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Despite some turbulence in the negotiations and a moderate trade scare, the Rangers formally agreed to a contract extension with Mats Zuccarello prior to the NHL's trading deadline on Monday. The four-year deal with $18 million is certainly a big commitment compared to the bare bones, one-year deals Zuccarello was used to getting from the Rangers every summer. And while almost everybody is happy Zuccarello is back, there's logic to concern over handing a player with only one-and-a-half proven NHL seasons such a contract. Nonetheless, With the uncertainty regarding the multiple decisions made by Rangers' management the last 48 hours, all evidence points towards this one in particularly being an unequivocally great one. Hometown Discount The cliché of the "hometown discount" is often overused and not very meaningful. We often see hometown discounts come in the form of a player not pushing for literally every possible penny, regardless of location. I think back to last year's stand-off between the Rangers and Ryan Callahan, with Callahan insisting on $6.5M-$6.75M, but offering a "discount" of $6.25M for the next 6 years. I'm sure he could have found a desperate team to give him that term if he really wanted to in the summer, but pragmatically speaking it wasn't much of a discount. He was pushing his limit to begin with, and he and his agent seemed to realize that after signing for a much more honest deal in Tampa Bay. Zuccarello, however, actually offered to take a true hometown discount. He wasn't exactly out of line to ask for $5.5M in the first place, and the financially sound move would have probably been to call Sather's trade bluff and truly push him to at least hit the $5M mark at a big length. And while $4.5M for the next four years will set Zuccarello up for life, he probably could have milked a bit more from the Rangers, and certainly gotten a significantly more luxurious deal elsewhere without much effort. Not only did he sacrifice what is probably a full million dollars annually (and that's before getting into New York's income tax situation), but the term is ideal for the Rangers as well; Zuccarello, who will be freshly 28 when the new contract starts next season, will be signed through age 31. Essentially, the Rangers have Zuccarello not only at a discounted price, but without any "dead" years tacked on at the end; he's signed solely through what will be his prime years of hockey. Getting a player at a noticeable yearly discount without having to sacrifice in length is a rarity. The New York Post's Larry Brooks reported late last night that Zuccarello instructed his agents to work for the "best possible deal with the Rangers," implying that Zuccarello was going to accept whatever NYR was offering. There's a difference between wanting to stay and doing everything in your power to ensure that happens. Zuccarello did the latter. You have to respect that kind of commitment to the organization. How Does He Stack Up? Of course, a "discount" is meaningless if a player isn't even worth the contract in the first place. Wade Redden and Chris Drury took less money than other teams were offering in order to sign with the Rangers; I don't think that makes many people feel better about those deals. It's somewhat hard to believe, given how he is a fan favorite, but I think Zuccarello might actually be an underrated commodity. Here's a look at how Zuccarello stacks up against other wingers on unrestricted free agent contracts in the $4.25M-$4.75M range. A layman's guide to this chart: All numbers are at even strength. Being more to the right means a higher goals for/goals against ratio while on the ice. Being higher up on the y-axis means generating more points/60 minutes. The more blue, the more positive in Corsi Rel (how good a player's possession numbers are compared to the rest of his team). As you can see, Zuccarello is in the high-end of the spectrum everywhere. The Rangers score a lot of goals with him on the ice, and his points/60 minutes indicates that he's accountable for an awful lot of them. And he's an elite possession player. When it comes to wingers in a similar salary range, only Andrew Ladd and maybe Scott Hartnell are even close. Hartnell sacrificed money for a huge term with Philadelphia, while Ladd's contract is an outright steal and he'll be paid handsomely when he's set to become as free agent in 2017. In essence, Zuccarello's completely outplaying what will be his pay bracket under this contract. Here he is compared to wingers who are locked up $5M-$6M annually as free agents. He fits in much more with this crowd, and even then still holds up very strongly. And should you think that this is merely a fluke occurrence this season, here is the same chart dating back to October of 2013. Zuccarello is not a bonafide star, but he's certainly in that tier right below alongside the likes of Patrick Sharp and Blake Wheeler. And certainly well ahead of wingers in the $4.5M range like Burrows, Eriksson, Erat, and Gionta. Intangibles The concept of intangibles has been completely corrupted in midst of the analytics debate. From an analytics perspective, everyone agrees that "intangibles" do matter, but that they simply aren't a good basis for employing otherwise bad players; or in cases like Chris Drury and David Clarkson, not a good basis for spending large sums of money for otherwise undeserving hockey talents. Zuccarello is a hell of a hockey player and on that basis alone has justified the new contract. Thus, one can delve into the more abstract things he brings to the table with a clean conscience. In many ways, Zuccarello is the biggest spark plug the Rangers have had since Sean Avery. He makes things happen every shift. He has zero fear of engaging in physical battles and getting in the ear of the opposition. He energizes the crowd to the point that you can hear "ZUUUUUUCC" chants during away games in random places like Nashville and Arizona. It's clear that he's a big hit in the locker room, and while he's not a leader in the traditional way, the bench very obviously rallies around him. He's a low-maintenance personality who never creates problems for the coaching staff. He wants to be in New York more than anything and, as mentioned earlier, sacrificed a lot of money to make that happen. There's not much of an injury history to be concerned about, and he showed last Spring that the playoffs and even Stanley Cup Final don't intimidate him. Total Package I'll take a dull, productive player every time over a flamboyant, energetic detriment. But in the case of Mats Zuccarello you're getting the best of both worlds. He's, at worst, a high-end second-line winger who is just now entering his prime. His production alone makes the contract worth it. But then you get into the other aspects - the intangibles, the fact that there's no commitment beyond his early 30s - and the contract starts to look like a steal. Even with Zuccarello finally getting his big payday, he still ended up sacrificing a lot for the sake of making things work. It's a huge add for the Rangers as they try to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit under a tight salary cap. There are never guarantees, but everything about Mats Zuccarello as a hockey player and a person suggests this will most likely be a massive coup for the Rangers.
GO LONDON newsletter Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account The world’s longest and tallest tunnel slide opens tomorrow at the ArcelorMittal Orbit — and the Standard was the first to try it out. After 178 metres of twists, turns, thumps and jumps, the verdict? Anyone expecting a gentle, sight-seeing experience will be disappointed: the slide that plunges through Sir Anish Kapoor’s sculpture in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is closer to a rollercoaster minus the seatbelt. Sitting in the helter skelter-style mat dressed in fetching head gear and shoulder protectors while peering down at the 76m drop is scary enough. This is nothing compared with the terror experienced when you shuffle up to the edge of the slide and push off into the abyss. What follows are among the most terrifying — but admittedly exhilarating — 30 seconds of my life. Staff say it will take 45 seconds, but it is definitely quicker than that. They also suggest you will reach 15mph. Trust me, it feels more like 115mph as the slide loops around 12 sharp bends, one stomach-churning drop and a tight corkscrew named “the bettfeder” — bedspring in German. The slide, designed by Belgian artist Carsten Höller, finishes with a 50m home straight, where visitors pick up one final burst of speed before — finally — coming to a stop. The Orbit slide, in pictures 6 show all The Orbit slide, in pictures 1/6 A CGI of how it looks to ride the slide 2/6 A view from the ground Nigel Howard 3/6 The slide from above Nigel Howard 4/6 The slide loop 12 times around the structure Nigel Howard 5/6 A construction worker checking the slide Nigel Howard 6/6 The final pieces are put into place Nigel Howard 1/6 A CGI of how it looks to ride the slide 2/6 A view from the ground Nigel Howard 3/6 The slide from above Nigel Howard 4/6 The slide loop 12 times around the structure Nigel Howard 5/6 A construction worker checking the slide Nigel Howard 6/6 The final pieces are put into place Nigel Howard Peter Tudor, the park’s director of visitor services, confirmed that the attraction was not for the faint-hearted. “The slide is part of our commitment to deliver new and exciting attractions to the park and is another reason to visit the park,” he said. “It caters to the more daredevil audience and the adrenaline junkies.” But he provided some comfort — he consulted experts about the number of twists and turns people can endure before being sick. He said: “We were told that too many turns in one direction would make one’s stomach lurch and lead to nausea.” Advance tickets for the ArcelorMittal Orbit and The Slide cost £15 for adults, £10 for children and £46 for a family of four. @LizzieEdmo Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout
MOVES are under way to fast-track approval processes for the stalled $8.15b Aquis mega-resort project – without a casino in the first stage. The aim is to expedite the necessary approvals by the end of the year for construction to start next year. After Aquis proponents Tony and Justin Fung held high-level talks in Brisbane with Treasurer Curtis Pitt, the development has changed tack. Mr Pitt told the Cairns Post Aquis would withdraw from the Integrated Resort Development process and a casino so the first stage could start. “The Government has accepted that the Aquis Group no longer requires to remain in the IRD process to see this development progress and I understand changing market conditions will see a change in the design concept,” he said. “I welcome the proponent’s commitment to progressing with a large-scale integrated resort without a casino element at this first stage and I’m excited that this could mean the project is expedited to get off the ground next year. “It will still retain its status as a project of state significance and I’ll be working very hard to give this development every chance of commencing next year. “There’s nothing preventing the future consideration of a casino operation at the Yorkeys Knob development in the future. That would, however, be subject to the availability of the regional IRD licence. “But I have to stress that there will be no preferential consideration for a casino licence in the future.” Mr Pitt said he had “committed the State Government to giving this project the best opportunity to happen quickly within the time frames the proponent is seeking.” While exact details of the reconfiguration are yet to be worked out, the Cairns Post understands land development approvals will be sped up while the casino process is on hold. It is believed the first stage will be about $2 billion and could include five hotels of 4000 rooms, an artificial lake and island, retail shopping, an aquarium, theatre, reef lagoon, an 18-hole golf course, a convention and exhibition centre and a cultural heritage centre. As well it might include apartments, villas and other residential living to get a quicker return on investment. Aquis project director Pat Flanagan said Aquis wanted all approvals in place by the end of the year for a building start next year and “was committed to its investment in Cairns”. “The project will include a casino,” he said, but he would not elaborate. “The process is with the Government and all the issues of staging and size will happen in the fullness of time. “Aquis is committed to working with the Government to make it happen.” Mr Fung said it had been more than four years since he announced the project at Yorkeys Knob and he was delighted to be back in Cairns yesterday to “make progress”. He said he was looking forward to working with Mr Pitt after “a very constructive meeting with the Treasurer”. “I also have had meetings in Cairns with the people who have supported the project for four-plus years and see the Mayor (Bob Manning) and congratulate him on his re-election.” The Fungs, Mr Flanagan and consultant Michael King briefed Cairns Chamber of Commerce chief executive Deb Hancock and president Sam Marino, acting Advance Cairns chief executive Rob Giason and Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Alex de Waal for an hour, followed by a meeting with Mr Manning before returning to the airport to catch a flight back to Hong Kong.
The Attack on the US Consulate Was A Planned Terrorist Assault Against US and Libyan Interests 12 September 2012 The military assault against the US Consulate in Benghazi should not be seen as part of a protest against a low budget film which was insulting Islam – there were just a few peaceful protesters present at the event. Indeed, there have been no other demonstrations regarding this film in Libya. We at Quilliam believe the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was a well planned terrorist attack that would have occurred regardless of the demonstration, to serve another purpose. According to information obtained by Quilliam - from foreign sources and from within Benghazi - we have reason to believe that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi came to avenge the death of Abu Yaya al-Libi, al-Qaeda’s second in command killed a few months ago. The reasons for this are as follows: 24 hours before this attack, none other than the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a video on Jihadist forums to mark the anniversary of 9/11. In this video, Zawahiri acknowledged the death of his second in command Abu Yahya and urged Libyans to avenge his killing. According to our sources, the attack was the work of roughly 20 militants, prepared for a military assault – it is rare that an RPG7 is present at a peaceful protest. According to our sources, the attack against the Consulate had two waves. The first attack led to US officials being evacuated from the consulate by Libyan security forces, only for the second wave to be launched against US officials after they were kept in a secure location. The weak security environment in Libya including in Benghazi and the failure of the government to project its power outside of the capital have been used as a cover for the attack. The failure to rebuild the defence and security sector, in an accountable, professional and responsible manner will only further the likelihood of such attacks in the future. Attacks in Benghazi are not new – the Red Cross has been attacked multiple times in previous months, as have the US consulate and also the UK Ambassador, and such security lapses encourage attacks. The International Community must take the challenge of not allowing extremist elements to hijack the Arab Uprisings very seriously, by renewing their focus on civic and governance responses to check the efforts of Islamist extremists attempting to exploit the inevitable security vacuum. Noman Benotman, President of Quilliam says: “These are acts committed by uncontrollable jihadist groups. We hope Libya will seize this opportunity to revive its policy of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Re-integration (DDR) in order to facilitate an end to the spread of such attacks, with the help of the International Community. We hope that the International Community, including NATO member states and especially the US, will continue their excellent work in Libya which began with the overthrow of the dictator Gaddafi after 42 years in power.”
Berlin Christmas market truck attack witnesses describe Breitscheidplatz 'chaos' as 12 killed Updated A truck has ploughed into a crowd close to a Christmas market in the German capital Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring up to 48 others, police say. Key points: Truck crashed into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin's Breitscheidplatz square Police say at least 12 people have been killed and 48 others injured A suspect has been arrested but it is not known if he was the driver A second person inside the truck died during the attack, police say Police said first indications pointed to an attack on the market, situated at Breitscheidplatz square at the foot of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church that was kept as a ruin after World War II. The truck, which had Polish license plates and was carrying steel beams, careered into the market at what would have been one of the most crowded times, when adults and children would be gathering in the traditional cluster of stalls. Police said on Twitter that they had taken one suspect into custody and that a passenger from the truck had died as it crashed into people gathered around the wooden huts serving mulled wine and sausages. The nationality of the suspected driver, who fled the crash scene and was later arrested, was unclear, police said. Police said the passenger who was found dead in the truck was a Polish national. Police later said on Twitter the passenger was believed to have had no control over the vehicle, which they assume was "intentionally controlled into the crowd". Police traced the truck used to a construction site in Poland, with the owner fearing the vehicle may have been hijacked. Witnesses describe terrifying scene Australian woman Trisha O'Neill witnessed the carnage first-hand. "I could hear screaming and then we all froze. Then suddenly people started to move and lift all the wreckage off people, trying to help whoever was there. "Eventually we had to and there was blood and bodies everywhere. "People, including children and older people, weren't moving — people were crying and I just burst into tears." Witness Mike Fox told The Associated Press the truck missed him by only about three metres as it drove into the market, tearing through tables and wooden stands. "It was definitely deliberate," said the tourist from Birmingham, England. Sorry, this video has expired Video: Tourist witnesses truck ramming crowd (ABC News) He said he helped people who appeared to have broken limbs, and that others were trapped under Christmas stands. US had warned about markets The US had warned its citizens about going to Christmas markets in Germany. They're very open. They're everywhere in the big cities, the small villages. They're a great place for people to carry and gather to buy gingerbread, decorations for trees, presents for loved ones. They are places out in the open where a lot of people would attend, and the US Department of State knowing that there was a high state of alert and these could be potential targets, had warned citizens that visiting these could not be a good idea. They're saying they had credible information that ISIS or al-Qaeda were planning attacks and focusing on the upcoming holiday season. - Europe correspondent Steve Cannane "I heard a big noise and then I moved on the Christmas market and saw much chaos ... many injured people," Jan Hollitzer, deputy editor in chief of Berliner Morgenpost, told CNN. "It was really traumatic." Police cars and ambulances converged quickly on the scene as a huge security operation unfolded. Emma Rushton, a tourist visiting Berlin, told CNN the truck seemed to be traveling at about 65km/h. Asked how many were injured, she said that as she walked back to her hotel, she saw at least 10. Scene reminiscent of Bastille Day attack in Nice The incident evoked memories of an attack in Nice, France in July when a Tunisian-born man used a truck to mow down people watching fireworks on Bastille Day, killing 86. That attack was claimed by Islamic State group. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the circumstances of the crash were still unclear, adding: "I don't want to use the word 'attack' yet although a lot points to that". US President-elect Donald Trump condemned what he called an attack, linking it to "Islamist terrorists" before German police officials had said who was responsible. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also condemned the "attack", saying he had been in touch with security agencies and established all staff at the embassy in Berlin were safe. "We are also intensifying the steps that we have already set in place to ensure that we have the protective measures to respond to attacks such as that that we've seen in Berlin," Mr Turnbull said. Germany has not recently suffered a large-scale attack from Islamist militants like those seen in neighbouring Belgium and France. But it was shaken by two smaller attacks in Bavaria over the summer, one on a train near Wuerzburg and another at a music festival in Ansbach that wounded 20 people. Both were claimed by Islamic State. Julian Reichelt, editor in chief of Bild Berlin, said that there was currently a massive security operation under way. "The scene certainly looks like a reminder of what we have seen in Nice," Reichelt said. People urged to stay away from square Berlin police have urged people to stay away from the area and use Facebook's safety check feature to let loved ones know they are safe. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) said it was checking to see if any Australians had been injured. "The Australian Embassy in Berlin is making urgent enquiries to determine whether any Australians have been affected by the incident at the Berlin Christmas markets," DFAT said in a statement. A government spokesman said Chancellor Angela Merkel was being briefed by her interior minister and the Berlin mayor on the situation. "I'm deeply shaken about the horrible news of what occurred at the memorial church in Berlin," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. "Many people who visited the Christmas market today have died and even more are injured." ABC/wires Topics: accidents, terrorism, germany First posted
Vinny's Barber Shop has a sort of unofficial slogan: "It's a haircut." And indeed, it is that. In a world where a million salons try to pose as the real McCoy, you need look no further than this East Hollywood spot for an old-school barber shop with a modern, contemporary vibe. At Vinny's, the five chairs are almost always full, with good tunes playing in the background. While you're encouraged to grab a beer while you wait, or have some coffee, beverages aren't a gimmick to cover up for substandard quality. Gents chew the fat about sports, work, dogs and cars — everything but politics and religion, which are expressly forbidden. Proprietor Omar Romero just happens to be the finest rockabilly recording engineer in the world. The tattooed gentlemen on his staff take the utmost pride in their work, doing everything they can to make customers look their absolute best. It's a haircut? Sure. And a '68 Chevelle is a car. —Nicholas Pell 852 N. Virgil Ave., E. Hlywd., 90029. (323) 426-9536.
0 Suspect's wife disputes police account of officer-involved shooting MORROW, Ga. - The events that led up to an officer-involved shooting in Clayton County are being disputed by the suspect's wife. Marcus Bell, 26, was shot Sunday after a two-hour standoff at his apartment in the Sandlewood Apartments in Morrow. Police arrived at the complex after a neighbor reported a domestic disturbance at Bell's apartment. But Bell’s wife, Urica, told Channel 2's Carl Willis that she and her husband were not fighting. "He was yelling. I was yelling, but it was not an argument," she said. "That's the way we expressed our opinion." However, police said they saw injuries on her body. “The evidence showed her injuries were from aggravated assault with a firearm,” said Clayton County police Sgt. Tracy Jakes. "That's not true," said Urica Bell. "I'm a small woman. If I got hit with a firearm I'd be black, blue, green, whatever you want to call it. It's going to reflect." Police said they tried to talk to Marcus Bell, but he ran back into the apartment and disobeyed their commands to come out. Meanwhile, police obtained warrants on charges of aggravated assault with a firearm. It was later discovered that Bell also had a warrant out for his arrest in DeKalb County. Officers said at that point, the standoff needed to end. “After two hours with no contract, and after we secured the warrants, we entered the apartment and shots were fired,” Jakes said. Bell’s wife said it never should have ended that way. "It's hurtful because right now, I went to the hospital. I can't even see my husband right now. He's been in surgery three times. Obviously, his condition is worse than what they're telling me," Urica Bell said. When Willis asked a police representative whether a weapon was found in the apartment or if Bell attacked officers, he was told the investigation has been turned over to state investigators. Officials with the Georgia Bureau Investigation said they had nothing to add because the investigation is ongoing.
The release of the volume of poetry by the frontman of the band, Rammstein, became quite an event. The first 10,000 copies sold out on the first day of publishing, and people were already waiting in line for an autograph at 8 AM. Natalia Lomykin met Till Lindemann to talk about why he decided to publish poetry. The book is a heavy black-and-white volume in two languages, and it has sold nearly 15,000 copies in just two days. I saw a couple of them just before the interview. The white pages are in German: rhyming, heavy, sometimes a bit too forthcoming. On the black pages are the Russian translation: often broken in rhythm and rhyme, but accurately conveying the essence of the poems. As the translator’s preface states, “in these often violent texts, he nevertheless, first and foremost, serves us his heart on a platter… ” Natalia Lomykin: The book looks great. But as millions of fans already know your lyrics by heart when singing your songs, how come you felt the need to publish a book of poetry? Till Lindemann: This is a different animal entirely. The words aren’t tied to a certain piece of music; they’re not related to music at all. This is something that has been written in a completely free form. -Is this in response to a father’s wish for his son to become a poet? -You know, talking about my father, I kept telling him, “if I can’t be something useful, I can always become an author” (laughs). He was always annoyed by that, and he thought that I didn’t take what he was doing seriously. (Ed: Till’s father was Werner Lindemann, a writer, poet, and author of 43 books, among them children’s books.) -Can you relate? -In part. When it came to artists, there were always those who fought the system, and my father had to write a lot of books promoting the socialist ideas. And, besides that, he wrote children’s books too. -In one interview, you mentioned that you are happy to have two daughters, because if you had sons, they’d surely want to take after you. What’s wrong with that? -Oh, I would not wish a life like that for my son (laughs)! But I do have a son, actually. And he is very different, completely different. My daughter grew up to be just like me. In fact, now I have two daughters and two sons. -There is no mention of any sons on Wikipedia… -No, fortunately. There is already too much false information there. But one good thing with Wikipedia is that it makes me younger (laughs)! -So, I won’t ask how old you are. -Yeah -You mentioned that artists tend to go against the system. What is freedom for you? Afterall, it’s still one of the key concepts for a musician. -Of course, there are different kinds of freedom: freedom of speech, of expression, to speak one’s mind… Remember the days of the GDR? You had to use all kinds of allegories to say anything. That means, you had to hide whatever you were trying to say behind a lot of double entendres. It’s complicated. On the other hand, it did have its advantages: it forced us to constantly keep searching for a way to get away with anything, despite censorship, and have people understand what we wanted to convey. And now? We have the technology for supplying information, so the manner of writing has become somewhat different. The approach has changed. For me, even though the times have changed, the skill is still there. But not in political texts these days, but in lyrical. I sometimes use words that don’t exist in normal language. For example, when I want to describe a female creature, I can use something like “triangle loins”, and in German, that sounds poetic. In short, all these restrictions have taught me how to think in metaphors. -So, that is to say, that for you, freedom is primarily the freedom of language? What else? In Russia, too, it’s very important to be able to determine the boundaries of freedom, and to know when they are being constricted. As a man of two systems, on one hand growing up in the GDR, and on the other, having the liberty to address millions with very provocative statements, maybe you could advise us on how to evaluate tolerance in society? -It’s evident that it’s important to know the limitations. You need to feel where to start and what you will be able to finish. But we must ask ourselves whether there are things you should not say or do. Puting it bluntly, the more liberties you take, the more come to you. It’s a two-way street. All in all, considering how modern means of communication are developing, the freedom on the internet has become almost without boundaries. I don’t know where that will lead, but sometimes, it does feel like some restrictions would be in order. -Is it harder to write provocative songs? Is it difficult to shock an audience? -Oh, for sure! People have become harder to shock with art, they have the opportunity to see everything, to know everything. From an early age, children have access to things they should not see, but sometimes they do. So, you take a subject and think, yes, that’s it! This is truly shocking! And those same youngsters look at it and yawn indifferently: boring! And you realise you’ve grown old (laughs). -Your popularity here in Russia is enormous. There is this Rammstein-inspired clip on RuNet that has become hugely popular this autumn with a tremendous amount of views. If you haven’t seen it, I can show you. And just the possibility that Rammstein shot a video in Russia is taken very seriously and with a lot of enthusiasm. -Well, what can I say, we’re working on it. -However, this summer, after the incident with Putin’s portrait on a t-shirt and a golden phone, you said Rammstein would never set foot in Russia again. But in less than six months– -No, no, no (Till interrupts in Russian). We never said this. It’s the internet again. -So you were happy to come to Russia to promote your book? -Still am! I love Russia and I am always happy to come here. What with everything else that was going on: it’s bullshit. And I’m not interested. In all honestly, there is always someone somewhere who writes some crap about me. No need to pay attention. So, I came here not only with pleasure, but with great pleasure. -I know you were supposed to attend the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow with the national swimming team, but that never happened. Is that a regret? -First of all, there were a lot of swimming competitions back then, and I was often in the Soviet Union. There was a regular Russian-German game, where the Soviets sent an invite to Germany and the German team came to Russia. I knew both Moscow and St. Petersburg at the time. And Novosibirsk! We spent two days on the train. I think that was the only time I ever slept on a train (laughs). We had tea out of a samovar on this special train, what’s it called, titanium? And there was a granny in every car who served us tea and told us off when we were too noisy so we, of course, were very noisy. And then came the announcement that the Olympic Games would not be held in Los Angeles, or Sydney, or any other capitalist country where we’d never been, but in Moscow. Bah! Moscow again! Boring! (laughs). But then I suffered a very nasty head trauma and I had to give up my career. -What role does sport have in your life now? -I’ll tell you one thing; all of Germany has gone football crazy. And I don’t watch football. I’m appreciative of Germans loving football, because when the national team is playing, the whole city is empty. It’s a pleasure to drive on the streets! No people, no cars, no police (laughs). This is my favourite time for walking; it’s a ghost town. -And most importantly, to get home before the game is over. -For sure. It’s all very different after the game. Well, as for me, I like to watch swimming, because I am a swimmer myself. And to make fun of them, indeed. -Back to the book. Tell us a little about it, and about its structure. What kind of literature is it, and how did it come about? -Actually, this is my second book, the first one is called “Messer”, and it’s not published in Russian yet. I hope that it will be. For that one, I had collected material for twenty years. “On Quiet Nights” was written a lot faster, in less than five years. It was published in Germany three years ago. -And it sells well? -It sold well for a volume of poetry in Germany. I think it’s a good thing. As for Russia, it’s a fantastic success, and the bookstores have already sold out the entire edition. -Your agent is giving me the sign that I still have one last question, and your fans would never forgive me if I didn’t ask when the next Rammstein concert in Russia will be? -I can show you (Till pulls the phone out of his pocket and opens the Calendar). Look, June: first it’s on the fourth in Tallinn, and then the 9th, 10th and 11th, in Russia. That same evening, the Moscow actors of the Gogol theatre did an Avant-guard performance of Lindemann’s poetry – equally dynamic and provocative. Dramatized, with light effects and custom scenography. And all of this was, in fact, a private screening for a single viewer, although the place was packed. Original source: RBC.RU Date: 21 November, 2016 Author: Natalia Lomykin Translation: Murray/Schnitz Share this: Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Google
With two speeches in two days, Indian mainstream media has really woken up and has declared the arrival of the next best thing to India, since sliced bread. Many neutral journalists were coming out of their rat-holes to declare the arrival of a messiah. Having said that, credit must be given where its due. Media has doggedly tried to make any of his sighting, as a comeback of sorts for the last 7 years. Here is the snapshot of their propaganda. Don’t let the headline fool you – also check the dates. In May 2009, Indian Media had as many as 5 pieces titled “Coming of Age of Rahul Gandhi”, from 5 different authors. Coincidence? Or well planned plug, with title suggested by some unnamed source (read Rahul Gandhi PR Team?). - Advertisement - - Article resumes - Two such articles, were dated 5th May (on NDTV) and 8 May 2009 on BBC. What is so special about these dates? The 2009 Lok Sabha elections were conducted between 16 April 2009 and 13 May 2009. Both these “coming of age” pieces are right in the middle of the elections. Coincidence? The other three pieces appeared on 17th May 2009. Yes, all on the same date: The Hindu: May 17, 2009 – The coming of age of Rahul The Economic Times: May 17, 2009 – Rahul Gandhi: A coming-of-age Topnews.in: May 17 2009 – Rahul Gandhi comes of age What is so special about 17 May 2009? The results to the Lok Sabha elections were declared on 16th May 2009. UPA got re-elected, and Indian media was quick to appropriate credit of this victory to the Prince. But the media was not done. As Rahul’s charisma faded away, they kept peppering us with similar headlines, TV debates, right upto 2014. Jan 05, 2010 – Rahul Gandhi: A coming of age June 19, 2011 – Has Rahul Gandhi come of age? (A TV Debate) Feb 6, 2012 – Has Rahul Gandhi come of age as a politician? – By Rajdeep Sardesai Jan 17, 2014 – Has Rahul Gandhi come of age as a politician? – Another TV debate, again by Rajdeep Sardesai Jan 27, 2014 – Has Rahul Gandhi come of age? Why two stories of “Rahul Coming of Age” in 2014 you ask? 2014 General Elections Stupid! And we aren’t even looking for other articles, titled differently, just this cliched phrase of “coming of age”, used in Rahul Gandhi’s context year in year out. One can find numerous other articles with keywords like “comeback”, “mojo”, “return” and so on, associated with the Shehzaada. So now do you understand why suddenly all of our neutral journalists tweeted high praise for a Lok Sabha MP, with no administrative track record, who has never done a job in his entire life, and who disappeared for 56 days, even as Parliament was in session? Last two days are just an extension of media’s lifelong endeavor of seeing him at 7RCR, so that they can enjoy free run with their propaganda. Global Citizen, Kannada roots, Indian values, Man United spirit, Fiscal conservative Share This Post and Support:
In the immediate aftermath of a big election night, emotions run high and excitement becomes contagious. For the victors, it’s probably only natural to start imagining greatness on a historic scale. Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, proclaimed Wednesday that Republicans may have built a “hundred-year majority” in the House. “We’re as back to a majority as any of us have seen in our lifetimes. It may be a hundred-year majority,” he said. Got that? The Republican Party may be unpopular, and its ideas may lack public support, and it may not have a real policy agenda to speak of, but its leaders are nevertheless comfortable remaining in the majority – until 2114. To be sure, Walden has reason to be pleased. The Republicans’ House majority is simply massive – the largest since the Truman era – and will almost certainly stick around for a while. I don’t imagine Democrats will be locked out for a full century, but I also don’t see the Speaker’s gavel in Democratic hands real soon. The problem with Walden’s hubris, however, is how familiar it sounds. On November 10, 1994, then-Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), feeling confident after a GOP wave, told the Washington Post that he saw the cycle as “a permanent realignment” in Republicans’ favor, adding, “I think that realignment can make us the permanent majority party in the Congress.” In 2001, CNN ran a report on Karl Rove, who saw George W. Bush as a figure who could “usher in a permanent Republican majority.” Two years later, the New Yorker ran this profile of Rove. Rove’s main goal over the next year and a half is making George W. Bush what his father wasn’t, a reëlected President – when I asked if he had mapped out the campaign, he said, “Don’t expect me to answer this question” – but he is too ambitious to want only that. The real prize is creating a Republican majority that would be as solid as, say, the Democratic coalition that Franklin Roosevelt created – a majority that would last for a generation. A year later, Tom DeLay told a group of Republicans at a retreat, “2004 is the year we start thinking like a permanent majority.” Four years later, Americans elected a Democratic president, Democratic Senate, and Democratic House. There’s no denying the impressive scope and scale of the GOP’s successes in 2014. But the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee isn’t the first to wonder aloud about permanent majorities – and those who came before him always ended up disappointed. Democrats have some real challenges that need quick and effective solutions. If you missed it, Greg Sargent’s interviews with leading Dem pollsters helps make clear exactly where the party fell short in 2014, and the kind of inherent problems that could imperil the party going forward.
Clip description A child sits on the grass next to a miniature cricket kit with stumps, bat and ball, as the narrator explains that a love of cricket is inherent to 'every Australian’. Children play the game in Sydney’s backstreets, followed by footage of the Australian cricket team in action. The narrator describes a 'reversal’ on the cricket field as almost as serious as a 'national calamity’, and how easily a team’s fortunes can change in each match. Seven of the players from the successful 1930 Australian team walk onto a small oval. The captain, Bill Woodfull, addresses the camera to promote the game through the medium of talking pictures which, he says, can 'so lucidly demonstrate and explain most things’. Curator’s notes In Depression-era Australia in the 1930s, backyard cricket was played by many kids in the lanes of city slums, as seen in this clip. Most footage of inner city housing in the 1930s and 1940s focuses on the poverty, the inadequate living conditions and overcrowded areas endured by those hard hit by the Depression. The children filmed here were likely to have been inner city kids – possibly rewarded for their brief appearance on film with a meal or a couple of bob. Rather than focusing on hardship, the boys here are happy to be playing a game of cricket. Furthermore, the narration offers them hope by saying that the back lanes are just one step away from the playing field.
