text
stringlengths 465
100k
|
|---|
Masdar City –Abu Dhabi’s $18 billion experiment in high-tech, low-resource living–was designed to be the world’s first large-scale carbon-neutral development. In 2012, we wrote : “So far, there are a number of finished buildings, including restaurants, a library, retail outlets, and a handful of structures at the onsite Masdar Institute, a graduate institute focused on sustainability, science, and alternative energy. This is only the start.” Julien Eymeri went recently, and found a much different story. Read his account and see his eerie video of an empty city.
Located in the heart of the United Arab Emirates, about six miles from the historic district of Abu Dhabi and close to the international airport, Masdar City is the embodiment of an economic dream, an ambition on the scale of a planned investment close to $18 billion: a zero-carbon city–a challenge for a country with the third-largest global ecological footprint per capita–supposed to attract more than 50,000 people and almost as many commuters, employees of large international companies and young high-tech startups.
Once on the four-square-mile site, the area of the future city is large. Having a look around, one sees an interminable white building fence, punctuated every kilometer by a sign saying “Masdar City, the city of possibilities.” But I discovered that what constitutes the city is almost exactly what we saw two years earlier: Masdar City is the “Opening Soon City.” Walking around, there are some seemingly deserted buildings (it’s a disturbing experience to enter an empty hall, take an elevator, and discover that each floor is also abandoned), alleyways used by security guards (to protect the abandoned buildings?), or cleaning sites (it is true that the dust from the desert gets everywhere and causes damages to photovoltaic panels on the roofs of the buildings). The loud drone of natural air conditioning, a huge wind tower, is omnipresent, even oppressive. Some students–there are barely a hundred, the only inhabitants in the city–seem lost even though the surface area is small.
Ironically, a travel agency, one of the few shops open near the international supermarket selling organic products, albeit overpriced and with certainly a very high carbon footprint, seems to invite them to buy a one-way ticket somewhere to escape their isolation. Unlike Songdo, another planned city in South Korea, whose developers bid on public facilities at the beginning of the project (schools, cultural centers, sports fields), Masdar City has bet exclusively on business. A hundred startups out of 1,500 announced are still in the development stage, while Siemens has offices there and General Electric a showroom. The result is that life is simply impossible: one must drive many miles to do basic shopping.
An advertising fence surrounds the city and promises a bright future. On the other side, the dizzying empty spaces are surprising: no cranes on the horizon, a striking contrast to the rest of the region. Is Masdar City a city out of order? Asked about the future of the project, a representative remains cautious, asking for patience–a surprising statement in a state which makes a claim on all street corners to be the fastest and first–and finally admits that it is–politically–unthinkable to abandon such a project.
The Masdar City model seems difficult to reproduce: too isolated, too expensive, too empty. The embryo town appears rather as a symptom of the obsession of a state with regard to its future. What will become of this territory, once the hydrocarbon reserves underneath its soil are depleted? In response, the frenzied builders attempt to inscribe life in a permanent fashion on a land that seems hostile to human existence. It is about facing the fear of death by building quickly (an “instant city”), to help transition to an Emirates that is a techno-ecological leader. Masdar City is meant to be the laboratory. Opening soon . . . one day. |
Detroit bankruptcy spearheads nationwide attack on pensions
25 April 2014
The bankruptcy of Detroit, Michigan is being used not only to carry out a historic attack on the working class in the city itself, but also to set a precedent for a nationwide campaign against pension benefits in both the public and private sectors.
A “grand bargain” proposed by Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, and already agreed to by two union-affiliated retiree organizations, will cut pensions for most retirees by 4.5 percent, combined with an end to all cost-of-living adjustments. The consequences will be disastrous for pensioners who are already on the cusp of poverty.
Yesterday, the Detroit News announced that Orr is calling for an additional $239 million in “clawbacks,” essentially stealing funds that have already been paid out on the grounds that workers were overpaid. The cruel and punitive action will affect 4,800 retirees. Over a thousand will receive an additional cut of between 10-40 percent of their pensions, and more than a hundred will lose most or all of their benefits.
These measures are only one part of an overall restructuring plan that includes the elimination of retiree health care, to be replaced with a pitiful $125 monthly healthcare stipend for those too young to qualify for Medicare.
What has been announced so far is only the beginning. Once the precedent of using the bankruptcy court to slash pensions is established, the door will be opened for the total destruction of the city’s pensions.
The Detroit pension cuts are illegal, violating explicit protections in the state’s constitution. The city’s use of the bankruptcy courts to override these legal protections is being watched carefully throughout the country, and indeed internationally. It has the active support of the Obama administration and both big business parties.
There are $21.7 trillion in retirement assets in the United States, including $5.37 trillion in government retirement plans, and $2.9 trillion in private defined-benefit plans. From the standpoint of the ruling class, all of these funds should be in its possession.
The protections that workers have been able to win to keep them out of poverty after retirement have been under attack for decades. The wave of corporate bankruptcies and restructuring that got into full swing in the 1980s transferred trillions of dollars in private pension funds owed to workers by US corporations to the coffers of banks and private equity firms.
Defined-benefit pensions (which guarantee workers a specific annual payment) now cover only 18 percent of private-sector workers, down from 35 percent in the 1990s. These pension plans have largely been replaced by completely inadequate defined-contribution 401(k) plans, with worker retirement savings funneled into the stock market.
Public-sector pensions, many of which are protected by state constitutions and other statutes, have so far remained relatively intact, with 78 percent of public sector workers remaining covered. The banks and their political representatives are seeking to use the Detroit bankruptcy to change all this.
As a report issued earlier this year from the State Budget Crisis Task Force, headed by longtime Obama allies Richard Ravitch and Paul Volcker, argued, “Pensions have enjoyed significant protection under constitutions and statutory frameworks in many states.” The report added that “[t]his protection is being challenged as state and federal courts consider the relationship of pension payments to other obligations such as bond payments.”
The report explained that in the Detroit bankruptcy “the court determined that federal bankruptcy laws can be used to preempt the Michigan Constitution.”
Municipalities and states throughout the country, including Illinois, California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have already slashed, or are preparing to cut, government workers’ legally protected pension benefits.
Earlier this month, the Illinois legislature voted to allow the city of Chicago, under Democratic Party Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to slash pensions for 57,000 city laborers and municipal employees by eliminating cost-of-living adjustments, and dozens of cities in Illinois are seeking to follow suit. New Jersey’s Republican governor, Chris Christie, announced this month that he plans to slash retiree pensions in his latest budget proposal.
Behind-the-scenes negotiations are also underway to slash private-sector pensions. Multi-employer pension funds, in particular, are being targeted for cutbacks. The New York Times reported earlier this month that “[l]abor officials, business groups, members of Congress and others have been quietly discussing a proposal to extend multiemployer plans’ life spans by letting them roll back even retirees’ pensions.”
Last year, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which guarantees these pension funds and has been starved of funding by successive administrations, posted a record deficit of $35.7 billion. “Within the next 10 years, more and more plans are going to run out of money,” said Joshua Gotbaum, director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, in a November report.
The attack on workers’ pensions is taking place worldwide. In Greece, Portugal, and Spain, the pensions of government employees have been slashed as part of the austerity measures dictated by the European Union and International Monetary Fund. On Thursday, the Canadian federal government unveiled a proposal to create a new type of defined-contribution pension plan, called a Target Benefit Plan, to facilitate the elimination of traditional defined-benefit pensions in businesses such as railways, airlines, and banks.
The ruling class is pursuing a quite deliberate policy. The aim is to create conditions in which retired workers, no longer able to produce profits for corporations, live out the rest of their lives in penury and face an early death. This is part of a broader offensive against all the social rights of the working class, aimed at rolling back conditions of life to the Dickensian misery of the 19th century.
In the United States, these measures are being carried out with the support of Democrats and Republicans, at the local and national level. The trade unions, as in Detroit, are active participants in this political conspiracy. Far from organizing a struggle, the unions are doing whatever they can to enforce the dictates of the ruling class, seeking only a share of the spoils for the privileged executives that control them.
Employee pensions, like every other social gain by working people, were not a beneficent gift handed to workers by the ruling elite but a product of mass struggles by the working class. To defend pensions, and ensure the right of everyone to a quality retirement and a guaranteed income, these struggles must be revived on the basis of an independent socialist political movement of the working class—directed against the capitalist profit system.
Andre Damon
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. |
A long-discussed and ambitious plan to revitalize the near South Side’s former Harold L. Ickes Homes public housing development has suddenly become a lot more clear thanks to new renderings recently to appear online. The project—developed as a joint partnership between The Community Builders (TCB) and McCaffery Interests—will fill a void in the cityscape created when the 1950’s era Ickes’ buildings were demolished between 2009 and 2010.
The plan hopes to completely reimagine the area bounded by State Street, Federal Avenue, Cermak, and 25th Street—preserving only the National Teacher’s Academy and a nearby baseball field. The latest images appeared in an online document from TCB as well as on the forum at skyscraperpage.com and show considerably more of the development than a previous rendering released more than one year ago.
According to reports, the redevelopment will encompass four phases totaling 867 units across the site’s three square blocks. The project’s first tranche is expected to include 319 units of mixed-income housing (94 public, 58 affordable rate, and 167 market rate) plus new retail and commercial space. Work is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2017. The new buildings are designed by Antunovich Associates with the Ickes site's master planning coming from Gensler.
The latest images come on the heels of encouraging news that the Chicago Housing Authority board voted in favor of a measure that authorized a $3.6 million predevelopment loan to kick-off the process. With a host of other developments on tap for nearby McCormick place taking advantage of the Cermack Green Line stop, the near South Side appears on the brink of a major real estate renaissance. |
Russia and the United States agree on the need to combine efforts in combating Islamic State, but they so far do not have a specific approach toward this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
Russia and the United States agree on the need to combine efforts in combating Islamic State, but they so far do not have a specific approach toward this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"We all agree that IS is a common threat and a common evil. It is necessary to combine efforts in combating this phenomenon as soon and as efficiently as possible, but we so far do not have a common approach toward how this can be done, in particular, taking into consideration differences between various players in the world, including the armed units of the Syrian opposition," Lavrov said at a news briefing on the sidelines of an ASEAN event on Aug. 5.
"This is a subject for our further contacts," Lavrov said. "We agreed that experts from the Russian Foreign Ministry and the [U.S.] Department of State will continue to work on it. We will certainly be guided by the initiative that we possess," he said.
All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta. |
A cheery subject for you just before the Christmas holidays: beating your wife in Victorian England! Today’s guest post is by Melissa Black from Yesterday Enchanted.
Ever wondered where the term, ‘Rule of thumb’ came from? It derived from old British legal traditions which considered a husband the ruler of his wife. Once married a husband could be held legally liable for his wife’s conduct in early modern times and as such, it was a widely held belief a husband could strike his wife for ‘lawful correction’ or to ‘order and to rule her’. A famous judge Sir William Blackstone’s wrote an influential book in the eighteenth-century called Commentaries on the Law of England and stated, ‘For as the husband is to answer for his wife’s misbehaviour, the law thought it reasonable to intrust him with this power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement, in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his …children’.
In the nineteenth century, people were influenced by popular mythology of these ideas. Cartoons depicting a judge who had purportedly stated it was lawful for a husband to beat his wife provided the stick was no thicker than his thumb had appeared in the press in 1782, suggesting the question of the severity of a beating was ambiguous and one for the individual husband.
Whilst there was actually no legal validation for this, there was continued widespread contemporary belief there had been legal significance attached to the rule of thumb, which some have claimed perhaps was a euphemism for no rule at all.
The upper classes did not condone violence, and considered the fights between working class husbands and wives, which would spill out onto the crowded streets of London, as one part of a generalized ‘savagery’ of the uncivilized masses. The Middle class considered working class males fundamentally primitive, with areas such as Liverpool docklands or Lancashire mining areas barely ‘civilized’ and whose masculine nature had not yet been properly disciplined.
In 1816 The Morning Post reported a ‘Daring Robbery’ which described two villains entering a shop of a Mr Moses Levy, upon whom they beat and threatened to murder, along with his wife. They then robbed the shop of various articles, during which time an accomplice stood outside the shop door and told passers-by whom heard the noise that it proceeded from Levy who was beating his wife! Needless to say, the assumption was the passer-by’s walked on!!
The law in Victorian England sanctioned a degree of physical force as male patriarchy was considered integral to a smooth running of society. Whilst women came to magistrates to charge their husbands with assaulting them, the courts at this time usually reserved judicial treatment for extreme cases of domestic violence involving death or extraordinary injury in the early nineteenth century. Lesser violence was considered disgraceful by the courts but not necessarily treated as criminal. There was also a persistent idea of wives being tolerant toward a degree of ‘rough usage’ by husbands, so the courts stressed violence didn’t represent for the poor what it would for higher classes, and hence required lesser treatment.
In a case of, ‘Breach of the peace’, a beaten wife stated upon questioning as to her complaint, ‘Complaint! What would I complain against him for! I have a right to complain of those that wouldn’t let him alone. I dare say I ain’t a bit better than him. At any rate, he is the father of my children, and he works for ‘em, and why should I stand a lick now and then, if he fancies it? God bless your Lordship and leave us to settle the business ourselves.’ The prosecutor then turned to the Lord Mayor and stated, ‘She’ll manage him better than we can, my Lord’ with the defendant permitted to go upon the assurance that he would never take a drop of gin again, except in the company of his wife! Whilst contemporary observations of living conditions amongst the poor poignantly explained this through material dependence, others felt women just accepted it as part of working class life.
In the latter half of the nineteenth-century however, domestic violence, or wife-beating as it was known in the Victorian era emerged as a serious social concern This era saw a rise in the standard of treatment towards women and new notions of ‘manly’ behaviour corresponding to the practice of a moral, rather than physical, control over wives. Middle class religious and secular venues pushed an Evangelical campaign promoting ideas of education and morality, and non-violence to society.
The everyday violence the British were used to such as state sanctioned whippings, hangings and brutal sports such as dog and cock-fighting were slowly being replaced by penal institutions and transportation to the colonies, and male aggressiveness once considered an integral part of English masculinity was promoted to become more law-abiding and self-disciplined, with the idea slights were avenged with self-restraint, prudence and forethought. These bourgeois or middle class values committed to a peaceful home and family life, and came to be considered the only way to live in Victorian England. Now more than ever it was assumed that men were in need of women to ‘elevate them and save their souls, as domestic and intimate ‘angles’. Queen Victoria herself nobly depicted her blissful, yet submissive status as a dutiful wife and mother, reinforcing the family as the defender of the social order, with any interference considered a threat to stability.
New law’s concerning recompense for women whom were severely mistreated by their husbands represented new outlooks toward domestic violence. In 1853 the Member for Lewes, a Mr Fitzroy, agitated against the manifestly inadequate penalties for aggravated assaults on women and children which resulted in the passing of the Aggravated Assault on Women and Children Act.
One middle-class reformer placing a ‘Warning to Wife-Beaters’ in the Leeds Intelligencer in response stated, ‘Among the signs of the times which cannot be looked upon as evidences of improvement, or proofs of any other description of ‘progress’ than the progress of barbarism, there is one which has latterly become of such frequent and increased occurrence, that it has forced itself upon the attention of our rulers, and obliged a reluctant legislature to interfere on behalf of a suffering and much abused class’. Whilst the passing of the 1853 Act was considered by one parliamentarian to ‘extend the same protection to defenceless women as they already extended to poodle dogs and donkeys’, magistrates with summary jurisdiction could now impose heavy fines on males under 14 with up to 6 months imprisonment, with or without hard labour.
By 1857, The Divorce and Matrimonial Clauses Act was passed under strong feminist pressure and ‘cruelty’ was included as grounds for divorce. Within the next few years the threshold of ‘reasonableness’ for such apprehension was lowered by a series of rulings. Whilst in reality the proceedings were expensive and only attainable to middle class women, whom to leave a husband had to prove adultery as well, the law in relation to marriage was now taking a leading role in the repression of violence. With the perception ‘wife-battering’ was as an index to the level of violence in society generally, alongside the idea it was threatening marriage as the normative state and the subsequent pressure for a husband to work, domestic violence was finally ‘brought out from the shadows’ and emerged as a social concern. One writer claimed ‘There is not….. any class in the world so subjected to brutal personal violence as English wives’.
Whilst these new notions of masculinity remained hotly contested in parliament and the courts, with one famous judge Edward Cox describing the ‘termagant’ wife who made the home a living a hell, it was the deviation from bourgeoisie norms and notions of marital relations parliamentarians were most concerned about. Subsequently, in 1878 an amendment to the Matrimonial Causes Act was passed. This gave magistrates and judges the power to grant a separation in court to a wife whose husband had been convicted of an aggravated assault, along with the custody of children under ten and weekly maintenance. This proved the first real escape route for battered wives and the conditions for real social change. The next quarter century saw new legislation in the form of The Married Women’s Property Acts of the 1870’, 1880s and 1890’s, each contributing to wives leaving their husbands through the ability to support themselves and her children by her own efforts.
References:
Doggett, M.E., ‘Marriage, Wife-Beating and the Law in Victorian England’, Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
May, M., ‘Violence in the Family: An Historical Perspective’, in J.P. Martin (ed.), Violence and the Family, John Wiley & Sons, 1978.
Tomes, N., ‘A “Torrent of Abuse”: Crimes of Violence between working-class men and women in London, 1840 – 1875’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1978, pp. 328 – 345.
Advertisements |
The dramatic resignation of Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu may have surprised many but cannot be considered altogether unexpected.
A year that began poorly for the now ex-Premier yesterday completely overwhelmed the government. While the media was focused on the ongoing federal circus in Sydney’s west, the current tumult of Victorian politics appears to have taken centre stage.
The decision of Frankston MP Geoff Shaw to quit the state parliamentary Liberal Party has further limited the Coalition’s already slender majority in the 88 seat Legislative Assembly. Prone to the occasional gaffe the former nightclub bouncer and staunch social conservative has come under increased pressure to resign his seat over allegations he misused parliamentary entitlements.
In recent months this issue among others has engulfed Baillieu’s premiership and served to partially destabilise the government. Often considered the accidental Premier, Baillieu’s unexpected victory in the 2010 election will now be remembered as his lasting contribution to Victorian State politics. Despite engineering the extraordinary result the slim electoral margin checked Baillieu’s grip on the reigns of power.
Incoming Premier Dr Denis Napthine inherits a government absorbed by a potentially volatile numbers game that threatens the ongoing stability of the parliament. With the Liberal-National Coalition on 44 seats (including Speaker Ken Smith) Labor effectively on 43 and Shaw now occupying the crossbenches the Legislative Assembly faces a situation whereby a deadlock could possibly trigger an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
Should Shaw decide to altogether abandon his former colleagues he could hypothetically precipitate a previously unseen period of parliamentary limbo. Typically in Westminster derived systems such a stalemate would ordinarily be broken by dissolving the lower house and calling a fresh election.
Julian Smith/AAP
However, changes to the State’s constitution enacted by the Bracks Labor government in 2003 established the prevailing system of fixed four-year terms. As a result the only other means by which the Assembly may be dissolved is through a successful motion of no confidence against the government.
A deadlock caused by an even split of numbers between the parties would create a circumstance whereby motions of no confidence could not succeed leaving no possibility of the Assembly being dissolved. Currently, the Victorian constitution provides no alternative mechanism to resolve this dangerous impasse.
A deadlocked Assembly is capable of exposing the more awkward aspects of the Victorian system. In a situation where the numbers are tied, a government, reliant on a functional parliament to pass its legislation, (including supply bills), would be effectively obstructed from doing so.
With the State’s budget only two months away the potential implications for the Parliament are profound. How would a government maintain the confidence of the people if it can no longer advance its legislative agenda?
To further complicate matters what is the Governor’s position when the constitution is effectively mute on the subject? In Victoria a Governor would be unable to allow a dissolution that contravenes the standing constitutional provisions that serve as a limit on his/her authority.
Had these issues been more closely considered at the time of the constitutional amendment in 2003 this hypothetical scenario could have been wholly avoided. A common sense solution to this conundrum would be to adjust the number of seats in the Assembly to an odd number (such as is the case in every other State lower house in Australia). Unfortunately (as a result of the 2003 changes) the only process by which the numbers of the Victorian Assembly can be altered is through a referendum.
While the possibility of a constitutional crisis is remote it remains as a threat that looms large over the incoming Premier. Yesterday’s events may have momentarily overwhelmed the government but an imperfect constitution casts a menacing shadow over tomorrow. |
This article is from the archive of our partner .
Last month, we reported on a high-profile fact-checking dispute between New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the Associated Press over how many millionaires are actually taxed less than middle-income tax payers. But a new report by the Congressional Research Service shows that about 25 percent of millionaires pay federal taxes at a lower rate than some middle-income taxpayers, bolstering the point made by Krugman and Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett.
Bloomberg highlights the report's findings on millionaire tax rates:
Preferential treatment of investment income and the reduced impact of payroll taxes on high earners lets about 94,500 millionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than 10.4 million “moderate-income taxpayers.”
The dispute began with a column Buffett wrote in The New York Times in August. The following month, while pushing for his deficit plan that would raise taxes on millionaires, President Obama repeated Buffet's argument that millionaires should never be taxed less than their secretaries. The AP subsequently ran a fact-checking story saying the president was over-stating his case.
President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. The data say they already are... On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.
To Krugman, the AP's analysis was "stupid" and misleading. "The media have decided that Obama was fibbing when he said that some millionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries," wrote Krugman. "This is, of course, stupid: the operative word is SOME." In response, the AP responded with this statement to The Atlantic Wire: "The story takes pains to say that there *are* some instances of the wealthy paying no taxes, or relatively low taxes. But those were the exception, less than 1 percent of returns filed by millionaires." |
It was July 10, 2014. Mike Crews, then-secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections, was in the thick of a public firestorm over allegations that a mentally ill inmate had died in a scalding shower as part of a punishment ritual by officers at Dade Correctional Institution.
Crews, a former law enforcement officer who had been at the helm of the state’s largest agency for close to three years, had been fielding calls from the governor’s office for weeks. Each message seemed more urgent than the last, with Gov. Rick Scott’s re-election campaign in full swing and civil rights groups calling for a U.S. Justice Department investigation into a series of questionable prison deaths.
“We need you to take a bullet for the governor,’’ Crews recalled being told by the governor’s chief of staff, Adam Hollingsworth, as he was driving home that afternoon from North Carolina, where and he and his wife had spent a few days decompressing.
The former prisons chief, in an exclusive interview with the Miami Herald, said the governor’s office asked him to fire people Crews didn’t believe should fired; it wrote press releases that said things he didn’t say, and orchestrated hastily arranged news conferences that were little more than smokescreens designed to distract from the real crisis that Crews was sounding the alarm on for years: Florida’s prisons were so rundown and understaffed that they had become dangerous.
Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald
“I guess you can say they were more concerned with the crafting and writing of news releases and that had little to do with the reality of what needed to be done to keep the institutions safe and secure,’’ Crews said of the governor’s office.
Crews said he saw the prison system cut so many corrections officers that overtime had ballooned to $2.9 million a month. Institutions were so deteriorated that their electrical, plumbing and security systems were constantly failing. Staffing levels were so dangerously low that some institutions weren’t able to adequately keep count of inmates.
The agency’s trucks, buses and vans had so many miles on them that he worried they would break down on the interstate and convicts would escape. Contraband smuggling had become so widespread and lucrative that rank-and-file guards made more money selling $200 packs of cigarettes than they would if they were promoted to a $38,000-a-year lieutenant’s post.
Crews said it was hardly surprising to him that inmate deaths were rising, since instances involving use-of-force had doubled, attacks on corrections officers had increased, and guards were finding themselves unable to control a prison population that had grown while staffing had been slashed.
Then in May, Crews’ job became even more stressful. The Miami Herald and other news media began discovering, investigating and writing about a series of unexplained and, in some cases suspicious prisoner deaths. Darren Rainey, a 50-year-old with severe mental illnesses, had collapsed and died in a 180-degree shower at Dade Correctional that witnesses said had been specifically rigged by corrections officers to punish and control unruly prisoners. Neither the DOC’s inspector general nor Miami-Dade police had investigated Rainey’s death as possible foul play or negligence, creating the appearance of a cover-up.
Shortly thereafter, four investigators with DOC’s inspector general’s office filed a lawsuit claiming that their boss, Jeffery Beasley, had pressured them to cover up the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of another inmate, Randall Jordan-Aparo, who died after he was repeatedly sprayed with chemicals at Franklin Correctional Institution in 2010.
With each story that came out, the governor’s office went into a damage-control frenzy, Crews said.
He was told that, going forward, no one should report the details of any inmate death in writing, so every time an inmate died, whether it was from old age or something else, officials were to call Crews on the phone. The calls were coming in at all hours of the day and night.
“We couldn’t ever sleep a whole night through,’’ said Crews’ wife of 28 years, Terri. They met while the two were Florida probation officers.
Crews said it became more apparent to him that few people in Tallahassee — and especially not the governor — were focused on ensuring that the state’s prisons were secure and the agency’s $2.2 billion budget was spent where it needed to be spent.
Given talking points
Over the course of the next 24 hours after returning from North Carolina on July 10, Crews was on a plane to Miami, juggling conference calls and talking points from Hollingsworth and others he said were bent on spinning a plan to take the heat off the governor, who was in a tight race with former Gov. Charlie Crist.
He was picked up at the airport by Randy Tifft, the DOC’s Region 3 director, and driven to Dade Correctional, where he was to hold a news conference the following day. The event was designed to show that Crews was taking action to hold someone accountable in the wake of Rainey’s death. Both Dade’s warden, Jerry Cummings, and his deputy warden, Royce Dykes, were told by Tifft and others that the governor’s people “were on a ledge,’’ and that the two of them needed to think about leaving. Both Cummings and Dykes elected to retire, but the timing of their departures made it appear that they were fired.
Crews said despite being told to fire Dykes, he refused, because Dykes wasn’t working at the time Rainey died.
“I put my foot down. I wasn’t going to fire him,’’ Crews said. “They were both good men and didn’t deserve what happened to them.’’
budget cuts
Crews, who was named by Scott as the third corrections secretary in as many years, had warned that conditions were deteriorating at Florida’s prisons as the governor and Legislature had slashed the DOC’s budget and cut its staff. In September 2013, he told a Senate committee that the DOC budget was $500 million less than it was in 2007, yet there were 9,000 more inmates in the system.
The budget austerity was having an impact on staff, he warned, noting that the starting salary of $32,000 for correctional officers contributed to high staff turnover, and the agency had drawn a lawsuit from the Teamsters Union over comp time.
Despite his pleas for more money, Scott and legislators refused to allocate the additional funds, so Crews got creative.
He had prisoners make their own bedclothes and inmate uniforms. They washed their own clothes and dishes, instead of replacing broken machines. He re-bid the contracts for paper towels and toilet paper to save money, and he asked for community and government agency donations for supplies and equipment.
“No other state agency had to beg for donations for supplies,’’ Crews said.
Pretty soon, Crews said, he was spending so much time begging hotel chains for sheets and pillows for his prisons that he couldn’t sleep at night. The budget had been cut to the point that wardens were trading kitchen equipment for toilet paper and soap.
The agency was spending $1.6 to $2.9 million a month in overtime, Crews said, yet no one seemed to understand that the department would save more money filling some of the department’s more than 1,200 vacancies. Instead, taxpayers were shouldering the cost for overtime and prisons were plagued by guards being unable to keep the peace because they were too burned out from working non-stop, 12-hour shifts.
“When you have $2.9 million a month in overtime, that means an officer is working at least one of his two days off. He is putting in an extra four hours in addition to his 12-hour shift and then, by law, we have to give him eight hours off in between. That means the warden has to fill that gap with more overtime.’’
Crews said it became clear that dangerous incidents involving inmates — either the daily inmate-on-inmate violence or use-of-force by guards on inmates — often corresponded to days and times when prisons were dangerously below minimum staffing levels.
Some prisons were in such disrepair, he said, that their roofs leaked regularly, making it impossible to keep dorms open. At a moment’s notice, facilities would have to shuffle hundreds of prisoners out of flooded dorms, crowding them into areas where staffing was already below minimum levels.
“What people don’t realize is if we have a foot of water in a dorm and the toilets are backed up, then the officers are working in the same conditions,’’ Crews said.
Crews said he appealed to other law enforcement agencies and the postal service to donate vehicles to be used by the prisons because they were spending more money on reimbursing expenses for probation officers and inspectors using personal cars than they would if they used DOC vehicles. The department received 51 vehicles, and while most of them had over 100,000 miles on them, they still saved the agency more than $100,000 a month for the probation department alone, Crews said.
“I bet you every bus we have has over 300,000 miles,’’ Crews said. “We asked for $4 million to $5 million to replace our buses and vans. They gave us $500,000. This is a public safety issue. If those buses break down on an interstate, you have 35 to 50 incorrigible individuals you [don’t] want to deal with.’’
The agency’s staffing issues were exacerbated by the fact that other contracts, including for food and private medical costs, were getting more expensive. The agency, however, wasn’t given more money for the increase in food and other supplies, so it had to take it out of staffing.
“It’s a vicious cycle. All of it had to be absorbed by the institutions, which meant doing more with less,’’ he said.
This year, he said, he refused to sign his budget submittal letter after he was pressured to slash his request for more officers and still publicly maintain the budget was adequate to run a safe prison system. “It was like they were asking me to lie and I wasn’t going to do it,’’ he said.
Throughout his three years with the agency, Crews said he met the governor only once, and that was the day he was interviewed for his post.
“You would think that as the head of the largest agency in Florida, the governor, would once in a while want to get a pulse on what was going on,’’ Crews said. “He called me every now and then to see how things were doing, but that’s about it. I never saw him.’’
After spending most of his career at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Crews had already earned his pension and done his time. The job had taken too much of a toll on his family life. And he and his wife had both lost more than 30 pounds from the stress.
After the November election, he made plans to leave, but again, was asked to stick it out for a few more weeks. This time he declined, and left to accept a job as vice president of the Florida Sheriffs Insurance Institute, which provides workers compensation, auto and law enforcement liability insurance to sheriff’s offices.
“I wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of firing me,’’ Crews said.
On Wednesday, Scott announced a $51.5 million dollar increase in the prisons budget, which includes $15.5 million to fill staff vacancies, $2 million to train new recruits at local collages, and $15 billion to repair deteriorated facilities. Crews’ budget requested only half of the officers he needed — 654 — and $37 million. His successor, Julie Jones, told the Herald/Times on Saturday that she asked for only half the funding because with the additional money to make building repairs, they will no longer need to shift money from salaries to pay for leaking roofs, and with more corrections officers they will save money on overtime.
She did not ask to give staff a raise even though they have not seen one in seven years.
“As much as I would like to say I would like a salary increase for my staff, I can’t tell you what it is based on,’’ Jones said. She hopes to rewrite the job descriptions and expectations and come back with a recommendation.
“The governor has made it clear that he wants true reforms at the Department of Corrections,’’ Scott’s spokesman, John Tupps, said in a statement for this story.
“The governor has very high standards for agency leaders and holds them responsible for making improvements and addressing any chronic failures within their systems. We continue to challenge the DOC to create a culture of transparency and accountability while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” the statement continued.
“Governor Scott is proud to have appointed Secretary Jones to lead the agency and is confident that her fresh ideas and new perspective will benefit the agency as they work to keep every family safe,” it added.
Crews said the governor’s office must support Jones’ budget requests if the agency is to turn itself around.
“I hope during this session the Legislature and governor recognize how significant it is to properly fund the DOC. If they don’t, there is probably going to be a catastrophe, whether it’s a riot or an officer being killed. Our prisons are not safe.’’ |
No Churn Homemade Ice Cream recipe is made with frozen berries that I put in a processor. I froze it overnight before serving and it was so perfect for summer
I had no idea how easy it is to make homemade ice cream.
I didn’t even need an ice cream maker. I made my ice cream in a food processor
I found out that the key to any homemade ice cream is frozen banana. It gives it the ice cream consistency.
In fact, I could have just made banana ice cream and stopped at that. No, I had to add berries to it because I am all about color.
The only way I can eat ice cream is if it has some kind of nuts in it. Butter pecan is the only ice cream that I truly like. Pralines and cream is a very close second.
In this ice cream, I went with pistachios because the green is a nice contrast to the red color of the berries.
Actually, the truth is that I am on a pistachio binge lately. Ever since I made cinnamon rolls and put pistachios in them, I can’t seem to get enough of them.
Not to mention, pistachios are packed with some serious vitamins and nutrition.
It only took 4 ingredients to make ice cream. Isn’t that the easiest idea?
So, is it better to eat the ice cream right away or is it better to let it freeze overnight?
I am of two minds on that. I tried it right away and it tasted great. I suggest you try it right away on an ice cream cone or freeze it overnight.
Now, I am going to go put on my pajamas, fuzzy slippers and plop myself in front of the TV. This is my perfect idea of “me” time. What is your idea of “me” time?
Easy Homemade Ice Cream Recipe
Homemade Ice Cream With Berries And Pistachios (No Churn) Easy no churn homemade berry ice cream
Print Pin Prep Time: 2 minutes Cook Time: 8 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes Servings: 2 people Calories: 329 kcal Author: Healing Tomato Ingredients 1 cup mixed berries frozen
2 bananas frozen
1/2 cup half and half Preferably Hazelnut
2 Tbsp Honey sub with agave or maple syrup
2 Tbsp Pistachios roughly chopped Instructions Line a bread pan with parchment paper and set aside
Add all the ingredients in a processor
Pulse in 15 second intervals until all the ingredients have blended
When everything is blended, transfer it to the bread pan
Let it stay in the freezer for five hours to overnight. Notes Let it sit in the freezer for 5 hours to overnight Nutrition Calories: 329 kcal | Carbohydrates: 58 g | Protein: 4 g | Fat: 11 g | Saturated Fat: 4 g | Cholesterol: 22 mg | Sodium: 27 mg | Potassium: 619 mg | Fiber: 5 g | Sugar: 38 g | Vitamin A: 7.1 % | Vitamin C: 16 % | Calcium: 8.4 % | Iron: 4.1 % Tried this recipe? Follow me @healingtomato1 and mention #healingtomato1
MORE FROM HEALINGTOMATO |
A former chairman of the Republican National Committee issued a firm rebuke of President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE’s tweets attacking Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Saturday, calling the comments “unnecessary” and warning Trump not to further isolate himself from black voters.
"Number one, don't tweet that. Number two, don't go there. And number three, step back and try to appreciate what's being said and what the concern is," Michael Steele said during an appearance on MSNBC. "The tweet is unnecessary, it’s unfortunate."
“John Lewis has a walk that very few people in this country – least of all Donald Trump – have ever walked. So you have to respect that and pay attention to that in a real sense," he added.
Trump slammed Lewis in a pair of tweets on Saturday morning after he questioned the president-elect’s legitimacy and announced that he would not attend Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
ADVERTISEMENT
Numerous lawmakers rushed to Lewis’ defense on Twitter, painting the civil rights icon as a devoted activist and politician.
Steele urged Trump to avoid politicizing Lewis’ comments, and warned the president-elect that by insulting Lewis he would only further isolate himself from black voters.
“If you’re looking to heal and bridge and bring the people of America together, well, we’re part of that,” Steele said.
“As black folks, we’re part of that. So our expectation is not only will you attempt that same effort that you would apply to white folks and other communities, but you will do so in a way that you show respect for our leadership and those who do represent our interests to you on Capitol Hill.”
Steele, who headed the RNC from 2009 to 2011, refused to back Trump during the 2016 presidential race. |
If any individual represents the “old Europe” and the wheeling and dealing that led to the flawed euro and the EU constitution it is Jean-Claude Juncker, who is one of the last believers in a federal Europe.
Mr Juncker, 59, was until last December the prime minister of Luxembourg and the EU’s longest serving leader until he was forced to resign last year in a bizarre scandal involving illegal phone tapping by the Grand Duchy’s secret service.
Luxembourg’s fiscal policy and tax agreements with hundreds of multinational firms transformed his country from an economy based on industry to one based on finance.
Ironically he got his job as Luxembourg’s leader after Britain vetoed Jean-Luc Dehaene, the Belgian PM, for the job of European Commission President in 1994.
After the veto Jacques Santer, the prime minister of Luxembourg, took the post, and his keenly ambitious employment minister Mr Juncker took the helm of the tiny country, running it as a fiefdom until December 2013.
Mr Santer’s commission, which oversaw the construction of the euro, collapsed in ignominy amid scandals over endemic corruption in March 1999.
The longest serving veteran of Brussels deal-making, until last year Jean-Claude Juncker headed the powerful Eurogroup meetings of eurozone finance ministers firefighting the crisis in the EU’s single currency - an institution he had helped create, warts and all, in the Nineties.
"We decide on something, leave it lying around and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back," he said of the euro's introduction.
At the height of the eurozone crisis, Mr Juncker was described as the “master of lies” for organising a meeting of finance ministers to talk about whether Greece could remain in the single currency and then trying to deny it was taking place.
Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung accused Mr Juncker of “taking the lead on the deception” and warned he had managed “to fritter away the last remaining trust the people of Europe still have”.
Mr Juncker has never hidden his view that the compromises and deals being worked out in EU meetings or leaders or ministers need be protected from public scrutiny, by lies if necessary.
"When it becomes serious, you have to lie," he said.
In May 2011, he told a meeting of the federalist European Movement that he often “had to lie” and that eurozone monetary policy should be discussed in “secret, dark debates”.
He also sparked controversy by suggesting that the eurozone economic policy was incompatible with democracy.
“We all know what to do, we just don't know how to get re-elected after we've done it,” Mr Juncker cynically quipped last year.
Mr Juncker was also closely linked to the EU constitution, before the French referendum on it in 2005 he predicted, correctly, that Europe would ignore any popular rejections.
“If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue’,” he said.
Following the No votes in France and the Netherlands, Mr Juncker claimed that in reality voters had actually supported deeper European integration, triggering accusations that the European elite was in denial over public hostility to the EU.
“If we were to add up all the votes of the people who wanted "more Europe" as a yes , then I think we would have had a yes vote,” he said.
Mr Juncker went on to play a leading role in the resurrection of the EU constitution in the form of the Lisbon Treaty and advised Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister, to mislead the British public over "transfers of sovereignty”.
“Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?,” he said of Mr Brown and British calls for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Raised in a working-class family in Luxembourg's rust-belt industrial south, Mr Juncker joined the centre-right Christian Social party the year he finished school, in 1974.
He got his first ministerial job in 1982 and describes himself as having a “red streak” that makes him acceptable to many European socialists.
He was married in 1979 to Christiane Frising.
As a smoker, Mr Juncker has suffered as EU meeting rooms have become smoke free following the introduction of smoking bans and at the height of the eurozone crisis he could sometimes be spotted outside buildings grabbing a quick cigarette.
At the beginning of this year, Mr Juncker was forced to deny that he had an alcohol problem after Jeroen Dijssebloem, the Dutch finance minister, described him as a "heavy drinker". |
2-Disc Blu-ray
Released by Shout! Factory
Release Date: Aug. 7th, 1992 (Theatrical)
Sept. 13th, 2016 (Blu-ray)
Region Code A (locked)
Run Time: 1h 31m (Both Versions)
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Video: 1080p (1.85:1 Aspect Ratio)
THE FEATURES ⭐⭐⭐1/2
DISC 1: THEATRICAL VERSION
Not One To Hold A Grudge: An Interview with John Lithgow (30m, HD)
Obsession in 1976, continued with Blow Out in 1981 and ended (nicely) with Raising Cain in 1992. Lithgow talks about working with De Palma and working out how he was going to play the five characters that he does play in the film. This is a wonderful and very informative interview with a man who has played both villains and heroes. Lithgow takes us through his working relationship with director Brian De Palma fromin 1976, continued within 1981 and ended (nicely) within 1992. Lithgow talks about working with De Palma and working out how he was going to play the five characters that he does play in the film.
I really like this interview. Lithgow comes off as a really nice guy and someone who any actor would love to work with. You can tell that he loves the film and he is happy to talk about everything that he did to make the film the way it is. This is an outstanding interview.
The Man In My Life: An Interview with Steven Bauer (24m, HD)
Bauer talks about working with De Palma and goes into immense detail about some of the scenes he was in. He talks at great length about the climactic scene at the hotel and how scared he was about doing the scene in front of a moving sundial that was pointed directly at him.
