people believe that if the Bible says it, it’s true, completely true. If I do decide to believe in something, they should have further proof.
Without religion, how would children distinguish between right and wrong?
I personally think they would have their parents to guide them along the way. And if their parents were raised right, they could have an open mind, have fun and be safe.
When people went on the blogs to write about what happened between you and Christopher Hitchens, did it frighten you, considering that you live in the very religion-oriented state of Texas?
I think it’s kind of scary. Because some people can get hurt very badly over religion. That’s what happened to a lot of atheists in the United States. That’s all. Verbally and physically.
Why did you decide it was important to ask a question of Hitchens?
Because I had just found out that he was dying, and he’s a brilliant man. And I felt that his knowledge of the world shouldn’t be wasted, and that someone should continue what he started.
Where will he go when he dies?
Nowhere.
Did he answer you the way you expected to be answered?
Yes. He was very honest to me and very, very nice. I think all adults should be honest to kids with their answers and take them seriously. They’re living people, too. I especially hate when adults dumb it down for me.
Should you be treated like an adult?
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I like being taken seriously, but I’m just not ready to be an adult. I don’t want to pay taxes. I never want to do that.
So which are you, an atheist, an agnostic or a freethinker?
I wouldn’t say I’ve decided my religion yet. I’m going to kind of experiment around and see if there’s any religion I like in particular. But if I do decide to be a freethinker, the chances are very high. … I just want it all to make sense.
Is there anything that Hitchens has said or written that you don’t agree with?
I haven’t read Christopher Hitchens. I’m 9.
You used to go to a Christian school. What did you think about their lessons?
It was a Christian Montessori school. Actually, all they did was build block towers, shine mirrors and eat Chex mix. … We used to sing songs about God and Jesus and rainbows and pretty bunnies. The bunnies didn’t bother me so much.
You said you want religion to make sense. Have you ever tried looking at the teachings of the Bible and applying your own criterion: Does it make sense?
I think it’s very good to question things, for adults, children of all ages to question their beliefs and work them all out. … I personally think the story of Adam and Eve doesn’t really make sense. What proof is there of a Garden of Eden? What proof is there of God creating man and woman and giving them a tree of knowledge [whose fruit] they were not supposed to eat? It’s like saying this to a kid: OK, don’t eat the cookie on the countertop. You know what they’re going to do. They’re going to eat the cookie!
If people read this interview and tell you that you’re wrong, how would you answer them?
That people are entitled to their own beliefs. Beliefs like the Buddhists are inclined to believe that there’s a Buddha. Christians are inclined to believe that there is a Christ. And Pastafarians are allowed to believe that there is a flying spaghetti monster. I’m a pastafarianist.
Why do you think we’re here? How did we get here?
By evolution. We evolved from tiny little microscopic cells, which formatted into bigger cells, which created the first fish, who slowly evolved into lizards, who became the dinosaurs. And then [they] kind of started over again but took a different path to becoming the first mammal, which became the chimp-like creature we call Australopithecus afarensis, who slowly evolved into Homo habilis, who evolved into Homo erectus, to Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon people who slowly gave way to who we are. [She turns to her parents.] Did I do good with that? … [She then translates each into French.]
These are the kinds of questions that occupy a lot of adult thought. People might want to know: Why aren’t you busy thinking 9-year-old thoughts? Why aren’t you just enjoying your childhood?
I am enjoying my childhood. I’m kind of shocked about that. I think questioning beliefs is good for a 9-year-old, since most 9-year-olds are halfway out of the house. It’s a good time to start questioning things and questioning their beliefs and making them become good people who know a lot about the world.
When you’re not questioning your beliefs, what do you do for fun?
I like to sing, I take dancing lessons, and I also like reading. I love swimming and roller skating.
What do you like to read? Your question to Mr. Hitchens was about books.
I said I was on the seventh book of Harry Potter, and I also like The Golden Compass books by Phillip Pullman, which are kind of in response to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
You like that book?
Yes, despite all of the religious metaphors, it’s a really good story. … And when [Aslan] sacrifices himself on the stone table, that’s sort of like Jesus on the cross. I like the [Greek] Myths by Robert Graves. I also like Ali Finkel’s Rules for Girls , by Meg Cabot . She likes rules. It’s a book about a 9-year-old named Ali Finkle, where she has to go through a move, and her best friend is all against that and tries to prevent the move. … She makes up some rules. And the book is partly about … surviving.
Does man need to have rules?
Yes.
Some would argue that religion is really just a set of rules.
It sounds like worshiping to me.
It is, but it’s also a set of rules. Like the Jews, who believe you can’t eat crustaceans or cloven-hoofed animals. For Muslims, you have to pray five times a day. For Christians, some rules apply, and some don’t. Which is why I asked if religion helps people know the difference between right and wrong.
I just don’t believe that religion qualifies as a set of rules. I know that people believe in religion and trust it.
What’s the meaning of life?
The meaning of life is to learn, have fun and experience different things, about the miracle of life. Or maybe not the ‘miracle’ of life. …
Is it OK for the word “miracle” to just express the wonderment of life without it necessarily having a religious connotation?
Yes, I think so. Yes.
You found out a few years ago about Santa Claus. What did that do to your whole belief system?
I found out when I was 6 that he wasn’t real. I was crushed because if the image of Santa Claus isn’t there, then who is the person who gives you the presents? But then you eventually figure out that it’s your mom and dad who are [playing] Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy, I eventually found out about those, too.
Did that make you ask questions about God?
No. I really didn’t think about it that much when I found out about Santa Claus.
This Q&A was conducted, edited and condensed by editorial writer Tod Robberson. His email address is [email protected]. Mason Crumpacker can be reached via [email protected]. |
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Carol Long took advantage of her state's friendly business climate by opening up Parkway Restaurant in Rapid City, S.D., nearly 25 years ago -- and she hasn't looked back.
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Aside from the physical beauty of Long's location, she appreciates the support she gets from her state's government as a small business owner.
"It's just a fair state with taxes," Long said. "Nobody has gotten the greedy end yet, I think that's why it’s a good place to live and work."
South Dakota has no income-based taxes, capital gains taxes or corporate income taxes, which is why it should come as no surprise that it was ranked as this year's best tax environment for small business owners, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council’s Business Tax Index for 2011.
The index, which ranks the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, pulls together 18 different tax measures and combines them into one tax score that allows them to be compared with one another. Among the taxes included are income, capital gains, property, death/inheritance, unemployment, and various consumption-based taxes, including state gas and diesel levies.
According to the 2011 index, the 10 best states for small businesses this year starting with the top were: South Dakota, Texas, Nevada, Wyoming, Washington, Florida, Alabama, Alaska, Ohio and Colorado.
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The bottom 10 states, beginning with the worst were: the District of Columbia, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Iowa, Maine, California, Vermont, Hawaii and Rhode Island.
SBE Council Chief Economist Raymond Keating said many of the lowest-ranking states need to make substantive changes in their tax policy in order to be more inviting toward investors and small business owners.
"When you get down to those states at the bottom, they have to do so many things wrong to rank that poorly, and that is the problem," Keating said. "They're so far gone."
Even small changes like letting temporary tax surcharges in states like New Jersey, North Carolina and California, although attractive, were not enough to outweigh the negatives in those states, he said.
Illinois saw the largest drop on the index this year, according to Keating, which fell to 37 from 18 in 2010. The state passed a personal income tax increase of 66% to 5%, and corporate rates jumped 46% to 7%. Lawmakers passed the heavily-criticized measures to help ease the state’s budget deficit.
"They passed a huge tax increase, and that dragged them down big time," Keating said. "Government is looking for any way to try and close the gap in state budgets whether it makes sense or not."
On the flip side, states that ranked as the most business friendly remain competitive for attracting entrepreneurs due to their low tax rates.
"It’s a huge competitive advantage for them," Keating said.
Fatima Popal, owner of Café Bonaparte in Washington, D.C., since 2003, said the District's high food and drink tax, which currently sits at 10%, deters customers.
"It scares a lot of customers," Popal said. "They tend to tip out less, because that is a big chunk for them. Even if the service is great, they will probably tip lower. That hurts the staff as well."
The sales tax at 5.75% is also harmful to small business owners’ bottom line, she said, and is ironic in itself.
"The more you sell, the more you are taxed," Popal said. "It's always difficult."
Keating said he is hopeful that states which increased taxes for small business owners will see the error of their legislation, and work to become more business friendlys.
"There are states that recognize the impact taxes have on entrepreneurs, but too often it's very short-sighted and they are just looking to plug some gaps," he said. |
We know that there are already 3D printed hips and knees in use in the medical field, but it takes a story like this one to really bring home the idea of how this technology changes lives. 5-year-old [Liam] is missing parts of his right hand, and this open-source prosthetic hand has given him a jolt of increased function. The video clip after the break shows him on the third day with the device. He’s practicing picking up coins from a stack using the hand. Just $150 in parts, combined with the hard work and good nature of the developers, made this possible.
The design is available on Thingiverse. In addition to the 3D printed parts the prosthesis uses off-the-shelf hardware store items like bungee cord and fasteners. The tips of each finger and the thumb are given some flex and grip by covering each with a rubber thimble.
We love seeing this life-changing technology wielded by basement and garage hackers. Another great example is this scratch-built leg from last May.
[Thanks Chris via Popular Science] |
Woah, you say. Jesus? And Trump?
Before you wrinkle your brow in disapproval and disgust, let me agree. Yes, there are differences. Jesus was a chaste man who died a horrible death when he was thirty-three years old. Donald Trump is, to put it mildly, a rather unchaste man who is coming on seventy. Jesus was the perfect Palestinian Jew who preached of a spiritual kingdom existing in people’s hearts. Donald Trump, with a personal life very much on the wrong side of perfect, is running for the presidency of one of the world’s superpowers.
And yet, their communication style is incredibly similar. Across a vast breadth of cultures and separated by an extensive length of time, they rather fascinatingly seem to be using the same techniques of persuasion and communication.
Jesus was perhaps the greatest communicator ever. His words and sayings and riddles have burrowed themselves into the languages and consciousnesses. Donald Trump has uncannily been able to communicate over the heads of a media and elite (both secular and religious) who despise him, and seemingly discard heaps of political convention because he’s figured out a way to communicate outside the filters.
In what ways are their techniques similar? Let’s just take a look at a few.
Stories. Stories are much more powerful than arguments. They allow the speaker to incorporate emotion, which makes the points easy rememberable. Stories can be packed with buckets of meaning. No one was a better story teller than Jesus. His stories of the good samaritan, the shrewed manager who deceives his boss, the prodigal son, or the rich man begging Lazarus for a drink of water in hell have held people’s fascination for centuries.
When I first started listening to Trump’s speeches, I was struck by the stories he told. One of his favorite stories is the apocryphal story of the general in the Philippines using drastic measures to fight his terrorist enemies hundred years ago. Through the description of the graphic punishment the general metes out Trump conveys one of the most important general principles of his governing philosophy; the importance of implementing politically incorrect solutions to solve problems. Another of Trump’s favorite stories is building the ice-rink in New York city under budget and ahead of schedule.
2. Using simple words. Pundits like to deride Trump for speaking at a fourth grader level. Most of the words he uses are single syllable words. Think of Jesus’s stories for a moment. They were also about very simple, every day things, using simple words that everyone was familiar with. Pennies, cups, hills, roads, doors. Very abstract ideas about the kingdom of heaven were conveyed in language that was accessible to all.
Simple words have more emotive value. All great communicators in history have recognized this. In addition there is such a thing psychologists call cognitive fluency — a preference to accept and agree with something because it is easy to understand.
3. Insults. Contrary to the stereotype of Jesus as a mild pushover who was worried about offending anybody, it seems from the gospel that Jesus was pretty generous in his insults. One can’t think of the Pharisees without Jesus’ insult that they are ‘white-washed tombs’ coming to mind. This was a linguistic kill shot of the kind Scott Adams has analyzed. Like Trump’s insults of ‘low energy Bush’ or ‘little Marco’ Jesus’ insults focused on a very concrete and physical component, — the white robes the Pharisees wore, and their fastidiousness about physical cleanliness, to point out their spiritual dirtiness. |
Just a few days ago we received our first rumors regarding HTC’s next flagship smartphone, dubbed the One (M9). Today, @upleaks has come forward with a rather different hardware list, so let’s compare notes.
According to the tweet, the next HTC flagship will be called Hima, at least internally. The smartphone will be a 1080p 5-inch handset, with 3GB of RAM, Cat6 LTE capabilities, a 20.7MP rear camera and the possibility of either a 13 megapixel or 4 ultrapixel front facing camera. Perhaps that will depend on regionality?
The Hima will also apparently feature a Snapdragon 810 SoC, with four ARM Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and four 1.5GHz Cortex-A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration to save on power consumption. The Snapdragon 810 also features a top of the range Adreno 430 GPU. The only questionable specification is the seemingly small 2840mAh battery, although this might not be such a problem with a 5-inch 1080p display and more power efficient SoC.
HTC Hima:S810 2.0GHz*4+1.5GHz*4, 3GB RAM, 5″ FHD, VoLTE/CA/LTE Cat.6, 20.7MP(front 13MP or UltraPixel 4MP), 2840mAh, Android 5.0/Sense 7.0:) — @upleaks (@upleaks) December 4, 2014
For comparison, earlier rumors suggested that HTC’s flagship would be a larger 5.5-inch QHD smartphone, with a 16MP camera, 3500mAh battery and a Snapdragon 805 SoC. There is certainly quite a difference between these two proposed specifications. Perhaps HTC has multiple handsets in the works, or one, or both, could simply be wrong.
We can no doubt expect more rumors in the build up to next year’s MWC. In the meantime, which of these specifications would you prefer to see in HTC’s next flagship smartphone? The slightly better SoC with a smaller battery, or a 5.5-inch handset with a bigger battery? |
Vance McAllister, John Boehner, Kellyy McAllister
In a photo taken Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, left, holds a ceremonial swearing-in for newly-elected Rep. Vance McAllister, a Republican of Louisiana as his wife Kelly watches at center, at the Capitol in Washington. McAllister says after spending the weekend with family, he's decided to leave it up to voters whether they want him to return for a second term. He askedhis family and constituents for forgiveness after a West Monroe newspaper published a video showing the congressman kissing a female staffer in his congressional office in Monroe. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Vance McAllister, R-Swartz, will run for re-election.
He told NOLA.com/Times-Picayune Monday that he'll leave it up to the voters to decide whether he stays or goes.
In a statement issued before his scheduled Monroe news conference Monday, McAllister said:
"Today, after consulting with my wife and family, I have made a decision to run for re-election for the 5th Congressional District. Without a doubt this decision comes after much thought and prayer. This district has been home to me and my family all of my life. I know the needs of this congressional district very well. I also know that this district needs a strong, conservative voice in Congress. I plan to continue to stand up for our veterans, bring common sense solutions to our nation's problems and most importantly I will fight to get our fiscal house back in order."
McAllister said he spent the weekend with his family making sure "they were on board," and that they are. He said he and they decided to leave it up to voters whether "he stays or goes."
His wife, Kelly, told the News Star of Monroe she supports her husband's decision to run for re-election.
"I'm behind him 100 percent," Kelly McAllister said. "We made this decision as a family."
After surveillance video from last December was leaked in April showing him kissing a married staffer, McAllister announced he would serve out the remainder of his term but not seek re-election. Later, McAllister said he reserved the right to change his mind and seek re-election to the seat he won last November after campaigning on a platform of bringing family and Christian values to Washington D.C.
McAllister is likely to make it into the runoff election, but the question is whether he could beat out his run-off opponent. In Louisiana's open primary, all candidates, regardless of party, run together and if no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the two top finishers run against each other in the runoff.
He will have to combat the embarrassing release of the surveillance video showing him kissing a staffer -- leading to him being portrayed by some news organizations as the "kissing congressman."
On the other hand, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., not only survived revelation in 2007 of what he called a "very serious sin" after his phone number appeared on the records of a Washington escort service, but has done well politically. He won re-election to the Senate in 2010 by a landslide and is now considered a top contender for governor in 2015.
Gov. Bobby Jindal, who had called on McAllister to resign after the videotape was released showing him kissing a now former staffer, expressed disappointment that he's running again.
"Congressman McAllister made the right decision earlier when he said he would not run again," Jindal said. "It is disappointing he changed his mind."
One of his Republican opponents, Monroe businessman Harris Brown, quickly responded to McAllister's Monday announcement by saying he can't be effective.
"He sold his candidacy to the people of the 5th district as one rooted on 'faith, family and country'. Unfortunately, the congressman did not take his duty nor his rhetoric seriously and brought great embarrassment upon our state and district," Brown said. "McAllister has not been and will not be an effective voice for the people up in Washington and he is doing a tremendous disservice to the people of the district by running again."
Ralph Abraham, a Republican physician from Alto who is running for the 5th District seat, said it isn't his place "to judge our current congressman or to publicly criticize the ordeal he has gone through."
"I'm sure it was difficult for him and his family, and I hope they are continuing to heal," Abraham said. "Once he was elected, I wanted nothing more than to see him succeed. Regardless of whether he has changed his mind on seeking re-election, I am going to stay in the race...Our campaign is going to be about the future, and about who can best represent the people of LA's 5th Congressional District."
McAllister has apologized to his constituents. The congressman said he 's worked hard to win back the trust of his family, including his wife, Kelly.
It was Kelly, McAllister said, who urged him to reject calls by Jindal and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that he resign his House seat. Cantor later lost a Republican primary to a previously unknown economics professor in his Virginia House district, likely spelling the end of his promising political career.
The married father of five had support from members of the Duck Dynasty, including Willie Robertson.
But among a long list of candidates who plan to run for the seat is Zach Dasher, the nephew of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson.
Bruce Alpert is the Washington-based reporter for NOLA.com/Times-Picayune. He can be reached at [email protected]. |
Meat-eating – and diseases that come with it – have a long history among our ancestors, suggests a new study of an ancient hominin skeleton.
The analysis of 1.5 to 2.8 million-year-old vertebrae of Australopithecus africanus recovered in South Africa reveals signs of a bacterial infection that is normally contracted from eating meat or dairy foods.
“This is the most ancient case of an infectious disease in a hominin,” says Ruggero D’Anastasio, a palaeoanthropologist at State University “Gabriele d’Annunzio” in Chieti, Italy, who diagnosed the skeleton with a disease called brucellosis.
First uncovered in the 1970s in the Sterkfontein caves, not far from Johannesburg, two of the vertebrae belonging to an older male are dotted with visible lesions. One study concluded that this damage was caused by ageing.
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However, after collecting X-rays and scanning electron micrographs of the bones, D’Anastasio now contends that brucellosis better explains the lesions.
Spine clues
Brucellosis causes a flu-like illness in humans, but if the bacteria reach muscles and bones, they tend to infect the same spinal vertebrae that are damaged in the Australopithecus bones. Other infections, like tuberculosis, also infect spinal bones, but they tend to be less discriminate and go after other vertebrae. D’Anastasio’s team think ageing is an unlikely explanation for the damage for similar reasons.