When my wife and I were looking to buy a house, at first we just wanted to buy an existing house. Our theory was that it would be cheaper. After over 6 months of causal searching, we started coming to the realization that building a house was almost as cheap as buying an existing house, at least where we live. So we decided to build a new house instead of buying an existing home. Below are some of the Pros and Cons of building a house that we’ve experienced. Pros of Building a House New houses are safer ! The inspection process that counties impose really do help with the safety of the house and make sure that the utility systems (electrical, gas) are safe. ! The inspection process that counties impose really do help with the safety of the house and make sure that the utility systems (electrical, gas) are safe. New Appliances such as water tanks and the furnace last longer because they are brand new! such as water tanks and the furnace last longer because they are brand new! The roof tiles on the roof will last longer because they are new. on the roof will last longer because they are new. And the biggest advantage is that you won’t immediately need to redo a room that you hate ! I’ve seen this happen way to often! A family buys a house that’s $5,000 cheaper than building a new house, but then spends $10,000 to replace fixtures that they hate because they are so out of date. Or they will totally redo a room like the kitchen… ! I’ve seen this happen way to often! A family buys a house that’s $5,000 cheaper than building a new house, but then spends $10,000 to replace fixtures that they hate because they are so out of date. Or they will totally redo a room like the kitchen… New houses are practically repair free for the first 10 years. for the first 10 years. Highly reduced chance of the house having black mold . . Athough not recommended because of resale potential, you can design your house to look any way that you want! Cons of Building a House Your new house location may be in an “off the beaten” path location or in located in areas that aren’t as convenient as older nicer locations. may be in an “off the beaten” path location or in located in areas that aren’t as convenient as older nicer locations. Time delays , you may plan to move in by a certain date, but that can easily be bumped back by the builder because of circumstances. This happens often. , you may plan to move in by a certain date, but that can easily be bumped back by the builder because of circumstances. This happens often. While mold won’t be an issue, the new house will be a cocktail of new chemical smells from new carpet, glue, plastics, paints, stains, etc… We were even able to change the plans on the house design after they started building. This was nice because if you are quick enough, a good builder will accomodate your wishes without adding much to the cost. If the changes are too complex though, you will have to pay and the time delay could be extended substancially! If you have any additional point that I may have missed, please share them below in the comments section! Thanks, -MR
(Poisoned Chalice cover art by Michael Carroll) [Editor’s note: The Beat is pleased to serialize this of work of comics history by Pádraig Ó Méalóid, a known expert on things Alan Moore, British comics, and SF. In Poisoned Chalice he wades in to one of the strangest and thorniest knots of all of comics: the history of Marvel/Miracleman and still unsolved question of who owns this character. It’s a story that touches on many of the most remarkable personalities in the comics industry—Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Joe Quesada and more—and one of the most fascinating. It’s a sad fact about the comics medium that only in the last few decades have its most talented and passionate creators been able to present their work with a guarantee of equity and ownership; I feel that it is no coincidence that since this began, the medium has risen in popular and critical regard. The story of Marvelman touches on the darker places of comics history, springing from the prehistory where greed ruled the day; it’s a tangled tale that I have occasionally attempted to untie myself, but Pádraig is far better equipped to do so, as I think the following will show, bringing the research and attention to detail the story requires. It’s a piece of scholarship that I am proud to present. It’s my intention to serialize Poisoned Chalice over the next few months; but I would hope to see it published in a more complete form at some time. So with no further ado, let’s begin the story of Marvelman.] Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman – Part 0: Introduction The comic character Marvelman has a fascinating – and probably unique – history in the field of comics. His extended origin goes all the way back to the very beginnings of the American superhero comics industry, and it seems likely that his ongoing story will stretch on well into the future. It involves some of the biggest names in comics. It’s a story of good versus evil, of heroes and villains, and of any number of acts of plagiarism and casual breaches of copyright. I’m completely fascinated with the history and ongoing story of Marvelman – so much so that I’ve spent a lot of years tracking it down, and writing about it. I started writing what I thought would be an article or a long blog post, but it just kept growing, as I found out more about the character and his history. Eventually it ended up as a 100,000 word book, which isn’t even finished yet – the dangerous thing about writing about something that is still evolving is that, just when you think you’re all up-to-date, something happens, and you have to go rewrite something you were sure you’d finished with. Still, at this stage I probably know more about Marvelman – and his occasional nom de guerre Miracleman – that anyone might reasonably wish to. And, over the next while, I’m going to be serialising what I’ve found out, here on The Beat. I’m going to start with a very brief overview of the pre-history and origin of Marvelman and Miracleman as I originally understood it, before going into greater detail about it all. This history is, at least to me, fascinating, and an important part of what makes the Marvelman story so compelling, with its twists and turns, its odd coincidences, its half-truths, red herrings, and rumours. So, here goes… Marvelman was created in 1953 by Mick Anglo of London’s Gower Street Studios in response to a request from Leonard Miller of L Miller and Son Ltd, because Miller’s highly lucrative reprinting of the adventures of American comic character Captain Marvel was soon to come to a halt. Fawcett Comics, the publishers of Captain Marvel, were ceasing publication of the title, due to having lost a plagiarism suit brought against them by National Periodical Publications, who claimed that Captain Marvel was a copy of National’s Superman character, the world’s first comic book superhero. Superman himself in turn is often said to be based on the character Hugo Danner from Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator. Marvelman was to take over from Captain Marvel when the American material ran out, and it has never been disputed that the character was directly based upon its American predecessor. Marvelman first appeared in his own title in February 1954, and ran for 346 issues until February 1963, with Miller having been publishing reprints of older stories since 1959. After nineteen years in the wilderness the character was revived in UK comics magazine Warrior by Alan Moore and various artists, under the editorship of Dez Skinn, where it ran for the first twenty-one issues, from March 1982 until August 1984, before being withdrawn due to legal threats from Marvel Comics UK, who stated the character’s name was infringing on their own copyrighted name. The Warrior work was reprinted for the American market by Eclipse Comics – with the character now renamed Miracleman – starting in Miracleman #1 in August 1985. The earlier work took up the first six issues, and Moore then went on to finish his storyline by issue #16. Writer Neil Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham then took over the title, lasting from issue #17 up to issue #24 in 1994, just before Eclipse closed down due to bankruptcy. Eclipse subsequently held a sale of their assets, including the rights they held to Miracleman, all of which were bought in one lot by Todd McFarlane in 1996. Since then, the character had not appeared, nor had any of the previously published work been reprinted, until Marvel Comics in the US started republishing the Miller-era stories in 2010. And that’s the short version of what had happened: Moore’s Miracleman was based on Anglo’s Marvelman, who was based on Captain Marvel, who was said to be based on Superman, who was alleged to be based on Philip Wylie’s Hugo Danner. Something like this: However, at almost every point in that story there were complications, mostly to do with perceived breaches of copyright, with apparent abandonment of copyright, or with outright and blatant violation of copyright. Sometimes there were court cases, or more often threats of court cases. There’s even a fewof threats of court cases. But much of what I originally believed turned out to be wrong, either due to being misunderstood by me or others, or in some cases simply to having no basis in fact. Perhaps the prime guiding principle I had in writing the book, and this series of articles, was to try to chase down the source of every story and allegation, to try to find out if there was any actual truth in them – sometimes there was, and sometimes there wasn’t, and often the truth lay somewhere between the two. I’ve looked at all sorts of court records and company details, read all the relevant interviews and biographies I can find, and in general tried to find and assess every piece of documented evidence I can. Where this was not possible, I’ve tried to speak directly to the people involved, as much as this was possible. So, all that follows, as much as is humanly possible, is based on actual verifiable fact. And, as much as possible, I’m going to put the facts in front of you, and give you references and links to where I found the information, so that you can go check it out for yourself. This series of articles will be in several separate parts: first, there’s the prehistory, dealing with events from the first appearance of Superman in 1938 up to the last appearance of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel comics in the early 1950s. Then we have the Miller-era Marvelman; a brief intermission from the end of the Miller-era Marvelman up to the launch of Warrior; the Warrior-era Marvelman; the Eclipse Comics Miracleman; and finally Marvel Comics’ acquisition of Mick Anglo’s rights to Marvelman in 2009, after which I shall attempt to draw some sort of conclusion from all the foregoing. Some of those subheadings will be broken up into several parts, as there really is a lot of information to get across, but I promise you it’s all relevant. So, why is this (and the book) called Poisoned Chalice? It’s from something Alan Moore once said: I told Neil, ‘This may well be a poisoned chalice.’ And I remember saying to him, prophetically, at the time, ‘I’ve got no idea who owns Marvelman.’ I said, ‘For all I know, it might still be owned by Mick Anglo.’ And, later on, Neil Gaiman echoed this: Every now and then he apologizes for having given me Miracleman… It’s a poisoned chalice. And who am I to argue with those two? Although I will do, later on. In this series of articles, I’ll be going through the history of Marvelman again, dealing with each step in considerably more detail. In the first part I’ll be starting with the first appearance of Superman in 1938, and going as far as the end of Captain Marvel in 1953. Expect to see it here soon. Pádraig Ó Méalóid is a middle-aged Irishman. He has written for Fractal Matter, The Alien Online and Emerald City, all of which are now defunct. He has also written for the Forbidden Planet International blog, which is thriving, thank you very much. He did a lot of interviews while he was there, with people like Eddie Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Peter Hogan, Todd Klein, Dave McKean, Alan Moore, Steve ‘No Relation’ Moore, Kevin O’Neill, and Bryan Talbot. Besides all this he has spent twenty years or more running small SF conventions and comics events in Dublin, his home town. He has been fascinated with the story of Marvelman for a very long time, and has written a book about it, which is currently looking for a publisher. He is very happy to be writing for The Beat, which he considers to be the best site of its kind on the ‘net, hands down. ©2013 Pádraig Ó Méalóid Like this: Like Loading...
Well isn’t this the perfect little yummy dish for a blog based near Philly? Cheesesteak eggrolls. I grew up outside of Cleveland, so I’m not sure if cheesesteaks in any other form are sacrilege or not. We had Steak-umms when I was a kid; I’m pretty sure they would qualify for that offense :) My brothers and sisters and I loved them anyway. That skinny little red box in the freezer meant a fast yummy sandwich to us. We first had this treat as an appetizer at a restaurant nearby. It ended up becoming one of our favorite things on the menu. An order was two eggrolls and my husband and I would split the order because the kids weren’t interested. Then a few years passed and they became very interested, so we shared the order with them. Everyone wanted more, so the next time, we doubled the order. With everyone fighting over the plate and still wanting more, I figured it was time to recreate this dish at home. I didn’t think it would be too difficult, having made thousands of eggrolls with my dad over the years (read more about that in this post); I certainly could make a cheesesteak eggroll. Everyone has their favorite cheesesteak in Philly. Pat’s, Geno’s, Jim’s and Tony Luke’s are among the names you might hear, but there are many more whose names you might never have heard of that are local favorites. We happen to like the cheesesteaks at a little pizza shop in our old neighborhood. We’d love to find one that compares closer to home, not that we eat them often. They are a splurge treat to be sure, but if you’re going to splurge, you might as well make it worth it (yes, we will drive far for good food.) Bad cheesesteaks are really a terrible waste of a good splurge. These eggrolls are a semi splurge. They are deep fried, which is something we only do once or twice a year, max. But they are much smaller than a cheesesteak and therefore have built in portion control. (Except that they are really, really good and you probably will eat more than just one!) I have a good Southwestern Eggroll recipe that is both vegetarian and baked. Those are not a splurge and we make them often. I know you can bake these as well, we tried it… but they really are so much better fried. When you bite into that hot crispy wrapper and inside is tender steak, melted cheese and fried onions, you’ll say, “Yes, I’m glad I fried it.” Ugh…soooo good! The eggrolls are filled with steak, cheese and onions. Everything is precooked and then cooled before rolling. I browned the onions a bit first to give them some color and flavor. The onions are chopped so you don’t end up with any stringy pieces when you take a bite. Then I used a thinly shaved steak. If you can’t find it, the butcher can slice some up for you. Ours was really shaved, as in I could barely separate the pieces when I cooked them. I flash fried them in the same pan I used for the onions, and tried not to fully cook them. I achieved this by not cooking individual layers of steak which would have browned through almost as soon as they hit the pan, but instead piled about a 1/2″ of shaved beef in the pan, then separated them a bit while I cooked them. I wanted some pink because they would be cooked further in the fryer. Once I had a pile of cooked steak, I ran my knife through it once, in only one direction to break it up a bit, again so that it would make for an easy bite. We used American cheese slices, but everyone has a preference. I think the flavor and melting qualities work perfectly here. I divided up the slice on the top and bottom of the meat so that it melts through evenly. The photo shows a half slice of cheese, divided. If you put too much cheese in it, it overpowers the steak, so a thin half slice worked best. It also makes for a neat little package to roll up. These make a fantastic appetizer, but we had them for dinner one night and balanced the splurge with lots of vegetables for sides. For me, two was filling enough for a meal. As an appetizer, I’d cut them in half diagonally and prop them up on a platter with a few dips. When we have traditional cheesesteaks, we order a bit of mayo on them, but for these rolls, I like good ole’ ketchup and a creamy horseradish sauce for dipping. I actually like dipping them on my plate in both sauces for a really tasty bite. You could make a spicy ketchup, a creamy mustard or other dip if you’d prefer; you could even go with no dip, but that’s no fun. And why splurge on Cheesesteak Eggrolls if it’s not going to be fun?
One local traffic officer dishes out plenty of humour and animal gifs with the tickets and typically-dry road safety messages. Const. Phil Kane, who tweets as @carbinekane was busy wielding his radar gun on Ottawa roads Monday. First, he tweeted about a motorist nabbed going 128 km/h in an 80 zone on the “Limebank Raceway” then a second vehicle was clocked at 130 km/h. Finally, there was a 19-year-old going 177 km/h in an 80 zone on Franktown Road, netting a seven-day impound for the car and license suspension for the driver and a court date. Upon conviction, add on a six- month license suspension, a fine of $1,000 to $10,000 and a “massive” insurance hike, Kane noted. Ottawa patrol officer just charged a 19 year old driver for doing 177 in an 80 zone on Franktown Rd. Immediate 7 day impound, 7 day licence suspension + court date. #carjail #stunt pic.twitter.com/sjHB5E6VEH — Phil Kane (@carbinekane) November 13, 2017 Kane’s colleague, known in the Twitterverse as @thebeardedcop, was back on the “Limebank Raceway” Tuesday and nailed a speeder doing 134 km/h in the 80 km/h zone. Bearded Cop took a sporting theme to describe the bust. 134 in an 80 zone – “flag on the play! Mouchoir sur le terrain” – 7 day impound and licence suspension. #notworthit #mybeardgrowsfaster #RoadSafety pic.twitter.com/kCLhOJ5dyJ — The Bearded Cop (@TheBeardedCop) November 14, 2017 And Carbine King was also back on the job Tuesday, catching a 17-year-old G2 speed demon who registered 124 km/h on the Raceway.
The Gear S3 Frontier seems to have been been a great hit worldwide, so much so that Samsung UK have run out of stock of the wearable device for almost a week now. Many of our readers have been left disappointed as they have had no other options of where to purchase one from. Well, that is until now. UK Online-retailer Mobilefun has just got in stock of the frontier and have it for sale at £349 plus shipping. You can purchase it with next day delivery if you want but that will set you back £6.99. If the Samsung Gear S3 Classic is more to your liking then you can either wait for Mobilefun to get stock, which at the moment is in one weeks time, or you can purchase it directly from Samsung UK. The Gear S3 is a functional smartwatch that has the looks to match. Featuring a unique bezel that can be used to navigate the widgets as well as apps and menu items. For fitness you have a built-in GPS, to track you running or cycling route, as well as a Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) to keep an eye on your overall condition. This wearable device supports 22mm watch straps so you can personalise it to you particular taste. Take this watch out in the elements as it is rugged with IP68 Certified Dust and Water Resistant. Check out our unboxing video to see what’s in the box. Are you ready to take the plunge? Head on over to Mobilefun to order one now.
Author Message krazykat Canceled user Subject: Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:09 pm Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:09 pm I do mean territory. They were chokeholed at their home for a large portion of the game, right? a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:34 pm Wed Nov 01, 2017 4:34 pm krazykat wrote: I do mean territory. They were chokeholed at their home for a large portion of the game, right? Yeah between the reefs and finding other factions crowded around the whirlpools they went to, they had trouble expanding for a while. They went a little crazy for a bit but were checked by the French at The Flat, and have had their hands full with the Pirates since then. a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: Pirate Turn 69 Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 4:31 am Pirate Turn 69 Thu Nov 02, 2017 4:31 am Forgot to do it until this new round of turns, but the Metal Dragon escaped from Allost on the last English turn. The Zephyr is captured, while the Stoneheart continues to head west. The always-chaotic battlefield in southwest Karkuda! The Pirates actually had a very good turn here for the first time in a while, and similar to the American turn, more progress was seen at the battle than usual. The Full Moon tows the Thrud out of harm's way, while the Zanzibar knocks a mast off the Fly with 2/2 shooting. After the Dolphin sank a Minuteman flotilla, the Jaguar's Spirit was able to get to the bow of the Fuchuan and initiated towing. The fresh Jape shot 2/2 to set the James Madison (OE) alight, dooming the ship. The Bonny Kate towed the Silverback, and a new Pirate ship arrives from the Sea of Allost! The Bruja is back! The Bruja was captured and later traded in by the Americans, and now the Pirates have her back to get revenge. The Satisfaction used her shipwright to repair a mast, and the Bruja towed the Ningpo. However, where did the Silverback and Ningpo go?? Through the whirlpool and back into the Sea of Allost! The ships were on the Karkuda whirlpool after being moved from the tows, and the Pirates had them sent home for repairs! This could be a brilliant strategy by the Pirates, who are appearing more lively than they have recently in terms of the American battle. Through the magic of chain towing, the Silverback and Ningpo are nearly back to Dead Man's Point where they can repair. However, where did the Obago, Pride, Ballista and others go? To the northern whirlpool in the Sea of Karkuda! Having generally lost at least the first phase of the battle against the Americans, the Pirates are trying a new strategy. They will try to recruit French help and come at the Americans from a different angle! The captains of the various Pirate gunships speak with Lenoir, who is in high demand after agreeing to an alliance with the English via the captain of HMS Forge. Lenoir is caught in between: a very complex situation forces him to give the Pirates a non-answer for now, but the French ships west of The Flat will at least get out of the way so the 6+ Pirate gunships can attack the Americans if they want. The French want to support the Pirates' efforts against the Americans, but the Cursed invasion has put them on the defensive. Things have been made more complicated with the recent Spanish incursion to the Castle, which has escalated Franco-American tensions right near this area. In addition, the situation is even more complex than I can divulge here! Pirate ships advance even further into the Tunnel, with the Panama Sun and Ranger preparing to transfer infantry units to the Celtic Fury.... Turn 69 begins as the game reaches its third calendar month! (it started in early September)Forgot to do it until this new round of turns, but the Metal Dragon escaped from Allost on the last English turn. The Zephyr is captured, while the Stoneheart continues to head west.The always-chaotic battlefield in southwest Karkuda!The Pirates actually had a very good turn here for the first time in a while, and similar to the American turn, more progress was seen at the battle than usual. The Full Moon tows the Thrud out of harm's way, while the Zanzibar knocks a mast off the Fly with 2/2 shooting. After the Dolphin sank a Minuteman flotilla, the Jaguar's Spirit was able to get to the bow of the Fuchuan and initiated towing. The fresh Jape shot 2/2 to set the James Madison (OE) alight, dooming the ship.The Bonny Kate towed the Silverback, and a new Pirate ship arrives from the Sea of Allost! The Bruja is back! The Bruja was captured and later traded in by the Americans, and now the Pirates have her back to get revenge. The Satisfaction used her shipwright to repair a mast, and the Bruja towed the Ningpo. However, where did the Silverback and Ningpo go??Through the whirlpool and back into the Sea of Allost! The ships were on the Karkuda whirlpool after being moved from the tows, and the Pirates had them sent home for repairs! This could be a brilliant strategy by the Pirates, who are appearing more lively than they have recently in terms of the American battle.Through the magic of chain towing, the Silverback and Ningpo are nearly back to Dead Man's Point where they can repair. However, where did the Obago, Pride, Ballista and others go?To thewhirlpool in the Sea of Karkuda! Having generally lost at least the first phase of the battle against the Americans, the Pirates are trying a new strategy. They will try to recruit French help and come at the Americans from a different angle! The captains of the various Pirate gunships speak with Lenoir, who is in high demand after agreeing to an alliance with the English via the captain of HMS Forge. Lenoir is caught in between: a very complex situation forces him to give the Pirates a non-answer for now, but the French ships west of The Flat will at least get out of the way so the 6+ Pirate gunships can attack the Americans if they want. The French want to support the Pirates' efforts against the Americans, but the Cursed invasion has put them on the defensive. Things have been made more complicated with the recent Spanish incursion to the Castle, which has escalated Franco-American tensions right near this area. In addition, the situation isthan I can divulge here!Pirate ships advance even further into the Tunnel, with the Panama Sun and Ranger preparing to transfer infantry units to the Celtic Fury.... Last edited by a7xfanben on Tue Jul 31, 2018 2:08 am; edited 1 time in total krazykat Canceled user Subject: Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 7:03 am Fri Nov 03, 2017 7:03 am I love that shot of the tunnel, very cinematic! a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: Update Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:24 pm Update Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:24 pm krazykat wrote: I love that shot of the tunnel, very cinematic! Thanks! Quick little update: -I have not been playing as much as I had hoped to lately, but this should change starting next Monday and beyond. -I will likely not be able to play until next Monday, as I had originally thought. Even if I can I will likely not post the next report until Monday night. -Postimages.org was a little funky today; between that and wanting to do video battle reports for this game at some point, it's possible that the BR's will be in flux a bit in the near future. So don't expect much for a few days here, but once I'm back, I'll be back big-time! Thanks!Quick little update:-I have not been playing as much as I had hoped to lately, but this should change starting next Monday and beyond.-I will likely not be able to play until next Monday, as I had originally thought. Even if I can I will likely not post the next report until Monday night.-Postimages.org was a little funky today; between that and wanting to do video battle reports for this game at some point, it's possible that the BR's will be in flux a bit in the near future.So don't expect much for a few days here, but once I'm back, I'll be back big-time! a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 5:32 am Tue Nov 07, 2017 5:32 am No report yet. However, it will be up soon. I was actually able to play more than I expected, and the remainder of Turn 69 was played over three sessions, with one each on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I have been writing a big report as I go, so the events of all three days will be all in one report (which is not what I usually do of course). It is amounting to one of the best reports I've ever written. Thought I was going to type more here but I'm about speechless. The game is insanity. I completely understand that nobody can even relate to it at this point. XD Just take one look at one of the zoomed-out pictures and you would have to just shake your head in disbelief. Even as a super-veteran of these kinds of games, I'm just blown away at this point. xerecs Canceled user Subject: Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 7:06 am Tue Nov 07, 2017 7:06 am a7xfanben wrote: No report yet. However, it will be up soon. I was actually able to play more than I expected, and the remainder of Turn 69 was played over three sessions, with one each on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I have been writing a big report as I go, so the events of all three days will be all in one report (which is not what I usually do of course). It is amounting to one of the best reports I've ever written. Thought I was going to type more here but I'm about speechless. The game is insanity. I completely understand that nobody can even relate to it at this point. XD Just take one look at one of the zoomed-out pictures and you would have to just shake your head in disbelief. Even as a super-veteran of these kinds of games, I'm just blown away at this point. I think you said that about one of the earlier reports as well...... XD I'm interested as always to see what happens, I'm sure it will be worth the wait. a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: 3 sessions to finish Turn 69 Posted: Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:12 am 3 sessions to finish Turn 69 Wed Nov 08, 2017 5:12 am Sheer Chaos, the likes of which you have never seen Get the popcorn ready, get your snacks, and get hyped! XD Play has resumed in force!! The game has seen an absolute EXPLOSION on this Turn 69 that rivals any other single turn in any campaign game! Prepare yourself for the carnage! The scary part is, it will likely only increase dramatically in the future... O_O The Jade Rebels are after the Pirates in the turn order, and they start their turn with an attack!! The Wiglaf nearly dismasts the Jikininki! Broken Horn Island is under attack again!! Eight Jade gunships head west as the area southwest of the Roost descends into chaos once more. (theme music begins) Here you can see the damage done to the Death's Anchor, Pale Moon, Executioner, Hades' Realm and Sickle: The Huginn dismasts the captured Brandywine and the Grendel surges forward... ... to capture the ship! The Brandywine has now been owned by 3 different factions in this game. Also notice the other Jade/Viking ships moving north, though that's almost literally just the tip of the iceberg... O_O ATTACK!!!! The entire Jade battle fleet surges forward in an epic display of seamanship and naval power!! Though some are many turns away, I count over 50 gunships either in battle with the Cursed or headed towards them!! O_O I wanted to take some extra pictures to show off the color and diversity among the JR and BC sails, and I think this is the best shot I got: Previously cooped up by territorial boundaries, the Jade Rebellion war fleet has begun heading straight for the Cursed! Jade Rebel troops watch as dozens of beautiful new Corsair galleys depart the home island: A nice look at the BC 4 masters: It seems rather likely that an EPIC battle is about to take place!!! The Jades attacked for a simple reason: the Cursed look as weak as they have in quite some time. From afar, the Jades witnessed the exodus as Calypso allowed a bunch of Cursed gunships to go through the new whirlpool and into the Sea of Karkuda. The Jades don't know about the Sea of Karkuda, but they assume the Cursed have gone off and may not be back. After coming close to a full-out attack, they have finally decided to carry out plans for one now that the Cursed don't have as many gunships around the Roost. A view from the Roost itself, as the Cursed see what's coming.... A rare view just north of Broken Horn Island, looking east: A forest of lateen sails in the distance: A nice and similarly rare shot looking east across the Sea of Allost at a low angle: And that is it for the Jade turn! Prepare yourself!! XD El Fantasma, captain of the Divine Dragon and current commander of the Cursed Extermination Force: "... bring up the weapon..." A historical artifact of great value and mythology is brought to Fantasma's helm. Fantasma offers a rare smile before his skeletal face turns to a contorted frown of unrivaled malice as he points the "weapon" at the nearby French fleet... Neptune's Trident!!!! With the power of the sea, the Trident unleashes a massive tidal wave that projects from the Divine Dragon!! OH MY GOD!!! The wave is fired into the Harbor!! Using my L+L+L ruler and the white S straw, I was able to figure out the damage path of the tidal wave. Before the damage assessment: These were taken for maximum effect, as I played the Trident normally and didn't sink anything outright. From the Cursed view, as the wave crashes into tons of French ships and into the Harbor area itself: The temporary result of the UT, which is clearly wicked powerful in campaign games with so many ships around.... O_O DEVASTATION IS UNLEASHED!!!!!! O_O Now we can properly assess the damage. The Jeux was not only dismasted, but also thrown into the Harbor wall due to the lower tonnage of the ship. The Felicite is dismasted and nearly capsizes: As you probably noticed by now, the wave attack actually split one of the docks in half!!!! O_O Dock destruction!! Inevitably, various infantry who were preparing to fight the Cursed died in the blast. Somehow an artillery unit survived on the outer side of the dock, but three infantry units and one artillery unit were lost between the dock breaking apart and the splinters and spars flying through the air. In total, 15 masts were ruined as a result of the wave caused by Fantasma's wielding of Neptune's Trident. Eight different ships were damaged. The dock costed the French 10 gold, and I'm still figuring out the house rule around rebuilding it. They will be able to purchase a new dock for the same standard cost, but I think they will need to clear the wreckage first, which will take at least a turn here even with maximum cleanup efforts deployed. Of course, with hostile Cursed ships basically inside the Harbor itself, the recovery process will likely take a while. IMMENSE WRECKAGE, with debris strewn everywhere: Of course, the Divine Dragon couldn't sustain the damage output of having 8 ships affected. The Cursed knew the risk and decided it was worth it. Looks like they're right! XD With 8 ships affected, I did 8 "damage" to the DD, with 4 masts eliminated and 4 "hits" to the hull (she would still need 8 more hits on the hull to sink due to the sinking house rule). With Fantasma's ship suddenly out of action, the Cursed needed to find a way to extricate the DD and avoid losing her to the French. Never fear, the Hellfire is here! XD The DD is towed, but where did she go? If you've read about the Pirate-American battle elsewhere in Karkuda, it should come as no surprise... ... as the Divine Dragon and Bloody Blade are warped back to Allost via "whirlpool towing"! This is now a tactic employed by two factions, and looks to be a true strategy (at least for this game). Here you can also see the Cursed counterattack against the Jades! Fear worked well here, with the Fenrir and Glorious Treasure being hit by the ability. The Executioner was effective, setting the Glorious Treasure aflame. It looks as though the JR-Cursed War is back in full swing!! The Monkey's Paw goes a pitiful 0/5, but the Asgard takes damage from the icewreck (being moved L into it) and the Sickle. Shal-Bala returns to the Sea of Karkuda in order to guard the latest Cursed launch: Namazu. O_O Namazu is a sea monster from the unreleased Return to Savage Shores set with an ability similar to the Neptune's Trident UT. After using the Eye to see the incredible devastation wreaked by the Trident, the Cursed are very impressed with its potential for continual warfare use. You know what that means: a less disposable source of tidal wave attacks! O_O Combine that with copiers Behemoth and Davy Jones, and the Cursed have exclusive access to weapons of incredible power right now. The Cursed turn was actually quite strategic and well-thought-out. They purposely did most of their activities in Karkuda to see what they needed to send there from Allost. The Banshee's Wail is the ship that came forth to "tow"/send the Bloody Blade back to Allost. The Locker and Pyre have returned to Allost as well, as the Cursed realize they cannot win both fights in two oceans at the same time. The wave blast was not all the damage sustained by the French! After most of the operations in Allost, the Cursed turned back to Karkuda to finish their assault. Terrox walloped the Geographe for 2 masts on 4/8 shooting, while the Hellfire dismasted the Musarde and Leviathan took a mast off the Dijon. Calim has pinned Le Petit Dauphin, while the Nightmare (at the right) partially makes up for her previous performances, which have been awful. On this turn the Nightmare shot 4/5 to damage 3 different ships! (Petit Dauphin, Marianne, Richelieu) Looking directly north, here is the last picture from this EPIC Cursed turn. The Silver Coffin shot a mast off Le Lyon, while at the right the Glaive and Baionnette took slight damage. At the end of their turn, the Cursed let out a bombshell. They told the French something. Fantasma sent a messenger boat over to the French fleet, which was reeling from the wave attack and continual cannon fire/tentacle whipping. The Cursed revealed a HUGE development: the Pirates put them up to it. O_O This was the deal with the Devil. The deal was as follows: If the Pirates hire Calypso, the Cursed can use Davy Jones and/or Behemoth to copy her for the rest of the game, on the condition that the Cursed use Calypso's ability to launch a full-scale attack on the French. O_O A huge secret is revealed! Previously known only to the Pirates and the Cursed (the Pirates came up with the idea), the French now know of the deal. Obviously this is extremely important, as the Pirates and the French are allies!!!! However, this is arguably one of the greatest agreements in naval history. The Pirates see the French as one of their biggest long-term rivals. With whirlpool travel, the Pirates know about the oceans more than any faction other than the Cursed, who have the Eye of course. However, the Pirates are generally aware that there are 4 "mega factions": Pirates, Cursed, French, and Americans. The Pirates already have a bitter war against the Americans. If they continue that, they may be too weak to take on the French and/or Cursed afterwards. Thus, a "deal with the devil" to pit the other two largest factions against each other!! From my document where I store the BR's and faction plans/etc: "The Pirates pull off a huge masterstroke of grand strategy, weakening two huge rival fleets with one deal while simultaneously able to focus on their other rival." With that we move to the Caribbean factions, the English and Spanish! The 4 English gunships in the Sea of Karkuda have a great turn, dealing damage to 4 different Pirate ships. (including a successful BA from the Ark Royal to the Thirty Tyrants) I must say HMS Victoria is a bit of a favorite of mine. She sails out with some other English gunships, while the King John and Westminster take crew replacements aboard. (hired with cashed in spices from the Antelope) In the background, Admiral Thomas Gunn stands guard northeast of Diamond Rock with a squadron of gunships. The English battle fleet makes their way towards the whirlpool! The Spanish continue to attack the Americans at the Castle! They will try to reclaim what is rightfully theirs!! Here the Santa Ana, Vaccaro's flagship of the faction, rakes the Kentucky by the bows and purposely boxes the three American ships in. Although the SA will be exposed to considerable fire from those ships on the American turn, Vaccaro positioned the ship to block those ships from getting out and attacking other Spanish ships as well. Vaccaro now has some good backup too, with the Santo Columba sailing around the northeastern edge of the Castle and going 3/3 to hit with her musketeer and firepot specialist, setting the York ablaze! Whoa!! The Granada blasts away at the old and weakened northeastern wall of the Castle, and her cannon balls find their mark!! Shots shatter through the old structure, and a huge hole is ripped open! In addition the Granada carries a firepot specialist and the Castle is now on fire!!! O_O Through the smoke and rubble you can glimpse the Gold Eagle: However, with all the troops on the Castle, the Americans will likely be able to put the fires out soon. The Corazon Dorado uses her reroll ability to get Dominick Freda's SAT, allowing her to speed into the area at S+L+S+S+L+S! She hits twice on each action, knocking a mast off the York and United States. The Americans are surprised by the speed and ferocity of the Spanish onslaught... ... and there's more coming!! Six Spanish gunships in Karkuda have yet to reach the battle area, including three fresh from the Caribbean whirlpool. With that we move to the Sea of Karkuda factions! The Mercenaries are back! The doors to the submarine hideout open, and five submarines zoom out! The Mercs have launched the Terror and Barracuda since we last saw them. You may notice dice on a few of the French ships. I have amended the no ram damage rule so that submarines can do damage while ramming, but it counts as a "hit" if the roll is successful and therefore follows the 2 hits per mast rule for elimination. However, I may just go back and change it to no ram damage of any kind. XD THE FRENCH ATTACK!!!! Reigniting their war with the Americans, the French finally break the indefinite period of truce and let loose their line of battle west of The Flat! This attack is the result of a shared interest the French and Spanish have. As you saw earlier, the French line from the northern wall of the Castle to the northern edge of Karkuda is blocking American gunships from assisting against the Spanish on the eastern side of the Castle. The Americans really want to hold the Castle, and since the French and Americans are still at war, the French assumed the Americans would attack the French on their own turn, in an attempt to break the French line and help out their comrades against the Spanish. As a result, the French felt that they needed to attack! It was a preemptive strike, designed to knock the Americans off their guard and deny American help against the Spanish, who are fast becoming a solid French ally. I told you the game had become very complex, and this turn is really showing it! Here the Monaque hits the Sioux and shoots American infantry off the Castle ramparts. The Ville de Paris has set the Pequod ablaze. However, this was just the beginning of French combat operations on their turn.... As you now see more ships get in action! After MANY turns of just sitting within shooting distance of each other, the French and American lines of battle west of The Flat are finally forced into contact with each other. The Hercule dismasted the Buffalo, while the Gaule set the Yankee aflame and the Mont Blanc flotilla damaged the Paul Revere. However, this picture was purposely taken before the devastating Le Superbe was given an action, to show the various ship-to-ship battles starting up. Blam! The Superbe gets a sac action courtesy of Capitaine Arathiel and a member of his "buffet" (an oarsman of course). She moves south and then north, toppling a handful of masts. The damage she does includes a mast from USS Albany, a ship that is not in range of any other French ship yet but was hit by the Superbe's L-range guns with the use of her ability to shoot through other ships. The Neptune and Martinique are last to shoot here, with the Paul Revere dismasted by the latter. The Hancock, Peacock, and Aaron Burr all take damage as well. At long last, some of the powerful French 5 masters show their full strength! This renewal of war has left the American squadron in bad shape, but the Americans have both resiliency and one of the biggest fleets in the game. Here you can see how devastating the attack was: With new knowledge that the Pirates were behind the Cursed attack at the Harbor, the French break the alliance and attack the Pirates!!!! The 6 Pirate gunships who arrived this very turn to recruit French help against the Americans are viciously attacked by the vengeful French!! The Pride is the only ship lucky enough to escape damage. Lenoir himself joins the fray! Amiral Louis Cartier and Jordan Dumas of the Delacroix join him for more 5 masted French firepower!! The Delight, Ballista, Centurion and Obago lose two masts each, meaning they've each been hit at least 4 times on this turn, showing the accuracy of French gunnery this turn, now driven by anger and vengeance. At the bottom, the Conquerant got her EA to circle around the Spanish ships and double back to unleash her firepower (literally!) at the Obago!! The flamestrike cannon ignites the Obago! Total chaos at the Harbor!! O_O The French begin recovery efforts while fighting the Cursed at the same time. The French had a mixed bag of results in this eastern battle, with most ships going something like 0/4 or 2/2 on the same average cannon ranks. The Nightmare was particularly hard-hit, sustaining two blazes as French ships surrounded the ghostly 4 master. At the upper left, the Grand Vainqueur has moved to an adjacent dock for repairs since the destroyed dock is no longer considered a dock for launching and repairing purposes. The dock is partially sinking, so the Afrique loads the lone artillery unit left on it before it can sink or drift away. At the bottom left, the Republique has begun towing the Musarde and shoots at the Hellfire. Between the catastrophic nature of the Neptune's Trident attack, the current Cursed ships/kraken in the Harbor itself, and a surplus of ships in general, the French have a near-impossible logjam to sort out. A few ships are heading to the back for repairs, but that leaves the newer gunships with no space to sail out. Just outside the Harbor walls, the French have some trouble connecting on their shots. The Baionnette and Bonne Chance went a combined 1/6 or 0/6 to leave the Juggernaut with all 4 masts still standing. However, the Demon Gate, Cyclops and Silver Coffin all sustained damage. With the help of some stuck gold runners, the French have surrounded the Cursed at their whirlpool entrance location. On the other side of the whirlpool, the French do reasonable damage. The Cursed are horribly outnumbered, and with war brewing again near the Roost, it's unlikely any reinforcements will come as planned. The whole Harbor situation. The Cursed have dealt a serious blow, but a numbers disadvantage could mean a French victory. With the flash this time. The Cursed sea creatures are still healthy, so the Cursed have some staying power in this mess of an area if they decide not to retreat. Try to make sense of it: XD The French are reeling but have the ships and firepower to pull themselves out of this mess: At the far left, the Bonifacio in particular is just STUCK as a result of this mess. Her injured crew are laboring to remove huge chunks of the wooden dock off the deck of the ship, which has only one mast remaining. At the top, some of the French gunships launched last turn may take a LONG time to get out of the Harbor. Chaos and carnage! The French are flocking to their lighthouse island, as luxuries are currently the most valuable resource. At the right and top, the French have so many gunships available that many will not even be needed to combat the Cursed... ... which is why the French were able to send so many to attack the Pirates. As the Obago burns, this turn allows us to see the full might of French power. They are now involved in THREE battles at once! One against the Americans west of The Flat, one against the devious Pirates, and one against the Cursed at the Harbor itself. Here we see a very rare example of combat that somewhat follows the historical line-of-battle strategy. It almost never shows up in Pirates games, but here it was organically produced when two factions lined up gunships to defend their territory. The French have the upper hand with the first strike, and we'll see if they can break the American line. Even with a much-reduced squadron, the French have plenty of firepower to defend The Flat with! The two cheerleader ships were hardly needed, and the Soleil Royal is not in action yet: I was sad to see the Paul Revere dismasted, but at least it was at the guns of a worthy opponent: Le Superbe is another of my favorite ships. Looking from the west at the lines of battle: The French are beautiful as well as powerful: The Pequod is surrounded as American masts fall all over the battlefield: The French situation, showing all three battles: I thought this shot was particularly good, as you can now see the battle at the Castle as well: Karkuda is simply a HOTSPOT of activity right now! Finally, time for the American turn!! The Americans strike back hard!! The Spanish flagship is nearly dismasted and a fire has broken out! At the right, the Americans can't really get to the Santo Columba yet, but the loss of the Santa Ana could prove disastrous for the Spanish. Just to the south, the Corazon Dorado suffers a similar fate! No less than five different American gunships gang up to blast the ship to pieces. 