Bauer comes off as a nice guy and is very knowledgeable when it comes to how his scenes were shot. This interview is not as great as the Lithgow interview, but it is still pretty good.
Have You Talked To The Others? An Interview with Paul Hirsch (10m 49s, HD)
Raising Cain. Hirsch said that the film was all over the place and that he is the one who edited the film into what we see today. Hirsch has some good stories about working with De Palma. Hirsch is an editor who was called by De Palma to help him with the difficulties that he was having with. Hirsch said that the film was all over the place and that he is the one who edited the film into what we see today. Hirsch has some good stories about working with De Palma.
This is a nice interview and gives us a glimpse into what the film was supposed to be like.
Three Faces of Cain: An Interview with Gregg Henry (15m 47s, HD)
Henry talks about working with De Palma and De Palma’s work ethic. The actors got to rehearse the entire film right before shooting began, something that is not normal on a Hollywood film. He talks about how he was the actor who Lithgow talks to off screen any time Lithgow is talking to one of his alternates. He also talks about shooting the big “oner” in the middle of the film.
Henry seems like a really nice guy and has a great memory of working on the film.
The Cat’s In The Bag: An Interview with Tom Bower (8m, HD)
Bower’s interview is very much like Gregg Henry’s interview above. They worked together and I don’t think that they have any scenes apart from each other. Bower doesn’t really add anything outside of what is already known. I am sure that Bower is a nice guy, but the interview is fairly pointless.
A Little Bit Too Late For That: An Interview with Mel Harris (8m 43s, HD)
Not too much to this interview. Harris talks about how she was not able to do too much with the character because De Palma was very picky.
Theatrical Trailer (2m 5s, Upconverted SD, 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio)
I used to see this trailer all the time; on TV, on VHSs rented from the video store. When I watched the film for the first time in twenty years, for this review, I still knew the nursey rhyme.
Still Gallery (2m 9s, SD)
Static images with no music or sound.
DISC 2: DIRECTOR'S CUT:
Changing Cain: Brian De Palma’s Cult Classic Restored (2m 25s, HD)
Raising Cain. We are introduced to Peet Gelderblom, a filmmaker from Nederland who loved the film, but his girlfriend hated it. He decided to reedit the film into what De Palma originally wanted the film to be. This is a too brief look at the idea behind redoingWe are introduced to Peet Gelderblom, a filmmaker from Nederland who loved the film, but his girlfriend hated it. He decided to reedit the film into what De Palma originally wanted the film to be.
Raising Cain Recut: A Video Essay (13m 2s, Upconverted SD)
Brian De Palma had the film start with the Jenny character. We would follow her for a bit until something happens that changes the point of view of the story. De Palma changed this into the film that was released theatrically in 1992. De Palma has said that he always regrets changing the edit of the film.
Enter Peet Gilderblom, a filmmaker who wanted to change the film to closer resemble what De Palma’s film would have been. When Gilderblom was finished, he sent the film to Indie Wire along with this video essay detailing the changes that he made (which doesn’t remove anything from the film) and why he made them.
Scream has given us a really nice 2-disc set. The newly commissioned artwork that adorns the cover as well as the slip sleeve is ok. It is pretty bland and doesn’t really add anything to the package at all.
Thankfully, you can turn the cover art around and have the original theatrical poster as your cover.
There are two discs inside: one for the theatrical version of the film and the special features and one for the director’s cut and the video essay about the director’s cut. These two discs are housed inside of a normal blu-ray case that is not an eco case.
The two discs are both region A locked.
THE FILM: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Raising Cain is a wonderful film. The theatrical version, found on disc one, is a fever dream of a film; a film that moves so precisely, yet wonders a bit in terms of structure. We get to know Carter and his “problem” right away. We are not given any time with the characters before being sprung into the thriller aspect of the film. It is the middle of the film when the thriller aspect stops and a romance begins. This stops the momentum that the film was building and we are expected to roll with it until the thriller aspect comes back. is a wonderful film. The theatrical version, found on disc one, is a fever dream of a film; a film that moves so precisely, yet wonders a bit in terms of structure. We get to know Carter and his “problem” right away. We are not given any time with the characters before being sprung into the thriller aspect of the film. It is the middle of the film when the thriller aspect stops and a romance begins. This stops the momentum that the film was building and we are expected to roll with it until the thriller aspect comes back.
Normally I would have a problem with this, but this film caught me right away. I love almost everything about this film. The one thing that I do not like is the pacing and that will be addressed more when talking about the Director’s Cut.
This theatrical version is the first version I saw of the film, both in 1993 when I first saw it, and again just a few weeks ago, for this review. I love the way De Palma plays his audience like a finely tuned fiddle. He gears us up with the wife thinking that she gave her secret love the wrong gift and how it is a dream within a dream. In fact, much of the film is questionable. Did all everything that happened in her dream actually happen? Did some of it happen? We are left wondering what is real and what isn’t.
This theatrical version is the first version I saw of the film, both in 1993 when I first saw it, and again just a few weeks ago, for this review. I love the way De Palma plays his audience like a finely tuned fiddle. He gears us up with the wife thinking that she gave her secret love the wrong gift and how it is a dream within a dream. In fact, much of the film is questionable. Did all everything that happened in her dream actually happen? Did some of it happen? We are left wondering what is real and what isn’t.
The Director’s Cut, found on disc two, helps the film make more sense.
The film starts with Jenny’s side of the story. The first thing we see after the credits is her walking into the clock store. We see her meet Jack and we follow the whole story, dream within a dream and all, until Cain puts the pillow over her head.
The film then plays normally again until Carter goes into the forest and sees Jack and Jenny. After this the film concludes normally.
De Palma wanted the film to always start with Jenny’s side of the story and it makes sense. Moving the romance to the front allows the audience to get to know the characters before the shit hits the fan.
We know that Carter is a loving husband and a doting father. We get to know Jack and we wonder what his intentions are with Jenny.
We are basically given a romantic drama that turns into a kind of slasher film. I know that the film is more than that but take a look at it again. We don’t see the scene that started the theatrical film until about twenty five or thirty minutes into the film. By this time the audience is shocked by the events as they are happening.
I read a review of the Director’s Cut that said that it hurts the film and that the theatrical version is the proper version of the film. It is true that both versions have been endorsed by De Palma, but for different reasons. He endorsed the theatrical version because he second guessed himself. He had three editors on the film and the main editor, Paul Hirsch, told him that the film made no sense. De Palma fought against Hirsch, believing that his edit, the Director’s Cut, was the right way to go. It wasn’t until right before the film was to be “locked” that De Palma changed his mind and went with the editor’s version.
I like both versions of the film, but I think that the Director’s Cut is the way to go. There is a momentum building from the first scene that doesn’t end until the film does. Both versions are incredibly well made and there are scares and excitement found in each.
Luckily, you won’t have to go around looking for both versions because Scream Factory has given us both, one disc for each, and the transfers are really nice. This is an early 90’s film and as such there is a soft glow to the daytime scenes. This was a common thing in the 80’s and the early 90’s and it really isn’t something that I like, but it does give the film a dream-like quality. Both versions use the same transfer, so there is no difference between the two in terms of look.
The special features are pretty good as well. We get a bunch of interviews with various cast members as well as with the editor. Some of these interviews are great and some aren’t.
De Palma being made around the same time as the features. With Davidovich, I can’t see why she wouldn’t participate outside of the fact that she might be busy. We don’t get to hear anything from director Brian De Palma or from actress Lolita Davidovich. I think the former is due to the documentarybeing made around the same time as the features. With Davidovich, I can’t see why she wouldn’t participate outside of the fact that she might be busy.
At the end of the day, this is a really good release from Scream Factory. We get two versions of the film and a host of special features. The film looks good and we finally have this film on blu-ray. This is a must buy for fans of De Palma and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a great film to add to their collection. |
by Michael Langlois
Let’s talk about writing tools. You don’t really need anything more than a text editor to get the job done, but unless you’re a real stickler for the minimalist approach, there are a lot of options out there to lighten your load.
Being a nerd, of course, I’m always tempted to optimize everything to within an inch of its life. That usually means trying to find the perfect tool for every job, or trying to cram every job into a single do-everything tool. It turns out that neither approach works very well for me, so I’ve settled on using the smallest number of tools possible to get the job done.
Here’s a look at what I’m using:
Research, Recording Ideas – Evernote
I used to carry around a Moleskine notebook so that I could jot down random ideas and thoughts whenever and wherever I might be when they struck. This had two problems: going back to look for something sucked, especially across multiple notebooks, and having my ideas on paper and my associated research on the computer.
Evernote lets me use my phone when I’m out and about instead of a notebook, which means one less thing I have to lug around, and access my notes from anywhere. And the search is incredible. It even has the ability to make text in a picture searchable, which is pretty dang cool. And since I do 95% of my research on the web, it’s easy to clip anything I find into Evernote and tag by related topic. Now my notes and research are all in one place, and I can actually find stuff when I need it.
Brainstorming, Plotting – Springpad
Evernote is awesome for collecting notes and research, but it’s missing one thing that I need: index cards. When I’m working out the plot for a book or a series, I like to write down events and scenes at a high level and lay them out in front of me so that I can visualize the flow of the story. I also like to shuffle them around when I make changes. Using index cards like this is a common technique, and there are a ton of software alternatives to carrying around an actual pack of paper cards.
Unfortunately, most of these alternatives are based on particular tools that can only accessed from a specific location or device. Springpad neatly solves that problem by having an index card ‘corkboard’ in their web interface, as well in their apps for IOS and Android. For me, the best part about Springpad is being able to get away from the PC and noodle on the plot on my iPad. The board interface is beautiful and very touch friendly. Perfect for lounging around somewhere pleasant and thinking.
Now I have a place to do my plotting that’s accessible from anywhere if an idea strikes me, plus I can stick my brainstorming notes in the same place. The board is just one function of Springpad, in other respects it serves the same purpose as Evernote.
I would have liked to replace Evernote with Springpad to keep the number of tools to a minimum, but the clipping function in Springpad just isn’t up to par. Instead of grabbing the actual content that I want to save, it saves the URL and a screencap of your browser window. That means search is limited to the URL and your tags, and if you want to go back and read it, you need to go back to the page and hope the content is still there.
Information Repository, Timelines – Liquid Story Binder
Liquid Story Binder is actually an all-in-one writing tool. It has functions for everything under the sun, but for me the most useful parts are dossiers and timelines (shown above). Take a look at their site to get an idea of what it can do.
I used to use LSB for plotting as well, but since it’s a PC only program, I always had to be at my desk to get things done. Now that I’ve discovered Springpad, I may drop this. I find that if I do my index cards right, I don’t really need a separate timeline.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool, however, I highly recommend this one.
Writing – Word
Yeah, good old Word. Why not write in Google Docs? Or Liquid Story Binder? Or even Scrivener?
Mostly because I’m used to it and it works well for long-form writing, but also because it’s the de-facto standard when I’m working with editors, proofers, and formatters. You can export from lots of other tools into a .doc file, but without exception, I find that I have to go back afterwards and massage the results.
I don’t use much of the formatting capability that Word has, but what I do use is easy to setup. I typically create a template that I use for each chapter, which is a separate file. So, for each new chapter, I simply open a new doc with that template and I’m good to go. Separating the manuscript into chapter files helps me keep organized and allows for a modular structure that’s easy to work with.
As I said earlier, none of this is really necessary. If I were brutally honest, I could probably get along with nothing but Evernote and Word, and be 99% as productive.
Maybe after this next book … |
DAY 15! (Results from yesterday can be found here.)
Quarter-final day! Just eight episodes remain, with six shows represented. Agents of SHIELD got knocked out twice in the third round, while The 100 also crashed out to Arrow by just 20 votes. Just seven polls left in this year's competition and, as always, they are likely to be very close - so every vote counts!
The rules are as follows:
1. Two episodes go head to head for 24 hours, going live and closing at 5pm ET. The episode that emerges as the winner will go through to the next round.
2. Vote for your favourite episode, and tell us what you voted for.
3. Tell others about the competition! Social media is your best friend in this competition if you want your favourite episode to win.
4. Be respectful. This is a competition, but be friendly. Let's not have any abuse directed at any person, fandom or show, as we've had on occasion in the past.
Shadowhunters lost one episode in round three but it still has one left, "By the Light of Dawn". It faces Arrow's "Underneath" today, fresh off its success over The 100's season finale. Yet another all-CW affair takes place next with Supergirl's "Alex", the favourite for the competition as the top seed, takes on Arrow's fifth season finale. That one could be a fascinating tie. We then see Outlander's "Dragonfly in Amber" facing Westworld's freshman season finale, before Timeless' "Last Ride of Bonnie and Clyde" - which won by just four votes in round three! - takes on Supergirl's "Changing".
The draw:Don’t forget to share the post; the more people vote, the more chance your episode has of winning!The semi-finals probably won't go up until Thursday. Check back then for those! |
What the WSWS said about the Wall Street crash of September 15, 2008
14 September 2013
Five years ago, on Monday, September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest US investment bank, filed for bankruptcy. The 158-year-old icon of American finance collapsed in the midst of a mushrooming crisis of American and world financial markets precipitated by the bursting of the subprime mortgage and credit bubble that had generated staggering profits on Wall Street over the previous years.
On the same day, Merrill Lynch, the third largest US investment bank, itself 94 years old, vanished as an independent entity. It allowed itself to be sold for a song to Bank of America, under pressure from the US government, rather than face the same fate as Lehman Brothers.
One week earlier, the US government had taken over the state-sponsored mortgage-finance giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, at a cost of $200 billion in public funds.
On Tuesday, September 16, the government seized control of American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance firm and biggest dealer in credit default swaps. The Federal Reserve plowed $85 billion into the firm to prevent it from collapsing and triggering a chain reaction of financial bankruptcies around the world.
Nine days later, on September 25, the government seized the savings and loan giant Washington Mutual and closed it down, carrying out the largest corporate bankruptcy in American history.
Credit markets across the globe froze, as banks refused to lend to one another, fearful of not being repaid. Stock markets crashed. Other, even bigger, titans of Wall Street, the City of London and other world financial centers were heading for collapse.
This was prevented only by the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and their transfer virtually free of charge and with no strings attached to the biggest Wall Street banks. This was sanctioned by Congress on October 3 in the form of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
Once the initial panic had subsided and the financial elite had been reassured that the Obama administration would focus its efforts on restoring its lost wealth and making it richer than ever, the pundits downplayed the fundamental character of the crisis, presenting it as a passing phenomenon. The WSWS explained, however, that the Wall Street crash of 2008 was a watershed event in the crisis of world capitalism of the magnitude of World War I, the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II.
We are republishing here two articles, the first in edited form, posted on the World Socialist Web Site in the immediate aftermath of the Lehman collapse, as the tumultuous events were unfolding. These articles, “The Wall Street crisis and the failure of American capitalism,” posted September 16, and “No to Wall Street bailout! The socialist answer to the financial crisis,” posted September 22, speak for themselves. The analysis and political program advanced in these statements have been fully confirmed by the events of the succeeding five years.
They stand as a testament to the prescience and correctness of the perspective of the Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world Trotskyist movement. They reflect the granite theoretical and historical foundations upon which the WSWS is based, as well as the scientific nature of the world outlook and method of historical materialism, which guides its daily work.
The ICFI had been carefully following and analyzing the mounting crisis of world capitalism for decades, with particular intensity over the previous twenty years. We had identified the central role in the world crisis of the internal decay of American capitalism and the decline in the global economic position of the United States.
In 2007, the WSWS recognized that the collapse of the subprime housing market in the US presaged a major international financial and economic crisis. On January 11, 2008, the WSWS published a report by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North that began: “2008 will be characterized by a significant intensification of the economic and political crisis of the world capitalist system. The turbulence in world financial markets is the expression of not merely a conjunctural downturn, but rather a profound systemic disorder which is already destabilizing international politics…” (See: “Notes on the political and economic crisis of the world capitalist system and the perspectives and tasks of the Socialist Equality Party”)
On March 18, 2008, four days after the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns, the WSWS published a statement, “Shades of 1929: Bear Stearns collapse signals deepest crisis since Great Depression.”
One year later, the WSWS published the first of two lectures by WSWS Editorial Board Chairman David North, “The capitalist crisis and the return of history,” reviewing the historical origins of the economic crisis and its revolutionary implications. The second lecture, “The economic crisis and the resurgence of class conflict in the US,” was published in May of 2009. These lectures are published in the pamphlet The Economic Crisis & the Return of History, available from Mehring Books.
**
The Wall Street crisis and the failure of American capitalism
By Barry Grey
16 September 2008
The end of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, two of the largest Wall Street investment banks, one week after the government takeover of the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, marks a new stage in the convulsive crisis of American capitalism.
On Monday, global markets fell sharply in a sign of mounting panic and doubt over the stability of the entire US banking system. Throughout Europe stock markets plunged by as much as 4 percent.
The fall on Wall Street was even steeper, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average losing 504 points, or 4.42 percent. There is every indication that the sell-off will intensify, with the full implications of the collapse of the two Wall Street banks as yet far from clear.
The immediate concern is the fate of American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurance company, and Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan bank in the US, both of which are teetering on bankruptcy.
The sudden demise of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch has removed a huge amount of liquidity from the economy, as paper values built up over decades of speculation come crashing down. This is capital that is needed to finance business operations, and its elimination will inevitably depress economic activity, fueling unemployment and recession, further undermining home prices and consumer spending, and further weakening the balance sheets of already financially shaken banks.
A sea change is unfolding in the US and world economy that portends a catastrophe of dimensions not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The fall of icons of American capitalism such as 158-year-old Lehman Brothers and 94-year-old Merrill Lynch can only lead to the further discrediting of the “free market” ideology of the US ruling elite, as well as its political and economic system. The spectacle of giants of capitalism drowning in debt piled up over decades of reckless speculation must inevitably discredit the social class—the American capitalist class—which is responsible for the debacle.
The bromides that have been uttered by the official spokesmen for the government, the media, Wall Street and the political parties over the past year of mounting financial crisis have lost all credibility. The assurances that the latest government bailout will stabilize the situation, that the US banking system is “fundamentally sound,” that the housing and credit markets are about to “turn the corner,” etc., reassure no one.
On Monday, President Bush mouthed such phrases in a brief White House appearance. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson at a White House press conference evaded questions about who was responsible for the financial disaster and instead declared that he was “focused on the future.”
The presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, made perfunctory statements that were remarkable only for their brevity and vacuity. What is widely acknowledged, even in ruling class circles, as the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression is unfolding in the midst of a presidential election. But it barely rates a mention by either the Republican or Democratic candidate…
These events are signposts in the historic failure of American and world capitalism. For the working class, they mean a rapid growth of unemployment, poverty, homelessness and social misery. The government, Wall Street and both political parties will seek to place the burden for the consequences of their own greed and incompetence squarely on the backs of working people.
The collapse is devastating ever wider layers of the population, including those who have worked on Wall Street and received some of the financial benefits of the speculative boom. Some 26,000 Lehman employees are not only out of a job, with few prospects of finding similar employment elsewhere, but as owners of 25 percent of the company’s stock they have lost a combined $10 billion, wiping out their savings and retirement funds.
Tens of thousands of employees at Merrill Lynch and Bank of America will lose their jobs in the merger of the two firms, adding to the 110,000 jobs slashed in the US financial services industry over the past year.
The broader implications of the mounting financial crisis were signaled by Hewlett-Packard’s announcement Monday that it was cutting 25,000 jobs.
Many of those who precipitated this economic disaster, on the other hand, will profit handsomely from the debris they have left behind. Hedge funds and other short-sellers, who bet on the collapse of corporations, are even now speculating furiously on the demise of the remaining Wall Street firms, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, as well as big commercial banks such as Bank of America.
William Gross of the nation’s largest bond fund, Pimco, took in $1.7 billion last week by betting on—and publicly agitating for—a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…
The events of the past two weeks demonstrate that the American financial aristocracy is plunging the entire country into bankruptcy. These events are themselves climactic moments in a protracted process.
For three decades, the “free market” has been elevated to the status of a secular religion in the US, with the capitalist market as its god and socialism as its devil. This period, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has seen the wholesale dismantling of the productive base of the US economy, at the cost of millions of jobs and the living standards of the American working class.
In the name of the supposed infallibility of the market, the operations of big business have been deregulated, removing all legal restraints on corporate profit-making and fueling the accumulation of ever more obscene levels of wealth in the hands of a financial oligarchy. A vast process of social plunder has occurred, in which the wealth of the country has been redistributed from the bottom to the very top.
The scrapping of huge sections of industry and the immense growth of social inequality are the hallmarks of the historic decline of American capitalism. At the heart of this decay is the separation of the process of personal enrichment of the ruling elite from the material process of production.
The United States has become the world leader not in manufacturing technology or industrial power, but in financial speculation and parasitism. As Floyd Norris, the economics columnist of the New York Times, put it on Friday, “During recent years, Lehman—along with many competitors—went on a borrowing binge to buy assets with as little money down as possible.”
By its very nature, the parasitism of American capitalism has generated corruption and criminality on an unprecedented scale. Wall Street CEOs have awarded themselves tens of millions and even billions in compensation, in an utterly irrational and socially destructive squandering of social resources for the benefit of private greed.
At the end of 2007, for example, the Lehman board awarded CEO Richard S. Fuld a compensation package worth more than $40 million. According to Reda Associates, he can expect to collect $63.3 million if he is terminated. In 2004, he paid $13.75 million for an ocean-front home in Jupiter Island, Florida, adding to his other properties, including a home in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Joe Gregory, a former president of Lehman, used to travel to work in a helicopter. He recently put his 9,500-square-foot ocean-front home in Bridgehampton, New York on the market for $32.5 million.
The Financial Times recently reported that compensation for major executives of the seven largest US banks totaled $95 billion over the past three years, even as the banks recorded $500 billion in losses.
The question of precisely who and what is to blame for the greatest economic disaster in more than three quarters of a century is something that will not and cannot be raised by any section of the political or media establishment.
Since the eruption of the current crisis, there have no been serious congressional hearings, no public investigations, no attempt to hold anyone accountable. Massive government interventions into the supposedly sacrosanct precincts of the “free market,” for the purpose of bailing out giant Wall Street firms, including the biggest government takeover of corporate entities in US history, have been carried out without any public debate or significant opposition from either political party. This, while millions of Americans are losing their homes and their jobs as a result of predatory corporate practices!
Certain conclusions must be drawn from the crisis of the American economic and political system. There is no solution within the framework of the profit system. What is needed is a socialist program that places the needs of the people before the profits and personal fortunes of the ruling elite…
The only social force that can carry this out is the working class. It requires a clean break with the Democratic Party and the two-party system and the mobilization of the immense social power of the working class in its own party, on the basis of a revolutionary socialist program.
This is the program fought for by the Socialist Equality Party.
**
No to Wall Street bailout! The socialist answer to the financial crisis
By the Socialist Equality Party National Committee
22 September 2008
The Socialist Equality Party and its presidential and vice presidential candidates, Jerome White and Bill Van Auken, unequivocally oppose the plan to bail out Wall Street with hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds announced by the Bush administration and embraced by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership.
The plan, which is being rushed through Congress for passage this week, is the response of the government and the entire political establishment to what is acknowledged to be the greatest economic crisis since the Wall Street crash of 1929. It calls for an unprecedented transfer of public funds to the major banks and the American financial elite at the expense of the broad mass of the people.
Both the plan itself and the manner in which it is being imposed are deeply undemocratic. Exploiting the breakdown in US and global financial markets, the financial aristocracy, which is responsible for the crisis, is exercising its control over the government, both political parties, and the media to implement policies of the most far-reaching character without any genuine debate or discussion. As in the aftermath of 9/11, it is seeking to utilize the crisis to push through policies that would otherwise be considered entirely unacceptable.
None of the measures being carried out address the underlying causes of the financial meltdown, nor will they resolve the crisis. At most, they will only postpone the day of reckoning.
None of those who control the banks and finance houses are being held accountable, and not a penny is being provided to provide relief for millions of working class families who are losing their homes, their jobs, and their livelihoods as a result of the frenzied speculation that led to the crisis.
Make no mistake: The working people, who are the victims of the financial parasitism of the ruling elite, will foot the bill to bail out those who have enriched themselves by plundering the social wealth. The massive expansion of budget deficits and the national debt as a result of this plan will be used to justify a brutal assault on basic social programs, education, housing and the wages, jobs, pensions, and health benefits of the working class.
The government has pegged the cost of the program—by which the US Treasury will purchase virtually worthless mortgage-backed assets from banks and other financial institutions—at $700 billion. This sum already represents the biggest corporate bailout in world history. It is larger than the annual budget for Social Security and the combined annual outlay for Medicare and Medicaid. It has been estimated that such an expenditure translates to a cost for each US family of approximately $10,000.
Combined with the stated cost of other corporate bailouts and related outlays carried out over the past several weeks—$200 billion in the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $85 billion in the takeover of the insurance conglomerate American International Group (AIG), $50 billion to insure money market funds, and $200 billion in Treasury transfers to the Federal Reserve Board—the $700 billion handout to the banks exceeds the total allotment for all discretionary spending, excluding the Pentagon, for fiscal year 2009.
In fact, the figure of $700 billion is a huge underestimation of the ultimate cost of the Wall Street rescue plan. The New York Times noted Monday that the decision of the Bush administration to extend its purchase of securities to foreign-based banks that operate in the United States—carried out under pressure from global institutions that hold massive amounts of US debt—will substantially drive up the cost of the program.
The text of the four-page “Legislative Proposal for Treasury Authority to Purchase Mortgage-Related Assets,” published Saturday by the New York Times, reveals the profoundly antidemocratic and open-ended nature of the scheme.
The first provision establishes the unlimited and unilateral authority of the Treasury secretary, an unelected official, to order the use of taxpayer funds to purchase whatever “mortgage-related” securities, at whatever price, at whatever amount and from whatever financial institutions he chooses.
It states that the secretary—currently Henry Paulson, the multimillionaire former CEO of Goldman Sachs—is “authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution...”
This is followed by a provision stipulating that the Treasury secretary’s authority under the act is “without limitation.”
A further provision authorizes the Treasury secretary to enter into contracts with the banks “without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts.” In other words, to ignore established law concerning public contracts.
The proposal states that the government will designate “financial institutions” to operate the bailout program. This means that the government will hand over management of the program to some of the very corporations that are responsible for the crisis and which stand to profit directly or indirectly from the bailout.
Congress, under the proposal, will be relegated to receiving semi-annual reports from the Treasury Department. It will have no real power of oversight or control.
The proposal gives the Treasury secretary unchecked authority to resell assets the department has taken off of the hands of the banks. This means that the banks will profit on both ends of the deal—they will be relieved of massive debts and will then be able to buy back the securities at fire-sale prices after the housing market has restabilized.
The text states that the Treasury secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets will be limited to $700 billion “at any one time.” In other words, he will be able to buy more worthless assets after having sold back some of those previously purchased—rendering the supposed $700 billion limit fictitious.
Under “Termination of Authority,” the proposal declares a two-year limit, but includes certain exemptions that will, in practice, enable the Treasury to extend the duration of the program indefinitely.
The proposal calls for a $700 billion increase in the statutory limit on the national debt, raising it to $11.315 trillion.
It then defines “mortgage-related assets” so broadly as to potentially cover everything from trillions of dollars in bonds to the estimated $62 trillion unregulated market in so-called “credit default swaps.”
Perhaps the most extraordinary provision reads as follows: “Decisions by the secretary pursuant to the authority of this act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
This flagrantly unconstitutional provision establishes the unelected Treasury secretary as a law unto himself, beyond the control or oversight of Congress, other executive agencies or the courts. Two things need to be said of this provision: It makes overt what is normally hidden behind the trappings of American democracy—that is, the dictatorship of finance capital—and it implicitly acknowledges that what is being proposed is a violation of law. Why else insist that no one be allowed to challenge it in court?
That Obama and the entire Democratic Party leadership have lined up to endorse this windfall for the richest people in the country explodes their pretensions to offering an alternative to Bush and McCain and underscores the total subordination of both parties to the financial elite.
The bailout plan, devised by and for the most powerful sections of the American capitalist class, exposes all of the lies and myths that have been promulgated to defend the profit system: the claim that multimillion-dollar paychecks for corporate executives, vast profits for speculators, and ever-widening social inequality are justified because the capitalists must be compensated for their “risk-taking”; the mantra that social problems cannot be solved by “throwing money” at them, and that, at any rate, there is no money for jobs, housing, health care or education; the constant invocations against “big government.”
It demonstrates the class character of the government and the policies and decisions it takes, and the existence, behind the trappings of democracy, of a plutocracy—the rule of the rich.
The real source of the financial crisis is not and cannot be discussed by any of the official institutions or any of the political representatives of big business, whether Republican or Democratic. It is the capitalist system itself, which has for decades sought to overcome its fundamental contradictions by engaging in ever more parasitic and fraudulent forms of financial manipulation—piling up debt while dismantling the productive infrastructure of society.
American capitalism has become the global leader in the creation of personal wealth for the ruling elite entirely separated from the creation of real value in the process of production. The current economic breakdown, which threatens the world’s people with catastrophe, is the inevitable result.
The alternative to the naked dictatorship of capital and the impoverishment of the working people is socialism. The Socialist Equality Party insists that if the resources of the American people must be mobilized to avert an economic catastrophe, then the American working people should assume control of the financial institutions and use them for the common good, not corporate profit and personal enrichment.
We propose that the major banks and financial institutions be nationalized and turned into public utilities, operated under the democratic control of the working population. The vast financial resources that they control must be used to provide decent education, housing, health care, retirement benefits and good-paying jobs for all.
This should be carried out without compensation to their former owners, while securing the deposits and savings of working people and small business owners.
The billions of dollars in social wealth diverted into the private accounts of speculators and bankers must be recovered, to be used for the expansion of social programs that benefit the masses.
There must be a public accounting of the fraud and corruption that have fueled the crisis, and those responsible must be held accountable, including by means of criminal prosecution.
The books of the major banks, financial firms, insurance companies and hedge funds must be opened to public examination, to lay bare illegal and socially destructive activity.
The Socialist Equality Party and its candidates for president and vice president, Jerome White and Bill Van Auken, advocate the creation of a workers’ government—a government of, by and for the working class—to carry out emergency measures to resolve the crisis in the interests of working people, including a halt to all foreclosures and repossession of homes, the creation of millions of public works jobs, a ban on wage-cutting and layoffs, and an enormous expansion in public services.
We issue an urgent appeal to all those who oppose the bankrupting of society for the benefit of the financial elite, who wish to defend the interests of working people, and who see the need for a socialist alternative to the two parties of big business: Support the SEP election campaign and its candidates, Jerome White and Bill Van Auken. Join the Socialist Equality Party. |
Datuk Seri Najib Razak says it is important for the country to remain politically stable and asked the people to continue supporting the BN coalition. ― Bernama pic
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 27 ― Malaysia is still a democracy and the Barisan Nasional (BN) government is keeping it that way, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said today.
He was responding to a scathing criticism from former mentor and retired prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who remarked yesterday that Malaysia was heading towards a dictatorship like North Korea after the the government restricted access within the country to news portal The Malaysian Insider.
“We are not a dictatorship or an authoritarian government. We practise parliamentary democracy. We regard it highly,” he told a gathering at Kampung Muhibbah here during his speech.
He also dismissed allegations that his administration will fall due to criticisms against it.
But he also said it was important for the country to remain politically stable and asked the people to continue supporting the BN coalition.
“People say the government is going to fall. They are wrong,” Najib said.
He pointed that proposed legislations and the national Budget were still presented in Parliament last year to be debated before they were passed by a wide vote margin, indicating his administration followed the due processes of democracy.
The PM highlighted Malaysia’s continued high credit ratings from international financial bodies as proof his administration was running the country well.
“Recently, IMF gave a positive certification for the country's economy management, even Fitch gave us A- . We get positive approval of international rating agencies,” he said, referring to the International Monetary Fund by its abbreviation and a global credit rating agency respectively.
“If anyone says that we don't run our country well, they have a political motive behind it. They don't mean well,” Najib added. |
North American anime publisher Aniplex of America announced on Wednesday that it will release an two different import editions of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part 1: Beginnings and Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part 2: Eternal films on Blu-ray Disc on July 30. The films will be available to customers in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Central and South America.
Both the Standard Edition and the Collector's Edition will include the first two films in one set. Both editions will also include a Japanese language audio track and subtitles in Japanese, English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean, and will also include extras such as a theatrical trailer, a commercial, a clean opening and ending, and audio commentary from the voice cast. The Standard Edition will also include a postcard from Aniplex of America.
The Collector's Edition will include new cover art, a deluxe booklet, an original soundtrack CD, and a digipak. Aniplex of America is also adding in an English translation of the booklet and a postcard.
The Collector's Edition will retail for US$129.98 (but is selling at a store price of US$104.98) and the Standard Edition will retail for US$109.98 (but is selling at a store price of US$89.98).
Aniplex of America had screened the film in various cities across North America last year. The company previously released the original television anime series on home video in North America.
The third film, Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: The Rebellion Story (Gekijō-ban Mahō Shōjo Madoka Magica Shinpen: Hangyaku no Monogatari), is slated to open in Japan this fall.
Update: Background information added. |
Paid NFL analyst Ray Lewis was a guest on paid sports opinion-haver Stephen A. Smith’s radio show today. The two were discussing Dez Bryant’s non-catch on Sunday, as it is the topic of the day.
Then things got really sideways.
The former linebacker decided to take a perfect room-temperature conversation and put it in a clay oven by dropping this hot take:
“The only reason we know who Tom Brady is, because of a tuck rule! There’s no such thing as a tuck rule! If the ball is in your hand, and I knock it out your hand, whether it’s going backwards, forwards, lateral, sideways, however it’s coming out, that’s a freaking fumble! But guess what we created? We created a freaking tuck rule!”
Now, Lewis is entitled to his opinion. And considering his track record, I’m a little reluctant to tell him his notion is misguided. Lord knows where I’d end up. But Brady has had quite a career. Like, first-ballot Hall of Fame type of career, both by number and ring barometers.
Also, you know … Gisele. Uggs. These are things non-sports fans are acutely aware of.
Lewis, of course, is only known because he was a tremendous football player who never garnered negative headlines and NOTHING else.
[Sporting News] |
POLICE have been called to move about 15-20 protesters blocking sky rail workers from chopping down a 250-year-old tree at Hughesdale train station.
About ten police are at the scene, as a cherry picker moves in to place.
One protester, Patrick Wortho, claimed he was assaulted.
“I was standing there and was forcibly removed, they grabbed me by the arm,” he said.
media_camera About 10 police were sent to Hughesdale train station as workers prepare to cut down a 250-year-old tree.
media_camera Police at Hughesdale as a cherry picker is set up.
Catherine Pendelich, one of two women who had put themselves between workers and the tree to prevent it being chopped down, said the pair had been moved by police to public land.
But she said they were still under the branches of the tree, so it could not be chopped down.
“That would be too dangerous,” she said.
The river red gum, which has its own Twitter account and is known among locals as Boyd Murumbeena, had been shown on the plans to be safe.
Ms Pendelich said they had no intention of leaving.
“It’s been a very interesting Valentine’s Day so far,” she said.
“We’re all here showing our love for our Boyd.
“We’re not causing any trouble or issues to public safety.
“We’re allowed to be here.
media_camera Protesters were refusing to move out of the way on Tuesday morning. Picture courtesy of Amos Hunt
“They can’t move us further — we are not endangering ourselves or anyone else.
“This is a peaceful protest.”
Ms Pendelich said several trees in the area had been named, including Rosie at Carnegie station and Merric, which stands next to Boyd and is believed to be about the same age.
“We want to see the plans. We want to see why this tree has to go down.
“It doesn’t make sense to us.”
Dianne Hunt, secretary of Lower Our Tracks Inc, said residents had for months been asking to see the plans.
“We want to see why this magnificent 250-year-old tree has to be removed, especially when (transport minister) Jacinta Allan’s own presentation shows the tree still in place after the station has been built,” Ms Hunt said.
“Residents were told it would be a feature of the new railways station forecourt.
“All we want to see are the plans.” |
January 26, 2017 Fabien Potencier
As Symfony grows, we do our best to formalize and document our processes to give a strong and clear promise to our users. One of them is our well-known Backwards Compatibility Promise.
This is great as it gives developers the confidence to upgrade to new versions safely and more often. It also acts as a great guideline for contributors and a safeguard when the core team reviews pull requests.
But sometimes, we want to introduce new features, and are not sure yet about their implementation. A no BC-break approach in this case can be dangerous, as we could be stuck with a bad API for years. In the early days, real-world usage is a great way to get feedback and possibly adapt the API. But since people won't test something that is not released yet, we're stuck.
For the LDAP component, we decided to mark it as experimental for the first minor version where it was introduced. And it was a great idea! We weren't sure about the API, and based on user feedback, we made quite a few changes for the next minor version and removed its experimental status.
After discussing the matter with some other core team members, we decided to officially add the notion of experimental features. The goal is not to mark all new features as being experimental. Instead, we will use it only for specific situations when it makes sense. For example, when a feature is big enough or when we are not sure of its API, we will use this new possibility. Another example would be when we are not sure if a feature would be widely useful (getter injection is one such example). Marking such a feature as being experimental would allow us to remove it in the next minor version. Any feature that is experimental will be clearly marked in the documentation, and its classes and methods will be tagged with @experimental .
To sum up, experimental features are for specific cases. Breaking backward compatibility is possible for them from one minor to the next. But as always, breaking changes should be handled with care and ample documentation should be added in the changelog.
I've also submitted a pull request on the docs about this. |
Ancient Greek terracotta statuette of a dancing maenad, 3rd century BC, from Taranto
The history of dance is difficult to access because dance does not often leave behind clearly identifiable physical artifacts that last over millennia, such as stone tools, hunting implements or cave paintings. It is not possible to identify with exact precision when dance became part of human culture.
Early dance [ edit ]
Dance has been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since before the birth of the earliest human civilizations. Archaeology delivers traces of dance from prehistoric times such as the 30,000-year-old Bhimbetka rock shelters paintings in India and Egyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from c. 3300 BC. Many contemporary dance forms can be traced back to historical, traditional, ceremonial, and ethnic dances of the ancient period.
Means of social communication and bonding [ edit ]
Dance may have been used as a tool of social interaction that promoted cooperation essential for survival among early humans. Studies found that today's best dancers share two specific genes associated with a predisposition for being good social communicators.[1]
As folk celebrations [ edit ]
Many dances of the early periods were performed to celebrate festivals, on important or seasonal occasions such as crop harvest, or births and weddings. Such dances are found all over the world.[2]
In ceremonies and rituals [ edit ]
Dance may be performed in religious or shamanic rituals, for example in rain dance performed in times of drought. Shamans dancing for rain is mentioned in ancient Chinese texts. Dance is an important aspect of some religious rites in ancient Egypt,[3] similarly dance is also integral to many ceremonies and rites among African people.[4] Ritual dances may also be performed in temples and during religious festivals, for example the Rasa ritual dances of India (a number of Indian classical dances may have their origin in ritual dances), and the Cham dances of Tibet.[5]
As a method of healing [ edit ]
Another early use of dance may have been as a precursor to ecstatic trance states in healing rituals. Dance is used for this purpose by many cultures from the Brazilian rainforest to the Kalahari Desert.[6] Medieval European danses macabres were thought to have protected participants from disease; however; the hysteria and duration of these dances sometimes led to death due to exhaustion.[7]
According to a Sinhalese legend, Kandyan dances originated 2500 years ago, from a magic dance ritual that broke the spell on a bewitched king to cure the king of a mysterious illness.
As a method of expression [ edit ]
One of the earliest structured uses of dances may have been in the performance and in the telling of myths. It was also sometimes used to show feelings for one of the opposite gender. It is also linked to the origin of "lovemaking." Before the production of written languages, dance was one of the methods of passing these stories down from generation to generation.[8]
In European culture, one of the earliest records of dancing is by Homer, whose Iliad describes chorea (χορεία khoreia). The early Greeks made the art of dancing into a system, expressive of all the different passions. For example, the dance of the Furies, so represented, would create complete terror among those who witnessed them. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, ranked dancing with poetry, and said that certain dancers, with rhythm applied to gesture, could express manners, passions, and actions.[citation needed] The most eminent Greek sculptors studied the attitude of the dancers for their art of imitating the passion.