“I think it’s more probable that these lesions could be due to an infectious disease, and I think brucellosis is the most probable infection,” D’Anastasio says.
It’s impossible to determine how this individual contracted the disease, but contemporary patterns of infection suggest the bacteria probably came from an ungulate. Humans usually contract the Brucella bacteria from unpasteurised milk and cheese, however zebras, antelope and other South African fauna can carry a species that causes spontaneous abortions, Brucella abortus.
This australopithecine may have acquired brucellosis by eating fetal tissue from a similar animal, D’Anastasio says. “I think the consumption of meat was occasional in Australopithecus.”
Mystery remains
A chemical analysis of Australopithecus teeth also supports that conclusion. A team led by Matt Sponheimer, at the University of Colorado in Boulder, analysed carbon isotopes in 3-million-year-old teeth, and found a chemical signature indicative of fruits, leaves and grasses. The team suggest that the grass signature was probably acquired through eating a herbivore.
Meanwhile, other research has suggested that Australopithecus had teeth adapted for meat eating.
However, none of these studies – the latest work included – can definitively determine the importance of meat in the australopithecine diet, says Sponheimer. Many anthropologists contend that meat eating didn’t make up the bulk of our ancestor’s calories until after the emergence of Homo erectus, roughly 2 million years ago.
Given the opportunity, chimpanzees eat monkeys, bugs, and small forest antelopes. “It would be strange if any of our more recent ancestors were not eating meat to some degree,” Sponheimer says.
Journal reference: PLoS ONE (DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1027) |
Marvel’s Civil War II teams revealed
As one Civil War prepares to begin on the big screen in Captain America: Civil War, Marvel Comics is gearing up for one of their own with their next event series and revealed the Civil War II teams.
Set to debut this June from Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez, Civil War II revolves around a mysterious new Marvel character who has the power to calculate the outcome of future events with a high degree of accuracy. This predictive power divides the Marvel heroes on how best to capitalize on this aggregated information, with Captain Marvel leading the charge to profile future crimes and attacks before they occur, and Iron Man adopting the position that the punishment cannot come before the crime.
Joining Iron Man on the side of protecting the future are Captain America (Sam Wilson), Thor, Black Panther, Star-Lord, Luke Cage, Hercules, Miss America, Daredevil, Black Widow The Hulk (Amadeus Cho), and Deadpool.
Sidiing with Captain Marvel with the idea of changing the future is Captain America (Steve Rogers), War Machine, Spider-Man, Vision, Medusa, Blue Marvel, The Winter Soldier, Spectrum, She-Hulk, Hawkeye, and Ant-Man.
The events of Civil War II will kick off with a prologue story that will debut on Free Comic Book Day on Saturday May 7. In the story, the precognitive character will claim that one hero in the Marvel Universe will be the cause of a major destructive event in three-days time, leading to the divide in the Marvel Universe among the heroes about how to handle it. It was also previously revealed that Marvel will have the character be murdered in the pages of the event, by none other than a fellow hero. Neither character’s identity has been revealed as of yet.
Two spin-offs of Civil War II have been revealed thus far, with more on the way most likely, and include: Civil War II: X-Men from writer Cullen Bunn and artist Andrea Broccardo which will pit mutants against Inhumans; and Civil War II: Spider-Man from writer Christos Gage and artist Travel Foreman which sees the webslinger trying to relay the message of “with great power comes great responsibility” to the Inhuman at the center of the event.
You can check out the promo art for Civil War II below. Which of the Civil War II teams are you on? |
Kurdish fighters of the YPG at the top of Mount Abdulaziz after expelling ISIS militants from the area, Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo: ARA News
Islamic State executed more than 1000 civilians in Mosul in less than a year
ARA News
HASAKAH – Dozens of families returned to their villages near Mount Abdulaziz in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, after one year of forced displacement at the hands of ISIS militants.
Over 100 displaced families returned home under the protection of Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), local sources and eyewitnesses confirmed on Monday.
The YPG –leading member of the western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)– had regained control of Mount Abdulaziz in northeastern Syria after fierce clashes with ISIS militants last May. Over the past few months, the YPG and allied units from the SDF have been dismantling hundreds of land-mines and explosives that had been left by ISIS jihadis in villages and towns near the mountain.
“We have dismantled more than 250 land-mines and explosives that were planted by Daesh terrorists to prevent civilians from returning to their villages in the vicinity of Mount Abdulaziz,” YPG officer Redwan Muhammad told ARA News, using an acronym for ISIS.
“After securing the whole area, we have called on the displaced families to return home,” the Kurdish official said. “Nearly 110 families have returned to their villages and towns in Hasakah province in the past three days.”
Redwan added that the Kurdish leadership has deployed dozens of forces and installed a number of security checkpoints across the area in a bid to prevent any infiltrations by ISIS militants.
“We reassure the people that our forces will do everything to protect them against Daesh (ISIS) terrorists,” he stressed.
Over 5500 ISIS militants killed in clashes with Syrian Kurds in one year
At least 5800 militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) have been killed in clashes with the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria during 2015.
“A total of 5875 terrorists of ISIS were killed in clashes with our forces during the year 2015,” the YPG’s leadership said in a statement.
“Our units have conducted 453 military operations against the terror group; 392 clashes took place during these operations. The documented death toll in the ranks of ISIS reached 5875 terrorists, and we have taken 38 terrorists as hostages,” the Kurdish leadership said in its annual report.
It added that the YPG units, in cooperation with the female fighters of the YPJ, have seized 204 ISIS military vehicles, 24 tanks, 26 armored vehicles and detonated 58 car bombs, beside seizing a large deal of ammunition. On the other hand, 680 Kurdish fighters lost their lives while fighting ISIS over the year 2015.
In cooperation with allied armed forces and with the support of the U.S.-led coalition’s air force, the Kurdish units have regained control of strategic towns and cities from ISIS’s fist in northern Syrian last year, including Kobane, Tel Abyad, Ain Issa, Tel Temir, Hasakah, Tel Hamis, Tel Brak, Suluk, Dahmaa, Mount Abdulaziz, army bases of ’93’ and Melabiyah, beside dozens of villages.
The YPG leadership notified that these records do not include the gains of their joint operations in the ranks of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
According to the Kurdish leadership, the Turkish army has targeted 22 YPG headquarters in northern Syria in 2015, particularly in the northern countryside of Raqqa.
Reporting by: Qehreman Miste and Hozan Mamo
Source: ARA News |
Montpelier, Vermont
By Mike Dunphy | November 07, 2011
As a kid, a trip to Montpelier always compelled another thrilling game of “I Spy” between my siblings and me, with the gold, capitol dome of the statehouse as the ultimate prize.
The Lost Nation Theater
Such adulation is perhaps fitting, since I owe a portion of my existence to this diminutive capital in the central foothills of the Vermont. It was there one evening in 1934 that my grandparents met at a dance sponsored by the Civilian Conservation Corps. I don’t know what she saw in him, but no doubt the crisp, white navel uniform had something to do with it. Happily, many of the downtown buildings they must have passed during his escort home still stand today and are perhaps more alive than ever.
For Vermonters and flatlanders alike, the city of 7,855 has never been considered a top tourist destination—most definitely below the largest city Burlington, the resort towns of Stowe and Killington, or the quirky, quaint art conclaves of Woodstock and Brattleboro. But frankly, none of these places could do without Montpelier.
Chartered on August 14, 1781, the first permanent settlers arrived a few years later. One of them, Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Jacob Davis, quickly set about clearing the thick forests, a feat that somehow earned him the right to name the settlement after the French city of Montpelier—a far more patriotic act at the time than taking a British name. No doubt, the Marquis de Lafayette was given the royal treatment during his visit in 1825.
Yet, despite its active engagement in the revolution, Vermont was not yet a state and mired in highly acrimonious disputes with both New York and New Hampshire over land claims. Declaring itself an independent republic in 1777, a government was set up in Windsor. With tensions increasing with the federal government as well, a compromise was eventually reached in 1791, and the fourteenth star was added to the flag. This was greatly helped by a warning from George Washington that Vermonters are “a hardy race, composed of that kind of people who are best calculated for soldiers.”
An Old Train Bridge
The new status meant the need for a new, permanent capital. Montpelier’s central location, proximity to transportation routes, nearby granite, marble, and slate quarries, and mill sites were major factors in winning it the capital seat in 1805 (although perhaps not as much as the generous contributions of money and land from its residents). Business quickly followed and boomed with the steam whistles of the railroad.
Hurricane Irene was by no means the first natural disaster to hit the city. In fact, flooding is a danger every spring as the snow melt fills the rivers.
The most significant occurred in 1927, when hard rains sent twelve feet of water into the city. Heading west on Route 2 toward the creamie stand, my parents would often point to the marker indicating the crest on the left side of the road.
The strong steel truss bridges that now knit the downtown river banks together were a direct response and have stood their ground through the Great Hurricane of 1938, and five tornadoes, two ice storms, 377 hail storms, and thousands of inches of snow and ice since 1950.
Like so many Vermont towns and cities struggling to find their twenty-first century footing, Montpelier has fully embraced the arts as a means for revitalization.
Organic Produce at the Farmer's Market
The downtown area is full of quaint mom-and-pop shops selling paintings, jewelry, handicrafts, clothing, and culinary treats made by local residents. There’s a new sculpture garden and public art trails. The theaters are sold out, and the farmers market thrives throughout the winter. The crown came in 2008 with the establishment of the Vermont College of Fine Arts in the nineteenth-century former Methodist seminary.
Surviving the long Vermont winters also takes a generous helping of spunk, and the best evidence can be found in Montpelier. Residents are proud of many things, but none perhaps more than the city’s status as the only state capitol in the United States with no McDonald’s. It’s not because it’s too small or unimportant. It’s because residents refuse to let it in their community—and that is Montpelier.
In the following months, ONE will be exploring Montpelier further in a series of articles focusing on shopping, attractions, lodging, and cuisine. Even better than reading about it, is to plan your own visit to this wonderful city.
Montpelier can be easily reached from exit 8 on Interstate 89 in Vermont. |
3 SPIN Rating: 3 of 10
Release Date: July 02, 2013
Label: Pretty Lights Music
If EDM is the biggest thing to happen to popular music since hip-hop, then perhaps the gentleman otherwise known as Pretty Lights is the genre’s Will Smith. If EDM’s the second coming of the orgiastic arena-filling heyday of rock’n’roll, maybe he’s also its Sammy Hagar: unapologetically populist, adequately talented, basically just in the right place at the right time, not content to drive 55, and very content to get everyone jiggy with it, now and forevermore.
That’s not the worst spot on the team, and Derek Vincent Smith plays his position well — he releases his music for free (all of it), produces a weekly podcast called “The Hot Shit” for Sirius XM (he’s up to 85 broadcasts at press time), has millions of views on his meticulously curated YouTube channel, and has rocked the tube tops off hundreds of thousands of satisfied festivalgoers, from Bonnaroo to Electric Daisy Carnival to freakin’ Red Rocks. His weapon of choice is a brand of bombastic, sample-rich electro-hop that breaks very little new ground from the days when guys like DJ Shadow pioneered it, but when juiced up with 1.21 jiggawatts of EDM sizzle — more effects, quicker changes, bigger builds, and, well, an extremely pretty light show — it drives dance tents apeshit.
So then, here’s a question: Does it even matter that his new album is insipid bluster, the EDM equivalent of a screensaver? Smith, an affable self-promoter, is exceedingly proud of the process he’s employed for A Color Map of the Sun, as chronicled in an accompanying documentary (sigh): tapping live musicians, recording them in a half-dozen different studios, pressing the results to vinyl, sampling that, and adding his trademark bevy of digital effects. As our friendly French cyborgs recently demonstrated, such tales of EDM artists rediscovering studio craft do resonate, on one fairly obvious condition: The result has to feel like a studio adventure! Whereas Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was lavishly rich, Smith’s treatment of his session players manages to flatten all human serendipity and rhythmic nuance — it might as well have been self-produced in a bedroom with minimal inspiration, and certainly doesn’t live up to a guest list that includes Soulive, the Harlem Gospel Choir, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
Take “Yellow Bird,” with its meandering guitar figure, quantized breakbeat lope, and lazily psychedelic lyrics: “Yellow Bird, don’t fly away, not today.” Or take “Press Pause,” with its brooding bass line, quantized breakbeat lope, and lazily psychedelic lyrics: “Everything gets older over time / But the world is spinning slower in my mind.” “Around the Block” features Talib Kweli, which is appropriate, because almost every track here mimics the hazy boom-bap soul of late-’90s/early-’00s hip-hop, except groups like Blackalicious and Souls of Mischief did all that way better.
But again, does any of this really matter? Pretty Lights will tour in support of this thing. He’ll chop and screw it, intercut it with whatever the hot shit is that night, add pyrotechnics and dancing bears, etc. Everyone’ll be high, and the fact that Color Map was released with considerable fanfare as an artist album (the title’s taken “from the writings of Isaac Newton,” BTW) will be an afterthought. Does anyone remember Big Willie Style? |
MONTREAL – The Montreal Impact announced on Sunday the acquisition of general allocation money and a 2018 MLS SuperDraft natural first round pick from the Colorado Rapids, in return for American defender Eric Miller.
“This trade allowed us to make another move on Saturday. We were also able to acquire a first round draft pick in 2018 which is always a valuable asset to have,” said Impact technical director Adam Braz. “We’d like to thank Eric for his contribution both on and off the field for this club. We wish him all the best moving forward.”
Miller played 30 games in two seasons with the Impact, after being drafted in the first round, fifth overall, in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft.
The Impact now holds two first round selections in the 2018 MLS SuperDraft.
Transaction: The Montreal Impact (MLS) acquires general allocation money and a 2018 MLS SuperDraft first round pick from the Colorado Rapids (MLS) in exchange for defender Eric Miller. |
Neill Blomkamp may have been poised to retcon Alien 3, but it would appear that Sir Ridley Scott isn’t as willing to let the third film fade into the ether just yet. There was a time when 20th Century Fox was trying to get Ridley Scott to sit in the director’s chair for the third entry and at that time, William Gibson was working on the first drafts of the film. Gibson himself said that Ridley was tentatively attached to the direct the film while he was working on his second (and final draft) of the film.
That never came to pass though. Scott would go on to direct Black Rain and Thelma and Louise, Alien 3 would go through a tumultuous development and many more writers before finally seeing release in 1992. Scott would not return to the Alien universe until Prometheus in 2012.
The sequel to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, is due for release in May 2017 and while its predecessor was stripped of its overt Alien elements, the sequel appears to have no such trepidation. As well as returning back to Alien, it would also seem that Alien: Covenant is borrowing quite heavily from William Gibson’s Alien 3 scripts (and possibly some aspects of Eric Red’s) and creature designs from the days of Jon Spaihts’ involvement with Prometheus.
In October 2016, Alien vs. Predator Galaxy revealed to the world that Alien: Covenant would feature a new type of Aliens that was known behind the scenes as Neomorphs. The Neomorphs are the result of the local ecosystem being mutated by the accelerant/black goo.
Over time, pods started to grow on the trees and the ground, and release a spore when disturbed. These spores infect several members of the Covenant crew by entering the body through the ear and nostrils. The spores cause the growth of the Neomorphs inside the infected hosts .
The concept of the Neomorphs seemed to be heavily influenced by a different variation of Alien (known as the New Beast) introduced in William Gibson’s Alien 3 scripts and their design borrows from Jon Spaiht’s proto-Aliens. Genetic Memory – Influencing the Neomorphs will be taking a look into the past to see just where the concepts of the Neomorph may have gestated. (beware spoilers)
William Gibson’s New Beast
William Gibson was responsible for writing the first two drafts of Alien 3. His first draft was completed sometime in 1987, with the second being completed in January 1988 and there are some marked differences between them. The scripts take place primarily aboard two space stations, Anchorpoint (Weyland-Yutani financed) and Rodina, a station ran by the Union of Progressive Peoples (the script plays heavily on cold war allegory). Their respective staff was in an arms-race to grow Aliens and of course, all hell breaks lose.
One of the significant developments to the Alien that Gibson’s script would have made was an entirely new method of propagation for the Alien species and that was via airborne spores that were capable of rewriting the host DNA and transforming the infected into an Alien, a variant that Gibson’s script referred to as the New Beast.
The scientific staff of both Anchorpoint and Rodina are able to grow their own Aliens using cloned genetic material that is left behind in Bishop when he was attacked by the Queen at the end of Aliens. Somehow the presence of this material results in a traditional Alien egg growing within Bishop’s cryo-tube. This is the only instance within the script that the Queen’s residual genetic material results in the creation of a traditional Alien egg.
The crew aboard Rodina note just how easy it is to manipulate the Alien DNA, speculating that the Alien could be an artificial weapon that was the end result of another long lost cold war. While it isn’t specifically addressed, the different ways in which the staff of Anchorpoint and Rodina manipulate the DNA results result in different variations of the Alien appearing in Gibson’s script. There’s a nice little moment where the script notes how similar the Alien DNA looks like the interior of the Derelict at a microscopic level.
The starting stage of the Aliens that are grown aboard Anchorpoint is a miniature egg that releases an airborne spore rather than a facehugger (like the pods in the Alien: Covenant trailer) and the scientists aboard the Rodina skip the egg and facehugger stages entirely and somehow grow a chestburster instead. The bulk of the script takes place on Anchorpoint and as such the Alien we see the most of are the New Beasts.
The New Beast seems to function in much the same way as Alien: Covenant’s Neomorph’s do. After the Anchorpoint scientific staff grow the miniature egg, an accident results in two of the crew being infected by the airborne spores.
“Two of the tubes BLOW OUT. Nutrient fluid and plastic shards everywhere. Welles and Tully go down. A louder ALARM cuts in; red lights strobe. Locks in the doors THUNK shut, an automatic containment measure, as Spence, outside, throws down her coffee and begins to struggle with the door-controls, trying to reach Tully. Tully, facedown in a pool of the fluid, see that he’s nine inches away from the gray pigeon’s-egg of alien tissue. His eyes widen. Gets to his knees as carefully as he can. Reaches slowly — slowly — sideways, manages to snag a pair of plastic tongs and a shallow lab tray from the counter…
Welles tries to scramble to her feet, loses her balance in the slippery goop, and snatches at his arm. He nearly falls on top of the thing, but cuffs her roughly away, kneels, tongs poised… Beat. A tiny orifice opens; for a split-second something glitters above the thing, a faint, fist-sized cloud of dark mist. Then it’s gone and Tully’s moving, swooping in with tongs and tray.”
Aside from one bizarre instance where an Alien biting a character results in him being infected and birthing multiple “new-model” chestbursters (and an earlier occurrence of someone birthing “dozens” of chestburster, though we don’t see how he became infected), all the births of Aliens on Anchorpoint are as a result of these airborne spores.
Later on in the script, Hicks and several other Colonial Marines are investigating a hive where they find a Queen. Unlike in Aliens, this Queen doesn’t lay eggs through an ovipositor but rather is encountered in a scene that sounds very reminiscent of what we would later see in Alien: Resurrection when the Newborn is born:
“The central shape is revealed as an enormous mutant queen. The thing is splayed on its back, mortared into the mass of resin, its vestigial head toward Hicks and the Marines. Its abdomen is arched like an inverted scorpion-tail, tipped with a swollen, semi-translucent sac that ripples and pulses in the glare of Hick’s lamp. A biomechanical birth-factory.”