7 hits are scored, with just one more needed to dismast the ship. However, the firepot landed by the Sea Serpent may do that on its own. The Americans do what they can against the French, and it's surprisingly effective! THREE French 5 masters have been set on fire! The Neptune, Monaque, and Ville de Paris are all in trouble from the flames. The Congress used her first action to tow the Buffalo out of her way and knock a mast off the Hercule. She was later given Preble's AA (a good turn for it!) to knock another mast off. The northern/middle part of the American line was too shattered to put up much of a fight, with the Yankee going 0/2 and the Paul Revere rowing away at S+S. Notice the damage marker on the Superbe's quarterdeck though - the American artillery cannon stationed at the lumber island shot and hit for the first time! At the heart of the spirited American resistance! The Hancock and Peacock team up to set the Neptune aflame, while the Sioux and Overton do the same to the Monaque. The Pequod really proved her worth, using a musketeer and cannoneer to hit enough shots to not only get through the Ville de Paris' defensive ability, but land a firepot as well! The Albany had the opposite day at the cannons, as her fire shot backfired to set her aflame. From the American artillery on top of the Castle looking northwest: Of course, this view should probably be obscured by the gunsmoke and the smoke rising from the burning ships! As impressive as the French line of capital ships is, the Americans managed to put a dent in it with their counterattack. The hottest part of the fight! The Americans continue their logistics near the long-running southwestern battle. Out of range and with the SCS James Madison proving to be a surprisingly valuable multipurpose ship, the Speedy Return leaves the area. She will head for the Castle to repair, but between the Spanish incursion and the massive width of the Double Catamaran ship type, she may be out of luck for now. Speaking of the Spanish, the Enterprise is headed there since the Pirate battle is too crowded and the Americans will likely win that one. At the lower left, the James Madison dismasts the Freedom with the help of the Hannah being within S. The Vermont has taken up towing duty of the Georgetown, while the Hornet and Mohican are leaving the Castle to assist against the Spanish. The Atlanta and Bartlett have dropped off their army units and now have nothing to do. For now they will guard the southern approach to the Castle (probably a good idea with how crazy the game is getting and how aggressive the French and Spanish are lol) and likely receive captains when the Americans launch again. The Satisfaction has been dismasted and captured, though many American gunships (especially in the middle of this picture) are unable to be given move or shoot actions as a result of the close-quarters action. The Americans deal severe damage to the Bruja, Thirty Tyrants and Jaguar's Spirit. The Bonny Kate was captured but has already been chain-towed nearly out of the picture. The Fly and Shark team up to dismast the Full Moon, as the Pirates are denied getting a foothold even in the far southwest area by Luck Island. Here you can see the Bonny Kate along with some other captured Pirate ships. The Philadelphia warped home the Lucky Seven, while the Lenox, Montezuma, and Springfield finish or start repairs. The Concordia may leave the area to join one of the other battles, either against the French or Spanish. At the top, some American cargo ships head north for metals as their lumber island near The Flat is now not only less valuable, but also in trouble from the French. But Commodore Preble has something to say about that! He pilots the President east, and is joined by two other nice 4 masted schooners, the Saratoga and Hudson. The French may have gained the upper hand by striking first, but American reinforcements are on the way! That is about all for the developments on this epic Turn 69, but I took some more pictures just to fully document the destruction. To recap: Two Spanish ships have been set aflame, while the Castle itself has been damaged and burns a bit: The ultra-powerful squadron of French 5 masters did huge damage to the American line of battle, but American gunnery has made some of those French capital ships finally seem mortal with no less than three separate firepot hits: The Pirate-American battle is still the largest in the game by the number of ships involved, with carnage stretching from the southwestern tip of the Castle to the southwesternmost point in Karkuda: The Americans are certainly winning but the Pirates certainly aren't giving up! Naturally I did forget to mention something else that happened: the Louisiana succeeded at destroying another reef! This makes passage from the American HI to the Castle (and vice-versa) easier. At the right, notice the Intrepid and Franklin heading towards the battle against the French. The French aren't the only faction capable of sustaining three separate battles at once.... At the southwestern whirlpool, it just so happens that the masts have been falling on top of each other for many turns now, to the point where that pile in the middle is about 5 masts high. O_O You can almost see the gunners on the decks of the Ark Royal and Thirty Tyrants trading Broadsides Attacks: Shattered timber, shredded sails, and slain sailors now characterize Command the Oceans: Total carnage, with dozens of masts littering the battlefield: The Sea of Karkuda, with all FIVE simultaneous battles visible: I got these next few shots by sitting back from the game a bit and zooming in. I like that you can see a lot of what's happening, but it's at a nice angle in between the closeups and high-altitude shots. This one gives a nice view of the Mercenary activities and the Spanish battle, with all three French battles still visible in the background: The southwestern corner of Karkuda, with a forest of chaos in the densest portion. The Chesapeake takes a shortcut through the Castle but the Enterprise must go around. It will be interesting to see if the Americans can hit the French in between The Flat and the Harbor if they defeat the Spanish and go north around the Castle. However, this might be the most stunning scene of all so far. O_O (even though you can hardly see the dock destruction!) What on earth could happen next?? Between the possible sinkings that could occur soon and the various crew eliminations, another point count will hopefully happen quite soon, possibly on Thursday. The game is exploding to the point where it could actually decrease in size for once! XD The intense combat erupting all over the place has definitely slowed the launch pace, between trade routes getting interrupted, a Harbor invasion, and a lousy resource roll that will last for quite some time (6 more turns). The French are the only faction sitting on considerable gold reserves, but they almost literally cannot have more ships in the Harbor until they get some ships in for repairs and others out into the ocean. XD Thanks for reading! This will likely be a rarity going forward, since I'll be doing more frequent but shorter reports. I prefer to report on events the day they occur, and it gets a little more stressful when I hype or promise a report for one day but can't finish it until the next. For example, the JR and Cursed faction turns occurred on Saturday (which is when I wrote that part of this report too actually), and of course it was difficult to hold back. However, from a narrative perspective it's good to have these mega reports of epicness once in a while too. Especially for the longer reports, I may start doing full post or "chapter" titles as I did with this one. They won't be particularly imaginative, but more for me to look back on. As you clearly know by now, I have a thing for all things epic. I'll try to make the titles accurate but of course they will stray the line into madness. Well then! 18 pages in my Google doc and over 100 pictures later, I hope you enjoyed this monstrosity! What a game! Play has resumed in force!! The game has seen an absolute EXPLOSION on this Turn 69 that rivals any other single turn in any campaign game! Prepare yourself for the carnage! The scary part is, it will likely only increase dramatically in the future... O_OThe Jade Rebels are after the Pirates in the turn order, and they start their turn with an attack!! The Wiglaf nearly dismasts the Jikininki!Broken Horn Island is under attack again!! Eight Jade gunships head west as the area southwest of the Roost descends into chaos once more.Here you can see the damage done to the Death's Anchor, Pale Moon, Executioner, Hades' Realm and Sickle:The Huginn dismasts the captured Brandywine and the Grendel surges forward...... to capture the ship! The Brandywine has now been owned by 3 different factions in this game. Also notice the other Jade/Viking ships moving north, though that's almost literally just the tip of the iceberg...The entire Jade battle fleet surges forward in an epic display of seamanship and naval power!!Though some are many turns away, I countgunships either in battle with the Cursed or headed towards them!! O_OI wanted to take some extra pictures to show off the color and diversity among the JR and BC sails, and I think this is the best shot I got:Previously cooped up by territorial boundaries, the Jade Rebellion war fleet has begun heading straight for the Cursed! Jade Rebel troops watch as dozens of beautiful new Corsair galleys depart the home island:A nice look at the BC 4 masters:It seems rather likely that an EPIC battle is about to take place!!!The Jades attacked for a simple reason: the Cursed look as weak as they have in quite some time. From afar, the Jades witnessed the exodus as Calypso allowed a bunch of Cursed gunships to go through the new whirlpool and into the Sea of Karkuda. The Jades don't know about the Sea of Karkuda, but they assume the Cursed have gone off and may not be back. After coming close to a full-out attack, they have finally decided to carry out plans for one now that the Cursed don't have as many gunships around the Roost.A view from the Roost itself, as the Cursed see what's coming....A rare view just north of Broken Horn Island, looking east:A forest of lateen sails in the distance:A nice and similarly rare shot looking east across the Sea of Allost at a low angle:And that is it for the Jade turn! Prepare yourself!! XDEl Fantasma, captain of the Divine Dragon and current commander of the Cursed Extermination Force: "... bring up the weapon..."A historical artifact of great value and mythology is brought to Fantasma's helm. Fantasma offers a rare smile before his skeletal face turns to a contorted frown of unrivaled malice as he points the "weapon" at the nearby French fleet...With the power of the sea, the Trident unleashes a massive tidal wave that projects from the Divine Dragon!!OH MY GOD!!! The wave is firedUsing my L+L+L ruler and the white S straw, I was able to figure out the damage path of the tidal wave.Before the damage assessment:These were taken for maximum effect, as I played the Trident normally and didn't sink anything outright.From the Cursed view, as the wave crashes into tons of French ships and into the Harbor area itself:The temporary result of the UT, which is clearlyin campaign games with so many ships around....O_ONow we can properly assess the damage. The Jeux was not only dismasted, but also thrown into the Harbor wall due to the lower tonnage of the ship.The Felicite is dismasted and nearly capsizes:As you probably noticed by now,O_OInevitably, various infantry who were preparing to fight the Cursed died in the blast. Somehow an artillery unit survived on the outer side of the dock, but three infantry units and one artillery unit were lost between the dock breaking apart and the splinters and spars flying through the air.In total,were ruined as a result of the wave caused by Fantasma's wielding of Neptune's Trident. Eight different ships were damaged.The dock costed the French 10 gold, and I'm still figuring out the house rule around rebuilding it. They will be able to purchase a new dock for the same standard cost, but I think they will need to clear the wreckage first, which will take at least a turn here even with maximum cleanup efforts deployed. Of course, with hostile Cursed ships basically inside the Harbor itself, the recovery process will likely take a while.IMMENSE WRECKAGE, with debris strewn everywhere:Of course, the Divine Dragon couldn't sustain the damage output of having 8 ships affected. The Cursed knew the risk and decided it was worth it. Looks like they're right! XD With 8 ships affected, I did 8 "damage" to the DD, with 4 masts eliminated and 4 "hits" to the hull (she would still need 8 more hits on the hull to sink due to the sinking house rule).With Fantasma's ship suddenly out of action, the Cursed needed to find a way to extricate the DD and avoid losing her to the French. Never fear, the Hellfire is here! XD The DD is towed, but where did she go? If you've read about the Pirate-American battle elsewhere in Karkuda, it should come as no surprise...... as the Divine Dragon and Bloody Blade are warped back to Allost via "whirlpool towing"! This is now a tactic employed by two factions, and looks to be a true strategy (at least for this game). Here you can also see the Cursed counterattack against the Jades!Fear worked well here, with the Fenrir and Glorious Treasure being hit by the ability. The Executioner was effective, setting the Glorious Treasure aflame.It looks as though the JR-Cursed War is back in full swing!!The Monkey's Paw goes a pitiful 0/5, but the Asgard takes damage from the icewreck (being moved L into it) and the Sickle. Shal-Bala returns to the Sea of Karkuda in order to guard the latest Cursed launch: Namazu. O_O Namazu is a sea monster from the unreleased Return to Savage Shores set with an ability similar to the Neptune's Trident UT. After using the Eye to see the incredible devastation wreaked by the Trident, the Cursed are very impressed with its potential for continual warfare use. You know what that means: a less disposable source of tidal wave attacks! O_O Combine that with copiers Behemoth and Davy Jones, and the Cursed have exclusive access to weapons of incredible power right now.The Cursed turn was actually quite strategic and well-thought-out. They purposely did most of their activities in Karkuda to see what they needed to send there from Allost. The Banshee's Wail is the ship that came forth to "tow"/send the Bloody Blade back to Allost. The Locker and Pyre have returned to Allost as well, as the Cursed realize they cannot win both fights in two oceans at the same time.The wave blast was not all the damage sustained by the French! After most of the operations in Allost, the Cursed turned back to Karkuda to finish their assault. Terrox walloped the Geographe for 2 masts on 4/8 shooting, while the Hellfire dismasted the Musarde and Leviathan took a mast off the Dijon. Calim has pinned Le Petit Dauphin, while the Nightmare (at the right) partially makes up for her previous performances, which have been awful. On this turn the Nightmare shot 4/5 to damage 3 different ships! (Petit Dauphin, Marianne, Richelieu)Looking directly north, here is the last picture from this EPIC Cursed turn. The Silver Coffin shot a mast off Le Lyon, while at the right the Glaive and Baionnette took slight damage.At the end of their turn, the Cursed let out a bombshell. They told the French something. Fantasma sent a messenger boat over to the French fleet, which was reeling from the wave attack and continual cannon fire/tentacle whipping. The Cursed revealed a HUGE development:O_OThe deal was as follows: If the Pirates hire Calypso, the Cursed can use Davy Jones and/or Behemoth to copy her for the rest of the game, on the condition that the Cursed use Calypso's ability to launch a full-scale attack on the French.O_OA huge secret is revealed! Previously known only to the Pirates and the Cursed (the Pirates came up with the idea), the French now know of the deal. Obviously this is extremely important, as the Pirates and the French are allies!!!! However, this is arguably one of the greatest agreements in naval history.The Pirates see the French as one of their biggest long-term rivals. With whirlpool travel, the Pirates know about the oceans more than any faction other than the Cursed, who have the Eye of course. However, the Pirates are generally aware that there are 4 "mega factions": Pirates, Cursed, French, and Americans. The Pirates already have a bitter war against the Americans. If they continue that, they may be too weak to take on the French and/or Cursed afterwards. Thus, a "deal with the devil" to pit the other two largest factions against each other!!From my document where I store the BR's and faction plans/etc: "The Pirates pull off a huge masterstroke of grand strategy, weakening two huge rival fleets with one deal while simultaneously able to focus on their other rival."With that we move to the Caribbean factions, the English and Spanish! The 4 English gunships in the Sea of Karkuda have a great turn, dealing damage to 4 different Pirate ships. (including a successful BA from the Ark Royal to the Thirty Tyrants)I must say HMS Victoria is a bit of a favorite of mine. She sails out with some other English gunships, while the King John and Westminster take crew replacements aboard. (hired with cashed in spices from the Antelope) In the background, Admiral Thomas Gunn stands guard northeast of Diamond Rock with a squadron of gunships.The English battle fleet makes their way towards the whirlpool!The Spanish continue to attack the Americans at the Castle! They will try to reclaim what is rightfully theirs!! Here the Santa Ana, Vaccaro's flagship of the faction, rakes the Kentucky by the bows and purposely boxes the three American ships in. Although the SA will be exposed to considerable fire from those ships on the American turn, Vaccaro positioned the ship to block those ships from getting out and attacking other Spanish ships as well. Vaccaro now has some good backup too, with the Santo Columba sailing around the northeastern edge of the Castle and going 3/3 to hit with her musketeer and firepot specialist, setting the York ablaze!Whoa!! The Granada blasts away at the old and weakened northeastern wall of the Castle, and her cannon balls find their mark!! Shots shatter through the old structure, and a huge hole is ripped open! In addition the Granada carries a firepot specialist and the Castle is now on fire!!! O_OThrough the smoke and rubble you can glimpse the Gold Eagle:However, with all the troops on the Castle, the Americans will likely be able to put the fires out soon.The Corazon Dorado uses her reroll ability to get Dominick Freda's SAT, allowing her to speed into the area at S+L+S+S+L+S! She hits twice on each action, knocking a mast off the York and United States.The Americans are surprised by the speed and ferocity of the Spanish onslaught...... and there's more coming!! Six Spanish gunships in Karkuda have yet to reach the battle area, including three fresh from the Caribbean whirlpool.With that we move to the Sea of Karkuda factions!The doors to the submarine hideout open, and five submarines zoom out! The Mercs have launched the Terror and Barracuda since we last saw them. You may notice dice on a few of the French ships. I have amended the no ram damage rule so that submarines can do damage while ramming, but it counts as a "hit" if the roll is successful and therefore follows the 2 hits per mast rule for elimination. However, I may just go back and change it to no ram damage of any kind. XDReigniting their war with the Americans, the French finally break the indefinite period of truce and let loose their line of battle west of The Flat! This attack is the result of a shared interest the French and Spanish have. As you saw earlier, the French line from the northern wall of the Castle to the northern edge of Karkuda is blocking American gunships from assisting against the Spanish on the eastern side of the Castle. The Americans really want to hold the Castle, and since the French and Americans are still at war, the French assumed the Americans would attack the French on their own turn, in an attempt to break the French line and help out their comrades against the Spanish.As a result, the French felt that they needed to attack! It was a preemptive strike, designed to knock the Americans off their guard and deny American help against the Spanish, who are fast becoming a solid French ally. I told you the game had become very complex, and this turn is really showing it!Here the Monaque hits the Sioux and shoots American infantry off the Castle ramparts. The Ville de Paris has set the Pequod ablaze. However, this was just the beginning of French combat operations on their turn....As you now see more ships get in action! After MANY turns of just sitting within shooting distance of each other, the French and American lines of battle west of The Flat are finally forced into contact with each other. The Hercule dismasted the Buffalo, while the Gaule set the Yankee aflame and the Mont Blanc flotilla damaged the Paul Revere. However, this picture was purposely taken before the devastating Le Superbe was given an action, to show the various ship-to-ship battles starting up.Blam! The Superbe gets a sac action courtesy of Capitaine Arathiel and a member of his "buffet" (an oarsman of course). She moves south and then north, toppling a handful of masts. The damage she does includes a mast from USS Albany, a ship that is not in range of any other French ship yet but was hit by the Superbe's L-range guns with the use of her ability to shoot through other ships. The Neptune and Martinique are last to shoot here, with the Paul Revere dismasted by the latter. The Hancock, Peacock, and Aaron Burr all take damage as well.At long last, some of the powerful French 5 masters show their full strength! This renewal of war has left the American squadron in bad shape, but the Americans have both resiliency and one of the biggest fleets in the game. Here you can see how devastating the attack was:With new knowledge that the Pirates were behind the Cursed attack at the Harbor,The 6 Pirate gunships who arrived this very turn to recruit French help against the Americans are viciously attacked by the vengeful French!! The Pride is the only ship lucky enough to escape damage.Lenoir himself joins the fray! Amiral Louis Cartier and Jordan Dumas of the Delacroix join him for more 5 masted French firepower!! The Delight, Ballista, Centurion and Obago lose two masts each, meaning they've each been hit at least 4 times on this turn, showing the accuracy of French gunnery this turn, now driven by anger and vengeance. At the bottom, the Conquerant got her EA to circle around the Spanish ships and double back to unleash her firepower (literally!) at the Obago!!The flamestrike cannon ignites the Obago!Total chaos at the Harbor!! O_OThe French begin recovery efforts while fighting the Cursed at the same time. The French had a mixed bag of results in this eastern battle, with most ships going something like 0/4 or 2/2 on the same average cannon ranks. The Nightmare was particularly hard-hit, sustaining two blazes as French ships surrounded the ghostly 4 master. At the upper left, the Grand Vainqueur has moved to an adjacent dock for repairs since the destroyed dock is no longer considered a dock for launching and repairing purposes. The dock is partially sinking, so the Afrique loads the lone artillery unit left on it before it can sink or drift away. At the bottom left, the Republique has begun towing the Musarde and shoots at the Hellfire. Between the catastrophic nature of the Neptune's Trident attack, the current Cursed ships/kraken in the Harbor itself, and a surplus of ships in general, the French have a near-impossible logjam to sort out. A few ships are heading to the back for repairs, but that leaves the newer gunships with no space to sail out.Just outside the Harbor walls, the French have some trouble connecting on their shots. The Baionnette and Bonne Chance went a combined 1/6 or 0/6 to leave the Juggernaut with all 4 masts still standing. However, the Demon Gate, Cyclops and Silver Coffin all sustained damage. With the help of some stuck gold runners, the French have surrounded the Cursed at their whirlpool entrance location.On the other side of the whirlpool, the French do reasonable damage. The Cursed are horribly outnumbered, and with war brewing again near the Roost, it's unlikely any reinforcements will come as planned.The whole Harbor situation. The Cursed have dealt a serious blow, but a numbers disadvantage could mean a French victory.With the flash this time. The Cursed sea creatures are still healthy, so the Cursed have some staying power in this mess of an area if they decide not to retreat.Try to make sense of it: XDThe French are reeling but have the ships and firepower to pull themselves out of this mess:At the far left, the Bonifacio in particular is just STUCK as a result of this mess. Her injured crew are laboring to remove huge chunks of the wooden dock off the deck of the ship, which has only one mast remaining. At the top, some of the French gunships launched last turn may take a LONG time to get out of the Harbor.Chaos and carnage!The French are flocking to their lighthouse island, as luxuries are currently the most valuable resource. At the right and top, the French have so many gunships available that many will not even be needed to combat the Cursed...... which is why the French were able to send so many to attack the Pirates.As the Obago burns, this turn allows us to see the full might of French power. They are now involved in THREE battles at once! One against the Americans west of The Flat, one against the devious Pirates, and one against the Cursed at the Harbor itself.Here we see a very rare example of combat that somewhat follows the historical line-of-battle strategy. It almost never shows up in Pirates games, but here it was organically produced when two factions lined up gunships to defend their territory.The French have the upper hand with the first strike, and we'll see if they can break the American line.Even with a much-reduced squadron, the French have plenty of firepower to defend The Flat with!The two cheerleader ships were hardly needed, and the Soleil Royal is not in action yet:I was sad to see the Paul Revere dismasted, but at least it was at the guns of a worthy opponent: Le Superbe is another of my favorite ships.Looking from the west at the lines of battle:The French are beautiful as well as powerful:The Pequod is surrounded as American masts fall all over the battlefield:The French situation, showing all three battles:I thought this shot was particularly good, as you can now see the battle at the Castle as well:Karkuda is simply a HOTSPOT of activity right now!Finally, time for the American turn!!The Americans strike back hard!! The Spanish flagship is nearly dismasted and a fire has broken out! At the right, the Americans can't really get to the Santo Columba yet, but the loss of the Santa Ana could prove disastrous for the Spanish.Just to the south, the Corazon Dorado suffers a similar fate! No less than five different American gunships gang up to blast the ship to pieces. 7 hits are scored, with just one more needed to dismast the ship. However, the firepot landed by the Sea Serpent may do that on its own.The Americans do what they can against the French, and it's surprisingly effective! THREE French 5 masters have been set on fire! The Neptune, Monaque, and Ville de Paris are all in trouble from the flames.The Congress used her first action to tow the Buffalo out of her way and knock a mast off the Hercule. She was later given Preble's AA (a good turn for it!) to knock another mast off. The northern/middle part of the American line was too shattered to put up much of a fight, with the Yankee going 0/2 and the Paul Revere rowing away at S+S. Notice the damage marker on the Superbe's quarterdeck though - the American artillery cannon stationed at the lumber island shot and hit for the first time!At the heart of the spirited American resistance! The Hancock and Peacock team up to set the Neptune aflame, while the Sioux and Overton do the same to the Monaque. The Pequod really proved her worth, using a musketeer and cannoneer to hit enough shots to not only get through the Ville de Paris' defensive ability, but land a firepot as well!From the American artillery on top of the Castle looking northwest:Of course, this view should probably be obscured by the gunsmoke and the smoke rising from the burning ships!As impressive as the French line of capital ships is, the Americans managed to put a dent in it with their counterattack.The hottest part of the fight!The Americans continue their logistics near the long-running southwestern battle. Out of range and with the SCS James Madison proving to be a surprisingly valuable multipurpose ship, the Speedy Return leaves the area. She will head for the Castle to repair, but between the Spanish incursion and the massive width of the Double Catamaran ship type, she may be out of luck for now. Speaking of the Spanish, the Enterprise is headed there since the Pirate battle is too crowded and the Americans will likely win that one. At the lower left, the James Madison dismasts the Freedom with the help of the Hannah being within S. The Vermont has taken up towing duty of the Georgetown, while the Hornet and Mohican are leaving the Castle to assist against the Spanish. The Atlanta and Bartlett have dropped off their army units and now have nothing to do. For now they will guard the southern approach to the Castle (probably a good idea with how crazy the game is getting and how aggressive the French and Spanish are lol) and likely receive captains when the Americans launch again.The Satisfaction has been dismasted and captured, though many American gunships (especially in the middle of this picture) are unable to be given move or shoot actions as a result of the close-quarters action.The Americans deal severe damage to the Bruja, Thirty Tyrants and Jaguar's Spirit. The Bonny Kate was captured but has already been chain-towed nearly out of the picture.The Fly and Shark team up to dismast the Full Moon, as the Pirates are denied getting a foothold even in the far southwest area by Luck Island.Here you can see the Bonny Kate along with some other captured Pirate ships.The Philadelphia warped home the Lucky Seven, while the Lenox, Montezuma, and Springfield finish or start repairs. The Concordia may leave the area to join one of the other battles, either against the French or Spanish. At the top, some American cargo ships head north for metals as their lumber island near The Flat is now not only less valuable, but also in trouble from the French.But Commodore Preble has something to say about that! He pilots the President east, and is joined by two other nice 4 masted schooners, the Saratoga and Hudson.The French may have gained the upper hand by striking first, but American reinforcements are on the way!That is about all for the developments on this epic Turn 69, but I took some more pictures just to fully document the destruction.To recap:Two Spanish ships have been set aflame, while the Castle itself has been damaged and burns a bit:The ultra-powerful squadron of French 5 masters did huge damage to the American line of battle, but American gunnery has made some of those French capital ships finally seem mortal with no less than three separate firepot hits:The Pirate-American battle is still the largest in the game by the number of ships involved, with carnage stretching from the southwestern tip of the Castle to the southwesternmost point in Karkuda:The Americans are certainly winning but the Pirates certainly aren't giving up!Naturally I did forget to mention something else that happened: the Louisiana succeeded at destroying another reef! This makes passage from the American HI to the Castle (and vice-versa) easier. At the right, notice the Intrepid and Franklin heading towards the battle against the French. The French aren't the only faction capable of sustaining three separate battles at once....At the southwestern whirlpool, it just so happens that the masts have been falling on top of each other for many turns now, to the point where that pile in the middle is about 5 masts high. O_O You can almost see the gunners on the decks of the Ark Royal and Thirty Tyrants trading Broadsides Attacks:Shattered timber, shredded sails, and slain sailors now characterize Command the Oceans:Total carnage, with dozens of masts littering the battlefield:The Sea of Karkuda, with all FIVE simultaneous battles visible:I got these next few shots by sitting back from the game a bit and zooming in. I like that you can see a lot of what's happening, but it's at a nice angle in between the closeups and high-altitude shots.This one gives a nice view of the Mercenary activities and the Spanish battle, with all three French battles still visible in the background:The southwestern corner of Karkuda, with a forest of chaos in the densest portion. The Chesapeake takes a shortcut through the Castle but the Enterprise must go around. It will be interesting to see if the Americans can hit the French in between The Flat and the Harbor if they defeat the Spanish and go north around the Castle.However, this might be the most stunning scene of all so far. O_OWhat on earth could happen next??Between the possible sinkings that could occur soon and the various crew eliminations, another point count will hopefully happen quite soon, possibly on Thursday. The game is exploding to the point where it could actuallyin size for once! XD The intense combat erupting all over the place has definitely slowed the launch pace, between trade routes getting interrupted, a Harbor invasion, and a lousy resource roll that will last for quite some time (6 more turns). The French are the only faction sitting on considerable gold reserves, but they almost literally cannot have more ships in the Harbor until they get some ships in for repairs and others out into the ocean. XDThanks for reading! This will likely be a rarity going forward, since I'll be doing more frequent but shorter reports. I prefer to report on events the day they occur, and it gets a little more stressful when I hype or promise a report for one day but can't finish it until the next. For example, the JR and Cursed faction turns occurred on Saturday (which is when I wrote that part of this report too actually), and of course it was difficult to hold back. However, from a narrative perspective it's good to have these mega reports of epicness once in a while too. Especially for the longer reports, I may start doing full post or "chapter" titles as I did with this one. They won't be particularly imaginative, but more for me to look back on. As you clearly know by now, I have a thing for all things epic.I'll try to make the titles accurate but of course they will stray the line into madness.Well then! 18 pages in my Google doc and over 100 pictures later, I hope you enjoyed this monstrosity! What a game! Last edited by a7xfanben on Tue Jul 31, 2018 2:09 am; edited 1 time in total xerecs Canceled user Subject: Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:27 am Thu Nov 09, 2017 5:27 am I like the Cursed play with the Trident and now with Namazu. It'd be perfect if they were able to get one of their Eternal crew on him with I like the push into the French Harbor, since ht French need some iron to sharpen themselves on, and the Cursed are happily providing. The Revelation that the Pirates put the Cursed up to it is a good thing, since it makes the French and Pirates enemies, as evidenced by the French attack on the Pirate squad by the Flat. Once again, Iron to sharpen themselves on. The Pirates probably have several mega launches in them before they start to run out of ships, which the French and Americans are beginning to experience. If the French can manage a decisive victory over the pirates, it will go a ways for their empirical designs. Conversely, their opening salvo against the Americans is only going to open the door to hurt for them (I think/hope). The American line looked to be made of solid ships, but none of their 'best' gunships, which are occupied to the south with the Pirate incursion and dealing with the Spanish. If some of those ships are turned around and put to use in the line battle, (particularly the Blackwatch and Concordia) the French firepower could deteriorate very quickly. This process could be heightened by the Fire hits the Amreicans scored against them on their most recent turn. I like the Spanish, but WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!!!!???? Tackling the Americans head on like that is not a smart thing to do, they're going to loose the Santa Ana and Santo Columba shortly I think, since their overall presence in the game is not that large. If I recall they're still struggling with resources back in their home waters and the English are still a presence there. If I was in command of the Spanish in this game, I'd focus on getting resources to build up a battle fleet and THEN sail to reclaim the castle. While I like the Jades, I like the Cursed more. XD They have a diverse and quick fleet, and compared to the Cursed, they have quality firepower. But as demonstrated by the attack on the French, the Cursed have more unnatural or eldrich means of attack. I fear that the Jades have awoken a sleeping giant..... Overall, a fantastic report, very exciting to read, keep it coming! Ho-boy...... Where to begin?I like the Cursed play with the Trident and now with Namazu. It'd be perfect if they were able to get one of their Eternal crew on him with Chariot of the Gods which would allow him to come back at least twice. Giving the other pieces potentially copying his ability more chances to use ability. I'm thinking Jones on the Guichuan would be a perfect use for that ability. Enough masts to get one or two uses out of that ability before the ship runs into risky territory, and it can repair without going through rules loopholes and what not.I like the push into the French Harbor, since ht French need some iron to sharpen themselves on, and the Cursed are happily providing.The Revelation that the Pirates put the Cursed up to it is a good thing, since it makes the French and Pirates enemies, as evidenced by the French attack on the Pirate squad by the Flat. Once again, Iron to sharpen themselves on. The Pirates probably have several mega launches in them before they start to run out of ships, which the French and Americans are beginning to experience. If the French can manage a decisive victory over the pirates, it will go a ways for their empirical designs.Conversely, their opening salvo against the Americans is only going to open the door to hurt for them (I think/hope). The American line looked to be made of solid ships, but none of their 'best' gunships, which are occupied to the south with the Pirate incursion and dealing with the Spanish. If some of those ships are turned around and put to use in the line battle, (particularly the Blackwatch and Concordia) the French firepower could deteriorate very quickly. This process could be heightened by the Fire hits the Amreicans scored against them on their most recent turn.I like the Spanish, but WHAT ARE THEY THINKING!!!!????Tackling the Americans head on like that is not a smart thing to do, they're going to loose the Santa Ana and Santo Columba shortly I think, since their overall presence in the game is not that large. If I recall they're still struggling with resources back in their home waters and the English are still a presence there. If I was in command of the Spanish in this game, I'd focus on getting resources to build up a battle fleet and THEN sail to reclaim the castle.While I like the Jades, I like the Cursed more. XD They have a diverse and quick fleet, and compared to the Cursed, they have quality firepower. But as demonstrated by the attack on the French, the Cursed have more unnatural or eldrich means of attack. I fear that the Jades have awoken a sleeping giant.....Overall, a fantastic report, very exciting to read, keep it coming! a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:12 am Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:12 am xerecs wrote: I like the push into the French Harbor, since ht French need some iron to sharpen themselves on, and the Cursed are happily providing. I like the thematic nature of "combat experience", but here it's mostly just a huge annoyance to the French, as they have to slow their launch pace and take care of horrendous logistics around the destruction. Quote: If some of those ships are turned around and put to use in the line battle, (particularly the Blackwatch and Concordia) the French firepower could deteriorate very quickly. This process could be heightened by the Fire hits the Amreicans scored against them on their most recent turn. You underestimate the French as always! You underestimate the French as always! Quote: If I was in command of the Spanish in this game, I'd focus on getting resources to build up a battle fleet and THEN sail to reclaim the castle. Remember that the Spanish don't have the Eye, they only have what the French told them to go off of. The Castle is extremely important to the Spanish and they'd rather die than see it renovated by another faction. The French didn't tell them the full strength the Americans are capable of, but they did say they've been weakened a bit by war against the French and Pirates. Also, when the Spanish found out about the American exploration of the Castle, the Americans hadn't fully established themselves there yet, and even now they still haven't between the Spanish incursion and the lack of launches/control of the waters around the Castle. It's not something I expected, but the Castle actually seems pretty vulnerable without simultaneous control of some of the things around it, such as The Flat (a ridiculous French stronghold swarming with capital ships lol) and even the terrain/sub hideout. Quote: Overall, a fantastic report, very exciting to read, keep it coming! Thanks! a7xfanben Guru Joined: 27 Jun 2011 Posts: 6161 GuruJoined: 27 Jun 2011Posts: 6161 Subject: Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:25 am Fri Nov 10, 2017 12:25 am Turn 70 (or at least, most of it) Another round begins with a big development: the Pirates leave the Sea of Karkuda!! Not just in the southwest, but also up north! The Sunrise Fire ducks into a fog bank to avoid the French: Pirate arrivals from Karkuda! More damaged ships arrive in the southeast! Note that as the Pride returns, her crew and others bring news of the French "betrayal", which of course was caused by the Pirates' deal with the Cursed that began the end of the Pirate/French alliance. The news is not entirely surprising to the Pirates, but they are somewhat surprised by how quickly the Cursed betrayed their trust. This dramatic shift in Pirate strategy has been brewing for a while now. It started with the First Battle of the American whirlpool, which the Pirates lost badly to the Americans. Then came the Second Battle of the American whirlpool, which has mostly concluded in another decisive loss. Finally, the deal with the devil backfired on the Pirates when the Cursed betrayed them a bit by telling the French about the deal. This led to the Pirate ships in northern Karkuda being decimated by nearby French gunships in yet another "whirlpool battle" they would have lost. All in all, three disastrous whirlpool "expeditions" if you will, each of them costly and bloody. With that, the Pirates have had it. They will no longer send attacking squadrons through whirlpools. They have pulled out most of their ships from the Sea of Karkuda, with the ones remaining stuck there due to being trapped or beyond help. This big shift in Pirate strategy and gameplay could have seismic effects for the duration of the game. The Americans bore the full brunt of Pirate aggression, but the English and now the French have felt quite wronged by Pirate activity as well. Captain Mission and his Pirate Admirals are sick of losing so many masts, ships, and lives to whirlpool shenanigans that never seem to have a big payoff. Therefore, they may begin favoring a complete isolationist policy. Let the other factions come to them. They will repair and rebuild, and hunker down for the long haul. Inside the Tunnel, Pirates and mercenaries are hard at work on the ladder extending from the Celtic Fury's mast! Here you can start to make out what they've been doing: DRILLING!! O_O The above picture and this one were taken after temporarily removing the Tunnel from the ocean, to show it more clearly. This shot is looking at the ceiling of the Tunnel on the western side where the Pirates have begun primitive rock-blasting operations! At the end of their turn, the Pirates spent 90 gold on 4 new gunships, including a few great ones: the Black Pearl, Diamond Strike, Ranger, and Splinter. At the upper left you can see the new Pirate strategy beginning to take effect, with many damaged ships coming home for repairs as fresh ones prepare to defend the whirlpools at all costs. Another battle at Broken Horn Island continues! The Jikininki is dismasted, but the Jades lose the Glorious Treasure for good when she succumbs to her fires (courtesy of the Executioner, a fitting name for that Cursed gunship). A small measure of Jade revenge! Many weeks after she was possessed by the Cursed and turned into an icewreck, the Clear Wind is finished after her iceberg was rammed by a Viking icebreaker! The Jades wanted to recapture the ship, but after seeing her demonic state for multiple battles now, they had to put an end to the weirdness. As the ice is broken, the Clear Wind sinks and many Jade Rebels have heavy hearts on this fine day. The Hrunting knocks a mast off the Sickle as the Grendel tows the Brandywine. A broader shot showing the Corsairs' advance and the path they've made for the Grendel and Brandywine: O_O WHOA!! The Jade Rebels attack the Pirates!!!! After the Pirates backed down from any alliance talk the Jades engaged in earlier, the Jades ignored and nearly forgot about them. However, the Cursed have worked their "magic" once more. With another large-scale JR-Cursed battle beginning, some talk between the sides could be expected. Sammy the Skull (aboard the Monkey's Paw) has let some information spread throughout the Jade fleet. Most of it true believe it or not! XD The Cursed have informed the Jades that the whirlpool was created only with Pirate help, which is true since Davy Jones copied Calypso. The Cursed have also told