Asia [ edit ]
Indian classical dance [ edit ]
An early manuscript describing dance is the Natya Shastra on which is based the modern interpretation of classical Indian dance (e.g. Bharathanatyam).
During the reign of the last Mughals and Nawabs of Oudh dance fell down to the status of 'nautch', an unethical sensuous thing of courtesans.
Later, linking dance with immoral trafficking and prostitution, British rule prohibited public performance of dance. Many disapproved it. In 1947, India won her freedom and for dance an ambiance where it could regain its past glory. Classical forms and regional distinctions were re-discovered, ethnic specialties were honored and by synthesizing them with the individual talents of the masters in the line and fresh innovations emerged dance with a new face but with the classicism of the past.
In Sri Lanka, the ancient Sinhalese chronicle Mahavamsa states that when King Vijaya landed in Sri Lanka in 543 BCE he heard sounds of music and dancing from a wedding ceremony. The origins of the dances of Sri Lanka are dated back to the aboriginal tribes, and to the mythological times of aboriginal ying-yang twins and "yakkas" (devils). The classical dances of Sri Lanka (Kandyan dances) feature a highly developed system of tala (rhythm), provided by cymbals called thalampataa.
China [ edit ]
Night Revels of Han Xizai by Details from a copy of a 10th-century paintingby Gu Hongzhong , depicting a dancer performing a dance known in the Tang dynasty
There is a long recorded history of Chinese dances. Some of the dances mentioned in ancient texts, such as dancing with sleeve movements are still performed today. Some of the early dances were associated with shamanic rituals. Folk dances of the early period were also developed into court dances. The important dances of the ancient period were the ceremonial yayue dated to the Zhou dynasty of the first millennium BC. The art of dance in China reached its peak during the Tang dynasty, a period when dances from many parts of the world also performed at the imperial court. However, Chinese opera became popular during the Song and Yuan dynasty, and many dances were merged into Chinese opera.[9] The art of dance also declined from the Song dynasty onward as a result of the increasing popularity of footbinding,[10] a practice that ironically may have originated from dancing when a dancer wrapped her feet so she may dance ballet-fashion.[11][12] The best-known of the Chinese traditional dances are the dragon dance and lion dance. Lion dance was described in the Tang dynasty in a form that resembles today's dance.[9]
Europe [ edit ]
Pietro Longhi, La lezione di danza ("The Dancing Lesson"), ca 1741, Venezia, Gallerie dell'Accademia. ("The Dancing Lesson"), ca 1741, Venezia, Gallerie dell'Accademia.
15th–19th centuries: from court dancing to Romanticism [ edit ]
The origins of ballet dancing can be traced to the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century. Dance masters would teach the steps to nobility and the court would participate in performances as a form of social entertainment. This practice continued for several centuries. In the 17th century, courtly ballet reached its peak under the rule of King Louis XIV.[13]
By the 18th century, ballet had migrated from the French and Italian royal courts to the Paris Opéra under the careful direction of composer/dancer Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully sought to develop ballet into more serious art. Under his influence, ballet was turned into a recognized art that was performed by professional dancers rather than courtiers.
During the 18th century, ballet transitioned from a courtly dance of moving images as a spectacle to performance art in its own right. Ballet performances developed around a central narrative and contained an expressive movement that revealed the relationships between characters. This dramatic style of ballet became known as the ballet d' action. The ballet d' action strove to express, for the first time, human emotions drawn directly from the dancers themselves. Masks previously worn by performers were removed so that emotional content could be derived from facial expressions.[13]
Costumes during this time were very restricting for dancers. Although a more expressive use of the body was encouraged, dancers' movements were still restricted due to heavy materials and corseted dresses. Costumes often covered a dancer's physique and made it difficult to see complex or intricate choreography. It was not until choreographer Jean Georges Noverre called for dance reforms in 1760 with his Letters on Dancing and Ballets that costumes became more conducive. Noverre urged that costumes be crafted using lightweight fabrics that move fluidly with the body, complimenting a dancer's figure. In addition, dancers wore soft slippers that fit snuggly along the foot. This shoe design instilled confidence within the ballerina, daring her to dance on her toes. Naturalistic costuming allowed dancers to push the boundaries of movement, eventually rising en pointe.
The era of Romanticism produced ballets inspired by fantasy, mystique, and the unfamiliar cultures of exotic places. Ballets that focused more on the emotions, the fantasy and the spiritual worlds, heralded the beginning of true pointe-work. Now, on her toes, the deified ballerina (embodied in this period by the legendary ballerina Marie Taglioni) seemed to magically skim the surface of the stage, an ethereal being never quite touching the ground. It was during this period that the ascending star of the ballerina quite eclipsed the presence of the poor male dancer, who was in many cases reduced to the status of a moving statue, present only in order to lift the ballerina. This sad state was really only redressed by the rise of the male ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky, with the Ballets Russes, in the early 20th century. Ballet as we know it had well and truly evolved by this time, with all the familiar conventions of costume, choreographic form, plot, pomp, and circumstance firmly fixed in place.
Early 20th century: from ballet to contemporary dance [ edit ]
Since the Ballets Russes began revolutionizing ballet in the early 20th century, there have been continued attempts to break the mold of classical ballet. Currently the artistic scope of ballet technique (and its accompanying music, jumper, and multimedia) is more all-encompassing than ever. The boundaries that classify a work of classical ballet are constantly being stretched, muddied and blurred until perhaps all that remains today are traces of technique idioms such as turnout.
It was during the explosion of new thinking and exploration in the early 20th century that dance artists began to appreciate the qualities of the individual, the necessities of ritual and religion, the primitive, the expressive and the emotional. In this atmosphere modern dance began an explosion of growth. There was suddenly new freedom in what was considered acceptable, what was considered art, and what people wanted to create. All kinds of other things were suddenly valued as much as, or beyond, the costumes and tricks of the ballet.
Most of the early-20th-century modern choreographers and dancers saw the ballet in the most negative light. Isadora Duncan thought it most ugly, nothing more than meaningless gymnastics. Martha Graham saw it as European and Imperialistic, having nothing to do with the modern American people. Merce Cunningham, while using some of the foundations of the ballet technique in his teaching, approached choreography and performance from a totally radical standpoint compared to the traditional balletic format.
The 20th century was indeed a period of breaking away from everything that ballet stood for. It was a time of unprecedented creative growth, for dancers and choreographers. It was also a time of shock, surprise, and broadening of minds for the public, in terms of their definitions of what dance was. It was a revolution in the truest sense.
The late 20th and early 21st centuries [ edit ]
Diagram of 20th century American dance history
After the explosion of modern dance in the early 20th century, the 1960s saw the growth of postmodernism. Postmodernism veered towards simplicity, the beauty of small things, the beauty of the untrained body, and unsophisticated movement. The famous "No" manifesto rejecting all costumes, stories and outer trappings in favor of raw and unpolished movement was perhaps the extreme of this wave of thinking. Unfortunately, lack of costumes, stories, and outer trappings do not make a good dance show, and it was not long before sets, décor and shock value re-entered the vocabulary of modern choreographers.
By the 1980s dance had come full circle and modern dance (or, by this time, "contemporary dance") was clearly still a highly technical and political vehicle for many practitioners. Existing alongside classical ballet, the two art-forms were by now living peacefully next door to one another with little of the rivalry and antipathy of previous eras. In a cleverly designed comment on this ongoing rivalry, the brilliant collaboration of Twyla Tharp (one of the 20th centuries' cutting edge Dance avant-gardist/contemporary) and Ballet dance was ultimately achieved. The present time sees us still in the very competitive artistic atmosphere where choreographers compete to produce the most shocking work, however, there are still glimpses of beauty to be had, and much incredible dancing in an age where dance technique has progressed further in expertise, strength, and flexibility than ever before in history.
At the same time, mass culture experienced expansion of street dance. In 1973, famous group Jackson 5 performed on television a dance called Robot (choreographed by postmodern[14] artist Michael Jackson) a dance form cultivated in Richmond, CA. This event and later Soul Train performances by black dancers (such as Don Cambell) ignited a street culture revolution, in a sense. Bboying in New York, Locking in L.A., Poping in Fresno, CA, Boogaloo in Oakland, CA, Robot in Richmond, CA, all had their own creative explosions happen around the late 60s-70s. Each with their own histories, practices, innovators, and foundations.
For the emergence of 20th-century modern dance see also: Mary Wigman, Gret Palucca, Harald Kreutzberg, Yvonne Georgi, and Isadora Duncan.
Hip-hop dance started when Clive Campbell, aka Kool DJ Herc and the father of hip-hop, came to New York from Jamaica in 1967. Toting the seeds of reggae from his homeland, he is credited with being the first DJ to use two turntables and identical copies of the same record to create his jams. But it was his extension of the breaks in these songs—the musical section where the percussive beats were most aggressive—that allowed him to create and name a culture of break boys and break girls who laid it down when the breaks came up. Briefly termed b-boys and b-girls, these dancers founded breakdancing, which is now a cornerstone of hip-hop dance.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ] |
If there’s one thing that liberals and conservatives have in common it’s that they’re equally close-minded. Both engage in what psychologists call politically motivated reasoning, or PMR, where you take data and contort it to conform to your worldview, as all your angry friends from high school do on Facebook. A very cool paper on the topic came from Yale University researcher Dan M. Kahan, who in a 2012 study found that people on the left and right are equally likely to partake in PMR, and that the most reflective, thoughtful people were actually the most likely to twist empirical evidence to their own ideological ends. But in a forthcoming study that Kahan co-authored, he and his colleagues found a quality that defeats politically minded reasoning — a little thing called curiosity.
In the study, written up by Tom Stafford at BBC Future, Kahan and his colleagues made two “scales,” which are basically fancy quizzes. One scale addressed scientific background and was fairly standard, measuring how much someone knows about scientific facts and how science is done in the field. The second scale was designed to measure scientific curiosity. The design was more clever: Disguised as a “social marketing” survey to prevent people from giving responses they thought would be socially desirable, participants were given choices about what sort of news content they’d like to read, such as sports or politics or science. When people said they’d rather read about scientific breakthroughs than big games or the political horse race, their scientific curiosity score went up. In the first instrument, consistent with Kahan’s earlier study, liberals and conservatives were polarized, especially if they were well-educated. But the scientific-curiosity scale showed a different story: People who were more curious — whether liberal or conservative — were more concerned about fracking. Then, in a follow-up experiment, the researchers gave their subjects a choice of stories that either surprised them or fell into their preexisting beliefs, and here the more curious — for left and right both — were more into the stories that showed them that the world was different than what they had previously assumed.
So the road to bipartisanship, from what Kahan and his colleagues report, is paved with curiosity. “On this view, individuals who have an appetite to be surprised by scientific information — who find it pleasurable to discover that the world does not work as they expected — do not turn this feature of their personality off when they engage political information but rather indulge it in that setting as well, exposing themselves more readily to information that defies their expectations about facts on contested issues,” the researchers write. Because of this, they reason, the curious react more open-mindedly than the less curious, and thus they’re more likely to pay attention to the best available evidence rather than their own worldviews. It’s an update on the classic Mark Twain line “Travel is fatal to prejudice”: Curiosity might not be fatal to bias, but it sure does wound it. |
If by “radicals” you mean the 214 (or whatever arbitrary number from whatever list), then it’s not very important. Only if you intend to use traditionally-arranged dictionaries. Radicals were created as a way of organizing characters in dictionaries and looking them up. They sometimes have something to do with the etymology of the character, but not always. Sometimes they’re entirely arbitrary. Sometimes they don’t follow any sort of pattern whatsoever. Check this out:
Character: 彎 Radical: 弓
Character: 戀 Radical: 心
Character: 蠻 Radical: 虫 (nice pattern so far, right?)
Character: 變 Radical: 言 (huh?)
They’re not an inherent part of the writing system, but a made-up method of arranging dictionaries that came about only after the writing system had been around for more than 1500 years. The Chinese word for “radical” is 部首. A better translation in English would be “section heading.” Dictionaries are arranged in sections 部, and at the head 首 of each section is the “radical/section heading” 部首.
However, if you’re talking about learning character components, then yes, you should absolutely learn them. For each character you learn, you want to find out a) what components it has, and b) how those components function. Let’s look at what possible functions they can have.
Three Attributes
There are three attributes any character or component has: form, meaning, and sound. I’ll use 大 as an example.
Form: What is it a picture of? 大 is a picture of a person (specifically, an adult).
Meaning: What does it mean? 大 means big, because adults are big in comparison to children.
Sound: What is its pronunciation? (Or, if it’s a sound component, what is the range of sounds it can represent?) 大 is pronounced dà in Mandarin.
The functions a component can have derive directly from those attributes.
Form Component: The component’s form contributes to the meaning of the character. Example: in 美 měi beautiful, 大 is a picture of a person, and the top part is a headdress. Note: it’s not a big 大 sheep 羊, which is what’s usually taught.
Here’s a screen shot from the recently released Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters (full disclosure: I’m one of the authors).
Meaning Component: The component’s meaning contributes to the meaning of the character. Example: 大 means “big,” and it expresses the meaning “big” in characters like 尖. This is how most people explain all semantic components (“semantic component” is an umbrella term which covers meaning and form components), but in reality this function is fairly uncommon!
Again, from the Outlier dictionary:
Sound Component: The component’s pronunciation indicates a range of possible pronunciations for the character. Example: 大 is pronounced dà in Mandarin, and it serves as a sound component in the simplified character 达 dá “to arrive.”
There’s a fourth type of component which derives not from the three attributes above, but from the fact that it does not contribute to the character’s meaning or sound. We call these empty components. Sometimes they simply serve to distinguish one character from another (like the 夂 in 麥, which distinguishes it from 來), and sometimes they’re corrupted from an earlier form (like the headdress in 美, which now looks like 羊 sheep, but has nothing to do with a sheep or the pronunciation yáng).
Another shot from the dictionary:
Conclusion
All this is not to say that you should completely throw radicals out the window. They’re good to know, but you should keep in mind what they’re used for: looking up characters in traditionally-arranged dictionaries. That’s it. They’re not the building blocks of Chinese characters (but functional components are!). They’re an imperfect, man-made system of arranging and looking up characters in a dictionary. The concept of “radical” didn’t even exist when the vast majority of characters were being created.
But sound, form, and meaning components did exist. Sound, form, and meaning components are the building blocks of Chinese characters. Sound, form, and meaning components are what people were thinking of whenever they made a new Chinese character. When you’re learning a new character, thinking in terms of these functional components rather than radicals will clarify a lot of confusing things about Chinese characters. Anything that tells you otherwise is inaccurate and (unintentionally) leading you astray.
Another little ad: the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters is the only resource out there (really!) which explains how Chinese characters actually work based on cutting-edge research from top scholars in China and Taiwan. My co-founder and I were trained in grad school under some of these researchers, and we’re taking that information and distilling it into something you can use to learn characters more efficiently. |
The DUP delegation that met Conradh na Gaeilge at Stormont in April
One of the groups leading the campaign for an Irish language act says a senior DUP member acknowledged that the cost of the proposed legislation was "reasonable".
The remarks were reportedly made by Lagan Valley MLA Edwin Poots during a meeting between an Arlene Foster-led DUP delegation and representatives of Irish-language Advocacy group Conradh na Gaeilge.
The meeting was one of a number of engagements Mrs Foster had with Irish language groups following her controversial characterisation of Sinn Féin as a "hungry crocodile".
During the April 27 meeting, Conradh na Gaeilge set out its proposals for a an Acht na Gaeilge, including indicative costs.
According to the Irish language advocacy group, implementing its proposals would require a one-off cost of £9 million to build the infrastructure to support the the legislation, and £2 million a year thereafter.
Conradh na Gaeilge's proposals include provisions for official status for the language; Irish in the Stormont assembly and local government; Irish and the BBC, placenames, and the role of a language commissioner.
When the group outlined these to Mrs Foster and her party colleagues, Mr Poots acknowledged the costs were "reasonable" – a claim that is not contested by the DUP.
Conradh na Gaeilge regard the former health minister's remarks as a "considerable development" that contrasts with previous statements about Irish language act proposals.
The group's advocacy manager Ciarán Mac Giolla Bhéin said that if the DUP was satisfied the costings were reasonable, and therefore achievable, then there was little basis for the continued public opposition to an Irish language act from certain party members.
"Fears expressed by some members of the DUP around the potential excessive costs of an Irish language act – £30m-£100m annually – have been consistently used as a reason to prevent the introduction of legislation that was promised over ten years ago at St Andrews, specifically in the period of difficult economic circumstances in which we find ourselves," he said.
"We would hope therefore that significant progress can be made during the ongoing talks given the DUP's acceptance that our proposals are reasonable, alongside the additional support of a majority of MLAs who have previously and publicly supported the campaign for an Irish language act."
A DUP spokesman said the party's views were "well known and documented".
"We want to see mutual respect for all languages and cultures in Northern Ireland but not one elevated above all others," he said. |
Just a decade ago, the wildest creatures in the Forest of Dean were deer, sheep, foxes and badgers. But today there are as many as 600 wild boars roaming the 111 sq km (43 sq miles) of ancient Gloucestershire woodland – and they are breeding so fast that hundreds may have to be culled, according to an assessment by the Forestry Commission (FC).
The commission's deputy surveyor, Kevin Stannard, told the Forest of Dean council that boar numbers were doubling almost every year. "It is difficult to put a figure on the population but [we] estimate there are in excess of 500 and probably 600 boars in the Forest of Dean. Last year, we set a cull target of 100. That target was met in January, with 78 animals culled by FC staff and 22 animals killed through road traffic accidents."
The FC says that up to 200 boars might now have to be culled but the fiercely independent locals – who led the national battle to prevent the woodlands being privatised by the government in 2011 – are split. Proud of the fact that the forest sustains the biggest population of boars in Britain, they are also worried that numbers may be out of control. "The largest group could be 20 animals, made up of two or three breeding females and their litters," Stannard said.
Locals have complained that rampaging boars plough up gardens and crops, panic horses, rip up roadside verges, open rubbish bags and are increasingly causing road accidents. "In 18 months' time, it is said we could have 1,000 wild boars in the forest. Nobody knows how many it can sustain," said Martin Quayle, the district council cabinet member for the environment. "They make a hell of a mess of the verges. Some people say the place is so untidy that it's begun to look like a tip. On my lane, they have dug up the verge three times in the last year."
"A lot of people get really steamed up about them. But it's very delicate. Everyone feels there should be some culling, but others say it should be turned into a tourist attraction and that we should attract hunters. Some poaching already goes on."
The boars roam freely in family groups called sounders across the whole forest, staying in one place for a few days before moving on again, according to the FC, but have been invading communities more frequently. "Adult male boars can move rapidly between eight to nine miles in one night. There are many reasons why boars have been more prevalent in the communities this autumn and winter. These include the lack of beechnuts and acorns caused by the very wet summer and a general increase in the size of the population," Stannard told the councillors.
Council chairman Norman Stephens said: "A lot of people I speak to are sick and tired of the boars. You have only got to drive around to see the damage they do. There are a lot of people who would like to see a stronger cull."
Scott Passmore, co-founder of the UK Wild Boar Trust, based in the Forest of Dean, said he did not support a cull but was prepared to provide advice to the commission. "We want to ensure it's done on as accurate an estimation of the population as possible. It's always this time of year when people call for the boars to be controlled because the roadsides are messy. It might look bad to some people, but as soon as the weather improves it will get better. The grass just isn't growing over at the moment.
"We are aware that rooting done by the wild boars can be a controversial subject and will attract a wide range of opinions, from being great for the richness of the soil to being an unsightly mess. We maintain that 99% of any effects from wild boar rooting is temporary and the ground will usually repair itself, though in some cases it may need a little help just by turning the turf back over."
Plants in the vicinity will grow back the following year much stronger, said Passmore: "In fact, it isn't very different to digging a flower bed in a garden, and regularly turning the soil to enrich the area."
The boars are thought to have been illegally reintroduced to the forest around 2004. A few animals had earlier escaped from a nearby wild boar farm and are believed to have met others which had been dumped in the forest. Wild boars have no natural predators in the UK and females can give birth to eight to 14 piglets a year in two litters. |
A man's finger was amputated after he was injured while running from RCMP and leaping onto a bed near a battle axe.
It happened on Sagkeeng First Nation earlier this year when police were searching a residence for drugs and firearms.
The man ran from police, heading for a bedroom closet, according to the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba (IIU), which examines all serious incidents involving police officers in Manitoba.
The officer, fearing the man was rushing to get a gun, fired a round from his beanbag shotgun. The beanbag struck the man in the abdomen and caused him to leap onto a bed, but was likely hurt on a medieval-type battle axe and a large knife that were nearby, according to the IIU report.
The man sustained bruises to the abdomen and a serious cut to his right hand. He was taken to Pine Falls Hospital where he received 20 stitches to his hand, and where x-rays showed an object embedded in one finger.
The man later had that finger amputated at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.
The IIU investigation found a tip was missing from one of the blades on the medieval battle axe seized from the bedroom and most likely caused the wound.
The man's injury was unrelated to being struck by the beanbag fired by the RCMP, said the IIU, which has determined there are no grounds for charges against the officer.
Zane Tessler, executive director of the IIU, noted in his report that some residents of the home had a history of violence, gang affiliations and illicit drug use, and there was a strong likelihood that weapons may be present.
When the man ran towards a closet and did not obey the officer's order to stop, the officer's fear that the man might arm himself "was genuine and reasonable under the circumstances," Tessler stated in the report.
The injured man is facing charges related to the incident. |
About
You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
sound 00:00 00:00
This video shows a previous iteration of the game, rules have changed since (no more statues/obstacles generated on death, for instance). The code works well, except that the death animation triggers too fast! Should be easily patched.
Life Jar — What is it about?
tactical game;
isometric with depth;
environment creation and destruction;
single player;
simple actions for units yet rich combat system;
html5 tech, so will be on Android, iOS (iPad only), Mac & Windows.
In Life Jar, you will control an small army of fighters with complementary powers which can modify the battle field and destroy enemy defences. But be careful, because the other side have similar powers, so it's up to you to outsmart your enemy!
The game resolve around turn-based combats where every class of character has relevance. Since all fighters have their own strengths and weaknesses, you must wisely use them to their advantages.
Every class will have a short list of unique skills has to make the game simple yet rich.
Why a turn-base isometric game?
I have been a long time fan of X-Com (Terror from the deep... God I feel old now...) and always wanted my take on the genre without being a copycat. Life Jar take on some key aspects of the genre (turn-based, environment modification) and forget others (no micro-management nor random hits), while adding some of his own. I'm very proud of the work done up to now.
Objective
My priority is to get a working, bare-bone and fun game. The first version will have only simple animations since my focus will be on polishing the game play. Since I'm alone in this project, one of my goals was to cut unnecessary stuff so as to save time to finish it all.
What have been done already
Lots of sprites and graphics are already conceived and only need a last polishing touche.
I also made a first code base for the game to attest performance and feasibility (which you can watch the result in the video). I got a map rotating feature allowing to see the game from different views.
The game design as reached the stage where the core game is fun, but is not yet finished.
I have still multiples ideas to test and implement, many classes of character to add, test and equilibrate, both enemies et allies. This is where you can come into play: I want you to participate in the conception of the game. To give ideas and your opinions on game design decisions.
The map editor is ready, the saving feature as well. The editor will be added to the game so you can make your own challenges.
I got a functioning AI for the enemies, but I still got to find a balance between too dumb and easy vs too smart and hard to get.
Character class
Here are some of the puppets for your armies:
Knight: protection against simple damage. Can attack downwards when falling on an opponent. Can shield itself against attack from one side for a turn. May change attack type once per combat.
Big guy: can destroy weakened blocs and url both blocs and people. May use earthquake hit once a turn to defeat standing opponents around him.
Ice magician: wielder of ice magic which can be summoned as a projectile. Ice magic may incapacitate an enemy or create an ice bloc usable by the big guy. Protection against magic.
Fire sorcerer: wielder of fire magic which can be summoned as a projectile. Fire propagate every turn if on flammable ground and constructions. The fire projectile explode on impact and touch adjacent tiles.
Architect: can destroy weakened blocs and create wooden stairs, walls, bridges and projectile for the big guy. Can lauch wooden blocs down to squash underlying enemies
Bomber man: may create traps or lay bombs.
Dryad: can cast different magics corresponding to appropriate tiles:
Desert: cactus (which may damage surroundings enemies);
grass land: tree (may be use as an obstacle or wood resource);
flower: windy flower which may be used to push nearby soldiers in traps.
And some of your opponents:
Skeleton: protection against simple damage and fire. When dies, leaves a skull behind which can be reanimated. The skull can be destroyed if hit by an heavy projectile.
Blob: may leave a gooey trail. Attack by flattening the player (so may not attack if lacking space to jump).
Spider man: may spew web to incapacitate players puppet. Web is inflammable. Can walk on walls.
Coco turtle: may only be attacked from under shell.
Skeleton dragon: same has the skeleton, but re-spawn by itself after death unless destroyed by an heavy projectile.
... and many more which I still need to decide if and how to implement them:
Character design for Life Jar: a tactical game
Other aspect of the game
Fire propagate every turn by surrounding flammable ground and structures. Soldiers ending their turn ablaze are eliminated.
Every character dies after one hit (unless granted protection against the damage source) as to synthesize gameplay and make every move count.
Projectiles do not instantly hit far away targets: they do advance faster then player though and freeze progress between turns till they hit a target.
The 3D aspect of this tactical game will be a important feature.
Why Kickstarter?
I could make this game alone in my basement, but nobody would ever know about it. I want people to see it and to create a community with gamers loving the concept.
This is somehow has been my personal pet project for a long time. Now, I want to assess interest in my game and gain insight as to how to make it more interesting to all of you. Developing a game is a long process, and despite my wish to make this one fast to produce, it still require a fair amount of time. So far, the game progress has been made mainly in my spare time. If the game is funded, I will take a full month off to work on it and thus, accelerating its progress.
Open source code
At the end of the project, I will open source the code base of the project. Since it's in html5 + jquery/javascript (prototype objects) using a personal MVC pattern, it should be easy to understand and modify the code for power users an modders. I'm consistently updating the code documentation to give explication on how it is structured, so it should be even easier to jump in.
What's the money for?
To spend intense time developing the game. A full month, to be exact. Since it is somehow a personal project too, I'm only asking for a month of work from crowd-funding, the rest will come from my own pockets. If I raise more then expected, the music and sound design will be contracted to offer a more professional look. But my first goal is to finish the core game which is why I keep the budget low. It should be done before Christmas this year.
Some faraway goals
I deeply feels that this game has potential for a lot of expansion without corrupting the core fun. This project could be growing for a long time if it finds it players. Here is a small list of ideas that I may add after the alpha:
consumable allowing meta game changes;
exploding barrels;
tiles giving bonuses, weaknesses or affecting skills;
add simple story line;
add variety to game objectives:
capture the flag;
capture enemy base;
protect the innocents;
survive multiples waves of enemies;
a map sharing feature so you can plays with other people maps and share your own;
and even more fighter classes!
Project I love
If you get the chance, you should watch this project, Final Element. It's a competitive real-time strategy game where you cast magic by tracing symbols on screen:
The concept comes from a 14 year's old boy and all his family joined on the project. A must see! |
The amendments on foreign media went into effect after President Vladimir Putin signed off on them on Saturday, allowing Russian authorities to label outlets as "foreign agents" for receiving funding from abroad. However, it would not apply to Russian media outlets backed by foreign capital.
Under the law, Russia's Ministry of Justice will decide on assigning the controversial label to international media outlets on a case-by-case basis.
Last week, it published a list of several outlets that would likely be affected by the new law, including US-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
Read more: Russia prepares to label US media as 'foreign agents'
Russian officials repeatedly stated that the measure was a tit-for-tat response after the United States made a similar move targeting Russia's foreign broadcaster RT, formerly Russia Today, and the Sputnik news agency.
Watch video 04:43 Share Under Pressure: German political foundations in Russia Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/186dQ Under Pressure: German political foundations in Russia
In September, the US Justice Department ordered the outlets to register as agents of foreign governments over the perceived spread of propaganda and alleged meddling in the 2016 US election.
Russia slammed the move as hypocrisy and an attack on media freedom.
Ramping up pressure for 'foreign agents'?
It was not immediately clear which steps would be taken towards foreign media outlets in Russia.
The bill is based on the 2012 law that forced NGOs to adopt a "foreign agent" label if they receive funding from abroad. Since then, they are requested to feature the label on their paperwork, statements and other material. They are also subject to surprise raids and intensive checks, and they must report where they get their money from and how they spend it. The increased government pressure prompted many of them to close their doors.
The bill signed by Putin on Saturday had been rushed through both houses of the Russian parliament in just two weeks.
The different faces of Vladimir Putin From KGB to Kremlin Putin joined the KGB, the former Soviet Union's security agency, in 1975. In the 1980s he undertook his first foreign posting as a KGB agent to Dresden, Germany. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Putin returned to Russia and entered Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin. When Yeltsin announced that he wanted Putin as his successor, the way was paved for him to become prime minister.
The different faces of Vladimir Putin First presidency On his appointment, Putin was virtually unknown to the general public. This changed when in August 1999 armed men from Chechnya invaded the neighboring Russian territory of Dagestan. President Yeltsin appointed ex-KGB officer Putin to bring Chechnya back under the central government's control. On New Year's Eve, Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and named Putin as acting president.
The different faces of Vladimir Putin Tough guy in the media During an exhibition hockey game in Sochi, Putin’s team won 18-6, with the president scoring eight goals.
The different faces of Vladimir Putin Limited freedom of speech A protester wears a tape over his mouth reading "Putin" during an opposition rally. In 2013 the Kremlin announced that the state-owned news agency, RIA Novosti, was to be restructured and placed under the control of a pro-Kremlin figure known for his extreme anti-Western views. Reporters without Borders ranked Russia as 148 in its list of 178 countries in terms of press freedom.
The different faces of Vladimir Putin Putin's Image: A man of action Putin's image as a man of action, boosted by his having been a KGB spy, has long been part of his appeal in Russia. It is carefully maintained by means of photos where he is seen bare-chested on horseback, or tossing opponents onto a judo mat. In Russia, Putin has earned praise for restoring stability but has also been accused of authoritarianism.
The different faces of Vladimir Putin Stifling democracy When President Putin's United Russia party won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in 2007, critics described the vote as neither free nor democratic. Dozens were detained as riot police broke up protests by demonstrators accusing President Putin of stifling democracy. In this rally the poster reads: "Thank you, no!"
The different faces of Vladimir Putin Orchestrated events In Sevastopol, Crimea, Putin looks through the window of a research bathyscaphe in the waters of the Black Sea. This dive in a mini-submarine was only one of his adventurous stunts; he has also been seen tranquilizing wild tigers and flying with endangered cranes. It was also aimed at cementing his image as an adventurer, and demonstrating his control of the annexed territory of Crimea. Author: Nadine Berghausen
dj/jlw (Reuters, Interfax) |
Study: 'High Incomes Don’t Bring You Happiness'
Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton
How much money do you think it would take to make you happy? Would an extra $10,000 a year do it or would it take a $100,00 salary bump to improve your mood?
A new study from Princeton economist Angus Deaton and pyschologist Daniel Kahneman suggests that number depends on how you define happiness. The authors draw a distinction between emotional well-being, "the quality of a person’s everyday experience such as joy, fascination, anxiety, sadness, anger, and affection" and life evaluation "a person’s thoughts about his or her life (on a longer time scale)."
Their study of data from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that while "life evaluations rise steadily with income," emotional well being drops off at about $75,000 a year.
Beyond $75,000, money is important for life evaluation, but does nothing for happiness, enjoyment, sadness, or stress. Both factors are important; it is good to have high emotional wellbeing, but it is also good to think your life is going well.
According to the most recent census data, the median US household income was $52,000 in 2008, with about a third of households making above $75,000.
(H/T: Robert Frank at The Wealth Report) |
Arsenal’s second largest shareholder, Alisher Usmanov, claims that the club’s move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium, cost Arsene Wenger 10 years of his managerial career.
Speaking to CNN, the Uzbeki billionaire claimed that financial restrictions imposed on the Frenchman during this period prevented him from building competitive teams, but also that he sees Wenger as the right man now that that period has passed.
“Arsene has a very, very difficult position when club shareholders don’t want to put his money to construct new stadium,” he said.
“And because of this, he lost his five years, maybe best of his career without trophy. In reality, 10 years.”
Which is true, but it’s worth pointing out that Wenger was fully on board with how the club financed the stadium through its own means, knowing how it would affect him – but of course it all happened just as the oil money shifted the football landscape.
Usmanov is in no doubt, however, that the 65 year is the still the man for the job.
“If I have the right, I will keep Arsene until he wants because until he can’t perform his activity like a manager” he said.
“It is a gift for any club to have a coach like him.” |
NEW DELHI: The government plans to start directly offering the books it publishes through online platforms such as Amazon Flipkart and Google Play . The process is likely to start with the annual ‘India’ compendium followed by another 150 books. It also plans to start selling digital versions at a 25% discount.The Publications Division of the information and broadcasting ministry is in talks with ecommerce companies on the plan, said officials aware of the matter. “Earlier, we used to sell the book to our authorized agents, who in turn would sell it online,” said an official. “Now, the publications division wants to sell it directly also. We are gearing up for this.” This year’s ‘India’ book is likely to be launched on February 18.The other books that the all women publications division wants to sell directly are titles based on India's freedom struggle, culture, heritage and important national leaders. It will continue to sell through agents as well. The government will sell the books at maximum retail price but will leave it to the sites to decide on how much to charge buyers, one official said. Most online sites seek to compete for customers by offering discounts.The ministry’s legal department is closely scrutinising the process. The government feels that the online route will help it to reach its target audience. Indians are gravitating toward ecommerce and a similar trend has been taking place in books. Last year, the publisher of a book by President Pranab Mukherjee signed a deal with Amazon that gave it a 21-day lead over brick and mortar stores.The move is part of the Publications Division’s effort to bring business practices in line with contemporary trends in the industry. The ecommerce thrust is part of this policy.Apart from the 25% discount for digital publications, this includes possible marketing agreements with ecommerce platforms for better visibility and accessibility. The policy stipulates that revenue from online sales of digital versions will be shared in a 70:30 ratio between the Publications Division and ecommerce platforms. These tie-ups will be reviewed after two years. |
The FCC is discussing if the federal government should cover Aereo under the same laws and protections satellite television providers and cable companies receive. In a meeting last week, Aereo told the FCC that it would be willing to accept those regulations.
In Aereo’s FCC filing Aereo said “Online linear channel streaming services have the ability to comply with the Commission’s regulatory obligations imposed on MVPDs, such as program carriage, emergency alerts, equal opportunity employment and closed captioning.”
This would allow Aereo to sign retransmission deals with broadcasters allowing them to stream their content online. Well it’s unclear what this would do for Areo price it would almost certainly raise the price.
This deal could allow Aereo to off its service in more areas without the need to build massive antenna farms. It could also allow Areo to offer a larger number of channels if they Broadcasters are willing to work with them.
Sadly this deal would force Aereo to follow the same rules and limitations that current cable systems face. Hopefully Aereo will be able to maintain the low price and features that attracted a large following when they launched.
Aereo’s long term hope is the House’s plan to update the Telecommunications Act. Aereo is hoping Congress will loosen the laws that protect cable companies. Until we know what the final bill will look like it appears Aereo is moving to have a backup plan. |
Getty Images
One of the biggest moments in the AFC Championship Game was the second quarter collision between Broncos wide receiver Wes Welker and Patriots cornerback Aqib Talib.
Talib was covering Demaryius Thomas on a crossing pattern and ran into Welker as the pass fell incomplete. Talib hurt his knee and didn’t return to the game, leaving Thomas to other members of the Patriots secondary who gave up some big plays to the Broncos’ big receiver en route to a 26-16 loss.
Welker wasn’t penalized for the hit and said after the game that he wasn’t trying to hit the Patriots cornerback.
“It was one of those plays where it’s kind of a rough play, and I was trying to get him to go over the top, and I think he was thinking the same thing and wanted to come underneath and we just kind of collided,” Welker said, via WEEI.com. “It wasn’t a deal where I was trying to hit him or anything like that. I hope he’s OK — he’s a great player and a big part of their defense.”
The play appeared to be a variation on the pick plays that most teams use to free up receivers, so Welker wasn’t trying to hit Talib as much as he was trying to impede him from being in close pursuit of Thomas. It happens all the time, although the result for the Patriots wound up being much worse than an open receiver in the middle of the field. |
The effect of brown rice with low protein intake was studied in five healthy young men. Feces were weighed, the digestibility of nutrients was determined, and blood tests were made. Each subject followed a diet consisting mainly of polished rice for 14 days and one consisting mainly of brown rice for 8 days. Both diets contained 0.5 g protein per kg of body weight. The brown rice diet had 3 times as much dietary fiber as the polished rice diet. On the brown rice diet, fecal weight increased, and apparent digestibility of energy, protein, and fat decreased, as did the absorption rates of Na, K, and P. The nitrogen balance was negative on both diets, but more negative on the brown rice diet. The phosphorus balance on the brown rice diet was significantly negative, but other minerals were not affected by the diet. The levels of cholesterol and minerals in the plasma were not significantly different on the polished rice diet and the brown rice diet. Comparing these results with data on standard protein intake (Miyoshi, H. et al (1986) J. Nutr. Sci. Vitaminol., 32, 581-589.), we concluded that brown rice reduced protein digestibility and nitrogen balance. |
A new Assassin’s Creed Victory teaser has suggested a Victorian London setting for the game.
With less than a week until Ubisoft’s world premiere of the next Assassin’s Creed, the developer has dropped another teaser image.
Ubisoft has updated the Assassin’s Creed website with a brand new teaser image for the game, which gives us a few hints as to its locale.
As you can see above, at the centre of the image is a set of brass knuckles, adorned with flowing floral vines.
These are the same brass knuckles as appeared in the reveal announcement earlier this week, which suggests there might be a lot more melee combat in the next Assassin’s Creed title.
In teeny tiny writing on the knuckles themselves the phrase “Strength through Loyalty” is inscribed, which is the English translation of popular Latin phrase “Fortius quo Fidelius”.
If you look closely, you’ll also spot a tiny Assassin’s logo in the centre of the knuckle duster.
Related: Assassin’s Creed Unity tips and tricks
But it’s the words carved into the wood behind the knuckles that gives us an idea of where Assassin’s Creed Victory will take place.
Firstly there’s the message that reads “God save the Queen”, plus there’s a reference to the British birds rooks with a small drawing next to it.
But there’s also the line “We forge the chains we wear in life”, which is a quote from Charles Dickens’ “The Cricket on the Hearth”, published in the 1840s.
This all supports the major leak at the end of last year that suggests the game would be called Assassin’s Creed Unity and be based in Victorian London.
The game is in development at Ubisoft Quebec and will reportedly launch for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. |
I was asked this week by a couple of my students why I prefer the behaviour analytic ways of thinking, compared, say, with the standard information processing approaches of cognitive psychology. I’m not a diehard behaviourist, but I do lean quite a bit toward functional contextual ways of thinking, and I’ll be honest and say B.F. Skinner is my all-time intellectual hero. (I’ve also been involved in qualitative research and I teach psychometric scale development, so please don’t write me off as ‘one of them’.)
There is a lot of rubbish spouted about behaviourism, often by people who should know better. Claims that behaviourists deny the existence of internal psychological events like thoughts and emotions might not be ridiculous if you’re thinking about the behaviourism of of John B. Watson, but virtually no behaviour analysts today are thinking about him. Watson’s behaviourism is often called methodological behaviourism and it stands in stark contrast to Skinner’s more recent radical behaviourism. Skinner explicitly was interested in thinking and feeling. Indeed, he wrote an entire book about it (which arguably lead to the falling out of favour of this school of psychology).
Claims that behaviour analysts routinely punish their clients into compliance are simply bullshit. (I’m using the word here in the sense of Harry G. Frankfurt’s classic text where he defines bullshit as making knowledge claims when you have insufficient familiarity with the knowledge domain. So there.)