The Queen is eventually awoken by the Marine’s conflict with several nearby New Beasts. The Queen releases the cloud of Alien spores that would then infect a large majority of Anchorpoint’s population before being killed by Corporal Hicks:
“As the swollen, podlike tail-tip splits open with a sickly, tearing SOUND,releasing a puffball cloud of dark mist — we’ve seen it before, in miniature, with Tully in the lab — which begins to rise, drawn up toward the giant fans above the air-scrubber…”
As far as we know, Alien: Covenant doesn’t feature a Neomorph Queen spreading spores around but rather pods that release the spores which seems related to the accelerant first introduced in Prometheus.
Unlike the traditional Alien lifecycle, the spores seem to mutate the infected host into an Alien-like creature rather than incubating and then birthing a completely separate entity. William Gibson’s refers to the process in the script as “the Change.” The first character that this happens to is Welles, a member of Weyland-Yutani’s Bioweapons division:
“As Welles begins to stammer, her eyes betray a terrible consternation. She rises from her chair, lurches forward, catching herself on her hands. The C-C-C-C-C phases into a chattering palsy as a thick strand of blood-streaked drool descends toward the table. Fox, seated to her left, has instinctively shoved his own chair back, ready to run. Everyone else is frozen with shock.
As the chittering tooth-burr becomes a shrill SHRIEK of inhuman rage, the transformation takes place. Segmented biomechanoid tendons squirm beneath the skin of her arms. Her hands claw at one another, tearing redundant flesh from alien talons. Then the shriek dies. She straightens up.
And, rips her face apart in a single movement, the glistening claws coming away with skin, eyes, muscle, teeth, and splinters of bone… SOUND of ripping cloth. The New Beast sheds its human skin in a single sinuous, bloody ripple, molting on fast forward.
An instant of utter silence as the featureless mask moves. From side to side. Scanning.”
We don’t know how closely that relates to Alien: Covenant’s Neomorphs though. It remains to be seen if the spores in Alien: Covenant rewrite the DNA of the host or if they result in the incubation of a new creature.
William Gibson’s second draft would significantly reduce the number of Aliens and also see the removal of the Alien Queen. The New Beast’s life cycle still functioned in the same way with the addition of one of the characters being bitten. This bite infected the character and he would eventually begin to transform into one of the New Beasts. This was a change from the first draft where a bitten character would birth several chest-bursters.
Based on what we know and have seen of Alien: Covenant’s Neomorphs, I think it’s pretty obvious that there are plenty of similarities between Ridley Scott’s Neomorphs and William Gibson’s New Beasts. |
Neymar race hots up as West Ham offer Santos £16m for the 'new Pele'
By Ashley Gray for MailOnline
West Ham have made a £16million offer for Santos wonderkid Neymar.
It emerged this week that the Hammers had joined some of Europe's top clubs in tracking the 18-year-old forward and sources in Brazil say they have now submitted a formal bid.
Potential: Several big clubs are eyeing Neymar
Neymar is keen to eventually test himself in Europe but his father - who also acts has his agent - has reservations about making the move too soon in his career.
The Hammers' stature could also prove unattractive to a player being scouted by the likes of Real Madrid, but a move to Upton Park has the potential to be a stepping stone to Chelsea.
The Blues have tracked Neymar for about two years but have been reluctant to meet the asking price.
Santos have consistently insisted they do not want to sell their jewel for at least another year and have previously indicated they will not do a deal for less than his £28.4m release clause.
However, if they do accept West Ham's offer - surpassing the club-record £7.5m they paid for Craig Bellamy in 2007 - the same deal would be offered to Manchester City.
The Eastlands club secured first refusals on Neymar and 20-year-old team-mate Paulo Henrique Ganso when they allowed Robinho to join Santos on a six-month loan in the winter.
Similarities: Neymar is tipped to follow in the footsteps of Brazil forward Robinho
Any deal is complicated by Santos owning just 60 per cent of Neymar's rights and needing the agreement of an investment group should they accept anything less than the buyout clause.
Neymar has been simultaneously likened to Robinho and the great Pele.
His penchant for stepovers is reminiscent of the Manchester City man and he can play wide left or as a centre forward.
He was the revelation of Santos's march to the Sao Paulo Championship title this year and also helped them to the Brazilian Cup final by hitting 27 goals in 30 games this year. |
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By Sushant Ratnaparkhi
It’s been sometime since a ransomware called ‘Wannacry’ or ‘Wcry’ or ‘WNCRY’ is making headlines. If your computer shows nothing but this window then you’re in trouble.
More than 200k computers in 175 countries [1] have been infected by Wannacry. This malware went viral like a cat chasing dog video.
What is ransomware?
This is a malware, a piece of code made by a group of people with not so good intentions, it takes control of your PC without your consent (of course!), then it encrypts all of your data and locks it down. Locked data can only be accessed with a key that these hackers have, so if you want to get back your data you have to pay them. Ransom is nothing new, villains in Bollywood have been doing this since ages, only this time it’s your data, not daughter.
However, the interesting thing to note here is that this ransomware doesn’t require any action from the user to get itself activated and spread across networks. User actions are something like downloading an attachment, installing an unknown or pirated software, or visiting suspicious websites – that’s how traditional hackers have been exploiting dumb humans. The ‘Wannacry’ hackers were able to do this because of a vulnerability in Windows 7 (especially x64)[2] operating system. This vulnerability was discovered by NSA but wasn’t reported to Microsoft (for obvious reasons), but eventually it got leaked out and hackers took advantage of it.
Interesting stuff, but this is not the part we want to focus on. Our focus is on the payment part of this ransomware – Bitcoin. Hackers are only accepting payments in Bitcoins, but why? And how is it useful for you as a trader? This is going to be a long post, so why don’t you message your wife that you’re going to be late for dinner. Here it goes,
What is a Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a first cryptocurrency that is decentralized, meaning one government or organization cannot control or regularize this, instead Bitcoin currency is managed by public.
In simple words, Bitcoin is just a number(like frequent flier miles) that is available in an online wallet which has a value associated with it(1 bitcoin = $2550 at the time of this writing), Bitcoins can be traded to other Bitcoin wallets which are free to get. Here is how a bitcoin wallet looks like:
The transactions are recorded in an online ledger called as blockchain. The blockchain is a series of blocks and each block contains several transactions data which is public.
Now, this is the best part, instead of having one bookkeeper who maintains the ledger book and confirms the transaction for everyone (which is the case in all other financial institutes), in bitcoin, there are more than 150,000 bookkeepers, and each of them keeps an updated copy of the ledger. Having so many bookkeepers is what makes the Bitcoin so special, once a valid block is recognized by the system it is updated at all bookkeeper locations. So no one can tamper with ledger data. ‘Distributed ledger’ is what it is called. This ledger provides data of who owns what at any given point.
The bookkeepers here are called as miners, and as the name suggests they mine blocks by solving mathematical hashes based on input from existing latest block. These miners have super weird but powerful computers designed to do trillions of hash calculations per minute because the mathematical calculations are way difficult and there is a reason for it. Since there are so many bookkeepers, blockchain needs to have a mechanism which will make sure that records are kept in an organized manner and everyone has the same updated copy of ledger. So by making these miners do such hefty maths, the first one to get the correct result gets to announce his block as the official and the latest block in the chain (of course after making sure that he has all valid transactions in it). This way miners have to work hard to get their blocks into the blockchain.
But why would anyone in their right mind, would want to be a miner? Because whichever miner solves the correct calculations for the new block FIRST, gets a reward of 12.5 Bitcoins ($31875)(it was higher earlier) for adding that block; this basically says that successful miner has helped the community to maintain and grow the ledger book(blockchain), so here is your reward(go buy lemonades now). Once a new block is created everyone updates their blockchain and starts working towards solving the next block based on inputs from the newly created block. Average time required to create a block today is about 10 minutes (much quicker than waiting for days for settlements that current banks take for overseas transactions).
Here is how a block looks like, ignore the advertisement.
Once a block is official, it is permanent; no one can make any changes to it (not even the person who created that block) hence eliminating any possibility of ‘cooking the ledger book’. You can see the details of each transaction (632) under this block here; see the sample below
People from the various field have started to explore other application of Blockchain. Having information distributed to the public at the same time maintaining the privacy of the actual details can help many other business’ land records, peer to peer applications like car renting and much more. Helping out to solve problems of mismanaged or badly recorded databases. You can read more about applications of blockchain here.
The developers of Bitcoin have limited the number of bitcoins that can be in circulation to only 21 million, currently 16.3 million bitcoins are in circulation. Why is that? Because no one (not even the creator of Bitcoin) should be able to impact the currency value by infusing more currency in the market at any point in time. New bitcoins are introduced by mining process and it will stop once it reaches 21 million in total circulation. After that, the miners can earn by charging customers a nominal transaction fee, currently it is 0.0001 bitcoin per transaction, this varies depending on the exchange.
A snapshot of Bitcoin enterprise as on 26-May-2017!
I hope this has given you a basic idea of what Bitcoin is and how it operates. If you still have more questions, you can ask me in the comment section below or have a look at this FAQs list.
Why hackers love Bitcoins?
Anonymity! even though all the transactions are public, you can’t see the owner’s details of any address (even the companies who provide wallet services). In traditional banks, it is possible (however difficult) to find out where the money is being routed by the hackers, here is such a case of previous ransomware hackers who were shut down. Now, let’s have a look at what makes Bitcoins a great instrument for trading.
Why is Bitcoin a better tradable instrument?
(i) No one can manipulate this currency
That’s right! Unlike Government issued money, that can be inflated at will, the supply of Bitcoin is mathematically limited to twenty-one million bitcoins, and that can never be changed. The only thing that defines the value of bitcoin is its demand(not supply). And given the fact that the supply is limited, personally, I think the value of bitcoin will only appreciate in future.
(ii) Bitcoins are impossible to counterfeit or inflate
Unlike paper currency, bitcoin cannot be counterfeited. This is because of the blockchain, blockchain knows which bitcoin belongs to which account and this data is public, so even if you try to submit a falsified transaction to the blockchain, it will reject your block. However, bitcoins can be stolen, that is if you’re careless with your private keys. If someone gets access to your private keys and then transfers your bitcoin to his/her wallet, you’re done; even if you prove that it was a robbery, no one can go back and disqualify the transaction as the blockchain cannot be edited by anyone.
(iii) You can use them to send or receive any amount of money, with anyone, anywhere in the world, at very low cost.
This is what makes Bitcoins a lucrative appeal and warrants that people will continue to transact in bitcoin unless a similar better option becomes available. In Bitcoins, payments are impossible to block, and bitcoin wallets can’t be frozen. Short of turning off the entire world’s internet, and keeping it turned off, the Bitcoin network is unstoppable and uncensorable.
All these reasons make Bitcoins an ideal case for investing.
How to trade Bitcoins?
Since there is no authority that can control Bitcoin, so things like interest rates, inflation, currency infusion won’t affect the value of bitcoin. What will affect is just supply and demand, but since the supply of bitcoin is also predefined, what we are left with is just demand. And there are several factors that will affect the demand of Bitcoin.
These are some of the scenarios where the demand can either go up or down.
(i) Popularity
Bitcoins will rise in value every time there is a surge in its popularity, given that Bitcoin is new and the concept is slightly complicated, people misunderstand it and often have doubts. But as they understand the fundamental differences and value proposition of Bitcoin the demand will surge.
(ii) Competition
If ever and probably there will be another cryptocurrency which will offer better features than bitcoin and it might become more widely accepted. In such scenario, the demand for bitcoin will decline along with its value.
(iii) Government intervention
Governments do have an option to ban bitcoin in their respective countries. For example, Chinese central bank banned trading of bitcoins for financial firms in Dec 2013[4] Bitcoin’s value dropped post this news. We can expect similar events in future given how our governments become insecure, duh! but in the long run the value should appreciate only.
(iv) Network attacks
In Feb 2014, a group of hackers initiated a DDoS attack[5] on a major bitcoin exchange which led to a temporary stoppage in bitcoin trading. The news broke and the value of bitcoin started dropping, next couple of days saw over 10% drop in price. However, this was back in 2014, today number of exchanges have grown and this reduces the vulnerability of such attacks.
This graph shows Bitcoin’s value in US dollar since its inception. [6]
At the time of writing this article, the bitcoin’s value against USD is the highest at $2550 per bitcoin. I also want you to have a look at the Google trends report on interest in bitcoins since 2009. There is a direct correlation between people talking about bitcoin and its value.
Popularity can be an easy indicator for predicting the demand for bitcoins, as long as there is no negative news. If this graph is steadily rising we can expect the demand and value of bitcoin to rise as well.
Caution
Bitcoin is a very volatile instrument to trade, experts often recommend to stay away from short term trading since it can easily trigger margin calls. However, if you keep investment horizon of long term, you can expect good returns.
In my opinion, cryptocurrencies are the future, whether it is a bitcoin or something else. Sure, no one likes losing control over things, especially governments and that too for something as valuable as currency. There will be ugly situations where governments will try to get back their control but in the long run, decentralized currencies will bring in a lot of improvements to our financial system and our lives. |
Dear friend of the Naperville Park District:
With the winter holidays right around the corner, it’s a good time to highlight some of the ways in which our residents can give back to the community. Naperville is known for its generosity and volunteer spirit, and Naperville Park District participants and supporters have several opportunities to help brighten the lives of our neighbors.
Although the economy has recovered in some respects since the downturn in 2008, the number of Naperville residents who are struggling economically has risen dramatically. For example, in the past several years we have seen a 200% increase in applications for our scholarship program, which provides fee waivers for recreation programs for those in need. Thanks to our ongoing partnership with the Naperville Parks Foundation, it’s easy for interested residents to support the scholarship program. With a simple click of a mouse, you can add a small contribution to the Foundation as you register for programs online through RecEnroll, our online registration system. Individuals also may visit the Park Foundation’s website at www.napervilleparksfoundation. org and click the “Donate” button to make a donation of any size. Of course, you also can write a check to the Foundation and mail it or drop it off at the Park District Administration Buildingat 320 W. Jackson Ave. or at the 95th Street Center at 2244 W. 95th St. Additionally, your employer may provide a matching donation to the Naperville Parks Foundation.
Annually during the fall season, Park District participants enthusiastically support Loaves and Fishes Community Food Pantry in a variety of initiatives. Children and their families in the Park District preschool program once again collected small change and larger donations in their annual “Pennies for Pies” drive to provide pumpkin pies for Loaves and Fishes’ Thanksgiving meal program. Preschool children and teachers also joined adult volunteers and master gardeners in the gleaning the Garden Plots at the end of the gardening season. The harvest of root vegetables and other produce will be appreciated by those served by Loaves and Fishes. Finally, the Turkey Shoot golf tournament, a favorite tradition at Springbrook and Naperbrook Golf Courses, will give participants the opportunity to donate their turkeys to Loaves and Fishes for their holiday meal distribution. Golfers also may choose to make monetary donations in support of Loaves and Fishes.
The onset of the holiday season also means that the Park District is ready to host several fun events – the most visible of which is Santa House on the Riverwalk. Thanks to all of our volunteers and sponsors for their support of this and other events. Speaking of Santa House, please make a note that this annual tradition begins its 2013 run when it opens to the public on December 6. This year we will again offer Special Needs Nights, Pet Night, and Military Night with convenient online reservations available for children and families to visit with Santa during these special evenings. Additionally, the Park Police will be collecting new, unwrapped toys at Santa House and at the Park District Administration Building to support the annual Toys for Tots campaign. We would greatly appreciate your participation in this wonderful event.
Finally, I want to extend a big thank you to all of the individuals and organizations that partner with the Naperville Park District in our mission to enrich the quality of life in our community year after year. We’re very fortunate to have a network of people who do great things for our residents.
Best wishes to all for a safe and happy holiday season.
Sincerely,
Ray McGury
Executive Director |
A TV newswoman and her cameraman were both assaulted during a live broadcast while covering the arrival of refugees into Italy from Africa.
Francesca Parisella, a reporter for Matrix Channel 5 in Rome, was showing viewers the scene at the Roman train station where the refugees, who had reportedly entered the country on their way to northern Europe, were camped out and sleeping on the sidewalk outside the terminal.
“Their hope is especially to reach Milan … and then to move to Northern Europe,” she told viewers. “It’s important to know that this reception …”
Suddenly, the camera drops and shouts are heard.
Watch video of the attack:
The next words out of Parisella’s mouth are, “We’ve been assaulted.”
“What’s happening, Francesca?” anchor Nicola Porro asks from the studio as Parisella and her colleague run for their lives.
“They assaulted us, Nicola,” she blurts out.
Porro advises Parisella to leave the area immediately.
She’s then heard screaming in terror: “What do you want? You’re crazy!”
Porro instructs the show’s producer to call police.
“Oh God, Francesca, get out of there,” he says while looking into the camera.
America is headed down a suicidal path – but it’s a subtle invasion. Get all the details in Leo Hohmann’s brand new book “Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad,” available now at the WND Superstore.
Parisella, who was not injured in the attack, was whisked away from the mob by a cab driver named Roberto.
She later took to social media to thank him: “Roberto saved my life.”
America is headed down a suicidal path – but it’s a subtle invasion. Get all the details in Leo Hohmann’s brand new book “Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad,” available now at the WND Superstore. |
Yet another symptom of the chronic wasting disease plaguing the American colossus has manifested itself in the state of South Carolina, with the children of professed illegal squatters suing to demand the right to in-state tuition in area schools.
Filed by fanatical Jews and Marxist traitors based within the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the lawsuit claims that denial of financial benefits to barbarians constitutes a violation of the “Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
South Carolina institutions currently hold that the unwanted children of encroaching migrants, mostly of the non-White variety, fall under the non-resident category when applying for higher education, although instant arrest and deportation in these circumstances would serve much better in the long-term.
Breitbart:
Children of illegal immigrants are suing school officials in South Carolina for denying them in-state tuition. A class action lawsuit filed this week in federal court by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Appleseed Legal Justice Center charges that policies classifying the children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. and living in South Carolina as “non-residents” for the purposes of tuition, grants, and scholarships are discriminatory. “This class action lawsuit challenges the policies of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education (‘CHE’), the College of Charleston, and Trident Technical College that classify dependent U.S. citizen students who reside in South Carolina as ‘non- residents’ for tuition, scholarship, and need-based grant purposes solely because their parents lack requisite proof of citizenship or immigration status,” the lawsuit reads. “These policies invidiously discriminate against Plaintiffs and other students who are U.S. citizens, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” it adds.
This in itself should strike a chord of both disgust and fear into the minds of those who view such happenings occurring across the country; already quite common in Leftist strongholds in the Northeast and West Coast of the United States.
Parents of children who currently are, or will soon be approaching, university age should be especially worried, as this is likely the beginning of a dire age for White students. |
Kevin Hiebert is back on Canadian soil today and a free man, ending a legal, political and bureaucratic battle that kept the former Winnipegger in a Greek prison for over 15 years.