the Jades about how powerful the Pirates are (since they have the Eye), which is also (mostly) true. The Jades have become quite a powerhouse faction with their recent Corsair hires, and the Pirates have been crushed lately in their travels to the Sea of Karkuda. The Cursed did embellish how strong the Pirates currently are, and made sure to emphasize that if the Jades do not concentrate some firepower on the Pirates, the Pirates will be able to defeat a Jade Rebellion faction that will be weakened if they manage to defeat the Cursed in the long term. Almost all the information was true, and the Jades understood that they needed to correct their tunnel vision (pun intended) and see other big threats besides the hated Cursed. The big hit landed on the JR turn was an exploding shot by the Grand Mountain, which set the Akua Lapu aflame and killed Bonny Peel's helmsman. Still incredibly impressive, the Jades continue to flood the northwestern part of Allost: The Cursed begin their turn with L-movers! Tsuro throws the Royal Louis against the shattered dock in the French Harbor, knocking another mast off the ship! The force of the movement shoves the slowly sinking dock against the Grand Vainqueur, but that ship escapes further damage. And now it is time for the new Cursed weapon! Inspired by the success of Neptune's Trident, the Cursed have unleashed Namazu!! Namazu's wave attack was not originally in range of many JR ships, so the Serpent's Fang got close to the serpent so it could move a bit southeast. Then, Davy Jones showed his power, using the copier ability to copy Capitaine Baudouin Deleflote, the French version of Lord Mycron who is sitting on L'Argus in the French Harbor! The Guichuan's action was given to Namazu so the monster could essentially move and then shoot as if it had a captain. However, it was no ordinary shoot action, as you can see Namazu charging up for a massive tidal wave blast!! Previewing the path of destruction! For the second turn in a row, the Cursed unleash a tidal wave of hatred!! This time, seven different ships were affected: I only took one mast off the icebreaker since she only suffered a glancing blow. However, the Jades lost 10 masts as a result of the attack, with the Brandywine nearly sunk as well. Clearly this ability is overpowered in campaign games like this one!! Adding insult to injury, Namazu only loses one segment per wave attack (unlike the Trident, which is based on how many ships are affected), so it's even more cost-effective for the Cursed here with the ability that can be used multiple times (versus the Trident, which is removed from play after being used). As a result, I think I will house rule that wave attacks do "hit" damage rather than outright mast elimination, in which case a ship would only lose one full mast when affected (since it takes two hits to remove a mast). I may also let the Cursed roll when making a wave attack, and on a 5 or 6 (or just a 6 maybe) they get the full unedited effect like we see here. With two copiers and a reasonably healthy Namazu though, I think something needs to be done to avoid the Cursed turning a defeat into a victory with the help of just one ability that has become OP in a hurry here in CTO. The Knight's Errant (one of the worst ships in the game, but almost necessary here when you have borderline-unlimited points to spend) and Strix block the longships from advancing into Cursed trade routes, while the Cursed canoes will try to help out as well. The northern Cursed wild island now produces lumber instead of textiles! In the far north, those sea monsters are submerged and in no danger from the Pirates or Jades. They will try to combat the Jades and stop their advance. In a time of reasonable emergency, even the fog hoppers will come out to help! The Cursed value their fog hoppers VERY highly as a specialized teleportation sneak attack force, but here some of them pop out near Broken Horn Island to surprise the Jades from behind. None of the three ships got good fog exit location rolls, so the Wiglaf suffers light damage as the Hangman's Joke simply ducks back into the fog. Here you can see the Jades coming as close as they ever have to interrupting Cursed trade. The Fallen Angel and Whydah block the Hrothgar and Grand River, but if this thin line of Cursed defense falls, the Cursed could really be in trouble. However, up north the Nightmare is nearly back with the first haul of food, while the Divine Dragon tows the Bloody Blade. The Grand River is pulverized by the Whydah and Executioner, suffering many hits and being set aflame! The Hades' Realm just barely misses out on dooming the annoying Proud Tortoise (immune to L-range guns) with a firepot of her own. The crew of the Fenrir are once again paralyzed by Fear, and the Flying Dutchman finally gets in action to start dealing some major damage. The Sickle and Monkey's Paw team up to dismast the Hrunting! At the right you can see how Namazu's attack has blasted the broken iceberg into the Jade ships. Looking east: From way above, where you can see Shal-Bala's nest in the lower left corner: Another unique view, showing the Jade advance crashing into Cursed resistance. Although the actual cannon fire is only intense in the far west right now, the battle now stretches all the way across the JR-Cursed border from Broken Horn Island to the northern Cursed wild island. The Cursed do what little damage they can in Karkuda, setting the Bonne Chance alight: The fire aboard the Nightmare spreads as she turns ghostly to escape the chaos: The Geographe is doomed, but Terrox's personal victory is a hollow one for the Cursed, who had hoped to do far more damage to the French and their Harbor. As noted in the previous report, reinforcements would have come if the Jades hadn't attacked. The beautiful vibrant colors of the two fleets, with plenty of chaos still evident: Continuing the theme of exiting Karkuda, the Cursed have some ships return to friendlier waters. The Banshee's Wail and Demon Gate need extensive repairs, while Leviathan was not in range of many targets this turn and could probably be better used against the Jades, who are a far more immediate threat to the Cursed. We move to the Caribbean factions! True to their launches that foreshadowed this event, the English arrive in the Sea of Karkuda ready to kill some Pirate scum!!! Eight English gunships are now near the Pirate Kingdom, in an area where the Pirates have not yet been threatened!! O_O Weirdly enough, it comes at a time when the Pirates are having lots of ships come home from the war effort against the Americans. That timing could prove convenient since they should now have more firepower with which to defend their territory against the English. To be completely honest, the English have been getting slightly bored with how things have turned out. Their old rival, the Spanish, have a fervent desire to retake the Castle, leaving the English without much of a combative enemy in the Caribbean. They have declared war on the Pirates, and will pursue that for now. The English are sticking around in Karkuda to finish off some Pirate gunships. The Black Cat used smokepot shot to save herself and the Freedom, at least temporarily. The Spanish pull off what you could call a "miracle turn"! The Corazon Dorado put out her fire, got her SAT and hit a shot before ducking into a fog bank. The Santa Ana did the same with her EA ability and hit a shot as well. The Spanish rolled around five 5's or 6's in a row! The Santo Columba didn't do quite as well, but managed to set the United States on fire. The Granada was the only Spanish ship to shoot poorly, but the York is doomed and the Asesino hit 2/2. Her second shot set the Kentucky alight and eliminated a cargo! Overall the Americans are far stronger than the Spanish, but the Spanish are putting up quite a fight in this secluded theater of Karkuda! As shown last turn, 5 more Spanish gunships head south towards the Castle: The Cursed named crew Wraith has been possessing crew with his ability for a while now. His latest includes the firepot specialist from the Kentucky, and lately he's been very successful rolling 6's. Here you can see the stack of possessed crew, who now number around a dozen I believe. For the next point count I plan to count how many crew there are and include the costs in the Cursed fleet point total. Soul Crusher indeed! The Karkuda factions! Taking a calculated risk, Nemo surfaces the Nautilus to load food from the French wild island! Other submarines come to his aid and scatter to distract the French. However, the French start their turn by attacking! Finally able to shoot at one of the subs, the French try to exact payback for Nemo's deception earlier in the game. Incredibly, the Bourbon and Voleur team up to hit 5/6! This takes out part of the sub's hull: The French clean up against the Cursed: Courtesy of the Felicite, the Nightmare loses her final mast to fire! A rarity in Pirates CSG, where a large ship is completely aflame. There have probably been others in my games since then, but the only other one I distinctly remember is the Paul Revere from Economy Edition. The Hellfire and Juggernaut still have masts standing, but the Cursed are facing the last portion of a major defeat. Of course, they caused incredible havoc in the process. XD Part of the logistics at the Harbor involved just towing and re-towing some ships, in order to start clearing a path at the western edge of the Harbor mouth. The French fire at the Americans, though it's not as effective as the first strike: The Neptune docks at The Flat to extinguish her flames. The Yankee is doomed, and Le Superbe blasts away the American infantry and artillery units on the lumber island. The Peacock, Hancock, and Pequod are all dismasted! The Monaque cannot escape yet since the Aaron Burr is blocking her, but at least her fire doesn't spread. The Ville de Paris not only eliminated her fire mast, but set the Hancock alight as well! Perhaps one of the most realistic shots yet, showing the general French dominance: Having crushed the Pirates and forced them to go back home, the French now have a bunch of gunships to reinforce their positions with. As if they needed them! XD 4 are headed west towards the northern part of the American battle, while 6 more head south. Even more interesting: French gunships head for the Castle battle! Now that the Cursed and Pirates have largely been taken care of (both "false emergencies" to some degree, though the effects of the Cursed attack will be felt for many more turns), the French can afford to throw gunships at various tasks they had previously been putting off. This includes the Spanish fight against the Americans. With the French already engaged in another bloody battle against the Americans north of the Castle, it's only natural that they would also send some of their surplus gunships to help out their Spanish allies on the eastern side. The Montreal, Dame Riante and Marie Antoinette look to be the first French ships on the scene, with the larger La Gaule and Delacroix lurking as well. Here are a few more shots of the turns in Karkuda, with lower angles that I thought looked great: At the end of their turn the French spent all of their 176 gold! This netted them 9 additional gunships, with Pierre Aronnax stationed at the Harbor for now. He will await pickup by a large gunship if the Mercenary threat increases. The Rocher Noir also has the sub-hunting ability, so the French are not holding back when it comes to containing the threat posed by Nemo and his goons. As usual the ships are equipped with generally optimal crew complements, with the cargo holds almost always maxed out. With crazy amounts of points to spend, it's nice to actually have a lot of high-powered support gunships instead of the usual 5 mast budget warship (and often nothing else) used in a standard game. These ships are ready for war! All of the ships were launched at The Flat, with 6 at the southern end and the three 3 masters at the northern end. The American faction is usually the faction where I provide the most in-depth strategy analysis and vision, but I'd like to do that with more factions if I have time during the writing of these reports. Here the French are launching at The Flat because the Harbor is still very crowded and does not need more ships. They also launched at The Flat due to the Castle being a current hotspot of activity. The gunships launched at the southern end of The Flat should inject immediate life into the fight against America. The Spanish are overjoyed to have such a powerful ally, though they hope the French will come through on their current promise to help out at the Battle for the Castle , which by now is definitely an appropriate term! I believe this shows all French ships in play, as the Sea of Karkuda is just teeming with them at this point. XD I have some (mostly) great news! There is about a 99% chance that the game will be played after the Thanksgiving weekend concludes, allowing me to play into December and likely conclude the game a week or less before Christmas. I say mostly because I didn't expect or want this game to take so long, but obviously it has ballooned to an unmanageable size and taken on a life of its own. However, at this point it is my greatest creation in the world of Pirates CSG, and certainly needs a proper ending. Another round begins with a big development: the Pirates leave the Sea of Karkuda!!Not just in the southwest, but also up north!The Sunrise Fire ducks into a fog bank to avoid the French:Pirate arrivals from Karkuda!More damaged ships arrive in the southeast! Note that as the Pride returns, her crew and others bring news of the French "betrayal", which of course was caused by the Pirates' deal with the Cursed that began the end of the Pirate/French alliance. The news is not entirely surprising to the Pirates, but they are somewhat surprised by how quickly the Cursed betrayed their trust.Thisshift in Pirate strategy has been brewing for a while now. It started with the First Battle of the American whirlpool, which the Pirates lost badly to the Americans. Then came the Second Battle of the American whirlpool, which has mostly concluded in another decisive loss. Finally, the deal with the devil backfired on the Pirates when the Cursed betrayed them a bit by telling the French about the deal. This led to the Pirate ships in northern Karkuda being decimated by nearby French gunships in yet another "whirlpool battle" they would have lost. All in all, threewhirlpool "expeditions" if you will, each of them costly and bloody. With that, the Pirates have had it.They have pulled out most of their ships from the Sea of Karkuda, with the ones remaining stuck there due to being trapped or beyond help. This big shift in Pirate strategy and gameplay could have seismic effects for the duration of the game. The Americans bore the full brunt of Pirate aggression, but the English and now the French have felt quite wronged by Pirate activity as well. Captain Mission and his Pirate Admirals are sick of losing so many masts, ships, and lives to whirlpool shenanigans that never seem to have a big payoff. Therefore, they may begin favoring apolicy. Let the other factions come to them. They will repair and rebuild, and hunker down for the long haul.Inside the Tunnel, Pirates and mercenaries are hard at work on the ladder extending from the Celtic Fury's mast!Here you can start to make out what they've been doing:DRILLING!! O_OThe above picture and this one were taken after temporarily removing the Tunnel from the ocean, to show it more clearly. This shot is looking at the ceiling of the Tunnel on the western side where the Pirates have begun primitive rock-blasting operations!At the end of their turn, the Pirates spent 90 gold on 4 new gunships, including a few great ones: the Black Pearl, Diamond Strike, Ranger, and Splinter. At the upper left you can see the new Pirate strategy beginning to take effect, with many damaged ships coming home for repairs as fresh ones prepare to defend the whirlpools at all costs.Another battle at Broken Horn Island continues! The Jikininki is dismasted, but the Jades lose the Glorious Treasure for good when she succumbs to her fires (courtesy of the Executioner, a fitting name for that Cursed gunship).A small measure of Jade revenge! Many weeks after she was possessed by the Cursed and turned into an icewreck, the Clear Wind is finished after her iceberg was rammed by a Viking icebreaker! The Jades wanted to recapture the ship, but after seeing her demonic state for multiple battles now, they had to put an end to the weirdness. As the ice is broken, the Clear Wind sinks and many Jade Rebels have heavy hearts on this fine day. The Hrunting knocks a mast off the Sickle as the Grendel tows the Brandywine.A broader shot showing the Corsairs' advance and the path they've made for the Grendel and Brandywine:O_O WHOA!! The Jade Rebels attack the Pirates!!!!After the Pirates backed down from any alliance talk the Jades engaged in earlier, the Jades ignored and nearly forgot about them. However, the Cursed have worked their "magic" once more. With another large-scale JR-Cursed battle beginning, some talk between the sides could be expected. Sammy the Skull (aboard the Monkey's Paw) has let some information spread throughout the Jade fleet. Most of it true believe it or not! XDThe Cursed have informed the Jades that the whirlpool was created only with Pirate help, which is true since Davy Jones copied Calypso. The Cursed have also told the Jades about how powerful the Pirates are (since they have the Eye), which is also (mostly) true. The Jades have become quite a powerhouse faction with their recent Corsair hires, and the Pirates have been crushed lately in their travels to the Sea of Karkuda. The Cursed did embellish how strong the Pirates currently are, and made sure to emphasize that if the Jades do not concentrate some firepower on the Pirates, the Pirates will be able to defeat a Jade Rebellion faction that will be weakened if they manage to defeat the Cursed in the long term.Almost all the information was true, and the Jades understood that they needed to correct their tunnel vision (pun intended) and see other big threats besides the hated Cursed.The big hit landed on the JR turn was an exploding shot by the Grand Mountain, which set the Akua Lapu aflame and killed Bonny Peel's helmsman.Still incredibly impressive, the Jades continue to flood the northwestern part of Allost:The Cursed begin their turn with L-movers! Tsuro throws the Royal Louis against the shattered dock in the French Harbor, knocking another mast off the ship! The force of the movement shoves the slowly sinking dock against the Grand Vainqueur, but that ship escapes further damage.And now it is time for the new Cursed weapon! Inspired by the success of Neptune's Trident, the Cursed have unleashed Namazu!!Namazu's wave attack was not originally in range of many JR ships, so the Serpent's Fang got close to the serpent so it could move a bit southeast. Then, Davy Jones showed his power, using the copier ability to copy Capitaine Baudouin Deleflote, the French version of Lord Mycron who is sitting on L'Argus in the French Harbor! The Guichuan's action was given to Namazu so the monster could essentially move and then shoot as if it had a captain. However, it was no ordinary shoot action, as you can see Namazu charging up for a massive tidal wave blast!!Previewing the path of destruction!the Cursed unleash a tidal wave of hatred!!This time, seven different ships were affected:I only took one mast off the icebreaker since she only suffered a glancing blow. However, the Jades lost 10 masts as a result of the attack, with the Brandywine nearly sunk as well. Clearly this ability is overpowered in campaign games like this one!! Adding insult to injury, Namazu only loses one segment per wave attack (unlike the Trident, which is based on how many ships are affected), so it's even more cost-effective for the Cursed here with the ability that can be used multiple times (versus the Trident, which is removed from play after being used). As a result, I think I will house rule that wave attacks do "hit" damage rather than outright mast elimination, in which case a ship would only lose one full mast when affected (since it takes two hits to remove a mast). I may also let the Cursed roll when making a wave attack, and on a 5 or 6 (or just a 6 maybe) they get the full unedited effect like we see here. With two copiers and a reasonably healthy Namazu though, I think something needs to be done to avoid the Cursed turning a defeat into a victory with the help of just one ability that has become OP in a hurry here in CTO.The Knight's Errant (one of the worst ships in the game, but almost necessary here when you have borderline-unlimited points to spend) and Strix block the longships from advancing into Cursed trade routes, while the Cursed canoes will try to help out as well.The northern Cursed wild island now produces lumber instead of textiles! In the far north, those sea monsters are submerged and in no danger
FOR months, as the clock has ticked towards a two-year deadline for Britain to leave the European Union in March 2019, Theresa May’s government has been criticised for being ill-prepared, divided and unrealistic in its approach to Brexit. And rightly so. However, this week it took a belated step towards reality in the first two of a series of Brexit papers, on future customs arrangements and on Northern Ireland. It accepted explicitly, for the first time, that a temporary transition, or interim period, will be necessary to avert a damaging cliff-edge exit in March 2019, and that in this interim period Britain should be in a customs union with the EU. That is a big step forward. It is all the more surprising, because it came just days after Philip Hammond, the chancellor, and Liam Fox, the trade secretary, promised in a newspaper article that, even in an interim period, Britain would be out of the EU’s single market and customs union. The official Brexit paper acknowledges that this may happen eventually, and offers ideas for a new customs regime that, although burdensome and quite possibly impractical, at least tries to minimise the costs to traders (see article). But in the meantime the paper proposes an interim temporary customs union that will be tantamount to staying in the current one. Dr Fox insists that, as is not the case today, he will be able to negotiate free-trade deals with third countries while Britain is in this interim customs union. He is wrong. No trade deal can take effect so long as Britain is in a customs union. And no country will be willing to negotiate the details of any deal until Britain’s own future trade arrangements with the EU are clear. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. A transitional period with a temporary customs union will put off the problem of how to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic as frictionless as possible. But once Britain leaves the customs union, border controls in some form will surely be necessary. This will damage the island’s economy and destabilise its politics; the Irish government is rightly unhappy. Although the British government’s paper persists in the vain search for a technological solution that can magically avoid any border at all, it does at least acknowledge that Brexit will involve significant administrative costs for both parts of the island. Those trade-offs The government now needs to build on this new, more sober approach. Detail and realism should be the hallmarks of the big Brexit speech that Mrs May plans to give next month. One part of this must be to concede that Britain is bound to face a substantial exit bill, for without this the EU will not be prepared even to talk about trade. And when it comes to these talks, Mrs May must be more open about the compromises they involve. Put crudely, the more control Britain takes back from Brussels, the bigger will be the hit to its trade and thus to Britons’ living standards. Mrs May also needs to accept that other countries also have politics. Too much of the Brexit debate in London has been internally focused: resolving cabinet disputes, trying to keep Parliament onside, working out what the Labour opposition really wants. In the end, however, the trickiest negotiations will be with the EU 27. Securing the necessary majority in Brussels for an exit deal will be hard enough. But when it comes to transition or, even more crucially, to the ultimate trade arrangements, the other countries must agree unanimously and their parliaments must ratify the deal. That will take time, probably years, and it will need defter diplomacy than Mrs May’s government has displayed so far. This week’s papers are but a first step towards a more realistic approach to Brexit.
My high school football coach used to call the tall camera that was placed in the back of the end zone between the field goal posts ‘big brother’. It preyed on its victims from 30 feet up, revealing all the mistakes they make during each game. After a win, you couldn’t wait to get to Saturday morning film, but after a loss…not so much. In week one, the Bills likely enjoyed a pretty upbeat film session on Monday morning. In my first film evaluation of Tyrod Taylor this season, I’ll highlight what was a pretty consistent game for the third year Bill. He made several nice plays and even showed a little bit of growth in an area of the field he’s historically struggled in: the middle of the field. Vick who? https://twitter.com/Cover_1_/status/907559521618456577 From the end zone view, maybe Taylor committed to run too early. I think a case could be made that the play to make here is to wait an extra second and deliver a strike to Zay Jones crossing the field. But in week one, I think I’m all right with this play. Listen, there is going to be a serious learning curve for Taylor and this mismatch receiving corps. He played his first meaningful game snaps with his top three receivers last Sunday, and managed to emerge with a win. I think while that chemistry builds, Taylor can use his feet more. He can literally buy himself and the offense some time while the receivers get up to speed. We’ll see how effective that plan can be against better competition, but plays like this should be celebrated. I think that, as fans and evaluators, we should stop holding Taylor’s running ability against him. Positive yards are positive yards, after all. Nice hands, feet V nice blitz pickup on the left & Wood picks up looper. Bracket coverage w both safeties, sliding left may have held Adams in place.Catch it pic.twitter.com/OaUsbpKpEY — Cover 1 (@Cover_1_) September 12, 2017 Only because I think Taylor knew he was going to Charles Clay from the snap of the ball, I think he could have helped his tight end out a little by throwing this ball as he was making his break. If he’s able to hit Clay as he’s making the break, then Jamal Adams never gets over to hit Clay as he tries to make the catch, and it’s likely an easy touchdown. But I’m not letting Charles Clay off the hook on this one. He’s has to help his quarterback out here. It’s not one of those “if the ball hits your hands” things when it’s really not a catchable ball and you just blame the receiver. It was an accurately thrown ball; Clay has to make a play for his quarterback there in the end zone. It’s always Shady in Buffalo Ran this several times in preseason. A lot of plays look the same. PA from under center pulls LBs down, LBs eyeing Dimarco, TT with a beaut. pic.twitter.com/XEXnbPRAlX — Cover 1 (@Cover_1_) September 12, 2017 A lot of quarterbacks are envious of Tyrod Taylor. Not many of them around the league can say they have LeSean McCoy. On this play, the defense takes a collective step forward with the play action fake. The play call was meant to put the linebackers in a bind, and it was run to perfection. When two players step up to take Patrick DiMarco, it’s an easy read to a wide-open Zay Jones. These are the sorts of plays you can expect to see a lot of from Rick Dennison and this offense. What you like to see from Taylor is quick decision-making and, again, an accurate ball over the middle of the field. These kinds of play action plays are easy ways to get his receivers involved in the game plan, but it’s also a way to combat throws being batted down at the line of scrimmage. More play action Looks like man coverage but Adams almost looks like he plays the flats. Tough read as he has to fill vs Shady IF run…Great play pic.twitter.com/7jZseLuLc0 — Cover 1 (@Cover_1_) September 12, 2017 Tyrod’s deep ball has always been a strength, but I think maybe his best ball comes on the corner route, a classic cover 2 beater. On this play, I love how he stands in the pocket and takes a shot. John Miller gets tripped up on the play, and Leonard Williams has a free shot at Taylor. Luckily, it’s a pretty easy read but, he does a nice job getting the ball out at the top of his drop, one hitch, and delivers a strike. He also gives Clay an opportunity to make a play upfield. I agree with Erik here; I’m not sure whether they’re running man or zone, but it’s a terrific play call and even better execution. Smart football Ding him for missed throws but give him credit for not making bad throws. He throws this timing route to Holmes its likely picked.. pic.twitter.com/bwx4jvsugw — Cover 1 (@Cover_1_) September 12, 2017 Sometimes the best plays are the ones you don’t make. On this play, the quick slant to Andre Holmes is where Tyrod’s eyes immediately went. I’m not sure if he decided to tuck this ball down and not to throw because of the pass rush in his face or because he was worried about that linebacker squatting on the play. I’m not sure he would have had time to hit the right player on the play, Charles Clay. It’s easy to look at this play and see Clay running open in the middle of the field, but even if Taylor had the time to deliver to Clay, it’s hard to tell if he only became open because Taylor locked on Andre Holmes. At the end of the day, he does what very few players at the position can do, which is escape chaos to live to see another down. When it was all said and done Taylor and the Bills’ offense dominated the Jets defense on the ground and at times through the air. As the Bills continue forward this season against better teams and better defenses, Taylor will have to find a vertical threat. Charles Clay will clearly have a big role in this offense, but they need a receiver to step up if Taylor wants to have sustained success. Stay tuned next week for my week two breakdown. Be sure to follow me on Twitter @NateGearyWGR
Concept designers are also referred to as “visual futurists”. These concept designs may not be on the market yet, but they can still inspire you to create something just as futuristic and exciting online. The designs may be impractical in some cases, but the idea is to put the concept out to the world to see how it evolves and grows. Remember that these are all just conceptual, you can’t buy them yet! Some may be closer to being produced than others, particularly when they come from a large company like Braun or Samsung. Otherwise, who knows if or when they will be available. With that said, here you have 100 amazing futuristic design concepts that will make you crave more. 1. Cloud Sofa This is an elegant concept created by designer D.K. Wei. The Cloud sofa is supposed to give one the illusion of floating on their own personal cloud. A magnet in the base is supposed to generate enough magnetic force to hold the sofa aloft. The cloud is constructed from a plexiglass mold. 2. The iChat This concept design was inspired by the curves and tapering of the Macbook Air coupled with the look of an iPod Touch. Rodolphe Desmare is responsible for this iPhone concept, which is more notable for its imagined features than its looks. The front camera would allow video conferencing on the iPhone, something that the blogosphere is already very excited about as a potential feature for the new release of the iPhone. 3. iPhone 4G Concept This fantasy iPhone mimics both the look of Mac OS/X and the aluminum case of a MacBook Pro. We couldn’t suss out the real name of the designer but you can see more pictures from this designer under his handle “youngSpace” at Flickr. The video capability in this design preceded the one in the iChat, above. The removable battery is also tantalizing. 4. Propulsion Powered Flying Cycle Created by designer Norio Fujikawa. This propulsion powered jetbike is a sci-fi concept that Fujikawa has taken to a whole new level in his design. Be sure to check out the additional pictures here 5. ON AIR Wrist Watch This watch tells time in an extraordinary way. Turkish designer Iskender Asanaliev created a design where the LED hour hand doubles as the digital minute display. 6. Underwater Jet Ski Nereus is a conceptual design by Mathias Koehler for a watercraft that would allow you to travel on water and dive or submerge for short periods. Wind energy would be used to propel the vehicle which could take the user from a swimming to a diving position through the use of intuitive controls and movements of the upper body. Steering would be through the footrests which are connected to the back rudder. 7. Watch Displaying Time in Sand Designer Balykin Pavel tells the time with digital sand in this Reddot Design Award winner for 2006. 8. Dream Sneaker French Industrial Designer Lysandre Follet gives us a pair of dream sneakers: a Nike slip-on that looks as light as air. Additional sneaker designs from the artist can be found here. 9. Innovative Mouse Design The Alien Mouse from designer Mizanur Rahman sports an exciting construction composed of eight soft gel and cellulose pieces which are meant to not only support the hand and wrist, but the arm as well. The multi-piece design was envisioned to help combat repetitive strain injury (RSI) with a vibrator underneath the mouse for extra comfort. 10. Incredible LED Watch This watch was created by Hironao Tsuboi and developed by the studio found here. The watch looks like it’s all wristband until the digital display lights up. 11. The iRing This design created by Victor Soto is meant to control the Playback functionality of your iPod/iPhone device wirelessly through the use of a ring that you wear on your finger. The touch-sensitive function strip and the battery life of 12 hours make the iRing an object of intense desire. 12. Digital Mp3 Concept The designer Nuno Teixeira has created a wireless Mp3 player with soft surfaces and no wires to get in your way. 13. Modern Rocking Wheel Chair The Rocking Wheel Chair is a modern interpretation of a traditional rocking chair by Mathias Koehler. The near circular form seen from the side is what makes the design so unique. The upper portion features a reading light. 14. Creative Cigarette Case This packaging concept for Kent was created and developed by Balykin Pavel. The new triangle shape with round corners looks very unique and can fit more easily into a pocket. 15. 4D Watch This sleek 4D Watch was created by Balykin Pavel. It has 4 square screens to display hours, minutes, seconds and date information. The metallic finish and a strong magnetic grip closure complete the picture. 16. The USBee The USBee was designed to prevent the damage to USB drives seen so often with conventional USB use. The elastic neck will bend when pushed in any axis. This also means that it can fit into tight spaces where other USB drives dare not go. The lines at the end keep USBee cool and ergonomically pleasing. Designed by Serbian designer Damjan Stankovic. 17. Polygon Concept Bike The Polygon concept bike was designed by Reindy Allendra. Inspired by the design of human DNA, this bike has controls for your iPod/MP3 Player built in to the steering area. 18. Spokeless Wheels Bike This bike concept was created by Bradford Waugh. The concept completely replaces the traditional gear system of a mainstream bike with one that allows for spokeless wheels. 19. Home Theatre Chair Identita is a chair concept designed for a home cinema. Hakan Bogazpinar brings us a home theatre seating solution that foregoes the traditional chair for a seating solution that is completely adjustable and ergonomic. 20. Embrio – Bombardier’s Segway Killer Embrio was created by Bombardier as their answer to the Segway. They utilize similar gyroscope technology to keep riders aloft, but with a much cooler design that Bombardier hopes will attract a younger demographic. It also uses one less wheel than the Segway and is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. See Martin Aubé’s concept sketch, third from top, on this page. 21. Audi Shark – Flying Sportscar This impressive concept design by Kazim Doku is a flying sportscar. Meant to combine the raciness of motorcycles with the sleekness of aircraft, the Audi shark is the answer to our collective sci-fi dreams. This award-winning concept design is a two-seater that offers its passengers “strong sensations and high levels of safety”. 22. Flee Flee is a concept by Hakan Bogazpinar which takes the idea of a tossable camera a few steps further. Bogazpinar has incorporated a tail into the design to keep the camera oriented properly and Bluetooth so that pictures it takes can be sent back to your mobile device in real time. When the “flee” is thrown in the air, it takes photos at customizable time intervals. 23. Eolos Pipe The Eolos was also designed by Hakan Bogazpinar. This elegant pipe has two major features. When the basket portion of the pipe turns completely black as shown in the picture, the nicotine level is critical and the filter must be changed. The portion of the pipe that holds the tobacco is constructed with heat insulating composite, ensuring that the pipe is always cool to the touch. 24. The Grasshopper Electric Bike This bike was the winner of the ‘merit prize’ in the 12th International Bicycle Design Competition and it was designed by David Gonçalves. The Grasshopper is a foldable electric bike which can also be easily carried when not in use. The folding bike is easily stored and recharged at home. 25. Strider Super Hero Motorcycle David Gonçalves created a stunning motorbike in this concept design. It features hubless wheels and an aerodynamic ground-hugging frame. 26. Scarab Scarab was also designed by David Gonçalves. This concept vehicle features styling straight out of “Tron”. The four wheeled, single passenger vehicle has all of the thrill of a motorcycle with the safety of an enclosed cab. Included in the feature set is the ability to run either on batteries or on a biofuel internal combustion engine. 27. World’s Lightest Cash Register The EPOS-lite was inspired by the Apple MacBook Air and iPhone. Meant to be installed on a restaurant table, the portable cash register features programmable menu choices, wireless charging, and various payment options. Stephen Allport, the designer, notes on his page that enough interest has been shown in the device that it may be produced. 28. Tuner Time Tuner Time is a stereo FM radio. The two wheels in the centre control volume and tuning frequency. It also comes with a one-touch operation remote control, pictured beside the Tuner Time. Designed by Mehmet Gozetlik. 29. High End Public Telephone This design by Nuno Teixeira adopts a minimalist approach to a high end public phone. 30. Universal Charging Dock The Stream concept by Barton Smith consists of Experience Modules (Media, Memories, Connections, Documents, Creations, Games), a Core Component, Component Modules (processors, memory, graphics, power), a 3.5” Portable Display and Charging Cradle and Universal Charging Base. This product separates computer functions into six categories called ‘experiences’. Currently, if a user wishes to purchase a computer purely for documenting and internet they must accept that it will come with processing power and features well beyond these needs. With the Stream concept users would purchase only the Connections and Documents modules as well as the Core Component to perform only the desired functions. The Connections module also acts as a phone. Visit the product page for more information – there is lots of it. 31. Tima Tima is a watch concept by Julien Bergignat that allows you to have both a digital display and a classic view of the time. Both displays can be adjusted simultaneously to show the same hour or two different time zones. Thanks to ePaper technology, characters can be displayed on the curved surface of the watch. 32. Amazing Lamp A simple and and beautiful lamp by Julien Bergignat. The lamp can be lifted out of the stand and used as a portable lighting solution when needed. 33. Suspension Lamp EQUILIBRIUM – A suspension lamp made of high-density expanded polyurethane with high-gloss paint finish. Balance is created with a solid counterweight in one end that equals the weight of the rest of the lamp. Created by Nuno Teixeira. 34. NOCS MP3 DOCKING STATION The NOCS MP3 docking station from Nuno Teixeira combines top-notch functionality with an integrated amplifier and tall (43.3″) speakers to deliver superb sound quality. 35. Peripheral Vision Eyeglasses The Nike Hindsight gives bicyclists a pair of bifocals for their peripheral vision. By using Fresnel lenses on the sides, riders can detect motion in a field of vision beyond the normal human limit of 180º. The obvious benefit is in the early warning of approaching vehicles, but a less obvious advantage is reducing the necessary head rotation to check behind. By Billy May. 36. Time Tuner Time Tuner is a table clock which plays music that you can upload via a USB cable. It it also a programmable alarm clock that will work with your uploaded music. Designed by Mehmet Gozetlik. The Time Tuner is based on the linear flow of time and is using one single indicator for both minutes and hours. The light of the numbers turns on when this indicator starts to move along and the lines between the lightened numbers of the clock and the indicator shows the minute. The minutes are shown in double lines group; one for quarters and the other for 10 minutes for a convenient time reading. The gray line indicates the time of the alarm and it is shorter than the red line, which shows the time. 37. Futuristic Bike Rack Bike rack designed for New York City Racks Design Competition. Designed by Nikita Gutsalenko. 38. Equinox Watch Concept Design Another fantastic concept design by Nuno Teixeira. This watch is purpose-built to line up all of its dials like a sundial when the sun is directly above the equator at both the autumn and spring equinoxes. 39. Portable PC with Projector The Portable PC is an amazing concept by Jinwoo Han. If you are a little sick of having to arrange in advance for a digital projector at a meeting or tradeshow, you’ll love the Portable PC concept. Computer, keyboard, and projector all in one device. Use the back of the airline seat in front of you as your digital display. The laptop without the lap. 40. Credit Card Piggy Bank Created by Denis Bostandzic. The Credit Card Piggy Bank could be used privately to transfer money to your credit card, or publicly as a means of donation collection. 41. Suspension Lamp The PALA suspension lamp is made of high-density expanded polyurethane. Provides a pleasant, indirect light. 42. Steampunk My GPS The GPS Pathquest was designed to eliminate the need to ask for directions. A double-screen display unit which is constructed to look like a compass with E-Ink for conserving battery power is tricked out with brass accents that satisfy our inner Steampunks. Pocket-sized and discreet, the PathQuest relies on Google Maps for navigation. Designed by Kyle Fleischhacker. 43. Sleek EGG Phone The Egg Phone by Roman Tubl offers incredible features like the screen which turns opaque once the phone is inactive or turned off. There is also a USB connector at the bottom of the phone which makes it easy to connect this phone to any device for data storage. 44. Sled Vehicle Concept This Sled Vehicle Concept was created by Norio Fujikawa. We’re not sure what is propelling this sled design, but it certainly looks cool. 45. Marguerite Bicycle Stand Design This is a creative idea by Yoann Henry Yvon. The design is meant to emulate the petals of a daisy and its centre. 46. Futuristic Bridge This project was the winning entry in an international open design competition for a new bridge across the river Dodder in central Dublin. The concept of the bridge is to create a hybrid of infrastructure and public amenity by providing generous seating and deck width across the span for pedestrians to pause and enjoy the views of the river. Designed by NEX architecture. 47. MIESROLO, The First Dynamic Cantilever Chair This design took 1st place in the Wood Agency Design Contest Belgrade 2008, the University of Belgrade’s Award for Best Scientific-Professional Work in 2006/07, and a Golden Key Awards (sitting furniture and innovative concept) at Belgrade Int. Furniture Fair 2006 / 2007, ULUPUDS diploma 2007. Folds in on itself for easy storage. By Uros Vitas. 48. Audi O The 2008 Audi O concept was designed by Ondrej Jirec, a design student from the Czech Republic who is beginning studies at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California in 2008. The car design was inspired by the iPod. This bad boy features the mother of all audio systems with internet connectivity for downloading music onto the built-in 650 GB hard drive, a Bluetooth system for connecting two or more Audi O cars together, making for the largest rolling club ever. Best yet, it comes completely decked out with a couple of DJ decks and mixer. 49. Aerodynamic Concept Car This is an airflow concept design by Pierre Sabas. It features smooth and contoured lines that run throughout the entire car. The artist writes: “I believe that space sensation doesn’t depend on the size of the volume we are in but on the perception we have of the environment. Therefore, based on my structural solution, we can imagine new solutions in terms of design and driving experience.” 50. BRB Evolution Concept Car The BRB Evolution concept car is not only capable of fitting into tight spots with it’s Dyson vacuum-like design, but it’s also intended to be “green.” BRB would be powered by electricity or hydrogen. Designer David Bailey drew inspiration from the Lamborghini Murcielago and the Peugeot 908. 51. BMW 2015 Concept Car The final thesis of the Transportation Design students at Turin-based IED (Instituto Europeo di Design), developed in partnership with BMW towards the goal of creating a car for 2015 within the BMW brand philosophy. 52. Swatch “Infinity” Concept Watch This watch is like no other that you have seen before. It is a concept watch design presented by Swatch under the name “Infinity” and features video, mp3 music and photo sharing. It not only plays back video, it records it as well. 53. Nokia Aeon Concept The Nokia Aeon Concept Design features a touchscreen that stretches over the full surface area of the phone. 54. Ricavision Fridge Magnet The Ricavision Fridge Magnet will allow you to watch movies, listen to music, and keep notes right on your fridge. Ricavision envisages a 16 hour battery life from the internal LiIon cell. The diminutive 3.5-inch QVGA screen connects wirelessly to your Vista PC for schedule updates, media and email. Using the included stylus to write on the screen turns it into a virtual Post-It note. 55. Nokia 888 Phone The Nokia 888 phone allows you to change its form according to your needs during the day. The bracelet-like design uses a liquid battery, speech recognition, flexible touch screen, and a touch-sensitive body cover which lets it understand and adjust to the environment. 56. Vaio Zoom The Vaio Zoom notebook computer uses holographic technology to create a PC that may be more minimalist than a MacBook Air. When off, the screen is completely transparent and the keyboard goes opaque. Turn it on and the touchscreen holographic festivities begin. Even the mouse buttons are holographic. 57. P-Per Mobile Phone The P-Per Mobile’s design consists of just 4 layers, a printed circuit board, extruded polycarbonate, recycled titanium, and a wraparound LED touchscreen. By minimizing materials, the design is highly sustainable. The P-Per, designed by the Chocolate Agency, has support for Wi-Fi and live video feeds. 58. Sonic Chair The Sonic Chair riffs off the design of chairs in 2001: A Space Odyssey and adds a killer sound system. The Sonic Chair comes in 35 different colors and allows users to connect an iPod or a notebook computer to enjoy their favorite music in a self-contained setting. 