So what are the main features of modern behaviourism, and why do I think it’s a useful way to conduct science? (I’m going to say ‘modern behaviourism’ to lump together radical behaviourism and closely related philosophical frameworks like functional contextualism.) There are lots of important features. Functional contextualists make the assumption, for instance, that it’s important to very clearly define the scope of the behaviour you’re analysing; since the world doesn’t come already pre-quantised it’s important that we state plainly how we, as scientists are choosing to chop it up.
For me, though, the two most important features of modern behaviourism are these:
Mental events are not considered causes of behaviour. They are simply types of behaviour themselves and are themselves to be explained. Behaviourists look to be able to predict and influence behaviour. Prediction alone is not enough.
This is the very nub of the difference between much of applied cognitive psychology on the one hand and modern behaviourism on the other. Though I wouldn’t want to over-play it, this difference often leads to quite different interpretations of the same phenomena, and in my view, the behaviourist account is usually more hopeful.
Take the classic marshmallow experiments. You’ve probably heard of them. In a series of experiments in the late 1960s and early 1970s at Standford, Mischel, Ebbesen and colleagues sat children in front of a marshmallow and told them that if they didn’t eat it right away, they’d get more marshmallows later. This is a classic delayed gratification paradigm. If the child can resist, she’s rewarded with even more sweeties. Some kids wait. Some gobble the sweets. Over the years, Walter Mischel and colleagues built an impressive body of work examining individual differences in this ability to delay gratification. For example, in 1988 they published a longitudinal paper showing that “children who were able to wait longer at age 4 or 5 became adolescents whose parents rated them as more academically and socially competent, verbally fluent, rational, attentive, planful, and able to deal well with frustration and stress.” Impressive stuff.
What are we to conclude from such research? Well, the phrase ‘individual differences’ appears many times in these papers. Though the researchers occasionally look at contextual factors, such as whether the children were encouraged to think about the flavour or the shape of the treat, mostly they are clearly describing this phenomenon as a function of some internal ability the child has. And that’s precisely how the media interpret such findings too. Time Magazine, for instance, use phrases like, “show an underlying inability to exert self-control in adulthood.” What does it suggest to us, as applied psychologists and educators? At best, that we should encourage people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and develop ‘self control’. At worst, that some people just don’t have what it takes. Elsewhere in the popular media the findings are interpreted as suggesting that we can develop better willpower techniques if we try really hard to work on our own minds.
Fast forward half a century. Celeste Kidd and colleagues at the University of Rochester repeated the experiment with a contextual manipulation. For some of the kids, the marshmallow experiment was preceded by the experimenter offering some crappy crayons for an art project, saying she’d go and get better ones, then returning empty handed. For some kids, the experimenter followed through. Then, just to drive the message home, in the first ‘adults are unreliable’ condition, the experimenter offered a sticker and said she’d come back with more, better stickers soon. Then didn’t. In the ‘adults follow through’ condition she came back with some awesome stickers.
At this point, your common sense is telling you what happened when the kids were then asked to wait, staring at a marshmallow, whilst the experimenter went to get more. You might imagine yourself in the situation. You might imagine yourself thinking, “she lied before, so she’s lying now”. Regardless of what you imagine happening in the child’s head, the focus of this experiment on the context of the behaviour leads us naturally to different ideas about its implications. We’re no longer thinking that the marshmallow-munching kids show an “underlying inability”. Instead, we realise that kids raised in an unreliable family environment would learn a generalised set of behaviours to take what’s available now, and discount promises of future reward. With this later set of results, we’re imagining all sorts of family-based interventions to help children become more “academically and socially competent”.
Dr Kidd describes herself as a cognitive scientist, so why am I using the excellent work she and her colleagues did as an example of how behaviourism is the best thing since the web? It’s simple. Cognitive psychology took half a century to come up with some robust findings that environmental context plays a powerful role in guiding these sorts of ‘willpower’ behaviours. Dozens of papers and thousands of person-hours have gone into exploring whether this or that personality characteristic is associated with waiting for the second marshmallow. I humbly suggest that modern behaviourism would have got us there faster.
Remember what I said earlier about causality? Behaviourists do not accept mental events as causes of other behaviours. Explanations invoking children’s willpower or other ‘individual differences’ would be complete non-starters for most behaviourists. Any behaviour analyst coming across this phenomenon would immediately have started looking for contextual events, outside of the child’s own skin, that seem to influence the behaviour. These events might have been patterns of reinforcement within the family context. Early on, had Mischel taken a behavioural stance, he would have asked what experimental manipulations to the procedure and to the environment in which the children found themselves would encourage them to wait for the second marshmallow.
B.F. Skinner wrote an almost utopian novel, Walden Two, published in 1948, to show how the application of radical behaviourism could lead to an improved, more harmonious society. The book has been roundly criticised, but I’d like to suggest that Skinner was right in at least one regard. If we look to internal mental phenomena like ‘willpower’ to explain our behaviour we risk developing a very pessimistic outlook on the world where people have simply to put up with their lot in life. If we focus on how external circumstance influences behaviour we immediately start to build ideas of how to support people to develop more useful behavioural repertoires.
Despite the bad rap, modern behaviourism is inherently the most hopeful school of psychology. Perhaps I’m a hopeful psychologist, but it’s this, more than anything else, that draws me to modern behaviourism. |
INTRODUCTION:
The few population-based studies that investigate the association between cannabis use and adiposity are inconclusive possibly because nicotine moderates the effect of cannabis on adiposity. The objective was to test the hypotheses that the association between cannabis use and adiposity in young men and women is modified by cigarette smoking.
METHODS:
Data were drawn from the Nicotine Dependence in Teens (NDIT) study, a 13-year prospective cohort investigation of the natural course of nicotine dependence. A total of 271 males and 319 females aged 12-13years at cohort inception provided data on past-year cannabis use and number of cigarettes smoked per day in the past three months, at age 20years. Outcomes included change in body mass index (BMI) and in waist circumference (WC) from ages 17 to 24years. The hypothesis was tested in multiple linear regression models that included interaction terms for cannabis use and cigarette smoking and controlled for physical activity, sedentary behavior, alcohol use, and level of the outcome at baseline.
RESULTS:
The association between cannabis use and change in adiposity was U-shaped in male non-smokers and in females, and an inverted U-shape in male smokers. In males, the interaction between cannabis use and cigarette smoking was significant in both the models for change in BMI (p=0.004; n=271) and change in WC (p=0.04; n=250). In females, the interaction between cannabis use and cigarette smoking was not significant.
CONCLUSION:
Smoking cigarettes appears to modify the association between cannabis use and adiposity in young men.
Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. |
By Jaideep A Prabhu
Why is India always on the defensive intellectually? When was the last time India shaped or led an international discussion rather than merely responded to it? To paraphrase Moisés Naim and put it more bluntly, when was the last time an Indian at an Indian institution contributed something that altered the way we understand the world? For an answer, we must look uncomfortably far back in history. That horological distance also questions the trope of a rising India or Asia.
India's failure to speak in its own voice reveals an unpleasant reality for Third World nationalists, that our world is intellectually unipolar and Western even if the centre of economic activity is shifting towards Asia and Western military dominance is severely challenged either by growing militaries in other parts of the world or by new modes of warfare.
The implications of not having one's own narrative that is clearly and firmly expressed are vast. For example, why did Israeli military action in Gaza receive so much coverage in the Indian media when Afghanistan, much closer to home, was going through critical elections? Why does Boko Haram get more column inches than the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, right next door and even more threatening? To an extent, the Indian news cycle is influenced by what is deemed important by US or Western news cycles.
The state of Indian academia is just as depressing; not a single programme is considered among the world's best, Indian journals have no presence in their fields, and few professors have publications in the most esteemed journals and presses. As a result, students seek out Western universities which have better libraries, better informed professors, and access to the best academic journals. These institutions inevitably pass on the value systems and priorities of the host culture to their students. The cumulative effect of this knowledge system is that an Indian who wishes to study Iranian history or Shintoism will most likely end up looking at his subject through Western eyes.
At a practical level, the reliance on Western universities and thinktanks subverts any uniquely Indian perspective - if it exists - from emerging. The spread of post-Enlightenment European rationalism posited several false universals such as linear history, time, and Liberalism that are only now being noticed, ironically more so in Western universities. The loss of indigenous voices is damaging not just nationally but also internationally for two reasons: one, the burden of Third World progress falls squarely on the West and its unique experience, and two, the implantation of Western values on local cultures has failed time and again in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Italian Marxist politician and theorist Antonio Gramsci described the concept of hegemony as the power accrued to an entity when it is able to gain acceptance for its worldview as normative and universal. In other words, a hegemon is able to shape the framework, the very vocabulary of discourse - historical, economic, political, social, or other - to position its values as objective, neutral, and those to be aspired to by all; a failure to follow the scripted path indicates a shortcoming on the part of the Other.
The preponderance of Western academia, thinktanks, publications, and media also means that the global south does not get to set an agenda important to its well-being. Issues important to the hegemon will be discussed more, the challenges the hegemon perceives as greatest will receive more funding, and the solutions the hegemon devises will gain the maximum support. For example, American scholars may be preoccupied with nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and the rise of China but their counterparts in Africa may be more interested in agriculture, health, and education. These African issues, however, will gain little space in the Western public sphere and will at most be relegated to a small programme on development economics or world history.
To be fair, academia and media can only follow a path set for them by the government. The United States produces experts on a wide range of topics because, as a superpower, there is little that is not of interest to Washington. For example, the India-Pakistan War of 1971 had a direct impact on US foreign policy as it affected a principal player - Pakistan - in the United States' rapprochement with China. The result of this impact is well-documented in Gary Bass' The Blood Telegram. Similarly, unrest in Somalia can threaten the security of sea lanes in the region and upset the global order the United States and Indian Ocean littoral states profit from. Scholars with expertise in a diverse range of topics can, therefore, expect to be consulted by Washington if a situation arises.
The same cannot be said of relations between the Indian government and its academics - there is little incentive to study South-east Asia if Delhi's Look East policy is merely a tombstone that marks the grave of the country's South-east Asia policy. There is also no community of analysts inside and outside the government demanding the sort of articles produced by Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker.
The United States is perhaps the only country with global interests, a fact demonstrated by its knowledge industry. There are few international issues that the United States has no presence in. For example, no serious conference on the nuclear fuel cycle or on Islamic terrorism can be held without representatives from the United States because of the sheer number of scholars and practitioners in that country. Undoubtedly, this lends an American shading to the proceedings and leaves Indians trying to understand why Pakistan is less of a nuclear and Islamist threat than Iran.
An advantage the United States has over most rising powers is its freedom of information and expression. Open archives contribute enormously to US scholars' understanding of their country's interests and policies around the globe. Furthermore, the lack of information from other sources benefits US-centric opinions on international affairs. Brazil is perhaps the only country from the global south so far to begin a substantial declassification process of its archives but it will take time for the first mature results to flow in from this openness.
The addition of other voices to the global discussion may at first seem detrimental to US national interests and if information is viewed in a narrow-minded manner as propaganda, it is. However, the mixed success of US socio-economic and political theories indicates room for other conceptions of human values and visions. Emerging powers like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Turkey will take decades yet to create a global presence like the United States and generate a demand for knowledge. However, this intellectual development of rising powers will only enrich the debate and hopefully yield better results in international disputes and arbitration.
Until then, India will have to react rather than act; its intellectual framework will be set by outsiders, and it will be under pressure to conform to norms it had no part in setting. For that is the price of intellectual sluggishness.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button. |
The results of Best of Chico: Beer Edition are in! Congratulations to the winners, and big thanks to everyone who participated and voted.
Best Brewery
1st Place: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
2nd Place: Eckert Malting and Brewing
3rd Place: Great Balance Brewing Company
Best Bottle Shop
1st Place: Spike’s Bottle Shop
2nd Place: The Handle Bar
3rd Place: Mangrove Bottle Shop
Best Beer Bar
1st Place: The Handle Bar
2nd Place: Winchester Goose
3rd Place: Burgers and Brews
Best Restaurant
1st Place: Burgers and Brews
2nd Place: The Banshee
3rd Place: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Best Beer Server
1st Place: Brandon Frankel (The Handle Bar)
2nd Place: Gary Kirby (Burgers and Brews)
3rd Place: Jenn Gruber (Sierra Nevada)
Best Place to Drink a Beer
Home (backyard, patio) 17 The Handle Bar 11 Winchester Goose 10 Sierra Nevada 8 Bidwell Park 5 Madison Bear Garden 4 Argus (patio) 3 Outside/Anywhere/Earth 3 B Street Public House (patio) 2 Golf Course (Bidwell) 2 Scotty’s Landing 2 Burgers and Brews 2 Duffy’s Tavern 1 Pour House 1 Midtown Local 1 Studion Inn Lounge 1 Park Avenue Pub 1 Sacramento River 1 Quackers 1 U Bar 1 Red Tavern 1 Elwood’s Cyberpunk Saloon 1 Creekside 1 The Blue Room Theater 1 Chico Home Brew Club Meeting 1 With Friends 1
Biggest Beer Geek
Bri Mulvey 9 Brandon Frankel 8 Stephanie Adams 4 Keith Adams 4 Ken Grossman 4 Dave Stephens 3 Terrance Sullivan 2 Matt Nicodemus 2 Keith Bruce 1 Jake Dickman 1 Zakery Jann 1 Robert Rasner 1 Steve Dressler 1 Doug Mcklendon 1 Chris Lovett 1 Dawn McDonald 1 Peter Scalet 1 Matt Roach 1 Brian McGillivray 1 Cristopher Dalton 1 Alec Tidwell 1 Peter DiFalco 1 Jacob Dickman 1 Miles Jordan 1 Miyagi Pocock 1 Ryan Stanley 1 David Miller 1 Ted Fox 1 Patrick Abold 1 Alex Lucero 1 Rob Warner 1 Heidi Nicodemus 1 Byron Wetsch 1
Share this: Facebook
Twitter
Reddit
Google
Pinterest
Tumblr
Email |
Download raw source
MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.25.82.84 with HTTP; Mon, 7 Mar 2016 13:47:36 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> References: <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2016 16:47:36 -0500 Delivered-To: [email protected] Message-ID: <CAE6FiQ9+Eb1ZghdgOVjo3Bfhe77bHizKJVy0TsvT7Zzc7z21Cg@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: TARP Loans / US Auto Industry and Technology Incubation From: John Podesta <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001a113fa842bdb35f052d7c6925 --001a113fa842bdb35f052d7c6925 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Happy to receive your letter. On Monday, March 7, 2016, <[email protected]> wrote: > The following message was sent to you using the Georgetown University > directory web site. If you have questions about how this email was sent, > please see http://contact.georgetown.edu/about/ > > > -------------------------------------------------------- > > > Dear Mr. Podesta, > > I am writing you from a health care perspective in reference to the > recent CNN debate between Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders on the > importance of TARP Loans to GM and Chrysler. In 2008 / 2009, I wrote > members of Congress, The White House, Dr. Lawrence Summers, Treasury > Secretary Geithner and Steve Ratner in support of the loans. > > As technology moves along a continuum, investment in aerospace and > automotive engineering has indirectly contributed to important innovation > in delivery of health care in the US and world economy. > > For example, GPS created during WWII for navigation in transportation has > been adapted for applications in advanced Radiological Imaging and > Radiation Therapy producing targeted therapies for treatment of Heart > Disease, Cancer and Neurodegenerative Disease. > > Along with direct employment, the US auto industry plays an important role > as a technology incubator across many industrial sectors in our economy. > > May I forward to you an original letter for Secretary Clinton ? I > anticipate additional questions regarding TARP loans will resurface later > in the year during the Presidential debates. > > Thank you for your kind attention. > > Please know I look forward to your response. > > Sincerely, > > Donna Morelli > 133 Washington Street > Norwood, MA 02062 > Tel: 781.769.2596 > > Office: > Clinical Data Analyst > Adult Cardiac & Thoracic Reporting > Division of Cardiac & Thoracic Surgery > Boston Medical Center > 88 East Newton Street > Robinson (B) 402 > Boston, MA 02118 > Tel: 617.638.5082 > E-Mail: [email protected] <javascript:;> > > --001a113fa842bdb35f052d7c6925 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Happy to receive your letter.=C2=A0<br><br>On Monday, March 7, 2016, <<= a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>= > wrote:<br><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex= ;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">The following message was sen= t to you using the Georgetown University directory web site. If you have qu= estions about how this email was sent, please see <a href=3D"http://contact= .georgetown.edu/about/" target=3D"_blank">http://contact.georgetown.edu/abo= ut/</a><br> <br> <br> =C2=A0--------------------------------------------------------<br> <br> <br> Dear Mr. Podesta,<br> <br> I am writing you from a health care perspective=C2=A0 in reference to the r= ecent CNN debate between Secretary Clinton and Senator Sanders on the impor= tance of TARP Loans to GM and Chrysler.=C2=A0 In 2008 / 2009, I wrote membe= rs of Congress, The White House, Dr. Lawrence Summers, Treasury Secretary G= eithner and Steve Ratner in support of the loans.<br> <br> As technology moves along a continuum, investment in aerospace and automoti= ve engineering has indirectly contributed to important=C2=A0 innovation in = delivery of health care in the US and world economy.<br> <br> For example, GPS created during WWII for navigation in transportation has b= een adapted for applications in advanced Radiological Imaging and Radiation= Therapy producing targeted therapies for treatment of Heart Disease, Cance= r and Neurodegenerative Disease.<br> <br> Along with direct employment, the US auto industry plays an important role = as a technology incubator across many industrial sectors in our economy.<br= > <br> May I forward to you an original letter for Secretary Clinton ?=C2=A0 I ant= icipate additional questions regarding TARP loans will resurface=C2=A0 late= r in the year during the Presidential debates.<br> <br> Thank you for your kind attention.<br> <br> Please know I look forward to your response.<br> <br> Sincerely,<br> <br> Donna Morelli<br> 133 Washington Street<br> Norwood, MA 02062<br> Tel: 781.769.2596<br> <br> Office:<br> Clinical Data Analyst<br> Adult Cardiac & Thoracic Reporting<br> Division of Cardiac & Thoracic Surgery<br> Boston Medical Center<br> 88 East Newton Street<br> Robinson (B) 402<br> Boston, MA 02118<br> Tel: 617.638.5082<br> E-Mail: <a href=3D"javascript:;" onclick=3D"_e(event, 'cvml', '= [email protected]')">[email protected]</a><br> <br> </blockquote> --001a113fa842bdb35f052d7c6925-- |
More Mobile Banking Does Not Make Customers Happier
Here’s a riddle: Does more mobile banking make consumers like their financial institution?
The answer, alas, appears to be no. That according to a new survey released today by Fiserv, the financial technology company.
The study, which polled around 3,000 consumers, found that millennials lead in frequency of mobile banking use by a significant margin: over a 30-day period, millennials accessed their financial organization via mobile app or browser 8.5 times on average versus 3.1 times for non-millennials.
But those same millennials, however, reported lower satisfaction than their older counterparts both with their primary financial organization (69% vs. 79%, respectively) and their financial health (32% vs. 38%, respectively). By our read, that means the heaviest mobile banking app users did not like their financial institutions more than lighter users — and, remarkably, they did not even feel better about their finances.
Perhaps this is because mobile banking does not mean they have shed old banking completely. From the survey:
[W]hile just 6% of consumers cited checks as their most preferred method of payment, 58% of consumers said they cashed a check within the last three months. Faster access to funds was identified as a need, with 44% of consumers needing immediate access to funds from a check within the last year.
It would seem that even though most people — including millennials — don’t want to use checks, a vestige of legacy banking, they are somewhat forced to do so. And those checks, it seems, continue to create challenging financial predicaments, such as needing money fast, but not being able to get it.
And we wonder why banking consumers are not happy.
Like This Post |
It’s been Nvidia who has been in the headlines the last couple of days, with their upcoming GTX 970 launch, but we shouldn’t forget about AMD who also are lining up their new series of GPU’s. While we don’t know much about them yet, it isn’t long since we reported about Asetek scoring their biggest deal to date with an undisclosed OEM partner. We, and everyone else, speculated back then that this could of course be AMD.
Asetek has had a big success with the AIO cooling they provided for the the R9 295×2 card, and it looks like AMD and Asetek both want to continue this fruitful cooperation. Images of the upcoming R9 300 series cooler-shroud have surfaced, confirming our previous speculation. The new cooler is almost identical to the previous by Asetek, except that fan hole has been moved to the end instead of the middle, as this is a single GPU card.
We can see the cut-out for the PCI power connectors as well as for the liquid cooling tubing on the side, and the bold Radeon print leaves any doubt aside. It is believed that we are looking at the cooler for the new R9 390X, expected to run with a Fiji GPU. We can also spot the base-plate of the cooler through the fan hole, which will cool the VRM’s and memory under the fan’s air-flow.
Whether an all-in-one liquid cooling solution is a good or bad thing comes down to preference. One thing is for sure though, AMD needed to work on their reference coolers, as it is their most critiqued side. It’s also with almost certainty that we can say that the AMD partners will release versions with their own cooling solutions, for those who don’t want to have an AIO cooler in their system, or just don’t have room for it.
Thank you videocardz for providing us with this information
Image courtesy of videocardz |
Indeed, Hawking's deterministic perspective is so comprehensive that he believes if it were possible to build a computer that was sufficiently powerful to calculate each and every variable in the cosmos, then such a machine would be able to determine with absolute precision every aspect of every event that transpires in the universe from the big bang until the infinitely remote end of time. From Hawking's perspective, nothing moves, interacts, appears or disappears in the universe without having been minutely pre-determined by a chain of causality that was set in motion at the origin of the universe. Now that is a hard core determinist.
...the molecular basis of biology shows that biological processes are governed by the laws of physics and chemistry and therefore are as determined as the orbits of the planets. Recent experiments in neuroscience support the view that it is our physical brain, following the known laws of science, that determines our actions and not some agency that exists outside those laws ...so it seems that we are no more than biological machines and that free will is just an illusion (Hawking and Mlodinow, 2010). Emphasis added.
One can hardly broach the subject of agency without acknowledging the long-standing and unresolved philosophical debate regarding the agency vs. determination dichotomy. To provide an illustration of the extent of disagreement over this dualism, determinists, such as Stephen Hawking have argued that agency and free will are nothing but an illusion:
At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe in an indeterminate universe (Popper, 1988). Philosophies of indeterminacy take many forms, however, such perspectives tend to emphasize that endless varieties of random, inscrutable and uncertain phenomena render the universe ineluctably unpredictable. For example, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle asserts that it is impossible to determine both the velocity and position of any discrete particle: the process of determining one property has the effect of modifying the other property. Much to Einstein's displeasure, Niels Bohr elaborated upon Heisenberg's uncertainty principle by developing the theory of quantum mechanics. Bohr's "Copenhagen interpretation" is predicated on the realization that, at the quantum level, classical expectations about the normal, predictable, apparently-determinate principles that operate in the macro universe do not apply at the infinitesimal scale of the quantum. In other words, the behavior of quantum-scale phenomena are downright bizarre:
Thus, those who believe in an indeterminate universe dismiss the idea that an infinitely complex, but, nonetheless, single chain of causality rigidly determines all subsequent events that transpire in the universe. For indeterminists, the universe is full of "actors" that often engage in unpredictable improvisation; their performances often change without notice and, occasionally, in open defiance of the "direction" that is essential to preserve a deterministic universe. This is true of the micro realm of quantum mechanics, and it is also true of the macro universe that ceaselessly confounds and astounds its unpredictable human observers (McGettigan, 2011).
Advocates of the indeterminate perspective are generally of the opinion that, if it were somehow possible to replay the history of the universe, each new iteration of the universe would be identifiably unique. This is because random events would exert unique and unpredictable influences on the evolution of the cosmos--just as random events have generated widely divergent species on the planet earth: fostering the evolution of new species in some cases, and instigating widespread extinction in others.
- Advertisement -
For his part, Hawking rejects the idea that quantum indeterminacy implies that the universe as a whole is non-deterministic. Although Hawking concedes that quantum events depart from the more deterministic patterns that operate with greater consistency in the macro universe, nevertheless, Hawking argues that Hugh Everett's "Many Worlds" theory (Byrne, 2010) offers a theoretical framework through which to develop a deterministic model for quantum phenomena. Briefly, the Many Worlds theory proposes that " everything that is physically possible happens." In other words, for any discrete event that takes place in the universe an infinite range of similar but slightly different events takes place in an infinite number of alternate universes. Hugh Everett developed the Many Worlds theory in order to solve the "measurement problem" associated with the collapse of the wave function in quantum mechanics. For the purposes of the present discussion, Hawking argues that, since the Many Worlds theory posits that everything which is physically possible occurs in an infinity of different universes, then everything that any individual could ever think or do--and much, much more!--actually does happen, and is therefore determined by the circumstances that unfold in each and everyone of the infinite multiverses in which the various chains of causality unfold. To put it more simply, imagine that in one universe a football player catches a pass to score a touchdown, while in another the very same player drops the ball, or trips over an opponent's foot, or is blinded when a spectator hurls Gatorade at his eyes, or gets kidnapped by extraterrestrials, etc.
Fascinating as the Many Worlds theory may be, there are problems with Hawking's claim that the Many Worlds thesis offers proof that the universe remains deterministic in spite of pervasive quantum indeterminacy. First of all, valuable as the Many Worlds theory may be as a conceptual construct, there is no proof that the theory is true. For decades, scientists have speculated that alternate universes might exist, but no one has ever generated any proof that more than one universe does exist. Thus, Hawking's belief that every possible outcome of events are determined by, and play out in an infinity of alternate universes is pure speculation. I could equally well claim that an omniscient genie foresees every possible outcome of every event that takes place in the universe, but forcibly prevents all but one from actually occurring: that is why humans perceive only one set of events in one lonely universe. Hawking's unsubstantiated faith in the multiverse has no more basis in fact than my speculations about an all-powerful genie.
In fact, Hawking's invocation of a multiverse offers more support for the fundamental indeterminacy of the universe than the thoroughgoing determinacy of an infinity of alternate universes. Indeed, regardless of whether or not an infinity of alternate universes do exist, Hawking's invocation of a multiverse--wherein an infinity of alternatives precipitate from each and every discrete event--represents an explicit admission that the universe is anything but deterministic.
Extreme determinists, like Hawking, generally assert that the universe is designed such that there is one, and only one, rigid causal path that operates within any single universe. Once a deterministic path is set in motion, all future events become regimented by that singular path of causation. However, through his affinity for Many Worlds theory, Hawking is trying to have his determinist cake and eat it too. If discrete events are pre-destined by a deterministic chain of causality, then a specific event that transpires in an infinite number of universes must have, in every case, been generated by the same chain of deterministic events in every other universe where it transpires, e.g., if I am typing the word "infinity" in an infinite number of alternative universes, then the sequence of events--from the big bang to the present--that have delivered me to the moment where I am typing "infinity" into this computer must have been identical in all cases. If determinism holds water, then identical events require identical chains of causality.
If, however, one were to argue that identical events can be generated by differing chains of causality, then the determinist argument collapses. If there are indeed Many Worlds wherein precisely the same events (i.e., the author typing "infinity") can be generated through varying chains of causality (i.e., in one universe the author is the King of Spain, in another the author is blind, in another the author is vegan, etc.), then one cannot sustain the claim that a particular pre-existing cause is required to generate a specific, singular and unvarying outcome. Under such circumstances, random events would generate specific outcomes, and, by definition, random causation is non-deterministic. Furthermore, from one moment to the next, Many Worlds emphasizes that any single cause can generate an infinite variety of outcomes--which is another way of saying that, far from determining one single outcome, any single event propagates an infinity of alternative outcomes. If that is indeed the case, then, with the help of Many Worlds theory, Hawking has just convincingly demonstrated that the universe is non-deterministic.
Once again, the determinist perspective asserts that there is one, and only one, pre-determined outcome that can precipitate from any specific sequence of pre-existing causes. Many Worlds, however, is based upon the idea that there are an infinite, or to address the central point of this discussion more directly, there are an indeterminate multiplicity of outcomes that can and do precipitate from any specific event.
Of course, the point that Hawking was driving at was that, in every case where events transpire, any and every outcome--no matter how various or exotic--is determined by preceding events. However, as mentioned above, this boils down to nothing more than a case of having one's cake and eating it too. For determinists there are no degrees of freedom: pre-existing events determine specific outcomes. Yet, Hawking advances a self-contradictory argument by insisting that pre-existing events determine outcomes, but, depending upon which universe one happens to inhabit, the same set of pre-existing events can--and does!--generate an infinite variety of outcomes. Rather than a rigidly deterministic universe, Hawking's Many World's perspective paints a picture of a wide open universe. Why would a deterministic chain of events in one universe produce differing outcomes in other "deterministic" universes? It doesn't make sense. If a hardcore determinist like Hawking admits that a singular chain of events literally can and does produce an endless variety of outcomes, then it is not reasonable to insist in the very next breath that any single event can produce one and only one pre-determined outcome. If a single event can produce an infinity of possible outcomes, then the universe is, by definition, non-determinate. |
The Department of Agriculture has confirmed it is investigating an alleged case of the use of the growth hormone, Clenbuterol, in cattle.
It follows a report in the Sunday Times that the drug was found in a cow at a meat plant.
The report says follow up searches resulted in a seizure of Clenbuterol at a farm in Co Monaghan.
The department said the investigation follows from a positive result for one animal in a random sample taken as part of the National Residue Control Programme.
It added that it has put all animals on the farm under restriction, pending the completion of the investigation and "the Food Safety Authority of Ireland is fully aware of the case and has concluded that there is no risk to public health from meat that is on the market."
Former agriculture minister Simon Coveney said he believes this shows that the department's testing regime remains vigilant and should pick up any wrongdoing very quickly.
He added that he did not want to pre-judge the case, which is still under investigation, but hoped the department would be able to get to the bottom of the case quickly and restore full confidence in the markets in Irish beef. |
Bernard Friedman, a 69-year-old federal judge in Detroit who joined the court back in 1988 as a Ronald Reagan appointee, has plenty of experience distinguishing between hard-core lawbreakers and defendants posing no danger.
So he applied discretion and compassion when a rural farmer, also in his 60s, stood in U.S. District Court to be sentenced for growing 8,000 pot plants at his Lenawee County farm and greenhouse. The defendant, recovering from throat cancer, hoped to tap into the medical marijuana market.
"You've lived a good life," Judge Bernard Friedman tells accused drug trafficker.
“This is one that most screams out: This man deserves a break,” AP reporter Ed White quotes Friedman as telling Edwin Schmieding, 61, who faced a possible prison term. “It’s a bad thing that’s happened to you but you’ve lived a good life.”
Friedman on Tuesday placed him on two years of supervised release, court jargon for probation.
Though Michigan voters in 2008 legalized medical marijuana, only licensed caregivers and users can grow it in relatively small quantities.
Prosecutor Barbara McQuade, whose office used its discretion to make a federal case out of the 2011 bust, originally also charged the farmer's wife as a drug trafficker.
Assistant U.S. Attorney C. Barrington Wilkins, who recently dropped charges against Linda Schmieding, acknowledged in court Tuesday that the farmer “wasn’t intending to be Pablo Escobar,” says AP's dispatch in the Free Press. |
The dig is part of a study into why and when Neanderthals became extinct Teeth and bones from late Ice Age animals, including hyenas, deer and woolly rhinos, have been discovered by archaeologists at a cave in Devon. The dig at Kents Cavern, Torquay, also unearthed a 15,000-year-old spearpoint, known as a "sagaie", which is made from reindeer antler from the same era. The spearpoint is thought to be the first complete one found in the UK. The dig, organised by the University of Durham and the University of Sheffield, is part of a study into Neanderthals. Improve understanding The team at the helm of the privately-funded dig is trying to discover exactly when and why Neanderthals became extinct. It is also hoping to discover when our own species first came to the UK and if it is connected to the death of Neanderthal Man, as well as finding out more about the nature of later Ice Age life in the cave. Some items found during the dig are sent away, after cleaning, for radiocarbon dating to accurately check their age. It is believed that the teeth and bones from the hyena could date back more than 25,000 years. Teeth and bones from late Ice Age animals have been found in the cave Dr Paul Pettitt, senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Sheffield, said: "Our excavation is still in its early days but has already unearthed excellently-preserved fossils and a spearpoint of antler from the Ice Age. "Our research will dramatically improve our understanding of life between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago." Before the dig could go ahead, permission had to be sought from the government because Kents Cavern is the oldest recognisable human dwelling in Britain and is classed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Bookmark with: Delicious
Digg
reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version |
To that end, I think my only complaint was with the way the prizes are handled, in particular the prize wall. The tournament featured a prize wall where players could spend tickets to buy tokens, deck boxes, alternate art cards, etc. Players won these tickets by winning matches in the tournaments. I found this to be a little less than desirable, because players that were winning games during the tournament were already receiving prizes as a result of those wins (for instance, if you were in the Top 32 players at the end of the tournament, you received a special set of dice). This may just be me, but I'm inclined to favor providing the losing players with more prizes, because I want them to have an incentive to come back to the tournament next year. At the very least they could have a few more random opportunities to win tickets during the event, thus maximizing opportunities for players at all skill levels to go home with some of the prizes.
As for the tournament itself, I thought it was well run. We played in a hotel near the Fantasy Flight Game Center, which actually made for a pretty comfortable play space. I thought the rounds moved at a decent pace and overall I didn’t sense any significant amount of disorganization. Overall, I think I was at the tournament on Thursday from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM, and we played five games with a break (and I arrived early and stayed a little after it ended). Considering the tournament accommodated around 100 players, I think everything went pretty well.
Finally, nearly every player left a good impression on me. My Worlds experience actually started with us setting up a small get-together after the tournament on Thursday, for which I reserved space at Parkway Pizza in south Minneapolis. It was a pretty entertaining experience, as when the tournament started on Thursday I had a table for 6 reserved, but by the time the tournament ended I had to increase that reserveration to hold 20. We had a good turnout, played some Star Wars trivia, and generally relaxed after a long day. I won’t go into any names (as I may forget some and I’m sensitive to others’ privacy), but thanks to all the players that took some time and chatted with me – it was great meeting you all.
In part two, I’ll get into the actual games. Until then, thanks for reading!
- Dietz |
Interracial marriage has grown in the United States over the past few decades, and polls show that most Americans are accepting of mixed-race relationships.
A 2012 study by the Pew Research Center found that interracial marriages in the U.S. had doubled between 1980 and 2010 to about 15 percent, and just 11 percent of respondents disapproved of interracial marriage.
But new research from the University of Washington suggests that reported acceptance of interracial marriage masks deeper feelings of discomfort — even disgust — that some feel about mixed-race couples. Published online in July in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and co-authored by UW postdoctoral researcher Caitlin Hudac, the study found that bias against interracial couples is associated with disgust that in turn leads interracial couples to be dehumanized.
Lead author Allison Skinner, a UW postdoctoral researcher, said she undertook the study after noting a lack of in-depth research on bias toward interracial couples.
“I felt like the polls weren’t telling the whole story,” said Skinner, a researcher in the UW’sInstitute for Learning & Brain Sciences.
The research involved three experiments. In the first, 152 college students were asked a series of questions about relationships, including how disgusted they felt about various configurations of interracial relationships and about their own willingness to have an interracial romance. The participants overall showed high levels of acceptance and low levels of disgust about interracial relationships, and pointed to a strong negative correlation between the two.
In the second experiment, the researchers showed 19 undergraduate students wedding and engagement photos of 200 interracial and same-race couples while recording their neural activity. The researchers asked the students to quickly indicate whether each couple should be included in a future study on relationships, a task that was intended to ensure participants were socially evaluating the couples while their neural activity was recorded.
Participants responded faster to images of same-race couples and selected them more often for inclusion in the study. More significantly, Skinner said, participants showed higher levels of activation in the insula — an area of the brain routinely implicated in the perception and experience of disgust — while viewing images of interracial couples.
“That indicates that viewing images of interracial couples evokes disgust at a neural level,” Skinner said.
As with all neuroscience studies, Skinner said, it is impossible to be certain whether the insula activation reflected a disgust response, since the insula is sometimes responsive to other emotions. But in combination with the other experiments, the authors believe it is evidence of a neural disgust response.
Lastly, the researchers used an implicit association test, used to measure attitudes and beliefs people may be unwilling to acknowledge, to gauge whether feeling disgusted would impact more than 200 participants’ feelings about interracial couples. One group was first shown a series of disgusting images (a dirty toilet, a person vomiting), while the other was shown pleasant images of cityscapes and nature.
During the implicit association test, the two groups were tasked with categorizing photographs of same-race and interracial couples and silhouettes of humans and animals. They were first instructed to press one computer key if the image showed an animal silhouette or a mixed-race couple, and another key if it was a human silhouette or a same-race couple. Then the combinations were switched — participants were told to hit one key if the image was an animal silhouette or a same-race couple, and the other key if it was a human silhouette or mixed-race couple.
Participants were quicker to associate interracial couples with non-human animals and same-race couples with humans. That suggests that interracial couples are more likely to be dehumanized than same-race couples, the researchers write, and previous studies have shown that people tend to exhibit more antisocial behavior and are more likely to use aggression and even violence toward dehumanized targets.
Taken together, the experiments show that despite high levels of reported acceptance, bias against mixed-race couples persists in the United States, the researchers say. In 2013, they note, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen caused a furor when he wrote that New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s interracial marriage incited “a gag reflex” among some people, prompting the Post to write a follow-up story about the controversy.
Such sentiments, Skinner said, belie the notion that most Americans are ready to embrace mixed-race romance.
“Some people are still not comfortable with interracial relationships, or at least they’re a lot less comfortable than they would appear to be,” she said. “Acknowledging these biases is the first step to figuring out why people feel that way and determining what can be done so they won’t.” |
Introduction
Occasionally I am deluged with inquiries about a particular news story. That happened this week. As the inquiries mounted, I decided I better address the story. After I saw one more gushing, uncritical report on CNN, I knew a reality check was in order.
This week German car manufacturer Audi announced they can economically produce carbon-neutral automotive fuel from ingredients found in the atmosphere:
Audi has successfully made diesel fuel from carbon dioxide and water
That article’s subtitle is “Carbon-neutral diesel is now a reality.” The article explains:
German car manufacturer Audi has reportedly invented a carbon-neutral diesel fuel, made solely from water, carbon dioxide and renewable energy sources. And the crystal clear ‘e-diesel’ is already being used to power the Audi A8 owned by the country’s Federal Minister of Education and Research, Johanna Wanka.
There is also an explanatory graphic that goes along with the story, and that’s where a few people might begin to ask some critical questions about this process:
Many people have already suspected that there has to be a catch. Of course there is. This process requires carbon dioxide to be captured from the air, and hydrogen to be produced from electrolysis. It is true that the atmosphere — nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide — contains all of the ingredients necessary to make all sorts of unimaginable things. The raw ingredients are there for fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and certainly fuel. But the key ingredients, carbon dioxide and water, are the products of combustion. Burning diesel creates carbon dioxide and water. Converting them back into diesel takes a lot of energy.
Think of fuel as a rock at the top of a hill. It has a lot of potential energy. Roll the rock down the hill and that potential energy is released. This is similar to burning fuel to create carbon dioxide and water. Now, if you want to turn that carbon dioxide and water back into fuel, you have to carry the rock back up the hill. That takes energy. How much? According to the laws of thermodynamics, it always takes more energy to carry that rock up the hill than you get from rolling it back down. In other words, the process is necessarily an energy sink. It is a dead certainty that more energy is required to produce this fuel than can be released by burning the fuel.
But is that a problem? It depends. If you have a readily available and cheap energy source, it could make sense to produce fuel via a process that is an energy sink. Imagine for a moment that we have a process that uses nothing more than the sun’s energy to crack water into hydrogen, which we can then burn for fuel (and which converts the hydrogen back into water in the process). Yes, this would be an energy sink, but one using a nearly limitless source of energy. And if the value of the hydrogen is greater than the cost of the inputs, this may be a worthwhile process despite the fact that it is an energy sink.
This is essentially the claim being made by Audi. By invoking “ecological power generation”, Audi is claiming that they can produce the fuel in a way that is cost effective and carbon neutral. So let’s look at their economics. The article states that they will sell to the public between 1 and 1.50 Euros per liter, “dependent on the cost of renewable electricity.” Diesel in Europe is currently about 1.50 Euros per liter, which works out to be $6.37 US dollars per gallon at the current conversion rate.