"I feel like I am in a dream," Hiebert told CBC News as his father, Dick Hiebert, and sister Tracy hugged him at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Thursday afternoon.
"I kept waiting for something to go wrong."
It was a day, Hiebert said, that he feared would never come — even on Wednesday, he said, he waited for some official, somewhere, to call an 11th-hour halt to his release.
"When you get a presidential pardon and they don't honour it, and you get rejected from the public prosecution … and that struggle to get out, and then getting the deportation after all, finishing my 20-year sentence and then to be here today … it's just exhausting, really," he said.
Dick Hiebert said it was "overwhelming" to see his son again.
"It feels really good; a lot of excitement. It's finally over. He's doing exceptionally well," he said.
The homecoming marks an end to a controversial story that, at times, played out like a Hollywood movie filled with courtroom drama, jail breaks, betrayals and alleged bribes.
It began, however, with a crime.
Hiebert, who is now entering his 40s, was 26 years old in 1999 when he and two other Winnipeggers tried to smuggle cocaine through the Netherlands.
His accomplices were busted in Amsterdam. They were convicted, sent to jail and released back to Canada within two years. Hiebert, however, made it to Greece before he was arrested.
Fought to have sentence transferred
From the start, Hiebert admitted his guilt, but fought to have his sentence transferred so he could return to Canada and serve his time here.
Three times, it almost happened. As recently as last fall, Hiebert thought he had been granted a pardon and would be home in time for Christmas.
September 2013: Winnipegger getting out of Greek prison after 14 years
But each time, either Greek or Canadian officials abruptly halted the efforts.
In 2008, Hiebert escaped while on a temporary supervised absence. He spent the next year living and working in Greece and Germany before he went to a Canadian Embassy.
According to family members, Hiebert was told there was no outstanding warrant for his arrest. A passport and travel visa were arranged for his return to Canada.
But moments before he was to board a plane home from Amsterdam, he was re-arrested and returned to prison.
Through the years, Dutch and local lawyers took on Hiebert's case, citing human rights violations. For example, his interpreter did not show up during his first trial, so the entire hearing was held in Greek. Hiebert did not understand a word of it.
Later, former Liberal MPs Dan McTeague and Anita Neville also advocated for Hiebert's release, noting that the same crime here in Canada netted fewer than four years behind bars.
Then there were the rumours of bribery. In the past, family members said Greek officials clandestinely promised his freedom for a price. |
Tv5Monde revealed his own passwords in an interview
A TV5Monde staffer accidentally revealed a password used to access the social media account of the broadcaster in an interview.
Following the successful attack against the network of the TV French Channel TV5Monde, law enforcement and French Intelligence started to investigate the attach chain.
Investigators speculate that one of the possible way hackers obtained credentials for systems at TV French Channel TV5Monde is the view of an interview that accidentally revealed the precious information.
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While a TV5Monde reporter was filming David Delos in front of a staffer’s desk, it was visible in the background a paper reporting a list of usernames and passwords.
“In an interview with French news program 13 Heures, TV5Monde reporter David Delos unwittingly revealed at least one password for the station’s social media presence. That’s because he was filmed in front of a staffer’s desk—which was smothered in sticky notes and taped index cards that were covered in account usernames and passwords.” reported ArsTechnica.
The passwords visible in the video interview are related to Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts. The YouTube password was very easy to read, it was “lemotdepassedeyoutube” (Its translation is “the password of YouTube”).
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In a different video it is visible a Post-it attached in front a monitor that reports the password “azerty12345” used on the main server hosting the website and other data of the TV5monde broadcaster.
TV5monde managers are talking about a prepared, powerful and coordinated attack, but honestly, this type of password doesn’t require any specific expertise to crack it, being easily crackable also by an amateur.
There is a moral lesson to take from this story, and the message is that even if you heavily invest in security measures to protect your assets, you continue vulnerable to human error, with social engineering. |
Abattis CEO Bill Fleming reported that the product has received excellent feedback and out at the Seattle Hempfest, which was held on August 14-16, 2015.
Abattis Bioceuticals’ (OTCQX: ATTBF | CSE: ATT) is making good on its promises to deploy innovative market applications in the cannabis industry. Abattis reported the sale of 10,000 500 ml bottles of hemp-infused drinking water as a result of its ongoing natural health product research and development efforts. The water was sold to Nana’s Secret Soda of Washington State by Vergence Visionary Bioceuticals, wholly-owned subsidiary of Abattis focused on the sales and marketing of Abattis natural health products..
The 24rd Annual Seattle Hempfest took place August 14-16, 2014. Attendance in 2015 is not available yet but the 2014 numbers show 120,000 visitors.
Devoid of THC, hemp food products have been clinically studied and have been praised for a wide spectrum of health benefits which include: lowering blood pressure by reducing inflammation and improving circulation, improving cholesterol levels, improving digestion, promoting weight loss and so on and so forth.
The emergence of hemp drinks, particularly drinks enhanced with CBD, in the marketplace marks three significant market, legislative and consumer trends:
Drinks based on the use of hemp extracts are a part of a trend for the reviving of the hemp industry that offers a tantalizing area for market expansion: Industrial hemp is marketed a fiber, as a seed, or as a dual-purpose crop. Although detailed market information for hemp in not readily available, estimates from The Hemp Industries Association (HIA) show that the total retail value of hemp products in the U.S. in 2013 was $581 million. This includes food and body products, clothing, auto parts, building materials, and other products. A shifting legislative framework also supports hemp drinks. Last month, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the consumption of medicinal marihuana and other extracts and derivatives is no longer limited to smoking; legalizing all means of medicinal marihuana consumption in one fell swoop. The Supreme Court’s ruling had the intrinsic effect of forcing the revision of the current MMPR regulations (Marihuana for Medicinal Purposes Regulations) in which the consumption of edibles is illegal. The marijuana/hemp market is showing new consumer preference markets for marihuana and hemp derivative products. For example, in a study prepared for the Colorado Department of Revenue, The Marijuana Policy Group (MPG) describe the slow, but steady shift away from smoking marihuana, the traditional way of consuming marihuana, to alternative methods such as edibles, vaporizers, concentrates, lotions and salves.
Among its many partnerships and agreements Abattis counts five divisions, which enhance the Company’s strategically cultivated network spanning the entire industry. |
In the round-up: Christian Horner indicates the contest for Mark Webber’s seat at Red Bull in 2014 is now between Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo.
Links
Your daily digest of F1 news, views, features and more.
Horner keen to test Ricciardo (Sky)
“Horner has previously identified Jean-Eric Vergne, Ricciardo and Raikkonen as the three candidates to replace the Porsche-bound Webber. But asked point-blank whether the battle for succession was now a straight fight between Raikkonen and Ricciardo, Horner acknowledged: ‘Essentially, probably.'”
Formula One Group Press Release (CVC)
“Mr Ecclestone has six weeks to provide a response to this bill of indictment, prior to a decision being made by the Court on opening proceedings. The Board will continue to monitor developments in this situation accordingly.”
Formula One’s Ecclestone charged in German bribe case (Reuters)
“‘The main topic of the response will be the changing ‘confessions’ of Mr Gribkowsky,’ Duesseldorf-based law firm Thomas Deckers Wehnert Elsner said in an emailled statement.”
Formula One Boss Bernie Ecclestone Indicted for Bribery (The Wall Street Journal)
“The indictment could also affect potential plans for listing Formula One stock. CVC Capital, which now owns a roughly 35% stake in the company, has been looking into reviving plans to list Formula One in Singapore after pulling a $2.5 billion [?�?�1.64bn] initial public offering last year. The overhang of the investigation was one factor behind the delay, according to people familiar with the deal.”
Bernie Ecclestone – the man, the myths and the motors (BBC)
” While the wheels of German justice have been turning in recent years, some in F1 believe they have detected a dimming of Ecclestone’s powers. There was the decision to shuffle this year’s grand prix calendar to accommodate a race that turned out not to exist, for example. Then there was his failure to prevent the introduction of a new engine formula, which is going ahead next year despite Ecclestone’s four-year campaign against the idea.”
Calado: Force India talk no distraction (Autosport)
“Over the years it’s got tougher, money being a big factor. I’m a believer that talent does show and that talent can get you through. All I can focus on is doing as good a job as I can, both in a GP2 car and on days like this.”
Intrigen in der Formel 1 (Bild, German)
Bild claims Mercedes’ Toto Wolff criticised company chairman Dieter Zetsche and team principal Ross Brawn in a conversation between Wolff and a former F1 team boss which was secretly recorded.
Tweets
Ok you bitch you have lied to me for 14 years…cut me some slack today.. never.. #noshortcuts pic.twitter.com/1lldiGJQSw — Mark Webber (@AussieGrit) July 17, 2013
@f1fanatic_co_uk Disappointed to not be able to watch cars through Becketts #F1YDT — Gareth Watson (@Grthalo) July 17, 2013
Off to sleep. After 10 years waiting, tomorrow is the big day. Thanks to everyone who has been supporting me. Good night! — Carlos Sainz (@carlosainz) July 17, 2013
Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Comment of the day
What would losing Bernie Ecclestone mean to F1? GT_Racer has a few thoughts:
Anyone who thinks the sport will be better with Bernie gone is in for a major shock when that day comes. Regardless of what people tend to think, Bernie actually does love this sport and has put a lot back into it to help build it to where it is. Whoever CVC decide to put in his place (And it will be a CVC decision) may not care about the sport as much. Has Bernie made a fortune off F1? Yes. However he?������s also spent a fortune and lost a fortune on F1. From the F1 Digital+ service he had so much of his own cash invested in, To the TV side in general (in-car cameras, dedicated timing systems, consistent TV graphics at every race etc…) and way back in the days where he was putting his own money forward as price money for race winners when the individual race promoters were not always willing to put anything up. Is everything Bernie?������s done necessarily positive (or perceived as positive)? No. However he?������s done far more good for F1 over the years than he has bad.
GT_Racer
From the forum
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Wizardofoz and Icemangrins!
If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.
On this day in F1
Alberto Ascari dominated the British Grand Prix 60 years ago today, leading all 90 laps at Silverstone and winning by a full minute.
Juan Manuel Fangio was second for Maserati followed by Ascari’s team mate Giuseppe Farina.
This was the first time the podium had been filled by world champions, something which would not be repeated for another 12 years:
Image ?�?� Red Bull/Getty |
U.S. Government Criminal Enterprise – Catherine Austin Fitts by Greg Hunter – USA Watchdog
Financial expert and investment advisor Catherine Austin Fitts says the U.S. Government runs on massive criminal activity. Fitts explains, “The U.S. economy is deeply dependent on criminal cash flows. We’re the global leader in money laundering. If we stopped doing that, the economy would be in for a major, major change. . . . The preference for most Americans is to keep that system going as long as it works for them. So, it you are a public official, you are between a rock and a hard place. If you press the red button and stop the illegal cash flows, then all hell breaks loose. . . . The U.S. Government has been run as a criminal enterprise, and I have documented and proved that on multiple occasions. The swamp that exists in Washington is from sea to shining sea. It’s not just in Washington. It’s in every county and every state house in the country. If we are going to change and clean ourselves of enormous financial dependencies on criminal activities, we are talking about a very big change, and it’s not just in Washington.”
So, in the big picture, where are we now? Why are so many top people in politics and Hollywood being taken down? Fitts says, “These people are expensive. This is a fundamental re-engineering. . . . We are watching purges, but these purges are knocking out the expensive people, people we no longer need from the financial coup d’état period, and you are bringing in a new wave of people or you are just downsizing. So, we see sex purges in Hollywood and in various forms of media and entertainment. . . . You have various purges going on because the reality is the world needs to move on. This money needs to be reinvested, and you can’t afford a bunch of egotistical maniacs who were good at stealing money. You can’t use them to build the future, and you can’t afford them. . . . There is a huge amount of money that is floating around in fixed income and derivative markets, and now you’ve got to bring it down into the hard economy and hard assets. How do you do that? You need to switch the caliber of the people for management and reinvestment of the money. You have to do it in a way that doesn’t kick off hyperinflation.”
Continue Reading / USA Watchdog>>>
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Everything is as usual
a) Luna is never too much
b) the naming is after a soundtrack
Once in a blue moon I've managed to make a sketch which I'm not ashamed to look at. Hope, discretization didn't spoil it too much. While sketching a rouch I've looked through a lot of that headwear's variations. This one - with dark elements and black feathers - is the one I liked the most. I think it fits Luna-chan very well. It begs the drawing of light-dressed Molly besides, but I think I'll do that next time.
English translation by Nans Все как обычно: а) Луны много не бывает, б) название взято из музыкального трека.В кои-то веки сделал скетч при взгляде на который почти не стыдно, надеюсь, при оцифровке не слишком испортил. Пока рисовал роуч, пересмотрел кучу вариантов исполнения этого головного убора и очень понравилась его версия с черными перьями и всеми темными элементами. Мне кажется, Луняше все это очень идет. Напрашивается сделать в пару этой картинке еще Молли в светлом, но это как-нибудь в другой раз. |
1) You bring your own teabags.
2) You ask for separate checks after you’ve finished your meal.
3) You’re a foreigner who knows the customary tip in the US is 15% but feign ignorance so you can save a few bucks.
4) You bring your own appetizers. (Swear that happened to me once.)
5) You ask “What are the specials?” before your ass hits the chair.
6) After you’ve eaten all of your food you decide you don’t like it and demand a full refund.
7) You ask the waiter for ice, sugar, and lemon and make your own lemonade. (I’ve seen people make their own ice tea too!)
8) You request a list of the CD’s we’re playing on the house stereo.
9) You bring your dog or cat into the restaurant. (This isn’t France!)
10) You arrive on time but your friends are an hour late. You insist on being sat in the dining room but refuse to order anything more complicated than water with lemon and five baskets of bread.
11) You tell the waiter you’re allergic to something when you’re not.
12) You bring your cup of Starbucks coffee into the restaurant.
13) You have a $50 dollar gift certificate and a hundred dollar check. The waiter deducts the gift certificate from your total and you only tip the waiter on the remaining $50.
14) You tell the waiter you’re “in the business.”
15) You demand the best table on Saturday night even though you don’t have a reservation.
16) The check’s $100.01 and you split the check between two credit cards. You get the credit card slip for $50.01 and your friend gets the one for $50. He leaves a $7.50 tip and you leave one for $7.49.
17) You’re late for your reservation and don’t bother to call.
18) You make five reservations at five restaurants, pick one, and don’t bother to tell the others you’re canceling.
19) You’ve paid the check, you have your coats on, but you still won’t leave.
20) You get sat five minutes before closing and say “We don’t want to be rushed.”
21) You have sex in the restroom and don’t clean up after yourselves.
22) You let your sweet little children run rampant throughout the restaurant and think it’s “cute.”
23) You just walk in and sit down, ignoring the hostess.
24) You don’t tip the coat check girl.
25) You claim you’re “a friend of the owner.” So what? 5000 people are operating under a similar delusion.
26) You ask if we’ll open on Christmas just for you.
27) You say “Do you know who I am?”
28) You say “Do you know who I work for?”
29) You drunkenly ask the waiter if the Bangladeshi busboy is a terrorist.
30) You praise the waiter to high heaven but leave him 7%. (The Dreaded Verbal Tip!)
31) Even worse, you leave religious tracts instead of a tip.
32) You ask the waiter to fetch you a prostitute.
33) You take twenty minutes to complete the wine tasting ritual.
34) You ask for the “big glasses” when drinking house wine by the glass.
35) You tell the waiter “you’ll take care of him” and then leave him less than 15%.
36) You ask the waiter his or her name only so you can shout it when your martini’s running low.
37) You ask your waitress if her breasts are real.
38) You grab the waiter by the elbow when he or she walks by to get their attention.
39) You make the waiter recite the specials five times.
40) You get so drunk you vomit all over the table.
41) You hand the waiter a dirty diaper.
42) You want to haggle over the prices.
43) You ask the waiter “How old do I look?”
44) You get mad that there’s a split charge and refuse to pay it.
45) You leave a penny on the table. Go fuck yourself. It’s been done.
46) You ask for sushi at an Italian restaurant.
47) You ask for unreasonable substitutions. (Can I have au gratin potatoes instead of pasta?)
48) You’re so drunk you walk out with both credit card slips.
49) You lost your cell phone but insist the bus boys stole it.
50) You never say “please” or “thank you.”
Just like last time – if you have any other “asshole signs” leave them in the comments section. |
The attack was detected on October 21st and the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit launched an investigation into the hack the following day. TalkTalk has already begun contacting customers and says it has "taken all necessary measures to secure our website." At the time of writing, the website's account sections have been taken offline and the company is asking customers who wish to contact its various departments to use the dedicated customer service phone numbers instead.
All major banks have been put on alert and TalkTalk has logged details of the attack with the Information Commissioner's Office, which serves as the UK's data protection authority. The company admits that not all data was encrypted, meaning that some details could be utilised in future phishing attacks.
UK companies have been increasingly targeted in recent months. In August, independent mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse admitted that up to 2.4 million customer accounts and around 90,000 encrypted credit card records had been accessed following a cyber attack.
"TalkTalk constantly updates its systems to make sure they are as secure as possible against the rapidly evolving threat of cyber crime, impacting an increasing number of individuals and organisations," says TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding. "We take any threat to the security of our customers' data extremely seriously and we are taking all the necessary steps to understand what has happened here."
[Image credit: edublogger, Flickr] |
The Raiders missed out on some big-name free agents elsewhere, but at center they landed their guy.
That target: former Chief Rodney Hudson, who reportedly will sign with Oakland for five years and $44.5 million. No word yet on the guaranteed money included in the deal, which is really the key to any NFL contract. At an average of $8.9 million per season, though, Hudson's deal for the moment makes him the highest-paid center in the league, surpassing Maurkice Pouncey ($8.8 million).
• NFL rumors: Latest free-agency, trade-block buzz from around league
The Raiders were believed to be contenders for the likes of Randall Cobb and Ndamukong Suh—and can afford to overpay for Hudson—because they head into free agency flush with cash. The NFLPA's most recent public salary-cap report had Oakland $55 million-plus under the 2015 threshold, while OvertheCap.com showed the Raiders with more than $59 million available.
Hudson will take over for another current free agent, Stefan Wisniewski, in the middle of Oakland's line. Wisniewski, a 61-game starter over the past four seasons, has been a steady blocker for the Raiders but there's little question that Hudson outperformed him last season.
The Raiders now have the makings of a mauling front, at least on the left side—Hudson will have impressive 2014 rookie guard Gabe Jackson lined up next to him and Donald Penn returns at LT off a strong Oakland debut.
More importantly, getting Hudson to sign on the dotted line represents an important step forward for the Raiders' image this offseason. New coach Jack Del Rio talked at the combine about the challenge of trying to recruit elite players to Oakland, where the team obviously has struggled for some time and the facilities are lacking.