59. First-Grass Relaxation Phillip Grass, a Danish designer, created the Accelerator Sofa with an aerodynamic design that any starship captain would be proud of. 60. Jetson Family Dining Turkish designer Fatih Can Sariöz created the Kure six-person dining set as an expression of his philosophy that family dinner times are special. It’s not much of a space-saver but it DOES glow with white light above and blue below. The whole thing folds up into a ball when not in use, making for a great conversation piece. 61. Canova Dual Screen Laptop Canova Dual Screen Laptop possesses two sensitive touchscreens. Not only can it be used to handle your daily computing tasks but it also lets you read articles as if you were reading a newspaper. 62. DesCom DesCom, designed by Sung-kyu Nam, is a desk that is meant as a container for a laptop computer. Looks cool but depends entirely on the continued existence of the laptop that it contains, which may make the entire arrangement subject to a fail when the warranty period is up. 63. Futuristic Glass This concept by Mac Funamizu of Japan would act as a scanner, a digital camera, and an internet-connected wireless device all in one package. 64. Motorola Sparrow The Motorola Sparrow provides retail stores with a mobile point of sale device to make it easier for customers to pay for a product. It combines a scanner, point of sale (POS) system, RFID, communication and credit card reading capabilities into one mobile device. 65. Soft Phone The Soft Phone mobile device uses your grip and hand movements to make or end a call. The designer, Jian Qian, says “The Bluetooth earphone buckled to the string can charge the phone by electromagnetic induction. The material of the interface is fabric while the one of clip and circle is silica gel, which makes the phone very soft and portable.” 66. Nokia Eco Sensor Phone Nokia’s Eco Sensor cell phone has a range of built-in sensors to help you monitor your health, environment, and local weather. You can also share the environmental data your Eco Sensor collects and view other users shared data. 67. MacTab MacTab sports an incredibly thin wireless keyboard which can be used as a protection cover for transportation. The keyboard stays in place with a combination of magnets and notches. On the back of the computer, a hinge allows it to be put in a vertical position so you can use Mactab comfortably on your desk. Designed by Yann Le Coroller. 68. LG Ecological Laptop The LG Ecological Laptop concept uses fuel cell batteries and features organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology. It received a Red Dot Award nomination for Best Concept Design in 2006. 69. Compenion Laptop Concept The Compenion laptop by Felix Schmidberger features a slide-up touchscreen panel which reveals an OLED touchscreen keyboard which can change layout depending on preference or language. The multi-touch screens are responsive to both finger-presses and its own dedicated pen called a “senstylus”. 70. Canvas Laptop Concept Canvas is a futuristic concept laptop by Kyle Cherry that features a very thin touchscreen. 71. Nokia Morph Nokia Morph is a Tablet PC, a wristband and a smart phone. The device was concept designed by Nokia Research Center (NRC) in collaboration with the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre (United Kingdom) and aims to incorporate nanoscale technologies that will potentially create a world of radically different devices that open up an entirely new spectrum of possibilities. 72. BYB Balance Cell Phone The BYB Balance Cell, designed by Bence Bogar, features a 2.8″ Crystal Display Screen, 5.0-MP Digital camera, 512 MB of RAM, a Micro SD (T-flash) expansion slot, Wi-Fi support, built-in Bluetooth technology, and built-in GPS features. 73. Asus Aura Concept Phone The Asus Aura Concept Phone was designed by a Hungarian design company, Egy Studio, for a Taiwanese vendor. The Aura Concept cellphone has a movable navigation module with navigational buttons and a sliding QWERTY keyboard. Additional features include a 3.9″ touchscreen covering the whole surface of the phone, a 2.0 megapixel camera, a microSD memory card slot, GSM, UMTS, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. 74. Computer Table Lamp Concept Prisma has created a table lamp that doubles as a portable computer. It features a top-loading disc drive, touchscreen display and seamlessly integrated ports. 75. Samsung AMOLED Concept AMOLED concept notebook by Samsung features a thin, sleek design and a touch-sensitive keyboard. AMOLED stands for Active Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode, a technology which has been used in various handheld devices such as cellphones and cameras. 76. Mobile Office of the Future Designed by James Mower, this futuristic mobile office on wheels includes an eco-friendly toilet, electricity, wireless internet, built-in GPS and glass panels. Park it and meet. 77. EyeMove PC The EyeMove PC combines the functionality of a digital projector and computer into one circular-shaped device. Simply hang it on your wall or place it flat on a desk and project games, movies, or applications. Designed by Ricardo Baiao. 78. Transparent Toaster This innovative “Transparent Toaster” concept uses special heating glass to warm a single slice of bread. Unfortunately, the glass does not reach a high enough temperature — at this time — to actually toast the bread. 79. U.S.S. Enterprise Inspired Nissan Terranaut Designed for “scientists, geologists, archaeologists or adventurers”, Nissan’s 4×4 Terranaut features a “spherical laboratory” that is accessed from a 360 degree swiveling seat. Unfortunately, all these workstations leave room for only one passenger side door. 80. Segway Robot RMP This Segway Robot RMP design looks like its been taken from a futuristic Science Fiction movie. Its tough wheels and base could probably carry more than just one person and could be used to haul things around. 81. Noah High Performance Personal Vehicle The Noah, designed by Andrei França, is a Segway influenced design. Without a pedal, buttons, or levers, the Noah will react to the driver’s movements. Although it looks like a unicycle, it actually has two wheels that are installed side-by-side. 82. iPhone Slider Qwerty Concept The Apple iPhone Slider incorporates a Qwerty keyboard into the iPhone design. Concept designed by Aaron Besson. 83. iPhone ELITE The iPhone ELITE concept, designed by Mat Brady, comes with optional slide out keyboard and a front-facing camera that enables video conferencing. 84. Futuristic iPhone Concept See-through Apple iPhone concept designed by Robert Davis. While there are a lot of iPhone concepts out there, this one is probably one of the coolest. 85. E-Rope Modular Power Strip Designed by Chul Min Kang and Sung Hun Lim, the “E-Rope Modular Power Strip” is a 2006 Idea Award winning concept. Blue lights on the device glow to indicate power is flowing, and if you rotate the socket section 90 degrees, it turns off the current. 86. Dell XCS Designed by Matthew Ritter, the Dell XCS is a modular desktop concept that encapsulates its hardware components and conceals the circuit boards for a sleek futuristic look. 87. RITI Printer: Eco-Friendly Printer This cool printer idea was a finalist in the Greener Gadgets design competition. The printer would use your old coffee or tea grinds as ink. The user simply puts their scraps into the case, and voila – an ink source. The only issue is that the user needs to move the ink case back and forth in order to print…not something people are likely to want to do. Designed by Jeon Hwan Ju. 88. Elegant Water Purifier This water purification device idea combines two things we love – simple design and reuseable water bottles. A user simply fills the BPA-free bottle with tap water, and, like a french press, pushes down on the water filter. Purified water can then be sipped from the container. Simple, elegant, and easy to use – three qualities we love in design – and it’s great for people who want to quench their thirst on the go, even if all that is available is a questionable water source. Designed by Gretha Oost, Paul Charlwood & Andrew Howley. 89. The Power Hog Power-Hog is a power consumption metering piggy bank designed to sensitize kids to the energy cost associated with running electronic devices. Plug the tail into the outlet and the device into the snout; feed a coin to meter 30 minutes of use. Designed by Designed by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer, and Mathieu Turpault. 90. Indoor Drying Rack Constructed of bamboo laminate and recycled aluminum, it can be recycled easily, and is constructed from sustainable materials. Bamboo is naturally hypoallergenic and resists mold and mildew. Predrilled holes allow the user to tweak the mounting location side to side while still hitting studs. This indoor drying rack gives millions of people the choice to conserve energy while drying their clothes naturally and privately in their home. When not in use it folds out of the way and adds a modern touch to any interior. Designed by Rob Podell. 91. Laundry POD: Portable Hand-Operated Laundry Machine The Laundry POD is perfect for the times you need to do a small load quickly but don’t want to waste the energy or a trip to the Laundromat. It’s terrific for delicates and hand-washables. The spinning action washes gently, rinses and then extracts water to improve drying times. Designed by the RKS Design Team. 92. I’m Not With the Band… I AM the Band. The Vivace combines multiple instruments, track recording, equalizer, sound editing, internet connectivity and a touchscreen interface all into one compact package. Designed by Young-Shin Lee & Hae-Jin Jung. 93. Aperture: Volume-Aware Shower Head A volume-aware shower head might just be the thing to put a cap on unecessarily long showers. The Aperture displays the volume of water consumed while showering and allows the user to mitigate water consumption with a built-in flow regulator. 94. EcoTap: Twist-Off Power Socket The EcoTap physically cuts power to devices by separating the electrical contacts at a wall socket. This method of turning off electronics ensures that even devices that draw power whilst idle/off are completely disconnected. Design by Osamu Kadono of Japan. 95. Digital Pet Plant The digital pet plant is designed to measure your plants health and provide feedback on a variety of factors which determine how well your plants are doing. Your plants show their digital emotions through smiley or frowning faces on the LED monitor. Designed by Junyi Heo. 96. iCoffee Designer Alisson Wilson Ströher created the Nilko “IMO” coffee maker to fold up, look cool and brew three average sized packets of coffee. Now if we could only plug it in to a USB port. 97. Eco & Ego Car The idea behind this “EE” car is pets, yes pets. Not a dog or cat, but a plant. The plant sits above the engine bay in clear sight of the driver. It’s hooked up to some futuristic electronics and can tell you how “polluted” you were that day. There’s also an extension to the idea in that you take your plant out every time you drive, sorta like walking your dog. Designed by Slava Saakyan. 98. Have A Different Car Everyday The MOY Concept car was made for a generation used to using media to express themselves. The idea is everyone can design their own car on their own computer and then apply the design to their vehicle wirelessly or share it with others thru a website or even email. For those lacking creative skill, there’s a slew of templates to choose from. The car is always connected so imagine dynamically changing your vehicle’s skin in motion. Designed by Elvis Tomljenovic. 99. Escape Into Your Cave There are times that we wish we could have a little more privacy, retreating into our own space of quietness. Adults crave this just as much as children. With Cave, we are given the opportunity to embrace our escape. Created as a bookshelf with its own Cave inside, allowing the user to retreat with a good book, or just sit and relax in their space. The Cave bookshelf is large enough to be used as a divider between rooms creating a wall of separation of my space and yours. Available in two sizes: Children and Adult. Books may be stored on both sides of the bookcase with a cave crawlspace in between. Designed by Sakura Adachi. 100. Braun Clever Care Medical Coach Designers Marc Salagnac, Ludovic Diallo and Cédric Dervillier bring you an electronic valet for your medications with the Braun Clever Care Medical System. We like the design of the touchscreen display. Apparently it not only stores all your medicines, but also syncs your medical records and prescriptions straight from the doctor’s office. It also provides a database to hold all medical records for the entire family and reminds you of appointments and times that you have to take pills. Which one of these designs have inspired you to design, develop, and create? Feel free to leave us a comment on your thoughts below…
Driver distraction is a large and growing problem that is literally killing drivers every year. How many? In 2012 there were 3,154 people killed in crashes related to distracted driving, and over 424,000 were injured [1]. The simple fact is that if your eyes are on a screen, they aren't on the road, and using a touchscreen without looking at it is nearly impossible. Touchscreen: 1.75s ReactiveTouch: 0.75s Touchscreens require you to look where your finger is, and also to confirm that an action was taken. Physical buttons require at most a glance - the tactile feedback does the rest. In our testing, simple actions on a touchscreen require an average 1.75 seconds of eyes-on time. First time users of the ReactiveTouch prototype completed the same actions with a single glance (0.75 seconds). And thanks to muscle memory, after a few uses users often didn't need to look at all. One second might not seem like much, but at highway speeds that is close to 100 feet traveled. Aside from safety, physical buttons just feel better. Human hands are tactile. We expect the things we interact with to provide feedback via touch. As proven by Ford's recent return to physical controls [2], this is especially true for drivers who are used to vehicle controls providing continuous tactile feedback. [1] Per distraction.gov
Last week the Cleveland game devs had a Level Up workshop, focused on Unity and Playmaker – so I signed up, enthusiastic that I could unlock some more of the mysteries of Playmaker and game mechanics. I was not disappointed. Our moderator, Bill, jumped in with a basic endless runner prototype using primatives and simple FSMs, and soon our cubes were colliding and jumping on command. It got me thinking about the platformer I want to make using my autistic son’s artwork. I showed the kids my work the next morning, and they gleefully smacked the spacebar to make the little cube hop on command. I started up Audacity and recorded their delighted sounds and snuck them into the FSM. Their eyes grew wide when they heard their own voices yelling ‘jump’ when they hit the spacebar. I made a few more tweaks to reset the level if the player cube got knocked off screen. I can see how this sort of game is so popular for beginner devs – its quick, easy and has an iterative cycle thats easy to add mechanics and playtest. It makes me question if I shouldn’t focus on one as a means to generate quick income. The HTC Vive is going on pre-order next week and I could really use the money.
Bryn Mawr chemistry professor Michelle Francl testing the apparatus they are building for an advanced student lab to measure one of the physical properties of a meteorite. This sort of data helps astrophysicists and astrochemists understand something of the makeup of asteroids and planetary bodies. You dunk the meteorite in liquid nitrogen -- at a balmy 321 degrees below zero Fahrenheit -- and measure the evaporation of the nitrogen to find out how much heat these things can absorb. She is one of the 1,000 most cited chemists in the world. She's written papers with three Nobel prize winners, taught a generation of young scientists at Bryn Mawr College, and called out tropes about women in math and science in her article "Sex in the Citadel of Science." On Saturday, April 22nd she'll be one of the speakers at the March for Science in Philadelphia, and in all likelihood she'll pray before she goes on. Meet Michelle Francl — chemist, feminist, professor, writer and theologian. NBC10: Tell me what you will be talking about at the March for Science. Francl: I’m going to try to break down the standard notion of what a scientist looks like. There is a test anthropologists use called “Draw a Scientist” test, which does just what it says, hands people a blank sheet of paper and asks them to draw a scientist. The image that surfaces is incredibly consistent. People draw a man — and it’s almost always a man — in a lab coat with crazy hair, glasses at a lab bench with bubbling beakers and test-tubes. But #actualLivingScientists (to use a popular hashtag) don’t look like that. They are short plump women with grey hair, like me. They are tall athletic young women from New Jersey…and brilliant women from Mexico. They wear headscarves and geeky t-shirts and leggings — and their lab coats. They are gay young men with beautiful bass voices, like my son. People think that it doesn’t matter who does science, because science is supposed to be objective, and the people who do it like Vulcans, dispassionate, unemotional. They think that if it is there to be discovered, and we just have white men looking, someone will still find it. (Nuclear fission was discovered at least three times , twice by women and once by a man, some years later; he won the Nobel for it.) So much of what we touch and use each day is made possible by science.— Michelle Francl I see science as a “long, loving look at the real” — scientists are incredibly passionate about what they study. Irish crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale figured out the structure of a key molecular building block, benzene, on her kitchen table while on maternity leave. What you are passionate about determines everything, to quote the former head of the Jesuits, Father Pedro Arupe: What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. And I would add, what science you do! If we limit who we let in the door to become scientists, we are limiting what science can be passionate about and thereby limiting our imagination. We are all the poorer for it. It does matters who does science, and the best science will emerge when many excellent people with different passions and backgrounds and ideas come together. There is no shortage of challenging and important problems we could all use solved — from antibiotic resistance to climate change. And I will talk a little bit about my work with the Vatican Observatory, that for me science is a door into the sacred. I am interested in quantum physics and topology and molecular structure, and I am as good at it as any guy.— Michelle Francl NBC10: What prompts your desire to participate in the March for Science, and what are you most excited about? Francl: My students! Some of them are coming to march here, others are going to DC. I want people to be able to see the science all around them and to recognize the scientists around us, too, even when they don’t look a thing like Albert Einstein. In 20 years, when people take the “Draw a Scientist” I’m hoping they draw my students. I’m excited about scientists getting out and going public. All too often we hear about what Stephen Hawking is doing, but not what our own Monell Chemical Senses Center is doing, or how biology, chemistry and engineering work together to build better medical sensors. Science is political in the sense that it is a tool to help us make sense of the world around us, and in that it makes stuff. Without science we have no way of understanding how and why tornados might form, or what could happen to coral reefs when more CO2 dissolves in the oceans and the pH rises. This is part of the information we need to make sound political decisions. NBC10: People will be surprised to hear that you are a Catholic theologian in addition to a scientist... Tell me a little about how you marry the two passions. Francl: This is back to the idea that for me science is a long loving look at the real, a phrase which comes from Walter Burdghardt SJ’s description of contemplative prayer. To look deeply into creation, and the truths revealed there, is for me a way to pray, to listen to and draw closer to God. For me, there is a fascinating beauty in the shapes of molecules, and the ways in which they work that provokes a sense of awe, even as I understand the quantum physics that underies them. God isn’t who I invoke when I don’t understand the science — God is not a way to cover gaps in what we as scientists know. Last year I was honored to be appointed one of a dozen scholars at the Vatican Observatory, working with the full time staff of Jesuit astrophysicists and others. It’s a wonderful to chance to merge my theological persona with my chemistry one. The Catholic church considers science to be an important part of the human endeavor, and the Observatory is one sign of that. So is Laudato Si’! Other local scientists/theologians include Frank Ferrone, a physicist at Drexel, who wrote a book on liturgy; Kathy Duffy, SSJ, another physicist, PhD from Drexel, now at Chestnut Hill, who has written a book on theology of Teilhard de Chardin, SJ; Peter Dodson at Penn, paleoentology, who writes and talks about evolution and faith; and Steve Barr at University of Delaware, who has started the Society for Catholic Scientists which, coincidentally, is having its inaugural meeting in Chicago on Saturday. NBC10: You've written a lot about women in the sciences, do you consider yourself a feminist? How does this fit in with the rest of your identity? Francl: I am a feminist, who believes that we still have a hard time seeing women as scientists, here in the US and around the world, for many reasons. I’m not a different sort of scientist — kinder, gentler, more interested in cosmetic chemistry or kitchen chemistry — because I’m a woman. I am interested in quantum physics and topology and molecular structure, and I am as good at it as any guy. NBC10: Tell me about some your national work. Francl: I'm perhaps proudest of the piece I wrote for the UN’s International Year of Chemistry for Nature Chemistry, "Sex in the Citadel of Science," which called out some of the tropes that get hauled out all the time about women in math and science (e.g. that there are more men in the top, top percentiles of math…or that women just don’t want these jobs…or) and tried to prod us to think instead about how we design the physical space scientists work in to “fit” women. The Food Babe. Psuedoscience propopents like the Food Babe and Joey Mercola and even Dr. Oz try to take advantage of people’s lack of knowledge about chemistry to sell something. They try to capitalize on images of disgust to sell their products, or products they get a kickback from. For example it is not true that hard to pronounce chemicals are inherently unsafe (or inherently safe), oxidane sounds nasty, and sounds nastier when I say it is the major component of urine and it’s in your coffee — but it’s just the formal name of water and you can’t live without it. And “natural” doesn’t mean safe. Four marvels powder is an herbal remedy that is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, it can be toxic to your liver. Don’t get me started. NBC10: Why is it important that the March for Science take place, and why should non-scientists care? Francl: So much of what we touch and use each day is made possible by science, that it’s important for people to be able to see that, and to have good information to help them make decisions about what they want for their families, or for their neighborhoods or for our country. We live much longer because chemists can analyze the water to see if it is pure and figure out how to filter it, because biologists develop vaccines, because of antibiotics and even the light bulbs that keep us from falling down the stairs!
Witchcraft can be defined as the performance of magic forbidden by God for non-biblical ends. The word witchcraft is related to the old English word Wiccian, “practice of magical arts.” When a person became a witch, he or she entered into a pact with Satan to worship him. They deny the Creator of heaven and earth. They deny their baptism with Christ. They deny the worship formerly paid to God. They adhere to the devil and believe only in him. They are re-baptized in the devil’s name. They promise to sacrifice children to the devil, a step which led to the stories of witches murdering children. Also, they request of the devil for their names to be written in the Book of Death. They tattoo themselves with the devil’s mark in various parts of their body. The mark might vary in shape - magic circle or number 666, serpent, evil eye, spider, bat, a rabbit foot, a toad etc. Witches were supposed to have had a variety of different powers which kept the people in fear of them. Witchcraft practitioners place spells by some spoken word(s) or form of words believed to have magic power, binding by spell or charm. In witchcraft there is white magic which is supposedly curative and black magic, also voodoo (African name it joojoo) which are destructive. However, the most feared power thought to be held by witches was that of bewitchment, the ability to cause sickness and death. Practically speaking, a gray area of magic exists between black and white magic. Most black magic advocates believe that through the use of charms, spells, fetish bags containing potions and animal bones, spiritual powers can be manipulated for one’s own advantage. Thus, people selfishly practice all types of magic to obtain a means to their own ends, seldom distinguishing between black and white versions. Some black magicians poke pins into voodoo dolls to inflict pain or misfortune upon those who have angered them. Still others cast black magic curses on career opponents to frighten or intimidate them into resigning their positions. Black magicians inflict disease, physical danger, and unfortunate circumstances on victims. Many people are tempted to use black magic to get even with enemies or get ahead in life. Charms and spells can eliminate an enemy or protect against someone else’s black magic. Fetishes supposedly make one person love another or cause him to follow someone else’s wishes. They can also be used to persuade someone toward benevolence or to change a bad fate into a good destiny. With the help of hexes, black magicians hope to advance in the world of professional rivalry. Witchcraft practitioners are also involved in water witching, levitation (the lifting of one’s body in the air with no support), dowsing to use a divining rod (a forked stick alleged to dip downward when held over an underground supply of water), table tipping, psychometry (devination through objects), healing by witch doctors (a person who practices primitive medicine involving the use of magic, as among the tribes in Africa); this kind of temporary healing never cures a sick person but only transfers the sickness from one specific area of the body to another part of the body. This is totally different from the permanent healing which comes from God. Is witchcraft an act of the Devil manipulating people’s minds? Witches claim that witchcraft has nothing to do with the Devil but it is a form of goddess or demon worship; a form of nature or idol worship. Satan’s followers believe their holy book is written on the earth. They study lay lines, mountain tops, rivers, trees, giving meaning to the way they lay, stand, or flow. Idol worship Idol and demon worship is the worship of a man made god. It can involve practices and rituals such as burning their sons or daughters in fire at the altar as burnt offerings for demons. Idol worship from the Bible’s perspective: The second commandment talks about `Idols’ and `Images’, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form {of anything} in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (Exodus 20: 4) You shall not bow down to them; for I, the LORD your God, {am} a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and forth {generation} of those who hate me" (Exodus 20: 5). When you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars - all the heavenly array - do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshipping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.“(Deuteronomy 4: 19) "Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips.” (Exodus 23:13) The worship of nature or any other god is considered blasphemous. According to the Scriptures, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the third and fourth generations of those who disobey God. It is carefully pointed out in. Exodus 20:5 When the law was given, it specifically prohibited the construction and worship of graven images because they constitute the worship of demons. For those who disregard this warning and make contact with the occult spirits, there will be a terrible and certain repercussion in the form of sickness, misery, insanity, and sometimes an early death. There are many ways in which the occult spirits are given ground. Through various contacts they can cause marital upheaval and problems of all kinds (please see chapter five for more details). Unless the curse is broken it will continue to plague the family and its descendants to the third and fourth generations. It predisposes people to be psychically oriented and sensitive; and through psychic heredity, to pick up more curses and spirits, thus extending the hereditary blight to many generations. Witchcraft is an act of the devil which not only manipulates the minds of people, but it can wreak havoc physically, emotionally and spiritually too. Those who engage in witchcraft, literally open themselves up to the attacks and manipulations of our enemy, Satan. This then demonstrates the awesome power which can be wielded by those who practice the occult sciences. Witch doctors, magicians and sorcerers all receive satanic power, not for edification, but for destruction. The practice of spiritual prostitution both deprives and corrupts us. We must be very careful that we ourselves and those under our spiritual authority avoid engaging in any of the occult practices. If a person dabbles with psychic phenomena [spiritism, seances, levitation, necromancy, astral projection, table lifting, handwriting analysis, automatic type writing, visionary dreams, telepathy, materialization, clairvoyance, ghosts, healing magnetism, mental suggestion, speaking in a trance, amateur hypnosis, self-hypnosis, fortune-telling of any kind, tarot cards, palm reading, biorhythm, rod and pendulum (dowsing), horoscopes and astrology, Ouija Boards, witchcraft whether white, black, or gray, voodoo or joojoo, blood pacts, sorcery, love potions, fetishes, magic charming and talismans, eastern religions, Zoroastrian, Bahai faith, Freemasonry, Mysticism, transcendental meditation, Zen, Buddhism, karate, I-Ching, yoga, reincarnation, ESP, telepathy, hypnosis, scientology, the writings of mystics, and psychics such as Jean Dixon, Edgar Cayce and incubi , succubi (sexual spirits) and others….] which are so widely accepted today, they can expect to be invaded by these spirits. They have opened up the door. As our defenses are dropped by our meddling curiosity, occult spirits can and will enter in and establish themselves. These are the spirits which travel to the third and fourth generations through the parents (inheritance) because consorting with them breaks the first commandment by contacting another god. A curse from God results. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12) and (Exodus 20:3-5) In the beginning, the experimenter with psychic phenomena can control when and to what degree they can become involved with the occult spirits. However, as they continue on, lured deeper into the mysteries of the spirit world by clever adversaries, their God-given defenses are forced down again and again. Increasingly, the demons have free access and control. Before long they will exercise their capricious whims upon the unwitting victim and make a slave-victim, driving their victim ever deeper into the mire of sin and slavery. They will force their victim down every path which will open up ever increasing spiritual depravity. They may be able systemically to destroy self-respect, family life, and afflict with many hurtful and destructive desires and hungers. In time, spirits of infirmity and sickness will also be brought under attack to further weaken the victim. Demons are not satisfied with mere compliance to their wishes, they work to reduce their victim to a helpless state, filled with mental and physical anguish almost beyond a person’s ability to endure. Freemasonry Freemasonry is one of the cultic groups that in these end times have been springing up. It spouts scriptures and sometimes has a veneer of truth, however it can be spotted. They have a defective view of Christ, His deity and His work. They specialize in extra Biblical revelations and have trans-local totalitarian leaders in authority. Commonly they rule the group by “revelations” and “prophecies.” Usually there is some form of a pyramiding control of the followers. Freemasons have 33 degrees among their ranks. Most develop semi-secret sessions for teaching the initiated followers. Exclusivism is taught and there is much violation of the rules of sound Bible interpretation by use of vague passages and semantic juggling to “prove” what the cult teaches. Fear is the power which holds the group together. Insecurity and maneuvering for power, position and advantage is constant. The misery of being swallowed into such a group is incredible. Cultic leaders range from openly operating con men to sincere zealots driven by demonic power to achieve their ends. Moral decay and laxness always sets in sooner or later, usually at the top echelons of leadership. Many times the followers are lashed into an ascetic and self sacrificing life style, while leaders secretly indulge their own whims and desires. The disillusionment and disenchantment which eventually comes destroys many. People who have honestly given their all to a cause, only to discover they have been sold out, have great difficulty readjusting and being able to believe in anybody or anything. Pagan societies sponsored public worship directed toward idols, while the priests, rulers and philosophers always maintained a different, secret worship centered around a sun god. This latter was designated as the “Mysteries.” These “Mysteries” were revived by the “Masonic fathers” at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In other words what formerly constituted the mysteries of Osiris, Baal, Bacchus or Dionysius is today the mysteries of Freemasonry. Dr. Mackey, Masonic authority, states they are the “same in substance, being derived from one source and celebrated in honor of the same deities.” A converted witch relates that the initiation into Masonry (with two minor changes at the end) is identical to that of witchcraft! By embracing such rituals and vows, rooted in ancient witchcraft and demonic worship, men and women are placing themselves under occult power. The secret signs, passwords, hand grips, etc. which are so highly prized, in reality brings lives under secret bonds and churches are paralyzed where these secret loyalties exist and the Holy Spirit cannot flow freely. Jesus said He had done all things openly and had done nothing in secret, a startling contrast to secret orders which enforce secrecy on their members. We are commanded to renounce the hidden things of darkness Roman 13:12. Baal was the same as Phoenician Moloch, the Greek Tyrian Hercules (Freemasonry call him Tyrian Architect). He was worshipped on the high places and this is the reason for the “upper chamber” lodge meetings to “worship celestial bodies.” According to accredited Masonic historians, the lodge claims to be a revival of the ancient philosophy of Egypt, Phonecia and other Pagan nations. These all practiced a secret worship in honor of a sun god (Lucifer). Freemasonry is a wicked system of sworn deception, fraud and cunning craftiness from beginning to end. Promoters are always careful, at first, to keep the real meaning of the pretended mysteries in the background, at least until the initiate has taken the Master Masons obligation. By that time he should be so bound that he will not revolt against the bondage he has unsuspectingly moved into. The Lodge teaches that its three support pillars are Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, and these are borrowed directly from Hindu Mysteries in the initiation of Brahma. The Worshipful Master represents rising sun (east); Senior Warden, setting sun, (west); Junior Warden, the sun at Meredian (south). In every symbol, ceremony and emblem of Freemasonry we are confronted with nothing but the sun god (Lucifer), that ancient Baal worship in every religion from the Druids to Hinduism. Masons changed names in the Egyptian mysteries from Osiris to Hiram Abiff but retained a similar legend for the initiations. They burned their manuscripts in 1720, interspersed the names of Hiram and Solomon to secure acceptance by Jew and gentile and appropriated the Bible and Apostle John to give it a “Christian” veneer. “Freemasonry both in whole and in part, is literally and truly the secret worship of Baal, or the sun god.” In Deuteronomy 4: 19 God clearly states: When you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars - all the heavenly array - do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshipping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.“ God in Deuteronomy 17:2-3 states: If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns that the LORD gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God in violation of His covenant, and contrary to my command has worshipped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars of the sky. Black Magic In Ezekiel 13: 17-23 Black Magic is discussed: "Now , son of man, set your face against the daughters of your people who prophesy (Psychic people) out of their imagination. Prophesy against them and say, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on all their wrists and make veils of various lengths for their heads in order to ensnare people. Will you ensnare the lives of my people but preserve your own? You have profaned me among my people for a few handfuls of barley and scarps of bread. By lying to my people, who listen to lies, you have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live’.” And in verse 20, “`Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against your magic charms with which you ensnare people like birds and I will tear them from your arms; I will set free the people that you ensnare like birds. I will tear off your veils and save my people from your hands, and they will no longer fall prey to your power. Then you will know that I am the LORD. Because you disheartened the righteous with your lies, when I had brought them no grief, and because you encouraged the wicked not to turn from their evil ways and so save their lives, therefore you will no longer see false visions or practice divination. I will save my people from your hands. And then you will know that I am the LORD’.” The pillows (amulets) and kerchiefs mentioned were objects used in connection with magical practices. An amulet is an object of superstition. It can be defined as “a material object on which a charm is written or over which a charm was said, worn on person to protect the wearer against dangers, disease, to serve as a shield against demons, ghosts, evil magic, and to bring good luck and good fortune.” In the ancient world, along with many present day primitive tribes, the carrying of an amulet is a common everyday occurrence. These objects also called fetishes, talismans and charms supposedly to ward off evil spirits or bring luck to the wearer. Note the mention of hunting the souls of My people. Most people mistakenly assume that witchcraft cannot affect a Christian. They foolishly believe that being born again automatically protects against any kind of curse, spell or hex, etc., sent by people practicing witchcraft. Ezekiel 13 indicates that we are a favorite target of witchcraft practices which is the hunting (catching or snaring) of our souls (mind, will, emotions). Through witchcraft God’s people can be brought into bondage, thus becoming captives. Notice key words in this passage which show the effects of this type of magic or witchcraft. To slay! (Ezekiel 13:19). Not only to hunt and snare, but to slay the souls that should not die. There was no reason why these people should die, but through witchcraft they could be slain prematurely. God states flatly that people should not live when they go to a witch to seek help to lengthen their life or be restored in health through magical arts. In verse 22 of Ezekiel 13 the charge is, “with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad” Depression comes to the heart of the righteous through magical practices. Other translations state that the heart of the righteous are discouraged or disheartened. The righteous are the targets and this shows the effects of witchcraft on God’s people. God says in Ezekiel 13:19 that witchcraft will “Turn away My people from me.” How many ministers and other Christians have backslidden because of heavy demonic influence induced by witchcraft? Such terrible things can happen to God’s people through witchcraft. They can be saddened (depression); they can be ensnared (captivity); they can be slained (premature death); they can be turned away (backsliding). Remember the things which can happen to God’s people (to the righteous) if they are unaware of the perils of witchcraft. They can be brought into a state of oppression or depression; unexplainable sadness, anguish, and heart affliction when there is no reason for feeling downcast or disheartened. Everything can be going well for the Believer. He can be healthy, prosperous and yet be covered with a strange pall of oppression, a dark cloud which settles in from nowhere. It can come from witchcraft!!! Believers can become ensnared losing the power to make the right kind of decisions. Those who have experience in dealing with witchcraft have seen many killed by occult power. This power can also turn one away from the truth and cause backsliding. Christians should put on the full armor of God for protection against witchcraft as Paul advised us in Ephesians 6:10-18 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full "armor of God” so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. With the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit. Which is the Word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.“ In Ezekiel 13:23 God states: "Your kerchiefs also will I tear; and deliver my people out of your hand.” God wants His people freed from any spell, curse or hex which has been sent them through practitioners of the occult arts. Other passages about witchcraft and divination are in Micah 5:12 God’s attitude towards witchcraft is clearly reflected here. It is prohibited, considered abominable and damnable in His eyes. “And I will destroy your witchcraft and you will no longer cast spells.” In Nahum 3:4 states, “All because of the wanton lust of a harlot, alluring, the mistress of sorceries, who enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft.” These are references to Nineveh, the capital of Babylon, and the entire book of Nahum is pronouncing judgment on the sin of Nineveh, which is witchcraft. This city was the hotbed of occult arts. They specialized in witchcraft and had developed it to a high degree. They were selling nations through their whoredom and families through their witchcraft. In Isaiah 44:24, 25 it states, “This is what the LORD says your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heaven, who spread out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense.” Both the Old and the New Testaments make repeated references to the practice of witchcraft and sorcery, and whenever these practices are referred to, they are always condemned by God. The Bible condemns all forms of witchcraft. http://www.farsinet.com/truth/index2.html
As a HANA developer it is almost mandatory for you to learn a scripting language. It will give you a ton of off new development opportunities. You probably have heard about using JavaScript as a scripting language for connecting an oData service to SAPUI5 or using R to make statistical calculations, but did you know that my TechEd Demo Jam entry from 2012 was entirely based on Python? And did you know that my HANA Inno Jam entry from 2012 was based on Ruby? I can imagine you didn’t. The point I’m trying to make is that learning a scripting language will broaden the things you can build with HANA tremendously. It is a corny statement, but the sky is truly the limit once you master the language(s). Study young grasshopper! Learning a scripting language can be tricky, but the web will give you lots of free training opportunities. Learn Python is an obvious one, Code Academy another one. Every language has a similar training website. Just Google and enjoy 😉 A head start To give you a head start after your training, I would like to share my preferred ways of connecting HANA via Python. Python is my favorite language as it was developed by a Dutch guy. Just kidding of course ;-), I love it as it is a language which is easy to learn and you can do great things with only a few lines of code (compared to other languages). If you really want to know why I like it so much, a guy called Tim Peters said it best in his “Zen of Python”. For the head start, I will give you two ways of connecting: via ODBC and ofourse via oData. For our examples we’ll use a script to create records in HANA. In the below examples I’ll use a simple table: two fields: a timestamp field and a numeric field. ODBC The easiest way of connecting to HANA via ODBC in Python is by using PyODBC. Install it and create a so called DSN via an ODBC manager in Windows or Linux. After that, you will be creating records in HANA in no time via your Python script: #!/usr/bin/python # -- coding: utf-8 -- import pyodbc cnxn = pyodbc.connect(‘DSN=YOUR_ODBC_CONNECTION;UID=USERNAME;PWD=PASSWORD’) cursor = cnxn.cursor() cursor.execute(“insert into MY_TABLE values (CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,’100000’)”) cnxn.commit() We just posted a value of 100000 with the current timestamp of the system (using the function CURRENT_TIMESTAMP). Ofcourse this is a hardcoded example. In a real life example you will be using variables and loops to create records. Be sure to follow one of the trainings as listed above and you will be able to handle those in no time aswell. oData service Connecting in Python via ODBC can be tricky as you will need an ODBC driver. Now HANA comes with one of course, but sometimes you are on some exotic Linux Distro and simply do not have an ODBC driver which will compile. In that case oData comes to the rescue. HANA SPS6 comes with some great new features, using POST in your RESTfull service is one of them. The Python library of choice in this case is Requests. It is dead simple to use. Installing it is pretty much the hardest part. So without further a due: this is how you create a script that posts records: #!/usr/bin/env python # -- coding: utf-8 -- import requests import json url = ‘YOUR_ODATA_SERVICE_HERE’ payload = {‘TIMESTAMP’: ‘/Date(1474823911255)/’, ‘VALUE’: ‘100000’} headers = {“Content-type”: ‘application/json;charset=utf-8’} auth = ‘USERNAME’, ‘ PASSWORD_HERE’ r = requests.post(url, data=json.dumps(payload), headers=headers, auth=auth) print r.text The timestamp might look a bit weird (13 digits). It is the only way the service accepts the value and represents the Unix timestamp with millisecond precision, i.e. the number of milliseconds since Unix epoch. As you can see in the above example I also import “json”. This is required as the service can only handle the Json format. Have fun developing, be creative and you will be creating that killer demo in no time! Ronald.