At this point I am going to need to get a little bit technical, so I will partition this section for those who don’t care about technical things. If this is you, you can jump right over this section to the conclusions. Despite the fact that I can say with certainty that this is an energy sink, I don’t really know how much it will cost to produce the fuel. I suspect more than what Audi suggests, but let’s find out.
The Economics of the Process
In order to produce 1 ton of fuel, this process reportedly requires (link is dead; this is the company supplying the carbon dioxide capture technology) capture of 3.2 tons of carbon dioxide. That in turn requires 200-300 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity and 1,500 to 2,000 kWh of thermal energy per ton of carbon dioxide. In my experience, the high end of these ranges is generally more representative of actual operations, while the lower end represents projections and best case scenarios of much larger projects. But let’s use the midpoint of both for the analysis.
The average price of electricity for industrial users in the U.S. is currently 6.9 cents per kWh. (It’s much higher for residential and commercial users). In the European Union prices are quite a bit higher than that. The most recent data showed an average price of 0.123 Euros per kWh in the EU, which is 14 cents per kWh at the current exchange rate. In Germany, where Audi is based, the cost of electricity is about 16 cents per kWh.
If we use the lowest cost here — the price for industrial users in the U.S. — then the cost of the electricity to capture the carbon dioxide is 3.2 tons * 250 kWh * $0.069 = $55.20 per ton of fuel produced. This is also $17.25 per ton of carbon dioxide captured, which is much lower than other numbers I have seen — especially considering they are proposing to extract the carbon dioxide from air.
The cost of the thermal energy — which is steam as noted by the inlet temperature of 105°C and an outlet temperature of 95°C — is dependent upon the fuel cost. Presumably this thermal energy is for shifting carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide via the water-gas shift reaction, which is required for the fuel synthesis reaction as described below. (Note: If this is how they are producing the carbon monoxide, it could significantly increase the hydrogen requirement that I calculated below). The average of the given range is 1,750 kWh of thermal energy per ton of carbon dioxide. This is equivalent to 6 million British thermal units (MMBtu) (almost exactly the energy content of a barrel of oil). Boilers are about 85% efficient at converting natural gas to steam, so the cost of the thermal energy at $4/million BTU natural gas would be around 3.2 * $4.00 * 6 / 0.85 = $90.35 per ton of fuel produced. Like electricity, natural gas costs in Europe would be significantly higher.
The other main ingredient in the process is hydrogen. They don’t indicate how much hydrogen is required, but they do indicate they are utilizing the Fischer-Tropsch reaction, which has the formula:
(2n+1) H 2 + n CO → C n H (2n+2) + n H 2 O.
Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it looks. The “n” represents the length of the carbon chain to be built. If we take a 12-carbon chain length as representative of diesel fuel (which is right in the range of diesel length hydrocarbons) then the reaction becomes:
25 H 2 + 12 CO → C 12 H 26 + 12 H 2 O
Therefore, we can calculate the theoretical minimum of how much hydrogen this reaction is going to require per ton of fuel produced. If we convert all units of weight into units of molecular mass, we can solve the rest of the equation. C 12 H 26 has a density of 0.7495 grams (g) per milliliter (mL) and a molecular weight of 170.3 grams (g) per mole. Thus, 1 (metric) ton of fuel would be equal to 1,000 kilograms (kg) * 1 liter/(0.7495 kg) = 1,334 liters, or 352 gallons.
A ton of fuel contains 1,000 kg * 1,000 g/kg * 1 mole/170.3 g = 5,872 moles of C 12 H 26 . We can cross-check our calculations by noting that this much C 12 H 26 contains 70,464 moles of carbon (i.e., 5,872 * 12). In comparison, the 3.2 tons of carbon dioxide they stated is required per ton of fuel contains 72,727 moles of carbon; only 3% off based on our assumption of C12 as the fuel. So the calculation based on my assumption of C 12 H 26 as representative of the fuel is internally consistent.
To produce a ton of fuel per the reaction above is going to require 5,872 moles C 12 H 26 * 25 moles of H 2 per mole of C 12 H 26 = 147,000 moles of H 2 . Hydrogen is very light, with a molecular weight of 2 grams per mole, so this converts to 294,000 grams, or 294 kilograms of hydrogen. How much might that cost?
This is where they make some assumptions that may not hold up well over time. They assume they will use wind and solar power to produce the hydrogen, and that this can be cheaply done. But the U.S. government has done a highly detailed Hydrogen Production Cost Analysis in which they estimate the costs of hydrogen production from wind and solar power across many locations in the U.S. While the Department of Energy has a 2015 goal of producing hydrogen from renewable energy at a centralized site for $3.10/kg and for distributed hydrogen at $3.70/kg, they concluded that no sites could presently achieve this target. They calculated that base hydrogen costs (i.e., no distribution) ranged from $3.74/kg to $5.86/kg. So that helps us to factor in the cost of hydrogen into this analysis.
If we assume the low end of the projected production costs of about $4/kg of hydrogen produced, production of 1 ton of fuel will require 294 kg * $4/kg = $1,176 in hydrogen. Add that to the $55.20 for the electricity required to capture the carbon dioxide and the $90.35 in thermal energy per ton of fuel, and the primary raw materials cost $1,322 per ton of fuel. As noted earlier, a ton of fuel would contain about 352 gallons, so this means the raw materials will cost — based on the assumptions made here which are based on data that have been released — about $3.76 per gallon of diesel produced. The vast majority of that cost is due to the hydrogen, so the assumptions made about hydrogen production are where the greatest sensitivity to price will be.
It is also possible, as noted earlier, that if they are using the standard water-gas shift reaction to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, their hydrogen requirement could be around 50% higher. That would add another $1.67/gal to the raw material cost for a total of $5.43/gal. In any case, the process economics are dominated by the cost of producing hydrogen.
Keep in mind that these are only the costs for the primary feedstock inputs. They don’t include the cost of capital recovery, nor do they include operating and maintenance costs. These can easily add several more dollars per gallon to the costs. The article anticipates that “the e-diesel will sell to the public for between 1 and 1.50 Euros per litre.” This converts to between $4.24/gal to $6.37/gal. While the lower end of this range appears to be overly optimistic, the upper range may be achievable keeping in mind that we have made some very generous assumptions regarding their process. Notably, cheaper U.S. prices were used for key inputs. On the flip side, the current spot price of diesel in the U.S. is under $2/gal.
Conclusions
To sum up, can Audi produce fuel from thin air? Sure. There is no question about technical viability. However, they are also not the first to make this claim. In 2012 I wrote an article called Investors Beware of Fuel from Thin Air in which I examined very similar claims from a company called Air Fuel Synthesis. The question boils down to economic viability, which appears to be challenging given what has been released about the process.
Also keep in mind that Audi has only done this process at very small scale. These projections were based on lab scale experiments. Audi has now scaled the process to 160 liters per day, which is about 1 barrel per day. They will now gather data at this scale, and either firm up or contradict some of their assumptions about the process. If everything works as hoped, they will then need to scale up again to something in the 100 to 1,000 barrel per day range. These scale-up steps are like gates that must be successfully passed, and historically most seemingly promising processes fail to pass through those gates for various reasons. As a result, one should never take too seriously a cost estimate for fuel production from a commercial plant when the data is derived from experiments at a much smaller scale.
It is important to note that because this process is an energy sink, it could exacerbate carbon dioxide emissions. The reason they are claiming it doesn’t is because they are assuming little to no carbon emissions from the inputs. That’s why the graphic stipulates that the electricity comes “entirely from renewable energy sources.” It will certainly be difficult to run a plant continuously on intermittent energy inputs, but any fossil fuel inputs into the plant will have their carbon dioxide emissions magnified. To understand this, consider that it may take 2 or 3 BTUs of energy input for each BTU of energy output. You could possibly pull that off in an environmentally-friendly way with 3 BTUs of solar power input and 1 BTU of diesel output, but if you use natural gas instead, then that 1 BTU of diesel output may generate the emissions from 3 BTUs of natural gas input. In a case like that, it would be better to use that fossil fuel input directly in an engine (if possible) than to utilize it to produce a fuel in a process that is an energy sink.
So, circling back to the claim that “carbon-neutral diesel is now a reality” — I think most would agree that projections of what a process will look like after it has been scaled up 2 more times don’t constitute reality. They constitute a vision of reality. This claim is no more accurate than if I were to say “Colonies on Mars are now a reality.”
Finally, please note that the analysis here isn’t meant to demean the work that has been and continues to be done. I consider this very worthwhile and fascinating research. I am simply attempting to offer a more complete and realistic perspective in light of the uncritical reports by the mainstream media.
Link to Original Article: Is Audi’s Carbon-Neutral Diesel a Game-Changer?
(Follow Robert Rapier on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.) |
No matter how impoverished we get in the US, we can always afford however many bullets it takes to shoot ourselves in the foot.
Throughout the country all levels of government – city, state and federal – face debts, deficits, decreased tax revenues and increased unemployment. Our infrastructure is crumbling and our social safety nets unravelling for lack of funds, yet politicos squander time and tax money to stamp out any viable taxpaying business tainted by the whiff of sexuality.
Consider this recent smattering of otherwise-unrelated stories: in Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon signed a bill imposing crippling new regulations intended to drive strip clubs out of business. The bill will face extensive legal challenges, costing more tax money to fight, and if successful will put an estimated 3,000 people out of work and cost the state $4.5m in sales tax each year.
In Charlotte/Mecklenberg County, North Carolina, officials slashed $71m from the budget by cutting funds to schools, libraries, parks and veterans' services, yet state alcohol agents could still afford a six-month investigation into allegations that dancers in a Charlotte topless club occasionally exposed their bottoms too. Agents bravely arrested six dancers and issued warrants for ten more.
Down in Texas, state Republicans put out a new party platform whose planks include re-criminalising gay sex (the US supreme court struck down the state's anti-sodomy law in 2003), and outlawing gay marriage and all sex-themed businesses.
Money troubles are forcing Duluth, Minnesota, to privatise public parkland, yet the city bought a strip club solely to shut it down.
Not far from my Connecticut home, Southington is incurring a small fortune in legal fees trying to close a new adult toy store, despite the handful of adult businesses that have peacefully operated in town for years. (Disclosure: while working as a stripper in my grad school days, I danced at a Southington club and made good money, though never succeeded in destroying the sanctity of the family or the town's collective moral fibre. Perhaps I should've tried harder.)
A common argument against sexy businesses says they violate "community standards". Whose standards, exactly? If the community truly disliked a business, it would go bankrupt for lack of customers. Those who cite community standards to ban otherwise-harmless things assume "the community" refers only to those who believe as they do.
Today's economy is the worst in three generations, so why now of all times do we focus on moral crusades we can't afford? Because of a nasty aspect of human nature: faced with problems beyond their personal control, people often respond by kicking scapegoats instead.
Howard Bloom discussed this in his 1995 book The Lucifer Principle, exploring the evolutionary origins of behaviour we call evil. The chapter titled "Scapegoats and Sexual Hysteria" reads like a blueprint of events 15 years later.
Britain went on a scapegoating kick in the 1890s, after an economic depression spanning two decades. Earlier that century, the country got rich turning itself into an industrial powerhouse capitalising on then-new steam technology. But wealthy late-Victorians grew complacent. British scientists and tinkerers made groundbreaking discoveries in electricity and chemistry; William Perkin effectively invented the modern chemical industry when he made the first artificial dye – Perkin's mauve – from coal tar. But Britain ignored these innovations, allowing upstart nations like Germany and the US to grow rich developing those technologies.
So down went the British economy and nobody knew why until 1893, when a joyless patriot named Max Nordau published his book Degeneration. Nordau claimed Britain's problem wasn't lagging exports or technological stagnation, but degenerate pop culture. Oscar Wilde's plays, Manet's paintings, Tolstoy's novels – all corrupted the British psyche, Nordau said, and if Britons would eschew them, their minds would be pure and their nation strong.
America has produced its own share of Nordaus – in the 1980s, Allan Bloom and Tipper Gore spurred quixotic crusades against popular music, and panic over TV shows and computer games has been a cultural constant ever since. But sexual panic kicked into overdrive since the economy started souring. Look at the problems we face in 2010 – the Great Recession is three years old and shows no signs of imminent improvement, an oil geyser is poisoning the Gulf of Mexico and millions of people around it – and how does our leadership class respond? With hysteria over teenage sexuality, gay sex, gay marriage, striptease dancers and sex toys. If Americans would eschew these things, our minds would be pure and our nation strong. Given how well Nordau's prescription worked to save the British Empire, it'll surely work just as well for us. |
The former House Speaker, who finished fourth in the New Hampshire primary and trailed Mitt Romney in opinion polls here by more than 10 percentage points earlier this week, was on course to secure 40 per cent of the vote and beat the former Massachusetts governor by 13 points in the first southern primary.
His victory re-opens a contest that Mr Romney seemed on course to win comprehensively just days ago. His Iowa Caucus win having been overturned, the longstanding front-runner is now left with only New Hampshire to his name.
At a victory rally in Columbia, Mr Gingrich promised to “rebuild the America that we love” and avert the “disaster” of a second term for Mr Obama. Looking forward to the next contest, he said: “With your help, we are now moving on to Florida and beyond.”
He repeated his controversial description of Mr Obama as “the greatest food-stamp president in history” due to rising benefit claimant numbers. Shrugging off claims of racism, Mr Gingrich promised to “go into every neighbourhood of every ethnic community” to make his case.
However, he devoted much of his speech to railing against the mainstream media and the “elites in Washington and New York” who "have no understanding, no care, no concern" and “have been trying for half a century to force us to stop being American”.
Mr Gingrich's win came after a strident performance in a televised debate on Thursday night, when he received a standing ovation for dismissing a question about claims from his ex-wife that he had requested an “open marriage” as “despicable”. “It is not that I am a good debater,” he said on Saturday night. “It is that I articulate the deepest-held values of the American people”.
His surge in support began after a strong performance in another debate on Monday evening in Myrtle Beach, where he attacked Mr Romney for his record as a private equity boss and for allowing his allies to broadcast TV attack advertising against his rivals.
The surge intensified after Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas, withdrew from the contest on Thursday and endorsed Mr Gingrich as a “conservative visionary who can transform our country”.
Supporters of Mr Gingrich, 68, were quick to point out that the winner of South Carolina's Republican presidential primary has gone on to win the party's nomination in every election since 1980.
However the result means that for the first time, three different Republican presidential hopefuls have won Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. It reflects a divided party that Mr Romney, viewed as a relative moderate for his stances while running a liberal-leaning state, is struggling to unite behind him.
In his concession speech Mr Romney accused Mr Gingrich of using the “weapons of the Left” by attacking him for making money in his business career. “When my opponents attack success and free enterprise, they’re not only attacking me, they’re attacking every person who dreams of a better future,” Mr Romney said.
“Let me be clear,” he added. “If Republican leaders want to join this president in demonising success and disparaging conservative values, then they’re not going to be fit to be our nominee.”
Mr Gingrich paid tribute to Mr Romney and to Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, who finished third, and to Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, who finished fourth.
He said that Mr Romney was “very hard-working”, that Mr Santorum “articulates the values of social conservatives” and that with his hawkish stances “on the issue of money and the Federal Reserve”, Dr Paul “has been right for 25 years”. Together the four of them were proof that “in America you have a chance to make your case no matter what the elites believe in New York and Washington,” he said.
Mr Santorum, who was finally declared the winner of the Iowa caucus late on Friday, made clear that he had no intention of leaving the race by releasing a schedule of campaign events in Florida next week. Mr Gingrich “kicked butt,” he said. “I give him a lot of credit for what he accomplished”.
Unveiling a new slogan that promised to “unleash the American people”, Mr Gingrich urged “anyone here that knows anyone in Florida” to ask friends and relatives to back him in a more moderate state.
Earlier at his final rally in a fast-food restaurant in Laurens, Margaret Thomas, 82, told The Daily Telegraph she would instruct her grandchildren in Florida to get out the vote for Mr Gingrich. “Otherwise I will disown them,” she joked. Mrs Thomas described Mr Gingrich as “a man of true integrity” with the ideas to improve the US. “Mitt Romney is as empty as a walnut shell,” she said.
Mr Romney leads in Florida opinion polls by an average of 18.5 per cent, according to RealClearPolitics. His vast financial superiority will allow him to dominate media advertising there.
Trying to re-align expectations for his campaign, he told supporters: “This is a hard fight because there is so much worth fighting for. We’ve still got a long way to go and a lot of work to do.”
However, Mr Gingrich - who said his South Carolina win proved "people power beats big money" - may now unite opponents to Mr Romney behind his candidacy, and pose a greater threat. |
Protect Your Stuff 2-year protection plan: $5.99 Buy Now
Please note: This bundle includes the Rock Band Instruments only. Game NOT included!!
The Shape of Rock
The Fender Stratocaster has been a defining symbol of rock n' roll for decades. Today, the guitar that helped form the sound and style of modern rock is the inspiration of the guitar controller you can play on your Xbox One or PS4 system. Bring guitar shredding into the gaming world with the Wireless Fender Stratocaster Guitar Controller.
Hard Rockers
Designed for performance and durability, the Rock Band Wireless Drum Kit features 4 durable drum pads built to withstand the raw force dished out by the most demanding drummers. They also absorb sound so you can drum all night without causing a disturbance. When you're ready to give your very best performance, you can thrash away without the worry of your gear giving up before you do.
Get on the Mic
Boasting a wide dynamic range and high Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), the Rock Band USB Microphone takes advantage of the game's freestyling vocal abilities, capturing performances from the loudest to the subtlest vocal intonations, all without distortion. Ideal for pumping up the crowd and adding backup singers to your band. The Rock Band mic delivers consistent clarity to help you vocalize your very best harmonies and melodies.
Stage-Grade Acoustics
Upgraded Frequency Response for Distortion-Free Vocals.
High Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) Accurately Reproduces Your Voice.
Improved Dynamic Range Captures Loud and Quiet Performances.
Ideal for Adding Backup Singers to Your Band.
Extensive 15ft (4.6m) USB Cable.
Shipping Note: Shipping to Alaska & Hawaii is not available for this item
Warranty: 1 Year Mad Catz |
Sensors in the feet of Rosetta’s lander Philae have recorded the sound of touchdown as it first came into contact with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The instrument, SESAME-CASSE, was turned on during the descent and clearly registered the first touchdown as Philae came into contact with the comet, in the form of vibrations detected in the soles of the lander’s feet.
https://soundcloud.com/esaops/philae-touchdown-thud
Image credit: ESA/ATG medialab
Audio file credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/SESAME/DLR – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
Note that this is an actual sound file; i.e. it is a recording of mechanical vibrations at acoustic frequencies. No modification was necessary except for some technical adjustments (e.g. the .wav format requires amplitude normalisation). Actual frequency content and duration are unchanged.
SESAME is the lander’s Surface Electrical Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment, and comprises three suites of instruments:
CASSE – the Comet Acoustic Surface Sounding Experiment, which allows mechanical parameters of the surface to be deduced, along with details of the structure of the subsurface;
DIM – the Dust Impact Monitor, which measures properties of impacting comet grains;
PP – the Permittivity Probe, which determines one of the key electrical properties of the material beneath Philae, which is linked to the water ice content of the surface.
Klaus Seidensticker from the DLR Institute of Planetary Research says: “Our data record the first touchdown and show that Philae’s feet first penetrated a soft surface layer – possibly a dust layer – several centimetres thick until they hit a hard surface – probably a sintered ice-dust layer – a few milliseconds later.”
Data from the SESAME-DIM instrument meanwhile suggest that current cometary activity at the final landing site is low, while preliminary data from SESAME-PP are consistent with a large amount of water ice under the lander. Combined with additional data from other instruments, the goal is to derive mechanical properties of the comet. However, first impressions already suggest that the surface of 67P/C-G is significantly structured, mixing soft and hard aspects.
Klaus adds: “At the moment, we are also supporting the effort to reconstruct the flight path of the lander after first touchdown, collecting all available data across the various instruments. This is important for SESAME, especially CASSE, as we need to know the speed, impact angle, and rotation rate before the first touchdown, but also the final landing place.”
SESAME Principal Investigators:
CASSE: Klaus Seidensticker (PI for the SESAME consortium), German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Asteroids and Comets, Berlin, Germany
DIM: Harald Krueger, Max-Planck-Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany
PP: Walter Schmidt, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland |
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton repeatedly praised the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration in his Friday interview with The Daily Caller, saying the administration has had unprecedented success with stopping illegal crossings, which Paxton said is an important issue to Texans.
“They’ve done more than any administration in the history of the world,” Paxton said when asked if he thought the Trump administration had done enough to keep Trump’s campaign promises regarding illegal immigration. (RELATED: Texas AG: Media Downplaying Loretta Lynch Influencing FBI’s Clinton Email Investigation)
“So I’m pretty happy that they’ve done so much in such a short period of time so it would really be difficult for me to criticize them on that issue because there’s no comparison with any other administration as far as how quickly and effectively they’ve approached the problem on many different fronts.”
Later, when asked what he consider the most important thing the Trump administration has done so far, Paxton again pointed to the White House’s work on immigration.
“I think this immigration issue has been huge. Just because there’s such a risk of terrorist threat, the fact that those numbers are so far down from where they were, I think that has been remarkable how quickly they got to that and how effective they’ve been in impacting those numbers,” he told TheDC.
The flood of illegal border crossings has dramatically decreased under Trump, who has embraced a much tougher stance on immigration than his predecessor, Barack Obama. While immigration-related arrests within the US have surged, the number of apprehensions at the border has plummeted.
Figures released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection this week show that the number of illegal aliens apprehended at the US-Mexico border last month dropped 64 percent compared to the same period last year.
Paxton said it’s encouraging to see the number of illegals crossing the border drop so dramatically.
“Obviously we always have more room to improve but they’ve done a really good job with that issue,” he said. |
As the FBI implores good New Yorkers to report any murderous ISIS terrorists they see roaming the streets of Brooklyn, and as Twitter-savvy jihadists look set to dethrone American icon Mark Zuckerberg by launching their own version of Facebook, it’s nice to know that at least someone is looking out for the safety of US citizens. As the Dept. Of Justice reports, a joint effort by the FBI and several New Jersey police departments has culminated in the indictment of US Air Force veteran Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh who “allegedly” pulled the terrorist trifecta by first accessing the internet and then traveling from Egypt to Turkey with an iPod and a picture of a machine gun. Here’s more from the government:
As alleged in the complaint, indictment and other court filings, the defendant served in the Air Force as an avionics instrument system specialist and received training in the installation and maintenance of aircraft engine, navigation and weapons systems. After leaving the Air Force, the defendant worked for a number of companies in the United States and Middle East as an avionics specialist and airplane mechanic. The defendant lived abroad for over a year before his arrest in this case. Earlier this year, weeks after being fired from his last job as an airplane mechanic based in the Middle East, the defendant attempted to join ISIL. On Jan. 10, 2015, the defendant traveled from Egypt to Turkey in an effort to cross the border into Syria to join ISIL and fight violent jihad. Turkish authorities denied the defendant entry, however, and sent him on a return flight to Egypt. Upon his arrival in Egypt, the defendant was carrying multiple electronic devices, including four USB thumb drives that had been stripped of their plastic casings and an iPod that had been wiped clean of data. The defendant also had a cellular telephone that contained, among other things, a photograph of a machine gun. The defendant was soon thereafter deported to the United States. On Jan. 14, 2015, JTTF agents obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s electronic devices, including his laptop computer. Subsequent exploitation of the laptop revealed, among other things, the following: recent internet searches for “borders controlled by Islamic state”, recent internet searches for “who controls kobani,” “kobani border crossing,” and “jarablus border crossing,” all references to Syrian cities under ISIL’s control near the Turkish border, a chart of crossing points between Turkey and Syria indicating the areas on the Syrian side of the border controlled by ISIL and other groups, and internet searches for “Flames of War,” an ISIL propaganda video, as well as downloaded videos, including one showing ISIL members executing prisoners. The defendant was arrested pursuant to a federal complaint on Jan. 16, 2015, in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and he has been in custody ever since. After the defendant’s arrest, JTTF agents seized and later obtained warrants to search two backpacks that the defendant had when he was overseas. Agents recovered from the backpacks, among other things: two compasses, a solar-powered flashlight, a solar-powered power source, shards of broken USB thumb drives, a fatigue jacket and camping clothes.
There you go — open and shut. Pugh used Google to search for information about ISIS — which every American with a computer does thanks to around-the-clock fear mongering from every mainstream media outlet on the planet — then tried to travel to Turkey from Egypt (where he apparently already was), with camping equipment and some thumb drives which he understandably destroyed once Turkish authorities branded him as a security threat. This is obviously evidence that Pugh sought to “wage violent jihad” and thankfully, he faces more than a quarter century in prison.
As the Dept. of Justice correctly notes, “identifying and bringing to justice individuals who provide or attempt to provide material support to terrorists is a key priority of the National Security Division,” which is why we’re absolutely sure that indictments will be handed down at Langley any day now in connection with the CIA’s inadvertent, taxpayer-sponsored, million dollar Al Qaeda funding. |
A longtime (hopeful) rumor of PC Savants and MMO-addicts alike, the recent court filings of Bethsoft’s lawsuit against Fallout IP-holder Interplay have – perhaps accidentally – revealed a massively multiplayer online game based on the Elder Scrolls franchise. Found, as always, by series fansite Duck and Cover, the parent company Zenimax had hired Dark Ages of Camelot producer Matt Firor to head an online division of the company in 2007.
Since the hiring, the transcript revealed that “tens and tens of millions of dollars” have been injected into the project of “close to a hundred people.” The injunction script also mentioned that the Elder Scrolls MMO has been developed on a four-year production lifecycle, which would put its prospective release at some point in 2011. VG247 has since confirmed the project as carrying the Elder Scrolls brand. Bethsoft has not returned any call for comments from Elder-Geek. |
Worlds Strongest Girl - Varvara Akulova
Strong Ukraine girl, Varya Akulova, 13 years old now, but most of the pictures on this site show her at age 6.She trains using Kettlebells (of course), and other than that I don't know much about her. Just happened to Stumble upon her tonight.Strong women fascinate me.Women who train for strength, endurance, bodybuilding or weight loss, it doesn't matter, any woman who takes the incentive to work hard, and build strength fascinates me.Recently, I posted some video of strong women: Barbie Barbell doing Deadlifts - she's only 17 and holds world recordsAn incredible display of Strong Women doing pushups - incredibly powerful pushup videoThere are a lot of times that I feel that there are a lot of women who are stronger than me, and that inspires me. It inspires me to train harder myself, to become better and to inspire others, men and women to become better.Varya does some pretty spectacular feats of strength. Here's one she didVisit Varya's website You can do it. Start training, learn about foods, work harder - day by day and become your best. You deserve it.Varya has training costs, donate and help her out via TutzTutz
Labels: exercise, fitness, strong-women, women |
It seems like the Browns can't catch a break on the defensive line. The Browns announced that John Hughes will be placed on short-term IR with a knee injury he suffered Sunday against the Raiders.
NEWS: Browns awarded TE Ryan Taylor via waivers and placed DL John Hughes on injured reserve - designated for return — Cleveland Browns (@Browns) October 27, 2014
Given that Hughes was placed on injured reserve - designated for return, he won't be able to return for eight weeks. That means that he'll be eligible to return for the season finale in Baltimore.
The Browns have been decimated by injuries on the defensive line, so this news is certainly not good. Hughes had recently been playing well.
John Hughes is 15th highest 3-4 DE via @PFF this year with a 3.5 overall grade. 3 positive grades past 3 games. Hurt his knee v OAK. #Browns — Brendan Leister (@BrendanLeister) October 27, 2014
To fill the vacant roster spot, TE Ryan Taylor was claimed off waivers from Baltimore. Taylor is in his 4th season after being drafted in the 7th round by the Packers in 2011. He has 8 career receptions for 45 yards, and a touchdown through 50 games. |
GENEVA, Switzerland — Tens of Baha'is' shops in the cities of Rafsanjan, Kerman, Sari and Hamadan have been sealed by government authorities in an effort to pressure Baha'is not to observe their religious holy days.
These shops, mostly small businesses, offering services like household appliance repairs or the sales of automobile parts or clothing, were sealed in April and May when the owners closed their stores in observance of Baha'i holy days during those months.
Further to these closures, Iranian authorities told some of the shopkeepers that if they do not sign a pledge that they will only close their stores on recognized national holidays their business licenses will be revoked and their stores closed permanently.
"This recent attempt by authorities in Iran to prevent Baha'i shop owners from observing Baha'i holy days on a few days of the year is an act against the laws of Iran itself and one which violates international human rights norms," said Ms. Diane Ala'i, representative of the Baha'i International Community's United Nations office in Geneva.
"Such small enterprises are virtually the only means of economic subsistence left to Baha'is and their families in Iran today" said Ms. Ala'i. "Baha'is have been banned from all government employment and other private sector businesses are frequently pressured to dismiss them."
Many or all of these same shops had been shut down by authorities last October when at least 80 shops in those same cities as well as in the city of Jiroft were closed by authorities after the owners temporarily closed their businesses to observe Baha'i holy days. After extensive appeals by the Baha'is, and some international publicity about the closings, the shops were eventually allowed to reopen. These actions have been reported in the 2015 annual report of the European Parliament Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance titled "State of Freedom of Religion or Belief".
"These recent developments take the persecution against the Baha'is in Iran to a new level entirely, because it is not as if the Baha'is openly advertise that they close their shops because of a Baha'i holy day," Ms. Ala'i said. "They merely wish to exercise their right to freedom of worship."
"It is all clearly part of a continuing effort by the government to make Baha'is invisible by striving to eliminate all aspects of their existence," she said.
The news comes just as governments, employers, and workers' representatives from around the world gather in Geneva for the 104th International Labour Conference, where the topic of discrimination in the workplace is a major concern.
"The fact that news of these incidents, blatant examples of religious persecution, come as the world is discussing workplace discrimination only serves to highlight once again the degree to which Iran has failed to live up to international human rights norms," said Ms. Ala'i.
She noted that in 2014, the International Labour Organization, at the 103rd International Labour Conference, called on Iran to address discrimination against Baha'is, saying it has "deep concern" regarding "the systematic discrimination against members of religious and ethnic minorities, particularly the Baha'is, and once again urges the Government to take immediate and decisive action to address such discrimination".
Baha'is are officially restricted from engaging in certain types of businesses. In 2007, the Public Places Supervision Office issued a letter to police throughout the country saying Baha'is should be banned from "high-earning businesses" and from "sensitive" categories, such as the press, jewelry, photography, and computer and Internet-related businesses, as well as the food industry.
Moreover, small shops run by Baha'is have not only been the subject of frequent closures by government agents but also arson attacks and other assaults, perpetrated in an atmosphere where hatred against Baha'is has been incited through a national anti-Baha'i media campaign, as has been documented previously. |
Discreet Ballistics is pleased to announce its 300 AAC Blackout Selous Subsonic Expander is available for preorder (late fall 2017 delivery).
Specifications:
Brass: Lapua 300BLK
Bullet: Selous Machined Expander™ 188gr expanding solid copper projectile
Ballistic Coefficient: .404G1
Average Muzzle Velocity: 925-1000FPS
Minimum expansion velocity: 750FPS
The Discreet Ballistics 300 AAC Blackout 188gr Selous Subsonic Hunting/Self Defense load is designed to be the most effective expanding subsonic 300BLK cartridge available. Before initiating the development process for the Selous Machined Expander™ three areas were identified as crucial factors for a successful subsonic expanding projectile: weight retention, accuracy, and expansion. There is currently no other expanding subsonic projectile option with proficiency in all three of these categories. The Selous Machined Expander™ projectile was designed using state-of-the-art ballistics modeling software to maximize stability at subsonic velocities. As part of the development cycle extensive gel testing was performed and the appropriate design modifications were made to maximize terminal performance.
Ballistics gel test results firing a Selous Machined Expander™ from a Honey Badger 1:5 twist 6.75” barrel at 950fps
The Discreet Ballistics Selous Machined Expander™ is loaded with new Lapua® 300BLK brass and the finest commercially available powder and primers. Discreet Ballistics offers a more economical 190gr target load (pictured below) that is ballistically matched to the 188gr expanding load.
For more information on Discreet Ballistics visit www.discreetballistics.com or @discreet.ballistics on Instagram
Tags: discreet ballistics |
Robot Date Night! Bring a sweetheart and build a robot, after hours at our Shop. Each person gets two free beers from Metropolitan Brewing or you're welcome to BYOB!
Robot Date Night is a special, after hours, BYOB event for adults looking to put that little extra spark in their relationship. During the night couples get to brave the love tester, find out if they remember how to build a simple circuit and of course build their very own robot to love and cherish. Special thanks to our sponsor, Metropolitan Brewing, for providing each guest with two complimentary beers; every week we’re featuring new favorites!
It’s BYOB!
You can choose from over twelve different DIY kits! During the build a fun, robot-themed movie will be playing as background ambiance while the love birds get to enjoy beverages of their choice and popcorn delivered by a cool Omnibot 2000! Finally, we wrap the night up with a quick round of our robot movie trivia quiz!
Cost is $25 per person ($50 per couple), plus the cost of the robot kits and batteries. Only a deposit for the event is required ($50); you can choose and pay for your robot kit(s) on the night of the event. Must be 18 or older to attend (Your kids have had enough fun!).
Robot Date Night runs from 7pm to 9pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. 24 hours advance registration is required to confirm your reservation. 24 hours notice of cancellation required for full refund. Call 773-281-1008 for any questions or last minute availability requests.
Seating is limited so call and reserve your space ASAP! |
Paul McCartney has begun the process of regaining control of his share of the US publishing rights in the Beatles’ catalogue. The publishing is currently owned by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, but US law allows living artists to apply to take back the right 56 years after initial publication, meaning the Lennon-McCartney catalogue becomes available in 2018.
Billboard reports that McCartney began the process to taking control of his half of the Beatles publishing on 15 December 2015. Under the US copyright act of 1976, songwriter must file a claim with the copyright office two to 10 years before the 56 years elapse. McCartney filed a termination notice for 32 songs at the end of last year. However, John Lennon’s half of the publishing – all their songs were credited to Lennon-McCartney, regardless of who wrote them – will remain with Sony/ATV which reportedly made a deal with Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.
The Beatles lost control of their publishing early on. The company Northern Songs was founded by Lennon, McCartney, their manager Brian Epstein and publisher Dick James in 1963, James, however, sold his stake to the UK firm Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and Lennon and McCartney failed in an attempt to regain their rights. Another attempt by the music manager Allen Klein to set up a deal for the Beatles’ Apple Corps to buy out ATV also failed.
Michael Jackson bought ATV Music for $47.5m (£33m) in 1985, which was reputed to have soured his friendship with McCartney, and merged his catalogue with Sony in 1995, for a payment of around £59m, resulting in the formation of Sony/ATV. In 2006, in financial trouble, Jackson struck a further deal with Sony, giving the former the right to buy his half of Sony/ATV. It was finally announced last week that the Jackson estate was to sell its 50% stake to Sony for $750m. |
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reportedly suggested implementing a carbon tax to President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE — and it wasn't received well.
Trump officials did not offer support for Musk’s suggestion, a senior White House official reportedly told Bloomberg.
Musk is a member of Trump’s Strategic and Policy Forum, a presidential advisory team.
ADVERTISEMENT
Musk isn’t the only Trump adviser to back a carbon tax. Trump’s secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson, advocated for the policy while he was CEO at Exxon Mobil Corp. The company also previously lobbied for a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Earlier this week, Musk tweeted his support for the Tillerson's State nomination. |
How long do you have to work so you can get enough salaries to buy an iPhone 6 (16GB) in your city? The investment bank UBS believes the answer of this question could be a good reference for comparing the global prices and average wages in some of the world’s major cities.
According to UBS' newly released Prices and Earnings Report, an average worker in New York or Zurich can make enough money to buy an iPhone 6 with less than 24 hours or three days of work (8 working hours per day on average)
However, in some other cities around the world, it requires much longer working hours to earn enough money for purchasing the popular smartphone made by Apple. For example, it requires a worker in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine to work over 13 weeks, or 627.2 hours to get as the same amount of money as an iPhone 6 costs.The report also indicates that workers in European cities such as Zurich, Geneva and Luxembourg earn gross salaries nearly 19 times higher than the average in Nairobi, Jakarta and Kiev.
Following chart breaks down the different working hours required to buy an iPhone in different cities:
Read more:
Comparing the Cost of Beer and Cigarettes in Major Cities Around the World
What are the Minimum Wages in Different Countries?
How Much Salaries the World Leaders Get Paid? |
Seven years ago, when the city’s dwindling Parsi community last went for votes to choose the elected representative for its chief administrative body — the Bombay Parsi Punchayet – religion was at the forefront of all campaigns. But this time around, as the Parsis go for elections on Sunday, they have something completely different on their minds – the development of the community.
Advertising
The front-runners contesting India’s smallest election feel much mudslinging, infighting and allegations of corruption have beleaguered the functioning of the Punchayet. Though pitted against one another, the candidates unanimously feel the need to work for community’s welfare while finding ways to curb its shrinking population.
The Punchayet or the BPP, established 343 years ago, is the supreme administrative body of the Parsi Irani Zoroastrian community in India, and is about 40,000-members strong.
[related-post]
For a member of the Parsi community, BPP gains significance as it not only has control over the large corpus of funds but is also second to the city’s biggest landlords – the Bombay Port Trust. From providing housing to the needy to disposing of the dead, the Punchayet is pivotal to the functioning of the community’s social structure.
Advertising
Twenty three candidates are contesting for five seats, meaning there are four people contesting for a single trustee seat. Interestingly, unlike last time, all five centres will be voting simultaneously on the same day and the results will be out at night.
Jehangir Patel, who runs Parsiana, the community magazine, says “improvement” will be on the priority list of the board of trustees, regardless of who gets elected. “The new board of trustees are sober enough to realise that the last board was disgraced. This is a more dignified election where nearly all candidates are following the code of conduct,” says Patel. He elaborates that the last election was the first time the community cast its votes under the universal adult franchise.
On Sunday, the voter turnout is expected to be between 10,000 and 12,000 – a minuscule proportion as compared to the gigantic figures of the country’s last Lok Sabha polls.
But it is not discouraging for Noshir Dadrawala, one of the poll’s front-runners, who thinks 12,000 is a good number. There is awareness, feels Dadrawala, CEO of a city-based non-profit consultancy. He voices “good and effective” governance which comprises “transparency and accountability” on part of all elected trustees. “The (BPP) accounts in the last couple of years have not been filed with the government authorities; there are also union issues. It might, perhaps, take six to nine months to sort out all the problems,” he says.
A competent team in place, proposes Dadrawala, can resolve all factors hindering the Punchayet’s operations. During one of his public meetings at the opulent Dadar-Parsi colony, he was greeted by a crowd of 300 people and he hopes for a sizeable attendance of 15,000 Parsis on Sunday.
“For those who want to get themselves registered as voters,” points out Patel, “the process is pretty cumbersome.” In addition, one has to carry a government ID along with the registration certificate, therefore several encumbrances to voting.
Meanwhile, the Bombay Parsi Lying-in Hospital in south Mumbai is a bone of contention this time. The issue between the outgoing chairman Dinshaw Mehta and other BPP trustees escalated into a legal tussle going all the way up to the Supreme Court, which recently ordered a status quo on the hospital’s development. Mehta’s main grouse is that the hospital property, which is at least Rs 100 crore, was leased out in a “closed-door” deal.
Owner of Parsi Times, Kersi Randeria, who is a party to the petition, is being looked at as one of the strong contenders this time. Randeria, who is one of committee members of the hospital, says BPP, though the owner of the land has no role to play as the management committee of the hospital gains significance. “The management becomes a de facto trustee as under the Bombay Public Trust Act the manager is one more the trustee. The (BPP) trustees says the committee will instructs the BPP, which has to listen to the committee without any objection,” he says.
The population’s decadal dip of 10 per cent raises a major concern over the community’s existence – a fact Randeria proposes to address. The Parsi population in Mumbai currently stands at 40,000 which saw a 25 per cent drop from 1991 figures at 53,794. “It is a major challenge. We have a few programs like Jiyo Parsi going on currently. How much we will succeed we really do not know as it is an uphill battle,” he says.