[daily_cut.nfl]"I think it’s important that the prospective players out there understand that things have changed," Del Rio said. "Our fields are all being redone; our practice fields are being redone; our weight room is being expanded. ... There is a freshness going on. Those are things that I talked about in the interview process that were important and they’ve been followed up with actual commitment of capital, which I’m excited about.
"As you go into this phase of free agency and acquiring players, we have cap space and we have a new staff full of teachers. We have a young quarterback. We have a good, young man off the edge in Khalil Mack. We’ve got a good left tackle. We’ve got corners. The things that we need to get started, we have. So, now we have to start adding good, quality people that are fired up to be part of the Raiders."
Also of interest will be the running back that gets first crack behind the Hudson-led line. While Latavius Murray was a pleasant surprise in 2014, the Raiders could be in the market for a RB to share the load.
That decision is part of what's next for the Raiders, now that they have made their first free-agent splash.
Grade: B-plus
Again, we'll see on guaranteed money, but anytime you make a player the highest-paid at his position it is something of an inherent gamble. The 25-year-old Hudson has been a starter for just two seasons, and the Chiefs headed into training camp prior to the '13 campaign uncertain if he was the right man for the job. Oakland needs him to maintain his rise.
The reported money is not outlandish, especially for a franchise with as much in its pockets as Oakland has right now. Having to overpay a bit is part of the Raiders' reality right now, at least until they can find a consistent measure of success or land a new stadium.
So, yes, they probably pushed Hudson's contract beyond where any other team was willing to go. That will be of little concern if Hudson continues to play as he did last season.
GALLERY: PLAYERS EXPECTED TO BE WITH NEW TEAMS IN 2015 |
we had a fantastic time last weekend. I went til around 10:30. that was a lot of Fun PVP Action.
we will be doing it again.
This is to get the Oricon PVP Achievements and the Party Jawa Achievements.
Bring your jawas and remember to pop them.
We will meet on Instance 1 and fight between the Imp and pub bases. The Only PVP gear i have is the Expertise crystal so Come at me 8) "Rednine" on the imp side or "Sithy'Mcfisto" on the pubside.
I have been keeping my flag on in Oricon while doing my dailies so if you see anyone in the "isgoingcommando" legacy feel free to attack me.
We just meet up and form ops on either side I'll be yelling out to find folks before we start.
Most likely on Imps side unless we need more on the pub side. but we have plenty that join in.
We would also like to do these on other pvp plants so Let me know if you have any suggestions.
I'll be happy to post them on here and reddit. or let me know if you posted and i'll be happy to join in and help drum up interest.
See you all then.
Also there is another PVP event going on in Outlaws Den. recommended pvp gear lvl 154
Either way if it's PVP that you want You have at least two things you can do Saturday Night.
if a lot of you think it will conflict too much let me know and I can move the Oricon PVP to Sunday night. Hi Folks,we had a fantastic time last weekend. I went til around 10:30. that was a lot of Fun PVP Action.we will be doing it again.This is to get the Oricon PVP Achievements and the Party Jawa Achievements.Bring your jawas and remember to pop them.We will meet on Instance 1 and fight between the Imp and pub bases. The Only PVP gear i have is the Expertise crystal so Come at me 8) "Rednine" on the imp side or "Sithy'Mcfisto" on the pubside.I have been keeping my flag on in Oricon while doing my dailies so if you see anyone in the "isgoingcommando" legacy feel free to attack me.We just meet up and form ops on either side I'll be yelling out to find folks before we start.Most likely on Imps side unless we need more on the pub side. but we have plenty that join in.We would also like to do these on other pvp plants so Let me know if you have any suggestions.I'll be happy to post them on here and reddit. or let me know if you posted and i'll be happy to join in and help drum up interest.See you all then.Also there is another PVP event going on in Outlaws Den. recommended pvp gear lvl 154 Outlaw's Den Event thread Sounds like a lot of fun. and they is a registration. Will be good if you don't like the chaos of what we are doing on Oricon 8).Either way if it's PVP that you want You have at least two things you can do Saturday Night.if a lot of you think it will conflict too much let me know and I can move the Oricon PVP to Sunday night. |
The last community synagogue in Gondar, in the north of Ethiopia, is in a rented building cordoned off from the street by large metal sheets. Several men passively stand guard in front. From the outside, a Jewish Agency for Israel sign is the main indication of what lies within.
But neighbors know.
“You,” two men in frayed jeans and rubber sandals shouted as I paused at the wide street where they loitered. “Beta Israel?”
I nod in response.
“There,” they said, gesturing in the synagogue’s direction.
Beta Israel, or House of Israel, is the term for Ethiopia’s indigenous Jewish community. The Jews are also called Falasha, or “outsiders” in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of Ethiopian Christians and Jews. It is here, in the rolling green hills of Gondar, that a distinctive Ethiopian Jewish community of craftsmen and shepherds once thrived. They claimed to derive from the tribe of Dan, one of the lost 10 biblical tribes, although this claim remains historically disputed.
The typical Jewish or American travelers rarely reach Ethiopia, a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa where infrastructure is poor and poverty rampant. But Ethiopia is a desirable destination for travelers seeking new heights, as well as beautiful nature preserves and ancient religious sites. Several Jewish groups, such as Jewish Journeys Ltd., have organized sightseeing or fundraising trips to Gondar and to other areas in the north, like the Simien Mountains and Bahir Dar, where Jews were once populous. Others, like myself, make it their own way.
Travelers, however, will not be coming to this synagogue much longer.
On a Saturday in May, I entered the synagogue with a parade of Falasha children. They enthusiastically grasped my hand and, chattering, led me into the main hall. It is a large space filled with benches and divided by a thin cloth mechitzah, to separate the men from the women. The service is in Ge’ez, which shares the same Semitic roots as Hebrew, Arabic and local Amharic. Only the Kaddish is in recognizable Aramaic.
About 25 women sit in front, most of them dressed in white and wrapped in white shawls, common prayer attire for Christian, Muslim and Jewish women in Ethiopia. The men at this service wear the more distinctively Jewish talitot.
On the synagogue’s walls are posters chronicling the waves of aliyah. Over the years, Israelis have helped thousands of Falasha escape the hardships of Ethiopia to move to Israel.
The children around me have known only Gondar, and they told me that they want to go to Israel, too. They asked for my name in Hebrew, and they told me their respective names. They study the language at Gondar’s only Jewish day school. My American-accented Hebrew confused them.
One little girl, 10 years old and with an overbite and wide eyes, squeezed in beside me on the bench. She began to count in Hebrew, concentrating hard. She counted higher and higher, her recitation mixing with the murmurs of men on the other side of the mechitzah.
Near the service’s end, she grew impatient.
“I want a present,” she said to me in Hebrew. Then she repeated over and over, “Ani yafa [I am beautiful].” She persisted, her voice more deflated: “I am beautiful. Why no present?”
At the service’s conclusion, the children squealed. Then quiet wishes of “Shabbat Shalom” were shared. The Kiddush was recited, and baskets of torn Ethiopian sourdough bread were passed around. A few moments later, the community dispersed into the streets, blending into the crowds of brightly dressed Ethiopians.
The modern history of the Beta Israel is not one to romanticize. It is a complicated and oft-disputed story of competing political, religious and humanitarian interests — a portion of Jewish and world history often overlooked.
In 1975, the Israeli Rabbinate officially extended the Law of Return to the Beta Israel. This meant that the Falasha, like all Jews according to Israeli law, now had the right to Israeli citizenship. While some Israelis supported Ethiopian aliyah for humanitarian reasons, others simply wanted more Jews to populate the country.
Jewish Ethiopians were eager to leave their home country. For years Ethiopians suffered under the infamous despot Haile Selassie. Famine devastated the north, while fighting raged along the country’s borders with Eritrea, Somalia and the Sudan. During these troubling times, communities grew insular and hostile toward outsiders. The Falasha, for years largely unable to possess their own land, often became a target of Christian ill will.
In the 1980s, a series of devastating famines raged in Ethiopia’s rebellious north. Hundreds of thousands, including Falasha, left their villages for a treacherous trek to refugee camps at the Sudanese border, their only route for escape. In the covert Operation Moses (1984–85), the Israelis rescued nearly 7,000 Jews from the camps and brought them to refuge in Israel. Thousands more never made it.
Over the next decade, a civil war simmered. The Soviet-bloc kept Ethiopia’s quasi-socialist leader, Mengistu Haile Mariam, propped up against encroaching Eritrean and Tigrean rebels. Facing pressure from several Jewish Diaspora organizations, the Americans and Israelis pushed to accelerate the Falasha emigration. In response, the Mengistu government reportedly offered to leverage Falasha aliyah for Israeli arms. Mengistu’s eventual defeat loomed. In their most daring campaign, in May 1991, the Israelis airlifted more than 14,000 Falasha — most of whom had never seen a plane before — to Israel from Addis Ababa in just 36 hours. The event was dubbed Operation Solomon.
The Israeli Bureau of Statistics estimates that 78,000 Falasha have immigrated to Israel since 1980. There they have greater political freedoms and personal opportunities, but they also face racism and economic marginalization, a stain on the Ethiopian exodus story.
Today, a Jewish cemetery still exists in the forest on the outskirts of Gondar. Adjacent to the forest is an old Falasha village of brown huts. There, an aging woman, who claims she is the last Jew in the village, speaks of the suffering of her family members, now all dead or gone to Israel, and of the joy she finds in creating pottery. In the street outside, neighbors sell crafts they say come from the Falasha village, though it’s been years since a viable Falasha community lived here.
In another part of a city is a compound belonging to the Jewish Agency. The organization facilitates the aliyah process and provides some health and employment services to the Falasha. Inside the compound, Ethiopians patiently sit in rows, waiting for their cases to be heard by Jewish Agency officials, hoping that they will be granted permission to go to Israel.
Gondar’s only Jewish day school, run by the Jewish Agency, is a bumpy drive away. Here the children learn Hebrew in preparation for their relocation. On a tour in May, the headmaster told me that the school — decorated with Jewish stars and flanked by high fences — is the best in the area. Inside, the school provides free lunches of chicken and fruit. There is a sanctuary, a laboratory, a library, a computer room, and even health and family planning services. Boys in uniform play soccer in a large field next to the school’s one-story buildings. In Ethiopia, statistically more children work than read, making the school an impressive feat.
But in Gondar, the Jewish people and places to visit are dwindling fast.
In June the Jewish Agency announced that by September it plans to fly out the remaining 400 Falasha already approved by the Israeli government for aliyah. In the years since the major operations, small numbers of people of have been emigrating each month. The rest of the applicants the Jewish Agency will assess on a case-by-case basis.
The Jewish Agency has announced the end of the Falasha aliyah several times before. But this time, the Jewish Agency’s Ethiopia emissary, Asher Seyum, says it will really happen. In 2011 the Jewish Agency took over aliyah-related operations from the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry in order to streamline the process.
I met Seyum at the Florida International Hotel in Gondar, a popular gathering point for Jews and Israelis visiting the city. At age 12, Seyum was part of Operation Moses after he fled, with his family, a small village outside Gondar and headed to the Jewish camp at the Sudanese border. Now, he is back in Ethiopia as a representative for Israel.
Seyum explained that by the summer’s end, the Jewish Agency plans to conclude its operations, including the synagogue and school.
This is not to say that Ethiopia will be emptied of Jews entirely: thousands of Falash Mura, or descendants of Christian converts from Judaism, are to remain behind in Gondar and its surrounding area. Seyum explained that most Falash Mura, also called Zera Israel, converted in the 19th and 20th century, when Jewish relations with Christian rulers soured. Regardless, many kept ties with their Jewish brethren and were never fully accepted into the Christian communities. When word spread about the aliyah, many thousands of Falash Mura left their villages for Gondar and Addis Ababa, assuming they counted.
Then came the complications.
Today, both Israeli and Ethiopian groups dispute the Falash Mura’s religious and political status. It was not until after Operation Moses that the Israelis became aware of this subgroup that, up until then, had emigrated with the others. Israeli officials became wary of opportunists. Today, Falash Mura who move to Israel must undergo conversion on arrival. Under the Israeli Law of Entry, Falash Mura with family in Israel may apply to make aliyah to reunite with their family members.
Seyum explained that as a Falasha, he empathizes with the people whose lives and futures hang in the balance of Israeli policy regarding emigration.
“It’s not an easy decision,” he admitted of the Jewish Agency’s choice to wind down its operation and evaluate further emigration on a case-by-case basis. “When I talk about the final aliyah, I say it is like an operation: You do the operation and it’s very, very difficult. But if you don’t do the operation, it’s so dangerous.”
For decades, several American and Israeli organizations have been in Gondar to support the community that remains. With the Jewish Agency leaving, these organizations worry that the Jewish community will forget people here. I visited one organization, Meketa, that sponsors children and helps adults left in limbo in Gondar find jobs. In a modest shack beside the Jewish Agency compound, five men, aged 30 to 80, worked intently at looms, weaving blue-and-white talitot to sell.
Antehunegh, 38, told me that he left his village and came to Gondar eight years ago in order to make aliyah. Other weavers have been waiting in Gondar to go to Israel for twice as long. He has five children and is not happy in Gondar, where the rent is too high (400–500 birr, or $21–$27 a month), and both land and jobs are scarce. Many of his family members have already gone to Israel. With hard economic times and limited resources, people are loath to give jobs or sell land to outsiders, he claimed. “Even when there is work in the nearby villages, they won’t let you buy land or build your own house,” he said.
“We see hope in a future in Israel,” explained Antehunegh, who has five children, “If I go to Israel I’ll have the opportunities like every Israeli citizen. I’m thinking of my family and children.”
He was happy, he added, that foreigners had come to see Ethiopia.
Days later, and 100 miles away in Bahir Dar by Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile River, I met two Israeli Falasha who had returned to Ethiopia for the first time since they left with their families in Operation Solomon. We toured the muddied Blue Nile Falls together.
“I told myself that I need to do this trip for myself and my identity,” said Beny Fareda, 24, who wore an IDF T-shirt and greeted passing Ethiopians in Amharic. He waved his hand at the cow-plowed fields and wooden huts. “My parents grew up in a place that looked just like this.”
Tomorrow he would head to Gondar to visit what remained.
Miriam Berger is a freelance journalist usually based in the Middle East.
This story "The Last Jews of Ethiopia" was written by Miriam Berger. |
news, latest-news,
Police are searching for five men who did a naked Macca’s run in Newcastle earlier this month, in what appears to be a bizarre dare. A group of five naked men entered the McDonald's store on King Street in Newcastle about 6.40pm on Friday, November 10. CCTV images taken from the fast food store show the five men entering from the street in a single file, in broad daylight. Read more: Wollongong’s best burger joints - as voted by you Two of the men were holding "objects covering their modesty", police say. A still CCTV image shows one of the others walking with his arms extended outwards slightly. Newcastle City Crime Manager, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Mahon said while the incident may appear amusing to some, there were several families with small children in the restaurant at the time. "Police are investigating this display of offensive behaviour and are seeking assistance from the public to identify the males," Inspector Mahon said. A spokesman for the McDonald's store did not want to comment on the incident. Police have requested anyone with information contact Crime Stoppers.
https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/rdPnbxNSt95RbDXSGgzrdz/62adb69f-4b9a-4089-b865-c3b011ffdbe5.jpg/r2_0_618_348_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg |
Yesterday I shared my thoughts about running the iOS 9 beta on the iPad Air 2. Today I'll take a look at the watchOS 2 beta on the Apple Watch. The watchOS 2 beta is available to anyone with an Apple Developer account. You can get one by paying $99 and the membership lasts for one year.
I installed the watchOS 2 beta yesterday on my 42mm Stainless Steel with Classic Buckle model. Installing watchOS 2 beta is a bit more complicated than installing the iOS 9 beta and it will take a little bit longer.
You'll need to use the Apple Watch app on your iPhone to install the watchOS 2 beta.
Rather than list out how to do it, I'll just let you watch this YouTube video that explains how to get the watchOS 2 beta installed on your Apple Watch:
Once you complete the install of the watchOS 2 beta, you can then start playing with some of the new features. I'll share my thoughts below about them, and you can make up your own mind about whether or not it's worth it to install the watchOS 2 beta on your Apple Watch.
Please note that I've only included the things I was actually able to use and test. Some things such as FaceTime Audio calls, native apps or additional complication customization based on app store apps aren't available yet in the watchOS 2 beta.
New time-lapse watch faces in watchOS 2 beta
One of the neat things about watchOS 2 is the new time-lapse watch faces. The new watch faces add an interesting wrinkle to the Apple Watch by showing you images of places like Hong Kong, London, New York, and Shanghai. The videos in the watch faces show were taken over the course of 24 hours, and you can see each location differently depending on the time in your own location.
Use the watch face selection screen to choose which time-lapse watch face you want to use in the watchOS 2 beta.
The new time-lapse watch faces add additional variety to the Apple Watch in the watchOS 2 beta.
I looked for the new watch faces after I'd installed the watchOS beta on my Apple Watch. But they are not available by default, you have to add them yourself. Press down using Force Touch to bring up the watch face selection screen, then scroll to the right and tap on New. Then just look for the time-lapse watch face option.
Once you've added the time-lapse watch faces, you can use Force Touch to select which one to have running on your Apple Watch. The time-lapse watch faces look very cool indeed, and they are definitely different than the other watch faces on the Apple Watch.
However, after running them for a while I actually went back to my favorite watch face: Modular. While the time-lapse watch faces are cool, you can't add complications at this point so you can only see the time on them. Modular, on the other hand, lets you have a number of complications and provides a lot more information with a glance.
It remains to be seen if Apple will add complications to the time-lapse watch faces. Remember that this is beta 1 of watchOS 2, so it's entirely possible that we'll see some complications added in a future update. For now I'm in a "wait and see" mode.
Still, the time-lapse watch faces are undeniably cool and I'm glad Apple has added them. They add a little variety to the current selection of watch faces, and I'm looking forward to see what Apple does with the time-lapse watch faces. I suspect they'll add more locations at some point too.
Single Photo and Photo Album watch faces
Two other new watch faces are based on your own photos. You can set up a new watch face using a single photo, or you can set your Apple Watch to show you random photos from an album. Both options offer a neat way to personalize your Apple Watch.
You'll need to choose a photo, then create a new watch face to use a single photo in the watchOS 2 beta.
The single photo watch face can be customized in the watchOS 2 beta.
Before you use either option, you'll need to make sure that you've chosen an album in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Just go to My Watch, then tap on Photos to choose your preferred photo album. Once you've picked an album, it will sync over to your Apple Watch.
If you want to use the Photo Album watch face, you'll need to add it as a new watch face. Just press your current watch face to use Force Touch and then scroll to the right and tap the icon in the watch face selection screen. Find the Photo Album watch face and add it. After that you can select it like you can any watch face.
If you want to use a single photo, just tap on the Photos app on your Apple Watch home screen. You'll see all of your synced photos. Use the Digital Crown to zoom in and then press on it to use Force Touch to add it as a watch face.
I ran into a problem trying to customize the single photo watch face. Each time I tapped the customize button, my watch rebooted. So there's a clearly a bug or something going on with that right now in the watchOS beta. I'm sure it will be fixed in due time though so it's not a big deal.