Hi everyone! We're very happy to be able to announce a major new, coordinated release of: There have been a lot of improvements in pretty much all parts of the code, including more supported hardware, more protocol decoders, more features, various bugfixes, better portability, improved GUIs, and lots more. Many thanks to all the contributors who helped to make this happen! libserialport Starting with the libsigrok 0.3.0 release, all libsigrok drivers that talk to serial ports are using the cross-platform LGPL3+ libserialport library now (which has its first release, 0.1.0, today). This also helps to improve the Windows support for sigrok. The library was written by Martin Ling (thanks a lot!) and supports a number of OSes, including Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and others. Supported features include port enumeration, opening/closing ports, setting port parameters (baud rate, parity, and so on), reading/writing/flushing data, etc. etc. You can take a look at the API docs for more details. Note: libserialport is completely independent of sigrok, i.e. it can be used by various other open-source projects without any problems, too. libsigrok The most interesting libsigrok changes for users will likely be the new hardware support, so here goes: There have also been a number of other (infrastructure) changes and improvements, though: We added support for channel groups (multiple channels of the device, that share some properties and are configured together). There's a generic SCPI backend now that drivers can use, supporting various transports: serial ports, USBTMC, TCP/RAW, TCP/Rigol, VXI, and librevisa. The session file format (.sr) has changed and its version was bumped to 2. There's improved Windows support now for serial port and USB based devices, though it's partially still experimental ! Please checkout the current list of known Windows issues, since there are some problems e.g. with the popular FX2 based devices (bug #343) and the Openbench Logic Sniffer (bug #205). Feedback, bug reports and patches are highly welcome! ! Please checkout the current list of known Windows issues, since there are some problems e.g. with the popular FX2 based devices (bug #343) and the Openbench Logic Sniffer (bug #205). Feedback, bug reports and patches are highly welcome! Various API improvements were also done, to allow for some of the new features and to ease future extendability. You can take a look at the API docs for more details. And of course there was a huge amount of bugfixing, as usual. See the NEWS file for the full list of changes. libsigrokdecode Same deal for libsigrokdecode, most people will probably want to know which new protocol decoders are supported: guess_bitrate : Guess the bitrate/baudrate of a signal : Guess the bitrate/baudrate of a signal ir_nec: NEC infrared remote control protocol ir_rc5 : RC-5 infrared remote control protocol : RC-5 infrared remote control protocol midi : Musical Instrument Digital Interface : Musical Instrument Digital Interface parallel: Parallel synchronous bus decoder rgb_led_spi: RGB LED string decoder (SPI) xfp : 10 Gigabit Small Form Factor Pluggable Module : 10 Gigabit Small Form Factor Pluggable Module z80: Zilog Z80 microprocessor disassembly The protocol decoder backend has also received a bunch of new features and facilities in this release: Support for annotation rows (groups of annotation classes to be shown together). The new OUTPUT_BINARY facility allows PDs to output decoded data in various (file) formats (e.g. I²S output in WAV format, USB output in PCAP format for Wireshark, LCD controller output in PNG format for viewing, and so on). The new OUTPUT_META facility allows PDs to report certain data points or events to the frontend, which can be used for various post-processing and statistics purposes (e.g. simple counts, average/mean values, min/max values, and more). The protocol decoder API has changed, the API version is bumped to 2. Decoders using the old PD API no longer work with this library release. A large amount of PD fixes have been done to improve the usability of all PDs when used with GUIs (long/short annotations for zoom-dependent display, corrected annotation sample numbers, use of annotation rows, and so on). Various API improvements were also performed to allow for all the new features. You can take a look at the API docs for more details. And of course all PDs and the library code have received quite a few bugfixes, as usual. See the NEWS file for the full list of changes. sigrok-cli sigrok-cli (a command-line sigrok frontend) now depends on both libsigrok >= 0.3.0 and libsigrokdecode >= 0.3.0 and supports all the new features of the libraries, including channel groups, PD annotation rows, the new .sr file format, plus the usual bunch of bugfixes. The following changes have been performed for the command-line options: The -g \| --channel-group option was added. option was added. The -M option (for PD meta output type support) was added. option (for PD meta output type support) was added. The -B option (for PD binary output type support) was added. option (for PD binary output type support) was added. The -p \| --probes option was renamed to to -C \| --channels. There were also a bunch of improvements related to the (experimental) sigrok-cli Windows installer. You can download an (experimental) nightly build here: sigrok-cli-NIGHTLY-installer.exe. Any feedback, bug reports, or patches are highly welcome! See the NEWS file for the full list of changes. PulseView PulseView (a Qt based sigrok GUI for logic analyzers, oscilloscopes and MSOs) has also received quite a huge amount of improvements and new features (thanks a lot to Joel Holdsworth!): Support for protocol decoding (via libsigrokdecode) has been added, including support for annotation rows, multiple decoders in the same GUI window, support for stacking protocol decoders (e.g. I²C -> RTC8564, UART -> MIDI, or SPI -> SDcard) and lots more. Support for loading and saving sigrok session (*.sr) files has been added. Initial support for analog data sources (specifically oscilloscopes, e.g. the Rigol DS1052E) has been added. The Windows installer has received a bunch of fixes and improvements, too. You can download an (experimental) nightly build here: pulseview-NIGHTLY-installer.exe. Any feedback, bug reports, or patches are highly welcome! And of course there were quite a number of bugfixes, as usual. See the NEWS file for the full list of changes. sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw This release of sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw, the open-source firmware for FX2-based logic analyzers, is only a minor bugfix release. It basically only fixes one bug which lead to the data pins not being tri-stated after an acquisition, but rather being driven. See the NEWS file for the full list of changes. Have fun analyzing your signals!
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"I stumbled upon your fun interactive geography games from a link on the Massachusetts Geographic Alliance Website. Since then, your games have become quite a hit with my competitive colleagues!" --Candice Gomes, Education Outreach Coordinator, Boston Public Library (Sheppard Software's geography games were featured in the Boston Public Library's 2006 Exhibition on Mapping) "Terrific online educational games, especially geography." --Dallas Children's Museum First, let me say I love your website! I have students with learning disabilities that need multiple way to learn math, and your site fills the bill! - Darrin, Rose Park Elementary in Billings, MT "Awesome site... it is the only reason I am passing my World Geography class!" --Stephen "Our preschool teacher just sent us homework with this new website on it! My twins love it - they are 4 1/2 and can't get enough! The sounds, the action, so many choices and things to do. I bookmarked this for them and have sent the website to numerous friends and best of all it's FREE! Thank you for such a wonderful learning tool."-- -Cherie Ventola "Let me say that you guys have an awesome website. I stumbled across your site one day, and it has been the easiest, most effective, and really the most fun method for learning geography that I've found." --David Weaver "I am thrilled to have stumbled upon your site! As a homeschooling mom, I love to find sites that encourage brain activity and reinforce the facts I teach during learning time! The range of information is wonderful!!! Keep up the fantastic work!" -Mrs. JaNell Hancock "Your games are AMAZING! Your website has SO much to offer! This site is exactly what I have been looking for! I have four children within five years of age and they can all play your games! I love that you can choose your level of difficulty. The games are colorful and simple, not cluttered like some. The instructions are easy to understand and they cover basic learning that can be neglected with other "too busy" games. I can't believe what a blessing it is to have stumbled upon this site! I looked up "kindergarten math games online." This is the first one that I actually enjoyed navigating around in and that actually kept the kids' attention without discouraging them. This site will be a daily part of our learning! The kids were fighting over who could take the next turn at the learning game! It is reinforcing everything I am trying to teach. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!" -Jill Grell
Trying to find the healthiest cooking oil can be a daunting task. One one hand, you want to cook with an oil that has a high flash (smoke) point, but you also need to use a cooking oil that has a healthy balance of Omega 3 to Omega 6 fatty acids--and even better if the oil is loaded with antioxidants and vitamins! Knowing the smoke point of oils is important because heating oil to the point where the oil begins to smoke produces toxic fumes and harmful free radicals. Check out our healthiest cooking oil comparison chart below to help alleviate the confusion! Considerations: for high temperature cooking, select cooking oils with a high smoke point. For low temperature cooking, or adding to dishes and salad dressings, chose oils with a higher Omega-3 fatty acids since they promote healthy cells and decrease stroke and heart attack risk. They are also known for their anti-inflammatory action. Although you need Omega-6 fatty acids to maintain cell wall integrity and provide energy for the heart, too much Omega-6 fatty acids can increase inflammation in the body. Also, cooking oils high in Omega 9 is a good way to go. Omega-9 fatty acids are considered to be "conditionally essential," which means that although your body produces them, they aren't produced in meaningful quantities. Consuming omega-9 fatty acids such as oleic acid lowers the risk of heart attacks, arteriosclerosis, and aids in cancer prevention. Cooking Oils / Fats Smoke Point °C Smoke Point °F Omega-6: Omega-3 Ratio (plus other relevant fat information) Unrefined flaxseed oil 107°C 225°F 1:4 Unrefined safflower oil 107°C 225°F 133:1 Unrefined sunflower oil 107°C 225°F 40:1 Unrefined corn oil 160°C 320°F 83:1 Unrefined high-oleic sunflower oil 160°C 320°F 40:1, 84% monosaturated Extra virgin olive oil 160°C 320°F 73% monounsaturated, high in Omega 9 Unrefined peanut oil 160°C 320°F 32:1 Semirefined safflower oil 160°C 320°F 133:1, (75% Omega 9) Unrefined soy oil 160°C 320°F 8:1 (most are GMO) Unrefined walnut oil 160°C 320°F 5:1 Hemp seed oil 165°C 330°F 3:1 Butter 177°C 350°F 9:1, Mostly saturated & monosaturated Semirefined canola oil 177°C 350°F 2:1 [ (56% Omega 9), 80% Canola is GMO.] Coconut oil 177°C 350°F 86% healthy saturated, lauric acid (has antibacterial, antioxidant, and antiviral properties). Contains 66% medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). Unrefined sesame oil 177°C 350°F 138:1 Semirefined soy oil 177°C 350°F 8:1 Vegetable shortening 182°C 360°F mostly unhealthy saturated, Trans Fat Lard 182°C 370°F 11:1 high in saturated Macadamia nut oil 199°C 390°F 1:1, 80% monounsaturated, (83% Omega-9) Canola oil (Expeller Pressed) 200°C 400°F 2:1, 62% monounsaturated, 32% polyunsaturated Refined canola oil 204°C 400°F 3:1, 80% of Canola in US in GMO. Semirefined walnut oil 204°C 400°F 5:1 High quality (low acidity) extra virgin olive oil 207°C 405°F 13:1, 74% monosaturated (71.3% Omega 9) Sesame oil 210°C 410°F 42:1 Cottonseed oil 216°C 420°F 54:1 Grapeseed oil 216°C 420°F 676:1, (12% saturated, 17% monounsaturated) Virgin olive oil 216°C 420°F 13:1, 74% monosaturated (71.3% Omega 9) Almond oil 216°C 420°F Omega-6 only Hazelnut oil 221°C 430°F 75% monosaturated (no Omega 3, 78% Omega 9) Peanut oil 227°C 440°F 32:1 Sunflower oil 227°C 440°F 40:1 Refined corn oil 232°C 450°F 83:1 Palm oil 232°C 450°F 46:1, mostly saturated and monosaturated Palm kernel oil 232°C 450°F 82% saturated (No Omega 3) Refined high-oleic sunflower oil 232°C 450°F 39:1, 84% monosaturated Refined peanut oil 232°C 450°F 32:1 Semirefined sesame oil 232°C 450°F 138:1 Refined soy oil 232°C 450°F 8:1 (most are GMO) Semirefined sunflower oil 232°C 450°F 40:1 Olive pomace oil 238°C 460°F 74% monosaturated, high in Omega 9 Extra light olive oil Ghee (Clarified Butter) 242°C 252°C 468°F 485°F 74% monosaturated, high in Omega 9 0:0, 62% saturated fat Rice Bran Oil 254°C 490°F 21:1, Good source of vitamin E & antioxidants Refined Safflower oil 266°C 510°F 133:1 (74% Omega 9) Avocado oil 271°C 520°F 12:1, 70% monosaturated, (68% Omega-9 fatty acids) High in vitamin E. Jon Barron's Final Recommendation For Healthiest Cooking Oils: The bottom line is that when possible, buy and use organic, unrefined, cold-processed vegetable oils. Use extra virgin olive oil in salads or to add to cooked foods, but not for high temperature cooking. Unrefined walnut oil is also good, but again only for low temperature uses. You can use virgin coconut oil (high in beneficial saturated fats and medium chain triglycerides) for most mid-temperature cooking. However, coconut oil has a smoke point of about 350 degrees F (171 C), which means it is not suitable for high temperature cooking. Other choices include virgin olive oil and even butter in small amounts. Use avocado oil for high temperature cooking. Avocado oil has a very high smoke point by comparison to other cooking oils. It will not burn or smoke until it reaches 520 F (271 C), which is ideal for searing meats and frying in a Wok. Another good cooking oil is rice bran oil 495 F(257 C). Again, look for organic, cold-processed oil. Additional Articles on Cooking Oils:
Legal Requirements for Claiming Products “Made in America” On Friday, January 6, 2011, The New York Times reported that manufacturing is experiencing an upswing in the United States. When can a manufacturer claim that its products are made in America? What does “Made in USA” mean from a legal perspective? This is a good time to review the FTC’s “Enforcement Policy U.S. Origin Claims” in advertising and packaging. Why does the FTC care about claims that a product is “Made in America?” The FTC has ruled consistently that consumers prefer to buy products at home here in America. Furthermore, consumers expect “Made in USA” to mean that a product is virtually entirely American made. What constitutes a claim that a product is “Made in America”? U.S. origin claims do not only take the form “Made in America” or “Made in USA.” Any labeling or advertising copy or use of the American flag, map, or other geographic references that conveys a net impression that the product originates from the United States would constitute a claim in need of substantiation. Advertisers considering making “Made in USA” type claims should be certain to review the FTC’s Policy Statement for a detailed explanation of these factors. What is the FTC’s standard for US Origin Claims? To prevent consumer confusion, the FTC’s policy requires substantiation for US origin claims based on an “all or virtually all” standard. If a product is merely assembled here, but uses imported goods, an American origin claim would be improper. If a manufacturer is advertising a product as made in America, it should only contain a “de minimis, or negligible, amount of foreign content.” The FTC Policy Statement goes on to point out that while there is no “bright line” for determining when a product is “all or virtually all” American made, it will consider a series of factors on a case by case basis. A minimum threshold for all claims is whether the final assembly or processing of the product takes place here. The FTC will examine also such factors as the proportion of US manufacturing costs and the remoteness of the foreign content in relation to the creation of the finished product. This analysis also applies to comparative country of origin claims. Can a manufacturer use qualified “Made in America” claims? The Policy Statement also explains that U.S. origin claims may be qualified to avoid consumer deception. Assuming such qualifications are prominent, clear, truthful, and capable of substantiation, the FTC will accept them regardless of form. Examples given in the Policy Statement are: “Made in USA of U.S. and imported parts”, “60% U.S. content”, “Made in USA from imported leather”, or “Made in USA from French components.” How does the FTC standard work with US Customs’ regulations? In creating a proper qualification for its advertising and packaging, the manufacturer should first look to US Customs Service requirements for product labeling. The Customs Service looks to where the product was “last substantially transformed” in determining whether foreign indicia of origin is necessary. The FTC Policy Statement points out that where Customs requires a label that a product is made in a foreign country, “it would be inappropriate, and confusing, to use a claim such as ‘Made in USA from U.S. and imported parts.’” In other words, the FTC will work hand in hand with Customs Service to be sure that labeling and advertising for a product have a logical relationship. Has the FTC enforced its rules for claiming a product is “Made in America”? Since reasserting its standards in 1997, the FTC steadily enforced its origin claims’ policy. Its settlements have affected a variety of industries, including consumer goods companies, component part manufacturers, cosmetics companies, and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals companies. The settlements have barred American origin claims, assessed monetary damages (e.g. $205,000 against The Stanley Works, a tool manufacturer), and required ongoing monitoring by the FTC. For more information, see the FTC’s web page on the “Made in U.S.A. Standard.”
No One Knows Who We Are This past Sunday, the LA Times ran an article which was essentially an inflammatory pummeling of the EDM scene. It painted a picture of “Ecstasy-fueled underground” raves, bumped up into the mainstream, leaving a trail of dead, drug-addled kids being picked up by the “…coroner’s wagon rolling down desert roads.” Please. I’m all for looking hard at things that need to change, but first the fiction has to be knocked out of the discussion. Let me set a few things straight. First off, this article is irrelevant and outdated. Perhaps if these journalists had written this twenty years ago, when the truth was a little more ragged, they could have made an argument that wasn’t so laughable. Back when warehouses were being broken into, fire codes were ignored, dodgy generators were powering a massive sound system and restrooms were non-existant. This was a time that safety probably wasn’t exactly job one. Things were smaller then, though. There weren’t tens of thousands of people looking to gather in one place, not like now. This scene has grown, and in response to the people it serves, it has grown up. Today, massive events are being held on terms that have been scrutinized by engineers, civil servants, fire chiefs, policemen, and all manner of bureaucratic safety hoops. As EDM’s numbers have become larger, we’ve become more accountable. No longer hiding in an abandoned warehouse, we’re paying taxes, paying dues, and stimulating the hell out of each cities’ economy that hosts an event. Before the doors ever open, there is a string of green lights that have to be run through by people whose business it is to keep these events safe. The same codes put into place for every other genre of music applies to EDM. To say otherwise is untruthful and adheres to dangerous stereotyping. I wouldn’t dare say we ignore the tragic accidents that happen. I wouldn’t dare say they don’t happen. But it takes a rudimentary understanding of the Basic Laws of Probability to guess that the more people that show up to these festivals, the larger the risk is that something goes awry. This isn’t unique to this music. This is a universal principle. Can we hope to avoid it? Absolutely. Can we take every precaution and security measure to hedge the odds? Definitely. But can the promoter be held responsible for the actions of the individuals at his events? No he can not. What it comes down to is this: The responsibility to address substance abuse and addiction cannot come down to people who are event promoters. Not only is it unrealistic to expect them to tackle such a huge problem, it’s an enormous insult to those who have made it their life’s work to do so. Clearly, if the US Government hasn’t come up with the magic bullet to quell the problem of drugs in this country, it is not reasonable to expect an event promoter to pull this kind of trick out of his hat either. I am dug in so deep that articles like this one, smacking of uninformed bigotry fire me up in a pretty passionate way. To assign responsibility of regulating drug use to concert promoters is ludicrous, in the extreme. To paint a picture (bordering on hysteria) of a community of people as capricious and reckless drug users is irresponsible. This is a conversation that has been going on for decades. I don’t expect it to end here. But know this: as far as a music culture goes, EDM is the one who will accept the kids on the outliers, the ones who get bullied, the ones who feel like they may not quite fit in. This community is exceptional in its ability to bond all types together, and I am not exaggerating when I say it saves lives. Our audience is intelligent and kind, discriminating only in regards to which sound they like best. Our audience is unprecedented in their drive to proactively support each other. There’s your story, LA Times. Do the world a favor and dig into that for a change, punks.
Create or Update a Ford Fleet Identification Number (FIN) Fleet incentive and program information Advance notice of product information Vehicle option availability Vehicle order status and scheduling Priority scheduling As a Fleet customer, you and your company will have access to benefits such as: Welcome to the Ford Fleet website. We're sure you'll find the right solutions for your fleet needs.Presently, the Ford Fleet website is designed for Fleet companies who are purchasing vehicles for use in the United States. If you do not meet this requirement, please feel free to browse our website or visit one of our other Ford Motor Company websites When your new FIN code is created, a Welcome package will be e-mailed to you. It will include: Your FIN code Your Website Access Code and and A copy of the FIN Agreement. Need help or more information? Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) For assistance on your fleet related inquiries or to verify if a FIN code already exists for your business, contact the Ford Fleet Customer Information Center at:1-800-34-FLEET (1-800-343-5338).Monday-Friday 8:30 AM-5 PM ESTOrContact us via email
“We had to blow away a large portion of his face, and we were worried about ratings." Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opened to a whopping $145 million at the North American box office over the weekend, and as the film debuted, VFX conference FMX concluded with a sneak peek at the extensive work, which was shared by roughly a dozen VFX houses around the world, including Weta Digital (headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand); Framestore (London); Trixter (Munich); and Animal Logic (Sydney). Among Weta’s mandates was to create Ego, Star Lord/Peter Quill’s father, played by Kurt Russell. “He can create an avatar of himself so that people can relate to him, and that avatar can change into different people, at one point David Hasselhoff,” Weta’s VFX supervisor Guy Williams explained, noting that to achieve this effect, Weta had to create a digital double of Russell as well as of Hasselhoff. “At one point, we had to blow away a large portion of his face, and we were worried about ratings,” he continued. “We needed a solution that was visually compelling but not too gory. We relied heavily on fractals [and used math to create the look] to make the destruction areas not look very biological, because we could get away with it as long as it doesn’t look like a human. We removed parts of him and then had them grow back.” Another issue, which now faces all VFX houses, is the sharing of work on VFX-heavy tentpoles. Weta didn’t work on the first film in the series, and it was VFX house Framestore that created Rocket, as well as Groot, and for this film, Baby Groot. But Rocket still needed to appear in many of Weta’s shots, and so the VFX artists had to get up to speed on animating the creature. “We could do a talking raccoon, but it wasn’t Rocket,” explained Williams, adding that Framestore supplied their Rocket asset for this work. “What’s happening, more and more, is how much of the facilities are working together, even though we’re competitive. Our Rocket fur is hair-to-hair accurate [with Framestore’s Rocket]." Then Weta hand-animated Rocket, based on the voice performance of Bradley Cooper and the movement of Sean Gunn (who played Rocket on set, and also played Kraglin). "Rocket's performance is based heavily on his breathe, he scowls all the time, and he has a hunch," said Williams. But according to the two-time Oscar nominee, the biggest challenge for Weta was the Planet Hollow, a spider web-like environment with a look that was heavily influenced by artist Hal Tenny, who collaborated with the filmmakers. “[Director] James Gunn preferred an environment based on Hal Tenny’s work, and Tenny is a fractal artist,” explained Williams, meaning that Tenny uses math to create patterns. “The problem is you can’t control fractals, and filmmaking requires control. We had to figure out how to use the foundation of fractal math but bend it for what was needed for motion picture production." About 80 percent of Weta's work in the film appears in this "mechanical yet organic" environment, the VFX supervisor said, "and we don't sit in one place. We had to move around, and it's eight kilometers [five miles] across. So we had to build a high-res CG environment. “Even after all this effort, there still wasn’t enough detail, because we couldn’t get too close to those surfaces," Williams continued. "For the same reason fractals are hard to model, they are hard to texture. We came up with a methodology of using what we call ‘plague,’ meaning we were growing coral-like structures all over Hollow.”
BAGHDAD, Nov. 12 -- An Iraqi civilian in Baghdad was shot and killed on Saturday by a guard from an American private security company, DynCorp International, as the man's car was in proximity to the security company convoy, according to two Iraqi policemen. The shooting was the latest killing involving security companies in Baghdad and threatened to further inflame Iraqi public opinion against contractors at a time when the Iraqi government is attempting to exert legal control over them. At about 12:45 p.m. on Saturday, a white sedan approached a DynCorp convoy near a bridge over the Tigris River in northwestern Baghdad. As the vehicle pulled out a short distance in front of the convoy, traffic policeman Ahmed Abdul Aziz, 25, said he shouted for it to stop. "Then I heard the gunshot," he said. "They didn't stop, they just shot him and kept on driving." Aziz said he believed the shooting, first reported by the New York Times, was unprovoked and unjustified. He said he helped pull the bleeding man from the car and load him into another vehicle to be taken to the hospital. DynCorp, based in Falls Church, is under contract with the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs and provides security for people affiliated with that agency and those from the Department of Justice, said a U.S. official not authorized to discuss the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. The company informed the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that at about 12:45 p.m. Saturday, a private vehicle approached its convoy and after using "non-lethal means to warn the driver of the vehicle to stop," a company guard "discharged his weapon to disable the vehicle," said embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo. There were conflicting initial accounts about whether anyone was injured or killed, said an official familiar with the incident. At least one of the Iraqi-driven unarmored vehicles that accompany the DynCorp convoys returned to the scene of the shooting and reported no injuries, the official said, but the company is now assuming there was a killing. DynCorp has been in discussions with the Iraqi Interior Ministry to investigate the incident and respond. "These kinds of incidents are upsetting for the guys" in the personal security detail team, "and they're very upsetting for the company," said Gregory Lagana, a DynCorp spokesman. "We obviously don't like being involved in situations where there's a death or an injury." Another traffic police officer said the convoy was driving north through the Utayfiyah neighborhood when the driver approached the security convoy. He said he heard four shots. "We grabbed him out, and he was bleeding from the nose and mouth, but he was dead already," said the policeman, who asked to be identified by his nickname, Abu Hanan.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Screenshot via CNN California's top prosecutor had some terse words for the Trump administration hours after a federal judge temporarily blocked the administration's attempt to financially penalize so-called sanctuary cities. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra responded to a statement from the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, that characterized US District Judge William Orrick's ruling as "the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals going bananas" for slapping down another one of President Donald Trump's executive orders. Orrick does not sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but any challenges to his rulings would be heard in that court, NPR reported. The same court in February refused to reinstate Trump's travel ban that barred people from several majority-Muslim countries from traveling to the US. Trump and his surrogates at the time railed against that ruling as well. It's "another case of the administration in denial," Becerra said on CNN Tuesday night, referring to Priebus' response to the judge's ruling. "You just have to read the Constitution. It's very simple." "The Trump administration can say all it wants, but we're beginning to see all those words of Donald Trump the candidate unravel as he tries to exercise his power as Donald Trump the president," Becerra said. Protesters outside a courthouse April 14 in San Francisco. AP Photo/Haven Daley Orrick's decision Tuesday established a preliminary injunction blocking Trump's January 25 executive order that threatened to hold back federal funds from jurisdictions that defy federal immigration law. The Trump administration and two California governments that sued over the order disagreed about its scope during a recent court hearing. San Francisco and Santa Clara County argued that it threatened billions of dollars in federal funding for each of them, making it difficult to plan their budgets, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The executive order was part of the Trump administration's strategy to crack down on illegal immigration. Trump made big promises in that area during his campaign — including a pledge to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. But aside from increased powers given to Immigrations Customs and Enforcement officers who have been deporting people at a record pace, Trump's other immigration moves have largely stalled.
Antigay pastor Steven Anderson is back and he’s angrier than ever. In his latest hate speech, the father-of-eight went after victims of the Paris terrorist attacks, who he says are completely to blame for their own senseless murders. Anderson was talking about one of the attacks, in particular, that happened at the Le Bataclan Theatre, where the band The Eagles Of Death Metal was performing. “When you go to a concert of death metal, somebody might get killed,” Anderson preached. “You know, you’re worshiping death, and then, all of a sudden, people start dying!” For those who don’t know, The Eagles Of Death Metal isn’t even a death metal band. The name is satirical. Anderson continued: “Well, you love death so much, you bought the ticket, you love worshiping Satan! Well, let’s have some of Satan’s religion come in and shoot you! I mean, that’s what these people should think about before they go into such a wicked concert!” In the past, Anderson has called for all the “homos” in America to be executed by the government, for President Obama to be murdered, for Caitlyn Jenner’s heart to be “ripped from his chest,” and for all “gay pedophiles” to die of brain cancer, among other things. Anderson’s comments begin at the 5:45 mark in the video below: h/t: Joe.My.God. This Story Filed Under
SEATTLE (Reuters) - A woman who survived a double mastectomy and says wearing a bathing suit covering her chest causes searing pain has won a battle to swim topless at Seattle’s public pools. Jodi Jaecks, a 47-year-old fitness buff who had surgery to remove both breasts last year to treat cancer, was initially denied permission this year to swim topless by staff at Seattle’s Medgar Evers pool. According to city spokesperson Dewey Potter, a sign at the pool stated, “This is a family recreation facility. Please dress and act accordingly.” Other city employees at the pool blamed an unwritten city policy that required “gender-appropriate” bathing suits, Jaecks told Reuters. But acting Seattle Parks and Recreation Superintendent Christopher Williams told her on Wednesday that due to her physical therapy, she would be granted a narrow exception to swim topless at all public pools during adult lap swims. Jaecks, whose self-described “androgynous” thin physique now resembles that of a young man’s, said that swimming in a bathing suit covering her chest, left with two thin scars and no nipples following surgery, caused searing pain. “I had a lot of chest pains and I was told that the feeling of warm water on the pain would be cathartic,” said Jaecks, who finished chemotherapy in November and is now cancer-free. Seattle weekly newspaper “The Stranger” published a photo of her, poolside and topless, on Wednesday. Williams announced the city’s policy reversal in a news release: “Our original concern stems from our responsibility to accommodate the needs of all of our patrons. In this case I see nothing that might alarm the public.” City recreation officials requested a meeting next week with Jaecks, and plan to hammer out a new pool attire policy with other cancer survivors and experts, Potter said. Jaecks opted against reconstructive surgery. “I don’t see a need to fake having breasts,” she said. “My ultimate goal is to change policy at beaches and pools, to increase people’s awareness of cancer and the realities of the human condition,” Jaecks told Reuters.