He cites a WHO statistic, which he got to know during one of his public meetings while calling it alarming. “An average married couple needs to have 2.1 children and for any community to thrive it should not be below 1.9. Our average is 0.8,” shares 58-year-old Randeria.
Although comparatively young when compared to the likes of Randeria, Viraf Mehta at 38 years of age is confident. Proud of being outgoing chairman’s son, he denies all the allegations against his father – the senior Mehta. He says it is unfortunate that under his father’s chairmanship there was a paralysis in the BPP, but it was done by the majority four trustees amongst the seven. “My father was in the minority but unfortunately for him what the majority does is binding on him,” he says.
He is optimistic about the cash-flow for the BPP coming given there will be a board of trustees and the current stay on the housing will be listed immediately. “There were many schemes and projects of redevelopment that were introduced by my father were unfortunately put on the backburner. All of that start. I personally believe the new board will have everything on a silver platter,” says Viraf, who has studied in Chicago.
Advertising
He expresses that people had their reservations about him but he says he convinced them. “My father has been there for 21 years and I have the same drive to give back the same to the community,” says Viraf.
[email protected] |
In addition to hiking today, the Fed announced its Plan to Shrink Asset Holdings Beginning This Year.
Balance sheet reduction hasn’t started yet, nor did the Fed even say when it would start. Since the Fed will announce the start date in advance, its eye would appear to be focused on December.
Once balance sheet reduction starts, the cap will be $10 billion a month rising to $50 billion a month, on a schedule not posted.
How to Build Up a Balance Sheet
The initial $10 billion cap on reductions is $6 billion in Treasury securities and $4 billion in mortgage bonds.
The maximum reduction rises to $50 billion a month, $30 billion a month for Treasurys and $20 billion a month for mortgage securities.
How Long Will It Take?
At $10 billion a month, $120 billion a year, it would take the Fed 29 years to reduce its balance sheet to $1.0 trillion from $4.5 trillion.
At $50 billion a month, $600 billion a year, it would take 5.8 years. If the Fed slowly ratchets up its cap, we are talking about a 10-year time frame.
Those are the absolute minimum and maximums assuming the Fed starts reduction and does not stop until it’s done.
Those timeframes are highly unlikely in actual practice because they presume the Fed won’t halt or reverse balance sheet reductions when the next recession starts.
From a practical standpoint, somewhere between 30 years and never is about right.
Build Me Up Buttercup
In honor of the next Fed asset build-up, I offer this musical tribute.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock |
The nation’s top prosecutor on Monday offered the government’s first official definition of “sanctuary cities” and acknowledged that President Trump’s power to revoke their federal funding is far more limited than he had threatened.
In a memo addressing grants issued by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said sanctuary cities are those that violate a federal law requiring local and state governments to share information with federal officials about immigrants’ citizenship or legal status.
[Read the attorney general’s memo]
Any city or town that violates that federal statute could lose some Justice grant funding this year, Sessions said, as long as Congress had already spelled out those conditions before the government awarded the grants. Sessions has taken steps to revoke federal funding from nine jurisdictions, each of which insists that it has complied with the law.
Sessions’s memo came nearly a month after a federal judge in California halted Trump’s initial attempt to strip funding from sanctuary cities, saying that only Congress, not the president, could impose new conditions on federal grants, among other concerns.
Protesters hold up signs in San Francisco in April. (Haven Daley/AP)
Later Monday, federal lawyers in that case filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider his ruling because they said Sessions’s memo had addressed these and other issues. Sessions’s memo does not require cities and towns to detain immigrants, they said, and will only apply to Department of Justice and Homeland Security grants. For now, the attorney general will only seek to withhold funds from three Justice department grant programs.
However, in his memo, Sessions warned that the administration and Congress in the future may seek to “tailor” grants, or impose additional conditions related to immigration on the jurisdictions that seek funding.
And under the language in the memo, the Justice Department could try to link the awarding of future grants to other factors, including whether local law enforcement officials comply with federal immigration efforts or refuse to detain immigrants for deportation
Sessions also made clear that the Trump administration would continue to publicly criticize noncooperative cities, states and towns, which he says threaten public safety by refusing to work closely with federal immigration officials.
“While the Executive Order’s definition of ‘sanctuary jurisdiction’ is narrow, nothing in the Executive Order limits the Department’s ability to point out ways that state and local jurisdictions are undermining our lawful system of immigration or to take enforcement action where state or local practices violate federal laws, regulations, or grant conditions,” Sessions wrote.
The memo marks the first official guidance to federal grant issuers since the president’s executive order in January threatened to strip federal funding from cities and towns that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Hundreds of U.S. cities panicked when the order was signed, afraid that they would lose millions of dollars for education, health care and other programs if they refused to detain immigrants for deportation officials.
At least one local government, Miami-Dade County, reversed its policy as a result of the threat.
But others filed lawsuits and cheered last month when a federal judge in California temporarily halted that part of Trump’s executive order, saying it was too broad.
The memo from Sessions will probably stir some relief among a broad swath of U.S. cities, including the nine that the Trump administration has labeled sanctuary jurisdictions so far. Those cities insist that they comply with USC 1373, a federal law that focuses on communication between federal and local officials and which does not mention immigration detainers.
Until now, no official definition of a sanctuary jurisdiction has existed. Estimates of the number of sanctuary cities has varied from more than 100 to about 600.
Trump and others say sanctuary cities pose a threat to public safety by refusing to hold immigrants in jail after they have been cleared for release from criminal custody, so that federal immigration officials can detain them for deportation proceedings.
Local officials counter that they do not have the legal authority to hold a person for a civil immigration proceeding after a judge in a criminal case has released them on bail. And they argue that Trump’s policy is making cities less safe because immigrants are increasingly afraid to report crimes or serve as witnesses, for fear of deportation.
Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report. |
Republicans are facing a reckoning.
We’ve known this for some time — it’s been several weeks since animosity toward Donald Trump among Republican elites has spilled into the open. But now we have a national poll showing that anxiety with Trump extends to the Republican electorate more broadly.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that Republicans are essentially split down the middle: 45 percent say Trump is having a positive effect on the GOP, while 43 percent say he is actively harming the party.
That’s an astonishingly large share of Republicans, given that Trump holds a sizable delegate lead and is projected to win handily in upcoming contests, including in rival Marco Rubio’s home state of Florida.
What’s more, only 53 percent of Republican voters surveyed said they would feel satisfied if Trump became their party’s nominee. That’s historically low; in 2012, with the Tea Party wing of the GOP up in arms over Mitt Romney’s nomination, 72 percent of Republicans voters said they'd be satisfied with a Romney nomination. By contrast, 78 percent of Democrats currently say they’d be satisfied with a Clinton nomination.
The widespread antipathy toward Trump is certainly noteworthy. And it’s fair to expect that his highly unfavorable marks with the electorate overall (nearly two-thirds of surveyed voters in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll hold a negative view of him) could harm him with undecided voters in the general election.
Still, it’s entirely unclear whether Republicans rallying under the #NeverTrump hashtag or young conservatives who told Vox that they would never vote for Trump will keep their promises.
After all, the Republicans who are concerned that Trump is sabotaging their party are not very likely to defect to Hillary Clinton.
"Most people’s partisan loyalty comes before their policy preferences," Hans Noel, a political scientist at Georgetown and Vox contributor, told Vox: "If the party establishment completely stonewalls supporting Trump, then it may hurt him. But he’ll still be the choice of most people who don’t want a Democrat." |
Fruit Monstrosity (v2)
Banging emanates from below. Terrified cooks and waiters huddle at the top of the stairway as the heros approach. An awful stench, like rotten wine, wafts up from the kitchens. "Please, you have to stop it!" one of the cooks shouts over the din. "It's destroying everything!"
An Unnatural Terror
A fruit monstrosity is rarely a deliberately created thing. They arise where magic and food mix - often the result of someone attempting to create magically imbued wine, or fermenting the wrong things around too much wild magic. They might arise from drunken cooking experiments, or crawl out of student kitchens or a university larder.
They resemble a golem made from old fruit, and exude a stench powerful enough to awaken nearby food and cooking implements. They drip black sludge as their insides slowly turn into slime.
Whereever they come from, they are never welcome. They are always angry, reek of the stench of rotten citrus, and mindlessly create chaos.
Random Animations Roll on this table to determine what around the fruit monstrosity animates.
Roll Animated Kitchen Terror 1-2 Vegetable 3-4 Vessel 5-6 Knife |
In the video:
RGB Light control
5 x Servo Motor control
Step Motor control
1 Servo Motor control
Traffic light sequence
84x48 LCD with DS18b20 Temp sensor display
16x2 LCD with Temperature Sensor
20x4 LCD with Temperature sensor
SRF05 UltraSonic Sensor with Mini Fan control
We have Pi-Scratch software available to control hardware through scratch using commands, such as G17ON which will turn GPIO17 On. This project is aimed towards teachers teaching Programming in the new curriculum, Hobbyists, and Professionals who want to use their Raspberry Pi.
Our Aim
We are hoping to see a few boards in schools to help kids to learn how software works / how they can control the world around them. There are many scenarios where this board can come into play such as teaching kids the green cross code, teaching Programming, and many more.
What you get
The board is already sold assembled and ready to use ( The real time clock needs a cell battery to work, we can't sell due to shipping restrictions ).
EDU-v2-E01 full support by our Pi_Scractch can easy control by scratch also test in Raspberry Pi B2, A+, B+ all working ,EDU-v2-E02, EDU-v2-E03 all can work in Raspberry Pi A+/B+/B2
Product detail web site Detail
Pi_Scratch control interface Detail
Delivery UK: First Class recorded with tracking number
Outside UK: Royal Mail International sign for with tracking number
09 May 2015 update extra gift
If you back the boards EO1, EO2, and EO3 with RFID Reader module we will gift you a extra RFID card
If you back the boards EO1, EO2, and EO3 we will gift you a free Knight Rider LED kit (Red x3, Yellow x1) support Scratch & Python
** 28 Apr 2015 New update
You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
sound 00:00 00:00
Knight Rider LED Kit demo
Thanks for all your support we did the first stage, next will be
If you back the boards EO1, EO2, and EO3 we will gift you a free No1. NRF24L01 RF module if all orders go over 50. If the orders go over 100 then you will also receive a free No2. ESP8266 WiFi module on top of the free NRF24L01.
***** New update 01 - 16 Apr 2015 EDU-V2-E01 control Minecraft Pi - Traffic Light demo
You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
sound 00:00 00:00
What comes with the board are as follows:
1. EDU-Learing Kit-V2 EDU-V2-E01 -- Module /sensor GPIO Learning Kits ( support Raspberry Pi B2/A+/B+)
2 Sets of "Traffic lights"
2 Micro Switches
1 Buzzer
RFID Reader Socket
RTC real time clock
Radio Frequency Reader Socket ( NRF24L01 )
2 i2c Ports for extra devices (GND,3.3V,SDA,SCL) (GND,5V,SDA,SCL)
Temperature Sensor Socket ( DS18B20 )
Passive Infra-red Sensor Socket ( PIR )
Infra-red receiver Socket
1 x 5V Stepper Motor Sockets
one 5V Micro Fan socket ( or SSR AC control device socket)
Below are the new functions we added in V2
2 x R,Y,G LED display set
2 Servo motor socket
HAT EEPROM 24c32 support on board
1 DHT22 Temperature & Humidity sensor socket
HY-SRF05 Ultrasonic distance sensor socket
16x2/20x4 character LCD socket
84x48 Pixels Monochrome LCD socket
ESP8266 Serial WiFi module socket setting detail
Bluetooth 2.0 / 4.0 BLE module socket console setting detail
1. 2 x SG90 Micro Servo 2. RFID Reader
3. NRF24L01 Radio Frequency Reader 4. 5V 28BYJ48 Step Motor
1. Bluetooth V4.0 BLE 2. Bluetooth V2.0 3.4. Traffic light stand sets
1. Traffic light set 2. Bluetooth v4.0 BLE
3. RGB Light E03 module 4. Bluetooth v2.0
1. Ultrasonic distance sensor 2. DHT22 Temperature & Humidity sensor
3. 84x48 Pixels Monochrome LCD 4. 16x2 character LCD
20x4 character LCD example
1. 20x4 character LCD with DS18B20 Temperature sensor
2. PIR motion sensor with DS18B20 Temperature sensor
DHT22 & UltraSonic distance sensor scratch code demo
16x2 character command example
Command List
16X2 character LCD BBC News RSS demo
You'll need an HTML5 capable browser to see this content. Play Replay with sound Play with
sound 00:00 00:00
1. Bluetooth V2.0 serial console to Andriod Tablet
2. ESP8266 Serial WiFi module
HAT EEPROM read/write demo
NRF24L01 RF Module demo -- provides a python program to send a message , You will need two Pi's, one running Mesg.py to send and the other running Recv.py to receive the message.
*** AT command in CuteCom demo for ESP8266WiFi serial module & Bluetooth 2.0/4.0 BLE (for EDU-V2-E01 & EDU-V2-E02)
Bluetooth v2.0 HC-05 AT command in CuteCom
Bluetooth v4.0 BLE HM-10 AT command in CuteCom
ESP8266 WiFi serial module AT command in CuteCom
ESP8266 WiFi serial module AT command example
** Join Router
AT+RST
AT+CWMODE=3
AT+CWLAP ---- search WiFi Network
AT+CWJAP="your ssid","password" join your Router Spot
AT+CWJAP=? ---- check if connected successfully
Module set E01-M01
1. PIR motion sensor
2. Mini 5V Fan
3. SRF05 UltraSonic sensor
4. DS18B20 Temp Sensor
5. DHT22 Temp & Humidity Sensor
6. RYG LED stand set x2
Module set E01-M02
1. PIR motion sensor
2. Mini 5V Fan
3. SRF05 UltraSonic sensor
4. RFID Reader Kit
5. NRF24L01 RF module
6. DHT22 Temp & Humidity Sensor
7. ESP8266 Serial WiFi module
8. Bluetooth V2.0 module
9. RYG LED stand set x2
10. DS18B20 Temp Sensor
11. IR receiver sensor
Module set E01-M03
1. PIR motion sensor
2. 5V Step Motor
3. 5V Mini Fan
4. 16x2 character LCD
5. RFID Reader Kit
6. NRF24L01 RF module
7. SG90 Micro Servo
8. SRF05 UltraSonic sensor
9. RYG LED stand set x2
10. DHT22 Temp & Humidity Sensor
11. DS18B20 Temp
12. IR Receiver sensor
13. ESP8266 Serial WiFi module
14. Bluetooth V2.0 module
15. Bluetooth V4.0 BLE module
Module E01-V1-2-V2 for customer already have our EDU-V1 board Kits already.
Module set E01-v1-2-v2
1. 16x2 character LCD
2. SG90 Micro Servo
3. SRF05 UltraSonic sensor
4. DHT22 Temp & Humidity Sensor
5. RYG LED stand set x2
6. ESP8266 Serial WiFi module
7. Bluetooth V2.0 module
8. Bluetooth V4.0 BLE module
2.EDU-Learing Kit-V2 EDU-V2-E02 - TX-RX-RS232 Learning Kit |
A Toronto man has been charged with several child pornography-related offences.
Police arrested Sandy Thorburn, 49, who is a music and theatre director, at a hotel in Barrie where he was with a 17-year-old girl. Police allege he intended to make child pornography.
Thorburn was formerly a lecturer on music history at the University of Waterloo. He also taught at Lakehead University’s Orillia campus.
Ontario Provincial Police’s Orillia detachment and child sexual exploitation unit began investigating after several teenage girls in the Barrie and Orillia area reported that a stranger contacted them online claiming to represent modeling agencies and wanted to photograph them in exchange for money.
Thorburn allegedly met and paid the girls, ranging in age from 14 to 17, in several instances. Police allege Thorburn took photos of the girls for the purpose of making child pornography and also offered the teens money for sex in several of these meetings. |
Exactly what would happen if the heroes from the live action adaptations of DC and Marvel clashed?
The following video makes a strong case for at least one possible outcome, and said outcome is epic.
This crossover short was edited and presented by Alex Luthor. Not to be mistaken for the founder of Lexcorp (we’re not sure, we’re still investigating), Luthor is no stranger to epic comic book mashups or epic videos. Earlier this month, he debuted this fan trailer for the highly anticipated Suicide Squad film:
In the comics, Marvel and DC characters (or at least in some cases their alternate dimensional counterparts) have crossed paths on several occasions. In 1996, the limited series DC vs. Marvel was released. Written by Ron Marz and Peter David, the event witnessed comics biggest icons battle it out to save their respective universe. |
Bodies strewn over road in horror crash
Pinetown - KwaZulu-Natal paramedics were greeted by a horror scene of bodies strewn all over the road, after a truck ploughed into four full taxis and a car on Thursday.
Spokesperson for ER 24, Werner Vermaak, said at least 24 people had been killed when the truck collided with the taxis and a car, on the corner of Fields Hill and Richmond roads in Pinetown.
Ambulances and numerous emergency services assisting the injured had to return to the scene after dropping off patients at nearby hospitals.
Of the 32 people who were hurt, 10 sustained critical injuries.
“When paramedics arrived they found people and debris scattered across the scene,” Vermaak said.
He added that bystanders were flagging paramedics down and pointing in all directions where people were lying.
Vermaak said the cause of the accident was not yet known.
However, witnesses said the truck was travelling on Field’s Hill Road when it crashed into the vehicles near the intersection, dragging them with it and ripping it into pieces.
Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said patients were taken to the Khan and Inkosi Albert Luthuli hospitals.
Rescuers used the Jaws-of-Life to free some of the passengers from the wreckage.
Botha said bystanders helped paramedics by holding drip bags for some of the injured. |
Quote from: Neonivek,Inarius,Shonai_Dweller,Eric Blank,ZM5,KillzEmAllGod
many myth questions which I attempt to address with a rambling reply
Quote
Quote from: Max^TM as excited as I am at the thought of being able to dig/channel/ramp without dfhack, I must ask if you have any plans to add deconstruction tasks? Though I'm not sure they would be what I was hoping for given the site restrictions, as I mostly find myself wishing I could take apart the wall of a library to get the lagfest scholars out, or open blocked paths from underground forts/dark fortresses/vaults.
Quote from: Max^TM will we be able to disassemble our own constructions and free up materials for reuse later on?
Quote from: TheFlame52
What part(s) of a general's personality dictate(s) their actions/effectiveness?
Quote from: falcc
I understand you aren't actually re-doing site maps right now, but will the changes you're working on for sites that cross between map tiles mean anything for cities in the future? Can cities be larger if they don't need to worry about map tiles? Are there other roadblocks to cities taking up the same space that several clustered-together villages do now?
Quote from: Random_Dragon
Are there any plans to add a stress-reaction equivalent to going catatonic? It stands out a bit in that the existing forms of insanity all got fleshed out with tantrum-equivalents of their own, while the new type of permanent affliction didn't get an equivalent. Or was there a particular reason for stress-vulnerable dwarves not having a comparable temporary affliction?
Quote from: falcc
As of this coming release (.07) will carpentry workshops built in player fortresses be usable by adventurers? Or is there some kind of code difference between workshops built in fort mode and adventure mode since the later are probably more temporary and the former are really old code?
Are there any plans to make other existing workshops that occur in world gen or player fortresses available to adventurers, or will that kind of thing be put off until you decide on the final configuration for adventure mode crafting?
How closely together can adventure mode sites be placed? If you put two next to each other can you build to their edges or do they have a one tile gap prohibiting construction as in fort mode?
Quote from: CLA
With map tile boundaries about to fall, can we expect similar limitations/hard-coding to disappear as well?
Do you expect, or did you already think about problems, roadblockers and obstacles regarding these? In other words, are there limitations where you think "it's just a matter of writing the code", and others where you just don't see a way to lift a restriction without major problematic implications and consequences?
I'm thinking about things like not being able to build/designate most things on the outermost tiles of your site, changing the dimensions of a site after defining it (for example increasing size on reclaiming; or decreasing size, "splitting" the site in two), overlapping sites, and similar restrictions.
This can probably be answered by anyone with a better overview of the way DF currently works (because I think technically, you can do these things already), but I'll green it, just in case.
In the past, you could connect an isolated site (for example, embarking on a remote continent) by concatenating "dummy sites" on locations you can normally not embark on with 3rd party tools: embark, abandon immediately, just so the game thinks this is a reachable site. If you'd do that all the way to your isolated site, you would then get migrants, caravans and so on.
IIRC, this behavior changed when actors started to physically move on the world map.
When adventure mode crafting/constructing/digging will be expanded, we could already theoretically build a bridge over an otherwise unpassable border (a small ocean for example). You could also do the opposite, and build a very long wall, creating a barrier. Does the game recognize these site changes already in terms of where actors are allowed to move? If so, all of them, and on all abstraction layers? Or are only some limited by player-made barriers? Can you for example pass an impassable wall by quick traveling over it?
Quote from: Untrustedlife
How are insurrections calculated? Does the number of hearthpeople play a factor? Does it work differently with adventurer lords?
Quote from: KillzEmAllGod
Will moods ever result in new items and even one off workshops (like a big magic magma forge from a possessed dwarf that causes some of the dwarfs that work it to add to a cursed armor and go insane soon after) being created?
When might it be that hydras regenerate quickly and even grow back heads as well as forgotten beasts made of fire and even blobs not dying in one hit?
Quote from: Untrustedlife
My max speed wet from 2.5 to 3.999 and I was so fast I could jump over rivers, so I did. I then went on a rampage in the nearby human civ, and since the mist stuff was all over me, I infected many more people with creeping mist husk-ism I went on to kill over 500 people and became legendary in several skills. My "friends" who i infected (but wasnt in a party with) also got several kills on their own (some had over 30) . After my unfortunate death to bogeymen. I went into legends to look into how my buddies whom i infected held up, I noticed something odd, legends mode didn't label them as "creeping mist husks" though they still had their kills and they for some odd reason they still lived in the hamlets we destroyed (possibly by themselves) I thought this was odd so I created a new adventurer and found one of them hanging out in a house in one of the villages (killing any living things who went by) eventually killing me. It was still a thrall, but wasn't labeled as one in legends mode, is this a intended feature or a bug?
Also will people who get infected with this stuff ever lose their citizen status and rampage the world a bit like one would expect an evil thrall to do, the fact that they maintain their status as citizens in the hamlets they helped kill off is very odd and immersion breaking, and they didnt even get a reputation for killing either do you plan to remedy this?
Quote from: TheFlame52
Are we ever going to get the old "Halt in the name of the Blankety Blanks!" bandit announcement back? Also, will kobolds ever be able to talk to other kobolds?
Quote from: Mr S
The question arises, in the farther future of Justice Arc development, how do you intend for cases of death under mysterious, or disputed circumstances to be sorted? Will there need to be an autopsy done by the Chief Medical Dwarf? Will there be a new elected or appointed Fortress Coroner position? Could the gods give us a sign?
Quote from: Orbotosh
will it eventually be possible for us to modify the generationion code of the creatures that are currently procedurally generated like titans, werewolves, demons, ect?
Quote from: Japa
Do you plan to ever make the north and south have opposing seasons?
Quote from: Grus
Are there any plans to make constructed walls/floors engraveable?
Quote from: KillzEmAllGod
Are there plans to change from workshops over to zones/locations so dwarfs could have their own kitchens or even a small blacksmith shop in a 3x3 room in their home and if thats the case when might this be done?
Quote from: Max^TM
Will we be able to build using available materials or only logs? If I have blocks or boulders could I use those instead? Naturally I would expect the hauling time to be slower for boulders vs faster build-time with blocks and so forth.
Quote from: Button
I've got a Legends log here in which a goblin bard with a Dwarven name took up an apprenticeship in the dark pits Canyonjackal, then became a Baroness of her original, dwarven civilization. For the next 150 years the log has her alternately taking part in competitions in the fortress Wingshoot, and murdering randos in Canyonjackal. Is this a bug (code treating one histfig like they're in two places at once) or a feature (histfig returning home to participate in festivals)?
Quote from: Max^TM
Will being able to change the colors/tile/etc for track indicators end up in the raws? The yellow/green is easy to see but in some areas it makes it hard to see where you're even at, much less where you're trying to track towards.
Quote
Quote from: TheFlame52 Will dwarven merchants ever haul their wares on the backs of dralthas?
Quote from: cochramd Will we ever see caravans and sieges come from the caverns instead of above ground? Will we ever be able to start a fortress in the caverns and have to dig up to the surface, instead of starting on the surface and digging down to the caverns?
Quote from: KillzEmAllGod
Seeing as you spoke about on the podcast about optimisation and said there was alot that could be done code wise. Seeing as all players judge how playable the game is by FPS and some have even have refused to move on to the newer versions because of degraded perfomance, how do you judge when to do optimisation of something?
Some of the creatures act a bit strange such as wolves not wanting to attack a long dwarf and dwarfs canceling jobs because of keas will there be a pack mentality for the wolfs and something to make dwarfs not worry about birds that are high in the sky?
There appears to be a limit of group of creatures on the map and some even get stuck due the climbing (fish refuse to leave, some that arrive in the caverns just sit there on the edge if they're in water) would this also be moved over to init values for each level of the map for the amount of groups that there can be?
Quote from: TheFlame52
Is there a limit to the number of books one person can write? There seems to be.
Quote from: ZM5
Anyway, will we eventually see in-game effects of pulping besides just the flavor text? By that I mean, if a blunt attack causes a creatures head to "explode into gore", will we see an explosion of eyes, teeth and skull fragments, similarly to what happens when teeth are punched out?
Quote from: Random_Dragon
Will there ever be lasting effects from mangled body parts in adventure mode? As ith every injury, travelling or resting seems to heal up any tissue capable of healing, meaning that a mangled body part is utterly shrugged off unless nerve damage occurred.
Quote from: cochramd
How high/low on your to-do list is the implementation of draft animals and the support necessary for them (feed bags, feeding troughs, etc)?
Quote from: Untrustedlife
Toady do you plan to improve NPC dwarven fortress generation, right now they are very random, and hard to navigate do you plan to make them more navigable in the future?
I am aware that you can use travel mode and < and > to go back up to the surface, but it is very hard to get out of forts if you don't do this.
Quote
Quote from: Shonai_Dweller Will npc adventurers get any site building skills during this cycle? Would be nice to run into a monster hunter's mountain lodge full of Forgotten Beast bone figurines.
Will adventurer sites become inhabited by refugees/wandering kobolds/dance troupes/marsh titans if they're abandoned? Is it possible to abandon an adventurer site or will it always be taken over by some random person after the adventurer is dead?
Quote from: ZM5 Will civilizations be able to send soldiers to adventurer-created sites to reclaim them, should the adventurer die, or to forcefully take them over should the adventurer still be alive?
Quote from: expwnent
How is Scamps doing?
Quote from: Alfrodo
Will Adventurer Sites have the same limitations as dwarf sites?
In essence, can we build a monastery in the middle of a mountain range or a stationary "boat" over an ocean, where you can't build fortresses?
Quote from: Button
I've noticed that when you start Fortress mode, the world explodes into war. What are the differences between how wars start in worldgen and during fortress mode? What would you say is the intended median wars per civ per year in each mode?
Quote from: Illgeo
Will retired adventurer sites be susceptible to insurrections? Current ones?
Quote from: KillzEmAllGod
How would you go about adding in a skill cap for dwarfs much like theres a a cap on their attributes?
When might dwarfs be able to be put into a vegetative state?
Seeing as the next update is pretty mostly the artifact one, in Fortress Starting Scenarios For "Possible expansion of religious and family concepts to provide sufficient scenarios" does that mean that some culture's and religions will be discriminatory?
Will Fortress Starting Scenarios change the way requirements, demands and mandates are done so they extend to the point where nobles can have their own laws even jus primae noctis?
Quote from: Shonai_Dweller
I was wondering if he was really just going to continue fixing up merchant bugs or if he was now ready to replace them altogether, something he said he put off doing this time because it would take so long due to very old code).
Thanks to DG, Putnam, Dirst, BlackFlyme, Button, vjmdhzgr, Japa, Untrustedlife, Manveru Taure:ne'r, burned, falcc, expwnent, Bumber, PatrikLundell, Shonai_Dweller, Knight Otu, ZM5, Eric Blank, TheFlame52 and anybody I missed for helping to answer questions!First of all, perhaps the word "myth" was a poor choice -- the stories generated are (optionally) true. If you set the "fantasy rating" of the world to zero, it still builds a series of events, but those are then just stories (perhaps at a civilization level, not really decided how they might interweave between civs). If you set the parameters to allow for it, then the story is correct, which creates a kind of shared lore for the world. Each race has a different thread of the story they tell based on which events resulted in their creation, mostly, though there are some differences in emphasis which can make the racial stories sound quite different from each other. I haven't tried to mix false and real beliefs yet, and that might just lead to confusion.The myths it creates can lead to varied game elements, especially since you can just turn them off and on with parameters. We won't be able to get everything in all at once, but we should have a healthy first pass. This could change the end-game in player forts significantly, for instance, or make a certain form of magic occur everywhere, opening up new workshop/job chains etc., whereas other magic would resist industrialization/familiarity. There are various frequency/bloodline/requirement variables that come up, so individuals of a given race won't all be the same. We're hoping to add new landforms in the first release (giant region-sized cosmic egg shell fragments, and so forth), and eventually get to entire planes that you can visit in either mode (the difficulties there are the same as the difficulties with getting a separate off-site battle map up in fort mode, pretty much, and we'll probably handle them at once, in the distant future). Important artifacts will come up in the first pass -- the generator has stuff like looms that guide all of fate and so forth, and I'm not really sure how your interactions with those will go.We're not quite sure how the exposition is going to work -- there's worldgen itself, where we're hoping to make the process highlight the important world elements and mythical events instead of just giving you the current technical rundown. Legends mode should have lots of information, and we're hoping it comes up in conversation/written works/art etc a bit as possible, as it does with historical events. Certain elements might occur in chargen and the embark screen as well, if they apply. It still remains to be seen just how confusing it all is and where we'll need to focus. If you set your world's fantasy rating to the maximum, there won't even be dwarves, just some playable race with random traits and a random name, but at least that exposition problem comes from opting-in through the maxed-out parameter, so it's not crucial to get it right immediately.Yeah, you can remove constructions, but since it only happens on your own sites, it's just useful for modify your own maps.I haven't spent much time with this so it's very placeholdery. The civ leader's personality comes up more than the general's, since the civ leader decides where to attack and when. For that, it compares the army strengths, ethical mismatches, past disputes and other historical events to confidence, ambition, propensity to anger, excitement-seeking and recklessness in a few different passes. A general's actual effectiveness in a given battle is just a function of the tactics, leadership and organization skills they pick up in world gen as they go. Since there isn't much data in world gen in terms of position/strategy/tactics/logistics/etc. etc. etc., there's not much to work with so I only went that far.Cities already go across world map tile boundaries, and I'm happy with their size. They seem to be have appropriate core areas for period cities, though perhaps some of the nearest villages should be a little more built up, and the artificial popcap of 10000 is forced by cpu/mem, but the area is still about right (about 2.5 square kilometers depending on how you consider tile size). The main problem is that we can't have more village areas overall, and that's not likely to change due to technical constraints.The basic issue is that there are three relevant propensities in the personality facets (anger, anxiety and depression), and if a dwarf is low in all three facets, none of the end results matched their personality, so we just had them check out using some old catatonia code. Stress-vulnerability isn't the same as the other three facets, since it impacts the speed of the descent more than pointing to a type of manifestation, and, yeah, right now the random selection of a tantrum type for low-facet dwarves is not satisfying. It's not meant to be a final system or one that even makes much sense, but it's not high priority to change it either.There's no difference between the workshops. If you have logs and a carpenter's shop in a fort, you'll be able to use them.I'm not sure how the ordering is going to work. It's not superhard just to add more workshop support as we go, and then switch the whole game over to whatever workshop replacement we come up with later. The real work is probably in fortress mode anyway, so I don't think there's a lot of lost time to be concerned over, at least how it has gone so far with carpentry.If I recollect, you can still build on the edges in adv mode, and you can place them right next to each other. The game-breaking isn't as clear as it is in fort mode with siegers/wilderness creatures, though if you are dedicated you can mess up the army pathing a bit with a string of adv camps. That sort of exploit isn't a high priority, but we'd like to handle it better at some point.I don't think the timing of other hard-coded issues is related at all. It really depends on what I'm working on at the time. There are various issues with the potential changes you've listed, so I wouldn't expect them any time soon.It understands more about movement in worldgen sites -- for player sites, it doesn't keep track of where armies/travelers etc. can move, and it's likely to be a complicated problem to solve. When we have worldgen walls and so forth, we might see some attempts to manage it, but it's not a priority right now.Let's see... it goes by each cultural identity at the site, and it only considers those where the majority opinion is against the occupation or ruler. They assume that the occupier is initially strong (since they conquered the site), so perceived strength starts at 100%. That is changed in a few ways -- it is adjusted with the actual occupier populations, so if new hearthpeople come on or hearthpeople are killed, the percentage changes (it can be above 100). It can also be changed by active rumors/witnessed events -- if somebody was brazen enough to start a conflict with the occupier, it goes down by 1%, and kill-rumors of entity soldiers drop it by 5%. If there's still a rumor of an insurrection that was crushed, strength is stuck at 100% until it is forgotten. If perceived strength ever drops below 50%, an insurrection can begin, randomly. So the odd thing is that it doesn't consider raw numbers or actual outcomes at all. There's a lot of work to do.I'm not sure how moods will change going forward. The new magic system stuff is likely to have an impact on them, though I'd suspect more on the properties of existing items than some new product... although the generated magic systems do have some procedures that can be followed to make certain new objects. Hard to say what'll go in until I get there.I don't have a timeline for changing the particulars of combat or doing regeneration.That sounds like a bug. They should have lost all of their connections when they got husked, but apparently they still maintain attachments.Having every NPC act properly is an overall goal, but it's a difficult problem.Updating bandit ambushes was in our list of things to do in the shorter term to make adventure mode better, but we only get through a portion of that list in these releases. Somehow that ended up with adventurer-created sites this time. Kobolds aren't supposed to be able to talk in a meaningful way to other kobolds, but they should talk more as a general behavior.I'm really not sure how it is going to work out at this point, since it is a difficult problem to leave enough evidence around when crimes may or may not be happening at any time, just in terms of memory/cpu considerations (just look at the existing hf spatter, taken as "transfer evidence", and how that gums up the works -- all of our rumor systems etc. are the same, we'd need more systems, then it would need to be fed into some sort of analysis etc etc). So we'll probably end up winging it with our adv mode criminal stuff, and then see how that goes back to impact fortress mode. We do have a lot of data sitting around already, and people do make some of their decisions based on witnessed incidents and rumors already, so maybe we'll glide into something kinda okay where the game can make a credible approximation as to who it thinks would be responsible for some crime or another.That was the hope, but it's difficult to find a format for that, especially for the text parts.We were hoping to do it with the original release of the two-poled worlds, but there was some just-annoying-enough hurdle or time-consuming rewrite that got in the way. I suspect we'll overcome it the next time we are in the neighborhood.It's a popular enough suggestion, but I don't have a particular timeline for it. Handling the situation is in the quite large "simple suggestions" list that I chop away at every so often.A workshop rewrite and zone/etc. consolidation has been on the menu for years, but I don't have a timeline for it.Just logs. I'll handle new materials as their production is added.Hard to say without looking at it... feels buggish? People can travel for competitions, but it's odd that the Baroness isn't living in the right spot and still does pit murders (which are a local matter).It'd be preferable if all those things could be customized, but it's a very large list now (including every hard-coded item, etc). I'm not sure how any changes will unfold.It's much more likely to happen when we get to the deep dwarf trade from the edge of the underground layers (probably with the firstish embark scenario release). We're certainly planning to have a cavern start scenario, though it is very hard to say now what will be in the first batch since there are so many options.I generally go by the saves I receive these days for general optimization, since they are always farther along than I ever get. New features I just test as much as I am able, so there's sometimes a bad period in between when their true lag potential is discovered and my getting around to hearing about it and cleaning it up. Some issues with low FPS in advanced forts are more intractable, where it involves large numbers of items, say, or temperature calculations. Others like locked pet doors or whatever are just waiting for me to remove that feature entirely.There are group morale calculations already, but it's all sort of rough and broken in various ways.I don't have a problem with moving more constants to the init file, though there's a logjam of requests like this.Yeah, there's a cap for technical reasons. It could probably afford to be smeared out or softened up, but at the same time, world gen will fall apart if everybody that can write is allowed to churn out historically-tracked books.There are already functional effects, and blood I think, but like, a proper splat? I suppose that could happen, but I don't have particular plans.Yeah, that'll be changed. Right now, the way things are overall, we aren't in a rush to fix it, but eventually it'll be handled.It isn't in the short-term dev plans, so it's in the amorphous rest-of-stuff with everything else.Easier local navigation of worldgen forts is on the short list of adv-quality-of-life issues that we've been working on. Sometimes the hallway to the staircase is in a really terrible out of the way location, and life would be easier if it were at least incorporated into the main wide halls.We're not going to do any of that this time -- smaller NPC sites are still a concern overall in terms of how many there should be and if I need to take any storage shortcuts.Your sites are treated like camps right now. I don't know that anything interesting happens with camps, but that'll slowly merge with village halls over time I suspect as the bandit/village-leader roles get closer together.Scamps is enjoying that it is hot enough that I'm not wearing long sleeves today. There is more exposed flesh to tear in ambush.I don't think it cares, but you'll have to haul your own wood there to actually create a wall or floor. That could be annoying for mountain or beach sites. You'd also have to locally travel to the mountain site each time with new wood if it's isolated in the middle of a range.There are too many differences to easily list, really. There is so much more information after world generation, especially with locations/armies. The war counts are interesting though. Is there a corresponding large amount of peace declarations? The whole rhythm just seems different, and broken. I'll have to look into it.They don't have larger cultural-identity-linked populations, so it wouldn't happen.I haven't really thought about how high-level skills are going to evolve. It seems like the new knowledge system is going to get shot all through that stuff, and I'm not sure how the simple numeric skills will react or even survive it.I don't get the second question.We just need more grist for the mill to get even basic "remote temple" or "clan mining operation" scenarios in place properly. I don't think discrimination is necessarily implicit in expanding the framework, depending on what you mean, though I'm not sure which way it'll go.Yeah, or whether there are even nobles at all, or which ones, or whatever. We want to blow it all up and make it better.That masterwork bug is a new introduction, and I fixed some of the unretire problems with others left over (partially dependent on save version). The economy stuff necessary for a good rewrite is far enough away that I expect there will be more bug fixes in the shorter term for this stuff. |
making another move toward returning in time for the Cardinals’ Sept. 8 regular-season opener. That Mathieu will play in that game is far from certain, but he is hopeful.
“I am just waiting for that moment when I really get tested and I will know for sure if I am the same player,” Mathieu said.
Matheiu and defensive tackle Alameda Ta’amu, both removed from the physically-unable-to-perform list Tuesday, were both limited to brief drills. Coach Bruce Arians said that would be the course of action “for a day or two” and the Cardinals will judge each daily to when they are able to up their workload.
Both Mathieu and Ta’amu, who tore his ACL three weeks after Mathieu did, have been aiming for the season opener.
“It’s up to them, and we’ll see how the progress is,” Arians said. “They’ve amazed me to get to this point. I’d be amazed if they were playing on Monday night.”
"It felt like I'm back in football mode," Ta'amu said.
Mathieu is back sooner than the Cardinals had counted on him being back. He will wear a brace on his left knee (much to his chagrin) although he said he has already grown comfortable with the new piece of equipment.
He insisted he won’t rush the process. The Cardinals won’t rush him either, although a Mathieu at full strength makes a big difference to the defense.
“He brings a different game-changing player,” Arians said. “He’s a game-changer. That’s what you look for in practice, is he getting his hands on balls, tipping balls, intercepting balls? And (you watch) the speed with what he’s playing.”
Mathieu said he has sought advice. Wide receiver Michael Floyd, who had been working with Mathieu outside of practice when Floyd was sidelined with his bad groin, told Mathieu he looked good running last week.
Mathieu also talked to linebacker Desmond Bishop, who also suffered an ACL injury last season and told Mathieu once he got past the initial rust “it was all downhill from there.”