The Photo Album watch face does not currently have a customization option. But I'm sure Apple will probably add one at some point.
I must say that it was great to see a different photo load each time I raised my wrist. It takes away the tedium of seeing the same thing all the time. I think the Photo Album feature will be very popular among Apple Watch users since it personalizes the device in a very fun way.
Time Travel in the watchOS 2 beta
Time Travel is another cool feature in watchOS 2. With Time Travel you can use the Digital Crown to move forward or backward in time. This can be quite useful if you want to see what the weather will be or what you have on your calendar if you're using it as a complication.
Time Travel makes it easy to move forward or backward in time on the Apple Watch in the watchOS beta.
I had no problems using Time Travel in the watchOS 2 beta. It worked very well for me and I think it will be a popular feature when watchOS 2 is finally released. It adds a certain kind of convenience to the Apple Watch that isn't in watchOS 1.
Nightstand mode in the watchOS 2 beta
Nightstand mode is Apple's way of turning its watch into an alarm clock. By putting the watch on its charger, and then on its side it essentially becomes a handy clock. I tested this and it worked perfectly in the watchOS 2 beta. When your alarm goes off, you can use the Digital Crown to snooze or the side button to turn off the alarm.
While it's not my cup of tea since I rarely use alarms, I can see nightstand mode being very popular with travelers and anybody else who relies on an alarm to wake them each morning. It removes the need to use your iPhone as an alarm clock and takes advantage of the watch's time-keeping abilities.
The performance of watchOS 2 beta 1
Unlike the iOS 9 beta on the iPad Air 2, the watchOS 2 beta definitely feels more like...well...a beta. It is slower at times than watchOS 1 and also seems less stable than the iOS 9 beta.
However, this is beta 1 of watchOS 2 so all of this is to be expected. I'm sure it will improve significantly in future updates. Apple seems to be moving at warp speed with its Apple Watch development efforts so stay tuned to see what happens with future watchOS 2 betas.
Hold off installing the watchOS 2 beta if you can
My advice, as always, is to avoid installing beta software on your devices. But if you are seriously considering installing watchOS 2 then I suggest holding off for a little while until it's a bit more polished and more new features are added to it.
That said, the watchOS 2 beta is off to a pretty good start and it definitely lays the groundwork for a much better Apple Watch experience in the fall. Some of the new features that have been added work reasonably well considering it's beta 1, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes in the next few updates of watchOS 2.
Did you miss a post? Check the Eye On Apple home page to get caught up with the latest news, discussions and rumors about Apple.
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FAW Club Licensing Appeals Body
The Football Association of Wales Club Licensing Appeals Body met in Cardiff on Thursday to consider the appeals of three clubs.
Port Talbot Town Football Club appealed against the decision of the First Instance Body not to award the club a UEFA and FAW Domestic Licence. The Appeals Body upheld the decision and the UEFA and Domestic Licence were refused for the 2016/17 season.
Cardiff Met. University Football Club appealed against the decision of the First Instance Body not to award the club the FAW Domestic Licence. The Appeals Body were satisfied that the concerns raised by the First Instance Body had been addressed and awarded the FAW Domestic Licence for the 2016/17 season.
Caernarfon Town Football Club appealed against the decision of the First Instance Body not to award the club the FAW Domestic Licence. The Appeals Body upheld the decision and the Domestic Licence was refused for the 2016/17 season.
The FAW Domestic Licence is mandatory to participate in the Welsh Premier League, whilst the UEFA licence is a pre-requisite for UEFA Club competitions.
The final results of the Club Licensing Applications for the 2016/17 season is as follows;
FAW Domestic Licensed Clubs 2016/17
1. Aberystwyth Town
2. Airbus UK Broughton
3. Bala Town
4. Bangor City
5. Barry Town Utd
6. Cardiff Met. University FC
7. Carmarthen Town
8. Cefn Druids
9. Flint Town Utd
10. Gap Connah’s Quay
11. Haverfordwest County
12. Mbi Llandudno
13. Newtown AFC
14. Rhyl FC
15. The New Saints FC
UEFA Licensed Clubs 2016/17
1. Aberystwyth Town
2. Airbus UK Broughton
3. Bala Town
4. Bangor City
5. Carmarthen Town
6. Gap Connah’s Quay
7. Mbi Llandudno
8. Newtown AFC
9. The New Saints FC
What does that mean now for Relegation and Promotion?
Dafabet Welsh Premier League
Port Talbot Town will be relegated despite finishing the season outside the relegation zone, offering the club who finishes 11th place in the Dafabet WPL a reprieve from relegation. Haverfordwest County are currently bottom of the Dafabet WPL and face relegation, however, could avoid pending Cefn Druids final position.
Huws Gray Alliance
Despite Caernarfon Town currently being top of their league and potentially being crowned as Champions permitting their final four fixtures they failed in achieving their domestic licence and will not be promoted to the Dafabet WPL. Cefn Druids are the only North Wales outfit who can be promoted this season, pending they finish in the top two as they currently sit in third position with five games remaining. If they were successful they would take Haverfordwest County's place, if not, the Bluebirds would also receive a reprieve from relegation.
Nathaniel Cars Welsh Football League Division One
Barry Town United and Cardiff Met were both granted a domestic licence occupying first and second spot in the Nathaniel Cars Welsh Football League Division One respectively. Which ever of those clubs finishes higher and in the top two of that league will be promoted to the top flight of Welsh domestic football in place of Port Talbot Town. |
Stress levels among further education staff have risen dramatically in the past two years, a survey published today reveals. Frequent institutional change and unacceptable working demands are being blamed for the shift.
The poll of 2,250 members of the University and College Union (UCU) finds that stressful working environments are taking their toll on staff in the FE sector, with many reporting high levels of psychological distress and exhaustion.
Some 62 per cent of respondents to the online survey say they often or always experience unacceptable levels of stress. This compares with 45 per cent in 2012. In 2008, the figure stood at just 40 per cent.
Among staff, 70 per cent agree or strongly agree that too many changes have been introduced in their institution, with 90 per cent agreeing that a period of stability is needed in the sector.
Organisational change, and how it was managed and commu-nicated, was responsible for the biggest rise in anxiety levels between the 2012 and 2014 surveys.
One respondent says: “A great deal of the stress derives from a failure by college management to explain, discuss or listen to alternatives when it comes to organisational change. Genuine consultation would make an enormous difference, instead of the automatic assumption that college management is always right.”
The next most stressful aspect of life in FE is the demands of the job, including work intensity, deadlines and time pressure, the survey finds.
And the growing pressures are having a significant impact on staff well-being: in a rating of psychological distress, 69 per cent of respondents score 4 or above – the level at which intervention is judged to be required to improve psychological health. Almost 90 per cent say they feel worn out at the end of their working day.
For more on this and other FE stories, get the 8 May edition of TES on your tablet or phone, or by downloading the TES Reader app for Android or iOS. Or pick it up at all good newsagents. |
If there is one thing we can be certain of in life, it’s that eventually we will die – that is, we will no longer be alive. Sadly we are not completely certain what “being dead” means: defining death is much more complicated than it appears, and it’s getting harder to define all the time.
As recently as a century ago, it was priests not doctors who declared a person dead. When in doubt, they looked for signs of putrefaction. As medicine advanced, however, it became apparent that death was not an event, but a process.
Even so, for practical purposes an arbitrary line had to be drawn. First it was taken as the heart stopping. Then came the notion of brain death and in the 1960’s this seemed like the way forward. For a while it was even considered foolproof: once activity ceases in the brain and brain stem you can never regain consciousness, and without intervention the body will quickly shut down.
But foolproof it is not, and the fact that several hundred neurologists and philosophers are gathering next May for the fifth International Symposium on the Definition of Death shows this only too well.
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Technology brings problems
The real spanner in the works was the invention of ventilators – machines that keep lungs breathing and hearts pumping even after the brain has suffered extensive damage. This raised for the first time the question of whether people could or should be treated as dead simply because their brain was dead.
One set of philosophers argues that the destruction of the frontal lobes, with the memories and personality they store, is enough to declare someone dead. This definition includes those in a “permanent vegetative state“. Others resist the idea of brain death altogether and insist that the heart must stop beating before a body can be treated as dead.
The compromise “whole-brain-death” position, which has been written into law in most of the industrialised world, is that a person can only be declared dead if almost all brain function has been irreversibly destroyed.
Whichever definition is adopted, there are many practical and political implications: after all, doctors are generally obliged to treat the living and stop treating the dead. Some bioethicists have even proposed that individuals should choose their own definition of death.
As diagnostic technologies have advanced, declaring total and irreversible brain death has become ever more problematic. In the 1990’s medical advances allowed residual brain activity to be detected in many patients who would have previously been considered brain-dead.
Death of identity
The growing ability to compensate for loss of the brain’s regulation over the body means doctors can maintain some brain-dead bodies indefinitely. We have also discovered more about the brain’s self-repair mechanisms and are rapidly developing new ways to repair damaged brains. It may soon be possible to engineer new neural tissue from patients’ cells and transplant it into damaged areas. Progress in nanotechnology and the miniaturisation of computing will also eventually allow brain damage to be repaired with implantable machines.
All these advances make defining brain death increasingly difficult – and our ability to rebuild destroyed brains may eventually force us to develop a brand new definition of death, based not on brain activity but on personal identity: would you be the same person if your entire brain, including all your memories and personality, were destroyed and then grown anew?
What is it like to die?
It seems it is not death per se that scares most people: once you’re dead (really dead, that is) you won’t know anything about it. What does seem to frighten people is the process of dying, and whether it will be painful. So do we have any idea about how it might feel to die? Of course there are not many people to ask.
But a few people have died and been brought back. Their tales, together with extrapolating from medical experience, can shed light on what it’s like to meet your end in various different ways: from electrocution to hanging, and from drowning to lethal injection (beware – this article is not for the faint-hearted!). The latter – lethal injection – is another extremely contentious issue. It’s been branded too unreliable, too painful and just plain inhumane.
But it’s not always blood and gore: if you’re lucky enough to die peacefully of old age, that is.
Dealing with loss
Another potentially frightening event is the death of a loved one. It can certainly be a very sad and painful time. There are thought to be five main stages of grief: disbelief, yearning, anger, depression and finally, acceptance. The most common emotional difficulty experienced is, unsurprisingly, emotional loneliness.
Losing a partner is generally assumed to be one of the most stressful experiences that people encounter. Marriage is such a strong bond that if one partner dies, the person left behind is put at a significant risk of following suit: it’s known as the “widower effect”.
The science behind how grief affects the body is still in its infancy, but it is thought to act via stress. Lack of close support can also increase risky behaviour, such as heavy drinking. And the risks differ according to the way a person dies: if somebody dies of an illness that needs prolonged and burdensome care, then their surviving partner has a higher chance of dying.
It is a curious fact that the widower effect tends to affect white people more than black people; perhaps because elderly black people tend to receive more support from friends and family than elderly whites.
For those married people who think this appears too bleak, don’t despair: marriage is intrinsically healthy. The elevated risk of dying associated with losing a partner is lower than for those who are single or who never married.
Animals feel grief too
It seems that it’s not just humans that experience grief, animals also appear to do so. Elephants are thought to mourn the dead, and gorillas have been seen holding wakes.
It is not just the loss of someone close that appears to induce grief. Take the tragic deaths of people caught in the 9/11 bombings or the death of Princess Diana. This may not be grief after all, but rather a morbid fascination with death. Many people engage in an increasingly popular pursuit known as dark tourism, which involves visiting sites where people have suffered or died in tragic circumstances, such as the killing fields of Cambodia, the ruins of New Orleans, or the extermination camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The motivations behind dark tourism are not clear-cut. Sometimes it is to pay respects to a loved one, but it may also be to connect with an event seen on TV, to learn more about what happened, or simply out of curiosity. Or perhaps it’s because death has been almost completely hidden from everyday life in most developed countries that people feel the need to readdress this balance.
What happens after death?
So when it comes to death, what are we sure of? Well we know what happens to your body from the moment you leave it. Unless frozen or mummified, dead bodies inevitably decompose.
As soon as the heart stops, gravity takes hold. Sometimes only minutes after death, a purple stain appears where the blood settles in the lowermost parts of the body. The skin and muscles sag, the body cools, and within 2 to 6 hours rigor mortis sets in.
Starting with a stiffening of the muscles in the eyelids, it spreads throughout the body before the muscles relax again. Rigor mortis can last between 1-4 days depending on various factors, not least the ambient temperature.
Two or three days after death, the body starts to putrefy. Bacteria which normally inhabit the body, especially the bowel, take over. The first sign of putrefaction is a green discolouration, which eventually spreads over most of the body before turning it purple and finally black.
Decomposition and deduction
Bacteria in the intestine produce a rank-smelling gas which bloats the body and makes the eyes bulge. A week after death, blood-coloured blisters appear on the skin and the slightest pressure causes the top layer to slip off. After 3 to 4 weeks, the hair, nails and teeth loosen, and the internal organs disintegrate before turning to liquid.
Finally, nothing is left but the skeleton. Is it true that hair and finger nails grow after death? The answer is no: they just appear to as the skin dries out and shrinks away from the hair and nails.
Decomposition is often very useful to forensics experts who can deduce when death occurred by looking at the stage a body has reached. Forensic entomologists can even look at larval stages of insects in corpses to work out the timing of death, although this might not be as accurate as once thought.
There are also chemists who are developing a “sniffing detective” – a device that can measure the volatile gases given off by a corpse at the different stages of decomposition – they hope it will aid forensics.
Disposing of your body
And then there’s the question of what to do with your body once you no longer inhabit it. The choices are endless: you can be buried in a coffin in the ground, or cremated, and now there are more environmentally friendly ways to go: you can have your body freeze-dried and then shattered to make a soil-enriching powder, or have a woodland burial – where your body is wrapped in a cloth and left in the soil to provide compost. Or perhaps you might want to be put on public display, or have your ashes turned into a strange work of art with its own mortality – or being a New Scientist reader, you might fancy donating your body to science.
For those who want to play a long game, there’s always the option of having your body frozen. Researchers have had success with reviving frozen organs, and if the more fantastic goal of bringing someone back to life after a spell in the freezer remains elusive, at least research is telling us what it would take to perform such a miracle.
Life after death?
Perhaps the most intriguing question for many people is whether or not there is life after death. A few have even concocted truly astonishing experiments to find out. Not surprisingly, they have failed to come up with credible answers. There is a train of thought that near-death experiences might offer a clue, although researchers think they are simply an illusion related to REM sleep.
In the developed world, most people are lucky enough to live lives that end as a result of ageing and its associated diseases, rather than because of premature death due to infectious disease or accidents. As result, we are able to repress our fear of death by not thinking about it much.
The age at which people need to think about death is constantly being pushed back because of better nutrition and medical care. Technology promises to continue this trend: stem-cell therapy and brain prosthetics promise the possibility of reviving and rebuilding brains currently diagnosed as dead.
Doctors are also getting better, albeit slowly, at resuscitating patients who in the past would have died. Some researchers are even experimenting with suspended animation as a way to protect seriously injured people until they can be transported to an operating theatre.
What does the future hold?
The continual rises in human life expectancy now suggest there is no maximum lifespan, and research, for example into stem cells, free radicals, and even social status, is suggesting how we can reduce the number of avoidable deaths. There’s also plenty of advice on how you can maximise your own lifespan.
But if we could all live into the hundreds and even beyond, what sort of world would it be? Initially it could be difficult – as life spans increase, we may be exposing ourselves to a rather bleak future in which we all spend a large proportion of our lives old and ill. And even if we conquer ageing as well, we will have some heart-wrenching moral dilemmas to face as the planet becomes progressively more overcrowded. There is a way out, though. If some futurists have their way, death will be replaced by uploading ourselves onto computers. That will solve the overcrowding problem, no doubt, but expect a run on computer memory.
Perhaps it is only taxes that are certain after all.
Death – Delve deeper into the riddle of human mortality in our special report. |
After getting his "digital-savvy up" and spending quality time with his twin babies, Jadakiss has finally released his long-awaited album, Top 5 Dead Or Alive, his first studio album in six years. "It'll never be that kinda gap again," he assured the Hot 97 morning crew today. "I understand with the climate of music now they want more content, they want more music, they want more...breakdancing. They just want more, so you know, that's what we're gonna do."
While at Ebro In The Morning to promote the album, the Yonkers lyricist let them know who his personal top five rap acts are. "My top 5 always changes, but a random one that can always come off the head is Notorious B.I.G, Nas, Hov, my brother Styles P, Tupac Shakur," Jada stated, leading the crew to talk about Billboard's "Best Rappers List" which noticeably didn't mention 'Pac and several others.
Jadakiss also talked about the features on T5DOA, and how his fans will hear everyone from Young Buck and Sheek Louch to the well-favored "mixtape Weezy," who according to him is "sounding like everything is alright over there [at Cash Money]." He also mentioned there'll "definitely" be another LOX album in the near future.
Listen as Jada discusses his music, family and more with Ebro In The Morning above. Who would you place on your Top 5, Dead or Alive list? |
Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
A terrorist stabbed and moderately-to-seriously wounded an approximately 60-year-old woman across the street from the Jerusalem Central Bus Station on Wednesday.
The terrorist was Ahmed Sha'aban, a 23-year-old resident of the Ras el-Amud neighborhood in Jerusalem. He was released from prison earlier this years after serving a three-year sentence for terror activity.
Magen David Adom paramedics treated the victim and transported her to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital.According to police, the terrorist stabbed the woman while she was attempting to board the number 15 bus on Yaffo Street.The driver made sure the woman got on to the bus after she was stabbed, and then quickly closed the vehicle's door before the terrorist could board.(photo credit: Sam Sokol)The terrorist then fled from the bus and a special forces police officer who was near the scene of the attack saw him with the knife, shooting at him, hitting him and neutralizing him.Dr. Yoni Elstein, an MDA volunteer who was at the scene, said that "on the bus, in a seat near the driver, a fully conscious woman in her 60s was sitting, suffering from a stab wound to her upper body."Paramedic Emanuel Stern said that the victim was aware of her surroundings and able to communicate in the ambulance en route to the hospital.Medic Levi Levine of United Hatzalah said that he was on the other side of the street dropping off his cousin at the Central Bus Station when he heard "four or five shots" and immediately ran toward the noise just in time to see the terrorist being killed."There was a guy on his face with a knife in his hand" and several armed men were running toward him, Levine told the Jerusalem Post only minutes after the attack.Levine said that he checked the attacker and that he had no pulse, adding that he appeared to be around thirty years old and that a search of his pockets uncovered a blue identity card, indicating that he either held Israeli citizenship or Jerusalem residency.The terrorist's body was removed in a black bag, said ZAKA head Yehuda Meshi Zahav.(photo credit: Sam Sokol)As police pushed the large number of onlookers back from the scene rumors of another attack swirled through the crowd prompting police and onlookers to run confused through the surrounding streets. There were sporadic shouts of "Arabs out."MDA paramedics also treated a number of people suffering from shock and paramedics down the block from the attack were loading an ambulance with crying witnesses.The attack came after an earlier attempted stabbing attack at Damascus Gate in the Old City.In that attack, police shot and killed a terrorist who attempted to stab officers.