How many times have I heard people remark, "You can believe anything and be a Unitarian Universalist." Or someone might say, with no trace of irony, "I go to the Unitarian Universalist church because I don't believe in organized religion." Incredulous, I say to myself, "Gee, I try to be organized. And we do have a choir. And choir robes. And ministers. And a building." Unitarian Universalism is a religion -- and one with a long and noble history. Why are we so often misunderstood? One problem is our public relations gaffes. All too often when Unitarian Universalists have gotten in the national news, it has been because of some P.R. blunder, like the minister who, during the worst of the AIDS epidemic, passed out free condoms during the Sunday service and spoke on the subject, "The Condom Conundrum." This was not a bad idea -- it's just not what most churches in the nation were doing on Sunday morning. Or the student minister (she never actually made it into our ministry) who had a funeral service, with communion, for her dog and invited all of the cats and dogs in her Berkeley neighborhood to the service. The AP wire photo showed a dog standing on its hind legs, its mouth open for the communion wafer, and the article stated, "The guests neither barked nor balked at receiving the host." We are a free religious faith, and so have no creed. And as freedom is wont to do, our faith invites a certain degree of wackiness and abuse. But if that's the price of freedom, then I still choose freedom. Our faith, of course, does have requirements. To become a Unitarian Universalist, you make no doctrinal promises, but you are required to do much more. You are required to choose your own beliefs -- you promise, that is, to use your reason and your experience and the dictates of your conscience to decide upon your own theology, and then you are asked to actually live by that theology. You are asked to take your chosen faith very seriously. In a very real sense, all theology is autobiography, is it not? Our experience, real and vicarious, is what informs our sense of reality, our internal picture of the way the world works, what our values are. We believe what we know is true -- that is, our felt knowledge--not what we are told is true. In the final analysis, how can a person who wishes to live with integrity do other than this? Our free faith was hard won. It has a long history, and our religious ancestors died for this freedom. A Unitarian, King John Sigismund of Transylvania -- now known as Romania -- pronounced the first edict of religious freedom in the year 1568. I traveled to Romania several years ago and stood in the church in Torda, where that proclamation was made. This was an almost unimaginable act in an age in which people were being burned at the stake for not getting their theology just right. Francis David, King Sigismund's spiritual advisor, was the single greatest influence on the king's theological beliefs. After Sigismund's death, David lost favor and was finally arrested for his views. I made a pilgrimage to the town of Deva and walked up a long, dusty hill to the dungeon where he was imprisoned. It was actually a deep hole in the ground into which David was lowered, and there he sickened, and died. His famous words still live with us, though. He said simply, "You need not think alike to love alike." At the center of our faith is not belief, but love. Many others died for their faith during this period of religious persecution. The Unitarian movement came out of the left wing of the Protestant Reformation, and we were way too far to the left for both Calvin and Luther. The Unitarian scholar Servetus, who wrote On the Errors of the Trinity, was burned in effigy by the Catholics and then burned in fact by Calvin, with a copy of his book strapped to his thigh. It is said that if he had been willing to change just one word of his book -- to change "Jesus is a son of God" to "Jesus is the son of God" -- he could have saved his life. So this is our heritage -- or at least a little taste of it. It is rich, and we can be proud of it. This is not light or easy stuff that we're a part of. But because we are a free faith, could our movement be said to have a theology? After all, our contemporary churches are populated with Christians, atheists, humanists of various stripes, Jews, Buddhists, and even Wiccans. Whoever will, may come. Nevertheless, when we look at our history and the practice of our faith, certain theological themes dominate, and so I will argue that, yes, we do have in fact a theology of sorts, a theology that has been relatively clear and consistent through time. We must begin with the assertion that Unitarian Universalism has always emphasized freedom as a core value. It follows that human beings have a choice. We are not predestined by God before our births, to be saved or unsaved. We are not mired in original sin by the very fact of our birth and therefore have to go through a ceremony called baptism, even as babies, to cleanse ourselves of that sin. We do not have to have someone sacrifice himself by dying on a cross to save us from hell. Yes, human beings have a propensity to do evil, but we also have the propensity to do great good. We have a choice. Unitarian Universalists prefer to think of ourselves as being born into "original blessing," as theologian Matthew Fox likes to put it. (He was of course ex-communicated from the Catholic Church, for that heresy and others.) The term "Unitarian" indicates our belief that God is One. As Church doctrine began to be codified in the fourth century, the concept of the trinity was found to be confusing for our Catholic forebears, and they disagreed with their colleagues in the church hierarchy. But when the vote was taken in 325, the Nicene Creed was adopted, and the doctrine of the trinity was established. Note that the trinity is not a Biblical concept -- it originated in the power structure of the Catholic Church. Basically, the Unitarians lost the vote. The concept that God is One goes beyond the controversy over the trinity, however. If God is One, then the God of the Jews and the God of the Muslims and the God of the Christians is One. God is One. I remember a tragic incident that occurred during my ministry. One evening I was called to the hospital to be with the mother of a two-year-old child who was brain-dead after choking on a piece of chewing gum. The mother, a Unitarian Universalist, was estranged from the child's father, who was of another faith. Leaving the hospital, I found myself in the elevator with the father's minister, and I said to him, "Well, we can do the memorial service together." And he responded, "No, we can't. We don't worship the same God." His comment made my sadness deeper still, and the estrangement of these families seemed ever greater. What other God could he have been thinking of? As Unitarian Universalists, we respect other religious traditions -- we don't think we have the market on the truth. I like the way my late colleague, Dr. Forrest Church of All Souls in New York, put it. He said that truth is like light shining through the windows of a great cathedral, in different colors and shapes. The light comes from the same source. But it looks different, depending upon which window it shines through. So it is with the various religious traditions of our world. In conducting worship, I regularly use readings from a wide range of sources, including Native American, ancient Chinese, the Hebrew Bible, Rumi, as well as a lot of contemporary poetry. Truth is where you find it. There is no single scripture that holds all the truth. And there's another theological perspective that Unitarian Universalists have concerning truth: we believe in evolution -- not only evolution of life forms, but evolution of thought and evolution of moral and ethical understanding. So the truth that I embrace today may not be the truth I embrace tomorrow. Revelation is not static, but is ever unfolding. More and more will be revealed. Our part is simply to be open, and thirsty, thirsty for the truth that would be ours -- but just for the time being. Such a stance keeps us humble -- and awake. When we venture into the Mystery, we are entering the ground of the infinite with the powers of a finite mind. An awe-filled agnosticism is perhaps the better part of wisdom. Unitarian Universalist theology is of this world, not of the next. Jesus, in fact, taught that the Realm of God is within and, contrary to most Christian practice, his teachings were centered on relationship, not salvation. Unitarian Universalists do not emphasize an afterlife. For one reason, we simply don't know anything about it. No one as yet has come back to report. But we do know about suffering and injustice on this earth, and so we try to create the Kingdom of Heaven here and now, with real people. Back to Francis David -- our faith is focused not on what we believe, but how we love. It is a fact that people with the most fervent and orthodox beliefs have been known to engage in some of the most dastardly acts. Christopher Hitchens and other prominent non-believers take great pleasure in pointing out this discrepancy in religious faith. I would agree with Hitchens that the rise of fundamentalism in various parts of our world is one of the most frightening of contemporary social and political developments. When we place another beneath us, set apart from us, we tear out a part of our human heart, and then anything goes, for that person has become Other. For Unitarian Universalists, the question is never "What do you believe?" but rather "What kind of person have you become? What are the fruits of your living?" The significance of love and tolerance in our faith is even more strongly a dimension of Universalism. The Universalist movement began in our country in the late 18th century, about the same time as did the Unitarian movement, both being imports from England. The American Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou told his followers that heaven and hell are not found in any kind of afterlife, but simply in the life we create on this earth. He also rejected the idea that Jesus's death on the cross saved us -- he taught that what saved us was Jesus's embodiment of love and justice. Historically, paradise for the Universalist was a place where people struggle with injustice and where they are called upon to develop wisdom and our capacity to love. The universalism in Universalist refers to universal salvation, a very radical theological concept that emerged in an age in which revival preachers were riding through the countryside telling people that they were going to burn in hell unless they repented of their sins. I remember the time I was speaking at a conference on Buddhist-Christian dialogue, and at lunch one of the Christian presenters, a noted academic, said to me, "This doctrine of Universalism, that's a pretty silly notion, don't you think?" I was taken aback, and I said no, that actually I thought it was a step in the right direction at a time when hell and damnation sermons were giving God a bad name. And then I paused, and I said to him, "Do you believe that God loves everyone?" "Yes," he said. "So did God love Hitler, too?" Reluctantly, he agreed. "Yes, I suppose so," he said. And then I said, "And so it's not that much of a stretch, is it, to believe that a loving God could somehow in the end, reconcile all things to Himself." And we let the conversation end there. The Unitarians and Universalists talked for many years about merging, and although their theologies were close, they were kept apart by class differences. The Unitarians tended to come from the educated, upper-middle class, and tended to be more cerebral in their worship style than the Universalists, who were mainly rural and less well educated. They decided in 1961, at last, to merge and now the faith is known as Unitarian Universalist. In summary, we Unitarian Universalists do have a theology: We believe that human beings should be free to choose their beliefs according to the dictates of their own conscience. We believe in original goodness, with the understanding that sin is sometimes chosen, often because of pain or ignorance. We believe that God is One. We believe that revelation is ever unfolding. We believe that the Kingdom of God is to be created here on this earth. We believe that Jesus was a prophet of God, and that other prophets from God have risen in other faith traditions. We believe that love is more important than doctrine. We believe that God's mercy will reconcile all unto itself in the end. Now this piece about God's mercy -- I confess that I don't know how that could be true. How could God's love be that encompassing, that forgiving? I can't even forgive my neighbor who consistently gets out his leaf blower while I'm trying to write a sermon. How could everyone be saved? Surely some of us should go to hell! Surely the guy with the leaf blower. No, not one. Not one, in God's infinite mercy. And we are asked to stretch ourselves large enough to take that in. I'm not there yet. But that's the great thing about my faith. It's evolving. And so am I. May God have mercy upon my soul. And yours. So be it. Amen.
Carried out by transnational criminal organizations that employ lawyers, linguists, hackers, and social engineers, BEC can take a variety of forms. But in just about every case, the scammers target employees with access to company finances and trick them into making wire transfers to bank accounts thought to belong to trusted partners—except the money ends up in accounts controlled by the criminals. “BEC is a serious threat on a global scale,” said Special Agent Martin Licciardo, a veteran organized crime investigator at the FBI’s Washington Field Office. “And the criminal organizations that perpetrate these frauds are continually honing their techniques to exploit unsuspecting victims.” Those techniques include online ploys such as spear-phishing, social engineering, identity theft, e-mail spoofing, and the use of malware. The perpetrators are so practiced at their craft that the deception is often difficult to uncover until it is too late. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), “the BEC scam continues to grow, evolve, and target businesses of all sizes. Since January 2015, there has been a 1,300 percent increase in identified exposed losses, now totaling over $3 billion.” Although the perpetrators of BEC—also known as CEO impersonation—use a variety of tactics to fool their victims, a common scheme involves the criminal group gaining access to a company’s network through a spear-phishing attack and the use of malware. Undetected, they may spend weeks or months studying the organization’s vendors, billing systems, and the CEO’s style of e-mail communication and even his or her travel schedule.
iOS H hunter_green May 30th, 2015 ( edited ) 1,840 Never 1,840Never Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up , it unlocks many cool features! rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 10.05 KB Welcome to iOS H /u/hunter_green {http://bitly.com/iOSH} Last Updated: 17:30 June 16, 2015 iPhone 6 iOS 8.1.2 My goal is to create the perfect iPhone operating system. (Nothing is perfect, obviously.) Jailbreaking/tweaking has been my biggest hobby since iOS 4. This list is always updated. This is just a list. Do whatever you want with it. Please purchase tweaks from the original repos to support our Developers! :) Tweaks [110] (Sources at Bottom) {Apps are included in this list} AboutUDID - 1.1 Action Menu - 1.3.0 {Use Icons, Copy All, Copy, Paste, Select, Select All, Replace} Activator - 1.9.3~beta2 {Actions at Bottom} AdBlocker 2 (iOS 8) - 1.02 AdBlockerNetworks - 1.11 AFVideo - 1.0-1 AlbumShot - 0.0.1-1 Alkaline - 1.3 {Habesha} AllBoardPass - 0.0.1-3 AppInfo - 1.6.2 Apple File Conduit "2" - 1.2 {This replaces TaiG AFC2 - 0.1} [Thank you /u/3rdisacharm] AppNoti - 0.0.2-1 AutoPause - 1.0 AutoRotateVideos - 1.0-4 {Auto detect} Auxo 3 (iOS 8) - 1.1 {Enabled: MC, QS, HC, RD, MD. Slider Actions: Toggle Auto-Bright, Set Vol to Min. Disable Slider HUD} {Close All Apps: Auto-Close All Apps, Go Home upon Close, Exclude Currently Playing} {Disable Double-Click Home} ayeris - 1.2.1 {See Winterboard} BatteryLife - 1.6.5 BetterWiFi7 (iOS 7 & iOS 8) - 1.0.1.2 BigBubbles - 1.0.5-1 Bridge - 1.2.4 {Great for adding files to respective Songs, Ringtones, and Podcasts folders}{Great with ProTube} Browser Changer - 1.16-5 {Google Chrome, Google Maps} CacheClearer - 0.1 Callback for Messages - 1.2-1 CameraModes - 1.0-6 {Remove Square Mode} CandleLight - 0.1-1 ColorBadges - 1.0.9-1 ColorBanners - 1.0.1-1 {Disable dimming} CrashReporter - 1.9.0-1 CustomNotificationSound - 1.1 CustomSpotlightText - 0.0.1-31 {"Hello"} DefaultPlayer - 1.3 {Stezza App} DetailedBatteryUsage - 1.1 Dimmer - 1.8.1.1 {Dark Point Adjustment is a little above halfway} Display Recorder - 1.3.16 Dont Kill The Beat - 1.0-5 DoubleCheck - 1.0.2-1 Eclipse 2 (iOS 8) - 2.3-2 {Disable in SpringBoard} f.lux - 0.998 {Night: Candle, Daytime: Halogen. Disable "Long transition"; it currently causes problems.} f.lux Flipswitch - 0.3 Filza File Manager - 1.5-211 [Be careful] FlagPaint 2 (iOS 7 & 8) - 2.4 - {Enabled: Bigger Icon, Hide "Now" Label}{Keep everything else disabled if ColorBanners installed} Flex 2 - 1.953 {Patch: Chrome: Don't Close Tabs Automatically} FlipControlCenter - 1.0.1 Flipswitch - 1.0.6 FolderEnhancer (iOS 7/8) - 2.4.2.2 {Everything enabled} GroupIndicator - 0.0.1-44 HardwareKeyboardFix - 1.1-2 HiddenConvos - 1.2-1 HUD Customizer - 1.1.0-24 {HUD Opacity: 0.0} iCleaner Pro - 7.4.2 Check this out: http://http://bit.ly/1MczQAr [Thank you /u/Car5V] Icon Finder - 1.0.2-1 iFile - 2.2.0-1 [Be careful] IMN for iOS 8 - 0.25-1 IneffectivePower - 1.2.4-1 Infinidock - 2.1.2-1 {Four, Enabled, Disabled, One, Check, Check, Check} InTube (iOS 8) - 2.2.3 {Removes ads, allows background playback, and saves video/audio directly to camera roll & music.app} Invert Colors Flipswitch - 0.3 JellyLock Unified BETA - 0.1-beta2.1-1 {Enabled: Lock Label. Behaviour: Disable Slide Gesture} (Goes great with SubtleLock) LinkOpener - 1.4 Longer Message - 1.0-5 {50:50} Messages2PDF - 2.4 mikoto - 2.7.2-1 Minimal Hosts Blocker - 6.0-1 Mobius - 1.2.4 MSGAutoSave8 - 1.0 MTerminal - 1.3-1 {Great for changing root password} MultiIconMover+ - 2.5.1 MyPhoneDefault - 0.1-1 {Keypad} NCAllOnly - 3.2-1 {Show Notifications View}{Hide NC Separator} NCFold - 1.0-9 {Enabled: Multi-Line Message Preview, Recent Items Unlimit, Remember Unfold Items, Clear Badge} Nitrous - 2.5-5 NO PLS RECOVERY - 1.1-3 NoAppStoreRedirect - 0.5 NoBanner - 1.0.1 {Removes banners during video} NoBannerDismiss - 0.0.1-5 {Purpose: Banners won't dismiss when switching between apps. Currently not working.} NoLockBounce - 1.1.2-1 NoNoNotifications7 - 0.0.1-1 NoSlideTo - 0.0.6-1 NoTouchCancelReply - 1.0-17 OneTapClear - 1.0.1-1 Opener - 2.1 OpenSSH - 6.7p1-12 {!!You must change root password - Use MTerminal} (http://bit.ly/1MeJoL2) [Thank you /u/sarcasmsiempre] Photo Organizer 8 - 1.6-1 PhotoSize - 1.0 ProTube - 1.9.9-6 {Works great with Bridge} Record 'n' Torch - 1.6-9 RecordPause - 1.0-4 {Native} RePower - 2.0-2 ReturnDismiss - 0.0.2-2 RevealNC - 0.0.1-14 ScrubAround - 1.1 {Currently does not support YouTube background audio} ShowCase - 1.3.5-1 Sol - 1.0-1 Spectral - 1.0.3-1 Springtomize 3 (iOS 7 & 8) - 1.3.0-5 {Hide Labels/Dots}{Replaces NCAllOnly with "Hide Today" feature but does not hide NC separator}{Disable Wiggling/Uninstall}{Hide Dock Background, Hide Updated Dots} StatusPeek - 1.1d {Solid Black} StopAutoDelete - 0.0.1-1 SubtleLock (iOS 8) - 1.1-1 {Hide All Grabbers, Hide Slider} (Goes great with JellyLock Unified) Super Recorder - 1.95 {Works great with CallBar} SwipeShiftCaret - 1.6.5-1 {Move Style: Step} TapToScroll for Activator - 1.2 TetherMe for iOS8+ - 1.0.2-1 TetherStatus - 2.1-1 TitleHider - 1.0 ToneEnabler - 1.1-7 TouchID Everywhere - 0.0.1-286 {Experimenting} TripleSpace - 1.0 {Shortcut: "?"}{Needs improvement to make "?" like double-space "."} TypeStatus - 1.3.1 VideoPane - 1.1.5 VirtualHome 8 (iOS 8) - 1.3-1 {ST: Nothing, DT: Sleep, SH: Nothing, TSH: Screenshot} Voice Memo Toggle for Activator - 0.1 WinterBoard - 0.9.3918 {ayeris Interface} Waitlist (waiting for update) Coono {Banners look better than ColorBanners & FlagPaint due to blur effect. CB and FP have extra features.} {CB banners > FP banners} DefaultSBPage HomeLock NoPlayerBlur SearchSettings CallBar (iOS 7 & 8) - 0.9-16 {Vibrate on Answer}{Buggy} Hold2Speak - 1.2.1 {Not Working for iOS 8.1.3} Honorable Mentions (not on my device) Cou - 1.0-4 Couria (iOS 8) - 0.8.3 {Looks great with ColorBanners} NoSlideTo - 0.0.6-1 {Replaced by FlagPaint} TinyBar - 0.1.2-4 {Looks great on iPhone 5 with Coono}{Looks great on iPad} YouTubed - 1.7.0-1 {Replaced by mikoto and InTube 2} Other Tweaks that may peak your interest ChangeAwake - 1.1 Cornered - 1.0 HapticMusic - 0.1-24 UntetheredHeySiri - 1.1 Sources http://apt.clezz.com/ http://arcetera.github.io/ http://apt.thebigboss.org/repofiles/cydia/dists/stable http://cydia.angelxwind.net/ http://cydia.myrepospace.com/andrewwiik/ http://cydia.myrepospace.com/jon889/ http://cydia.thomasfinch.me/ http://cydia.qusic.me/ http://apt.saurik.com/dists/ios/847.26 http://elijahandandrew.com/repo/ http://getdelta.co/ http://gmoran.me/repo/ http://hacx.org/repo/ http://apt.modmyi.com/dists/stable http://repo.bushe.me/ http://repo.fortysixandtwo.com/ http://repo.sassoty.com/ http://repo.thireus.com/ http://repo.tylercasson.com/ http://repo.yllier.net/ http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com/ http://ridn.github.io/repo/ http://rpetri.ch/repo/ http://cydia.zodttd.com/repo/cydia/dists/stable Activator Actions Rotation Lock [Switches] Shake Device (Motion) At Home Screen, In Application Scroll to Top [TapToScroll] Single Tap (Status Bar) In Application Scroll to Middle [TapToScroll] Hold (Status Bar) In Application Scroll to Bottom [TapToScroll] Double Tap (Status Bar) In Application Show Lockscreen Short Hold (Sleep Button) At Home Screen, In Application Toggle Recording {Voice Memos: Super Recorder} Both Press (Volume Buttons) At Home Screen, In Application, At Lock Screen Detach VideoPane [VideoPane] Three Finger Pinch (Multi-Touch Gesture) In Application Dimmer {Safety Action: Full Brightness} Toggle Ringer Twice (Volume Buttons) At Home Screen, In Application, At Lock Screen Toggle Recording [Display Recorder] {Experimenting} Three Finger Spread (Multi-Touch Gesture) At Home Screen, In Application Toggle Recording [Display Recorder] {Experimenting} Shake Device (Motion) At Lock Screen My Auxo 3 Flipswitches http://imgur.com/CkOUCmL http://imgur.com/LAa45oN http://imgur.com/NXBifgh Other Packages [68] (Cydia Files, etc.) 7-zip (POSIX) - 4.57-3p AppList - 1.5.9 APR (/usr/lib) - 1.3.3-2 APT 0.6 Transitional - 1:0-23 APT 0.7 (apt-key) - 0.7.25.3-3 APT 0.7 Strict - 0.7.25.3-8 APT 0.7 Strict (lib) - 0.7.25.3-13 ayeKit - 1.0.1 Base Structure - 1-4 basic-cmds - 48-2p Berkeley DB - 4.6.21-4p BigBoss Icon Set - 1.0 Bourne-Again SHell - 4.0.44-15 bzip2 - 1.0.5-7 Cephei - 1.3 Core Utilities - 8.12-12p Core Utilities (/bin) - 8.12-7p Cydia Installer - 1.1.16 Cydia Substrate - 0.9.5101 Cydia Translations - 1.1.12 Darwin Tools - 1-4 Debian Packager - 1.14.25-9 Debian Utilities - 3.3.3ubuntu1-1p Diff Utilities - 2.8.1-6 diskdev-cmds - 421.7-4 Erica Utilities - 1:0.4.2 file-cmds - 220.7-3 Find Utilities - 4.2.33-6 Gawk - 3.1.6-2p GNU Privacy Guard - 1.4.8-4 Google Data APIs - 521-1 grep - 2.5.4-3 gzip - 1.6-7 hAcx Daemon - 1.0-62 IconSupport - 1.9.4-3 iOS Firmware - 8.1.2 iPhone Firmware (/sbin) - 0-1 libcolorpicker - 1.1 libcrashreport - 1.0.2-1 libpackageinfo - 1.0.1-1 libstatusbar - 1:0.9.8.1.1 libsymbolicate - 1.8.0-1 libxml2 - 2.6.32-6 libxml2 Library - 2.6.32-3 LZMA Utils - 4.32.7-4 network-cmds - 307.0.1-6 New Curses - 5.7-13 OpenSSL - 0.9.8zc-11 PAM (Apple) - 32.1-3 PAM Modules - 36.1-4 pcre - 8.30-5p pincrush - 0.9.2-1 PreferenceLoader - 2.2.2 Profile Directory - 0-2 readline - 6.0-7 RocketBootstrap - 1.0.2 sed - 4.1.5-7 shell-cmds - 118-6 SQLite 3.x Library - 3.5.9-2 Substrate Safe Mode - 0.9.5000 system-cmds - 433.4-12 TaiG 8.0-8.1.X Untether - 1.1 Tape Archive - 1.19-8 TechSupport Framework - 1.2.1-1 UIKit Tools - 1.1.9 unrar - 3.6.8-2p unzip - 5.52-5p WeeLoader - 1.4-3 zip - 2.32-5p ~~~~~~~~~~Thank You for Checking Out My iPhone~~~~~~~~~~ This list will now self-destruct. Just kidding. It shall be continuously updated. RAW Paste Data Welcome to iOS H /u/hunter_green {http://bitly.com/iOSH} Last Updated: 17:30 June 16, 2015 iPhone 6 iOS 8.1.2 My goal is to create the perfect iPhone operating system. (Nothing is perfect, obviously.) Jailbreaking/tweaking has been my biggest hobby since iOS 4. This list is always updated. This is just a list. Do whatever you want with it. Please purchase tweaks from the original repos to support our Developers! :) Tweaks [110] (Sources at Bottom) {Apps are included in this list} AboutUDID - 1.1 Action Menu - 1.3.0 {Use Icons, Copy All, Copy, Paste, Select, Select All, Replace} Activator - 1.9.3~beta2 {Actions at Bottom} AdBlocker 2 (iOS 8) - 1.02 AdBlockerNetworks - 1.11 AFVideo - 1.0-1 AlbumShot - 0.0.1-1 Alkaline - 1.3 {Habesha} AllBoardPass - 0.0.1-3 AppInfo - 1.6.2 Apple File Conduit "2" - 1.2 {This replaces TaiG AFC2 - 0.1} [Thank you /u/3rdisacharm] AppNoti - 0.0.2-1 AutoPause - 1.0 AutoRotateVideos - 1.0-4 {Auto detect} Auxo 3 (iOS 8) - 1.1 {Enabled: MC, QS, HC, RD, MD. Slider Actions: Toggle Auto-Bright, Set Vol to Min. Disable Slider HUD} {Close All Apps: Auto-Close All Apps, Go Home upon Close, Exclude Currently Playing} {Disable Double-Click Home} ayeris - 1.2.1 {See Winterboard} BatteryLife - 1.6.5 BetterWiFi7 (iOS 7 & iOS 8) - 1.0.1.2 BigBubbles - 1.0.5-1 Bridge - 1.2.4 {Great for adding files to respective Songs, Ringtones, and Podcasts folders}{Great with ProTube} Browser Changer - 1.16-5 {Google Chrome, Google Maps} CacheClearer - 0.1 Callback for Messages - 1.2-1 CameraModes - 1.0-6 {Remove Square Mode} CandleLight - 0.1-1 ColorBadges - 1.0.9-1 ColorBanners - 1.0.1-1 {Disable dimming} CrashReporter - 1.9.0-1 CustomNotificationSound - 1.1 CustomSpotlightText - 0.0.1-31 {"Hello"} DefaultPlayer - 1.3 {Stezza App} DetailedBatteryUsage - 1.1 Dimmer - 1.8.1.1 {Dark Point Adjustment is a little above halfway} Display Recorder - 1.3.16 Dont Kill The Beat - 1.0-5 DoubleCheck - 1.0.2-1 Eclipse 2 (iOS 8) - 2.3-2 {Disable in SpringBoard} f.lux - 0.998 {Night: Candle, Daytime: Halogen. Disable "Long transition"; it currently causes problems.} f.lux Flipswitch - 0.3 Filza File Manager - 1.5-211 [Be careful] FlagPaint 2 (iOS 7 & 8) - 2.4 - {Enabled: Bigger Icon, Hide "Now" Label}{Keep everything else disabled if ColorBanners installed} Flex 2 - 1.953 {Patch: Chrome: Don't Close Tabs Automatically} FlipControlCenter - 1.0.1 Flipswitch - 1.0.6 FolderEnhancer (iOS 7/8) - 2.4.2.2 {Everything enabled} GroupIndicator - 0.0.1-44 HardwareKeyboardFix - 1.1-2 HiddenConvos - 1.2-1 HUD Customizer - 1.1.0-24 {HUD Opacity: 0.0} iCleaner Pro - 7.4.2 Check this out: http://http://bit.ly/1MczQAr [Thank you /u/Car5V] Icon Finder - 1.0.2-1 iFile - 2.2.0-1 [Be careful] IMN for iOS 8 - 0.25-1 IneffectivePower - 1.2.4-1 Infinidock - 2.1.2-1 {Four, Enabled, Disabled, One, Check, Check, Check} InTube (iOS 8) - 2.2.3 {Removes ads, allows background playback, and saves video/audio directly to camera roll & music.app} Invert Colors Flipswitch - 0.3 JellyLock Unified BETA - 0.1-beta2.1-1 {Enabled: Lock Label. Behaviour: Disable Slide Gesture} (Goes great with SubtleLock) LinkOpener - 1.4 Longer Message - 1.0-5 {50:50} Messages2PDF - 2.4 mikoto - 2.7.2-1 Minimal Hosts Blocker - 6.0-1 Mobius - 1.2.4 MSGAutoSave8 - 1.0 MTerminal - 1.3-1 {Great for changing root password} MultiIconMover+ - 2.5.1 MyPhoneDefault - 0.1-1 {Keypad} NCAllOnly - 3.2-1 {Show Notifications View}{Hide NC Separator} NCFold - 1.0-9 {Enabled: Multi-Line Message Preview, Recent Items Unlimit, Remember Unfold Items, Clear Badge} Nitrous - 2.5-5 NO PLS RECOVERY - 1.1-3 NoAppStoreRedirect - 0.5 NoBanner - 1.0.1 {Removes banners during video} NoBannerDismiss - 0.0.1-5 {Purpose: Banners won't dismiss when switching between apps. Currently not working.} NoLockBounce - 1.1.2-1 NoNoNotifications7 - 0.0.1-1 NoSlideTo - 0.0.6-1 NoTouchCancelReply - 1.0-17 OneTapClear - 1.0.1-1 Opener - 2.1 OpenSSH - 6.7p1-12 {!!You must change root password - Use MTerminal} (http://bit.ly/1MeJoL2) [Thank you /u/sarcasmsiempre] Photo Organizer 8 - 1.6-1 PhotoSize - 1.0 ProTube - 1.9.9-6 {Works great with Bridge} Record 'n' Torch - 1.6-9 RecordPause - 1.0-4 {Native} RePower - 2.0-2 ReturnDismiss - 0.0.2-2 RevealNC - 0.0.1-14 ScrubAround - 1.1 {Currently does not support YouTube background audio} ShowCase - 1.3.5-1 Sol - 1.0-1 Spectral - 1.0.3-1 Springtomize 3 (iOS 7 & 8) - 1.3.0-5 {Hide Labels/Dots}{Replaces NCAllOnly with "Hide Today" feature but does not hide NC separator}{Disable Wiggling/Uninstall}{Hide Dock Background, Hide Updated Dots} StatusPeek - 1.1d {Solid Black} StopAutoDelete - 0.0.1-1 SubtleLock (iOS 8) - 1.1-1 {Hide All Grabbers, Hide Slider} (Goes great with JellyLock Unified) Super Recorder - 1.95 {Works great with CallBar} SwipeShiftCaret - 1.6.5-1 {Move Style: Step} TapToScroll for Activator - 1.2 TetherMe for iOS8+ - 1.0.2-1 TetherStatus - 2.1-1 TitleHider - 1.0 ToneEnabler - 1.1-7 TouchID Everywhere - 0.0.1-286 {Experimenting} TripleSpace - 1.0 {Shortcut: "?"}{Needs improvement to make "?" like double-space "."} TypeStatus - 1.3.1 VideoPane - 1.1.5 VirtualHome 8 (iOS 8) - 1.3-1 {ST: Nothing, DT: Sleep, SH: Nothing, TSH: Screenshot} Voice Memo Toggle for Activator - 0.1 WinterBoard - 0.9.3918 {ayeris Interface} Waitlist (waiting for update) Coono {Banners look better than ColorBanners & FlagPaint due to blur effect. CB and FP have extra features.} {CB banners > FP banners} DefaultSBPage HomeLock NoPlayerBlur SearchSettings CallBar (iOS 7 & 8) - 0.9-16 {Vibrate on Answer}{Buggy} Hold2Speak - 1.2.1 {Not Working for iOS 8.1.3} Honorable Mentions (not on my device) Cou - 1.0-4 Couria (iOS 8) - 0.8.3 {Looks great with ColorBanners} NoSlideTo - 0.0.6-1 {Replaced by FlagPaint} TinyBar - 0.1.2-4 {Looks great on iPhone 5 with Coono}{Looks great on iPad} YouTubed - 1.7.0-1 {Replaced by mikoto and InTube 2} Other Tweaks that may peak your interest ChangeAwake - 1.1 Cornered - 1.0 HapticMusic - 0.1-24 UntetheredHeySiri - 1.1 Sources http://apt.clezz.com/ http://arcetera.github.io/ http://apt.thebigboss.org/repofiles/cydia/dists/stable http://cydia.angelxwind.net/ http://cydia.myrepospace.com/andrewwiik/ http://cydia.myrepospace.com/jon889/ http://cydia.thomasfinch.me/ http://cydia.qusic.me/ http://apt.saurik.com/dists/ios/847.26 http://elijahandandrew.com/repo/ http://getdelta.co/ http://gmoran.me/repo/ http://hacx.org/repo/ http://apt.modmyi.com/dists/stable http://repo.bushe.me/ http://repo.fortysixandtwo.com/ http://repo.sassoty.com/ http://repo.thireus.com/ http://repo.tylercasson.com/ http://repo.yllier.net/ http://repo666.ultrasn0w.com/ http://ridn.github.io/repo/ http://rpetri.ch/repo/ http://cydia.zodttd.com/repo/cydia/dists/stable Activator Actions Rotation Lock [Switches] Shake Device (Motion) At Home Screen, In Application Scroll to Top [TapToScroll] Single Tap (Status Bar) In Application Scroll to Middle [TapToScroll] Hold (Status Bar) In Application Scroll to Bottom [TapToScroll] Double Tap (Status Bar) In Application Show Lockscreen Short Hold (Sleep Button) At Home Screen, In Application Toggle Recording {Voice Memos: Super Recorder} Both Press (Volume Buttons) At Home Screen, In Application, At Lock Screen Detach VideoPane [VideoPane] Three Finger Pinch (Multi-Touch Gesture) In Application Dimmer {Safety Action: Full Brightness} Toggle Ringer Twice (Volume Buttons) At Home Screen, In Application, At Lock Screen Toggle Recording [Display Recorder] {Experimenting} Three Finger Spread (Multi-Touch Gesture) At Home Screen, In Application Toggle Recording [Display Recorder] {Experimenting} Shake Device (Motion) At Lock Screen My Auxo 3 Flipswitches http://imgur.com/CkOUCmL http://imgur.com/LAa45oN http://imgur.com/NXBifgh Other Packages [68] (Cydia Files, etc.) 7-zip (POSIX) - 4.57-3p AppList - 1.5.9 APR (/usr/lib) - 1.3.3-2 APT 0.6 Transitional - 1:0-23 APT 0.7 (apt-key) - 0.7.25.3-3 APT 0.7 Strict - 0.7.25.3-8 APT 0.7 Strict (lib) - 0.7.25.3-13 ayeKit - 1.0.1 Base Structure - 1-4 basic-cmds - 48-2p Berkeley DB - 4.6.21-4p BigBoss Icon Set - 1.0 Bourne-Again SHell - 4.0.44-15 bzip2 - 1.0.5-7 Cephei - 1.3 Core Utilities - 8.12-12p Core Utilities (/bin) - 8.12-7p Cydia Installer - 1.1.16 Cydia Substrate - 0.9.5101 Cydia Translations - 1.1.12 Darwin Tools - 1-4 Debian Packager - 1.14.25-9 Debian Utilities - 3.3.3ubuntu1-1p Diff Utilities - 2.8.1-6 diskdev-cmds - 421.7-4 Erica Utilities - 1:0.4.2 file-cmds - 220.7-3 Find Utilities - 4.2.33-6 Gawk - 3.1.6-2p GNU Privacy Guard - 1.4.8-4 Google Data APIs - 521-1 grep - 2.5.4-3 gzip - 1.6-7 hAcx Daemon - 1.0-62 IconSupport - 1.9.4-3 iOS Firmware - 8.1.2 iPhone Firmware (/sbin) - 0-1 libcolorpicker - 1.1 libcrashreport - 1.0.2-1 libpackageinfo - 1.0.1-1 libstatusbar - 1:0.9.8.1.1 libsymbolicate - 1.8.0-1 libxml2 - 2.6.32-6 libxml2 Library - 2.6.32-3 LZMA Utils - 4.32.7-4 network-cmds - 307.0.1-6 New Curses - 5.7-13 OpenSSL - 0.9.8zc-11 PAM (Apple) - 32.1-3 PAM Modules - 36.1-4 pcre - 8.30-5p pincrush - 0.9.2-1 PreferenceLoader - 2.2.2 Profile Directory - 0-2 readline - 6.0-7 RocketBootstrap - 1.0.2 sed - 4.1.5-7 shell-cmds - 118-6 SQLite 3.x Library - 3.5.9-2 Substrate Safe Mode - 0.9.5000 system-cmds - 433.4-12 TaiG 8.0-8.1.X Untether - 1.1 Tape Archive - 1.19-8 TechSupport Framework - 1.2.1-1 UIKit Tools - 1.1.9 unrar - 3.6.8-2p unzip - 5.52-5p WeeLoader - 1.4-3 zip - 2.32-5p ~~~~~~~~~~Thank You for Checking Out My iPhone~~~~~~~~~~ This list will now self-destruct. Just kidding. It shall be continuously updated.