“The other part is not feeling sorry for myself,” Mathieu said. “There will be days when I am sore, in the middle of a game where I’ll be sore I’ll get tight, but I have to push through it. I think it’s all about what I tell myself. I want to keep positive thoughts in my mind and not drown it with negativity.”
PRACTICE-SQUAD CHANGES WON’T IMPACT QBS |
The headband Muse helps with meditation. (Photo11: Mike Feibus, Special for USA TODAY)
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — As I sit here writing these words, I’m calm. Focused. Almost serene.
It’s a stark contrast from my usual pacing, stressing, nail-biting process. This is anything but business as usual.
So what’s different? I’ve been trying out a trio of feel-good wearables: electronic devices designed to stimulate brain activity and promote the production of neurotransmitters — dopamine, serotonin oxytocin and endorphins — to elicit feelings of accomplishment, serenity and focus. And if what I experienced is any indication, at least two of the alternatives do help. A lot.
The three devices employ dramatically different technologies in the pursuit of happiness. But they have this in common: they are all part of a new breed of wearables designed to help us be happier and perform better. Oh yeah, and none of them track activity or monitor heart rate.
I encountered the three devices in the vast halls of CES in Las Vegas earlier this month. And one way or another, I got to spend time with each in the comfort of my own home.
The first one I tried is a meditation aid called Muse ($299, choosemuse.com). Muse is a horseshoe-shaped, head-worn device with a companion smartphone app. The device stretches snugly across your forehead and hooks in behind your ears to monitor brain activity. The app, meanwhile, takes you through a meditation session accompanied by calming nature sounds, like the ocean lapping the shore. And when the device senses too much brain activity, the gusting winds gently alert you to refocus.
The calmer the session, the more points you earn. The app also rewards you for regular meditation sessions. At first, it struck me as ironic that Muse has blended elements of competition and achievement with such an introspective activity like meditation. But it makes perfect sense: what better way to pull Type A personalities into the decidedly Type B world of meditation than by keeping score. (I rocked my last session, by the way! Woohoo!)
Whatever the rationale, I can’t argue with the result. After I tried it at CES, I ordered one for myself. It’s worked. I’m calmer — somewhat calmer. But most important, I’m motivated to make time for my next session. So I’m building on previous sessions. And scoring more points than you’ll ever hope to get. Ha!
Mike Feibus uses the meditation app Nervana. (Photo11: Mike Feibus, Special for USA TODAY)
The next device I tried is called Nervana, from a Boca Raton, Fla., start-up with the same name. I tried it on the CES show floor, and the resulting calm and focus that washed over me was profound. The feeling was intensely serene. I realize that sounds as odd as competitive meditation. But that’s how it felt.
The card-deck-sized device sits between your smartphone and Nervana-supplied earbuds. The music from your phone streams through the device. The left earbud also delivers pulses that tap a nerve connected to your brain’s pleasure center. The nerve, in turn, stimulates production of feel-good neurotransmitters.
It’s called the vagus nerve — ironic, given CES as the backdrop — and it winds through the body, impacting many different systems before stretching back up into the brain’s pleasure center. The nerve’s ability to positively, and safely, impact mental health has been well documented. For nearly 20 years, physicians have been implanting pacemaker-like devices in the chest that stimulate the vagus nerve to help curb epileptic seizures. More recently, the implantable devices have been used to treat severe depression in cases where traditional alternatives have failed.
Using a specially designed pulse paired with the music, Nervana is able to make the desired impact on the vagus nerve without the need for surgery. The mood enhancement was much more dramatic than from Muse. But it didn’t last nearly as long.
It feels a little like cheating, but the best thing about Nervana is that you don’t need to carve out quiet time to benefit. I was surprised to find Back in Black from AC/DC and Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion on the playlist. I soon found it didn’t matter what music I played, or what I was doing. It worked just as well.
Nervana (http://experiencenervana.com) will go on sale soon, with delivery promised by summer. It will set you back $299.
The third device is called Go Flow from foc.us. The company was one of the early providers of a controversial technology called transcranial direct-current stimulation, or tDCS. Foc.us has been, uh, focusing on the gaming market, promising yet another way for hard-core gamers to get an edge on their shoot-‘em-up competitors.
At the last minute, Foc.us decided to show up to CES because the first shipment of Go Flow devices arrived from the manufacturer. So they occupied a mostly bare booth, with little more than a Go Flow poster and briefcases full of devices.
Foc.us gave me an unpackaged device. So far, all Go Flow has done is given me a headache and slight burn marks on my forehead.
But I may not be placing the pads correctly. Go Flow didn’t give me any directions. And they didn’t respond to emails. So I had to figure it out by watching YouTube videos.
You can buy a Go Flow (foc.us) for just $9.99 — $29.99 with a 9V battery, cables and pads. And maybe even instructions.
Clearly, the Go Flow device wasn’t my favorite. But I’m hard-pressed to choose between Muse and Nervana. I feel like Muse is designed more in the image of the ideal. But the impact of Nervana on focus and serenity is hard to ignore.
I’m going to sleep on it. But first I’ll log some quality meditation minutes. And rack up some more points. Catch me if you can!
Follow USA TODAY technology columnist Mike Feibus @mikefeibus
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1T1DILr |
With Liverpool’s tour of Asia now at an end and the squad back in Merseyside, Philippe Coutinho will be feeling adequately warmed up for the 2013/14 season after continuing the impressive form he has consistently displayed since his arrival at Anfield in January. However, he hasn’t stopped at simply emulating last season’s form. Some of his displays in the last three weeks have been nothing short of a masterclass. This led to Brendan Rodgers claiming he would pay to watch the Brazilian, who gets him ‘off his seat’ with his class on the ball, and there is now a lot of evidence to suggest that his potential may stretch well beyond Liverpool fans’ wildest dreams.
With three goals this pre-season, the pick of the bunch was hands down this finish against Thailand in which Coutinho jinked and shuffled through an entire defence before stroking the ball home. I could watch it 100 times. This article will attempt to give a detailed run down of the many qualities Coutinho possesses in different areas of the pitch, in and out of possession, which separate him from the typical wide player or attacking central midfielder. Also, without turning this into too much of a statistical comparison article, I will try to make a few necessary references to some players of his calibre at other EPL clubs (Cazorla at Arsenal, Mata at Chelsea and David Silva at Man City).
Technical and Tactical Qualities
Much has been said about the specific ‘player types’ that Brendan Rodgers is looking for in order to build his desired team, and the crucial requirements for the players he brings in tend to revolve around speed, technical ability, work rate, and tactical discipline and awareness. Coutinho is a player who has all of these attributes in abundance, and it is extremely rare to be able to say that. So many modern players can play with skill and finesse, but lack the work rate or the tactical knowledge of how and when to use their abilities to their advantage. So many players can spot an ‘eye of the needle’ pass also; they just simply don’t have it in the locker to make it happen, let alone on a regular basis.
Coutinho’s creativity is therefore a massive asset. We saw throughout last season how frequently he was able to carve out opportunities for his team mates out of ‘nothing.’ This is evident in his clear-cut chance statistics, in which he created one every 103.6 minutes. To put this into perspective, Santi Cazorla created one every 220.5 minutes, 196 for Juan Mata and every 193.9 minutes for David Silva. It is important to consider Coutinho has only played 932 minutes since his arrival, which is around 3 times less than his competitors. If he is able to maintain those sort of statistics next season, however, it is scary to think that he could be twice as effective in this area as the best attacking midfielders in the league. An even more intriguing factor to consider is that these 932 minutes include his ‘settling in’ period of adjustment to arguably the fastest league in the world. Is it possible that these creative statistics could exceed their current levels now he has adapted?
From this video of Coutinho’s most recent performance against Thailand, it is easy to see how his confidence has grown. From a technical perspective ‘disguise’ is perhaps Coutinho’s greatest technical weapon. It is incredible sometimes how effective he is at deceiving his opposition, either by deft touches, dropping his shoulder, shifting his hips or manipulating the ball with any part of his foot so easily. It allows him to drift past players, or drag his marker into an awful position where he has a calmness as the ball arrives to him, followed by the awareness to play and spin round them leaving them exposed. This excellent tactical video analysis of Liverpool’s 6-0 win over Newcastle by UEFA A licensed coach Michael Jolley (@michaeljolley07 on Twitter) is a must watch for a deeper insight into the function of Liverpool’s 4-3-3, and there is a particular focus on the role of Coutinho within this analysis.
Narrow as an Inside Left
What you may notice from watching Coutinho is that when starting on the left, he plays an extremely deep and narrow role. There have been a few grumbles from some Liverpool fans who prefer Coutinho being played through the middle, where he is undeniably dangerous and creative from all areas of the pitch. However, it does make sense for Brendan Rodgers to occasionally employ him on the left hand side for this reason:
[quote]
We play with three midfielders most weeks and he gives us that fourth man because he jumps inside, and in this modern game it’s a lot about superiority centrally, and he’s got the feet and the technique to go inside and deal with that.
Brendan Rodgers
[/quote]
In games where Liverpool can expect to dominate the midfield, Coutinho adds another dimension by coming in off the left. It allows Jose Enrique more space to move into and disrupts the organisation of the opposition’s defence, leaving the full back undecided, while it also effectively gives Liverpool a second attacking central midfielder.
Here is an example of how deep and narrow Coutinho was coming during the Thailand game in order to get on the ball, playing a pass to Kolo Toure near the centre circle before moving on to look for space higher up the pitch. However, this does not mean that Coutinho neglects the left wing. He is very disciplined tactically and the image shows his work ethic and determination to chase down the ball, and following this he shows his awareness to drop back into his natural wider position so the team can organise their defensive shape.
Deep as an ACM
What is interesting about Coutinho is that when he starts in the attacking central position, he tends to drop into extremely deep positions in order to get on the ball. He can pull strings from these positions, and then seconds later he can drift into the ‘pockets’ of space highlighted in the tactics board above. You can also see an example of this below from the final game of last season, in which there is a visible absence of Coutinho from the area between the lines. Sturridge always does well to maintain a high position on his centre backs to stretch play and maintain this channel of space, and if you look just to the right of the box you can see it then allows for the wide forward to move into the channel undetected and Coutinho to pick him out and progress forwards.
Passing Accuracy – Why So Low?
An interesting statistic for Coutinho last season was his surprisingly low pass completion rate, which averaged just 74% (Mata 85%, Cazorla 87%, Silva 85%). However, when watching him play, there are clues as to why this is. On top of his regular misplaced passes which tend to happen to all players, the statistic is compounded by the fact he has simply no fear of trying difficult forward passes. To put this into perspective, he played 35% of his passes forwards last season – Mata only played 28%, Cazorla 29%, but Silva 36%. With David Silva playing a higher percentage of passes forwards, and keeping his accuracy 11% higher, it would seem that there has been a combination of two things happening. The first is there being slightly more risk to Coutinho’s passes. He attempts to break the ‘lines’ very often and is not scared to attempt a through ball if he sees it (not that this is a weakness for any of the players in question). The second thing is simply adjusting to the Premier League: Coutinho had very low pass completions for his first few games, then raised them to above 80% for his final three games of last season, suggesting that he is now adapting to the pace and style of the league. This is allowing him to complete more of his passes.
So to conclude, statistical polishing aside, it looks to be a very exciting season for Liverpool fans to be able to observe the development of Coutinho. He has only turned 21 recently and surely has many more years to grow into something far greater than the fantastic player he already is. I may divide opinions with the suggestion that he already looks to be a better player than Luis Suarez, but quite frankly it’s a joke how good he can go on to be, and anyone who cares for the technical and tactical subtleties of the game may be inclined to agree that he is certainly lining himself up to be one of, if not the best young players in the Premier League. |
Pick your moment to talk. There are all sorts of reasons people stop having sex – stress, illness, worry about performing, low libido, age, menopause and lack of body confidence. It’s easy to let your sex life drift, but bringing up the subject is difficult so try to pick the right moment when you’re both relaxed and unlikely to be interrupted. But not in bed and especially not while trying to persuade your partner to have sex or feeling angry or frustrated because they’re not interested.
Pick your moment to listen. Do your best not to take it personally. Don’t assume they no longer fancy you or put words in their mouth. It can be hard enough to talk about without extra needless emotional layers being added so listen to what is being said and how the situation makes your partner feel. It really isn’t about you being a bit plump or growing older or not taking pride in your appearance.
Are you in a sexless marriage? Share your story Read more
Be honest with yourself and each other. Have you both stopped making an effort, do you take each other for granted and think nothing of rolling into bed in a grubby T-shirt without even brushing your teeth? No one’s suggesting you should aim for supermodel or totally buffed body status, but if you don’t love yourself enough to have a little pride in your appearance, it’s not going to be that easy for other people to love you too. You might feel rather shallow admitting that the extra two stone or constant farting in bed isn’t exactly what you signed up for, but you can do that tactfully, especially if admitting areas where you are also no longer quite the person they fell for.
Decide whether sex is a deal-breaker for either of you. Would you be willing to sacrifice sex for the “other stuff”? Some people are perfectly happy having no sex in their marriage and Relate’s research shows that the importance people place on sex decreases with age. Often intimacy is what’s most important, but if it’s not enough, say so.
Be patient. If sex is a deal-breaker, it’s important for the “keen” partner to be patient while the two of you unpack what is causing the block. This is also not the best time to suggest an open relationship as a possible solution.
Seek help together. Sex therapy can help you with working out what the underlying problem is and can also give you a sense that you’re sorting this out together. At the beginning of a relationship, sex can feel so easy, natural and exciting that it can feel a little sad that you might have to work at it, but the results can be well worth it.
Kindness is sexy. Go out together, have fun, make time for each other. When both parties feel truly heard and understood, often intimacy increases along with the desire to have sex.
Ban sex. Many therapists often suggest that couples in sexless relationships start by taking the pressure off sex entirely. This may sound counterintuitive but creating a temporary ban can stop feelings of anxiety about needing to perform, making relaxation more likely.
Small steps. Reintroduce intimacy slowly – start with something as small as holding hands or giving your partner a peck on the cheek before you head off to work. You can then build up to massages, cuddling, lingering kissing and intimate touching and oral sex, but keeping full sexual intercourse off the table until you both feel like you want to do it. The idea behind this is that it allows you to rediscover one another’s sensual sides and increase desire in a pressure-free environment. It’s important that you regularly discuss how you’re both feeling and don’t push your partner to go further than they are comfortable with.
Drink is not the answer. True, but a relaxing dinner and an easy chat over a couple of glasses has led to other things since time began.
You’re not alone. Research by Relate, Marriage Care and Relationships Scotland found that fewer than half of UK adults say they are satisfied with their sex life (45%) and 51% say they have not had sex in the past month.
With thanks to Relate, Marriage Care and Relationships Scotland |
Seven of the 11 Formula 1 teams are struggling financially to the extent that they are in "survival" mode, says McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh.
Whitmarsh, who is also chairman of the Formula 1 Teams' Association that represents the majority of the sport's competitors, said: "It's tough.
"We're in the world of advertising and you only have to see how advertising is worldwide. The rate card is down.
"We have taken some measures, but I think it's going to be tough for some."
Whitmarsh reckons several teams will find it hard to "have a viable business model for a few years", while his opposite number at Caterham, Cyril Abiteboul, thinks world champions Red Bull are doing well financially but "everyone else is suffering".
Analysis "The fundamental causes of the problem are both simple and complex. "On the simplistic front, the world is still battling with the economic problems caused by the banking crisis of 2008, and F1 is not immune. "The complicated bit: for many years the teams have been battling to get a bigger share of F1's income, which in 2011 was about £963m ($1.5bn). "There is resentment at how much money F1's commercial rights holder, the venture capital group CVC, is taking out of the sport." Read more
Whitmarsh says much of the present problem is a hangover from the 2008 global financial crisis. Advertising and sponsorship contracts signed before the crash have come to an end. New backers are thin on the ground, while existing ones are not willing to pay top dollar for the privilege of continuing.
Formula 1 operates under a Resource Restriction Agreement that limits staffing levels, how much research and development teams can do and the amount they can spend on external suppliers.
But that did not prevent Spanish team HRT from closing its doors at the end of last season. Others are known to be struggling, too.
Ahead of this campaign, which starts in Australia on 17 March, Caterham and Marussia have had to drop well-regarded drivers who were earning salaries in favour of those who can bring sponsorship.
Whitmarsh says one of the problems is that teams do not receive a big enough share of the sport's total income from the commercial rights holder, the venture capital group CVC, which employs Bernie Ecclestone to run the F1 business.
F1's income was about £963m ($1.5bn) in 2011, the last year for which figures were published.
That compares with the £2.6bn ($4bn) generated annually by the NFL and the £1bn ($1.6bn) the English Premier League will earn each year from next season from UK TV rights alone.
Under the previous contract between the F1 teams, CVC and governing body the FIA, teams shared 47% of the sport's income. This contract, known as the Concorde Agreement, lapsed at the end of 2012.
Under the new deal, which has yet to be signed, reports suggest teams will receive as much as 63% of revenue.
In addition all teams have concluded new private commercial contracts with CVC, the details of which have not been made public.
Champion constructors 2012: Red Bull 2011: Red Bull 2010: Red Bull 2009: Brawn 2008: Ferrari
"Bernie has done a fantastic job for the owners," added Whitmarsh. "We can criticise him but he's doing a better job than we are. He's keeping the money on behalf of his employers.
"That money whistles out of the sport and that's deeply frustrating for some of us in the sport but that's exactly what he should be trying to do.
"If the teams aren't cohesive enough to work together to secure a larger share of that, then they have to blame themselves."
A sports marketing expert with knowledge of F1, who did not want to be named, said: "I am not sure if seven teams are at risk but I guess at least half a dozen are likely to be not self-sufficient under the current structure.
"The business environment is tough everywhere, not just in F1.
"Looking at F1, the acid test should be whether the team is sustainable without support from a shareholder, who are often also sponsors.
"If the answer is 'yes', then the business is healthy. If not, then teams will still probably survive but not because they are self-sufficient but only because the owners keep them going. If their parent company switched off the tap, then they would not survive." |
Rob Verhorst/Redferns
Depressive realism is the psychological theory that depressed people just perceive the world more accurately than optimists. Leonard Cohen was one of the great skeptics, a strong tradition in his inherited faith of Judaism and his adopted one of Zen Buddhism. Born into an upper-middle-class Jewish-Canadian family in Montreal in 1934, he was privileged enough to lead a romantic artist’s life, but he spent his life questioning social orders and advantages. He was particularly fixated on unequal power dynamics — in sex, love, politics, and religion — and the ways they’re intrinsically intertwined. Cohen died last Monday, but the news of his passing wasn’t circulated until Thursday, a day when many people were already in a state of despair and mourning.
When I heard Leonard Cohen had died, I wrote my friend Amir, who wrote back “just one kick in the dick after another,” summing up 2016. Amir and I had been roommates in our early twenties, sharing a shitty apartment, both of us deeply depressed and miserable. I feel a weird tenderness now for that terrible time. Every night we sat in our separate rooms with our doors closed, and through the thin wall I listened to Amir listen to Leonard Cohen albums. That era of my young life was the last time I could remember feeling as bad and helpless as I’ve been feeling since Tuesday. I asked Amir what he remembered about that time in our lives and he said, “I find it easy to say now, but, I felt responsible for my misery.” Finding the humor in misery was Leonard Cohen’s forte.
Cohen’s songs preach about the pleasure in sadness and the underlying sadness of all pleasure. He located firmly in the reality of the everlasting present. Cohen was a perpetual seeker of wisdom who explored all the major religions and some fringe ones, including Scientology, because he’d heard it was a good place to meet women. Cohen delighted in ritual, bringing his love of religious mysticism and ceremony into his lyrics, and often into the bedroom. Cohen’s God was the Old Testament God — vengeful, irrational, His benevolence unpredictable. Cohen fixated on martyrs and often compared the act of love to one of martyrdom. His earliest and biggest influence was the poet Federico García Lorca, who was murdered, most likely by the right-wing nationalist militia during the Spanish Civil War.
Cohen wrote more than one song about the biblical story of Isaac and Abraham — the ancient patriarch’s agreement to sacrifice his child, and then God’s surprise pullback at the end. The specter of the Holocaust, too, hangs over much of his work, unbearable proof of the evils human beings are capable of. His 1984 song “Dance Me to the End of Love” — a song that has gained popularity as a first dance at weddings — was in part inspired by Cohen’s reading about “camp orchestras” at concentration camps like Birkenau, where Jewish prisoners were forced to play music as new arrivals were selected by the SS for either the camp or the crematorium.
Every post–World War II Jew, no matter how far removed they become from the culture or institution of Judaism, feels lucky to have been born any time and place other than there and then. You arrive on Earth having already escaped, burdened with survivor’s guilt. No musician captured this dynamic better than Cohen — somewhere in the back of every memory palace he waltzed through was a trace of that intergenerational trauma. This week, for many Cohen fans, the fear is coming back to the surface. When Trump picks as his chief White House strategist a white nationalist who doesn’t like Jews, we know it’s already far past the time not to freak out. As Cohen sang in 1974, “Let’s all get nervous.” I keep thinking about how my Jewish grandparents, who had loved being German, learned to feel about Germany. We’ve been told throughout this election that Hitler comparisons are absurd and exaggerated, but when I read about identity cards that must be produced on demand, it doesn’t feel far off at all. Cohen wrote about the way people can idly stand by while injustices take hold in the rightfully paranoid “A Singer Must Die”: “It’s their way to detain, their ways to disgrace / Their knee in your balls and their fist in your face / Yes, and long live the state by whoever it’s made / Sir, I didn’t see nothing, I was just getting home late.” Many of his songs have a lounge-cabaret quality that makes me think of Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill in the last days of the Weimar Republic, or Marlene Dietrich doing “Lili Marlene” in 1943. Was his whole adult life just a prelude to another era of catastrophe?
The beauty and infallibility of Cohen’s counsel is that it was hopeful and fatalistic in equal measure. The title track on 1992’s The Future describes a dystopian societal breakdown, where Cohen’s narrator ends up longing for the known quantities of past horrors as the grim new one is revealed: “Give me back the Berlin Wall / Give me Stalin and St. Paul / I’ve seen the future, brother, it is murder.” Listening this past week, it felt weirdly comforting to hear someone say what I really felt as “What if?” ebbed into “We’re totally fucked.” Cohen’s predictions felt like they were speaking directly to the nightmare of the last few months, culminating in the derealized feeling we all had on election night: “There’ll be the breaking of the ancient Western code / Your private life will suddenly explode / There’ll be phantoms / There’ll be fires on the road / And the white man dancing.” In the face of rising hate, he was fatalistic: “Things are going to slide in all directions / Won’t be nothing / Nothing you can measure anymore / The blizzard / The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold / And it has overturned the order of the soul.”
Cohen stintingly lived in Los Angeles for decades, and took inspiration from the city, its sounds and its people. On 1979’s Recent Songs, he employed L.A.’s Armenian oud master, John Bilezikjian, and a mariachi band he’d heard playing at El Compadre, a Mexican restaurant. The mariachi band on “The Lost Canadian (Un Canadien Errant)” made for a melding of parallel forms — the Québécois tradition of chansonniers, poetic singer-songwriters, and Mexican corridos, story ballads. He was a champion of folk instruments — his early records heavily feature the jaw harp, also known as a Jew’s harp, a fundamental element of French-Canadian folk. The jaw harp adds a touch of humor to some of Cohen’s most otherwise plaintive songs, “Bird on the Wire” and “Last Year’s Man.”
Everything Cohen sang strikes a pang of current feeling. “Of course I was very young / And I thought that we were winning / I can’t pretend I still feel very much like singing, as they carry the bodies away,” he told us in 1969 on “The Old Revolution.” Ultimately, he gives the only advice that currently makes any sense, which is to exist one moment at a time and attempt to connect with your fellow human beings. “There is a war between the rich and poor / A war between the man and the woman / There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn’t,” he sang on “There Is a War,” echoing a thought I’d been having repeatedly about the way racists gaslight everyone else with their belief that racism doesn’t exist, and how American culture mirrors this effect. Cohen collapsed the space between us, and picked it apart just as well. His work dwells in the contradictions of society and its deep hypocrisy, forever resisting a simple view of humanity.
Like other poetic songwriters in the late 1960s, he saw music as a bigger platform for his ideas. Novels and poetry were not paying the bills, even for his always modest lifestyle, and so Cohen turned to songwriting in his thirties. But while folk music was his natural setting, he was never exactly, or only, a folk singer. He eventually went west to Los Angeles, and in 1977 he went through yet another timeworn ritual — that of being a famous musician whom Phil Spector threatens to shoot dead — while they recorded Cohen’s panned at the time, but later cult favorite, Death of a Ladies’ Man. With 1988’s I’m Your Man, he added synths to heighten the sense of the surreal. His final trio of albums, ending with last month’s You Want It Darker, went further into a genre of his own, neither hymn nor folk nor pop but somewhere between all three.
Cohen followed his own muses, away from trends and even further into his own sacred vocabulary. His love (and lust) songs delight in the pleasurable masochism of wanting and the sometimes ambivalent state of having: “So the great affair is over, but whoever would have guessed / It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed,” he observed on his sloshed opus “Death of a Ladies’ Man.” He confronted mind-body dualism literally, by playing the needs of one against the desires of the other. As he got older, his voice got huskier and implausibly somehow even more seductive. In a 2006 poem he admitted, “My reputation as a ladies’ man was a joke / That caused me to laugh bitterly / Through the ten thousand nights / I spent alone.” That lyrical “bitter laugh” is Cohen’s carte de visite.
About four months ago, my brother discovered that Cohen lived down the street from him. It was revealed in David Remnick’s October New Yorker profile that the great songwriter was living on the second floor of a humble L.A. duplex he shared with his daughter and grandchildren, and had recorded what would turn out to be his final album there in a home studio. My brother had seen Cohen in front of his house one day and recognized him instantly. He texted our family — my parents are huge fans. It was as if he had discovered that God was living on his street. Cohen was obviously living a modest lifestyle by choice, as he had always done at every point of his career. His monastic nature was evident long before he took several years in the 1990s to live at a Zen Buddhist monastery on Southern California’s Mt. Baldy. My brother never bothered him. That seemed rude. But he drove past his house all the time and would occasionally see Cohen, always wearing his signature hat, sometimes sitting out on the front lawn on a lawn chair, just as he is depicted on the cover of 2012’s Old Ideas. This too seemed impossible: God sitting on a lawn chair in the endless Los Angeles heat wave, like any of us.
Cohen’s work dealt with earthliness and mortality, seeking the wormholes we have available to the language of the divine, the substances legal, illegal, and neurochemical. “Oh, bless the continuous stutter of the word being made into flesh,” he sang on 1979’s “The Window.” In aiming to describe the incommunicable, he got as close as anyone can. He was told he’d been descended from a line of Jewish priests, and he set out to write a new kind of sermon, songs that are themselves a connective portal to all that is holy. Evil exists in a symbiotic relationship with good — “even damnation is poisoned with rainbows,” he sings on “The Old Revolution,” on a positive note. Even the darkness, whether depression or the ominous cloud over our never not fucked-up country, can crack.
When the news of Cohen’s death broke right after the election, the title of You Want It Darker became his final punch line. At first I thought, I REALLY DO NOT WANT IT ANY DARKER RIGHT NOW, NONE MORE DARK. When my brother found out his neighbor had passed on, he reacted with the disbelief one feels when anyone dies whom you’ve recently seen. My brother had seen him as he walked his dog last week. In the days after Cohen’s death, I’ve had different lines resurfacing in my brain like directives. Maybe: “Through the days of shame that are coming, through the nights of wild distress / Though your promise count for nothing, you must keep it nonetheless.” Or: “There is no decent place to stand in a massacre.” In the midst of chaos and fear, his work is a transcendental advice line you can always call. |
BEIJING -- With the governor of the People's Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan, set to step down by March after 14 years, a likely successor has emerged in the person of Jiang Chaoliang, party secretary of Hubei Province.
Whether Jiang ascends to the post will say a great deal about what is happening at the highest ranks of China's power structure, i.e. what happens to Wang Qishan, China's second-most powerful man, anti-corruption czar and President Xi Jinping's right-hand man.
Zhou has served as governor of the PBOC since December 2002, being reappointed in March 2013. This has made him the longest-serving central bank chief since the PBOC was established in 1948, and one of the most influential economic figures in the world.
In June, Chinese social media began mentioning Jiang as possible front-runner as Zhou's successor. It is not uncommon in China, where the media are strictly controlled, for information on the country's top leadership jobs to be leaked to social media before appearing in the mainstream media.
Market attention is focused on the relationship the new governor will have with Xi, and to how much latitude Xi will give the governor to do his job.
Choosing Zhou's successor is also being closely watched outside the financial sector, as the choice could rest on the fate of Wang Qishan, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the country's main anti-corruption body.
Wang, 69, has spearheaded President Xi's signature anti-corruption campaign. Whether he is forced into retirement or he is allowed to stay beyond the usual retirement age of 68 may be the most-watched topic at the coming Communist Party convention starting Oct. 18.
Jiang, the leading candidate for PBOC governor, has a long history of working with Wang.
He started out as a banker at state-owned Agricultural Bank of China three decades ago. Among the highlights of his extensive career is the liquidation of Guangdong International Trust and Investment, a nonbank financial institution that went bankrupt in 1998 in the wake of the Asian currency crisis.
Wang Qishan, the vice governor of Guangdong Province at the time, headed the process and as branch governor of the PBOC in Guangdong, Jiang was part of a "Gang of Five" under Wang that ran the show.
The scale of the 1998 bankruptcy was unprecedented in China. The case played an important role in preventing the currency crisis from spreading to China's financial system. Jiang earned Wang's confidence with his bold and steady performance, becoming his top aide both in name and effect.
Later, in 2005, when Jiang was chairman of the Bank of Communications, it became China's first major bank to list its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
After returning to serve as head of the ABC, Jiang became governor of Jilin Province in 2014. He became party secretary of Hubei Province last October.
Adding credibility to the speculation that Jiang is next in line for the top PBOC job, the name of his potential successor as party secretary of Hubei Province has also been leaked, as was that of the potential new chief of the Hubei customs office.
Hearing that Jiang may be the leading candidate for the PBOC's top job, one banking analyst at a major Chinese brokerage said it was surprising, but plausible.
Since the beginning of this year, President Xi has tightened control of China's financial sector, raising interest rates in the short-term money market, tightening banks' credit and detaining some well-known investors.
Xi has repeatedly said financial security is important to national security, and that financial-market distortions and housing bubbles are risks that could shake the country. To eliminate such risks, a further shakeup of the financial sector will likely be needed after the party convention. Jiang could be perfect for the job, given his experience overseeing liquidation procedures during the Asian currency crisis and learning about financial crises first-hand.
But is unclear how his close relationship with Wang will play out.
The relationship could work in Jiang's favor. But chatter in Beijing's financial markets is rife that Wang asked President Xi to pick Jiang as mayor of Beijing three times last year, but Xi became weary of Wang's pestering. Xi eventually chose Cai Qi, his longtime subordinate when Xi worked in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces.
That could just be noise, however, put out by people who want Wang to fall.
Many experts believe the relationship between Xi and Wang will be unshaken. If the Beijing story is true, Wang's retirement could reduce the possibility of Jiang becoming governor. If Wang remains, Jiang's chances are better.
Other contenders
Also on the list for the PBOC's top job are the chairmen of the country's banking and securities regulatory commissions.
Guo Shuqing, who became chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission in February after serving as governor of Shandong Province, has vast experience in financial administration, including heading the China Construction Bank and the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
Guo is known as a reformist, even in Japan, and has called for reform of the securities market as chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission. He studied in the U.K. and speaks fluent English.
Some credit Guo for proposing the June revision to the way the PBOC calculates the yuan's reference point set each morning, giving more discretion to the central bank. It helped stabilize the currency.
Among the other candidates's for the PBOC's top job are Liu Shiyu, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and PBOC Deputy Gov. Yi Gang.
Liu was among the first financial bureaucrats who supported and led Xi's hard line on murky stock trading. In February, he said the market would not allow "financial crocodiles to peel the skin and suck the blood" of retail investors.
An executive of an investment fund in Beijing said that while Liu is favored by the leadership, he is unpopular among private investors as his policies have not helped lift stock prices.
Yi has a good command of English and hands-on experience at the central bank. Some PBOC officials say Yi would be the easiest candidate to work with because he is expected to continue Zhou's policies.
But one government economist believes Yi is no longer on the list because he was in a foreign country for too long. From 1980 to 1994 he was in the U.S. as a student and a university professor
Zhou, who was once dubbed "Mr. Yuan," helped the PBOC raise its presence overseas by using his fluent English to speak in his own words.
Unlike the more independent central banks of Japan, Europe and the U.S., the PBOC is a unit of the State Council, part of the government. Raising interest rates therefore requires the State Council's approval. |
Diamond giant De Beers has shuttered its Snap Lake mine in the Northwest Territories, which was suffering due to low prices and unique technical challenges.
The move puts more than 400 people out of work, and is a major blow to the economy of the Northwest Territories. Snap Lake is one of the three pillars of the territory’s diamond mining industry, along with the Ekati and Diavik mines.
The sector accounted for more than 15 per cent of the NWT’s gross domestic product last year.
De Beers is currently building Gahcho Kue, which will be the territory’s fourth diamond mine. The company has already transferred 41 employees from Snap Lake to Gahcho Kue, and hopes to move dozens more in the months ahead. But the majority of the workforce, which numbered about 800 people, are losing their jobs.
Snap Lake had problems since it opened in 2008 and was never profitable. Unlike Ekati and Diavik, which began as open-pit mines and later moved underground, Snap Lake was underground from the start. Underground mines are generally higher-cost than open-pit mines, and overall costs in the North are far higher than they are in less remote jurisdictions. Snap Lake is more than 200 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.
The mine also presented some unique technical challenges. The ore body lies on a relatively steep decline, and the vein is hard to follow. De Beers also struggled with water management issues.
Ultimately, the company overcame a lot of the technical problems and felt it was finally getting on top of the deposit. But then rough diamond prices plunged more than 15 per cent this year due to oversupply and weakening demand in China. That more than offset the operating improvements.
“It looked like there was no chance for profitability — even with the current improvements — in the foreseeable future,” said Tom Ormsby, external and corporate affairs manager at De Beers Canada.
The mine is being put on so-called “care and maintenance” as opposed to being permanently closed. That means the property and equipment will be preserved, and De Beers can restart operations quite quickly if it chooses.
There is enough ore at Snap Lake to mine for another 13 years, but a restart would require a major turnaround in the diamond market.
For now, De Beers is focusing on Gahcho Kue. The company, which is controlled by Anglo American PLC, expects to bring Gahcho Kue into production in the second half of 2016. The project is jointly owned by De Beers and Canadian firm Mountain Province Diamonds Inc.
Financial Post
[email protected]
Twitter.com/peterkoven |
When publishing a JavaScript library, we usually want to make it available to as many people as possible to maximize the library’s usefulness and adoption. In that respect, it can be helpful to users to have the library available in their preferred module format - CommonJS, AMD, ES6, etc. This article shows how to use webpack to automatically export multiple formats without having to maintain them separately.
Maybe you know the situation: You would like to pull a helpful JavaScript library into your client-side project, but it consists entirely of CommonJS modules, and you cannot or do not want to add an additional translation step into your build process to make it browser-compatible. Depending on the project, it would be more convenient to access the library through a single global variable. Or maybe this project is using RequireJS, so we would like to pull in an AMD module.
If we switch the perspective now, and think as library authors, how can we provide several ways of using our library, without causing additional maintenance overhead? At trivago, we use webpack to help us with that, because it has this functionality basically built in - you just have to configure it accordingly.
webpack configuration
The key to exporting our library in multiple formats is the libraryTarget option in the output configuration section. The following code example configures webpack to output a “global variable” version of our library:
var config = { entry : './index.js' , output : { path : './dist/' , filename : 'ourLibrary.var.js' , library : 'OurLibrary' libraryTarget : 'var' }, // ...
The path and filename options determine where to generate the file. We use the library option to specify a variable name for the library in the export. In the example, the name is set to “OurLibrary”, which will result in output code like:
var OurLibrary = ...
Finally, the libraryTarget option specifies the type of export. Possible options are:
var : The module is exported by setting a variable, as just mentioned. This is the default setting.
: The module is exported by setting a variable, as just mentioned. This is the default setting. this : The module is exported by setting this["OurLibrary"] = ... .
: The module is exported by setting . commonjs : Export by setting exports["OurLibrary"] = ...
: Export by setting commonjs2 : Export by setting module.exports = ...
: Export by setting amd : Export as an AMD module.
: Export as an AMD module. umd : Export as a UMD module.
See the webpack documentation for more information.
Varying the build configuration
So let us say we want to export our library as a global variable ( var ), as a CommonJS module ( commonjs2 ), and as AMD and UMD modules ( amd and umd , respectively). We prefer commonjs2 to commonjs since its output is more practical to include. Since we have multiple build targets, we will need multiple webpack compiler runs (example from the webpack documentation). So, instead of exporting a single webpack configuration, we export an array of configurations:
module exports = [ createConfig ( 'var' ), createConfig ( 'commonjs2' ), createConfig ( 'amd' ), createConfig ( 'umd' ) ];
The createConfig function might look something like the following:
function createConfig ( target ) { return { entry : './index.js' , output : { path : './dist/' , filename : 'ourLibrary.' + target + '.js' , library : 'OurLibrary' , libraryTarget : target }, // ... }; }
The only difference to the first code snippet in the article (where we hard-coded var as the libraryTarget ) is that we now pass a variable to webpack’s libraryTarget option, and also use this variable to generate the target filename. We will get 4 output files from this configuration:
And that’s basically it. A developer using our library can now choose from multiple formats. If she wants our library as a global variable, she can pull the var file in:
< script src = "assets/js/ourLibrary.var.js" ></ script >
Somebody using CommonJS can access our code using require , provided that the environment is set up correctly:
var ourLib = require ( 'ourLibrary' );
Build time considerations
Now, some of you might say: “Ok, so I’m running webpack 4 times instead of just once, so I end up with a quadrupled build time, more or less. That’s not good.” And you’re right, the build time will increase. But: We can work around that by using parallel-webpack, which can distribute the compilation work to multiple processor cores.
First, we install parallel-webpack. On the command line, go to your project directory, and type:
npm install parallel-webpack --save-dev
Instead of creating the array to be exported manually, we will use the createVariants function of parallel-webpack:
var createVariants = require ( 'parallel-webpack' ). createVariants ; // ... // At the end of the file: module . exports = createVariants ({ target : [ 'var' , 'commonjs2' , 'umd' , 'amd' ] }, createConfig );
The createVariants function receives an object containing the options that vary from build to build, along with all the possible values. In our simple case, we have only one option, target , and its values are the four export formats.
The second parameter to createVariants is a callback function ( createConfig ) which will be called once for every generated parameter combination. At every invocation, the parameter combination is passed to createConfig as an options object. As our existing createConfig function is expecting the target format as a single string parameter, we have to adapt it slightly:
function createConfig ( options ) { return { entry : './index.js' , output : { path : './dist/' , filename : 'ourLibrary.' + options . target + '.js' , library : 'OurLibrary' , libraryTarget : options . target }, // ... }; }
That is already all. If we now run webpack to build our library, the individual builds will be distributed to separate CPU cores (if available) to make use of parallelism. For more information on parallel-webpack usage, see also out related tech blog article.
Conclusion
The number of relevant JavaScript module formats might decrease in future, with more projects ultimately switching to ES6 modules. However, for the time being, we can still increase the number of users of our JavaScript library by providing not one, but several final formats in which it is offered for consumption. webpack has pre-defined functionality that lets us do exactly that very easily, and that shows once more its flexibility and usefulness. |
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Kotaku East East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.
Unveiled today, Pokémon Co-Master is a board game-style Pokémon title for iOS and Android.
According to The Pokémon Company, the game is Pokémon meets jinkouchinou (人工知能), which is the Japanese word for artificial intelligence. The combination, The Pokémon Company says, makes for a new Pocket Monster experience.
The game, which is free-to-play with online, is a mixture of traditional Pokémon mechanics (capture, train, battle) with strategy-heavy board games like Japanese chess or Go. The game is called “Co-Master” for good reason: The A.I. is also designed to help players as well, apparently making Pokémon Co-Master approachable for beginners.