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PORTLAND - 17-year-old Brooke Henderson is a winner on the LPGA Tour.
In what has been a season of firsts for the Canadian, Henderson added another milestone to her list of accomplishments Sunday with her first victory on the LPGA Tour at the Cambia Portland Classic. Henderson won by eight strokes at 21-under par. Henderson carded a final round 3-under par, 69 including five birdies and two bogeys.
“It's amazing,” Henderson said after her win. “It's such an unbelievable thing, and I can't really, it's not even real‑life yet I don't think. I was just trying to play my own game, and I kept trying to get it to minus‑24 all day today, and I came up a little bit short, but I got the win, and I'm extremely excited.”
Henderson now owns the 72-hole scoring record at the Cambia Portland Classic with a winning total of 21-under par, a record previously held by Suzann Pettersen who won in 2013 at 20-under par for the championship. Henderson Monday qualified for this week’s event by shooting 68 to earn one of two spots in the field. With her win on Sunday, she becomes just the second player to Monday qualify and go on to win, the first being Laurel Kane at the 2000 State Farm Rail Classic.
Henderson’s victory marks the first for a Canadian on the LPGA Tour since Lorie Kane in 2001. Currently ranked 32nd in the Rolex World Golf Rankings, Henderson is the top ranked Canadian ahead of next year’s Olympic games in Rio. She returns home to Canada next week where she is already in the field at the Canadian Pacific Women's Open.
“I think Canadian golf is really growing, and there's a lot of great players coming up. But to get that and for Canadian fans and Canadian support that I've received over the last couple months and last couple years is unbelievable, so I'm happy to bring one home for Canada.”
The victory is a historic one for Henderson who becomes just the third player to win on the LPGA Tour before the age of 18, joining impressive company with World No.2 Lydia Ko and major champion Lexi Thompson.
Henderson says she has not yet decided whether or not she will petition for membership to the Tour following her win this week. |
Jailbreak status update of the new 3GS.
Apparently, Apple isn’t taking this whole iPhone jailbreaking hooplah too lightly. Last week, Apple began shipping 3GS iPhones with an updated bootrom (iBoot-359.3.2) that effectively blocks the current 24kpwn jailbreak exploit.
The cat and mouse game between Apple and the infamous Dev-Team has been going on since iPhone version 1.0. Every major hardware or firmware update has broken the jailbreak tool of the time- but for every update up to now the Dev-Team has pulled through to support the growing community of users who wish to install unapproved iPhone apps. And let’s not forget the thousands of non-AT&T iPhone customers who rely on jailbreaking to even use their phones.
There are those who will claim the new 3GS bootrom is “unhackable” or “jailbreak-proof,” which is verily overdramatic. With such a large community of jailbreakers relying on a fix, it seems unlikely the Dev-Team or some other resourceful hacker won’t find an exploit for the new 3GS eventually. It does, however, further show that Apple is not all too happy with jailbreakers opening up their otherwise extremely closed, controlled environment. Perhaps this could be a sign of Apple’s plans to make more aggressive moves to keep the iPhone on lockdown.
Follow Mike Keller and GeekTech on Twitter. |
ElixirStatus: 100 posts later
Today the 100th post was submitted to elixirstatus.com – it is about testing compile-time exceptions in Elixir!
It has been 45 days since we launched the first beta for people to test-drive and two weeks since the official launch. I could not be happier with the results:
The site received 65 posts in August and thus averaged circa 2 posts a day. 1,100 individuals visited the site and on average there are 20 actual clicks on links inside each post. The Twitter account is more popular than ever and now has 250 followers.
As always a big thanks to the community! I will try to post stats like these more regularly (and to create a better system for them which does not involve such heavy LibreOffice use). |
Nomura: Voice recording for Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Dissidia in progress
Tetsuya Nomura is a busy guy. His current projects include Kingdom Hearts III, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Dissidia Final Fantasy‘s arcade version just to name a few. It’s within the context of the latter we’re given a brief update on his upcoming games.
During a special livestream detailing the latest update for Dissidia Final Fantasy, Nomura said that voice recording is now in the works for “Kingdom,” “Seven,” and “Dissidia.” While vague we can easily piece these hints into each of the games he’s confirmed to be working on. “Seven” seems the most obvious, while “Kingdom” could fit into KHIII or KH2.8 depending on how far the latter is along. As for “Dissidia,” it seems likely Nomura is referring to the arcade game’s ongoing updates rather than the mobile title Opera Omnia.
Additionally, Nomura confirmed Sora won’t be featured in Dissidia Final Fantasy.
Via: aibo_ac7. |
There Is No Secret Sauce
Every day I’m talking to women who think there is something that they are doing wrong. Or something that they just don’t know about in their business. Do you feel that way? Do you just wish you could find that one person who would give you the “secret sauce”, that answer that if you just implemented would give you the ultimate lifestyle and immediate clients and money that you SO crave. I get it. I’ve been there. For years, I just thought I wasn’t good enough to be successful. I hid under a guise of confusion and I listened to every free teleclass out there hoping to find the answer, that one thing that would make all the difference.
Here’s what I learned:
THERE IS NO SECRET SAUCE.
No one out there is teaching some secret that is going to make you rich overnight or that if you just implement tomorrow will ensure you fill you practice. No one. I don’t care if they claim that they made a million in 2 years or if they had a $50,000 launch. I can tell you for certain that we all walk the same path. I’ve made a habit of hiring and learning from the best mentors I could find for as long as I can remember. It started with my father who bought a business the year before I was born, expanded it to three states and sold it when I was in college. I’ve been mentored by Fabienne Frederickson, Kendall Summerhawk and now Suzanne Evans. I am first generation Indian and I watched my parent’s friends build their businesses and practices from scratch in a country that was totally new to them. Now they are happily retiring with plenty of money and the freedom to spend their time with their grandchildren.
Here’s what I know. There are no short-cuts. Every successful entrepreneur that I have watched and studied followed a path with these four components. It’s time that I write them down – both for you and myself.
1. URGENCY. I’ll never forget when I was in tears one day after a particularly hard month running Ideal Balance. I had holed up in a walk-in closet (yes I was literally in a closet) at my childhood house in Cincinnati. My dad found me and sat down next to me. He said, “Monica the way I built my business is by realizing that I had no other options, because I didn’t. I needed this business to take care of you and your mom and sisters and I had to do everything it took to make it work.”
I realized that my dad had something that we all need to have as entrepreneurs: Urgency. There has to be a real desire that drives you to move forward. It’s easier and much more healthy if that urgency comes from a love of what you are doing or the need to put it out into the world. But sometimes it comes from the need to make money or provide. Either way, it is this URGENCY that pushes you past your fears and allows you to feel uncomfortable doing things you don’t know how to do. It’s the same urgency that allows a woman to pull a car off of her child.
So I ask you, do you have enough Urgency? And if so, are you willing to move past fear and into action to build your business? If not, then think about WHY you are doing this business. Do you want to provide a better life for your family? Do you want to travel more? Do you want to start a foundation? Keep asking yourself WHY until you find an answer that literally feels so good to you that it becomes urgent for you to follow-through on it.
2. PASSION. We work hard as entrepreneurs. This is definitely not a 9-7 job. At the end of the day, the thing that is going to keep you moving is passion. Now here’s the thing – no one is passionate about everything you have to do as an entrepreneur. That would be impossible. But there has to be some part of the job that you absolutely love. For my father, it is the art of negotiating and conversing. He loves making connections, using those connections and closing large deals. His company still uses him today to go in and close deals. But he didn’t love dealing with the day to day management issues. The thrill of the sale far outweighed the annoyance in the details.
For many of you – it is the actual art of working with your clients and doing your trade that is your passion. Remember to keep that time sacred and revel in the art of doing it. And do your best to delegate as much of the other work as possible so that you can keep your passion alive every hour of every day. And for those of you that can’t find your passion anymore – it’s time to move on to something new.
3. A MENTOR AND A MODEL. Running a business without someone to help guide you is like playing tennis without a racket. You’ll just run around swinging your arms about and missing the ball. You also need a plan or a model to follow so that you don’t end up working for no reason. I decided a long time ago that I was always going to have a coach to guide me on my path of building my companies. It just wasn’t any fun trying to swing in the dark. I also decided to follow a plan and a proven model that works. Every successful business owner has a mentor or a coach – many have multiple experts on their team. It’s just more fun to play the business game when you have someone to light a fire under you or provide inspiration when you need it.
I used to wonder why all the doctors in my community would get together over tea and talk shop. Now I realize what they were doing – they were forming their very own masterminds and mentoring one another. The business game just isn’t meant to be played alone. And you can’t possibly know all the business skills you need to get you from where you now to the next level. If you did, you would be there.
4. THE WILLINGNESS TO FAIL. The truth is that you have to just put yourself out there 110% in your business, especially if it’s in an area that you are uncomfortable in. And more likely than not, it’s not going to work before it does work. I worked for 3 months straight on my first product. Then I put it out for sale. I sold two of them. And I was upset. Very upset. But I learned from that lesson. There is a sequence and a model – and I ignored both because I just wanted it to work. Bad Idea.
You have to be willing to fall on your face in order to learn. In fact, I can name five very successful millionaires in my community who have declared bankruptcy in their lives.
The truth is that the outcome is not in making your numbers, or even getting new clients. It lies in becoming the person that you become while you are moving towards that success. As you become more dedicated, persistent, hard-working and trusting – you will watch yourself transform along with your business. That is the benefit of bringing together your urgency, passion, mentor and willingness to fail – you become a higher version of yourself. |
NFL's Eddie Lacy In Talks with P90X Creator ... Interested In Training
NFL's Eddie Lacy: In Talks with P90X Creator ... Interested In Training
EXCLUSIVE
Eddie Lacy is no dummy ... and knows if one of the biggest fitness gurus in the country offers to whip your butt in shape -- you listen.
TMZ Sports has learned ... Lacy's people have been in touch with P90X creator Tony Horton -- after Tony offered to PERSONALLY train the Green Bay Packers running back.
Horton -- who's trained all sorts of huge stars, athletes (Ray Lewis) and even politicians (Paul Ryan) -- previously told TMZ Sports he already has a game plan to help Lacy drop his extra weight and get into the best of shape of his life before next season.
Now, Lacy's people have confirmed the two sides have touched base in the hopes of working something out ... though no agreement has been struck yet.
Horton says he doesn't want to undermine Green Bay's training plan for Lacy -- but instead, he wants to work WITH the team to get Eddie where he needs to be.
"The Packers will get him ready for the season. My job will be to get the weight off and help him eat better." |
Study finds that couples who use contraception tend to have a lot more sex
There are many benefits to having safe sex.
For starters, condoms play a pivotal role in maintaining good sexual health. And it also means you're far less likely to end up changing nappies nine months later.
But according to researchers from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, people who use contraception also have more sex.
The study surveyed over 200,000 women since 2005 and found that 90% of those who regularly use contraception had had sex within the last 30 days, compared to 72% of women who didn't use contraception.
Other factors that influence sexual behaviour appeared to be age, education and family planning.
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Women who were in their twenties, well-educated and looking to have a baby in the next two years were all more likely to have had sex in the previous month. |
Barry Jean Ancelet is a Cajun folklorist and expert in Cajun music and Cajun French. He has written several books, and under the pseudonym Jean Arceneaux he has written Cajun French poetry and lyrics to Cajun French songs.
Education and career [ edit ]
Born in Church Point, Louisiana, he graduated from the nearby University of Southwestern Louisiana (now named the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) with a Bachelor of Arts in French in 1974.
He received a Master of Arts in folklore from Indiana University in 1977, when he began teaching French at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Later he also taught folklore and Francophone studies at the university.
Ancelet obtained a doctorate in Études Créoles (anthropology and linguistics) from the Université de Provence (Aix-Marseille I) in 1984.
He co-founded the Tribute to Cajun Music in 1974, which became the annual Festivals Acadiens.
Ancelet has served as chair of USL's Department of Modern Languages and as the first director of the university's Center for Acadian and Creole Folklore — regarded as the largest compilation of media resources pertaining to these two south Louisiana ethnic groups.
He hosted the Rendez-vous des Cajuns live weekly music radio program on KRVS for more than a decade.
Honors and awards [ edit ]
In 2005 Ancelet was named the Willis Granger and Tom Debaillon BORSF Professor of Francophone Studies at UL.
The French government awarded Ancelet the title of Chevalier in l'Ordre des Palmes académiques, an honor reserved for those whose scholarly pursuits are deemed to contribute significantly to French culture.
In 2006, Ancelet was made a Chevalier in l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République Francaise, which honors those who have made important contributions to art and literature. On receiving the award, Ancelet noted, "I thought it was a very lovely honor, but I was also sort of intrigued by the irony of being knighted apparently for spending my whole career trying to honor the culture of ordinary folks. . . . I feel it's an honor not only for myself, but the entire Cajun and Creole society that I have always been interested in exploring and celebrating and validating. I feel like I'm going to be wearing this award in the name of an awful lot of people."[2]
In 2008, he won the Américo Paredes Prize by the American Folklore Society.
In 2009, he was named Louisiana "Humanist of the Year" by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Ancelet is also a member of the l'Ordre des francophones d'Amérique, in Quebec, Canada, a fellow of the American Folklore Society, and a fellow of the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism at University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Publications [ edit ]
The Makers of Cajun Music / Musiciens cadiens et créoles (1984)
(1984) Cajun Music: Its Origins and Development (1989)
(1989) Cajun Country (Folklife in the South Series) [contributor] (1991)
[contributor] (1991) Cajun and Creole Folktales: The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana (1994)
(1994) Capitaine, Voyage Ton Flag: The Traditional Cajun Country Mardi Gras (1989)
(1989) Cajun and Creole Music Makers: Musicians Cadians Et Creoles [contributor] (1999)
[contributor] (1999) One Generation at a Time: Biography of a Cajun and Creole Music Festival [contributor] (2007)
[contributor] (2007) Cadiens D'Asteur - Today's Cajuns [contributor] (1984).
As Jean Arceneaux
Je suis cadien (1994)
(1994) Suite du loup (1998)
Films [ edit ]
1989 - J'ai Été Au Bal (dir. Les Blank; Ancelet is one of the narrators and appears in the film) |
William M. Daley was White House chief of staff from 2011 to 2012 and secretary of commerce from 1997 to 2000.
Now that Donald Trump has won the presidency despite losing the popular vote, there’s a growing cry to rethink, or even abolish, the electoral college. This would be a mistake.
Yes, the electoral college is a tempting target, especially for Democrats. Two of the past five presidential elections have seen Republicans claim the White House by winning the electoral vote while losing the popular vote.
I feel your pain. I was Al Gore’s campaign chairman in 2000, when he won a half -million more votes than George W. Bush but lost the presidency. Trump’s case is even more stark, as Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin will exceed 2 million.
But I urge my fellow Democrats to think hard before trying to undo the admittedly hard-to-explain electoral college. The cure might be worse than the disease.
While imperfect, the electoral college has generally served the republic well. It forces candidates to campaign in a variety of closely contested races, where political debate is typically robust. It often helps new presidents get started by magnifying their mandate. That happened with Barack Obama, who twice finished with under 53 percent of the popular vote but carried the electoral vote comfortably.
The electoral college also tends to bolster the two major parties, which, for all the criticisms, have helped produce long-term political stability that many nations can only envy. With nearly all states awarding their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, it’s difficult for a third-party candidate to contend seriously for the presidency. While a truly national third party wouldn’t necessarily be bad, smaller niche parties are ill-suited to our federalist system. This system already divides power between the states and the federal government, and uses checks and balances to temper the legislative, executive and judicial branches’ authority.
In Europe’s parliamentary governments, by contrast, it’s not unusual to see multiple parties split the national vote several ways, enabling a politician with limited support to head the government (provided he or she can assemble a ruling coalition with other minority parties). That arrangement won’t work in our system of built-in tensions and checks between the president and Congress. And yet, eliminating the electoral college could produce such an unworkable situation — not through small parties but wealthy individuals. Aside from the Democratic and Republican nominees, a handful of billionaires could run campaigns focused especially on, say, Texas and Florida, or California and New York. One of them could win the presidency with a narrow slice of the vote. With so small a plurality, and no major party’s support, this president would face fierce head winds.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg outlined this possibility when he decided against a presidential bid last March. “Even if I were to receive the most popular votes and the most electoral votes,” Bloomberg wrote, “victory would be highly unlikely, because most members of Congress would vote for their party’s nominee.”
After a judge rejected the state’s request for a delay, Michigan election officials are expected to begin recounting presidential ballots Dec. 5 at noon. It is likely to end by Dec. 13. (Reuters)
But without the electoral college, the decision wouldn’t be tossed to Congress, and the billionaire would be president.
Constitutional scholars share this concern. “Without the electoral college, there would be no effective brake on the number of ‘viable’ presidential candidates,” Gettysburg College professor Allen Guelzo and Washington lawyer James Hulme wrote last month in The Post. “Abolish it, and it would not be difficult to imagine a scenario where, in a field of a dozen micro-candidates, the ‘winner’ only needs 10 percent of the vote.”
Already we’ve seen troubling ramifications of weakening our two major parties. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demanded concessions to the left even though he was never truly a Democrat. And Republicans — whose nominating rules give party leaders even less influence than the Democrats’ do — have seen their party hijacked by Trump, a man of uncertain and ever-shifting ideologies often at odds with mainstream conservatism.
The electoral college is a curious institution, concocted by Founding Fathers struggling to balance the influence of big and small states. It’s not perfect. But until we have a clearly better replacement, let’s stick with it. |
If you don’t quite have the right stuff, but always thought being an astronaut would be cool, here’s a way for you to contribute to the US space program. Go to bed. With NASA. “I would absolutely recommend it. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life,” said Heather Archuletta, who has participated in three different studies for the Human Test Subject Facility (HTSF) at the Johnson Space Center. These ongoing studies use long-term bed rest to simulate the effects of micro-gravity an astronaut would experience during extended space flight. “This is a great opportunity for the general public to help NASA with their scientific research,” said John Foster, who works for Solitaire Creative Services, a company that promotes the studies.
“This is one of NASA’s biggest barriers for sending humans to Mars,” Archuletta told Universe Today. “If they can find a way around bone demineralization, wow, that would really boost the possibilities for human spaceflight.”
NASA is planning a series of studies that support the scientific needs of the space program. The studies will be conducted over the next ten years, and currently, NASA is looking to fill spots in 87-day bed rest studies and a lunar analog feasibility study.
For the bed rest study, participants are placed in bed with the head of the bed tilted down at a minus-six-degree incline. The Lunar Analog Feasibility Study is a 21-day study to demonstrate if it is possible to simulate 1/6 G lunar gravity using bed rest.
“Participants are compensated for their time and expenses,” said Foster. “For example, a participant who completed a 60-day study was paid approximately $13,800.”
“I know they desperately need more healthy females,” Archuletta said. “It seems people think only guys can do these studies, so it seems harder to get women.”