Pokémon Co-Master was developed by Tokyo-based Heroz, known for creating artificial intelligence that has defeated professional shogi (Japanese chess) players in exhibition matches.
Service for the game begins this spring in Japan. No word yet about a Western release.
Top image: The Pokemon Company
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter@Brian_Ashcraft.
Advertisement |
For too long our country has been riven by the issue of climate change, as if we were two feuding tribes: one of polar-bear loving tree-huggers, and the other of SUV-driving coal miners.
But the reason why I and so many climate activists like me keep talking about climate change is because we care. We care about the dozens of people who lost their lives in Hurricane Harvey, and the hundreds, or maybe thousands, of people who lost their homes. We want to help the victims of this crisis, but we also want to plan and prepare for the next weather-related catastrophe.
Ignoring the reality of climate change does not make any of us safer. Can't we possibly come together — both Democrats and Republicans — and work on protecting our homes and our collective home (planet Earth), and lay all the petty tribalism to the side?
Louis Merlin, Boca Raton |
It wasn't touted onstage, but a new iOS 8 feature is set to cause havoc for location trackers, and score a major win for privacy. As spotted by Frederic Jacobs, the changes have to do with the MAC address used to identify devices within networks. When iOS 8 devices look for a connection, they randomize that address, effectively disguising any trace of the real device until it decides to connect to a network.
Any phone using iOS 8 will be invisible to the process
Why are iPhones checking out Wi-Fi networks in disguise? Because there's an entire industry devoted to tracking customers through that signal. As The New York Times reported last summer, shops from Nordstrom's to JC Penney have tried out the system. (London even tried out a system using public trash cans.) The system automatically logs any phone within Wi-Fi range, giving stores a complete record of who walked into the shop and when. But any phone using iOS 8 will be invisible to the process, potentially calling the whole system into question.
A privacy win for Apple
Combined with inventory and in-store video, the records are immensely valuable to stores as marketing data, and companies like Euclid Analytics and Path Intelligence have made an industry out of providing them. But now that Apple has embraced MAC spoofing, the practice of Wi-Fi sniffing may stop working entirely. With more than one in three US smartphones running iOS, and a notoriously fast adoption cycle for new operating systems, any data collected is likely to leave out a huge sector of the population.
The result is a privacy win for Apple users and a major blow against data marketing — and all it took was an automatic update. |
Mistie Atkinson Napa Police Department
(CBS) A 32-year-old California woman is facing an incest charge among other allegations after allegedly having sex with her estranged teenage son.
A law enforcement source told the New York Daily News that Mistie Atkinson had not had contact with her now 16-year-old son for 15 years, but contacted him last year through Facebook.
Authorities say police in Napa were serving a search warrant in March. That is when they found Atkinson and the 16-year-old in a hotel room, reports the Daily News.
According to the Napa Valley Register, she was reportedly arrested and charged with incest, oral copulation with a minor, contact with a minor for a sexual offense, and "sending harmful matter" to the teen.
The Register reports Atkinson pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Napa police, in a court filing, say videos from the boy's phone, dated Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, show Atkins allegedly performing oral sex and engaging in sexual intercourse with the boy, the Register reports. Authorities say Atkinson also may have sent explicit images of herself to the boy electronically.
Atkinson is now being held on $200,000 bail, the Register reports. She is scheduled for a hearing May 10.
According to the Register, court records reveal that the boy's father, who has full custody, has obtained a restraining order against Atkinson. |
I finally finished it! As regular stream attendees know, I've been working on this piece of wonderful absurdity for some time now. It's all 's fault -- after I saw him working on a giant ship pone or two, I had to give it a go myself. (I'm not into Kantai Collection or KanColle, btw.) There's a giant Celly that goes with this nicely: Sol Combatant Go check it!There's plenty of flaws in this, of course -- but overall what I like outweighs what I don't. These are actually the first two battleships I've ever painted -- despite my love of ships, I've barely even drawn any 20th century craft before. The ships are theand the. Luna's kit is based off the famousof 1905. I let the picarto chat choose which battleships I'd paint, and a shout-out again to them choosing a pair of ships that could actually served alongside the Dreadnought. Given having never painted either before, I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.The title is playing off of Dreadnought's ship's motto, by the way: Fear God and dread naught.Working resolution: 16"x9" @ 600dpi. Single layer, single brush (stock oil flat.) 30-40 hours.Like my paintings? Patrons get access to full resolution files and other extras!-------Clip Studio Paint, Cintiq 22HD. MLP etc. © Hasbro Inc., Lauren Faust. |
An employee at the Portland Outdoor Store returned to work Saturday morning, two days after he said he was attacked outside his apartment in connection with the beating of another store employee.
"I heard two men say I was the guy from the Outdoor Store," said Miguel Figueroa, 31. "Then they jumped me."
Figueroa said he had stepped out to the back of his Portland apartment near Portland State University Thursday night to empty garbage when the men recognized him. He said he was pushed to the ground and hit and kicked.
"I hurt my elbow, my lip and the side of my face," he said Saturday. "I took Friday off work."
The two men ran off.
Detectives interviewed Figueroa, said Sgt. Pete Simpson, the Portland Police Bureau's public information officer.
"There seems to be some connection," he said. "The suspects said something about the Outdoor Store."
On Monday, co-worker Larry Allen, 70, was
when he went outside the store to hose down the sidewalk.
A group of street kids refused to move and then one struck Allen in the head with a skateboard.
Figueroa, who was interviewed by reporters and featured on television in connection with the attack on Allen, said street kids have been a persistent problem for businesses on Southwest Oak Street near Third Avenue.
The
had a mobile command unit stationed near the store Friday and Saturday. However the mobile command unit was not specifically in response to the recent incidents at the store. Simpson said the unit was there to address the numerous problems in the area that is "kind of a hot spot for street-use problems."
"That helps, but they move on and the kids are back again," Figueroa said. "The city has to do something."
–Tom Hallman Jr. |
Capital One Cup: Brian McDermott says Dominic Poleon may have a big future
Dominic Poleon: Scored the winner against Chesterfield
McDermott's men made quite hard work of reaching the second round, falling behind to League Two Chesterfield at Elland Road.
But Michael Brown levelled with a fine goal after 28 minutes and Poleon then produced a good finish of his own three minutes later, a goal which proved to be the winner.
"Dominic has lots of potential," said McDermott. "We are trying to turn him into the all-round player he can be.
"We haven't played well tonight but we won the match and that is very important.
"I must confess I didn't enjoy it, we made seven changes and that can backfire on you.
"Some big teams have gone out of the competition and we are not one of them, so that is pleasing. Once again we fell behind and that is something we have to address but the boys kept going and got their reward."
McDermott confirmed after the game that Leeds had rejected two bids for Scotland forward Ross McCormack.
"Ross is staying here," said McDermott. "He wants to stay and we want to keep him."
McDermott also denied making an offer for Matt Taylor of West Ham.
Chesterfield take the positives
Chesterfield assistant manager Leam Richardson was rightly pleased with his team.
"We came here to give a good account of ourselves and we did that," he said. "The result was disappointing but there were a lot of positives to come out of the game.
"We are trying to gel as a team and make small steps together. We controlled a good proportion of the game, which breeds confidence.
"Our young players will come on by leaps and bounds, now we have to raise our game against Cheltenham on Saturday."
Chesterfield's star performer Gary Roberts felt he should have had a penalty just after the break when he was brought down by Zac Thompson but referee Carl Boyeson decided the offence took place outside the box.
Richardson said: "I thought it was a penalty but I would have to see it again to be sure. The officials have a tough job in those circumstances." |
Avatars! Are you ready to participate in the biggest event to hit Novia since the great cataclysm?
Like no other world-ending event in the history of gaming, the first part of The Summer Telethon of the Avatar event is nearly upon us! For 12 hours, starting at Noon (12 PM CDT) until Midnight on July 27th, we will be celebrating the lead up to the Final Player Data Wipe; where persistence officially begins in our game and housing lot selection begins in earnest.
As always, we will be answering your questions during the telethon. You can pre-post your questions right here in the comments section or post them live in Discord during the Telethon.*
What exciting events can you expect throughout the day? An array of fun activities and engaging content, many of which you can directly participate in! We will also be giving away a ton of fabulous prizes*, and if the following stretch goals are met, we will be adding amazing new content into the game.
Help us to achieve the following goals during the telethon! As a special bonus, we are offering Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 from the start of the telethon, until Midnight (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply). The Summer Telethon of the Avatar Funding Stretch Goal Rewards are:
Achieved! $10,000: /fan emote (player fans themself with a small folding fan)
Achieved! $25,000: Aeronaut Helmet
Achieved! $35,000: Hacked Oracle Crawler Pet
Achieved! $50,000: Clockwork Wings (goes in cloak slot, does not grant powers of flight)
Clockwork Wings (goes in cloak slot, does not grant powers of flight) Achieved! $65,000: Hacked Oracle Flyer Pet
Hacked Oracle Flyer Pet Achieved! $80,000: Tiny Airship Pet
Tiny Airship Pet Achieved! $100,000: One Man Band Steampunk Wearable: Works with our ABC music system
One Man Band Steampunk Wearable: Works with our ABC music system Achieved! $130,000: Organ Grinder Instrument (Works with our ABC music system) & Clockwork Monkey Pet
Organ Grinder Instrument (Works with our ABC music system) & Clockwork Monkey Pet $150,000: Baby Clockwork Dragon Pet
** $145,000 **
Current Telethon Funds Raised
Cheer on the Devs!
For every $2,500 donated, all developers on camera have to either dance, sing, or drink a shot of alcohol.
Additionally, we will be spinning the Wheel of Fortune & Doom! (we borrowed this idea from our friends over at Crowfall). The wheel will have 14 items at any given time, but dozens of total prizes ultimately will be given away! This includes developers that, if selected, have to either dance, sing, or drink a shot of alcohol.
As the wheel is spun, what is selected will be replaced by something in the list below. Items already selected will be permanently removed. Keep in mind that some of these may never come up, so cross your fingers for your preferred item!
Wheel of Doom Items (placement on wheel will be random):
Dev On Camera Flash Sales Chris Spears Blood Reliquaries 10% off for 1 hour Dallas Snell All Lot Deeds 25% off for 30 min Finn Staber Viking Houses 20% off for 1 hour Joaquin del Canto POTs 5% off for 30 min Matt Schmitz Elven Elder Armor 10% off for 1 hour Rhys Romero Pets 20% off for 1 hour Richard Garriott Hot Air Balloon & Airship 25% off for 1 hour Rick Holtrop Stone Statues (incl Dragons!) 15% off for 30 min Sarah Dworken Obsidian Homes 20% off for 30 min Scott Jennings Pipes 30% off for 1 hour Starr Long Wearable Bundles 20% off for 1 hour (incl Kobold Masks, Sigil Cloaks, Satin Bodice, Viking) Prosperity Tools 10% off for 1 hour
We also have these exciting prizes to give away throughout the telethon!*
Store Credits
Viking Bundles (Viking Row 2 Story and Viking Village)
Kobold Bundles (Kobold Row 2 Story and Kobold Village)
Pledges (Ancestor and Edelmann)
Lord British relics
Challenge Coins
Shroud of the Avatar t-shirts
Sword of Midras audiobook AND hardcover copies!
Razer Gear
Here is a peak at what to watch out for as the telethon progress:
Schedule (All times and content subject to change)
Noon: Welcome to the Summer Telethon!
1:30 PM: Brittany Tour with Sorcerous Steve.
2:30 PM: Tour of Portalarium.
3:00 PM: New User Experience & Hospitallers.
4:00 PM: Crafting, Enchanting, Masterworks Discussion.
5:00 PM: Combat Discussion.
6:00 PM: The Story and Characters of SotA.
7:00 PM: Player Housing Discussion with Darkstarr.
8:00 PM: Crowns of the Obsidian, smoking pipes, and Artifice with Scottie and Sir Frank.
9:00 PM: AMA live chat question time with team.
10 PM-Midnight: Royal Tour with Lord British and Darkstarr Locations: Brittany Central, Aerie, Resolute, Ardoris, Owlshead, Desolis, Spite, and a selection of Player Owned Towns (final list soon).
Midnight: Final Player Data Wipe! Servers will be offline until 9:30am CDT on July 28th.
Watch The Telethon on YouTube!
You will also be able to watch the telethon on at Twitch.tv/Shroudoftheavatar! If you wish to win prizes during the Telethon event, be sure to still be in Discord chat!
Warning: Telethon is Rated PG-13 for Alcoholic Content
(might get upgraded to Rated-R depending on rate of pledges)
Expirations and Final Player Data Wipe
While Final Player Data Wipe is NOT “Launch” of our game, we are super happy to be at such an important milestone with our community of backers. We couldn’t have built the game nearly this far in its development without the support and feedback of everyone playing. There’s a lot more to go yet, but we’re about to cross a major hurdle this summer, and can’t wait to cross it with you!
At 11:59 PM CDT (5:00 UTC) on July 27th, we are expiring the homes and basements from the Ancestor, Edelmann, Knight Marshal, Lord Marshal, Duke, and Lord of the Manor 2 pledges. We are also expiring new Player Owned Towns (upgrades of existing POTs will continue to be available). All other rewards (including tax free property deeds) that are currently available in the remaining pledges will continue to be available.
The final player data wipe will also occur at 11:59 PM CDT (5:00 UTC) on July 27th. To celebrate this momentous milestone, we are holding a 12-hour Summer Telethon Part 1, starting at 12:00 PM (Noon) CDT (17:00 UTC) and running right up to the final player data wipe start.
Servers will be brought offline after 11:59 PM CDT on July 27th until 10:30 AM CDT the next morning on July 28th. This gives us enough time to ensure servers are properly cleared and ready for the beginning of Release 32 and the exciting opportunity to make your mark in Novia!
See you on the livestream chat at Noon this coming July 27th!
Had fun attending our telethon event? Stay tuned…
After July’s telethon, we will also be holding a second event on August 22nd. At 11:59 PM CDT (5:00 UTC) on August 22, 2016, we are expiring ALL remaining pledges, including: Adventurer, Founder, Royal Artisan, Explorer, Ancestor, Edelmann, Knight Marshal, Lord Marshal, Duke, and Lord of the Manor 2.
* There will be some really awesome prizes awarded during the telethon, but you have to be present in the Discord chatroom to qualify for each drawing. Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to each segment will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. In brief… please keep your questions… brief. Only 3 Questions per person.
Save |
With excitement building ahead of rugby sevens’ Olympic Games debut at Rio 2016, World Rugby has announced that Rugby World Cup 2011 final referee Craig Joubert has made the cut for the team of 12 match officials selected for the 2015-16 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
With the high-octane world of sevens requiring exceptional standards of fitness, the South African referee will link up with his new colleagues following the completion of Rugby World Cup 2015 and ahead of the opening round in Dubai. He will remain available for 15s duty throughout the season.
Ten officials have also been selected for the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series, which will also kick off in the United Arab Emirates.
With excitement building ahead of Rio 2016, the desire from the world’s top 15s referees to be a part of the match officials team, heightens the already tough competition for places at Rio 2016.
World Rugby Council member and match official selector John Jeffrey said: “Congratulations to all the men’s and women’s officials selected for next season’s series. With Rio 2016 rapidly approaching, we are set for another record-breaking season of sevens on and off the field.
0:00 / 0:00
“It is exciting for the sevens referee team that a high-profile referee such as Craig Joubert has made himself available to try to referee his way into the Olympics. We all know he is an outstanding 15s referee, and having started his career in sevens, we are delighted he will be able to bring his experience and expertise into the sevens group.”
Craig Joubert, who will take charge when France take on Italy in his first RWC 2015 match on 19 September, said: “I’m really excited by the opportunity to again referee on the World Rugby Sevens Series. My dream is, through on-field performances, to put myself in a position to be considered for selection to referee at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
“Sevens rugby has progressed significantly since I refereed on the series from 2003 to 2005 and I know that the first step is to prove myself again on field as a capable sevens referee. I’ll be joining a very experienced and close group of officials on the circuit who I’m really looking forward to learning from and ultimately proving myself to them as a valuable team mate and colleague on this exciting journey for all of us.”
Meanwhile, Spanish referee Alhambra Nievas says she is looking forward to the new season kicking off: “It will be both a special and important season for our team of referees as we continue to chase our Olympic dream. We are all working very hard to be at the top of our game for the upcoming season. The pace of the game is going up so we need to improve and challenge ourselves. I'm really excited to start the season in Dubai."
The men’s referee panel is: Richard Kelly (NZR), Matt O’Brien (ARU), Marius van der Westhuizen (SARU), Federico Anselmi (UAR), Craig Joubert (SARU), Alex Ruiz (FFR), Nick Briant (NZR), Mike Adamson (SRU), Ben Crouse (SARU), Rasta Rasivhenge (SARU), Anthony Moyes (ARU) and Taku Otsuki (JRFU).
The women’s referee panel is: Leah Berard (USA Rugby), Alhambra Nievas (FER), Sara Cox (RFU), Gabriel Lee (HKRFU), Jess Beard (NZR), Amy Perrett (ARU), Beatrice Benvenuti (FIR), Rose LaBreche (Rugby Canada), James Bolabiu (FRU) and Rasta Rasivhenge (SARU).
The men’s HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series has been extended to 10 stops for the 2015/16 series, with Cape Town, Sydney, Singapore, Vancouver and Paris new additions to the circuit. Dates for the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series will be announced in due course. |
Field Yates of ESPN reports that the Falcons hosted free agent RB Rex Burkhead for a visit on Friday.
The running back market is still taking shape, as Danny Woodhead is the only one who has signed a contract up to this point. Teams appear to be reluctant to move quickly on veteran running backs when there is such a deep class of rookies coming into the league.
Burkhead, 26, is a former sixth-round pick of the Bengals back in 2013. He played out his four-year, $2,262,200 contract with the Bengals and is now one of the more intriguing running backs in this year’s free agent class.
In 2016, Burkhead appeared in all 16 games for the Bengals and rushed for 344 yards on 74 carries (4.6 YPC) to go9
We have him featured in our Top 50 Available Free Agents list. |
Developing for the SAFE Browser
Luandro Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 18, 2017
In the last post we were introduced to Maid’s SAFE Network. Now we’ll get started with the basics of developing for the network. There’s a forum just for developers, which has an awesome starting guide with how to take care of basic setup and mocking for the network.
To get a quick glimpse of what API is like we can simply git clone https://github.com/maid_safe/safe_examples.git to get all the oficial examples.
SAFE Browser Authenticator
The SAFE Browser
Introduction
Just like the web, Maid uses a browser as the entry point to the network. The SAFE Browser is based on one of my personal favorite projects, Beaker Browser. But the differences are important. The SAFE Browser only navigates on the SAFE Network, completely closed from the http web (but open to WebRTC). It also serves as entry point to the SAFE Network API through the SAFE App Beaker Plugin and takes care of authenticating user by using the Authenticator Beaker Plugin.
Developing web applications for the SAFE Browser is just like developing any
other web app with the additional SAFE API through the window object (and the fact you are completely closed from the “corporate web” ). Here’s a short cheat-sheet of how the parts connect, thanks Joseph Meagher for this:
Safe Network API flow
A good place to check what actual code looks like is within the web-api-playground, which has some snippets thought out to us by the core team. And there’s a even a web_starter by hunterlester written in simple JS.
Getting started
The test network has a limit per user of 1000 PUTS per user, so in order to
get some real development done we have to mock the network. You can read the official post on the topic to getter a better understanding. But it simply means:
When the SAFE Browser, or another application, is built with mock-routing
enabled, it’s not connecting to a live network, it’s interfacing with a local
database that is created on your system to simulate network operations.
This saves a great deal of time and provides a safe space for your application
or website to initially test operations.
Grab a copy of the latest mock executable on Github. Open it and create an account like you would do in the real network but using anything as an Invitation Token.
type anything to get in
Once you signup and sign in you can start developing without worrying about PUT limits. Now we can start experimenting with the API by running any local server and pointing to this weird address:
safe://localhost://p:3000
To get it up to the alpha network just use the Web Hosting Manager and upload your build.
Developer Experience
Lately more and more developers have gotten accustomed to having a good DX (Developer Experience) by using tools for observing and time traveling app state like redux-dev-tools and tools to keep development app in sync with code, while maintaining state changes across reloads, like react-hot-reloading. We tested React and Preact and neither worked with live-reloading much less with hot-reloading, and we’re still trying to understand why. But as pointed by bzee, Vue’s webpack template which comes with hot -reloading and works perfectly with the browser, so it’s a good starting point for app development.
Desktop and Mobile Platforms
Maid supports all platforms: web, native desktop and native mobile. There are examples for all of them, but for mobile they’re using Xamarin, which is not something I’m really into as a Javascript developer. It would be nice to have a React Native lib to make it simple to run, read and experiment with, like they’re doing with the rest of the examples using plain js or React and Redux. Maybe we could even try running it with something like react-native-node.
For native desktop applications the oficial examples use the well known
Electron framework. Since Electron runs on Node.js they make use of the safe-node-app lib. We can see what it’s API is like on the Web Hosting Manager and Email App examples. But even when developing stand alone desktop apps we need to have the SAFE Browser running to authenticate.
Extras
Since the the SAFE Browser is such a controlled environment we can just write ES7 with no need for transpilling, like this:
async function sendMessage() {
try {
const mutationHandle = await window.safeMutableData.newMutation(auth)
const date = new Date()
const time = date.getTime()
await window.safeMutableDataMutation.insert(mutationHandle, time.toString(), textarea.value)
await window.safeMutableData.applyEntriesMutation(mdHandle, mutationHandle)
Materialize.toast('Message has been sent to the network', 3000, 'rounded')
window.safeMutableDataMutation.free(mutationHandle)
getMutableDataHandle('getMessages')
textarea.value = ''
} catch (err) {
console.log(err)
}
}
Next steps
Our mission is to document while we build a wallet inside the SAFE Network so users can create and exchange tokens and benefit from the network’s security, privacy, speed and cost, which will be more efficient than blockchain-based technologies. The project’s code is open-source and lives on Github.
In the next posts we’ll dive deeper on developing for the SAFE Browser while explaining the SafeWallet application we’re developing.
Introduction to the SAFE Network
Developing for the SAFE Browser
Authorizing and Authenticating a SAFE Application (soon)
Working with Data in SAFE (soon)
A special thanks to Eddy Johnson who has been keeping us posted on Safe Network updates, and sponsoring our explorations; and Jabba who has taken his time to review and edit the articles. |
0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
House Republicans have posted a draft of their new Obamacare replacement bill, and the legislation if it became law would take health care away from millions of poor Americans.
The Republican bill would get states to keep Medicaid rolls low by penalizing states for giving too many people health care by penalizing them with less federal funding:
The block granting of federal Medicaid money will be a disaster for poor Americans. The funding restrictions and penalties will cause states to throw 14-20 million poor, disabled, and senior Americans off of Medicaid over the next decade. The changes that Republicans are proposing will cause 7.4 million poor and disabled Americans to lose their health coverage. If the Republicans get their way, funding for Medicaid will be cut by 26%-51%.
The Republican ACA replacement will punish Americans for being poor, disabled, or older. The level of cruelty in this proposal is appalling. House Republicans are about to harm some of the most vulnerable members of US society so that the wealthiest Americans can get a tax cut.
The GOP’s Obamacare replacement is unjust, immoral, un-American, and must be stopped at all costs.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human: |
Researchers at the University of Liverpool have developed a set of algorithms that will help teach computers to process and understand human languages.
Whilst mastering natural language is easy for humans, it is something that computers have not yet been able to achieve. Humans understand language through a variety of ways for example this might be through looking up it in a dictionary, or by associating it with words in the same sentence in a meaningful way.
The algorithms will enable a computer to act in much the same way as a human would when encountered with an unknown word. When the computer encounters a word it doesn’t recognise or understand, the algorithms mean it will look up the word in a dictionary (such as the WordNet), and tries to guess what other words should appear with this unknown word in the text.
Semantic representation
It gives the computer a semantic representation for a word that is both consistent with the dictionary as well as with the context in which it appears in the text. In order to know whether the algorithm has provided the computer with an accurate representation of a word it compares similarity scores produced using the word representations learnt by the computer algorithm against human rated similarities.
Liverpool computer scientist, Dr Danushka Bollegala, said: “Learning accurate word representations is the first step towards teaching languages to computers.”
“If we can represent the meaning for a word in a way a computer could understand, then the computer will be able to read texts on behalf of humans and perform potentially useful tasks such as translating a text written in a foreign language, summarising a lengthy article, or find similar other documents from the Internet.
“We are excitingly waiting to see the immense possibilities that will be brought about when such accurate semantic representations are used in various language processing tasks by the computers.”
The research was presented at the Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference (AAAI-2016) held in Arizona, USA. |
Edgar Welch was charged Monday with four offenses after firing three shots at Comet Ping Pong, which a fake news story had alleged ran a child sex ring
The man who brought a gun into a pizza restaurant to “self-investigate” a series of fake news stories was charged Monday with four offenses, including assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a pistol without a license.
The US attorney’s office for the District of Columbia also charged Edgar Welch, 28, of Durham, North Carolina with the unlawful discharge of a firearm and carrying a rifle or a shotgun outside a home or place of business. He is being detained until a preliminary hearing in DC superior court on Thursday.
On Sunday afternoon, Welch walked into Comet Ping Pong, a popular pizza spot in the Chevy Chase neighborhood, wielding a shotgun and fired three shots, according to the charging documents. Comet has been part of a bizarre fake news conspiracy that drew unsubstantiated links between the Hillary Clinton campaign and a fictitious child sex ring, which the stories said were being run from secret tunnels beneath the restaurant.
Pizzagate is a lie. But what it says about our society is real | Ijeoma Oluo Read more
Police said that Welch had gone into Comet to “self-investigate” the restaurant. Welch told police he had “read online that the Comet restaurant was harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted to see for himself if they were there”, according to the charging document. He said he was armed to help rescue them. And police said he “surrendered peacefully when he found no evidence that underage children were being harbored in the restaurant”.
Welch is one of several people who have come to the area searching for the supposed tunnels in recent days. The difference is that he brought a gun that charging documents say he pointed at at least one police officer on Sunday, before he was led onto the street outside and arrested. |
THE DARKEST PLACE A VETERAN CAN BE
After 14 years of military action in the Middle East, there is no shortage of men and women who have seen the evils of war. Combat veterans come home from their tours with an altered perception of life and, with that, often an altered personality. Life seems much less exciting, we long for the camaraderie that accompanies war, we long for a purpose much larger than ourselves, and we can’t find much at all in the civilian world that even remotely compares to the accomplishments we made in war. As a combat veteran, I honestly can say, I loved many aspects of war, but the loss of brothers, the hardships endured, and the actions that I took part in are what changed the core of my being, and what led to my downfall.
When I got out of the Marine Corps, like so many others, I felt no purpose anymore. My “family” was gone, some had died along the way, and I was lost and alone. Combat veterans are a proud group of people, and we feel that we can handle any issues that life throws at us by ourselves. I began to self medicate with alcohol to silence my demons, and many of you reading this have done the same. After some time, alcohol wasn’t enough and I began to use harder drugs, constantly chasing both that “high” of combat, while trying to silence the darkness inside of me that the evils of combat had created. While I was high, the past didn’t bother me, I could sleep, I was “normal”, but when I came down, the demons returned. I drew further into myself, my depression deepened, and I walled myself off into my own quiet hell. I voluntarily cut people out of my life, because I felt unworthy of love, of relationships, of being happy, of being “myself” again…
This is the darkest place a veteran can be, and it’s the finest of lines between holding it together and choosing to end it all. At that point in my life, my addiction kept me alive, the purpose of me waking each morning was to drink and to use. I was dead in every other aspect of my life, except for my addiction, and I had created a life for myself with literally no purpose at all. Many veterans have been where I was, and some who are reading this are there right now. Be honest with yourself, do you drink to quiet your demons? Do you use drugs to push out the sadness and depression? It doesn’t work, we never find the closure we’re looking for, and these actions only lead to deeper misery and hopelessness.
My saving grace was right in front of me; my military family who I had abandoned because I “could handle it on my own” had not abandoned me. All I had to do was reach out, and soon the pain I had stubbornly endured alone was a shared burden by all of my family. I didn’t have to find comfort in a bottle, pill, or bag. I found comfort in restored camaraderie and a renewed sense of belonging. Although separated by miles and miles, my family was a phone call or a few keystrokes away. Little by little, my need to escape reality dissolved. I was home and I was not alone.
I share my story with the hope that others can realize it isn’t weakness to admit you are hurting to your military family. The weakest thing we can do, as proud veterans, is to crawl inside our shell and wait for our addictions to overtake us. We never went outside the wire alone, there is no need to wrestle our demons alone either. We live in a day and age when we are more connected to people around the world than ever before. There is no excuse for battling depression and addiction alone anymore. All veterans are family, and when one is struggling we can band together to help them make it through. It’s easier to defeat any enemy with superior numbers, even the psychological enemies we battle within ourselves long after we have left the combat zone. We are veterans. None of us are alone, ever.
Never above you, never below you, always beside you.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. |
Sarah Tew/CNET
Forget $100 -- $50 is the new entry-level price point for streaming video. The Roku LT is the only product at this price point, but it's an enthusiastic Editors' Choice. With built-in Wi-Fi and free control apps available on iOS and Android (and, if you're old-fashioned, a regular old remote), the Roku LT delivers Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu Plus, and hundreds of other streaming-video and audio channels to any TV (including older, non-HD models).
The Roku HD is a nearly identical model with a slightly different remote that's available through different retailers than the LT; it costs $10 more.
If you can spend more, the $100 Roku 3 (new for 2013) offers a zippier processor, full 1080p video, and an Ethernet port. Furthermore, the Wi-Fi remote also includes a headphone jack, so you can stream without disturbing family members nearby -- great for kids' programming or late-night viewing sessions.
If your TV offers an MHL-compatible HDMI port, you can opt for the Roku Streaming Stick ($100), which shrinks the little box into a USB-style dongle.
Key compatible services: Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Hulu Plus, Vudu, PBS, Crackle, Mediafly, MLB.TV, NHL GameCenter, NBA Game Time, MLS MatchDay Live, UFC, Pandora, Mog, Rdio, TuneIn Radio, Spotify, Amazon Cloud Player, Flickr, Dish World, FoxNews.com, NBC News, Facebook photos, Flickr, plus hundreds of others. HBO Go, Epix, and Time Warner Cable are also available, but only for existing subscribers of those channels or services on compatible ISPs and cable providers. The Plex "channel" lets you stream video, audio, and photos from networked PCs and Macs. The "Play on Roku" feature lets you stream content from handheld devices as well. And Roku now offers a handy feature that allows you to search for content across multiple services. (Disclosure: CNET and some of its sister CBS-owned properties -- such as Chow and Showtime -- are also available on Roku.)
Who shouldn't buy it? The Roku is best for anyone who does not need iTunes compatibility. Also, YouTube is a notable no-show on Roku, which could be a deal-breaker for some. If you've got a big DVD or Blu-ray collection, you may want to opt for a Blu-ray player instead (see below) -- though, for $50 to $100, the Roku would still be a great option for a second room.
Read the full review of the Roku LT
Read the full review of the Roku HD
Read the full review of the Roku 3
Read the full review of the Roku Streaming Stick
Apple TV: Best solution for Apple fans (and a great choice for everyone else)
Sarah Tew/CNET
If you want the most diversity of content, the Roku box is the way to go. But if you're a die-hard Apple aficionado, Apple TV may be the better choice. It's the only box that's compatible with iTunes, iCloud, and AirPlay. The latter function allows you to stream audio (like Pandora and other Web- and app-based audio streams), photos, and even some video from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch directly to your TV by just tapping on the screen.
The latest (2012) version of the Apple TV adds support for 1080p video output and an updated home screen. More important, though, are a flurry of feature upgrades that have been rolled out over the past few months: the addition of several channels -- including Hulu Plus , Watch ESPN, HBO Go, and Sky News -- and the cool AirPlay screen mirroring feature. The latter feature allows 2011 and 2012 Macs running the new Mountain Lion OS to "mirror" what's on their computer screens to the TV via AirPlay -- and that includes free Flash video sites such as Comedy Central and Hulu.com.
As with Roku, those cooler services -- HBO Go and Watch ESPN -- require you to have an existing cable subscription in order to use them. (Notably, Sky News is 100 percent free, and offers a live stream -- although the news has a decidedly British slant, given its U.K. origins.)
Key compatible services: iTunes Video, AirPlay, Netflix, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Watch ESPN, Sky News, HBO Go, Vimeo, MLB.TV, NBA, NHL, WSJ Live, iTunes Match Music, Internet radio, many audio and video podcasts, Flickr, iCloud Photo Stream
Who shouldn't buy it? If you're not an Apple person -- no iPad, no iPhone, no iPod, no Mac -- you won't get as much value out of this device. And if you want services like Amazon Instant Video, you'll need to look elsewhere (namely, Roku).
Read the full review of the 2012 Apple TV
Worthwhile alternative: If you want more flexibility -- albeit with a far bigger budget -- you could always just attach a Mac Mini to your TV.
PS3: Best solution for gamers
Sarah Tew/CNET
Yes, the PS4 is coming later this year -- so if you can wait for that, you probably should. But if you're looking for a do-it-all media box right now, the PlayStation 3 is still a good bet. In addition to functioning as a DVD/Blu-ray player and a kickass game console, the PS3 is also a formidable media streamer, with Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, Amazon, YouTube, Crackle, NHL, MLB.TV, and NFL Sunday Ticket -- the same "every out-of-market football game" package that was previously available only to DirecTV customers. The PS3 is also able to stream music, video, and photos from networked PCs and attached USB drives. Sweetening the pot even more: at $270 (with game bundle), the PS3 is a great deal. Bottom line? The PS3 is far and away the most versatile box to have under your TV.
Key compatible services: Netflix, Vudu, Hulu Plus, Amazon, Crackle, YouTube, MLB.TV, NHL GameCenter, NFL Sunday Ticket, Sony Entertainment Network, DLNA (home media streaming); plays DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, and USB-based media
Who shouldn't buy it? If you're not a gamer, the PS3 is somewhat less appealing. You'll also need to invest in a separate remote or remote adapter (if you don't want to use the PlayStation controller), since the PS3 lacks built-in compatibility with infrared remotes.
Read the full review of the 2012 Sony PlayStation 3
Worthwhile alternative: The Xbox 360 also does double duty for gaming and online entertainment, offering a recently expanded entertainment slate, including Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu Plus, YouTube, Crackle, and Last.fm. Xbox also offers ESPN3, HBO Go, and Epix -- but, as on all other compatible systems, only for existing subscribers of those channels on compatible ISPs and cable providers. And existing Comcast and Fios subscribers can even configure the Xbox to work as a cable box, with a limited channel selection. (A Time Warner app is also coming later this year.) However, unlike the PS3, to get many of these services you also need to be an Xbox Live Gold subscriber ($35 to $60 per year). And the Xbox can play only standard DVDs, not Blu-ray movies.
Blu-ray player: Best solution for those who still want disc compatibility
Sarah Tew/CNET
Yes, streaming is the wave of the future. But there are plenty of folks with dozens -- or even hundreds -- of DVDs and Blu-ray discs they've invested in over the years. Thankfully, all modern Blu-ray players play those discs and offer streaming (at least for Netflix and Pandora, in most cases). Blu-ray players are becoming such commoditized devices that we haven't even reviewed any in 2013. However, if you opt for a model with built-in Wi-Fi (not just "Wi-Fi ready," which requires you to buy a dongle) and make sure it has a decent suite of apps, you'll get the best of both worlds -- discs and streaming -- with a single box. And unlike a PS3, a decent Blu-ray player can be had for $100 to $120.
Key compatible services: Varies by model, but Netflix and Pandora are usually the bare minimum. We'd recommend seeking out a model that also offers Amazon, Hulu Plus, YouTube, and Vudu, at the very least.
Who shouldn't buy it? If you don't care about discs -- or if you're already satisfied with disc playback on your DVD player or game console -- go with the aforementioned Roku or Apple TV.
Current Blu-ray players available for under $120
WD TV Play: Best solution for hard-core tech geeks
Sarah Tew/CNET
As we've shown, all of the products listed above are excellent choices, each with its own strengths. Many of them are also good for streaming audio and video files from networked PCs. But what about the "hard-core" tech enthusiast -- the one whose NAS drive is full of MKV, ISO, and VOB files? (If you don't know what any of that means, don't worry -- it just means you're normal.)
For that consumer, the best choice we've seen to date is the WD TV Play. Advanced users will appreciate that it was able to read just about every file type we threw at it, while newbies will enjoy its fairly slick interface for when you just want to kick back and watch something on Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, or YouTube. It's also the only product on this list that can double as a viewer for Slingbox content (thanks to a recent firmware upgrade).
Key compatible services: Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, YouTube, Vimeo, Pandora, CinemaNow, MLB.TV, Spotify, Flickr, Mediafly, Live 365, TuneIn Radio, Shoutcast, AOL TV, SlingPlayer, BILD TV (Germany only), Australian Broadcasting iview (Australia only)
Who shouldn't buy it? If you don't have a hard drive full of your own (non-iTunes) movie and music files, opt instead for the Roku or Apple TV above.
Read the full review of the WD TV Play
Worthwhile alternative: If you like the WD TV Live feature set and would also like a full terabyte of built-in storage (also streamable to other PCs, Macs, and WD TV boxes via DLNA), opt for the WD TV Live Hub . In addition to the roomy onboard storage (which can be supplemented by additional USB drives), the Live Hub offers a nearly identical feature set to its smaller brother, and adds compatibility with MPEG2 videos and DTS audio -- but it lacks Wi-Fi, unless you invest in an add-on dongle.
A cheap HDMI cable: Best DIY wired PC-to-TV solution
Want a "quick and dirty" solution for streaming video on your TV? If you've got an HDTV, and your laptop has an HDMI output, just get a long cable and call it a day. (This will also work with most DVI and DisplayPort/Thunderbolt outputs, if you have the correct adapters or cables.) And remember: a cheap HDMI cable will work fine -- no reason to pay for so-called "premium" cables. While the gadgets above will cost you $50 minimum, this solution can cost you as little as $6 -- assuming, of course, that you already have the laptop and the HDTV.
Now playing: Watch this: Connect your laptop to your TV
What about just buying a Smart TV?
If you're in the market for a new TV, you might think, "These new 'Smart TVs' already have these streaming features built-in. Why don't I just get one of them and forgo the boxes mentioned above? It's no fuss, no muss, and no wires."
Well, sure, you could do that. But you're probably going to end up overpaying for the streaming features, and actually losing flexibility in the long run. We prefer to buy a TV strictly on picture quality, and then spend an extra $50 to $270 on getting any one of the devices above, depending upon your needs (PS3 for gaming; a Blu-ray player if you still want to play your old DVD collection; a Roku if you want maximum value and affordability; Apple TV if you already have a lot of iTunes content). That way, you can always mix and match boxes in the months and years ahead, and still have your TV purchased on maximizing picture quality.
Read "I want my dumb TV"
Sarah Tew/CNET
Worthwhile alternatives: Don't want an outboard box, no matter how small? Try the 3M Streaming Projector, a $250 pico projector that includes the Roku Stick. Want a Smart TV without spending a bundle? The Vizio E320i-A0 is a 32-inch TV with built-in Wi-Fi, Netflix, Vudu, Amazon, YouTube, and more -- all for just $300.
Read the full review of the 3M Streaming Projector
Read the full review of the Vizio E320i-A0
* * *
Got a favorite from the list above? Anything we missed? Share your comments below.
Editors' note: This story was originally published on December 15, 2010. It has been updated several times, most recently on July 11, 2013. |
If the wizarding world of Harry Potter (not to be confused with The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, we're talking about the one in the books) is anything like our world, there is a Starbucks on every corner. Like four in Diagon Alley. A full Starbucks café in the lobby of the Ministry of Magic. And at least one within walking distance of Hogwarts.
And they're about to put that mom and pop shop Hogsmeade out of business: Because Sbux is now unofficially serving butterbeer! We say unofficially because it's part of its "secret menu" of unadvertised drinks.
To order it for yourself, all you have to do is remember this recipe (via DaleBacar.com):
A Crème Frappuccino base, made with whole milk (not skim or 2%, which will mess up the consistency)
3 pumps of caramel syrup
3 pumps of toffee nut syrup
Top with caramel drizzle |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.