Archuletta, who is also known as the “Pillow-naut” from her blog about her experiences, Pillow Astronaut, said amazingly, the studies simulate very well what astronauts experience in space. “You wouldn’t think that something as simple as tilting the body would mimic what astronauts experience, but it affects your vestibular system the same way and you get the same exact fluid shift where all the blood pools in your head. You get a little bit of muscle atrophy and some bone mineral loss, and they see the same exact lowering in plasma volume and lower heart rate. Almost everything that happens in space they can do with tilting the bed. That was major news for me.”
She said the first week of being in bed is the hardest part of the study. “When they put you in the head-down position, it kind of messes with the inner ear and your equilibrium,” Archuletta said. “They warned me about it, but I didn’t give it much credence, because I thought, ‘you’re lying down, how hard can it be?’ But you get a blood rush to the head, so my teeth were throbbing and I had a headache.”
She also would get dizzy when she turned her head quickly, which again, mimics what many astronauts experience in space. “I have been able to talk with two different astronauts and they both said, yes, the first few days you are on orbit, the veteran astronauts tell them not to turn their head quickly because when you are weightless it messes with the vestibular system.”
Those symptoms passed in about a week, Archuletta said. “It is amazing what the body can adapt to. All of a sudden my body just said, ‘OK, this is our new reality and we’ll deal with it.’ Within a couple of weeks I felt normal and actually getting up was the hard part. You get used to lying down and it actually starts to feel normal.”
But the benefits of participating outweighed any discomforts she went through. “You have tons and tons of free time. I tore through about 30 books. You have your own room but there is a common room where we can play games and talk, but I worked a little while I was there,” said Archuletta, who works as a consultant for an IT company and also is a freelance writer. “But mostly it was nice just to catch up on a lot of things I’d wanted to do for a while.”
But don’t expect to be chosen to participate if you plan to just play video games for three months. “They are really looking for people who come in with goals,” Archuletta said, “such as one person there learned Spanish, I learned sign language, and another person brought their guitar and wrote songs. They want people who have ideas about how to keep themselves busy because they will be less likely to get restless.”
Archuletta said the question she gets asked most often is if she got bored. “Absolutely not,” she said. “It is a very busy testing schedule when you first come, so you go through a lot of physical exertion before the bed rest phase; they keep you very busy. Once you are in bed you do get a lot of free time, but you are being monitored. They take vitals a couple of times a day, and make sure you are doing OK. You stretch a couple times a day so you don’t get blood clots, but you can’t outright exercise. But you get a massage every other day – that’s definitely one of the good parts! I don’t think the astronauts get that in space!”
The studies are done at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. Participants will live in a special research unit for the entire study and be fed a carefully controlled diet. The first 11-15 days of the 87-day study, participants undergo tests, but are not on bed rest. The next 60 days participants are constantly in bed, (except for limited times for specific tests) with their head tilted downward slightly. Then there are 14 days to recover, to allow the body to get back to normal.
Participants must be nonsmokers who are in good health with no history of cardiovascular, neurological, gastrointestinal, or musculoskeletal problems.
Interested?
More information on the 87-day bed rest study.
More information on the 21-day Lunar Analog study
Application form
Contact the Human Test Subject Facility at 1-866-JSC-TEST (1-866-572-8378)
Pillow Astronaut’s select pages on just her experiences during the study. |
Delta and Wieden & Kennedy, New York, go totally '80s in the latest of its creative in-flight safety videos. This new film, which just launched online today, is rife with references from that decade of net shirts, neon and big hair. As the flight attendant goes through the seatbelt and oxygen mask motions, we meet passengers pulled straight out of the era -- peppered with fun references like a Rubik's cube, cassette tapes, Teddy Ruxpin and a Devo hat. There are even cameos of lovable '80s alien Alf, and in the final cockpit scene -- that famous copilot from the classic '80s laffer "Airplane" -- Lakers vet Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Delta's efforts in the "safety" realm seem to be getting more crafty with each turn. The brand started out in 2012 with this mildly amusing take on the instructional film and last year launched a fun holiday-themed video. It follows in the footsteps of Air New Zealand, who has been innovating in the space with safety vids themed around The Hobbit, the All-Blacks and even '80s fitness guru Richard Simmons.
For more exciting ideas in brand creativity, tune in to Creativity-Online.com, follow @creativitymag on Twitter or sign up for the Creativity newsletter. |
As the Houston Astros battle to stay in the playoff chase, it's not clear whether two starters who helped them to the postseason last year will do the same this year.
Left-hander Dallas Keuchel, who has been sidelined with shoulder inflammation, said Monday that he is not ready to resume throwing. He's been out since Aug. 27 and said Friday that he would reassess his situation Sunday. That re-evaluation has been pushed back to Wednesday.
Right-hander Lance McCullers, meanwhile, hasn't thrown off a mound as he tries to come back from a sprained elbow suffered Aug. 2.
Dallas Keuchel is not ready to throw after being sidelined with shoulder inflammation since late August. AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith
"It's going to depend on where we're at as a team and where they're at," Astros manager A.J. Hinch said Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle. "Our idea is to continue positive progress with these guys and not set a timeline or a necessary deadline for them to have to meet. Otherwise we'll threaten further injury. One more setback for any of these guys, and it's over."
Keuchel, 28, won 20 games and the Cy Young last season for an Astros team that advanced to the division series, losing to the eventual World Series champion Royals. McCullers, 22, was counted on to be a big part of the Astros this season after an encouraging rookie campaign.
Astros starters are struggling at the wrong time. Houston is 3½ games out of the second wild card and 4-6 in its past 10 games. Hinch acknowledged that the team is walking a tightrope with the two pitchers.
"They're not doing enough to be ruled in or out," Hinch said, according to the newspaper. "McCullers is the closest guy, but you can play catch all you want -- until you get on the mound, it's when you really get serious about pitching. Keuchel's not throwing yet, so there's certainly some concern on both of theirs for different reasons because of where we are on the schedule, but we'll go day-to-day." |
City staff recommended Wednesday that the City Council adopt a 7.5 percent water rate increase for 2016 and approve a plan for future increases from 2017 to 2020.
Council members said they will continue discussions about improving billing procedures at the San Antonio Water System, while reaching out to families eligible for affordability programs.
SAWS CEO Robert Puente said the utility’s trustees view the increases projected for 2017 and beyond as the maximum amounts the utility will pursue to provide water and sewer service for 1.7 million people.
“They understand these are caps, and they want us to come under those caps,” Puente said.
The council is set to vote Nov. 19 on the rate increase, as well as on a plan to raise the overall water rate to 7.9 percent in 2017 and to increase the SAWS water supply fee from 2018 to 2020.
The increases would support the Vista Ridge pipeline, federally mandated sewer upgrades, brackish water desalination, and replacement of hundreds of miles of the city’s aging sewer and water lines.
The city’s chief financial officer, Ben Gorzell, recommended that the council approve the rate plan and an updated rate structure to take effect Jan. 1, expanding the number of residential billing rate blocks from four to eight.
He also recommended “additional assistance” to low-income customers whose monthly use exceeds 6,000 gallons; improvements in billing procedures; and continued efforts to prevent “water loss.” SAWS estimates that 16 percent of its water is lost through leaks, flushing of lines and other factors or is not registered by outdated water meters.
Some of the 42 positions being added by SAWS in 2016 will be focused on customer service, leak repair, sewer upgrades and technology upgrades. Gorzell noted the recent rash of high bills SAWS sent out, stirring complaints from customers at a time when rate increases are planned over several years.
The council has wrestled with the proposals, and delayed action by three weeks, as the matter also has become clouded with opposition to the Central Texas pipeline and delays in the final release of what was intended to be a comprehensive city water policy report.
Although the council unanimously approved a contract last year between SAWS and a private consortium to fund and build the Vista Ridge pipeline, to carry up to 16.3 billion gallons annually to San Antonio as early as 2020, Councilman Ron Nirenberg has asked pointed questions about it.
The project will initially force SAWS to raise rates to help finance the 142-mile pipeline from Burleson County and will provide some of the state’s most expensive water, at more than $2,000 per acre-foot, according to SAWS. Officials have said the project will secure a long-term supply for the city’s growth, with costs certain to fall by the time SAWS retains ownership of the pipeline in 2050.
The council asked Wednesday about the financial stability of the consortium, led by an affiliate of Abengoa, an international utility and energy conglomerate. The subsidiary, Abengoa Vista Ridge, is “shielded” from financial default by the parent company, SAWS Chief Financial Officer Doug Evanson told the council.
Wednesday’s work session was less contentious than one a week earlier, when Nirenberg told Puente he would keep asking questions so the public can fully understand the complex pipeline deal “in the context of what we’re trying to do in the next 30 to 60 years.”
Nirenberg has said the council should review the Texas A&M University water policy report before voting on a SAWS rate increase.
The study is scheduled for presentation to the council Nov. 12 and public comment later that day, and at a Nov. 18 council work session. A July draft version leaked to the San Antonio Express-News in September and later posted by Mayor Ivy Taylor called Vista Ridge a “high-risk” project, but one that could be needed to help the city avoid a future water deficit.
shuddleston
@express-news.net
More Information SAWS rates in future The average monthly residential bill for a customer using 7,092 gallons is expected to rise from $54.34 currently to $81.73 in 2020, to fund various projects, including water supply and delivery expansions, federally mandated sewer upgrades and replacement of aging water and sewer mains. The City Council is set to vote Nov. 19 on a rate increase for 2016 and a rate plan for 2017 to 2020. 2016: Average SAWS bill, including state fees, to rise 7.8 percent to $58.60 2017: Average SAWS bill, including state fees, to rise 7.5 percent to $62.67 2018: Water supply fee to rise 1.3 percent; average bill projected to run $66.67 2019: Water supply fee to rise 4.5 percent; average bill projected to run $72.23 2020: Water supply fee to rise 9.9 percent; average bill projected to run $81.73 Source: San Antonio Water System, city of San Antonio |
ADEN (Reuters) - An unidentified warplane attacked the presidential palace in Aden on Thursday after rival forces fought the worst clashes in years in Yemen’s second city, an official and residents said, in a sharp escalation of the country’s months-long conflict.
Militia men loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi take photos near an army tank in Yemen's southern port city of Aden March 19, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer
Thirteen people were killed when forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fought their way into Aden’s international airport and wrested an adjacent military base from a renegade officer, Aden governor Abdulaziz bin Habtoor said.
Both the fighting on the ground and subsequent air attack appeared to be part of a deepening power struggle between Hadi and the Shi’ite Muslim Houthi group, which controls the capital Sanaa and is allied with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
In a statement Hadi described the attack on Aden as an attempted coup backed by the previous regime.
“The failure of the military coup... was backed by the former regime, which was one of the perpetrators of extermination,” said the presidential statement.
The statement made no reference to Saleh but said that “agents of Iran” had also backed the former regime’s forces.
“What happened today is a clear message to the whole world that the coup and their supporters of traitors reject any solutions or sit at the dialogue table in order to exit the crisis of Yemen to safety,” it added.
Earlier on Thursday in a televised speech, Habtoor accused the Houthis of being behind the air attack on the compound in Aden’s al-Maasheeq district, where Hadi is based, but said the bomb “had fallen harmlessly into the sea”.
“Aden is peaceful and things are back to normal after the rebellion was ended,” he said on Aden television. A Houthi spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Houthis earlier this week removed the air force chief for refusing to provide them with air support and replaced him with a general who is closer to their group.
Residents said anti-aircraft guns opened fire at the plane, and smoke was seen rising from the area, but it was not immediately clear if Hadi was in the compound. A second approach by a warplane was repelled by anti-aircraft fire, they said.
Related Coverage Aden governor accuses Yemen's Houthis of air strike
An aide to Hadi said the president was “safe at a secure location ... There was a raid, but there were no casualties.”
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called on both parties to refrain from violence.
“We’re concerned about actions that could increase tensions in Yemen and lead to further destabilization. We call on all parties to de-escalate the situation,” she said.
RENEGADE CAMP
The affiliation of the aircraft was not immediately known, but residents in Sanaa said they saw an unusually busy level of flights by military aircraft in the skies of the capital.
Earlier in the day, soldiers and militiamen loyal to Hadi using tanks and armored vehicles battled their way into Aden’s airport and stormed the nearby military base, residents said.
General Abdel-Hafez al-Saqqaf had been holed up for days in the base after refusing Hadi’s order to hand his Special Forces unit to another officer’s command, a security source said.
The fighting brought traffic at the airport to a halt.
Witnesses said many Special Forces soldiers had been taken prisoner at the al-Sawlaban base in the Khor Maksar district.
Saqqaf later turned himself in to the governor of the adjacent Lahj province, the Aden al-Ghad newspaper reported.
In a statement, the Houthi-led Supreme Security Committee urged an end to the Aden fighting, saying both sides “are obliged to keep the peace and return to the negotiating table”.
Slideshow (7 Images)
The growing instability in Aden has overshadowed a determined campaign of attacks by al Qaeda, long seen by Washington as the main threat to the country, which shares a long border with the world’s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia.
Tensions have been heightened in Aden since Hadi fled there in February after escaping a month of house arrest in Sanaa by Houthi forces who seized Sanaa last September. Hadi has been trying to consolidate his control over Aden, the better to mount a challenge to Houthi ambitions to control the country. |
Posted on October 16, 2012
Candy Crowley: Romney Was Actually "Right In The Main" On Libya
CANDY CROWLEY, debate moderator, after the debate: You know, again, I heard the president's speech at the time. I sort of reread a lot of stuff about Libya because I knew we'd probably get a Libya question, so I kind of wanted to be up on it. So we knew that the president had said, you know, 'these acts of terror won't stand,' or whatever the whole quote was.
I think actually, you know, because right after that, I did turn to Romney and said you were totally correct but they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape and that there was this riot outside of the Benghazi consulate, which there wasn't. So he was right in the main, I just think that he picked the wrong word. |
Mark Papermaster, the Apple executive in charge of hardware for the company’s flagship iPhone, has left the company in the wake of widely reported problems with the antenna of the recently introduced iPhone 4.
Apple confirmed Mr. Papermaster’s departure, but would not say whether he was ousted or left of his own accord. Reached on his cellphone, Mr. Papermaster declined to comment.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, said Mr. Papermaster had been pushed out over a series of hardware problems, including some related to the iPod Touch.
Bob Mansfield, senior vice president for Macintosh hardware engineering, will assume Mr. Papermaster’s responsibilities. Mr. Mansfield already oversees several technologies that are part of the iPhone, including the A4 chip, the retina display and touch screens, said Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Apple recruited Mr. Papermaster in 2008, setting off a prominent battle with I.B.M, where in a 25-year-career he had risen to the top levels of management. I.B.M. sued Mr. Papermaster in federal court in an attempt to prevent him from joining Apple, saying that he had signed a noncompete agreement. The parties settled the case after Mr. Papermaster testified in court that he had not revealed any trade secrets. |
Driving a hard bargain over plans for Polk Street
Bicyclists ride their bikes on Polk Street near California Street in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, January 28, 2015. Polk Street improvements might make the narrow street tougher to negotiate as the improvements are designed to make this well traveled bike corridor safer. less Bicyclists ride their bikes on Polk Street near California Street in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, January 28, 2015. Polk Street improvements might make the narrow street tougher to negotiate as the ... more Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Driving a hard bargain over plans for Polk Street 1 / 10 Back to Gallery
For a fairly short street, it’s been a long, long journey up Polk Street.
There have been 60 meetings over two years. There have been posters, community outreach, artists’ renderings and some pretty strong language. Finally, on Friday, there will be a presentation at City Hall where officials are deeply hopeful that their plan for the street will win widespread public approval.
Not likely.
What the city is proposing is a wide-ranging plan to target the busiest and most dangerous intersections along Polk Street and try to fix them. Among the ideas are pedestrian bulb-outs — sidewalk extensions — to make sure people are seen before crossing the street, painted bike lanes, and extensive landscaping. The board of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is to consider the plan in the next few weeks.
“We are disappointed with the current proposal,” says San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum. “What they are proposing falls far short of what is needed on Polk.”
Which makes you wonder: Is there any possible way this can be worked out to everyone’s satisfaction? It doesn’t seem like it.
The funny part of all this is that there is so much on which everyone agrees. Polk has, through a quirk of topography — it’s relatively flat compared with surrounding streets — become a primary north-south corridor for bicycle traffic. It’s also gotten much busier as a retail center.
“Traffic used to be bumper-to-bumper a few times after a big event,” says Dan Kowalski, a 30-year resident who owns FLIPP — Fashionable Living in Petite Places — a business at Green and Polk streets. “Now I see it once every two weeks.”
You can figure out the physics yourself: Cars versus bikes with a sprinkle of pedestrians thrown in equals trouble.
“What we don’t want to see lost in all the back and forth is that this is a safety problem,” said Tom Maguire, head of sustainable streets for the MTA. “In the last five years we’ve had 122 people (walking and on bikes) hit by cars.”
That’s the Bicycle Coalition’s point, too.
“Polk Street has been designated as one of the least safe streets in the city,” Shahum said. “The Department of Public Health designated it as a high-injury corridor years ago.”
Sounds dandy, doesn’t it? Yeah, but ...
“We are really happy that the city wants to spend some improvement dollars on this,” Kowalski said. “But the thing that concerns us is that they will say all these things to you, but in the end they are going to do what they want. To hell with the merchants — 'our plan is better than your concerns.’”
Parking is the issue for the small businesses that line the street. They worry that they are going to lose business and have problems getting deliveries, and that the Bicycle Coalition has a master plan to sweep the street free of automobiles and turn it into a velodrome.
Meanwhile, Shahum and her group want physically protected bike lanes. And if that means taking out parking spots, that’s just the way it goes. She produces data that show shopping revenue is higher coming from those who walk, bike or take public transit than from those who drive.
The merchants disagree.
“That’s one of the bad things about this,” Kowalski said. “It has put the bike coalition and small businesses at odds. We used to be arm in arm.”
And the city officials, well, that’s simple — whatever they do isn’t going to please everyone.
“What we came out with is a pretty comprehensive proposal that not only improves safety but enhances the attractiveness of the street,” says MTA project manager Luis Montoya. “We want the safest possible design. I think this is it.”
But the merchants think the parking spots lost — 70 percent will be retained, 250 will be removed — are too many. And the cyclists contend that the bike lanes proposed — as the street narrows to the north they become narrower and not physically separated from traffic — are nothing like what they have in mind.
So what’s the solution? I’d say everyone is going to have to settle for the fact that this was an honest, good-faith attempt and may be the best we can do. Polk is a 110-year-old street built for horses and buggies and is always going to have problems now that $5,000 bikes and $80,000 Teslas are sharing the road.
Kowalski sounds pretty Zen about the whole thing.
“I’ve heard people say that happiness is a decision you make,” he said. “I’d say we are 88 percent there.”
Not the way Shahum sees it. Two years and 60 meetings are just the start, she says.
“That’s the current proposal,” she said. “It’s been changed before. By no means is this discussion over.”
Sigh.
C.W. Nevius is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His columns appear Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @cwnevius |
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