The image of a murder trial jury often times gives the image from 12 Angry Men, a group holed up, cut off from contact from the outside world, with the weight of life or death hanging over their heads as they decide the fate of the person on trial. However, in the case of the Zimmerman trial, the revelations are of steak dinners, fancy pedicures and trips to local museums, all on the taxpayer dime. The decision to pamper the jury was undertaken for a myriad of reasons. As one Florida attorney, Randy Reep, pointed out: These women of course are not criminals, yet we took them from their families. While we did not say this then, now it is clear, half of the country is going to very vocally find fault with your dedicated effort. A Bloomin Onion at Outback would not adequately reimburse these women for the bitterness [some will level at them for their jury service.] In a statement by the Sheriff’s office, this was elaborated upon: Jurors watched television and movies, exercised at the hotel fitness center, and spent weekends being visited by family and friends. Hold on a second. The Sheriff’s office did not take them away from their families, they had access to them over the weekend! However, they were carefully monitored to prevent jury tampering at least, right? To verify this statement, AI’s own Dr. Mark Bear contacted them, telling us: Just verified with Heather Smith, from the Seminole Country Sheriff’s Office at 407-474-6259. She states, “Generally speaking, jurors serving on the Zimmerman trial were afforded two hours of visiting privileges with family of friends each weekend.” I asked what she meant by generally speaking,” and she states, “there were more opportunities afforded jurors but not all took advantage.” So, these visits were unsupervised. WFTV has dug into these visits, and what they found calls into question the verdict. As WFTV’s legal analyst, Bill Sheaffer, points out: It only takes two seconds for an inappropriate comment to be made to a juror by a family member inadvertently or otherwise to possibly affect the verdict, how they look at the case. And, it turns out, there is evidence to find that jury tampering did happen, as Juror B37 discussed in her aborted book deal: The potential book was always intended to be a respectful observation of the trial from my and my husband’s perspectives… Her husband holding a perspective strong enough to write a book on the subject, given unsupervised access during the trial to his wife on the jury. Juror B37 has also admitted that the decision was reached with information not presented at the trial itself. This is a siren bell warning of jury tampering. And this is but one juror, how much was discussed with the other jurors. The failure to supervise has now resulted in a potential legal nightmare for the state of Florida, which can be held liable for failing to properly ensure an untampered jury. Add to it the money that juror B37 could anticipate from such a book deal, which would be worth far more if given a not-guilty verdict than otherwise, and we are looking at a potential post-trial jury payoff negotiated through the husband. And the concerns over Juror B37 are far older than that apparent after the trial. In watching her jury interview, one finds a very concerning pattern. As discussed by legal expert Gail Brashers-Krug, a former federal prosecutor and law professor and who is currently a criminal defense attorney in Iowa: She really wants to be a juror. She seems to be going out of her way to minimize the disruptive effect of a multiweek trial on her life. Jurors rarely do that. She is also taking pains to avoid saying anything particularly sympathetic to either side. Both sides tend to be very skeptical of jurors who are particularly eager to serve on high-profile cases. Often they have their own agendas, or are attention-seekers. We find a juror with their own agenda, who managed to sneak her way onto the jury, with unsupervised access to an element harboring their own viewpoint and opinion, and who aimed to profit off of a non-guilty verdict. She had the means, by having access to her husband unsupervised. She had the motive, by profiting off of a book deal. And she had the opportunity by being on the jury in the first place. Jury tampering is a third degree felony in Florida, punishable by up to five years in prison. But with a man who would cover up a tuberculosis outbreak in charge of ensuring the judicial process is followed, it is highly doubtful a real investigation into jury tampering will happen in Florida.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- While confirming the switch at quarterback from Colin Kaepernick to Blaine Gabbert, San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Tomsula would only say the move was official for this weekend's home game against the Atlanta Falcons. Editor's Picks Davis: Broncos 'energy' similar to 49ers of 2013 Vernon Davis practiced with his new team for the first time Wednesday and said the Broncos have an "energy" and "synergy" that was missing with the 49ers. Tomsula -- whose team is 2-6, falls in last place in the NFC West and hasn't scored a touchdown in eight-plus quarters -- did say Kaepernick was benched essentially so the quarterback could get a mental break. "This was just a decision that I just felt like I wanted Colin to step back and breathe," Tomsula said. "Look at things through a different lens. Keep preparing, keep doing his thing, keep working, but just step back and take a look at things, OK. "That's what I want." Kaepernick is going through a career-worst season in Total QBR (47.6), yards per attempt (6.7), TD-INT ratio (1.2) and completion percentage (59.3). Plus, the Niners' league low in points scored (109) is the fourth-fewest in franchise history through the first eight games. "It was a tough decision," Tomsula said. "All those decisions are tough, but I felt that was the direction we needed to go. Watching, feeling where I'm at, I just decided now is the time. "In no way is 2-6 all on Colin Kaepernick; that's all of us ... this is a guy I care about a lot. This is a guy that I respect a lot. This is a guy that I think has talent. It's just me, what I'm watching, what I'm feeling, and I want him to just step back, keep working, let's do our thing and move forward." "In no way is 2-6 all on Colin Kaepernick; that's all of us ... this is a guy I care about a lot. This is a guy that I respect a lot. This is a guy that I think has talent." Tomsula said the decision was his, though he did speak with his superiors, presumably general manager Trent Baalke and CEO Jed York. "I went upstairs and let them know what my decision was," Tomsula said. "I spoke to them about what I was feeling and what I thought, absolutely." Tomsula was also asked how Kaepernick reacted to the demotion. "Colin's going to keep fighting his way through everything," Tomsula said. "I mean, the competitiveness in that guy is second to none. You all know that. And he wants to fight right through it ... but Colin will be a tremendous teammate. He'll give everything to this team that he gives and he'll keep working hard and he'll prepare and Colin will be a wonderful teammate."
In a disturbing story out of Nicaragua, the Associated Press reports that 25-year-old Vilma Trujillo Garcia died after being thrown into a fire as part of an exorcism. Prosecutors said evangelical pastor Juan Gregorio Rocha Romero and four other people had been arrested. Rocha Romero denied wrongdoing, telling the newspaper La Prensa that the woman fell into the fire without anyone pushing her and a demon exited her body. What an odd statement… She just fell into the fire. It was completely accidental! Oh, by the way, the demon left her body, so our plan worked! Allegedly, Garcia tried to attack church members with a machete the week before… though, if I knew members of my church were the types of people who would throw me in a fire, then whipping out a machete sounds like pretty damn good self defense. “It’s unforgiveable what they did to us. They killed my wife, the mother of my two little ones,” he said. “Now what am I going to tell them?“ Her husband was, as you might expect, devastated: Tell them that irrational religious beliefs in the hands of gullible, violent idiots killed their mother, and those kids should do everything in their power to make sure no one else suffers from that kind of lack of critical thinking ever again. It won’t make them feel better, but they deserve an honest answer. Without religion, their mother would be alive right now. (Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Scott for the link)
Ryan Grant, left, gets up after falling down while Robert Alford intercepts the pass that would end Sunday’s game in overtime. (Jason Getz/USA Today Sports) Kirk Cousins pointed the finger at himself when asked about the game-ending interception returned for a touchdown Sunday against Atlanta. But wide receiver Ryan Grant, the intended receiver on that play, said he deserves the blame. The Redskins had the ball at the 50-yard line on second and eight when Cousins — with pressure bearing down on him — threw to the left, to Grant. The wide receiver stopped and turned around. The pass appeared to go out wider toward the sideline than Grant anticipated. But as he tried to pivot outward, he slipped and fell. Cornerback Robert Alford made a play on the ball, made the catch and sprinted 59 yards for the touchdown. [Cooley: If you blame Cousins for the interception, you’re a moron] Grant has declined interview requests all season long, but he broke his silence on Wednesday and came to his quarterback’s defense. “I slipped, he said. “It was supposed to be on my outside shoulder. I slipped, threw the play off, and that’s how the game ended.” Atlanta cornerback Robert Alford, right, runs away with the game-winning interception return. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post) On the play, Grant quickly jumped up and attempted to run Alford down. But Falcons defensive end Adrian Clayborn blocked him in the back. No penalty was called, but Grant said he didn’t receive an explanation for the non-call, nor did he care. “At that point, I wasn’t worried about referees or anybody,” Grant said. “I wasn’t trying to talk to anybody. I just walked back to the locker room.” Grant has served as the Redskins’ No. 2 wide receiver with DeSean Jackson injured. In five games, he has recorded a career-high 12 catches for 118 yards. The second-year pro still is trying to establish himself, but he said he is determined not to let the costly play on Sunday damage his confidence. “We watched the film, I made some mistakes and from this point on, just work harder, get better, spend time in the film room,” Grant said. “Just have amnesia. … I slipped. That’s not like me. I’m better than that. I hold myself to high standards. Unfortunately, I slipped and that ended the game. But I think that’ll make me a stronger player.” More from The Post: Gruden says Jackson will play either this Sunday or next Scouting ahead: Can these college O-linemen help NFL teams? Outsider: Closer look at Cousins’s mechancial flaws vs. Atlanta Five questions facing the Redskins as they prepare to face the Jets More NFL: Redskins \| Around the league \| Bog on Redskins \| Fantasy Follow: @MikeJonesWaPo \| @lizclarketweet \| @MasterTes \| @Insider
The Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals have a history when it comes to highly physical play. Here's a runthrough of notable moments, including one from this year's wild-card game. 1983: Pittsburgh’s Keith Gary twisted around Ken Anderson's helmet. Anderson missed the next three games. 2005 wild-card playoff: On the Bengals’ second offensive play from scrimmage, Carson Palmer’s knee ligaments were torn after Steelers lineman Kimo von Oelhoffen hit the quarterback low. 2008: Hines Ward breaks Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers' jaw on a block. The injury ended Rivers’ season. 2013: Bengals punter Kevin Huber breaks his jaw after he's hit by Terence Garvin. Huber also suffered a broken vertebrae in his neck and missed the rest of the season. 2014 Week 17: The Bengals’ Reggie Nelson injured Le'Veon Bell in the regular-season finale. Bell ends up missing the Steelers' subsequent playoff loss against the Ravens. Bengals wide receiver A.J. Green also suffered a concussion in that game, which caused him to miss the Bengals’ playoff game the next week. 2015 Week 8: Bell had his knee twisted awkwardly underneath him as Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict tackled him. Bell suffered a torn MCL and was placed on season-ending injured reserve. 2015 Week 14: Andy Dalton breaks thumb making a tackle on Stephon Tuitt after throwing an interception. 2015 wild card: Giovani Bernard appeared to be knocked out when he was hit in the chin with Ryan Shazier's helmet. 2015 wild card: Vontaze Burfict drives Ben Roethlisberger to the ground. Roethlisberger was carted off the field with a shoulder injury. Later, Antonio Brown is hit in the head by Burfict, who was penalized for unnecessary roughness. Brown was diagnosed with a concussion.
President Obama waves from Air Force One at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Oct. 9. He will soon say goodbye to the White House. (Susan Walsh/AP) We all know about the lame duck: Congress’s closing work period after the election, that time for cross-aisle deals and actually getting stuff done. But what’s the name for the 17 days between the start of the next Congress (Jan. 3) and the inauguration of the new president (Jan. 20), i.e., President Obama’s final two and a half weeks in office? We ask because if Democrats take control of the Senate, Obama and his allies could spend that period doing something they would love: sticking it to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) by approving a few dozen long-delayed court nominees. Just picture the glee from outgoing Democratic leader Harry Reid (Nev.). This is not difficult to imagine. There are 20 prospective district judges and three prospective circuit court judges already on the executive calendar, ready for floor votes. They need only 51-vote majorities to be approved. So, if Democrats win back the Senate, what’s to stop Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) from taking care of business in those dead days of January? After all, even if Donald Trump does win in November, Schumer would still have Vice President Biden to break ties. One thing that would be difficult to do, however, is Merrick Garland’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. First, Obama would have to renominate him, and then it would require the Senate Judiciary Committee to move the nomination at warp speed, against protocol. And doing that might alienate more centrist Republicans such as Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.), whose votes are needed to overcome the 60-vote threshold for cloture. Garland’s options in January still don’t look good. But if Democrats win the Senate, lower-court nominees can hope Schumer kicks off his leadership term by clearing the decks. If he does, maybe the 17-day window can earn a real name. We vote for Mighty Duck.* *Hat tip to David Di Martino of Blue Engine Message & Media. Paul Kane contributed to this report.
A 52-minute video of the arrest of Sandra Bland, who died mysteriously in jail several days later, was released by the Texas Department of Public Safety on Tuesday night. After a few hours, reports began to surface that the video appeared doctored—and not particularly well, for that matter. At 25:05, a man gets out of a truck and walks towards the camera. At 25:18, the man reappears out of nowhere, his image fluttering a bit before he repeats his walk towards the camera. The audio continues uninterrupted. At 32:37, a white car drives into frame and then completely disappears. A few seconds later the same car comes back into frame from the same direction, and turns left. Another white car comes into frame and turns left. This footage is looped several times; for example, at 33:04, what appears to be the same car flickers and disappears. Then the same thing happens: it comes back into frame from the same direction, and turns left, followed by the second white car turning left again. Throughout, the audio continues without a hitch. Oscar-winning director Ava DuVernay helped bring attention (and professional expertise) to the discrepancies last night, first noticed by journalist Ben Norton: Advertisement As this was emerging on Tuesday evening, family members held a packed memorial service for Sandra Bland at the Johnson Phillip All Faiths Church on Prairie View A&M’s campus. “I have a baby to put in the ground,” Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, told the crowd. “She wasn’t my convict, she wasn’t my suspect—she was my baby.” In closing, she said, “I’m ready ... This means war.” Advertisement At a press conference on Tuesday, Texas State Sen. Royce West said, “Once you see what occurred, you would probably agree with me that [Bland] shouldn’t have been taken into custody.” The officer who stopped Bland, Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Brian Encinia, has been placed on administrative leave. The Texas Department of Safety told Time this morning that “an error uploading the video had affected parts of the footage and a new version would be released.”
This article is over 2 years old Labor compares proposal to allow states to raise income taxes to ‘Britney Spears’ first marriage’ after swift U-turn The prime minister says defeat of his income tax plan is a wake-up call for state premiers to start living within their means. Malcolm Turnbull was forced to withdraw the proposal just two days after hailing it as one of the greatest reforms in generations after it was rejected by leaders at Friday’s Council of Australian Governments meeting. Malcolm Turnbull finds $2.9bn for public hospitals, but nothing more for schools Read more Now that the states had refused an opportunity to raise income taxes to pay for services like hospitals and schools, they could not credibly ask the federal government to do it for them. “What that means is we must now live within our means,” he told reporters in Sydney on Saturday. “It is a wake-up call for the state governments.” Labor has laughed off the proposal’s defeat as a humiliating farce. The opposition frontbencher Jason Clare said he’d had hangovers that lasted longer than Turnbull’s policy. “I think Britney Spears’ first marriage lasted longer than this policy.” The health minister, Sussan Ley, has slammed the state premiers, denying the proposal’s defeat was an embarrassment. “They’re quick to ask the commonwealth to do their dirty work,” she said. Premiers reject Malcolm Turnbull's plan for them to set income tax rates Read more “We should never make an apology for having big ideas and the courage to make a difference.” Friday’s meeting ended with state and territory leaders accepting an extra $2.9 billion for their hospitals to 2020. Turnbull on Saturday said the states had repeatedly asked him to raise more money for them via federal government taxes but rejected the opportunity to step up and raise their own money. “[The states] cannot any longer credibly ask the federal government to raise taxes for them to spend if they were not prepared to raise those taxes themselves.” Opposition leader Bill Shorten said Turnbull’s crazy idea of double taxation had been a “humiliating farce”. “He doesn’t even have the courage of his convictions.”
Now that he has won his seat in the United States Senate and will be sworn in next week, Sen.-elect Al Franken (D-MN) has officially been assigned office space on Capitol Hill — with some very special significance to it. A Senate staffer has sent TPM this photo of Franken’s new office, complete with his name on the plaque outside the door: It just so happens that Franken’s new office in the Hart Senate Office Building, Suite 320, previously belonged to none other than former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who Franken narrowly defeated in this long and drawn out race. Presumably the office was being kept vacant on the off-chance that Coleman might have won his lawsuit against the election results, and then he would have been able to return to it. In the end, somebody else from Minnesota will be moving in.
To address those issues, a pair of Google engineers invented a technology called MapReduce that, when paired with the intricate file management technology the company uses to index and catalog the Web, solved the problem. The MapReduce technology makes it possible to break large sets of data into little chunks, spread that information across thousands of computers, ask the computers questions and receive cohesive answers. Google rewrote its entire search index system to take advantage of MapReduce’s ability to analyze all of this information and its ability to keep complex jobs working even when lots of computers die. MapReduce represented a couple of breakthroughs. The technology has allowed Google’s search software to run faster on cheaper, less-reliable computers, which means lower capital costs. In addition, it makes manipulating the data Google collects so much easier that more engineers can hunt for secrets about how people use the company’s technology instead of worrying about keeping computers up and running. “It’s a really big hammer,” said Christophe Bisciglia, 28, a former Google engineer and a founder of Cloudera. “When you have a really big hammer, everything becomes a nail.” The technology opened the possibility of asking a question about Google’s data — like what did all the people search for before they searched for BMW — and it began ascertaining more and more about the relationships between groups of Web sites, pictures and documents. In short, Google got smarter. The MapReduce technology helps do grunt work, too. For example, it grabs huge quantities of images — like satellite photos — from many sources and assembles that information into one picture. The result is improved versions of products like Google Maps and Google Earth. Google has kept the inner workings of MapReduce and related file management software a secret, but it did publish papers on some of the underlying techniques. That bit of information was enough for Doug Cutting, who had been working as a software consultant, to create his own version of the technology, called Hadoop. (The name came from his son’s plush toy elephant, which has since been banished to a sock drawer.) Photo People at Yahoo had read the same papers as Mr. Cutting, and thought they needed to even the playing field with their search and advertising competitor. So Yahoo hired Mr. Cutting and set to work. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “The thinking was if we had a big team of guys, we could really make this rock,” Mr. Cutting said. “Within six months, Hadoop was a critical part of Yahoo and within a year or two it became supercritical.” A Hadoop-powered analysis also determines what 300 million people a month see. Yahoo tracks peoples’ behavior to gauge what types of stories and other content they like and tries to alter its homepage accordingly. Similar software tries to match ads with certain types of stories. And the better the ad, the more Yahoo can charge for it. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Yahoo is estimated to have spent tens of millions of dollars developing Hadoop, which remains open-source software that anyone can use or modify. It then began to spread through Silicon Valley and tech companies beyond. Microsoft became a Hadoop fan when it bought a start-up called Powerset to improve its search system. Historically hostile to open-source software, Microsoft nevertheless altered internal policies to let members of the Powerset team continue developing Hadoop. “We are realizing that we have real problems to solve that affect businesses, and business intelligence and data analytics is a huge part of that,” said Sam Ramji, the senior director of platform strategy at Microsoft. Facebook uses it to manage the 40 billion photos it stores. “It’s how Facebook figures out how closely you are linked to every other person,” said Jeff Hammerbacher, a former Facebook engineer and a co-founder of Cloudera. Eyealike, a start-up, relies on Hadoop for performing facial recognition on photos while Fox Interactive Media mines data with it. Google and I.B.M. have financed a program to teach Hadoop to university students. Autodesk, a maker of design software, used it to create an online catalog of products like sinks, gutters and toilets to help builders plan projects.. The company looks to make money by tapping Hadoop for analysis on how popular certain items are and selling that detailed information to manufacturers. Advertisement Continue reading the main story These types of applications drew the Cloudera founders toward starting a business around Hadoop. “What if Google decided to sell the ability to do amazing things with data instead of selling advertising?” Mr. Hammerbacher asked. Mr. Hammerbacher and Mr. Bisciglia were joined by Amr Awadallah, a former Yahoo engineer, and Michael Olson, the company’s chief executive, who sold a an open-source software company to Oracle in 2006. The company has just released its own version of Hadoop. The software remains free, but Cloudera hopes to make money selling support and consulting services for the software. It has only a few customers, but it wants to attract biotech, oil and gas, retail and insurance customers to the idea of making more out of their information for less. The executives point out that things like data copies of the human genome, oil reservoirs and sales data require immense storage systems.
Do cap-and-trade systems work? ENVIRONMENT Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Do cap-and-trade systems work? 1 / 4 Back to Gallery Europe already has a carbon cap-and-trade system similar to the one California will launch on Wednesday. The northeastern United States does too, albeit in a far more limited form. Do they work? Do they cut the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and do so at a reasonable price? Both follow the same basic principles, setting an overall limit on emissions and forcing companies to buy and sell permits to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Europe's market, called the EU Emissions Trading System, opened in 2005 and now covers more than 11,000 power plants and industrial facilities in 30 countries. Split over performance The northeastern U.S. system covers power plants in only nine states, from Maryland to Maine. Officially named the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the system is usually abbreviated RGGI and pronounced "Reggie." Researchers remain divided on how well each market has performed, an assessment made much more difficult by the global economic slump. The downturn that began in 2007 cut the demand for energy, as factories scaled back production. So when Europe's greenhouse gas emissions dropped as well, from 2007 through 2009, was the decrease due to the continent's cap-and-trade system or the weak economy? An analysis by the New Energy Finance research firm estimated that the trading system accounted for about 40 percent of the drop in Europe's greenhouse gas reductions in 2008. "We've seen real reductions in emissions, reductions that are attributable to the ETS," said Alex Hanafi, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund who wrote a recent report on the European system's progress. "The environmental goals are being met." Here in the United States, RGGI currently has far more allowances for sale than the companies participating in the market need. Again, the recession and sluggish recovery played a role. So did the plunge in natural gas prices. Power plant operators have been relying more on gas and less on coal, and gas produces about 47 percent less greenhouse emissions when burned, according to a study by the Worldwatch Institute. That means the plant operators need to buy fewer allowances. The RGGI system's overall cap doesn't limit their emissions, because they're already well below it. "I think RGGI so far has been a flop, but it's been a fairly cheap flop," said Myron Ebell, director of energy policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a longtime critic of cap and trade. "The good news is, it isn't raising energy prices. The bad news is, it isn't doing anything to reduce emissions, if that's your goal." Energy bills rise So far, the RGGI trading system has raised electricity bills in member states by an average of 43 cents per month, according to the Initiative. Allowance prices last year typically ranged between $1.87 and $1.94. In contrast, allowances sold in California's system will have a minimum price of $10. Each allowance represents 1 ton of carbon dioxide. California regulators have tried to learn from both systems. The minimum price represents one such lesson. Early in the European system, allowance prices crashed to zero after traders realized that the market had too many allowances for sale. The reason for the oversupply? European officials had relied on estimates of greenhouse gas emissions at the continent's power plants and factories - not actual measurements. California, in contrast, has required companies to measure and report their emissions for several years.
Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant was rather feisty with the media following the 13-12 loss to the Seahawks. At the conclusion of the game, Cowboys PR department informed Bryant of a tweet that began circulating the web with him yelling an obscenity at the Seahawks when receiver Ricardo Lockette went down with a concussion. Bryant wasn't pleased with the national reaction that showed him screaming at Seattle in regards to Lockette. "That didn't have anything to do with him," Bryant said, via the Dallas Morning News. "I would never in my life do that to anybody. I'm too busy trying to break it up, get our players back." Bryant continued on, voicing his anger. "That's wrong," Bryant said. "Honestly, that really pissed me off. That is not right. That is not right." Before finishing with the media, Bryant had a few more things he had to get off his chest in regards to the Lockette incident. "I won't ever, ever, ever, ever wish bad on a player who has been knocked down," Bryant said. "Come on, man. Stop with the bullshit. It's not once I said, 'Hey, that's what you get.' I got down on one knee and prayed for that man. Don't put clips together and do that." Win $500 for Tickets to Cowboys vs Eagles! Those who share their entry receive 100 more per entrant! Bryant also took to Twitter to share his frustrations with how the media depicted him. In the video, you can clearly make out the words Bryant was screaming. It was possible that Bryant was yelling in response to a confrontation with Seahawks linebacker Bruce Irvin. Bryant was then asked about his foot. This was the receiver's first game back since Week 1 when he broke the fifth metatarsal in his right foot and had surgery the following day. "I felt good," Bryant said. "I'm going to be ready for next week, too." You can watch Bryant's unhappiness with the media in the video embedded below. No. 88 had to set the record straight.
Trump administration plans economic and military offensive against Africa By Thomas Gaist 3 April 2017 The near-total silence of the Trump administration over its plans for the African continent has become something of a cliche among commenters on African politics. Indeed, the US government is maintaining military-style secrecy over its foreign political activities not only in Africa, but in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere around the globe. Despite the relative secrecy, the general outlines of Trump’s Africa policy can nevertheless be deduced from his administration’s opening moves on the continent, when these are understood as the outgrowth of the crisis of American imperialism and the worldwide militarist offensive it has waged since the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than a quarter century ago. From the outset, the selection of key leadership positions overseeing various US operations on the continent has underscored the hardline corporatist and militarist character of Trump’s agenda in Africa. Trump has chosen retired US Air Force Colonel Rudolph Atallah to serve as Africa director on the National Security Council (NSC). Attalah was previously director of the US Special Operations Command Sub-Saharan Africa Orientation Course, which prepares US soldiers and government officials for deployment to the region. Trump’s leading choices to head the State Department’s Africa Bureau include Jeff Krill, the former vice president of Kosmos Energy, a company with substantial financial interests throughout West Africa, and retired US Army intelligence officer Charles Snyder. Its initial military moves have made clear the Trump regime’s determination to intensify the neocolonial African policies of the previous four administrations, pursuing nothing less than the unconditional subordination of the continent’s economies, resources and working masses to the profit-drive of the American ruling class. During his first three months in office, Trump approved major expansions of the US Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) interventions in Somalia, Libya, Nigeria, and several other unnamed Central and West African countries. Trump reportedly favors giving US commanders in Africa wide latitude to wage war in complete secrecy, and without direct authorization from the civilian government. The White House has granted American ground forces expanded powers to call in airstrikes against large areas of Somalia, which were officially declared “areas of active hostilities” subject to “war-zone targeting rules” by the Trump White House on Thursday. The new president is casting aside the pretense, upheld by Obama, that the ever-growing US war operations in Africa are aimed at enabling mutually beneficial economic development. The shape which US-Africa business relations will take under Trump was highlighted in mid-March, when the White House declined to give exemptions from its travel ban to some 100 African business leaders seeking to enter the United States to attend the 2017 African Global Economic and Development Summit. By contrast, more than 50 African military officials will meet with leaders of AFRICOM at the US military commands headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany in April. Expressing his enthusiasm at the opportunity to cultivate collaborators among Africa’s national elite, US AFRICOM Commander General Thomas D. Waldhauser gushed: “We’re very interested in listening to our African partners, what some of their concerns are, what they would like from AFRICOM…We’re very, very excited about that.” The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country which has been the site of some of the worst crimes of imperialism against the African continent, has emerged at the center of the Trump administration’s counterrevolutionary social and economic agenda for Africa. In February, the Trump administration struck down minimal restrictions on the collaboration of American corporations with mercenaries in Congo’s war-torn eastern provinces. The leaking of the executive order on the “conflict mineral rule,” the only substantive Africa policy document to so far emerge from the White House, has the appearance of a calculated political signal. It sends an unmistakable message of “open season” to American corporations, and to their militarist collaborators on the continent. The order also signals the US government’s commitment to the violent breakup, if necessary, of Congo’s government and the all-out looting of its natural wealth. The post-Soviet history of the Congo expresses all the essential features of American foreign policy as it has developed during the past 25 years. Over the past quarter century, Washington has smashed apart the political and social order of much of the semi-colonial and colonial world, breaking up the very political order that underpinned US world rule since 1945 on behalf of short-term economic aims sought by dominant sections of US capital. In Congo, just as in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan, the US government has toppled governments and established new forms of colonial-style rule, administered by stooge governments, mercenaries, extremists and warlords, backed up by US air support, Special Forces “advisers,” and CIA paramilitaries. Congo, believed to have the most valuable natural resources deposits of any country worldwide, has borne the worst of Washington’s predations. During the 1990s, while bourgeois ideologists celebrated the “End of History,” the American state orchestrated a proxy war that led to the deaths of some 5.5 million Congolese. Militias, recruited from Uganda and Rwanda and trained by American commandos, were striking deals with American firms even prior to launching the Second Congo War in 1998. Relations became so close that one mercenary commander was loaned the private Lear jet of a US mining firm. The “rebel” mercenary forces empowered by the US proxy war have remained in direct control of the minerals ever since. Backed by Washington and the US puppet regimes in Rwanda and Uganda, they function as local rentiers, security forces and slave labor contractors on behalf of American capital. The incessant struggles between the ever-growing number of militias has devastated the civilian population. Over 70 armed groups are presently active in eastern Congo, including fighting groups affiliated with the Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces, Burundian National Liberation Forces, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the March 23 Movement and members of the Rwandan military who organized the brutal genocide in 1994. Even as the US government stokes wars and corporate plunder across the continent, fueling mass starvation and transforming millions into refugees, the White House has announced billions of dollars’ worth of cuts to famine and disease prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The Trump administration has proposed to slash the overall US aid budget by one third. Issued in the teeth of historic famine warnings, with 20 million lives threatened between Somalia, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Yemen, the cuts are an especially vicious attack against the most oppressed and vulnerable members of society. Announcing the cuts, Trump vowed to “reduce or end funding for international organizations whose missions do not substantially advance US foreign policy interests.” Any “savings” generated by these cuts will be wiped out several times over by Trump’s commitment of $54 billion in new military spending. US foreign aid cuts will fall especially hard on the Congo, whose UN mission is among the leading recipients of US foreign aid worldwide. Rather than financial considerations, the cuts are political measures, aimed at ratcheting up pressure on the government of President Joseph Kabila, under conditions where the Congo is already plunging into ever deeper chaos. Last week, protests in Kinshasa against the Kabila government led to clashes between demonstrators and state forces. Fighters with the Kamwina Nsapu militia killed and decapitated dozens of Congolese security forces in an ambush in Lulua province. UN investigators have reported discovery of 23 mass graves in eastern Congo this week. The political purposes of the foreign aid cuts are suggested by the simultaneous demands of the Trump White House for a huge reduction in the UN’s peacekeeping mission in the Congo. Amid heated rhetorical attacks against the central government by US ambassador Nikki Haley, the UN voted this week to scale down its Congo peacekeeping mission by 20 percent. Haley, who had pressed for a much larger reduction, from 19,000 to 3,000, denounced Kabila’s government in the strongest terms, as “corrupt,” and for “preying on its citizens.” “The UN is aiding a government that is inflicting predatory behavior against its own people. We should have the decency and common sense to end this,” Haley said on March 29. Congo’s government served, from 1965 to 1991, as the most important ally of Washington’s anti-Soviet campaigns in Africa. The fact that the American ruling class now demands the total humiliation of the Congo, not long ago a mainstay of the US-postwar order in Africa, is a powerful indicator of the changes that have occurred in the strategic orientation of US imperialism. In Africa and worldwide, Trump’s policies mark the decisive transformation of Washington into the most destabilizing factor in world politics. Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.
US President Barack Obama urged Congress on Saturday to immediately extend a tax cut for middle class Americans, arguing the move will give 98 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses certainty that will lead to faster economic growth. “Congress can do that right now. They can give families like yours a sense of security going into the New Year,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. The president made the comments one day after he traveled to a toy factory in Pennsylvania to press his case for a plan to stop the US economy tipping off the so-called fiscal cliff, when automatic tax hikes and across-the-board spending cuts come into force on January 1. Republicans have rejected Obama’s first offer to end the stalemate surrounding the matter as “ridiculous” and negotiations between the two sides have hit a roadblock with just a month to go, punctuated by the holiday season, until the deadline. Top Republican John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives, has warned that talks on averting a year-end tax and spending crunch, which could tip the economy back into recession, are going nowhere. The showdown is a crucial test for newly re-elected Obama in gridlocked Washington, with implications for his capacity to enact an ambitious second term agenda. Obama campaigned on raising taxes on households earning $250,000 a year or more to pay for deficit reductions and to fund education spending and other plans to boost the economy and improve life for the nation’s middle class. But congressional Republicans have opposed tax increases of any kind. In his address, the president said it was “unacceptable” for Republicans to “hold middle class tax cuts hostage” because they refuse to let tax rates go up on the wealthiest Americans. But he suggested that Congress, as a first step, do what both parties agree on and pass a bill that would keep middle class taxes low. Obama said the Senate had already passed such a measure, and that Democrats in the House were ready to do the same. “And if we can just get a few House Republicans on board, I’ll sign this bill as soon as Congress sends it my way,” the president promised. However, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said in a weekly Republican address that comprehensive tax reform and reducing the unsustainable debt were crucial to fixing the “fiscal cliff” problem. “The President has said he wants a so-called balanced approach to solve this crisis,” he said. “But what he proposed this week was a classic bait and switch on the American people — a tax increase double the size of what he campaigned on, billions of dollars in new stimulus spending and an unlimited, unchecked authority to borrow from the Chinese.”
e ][ h Rax CC > 3 Rax Stim > Reactors > Tech Strategy Information Matchups: TvP Type: Opening, Quick Tech, Macro, Bunker Heavy, Army Lite Popularized by: ForGG Overview [ edit ] Off of early Reactors (1 & 2) Terran can push @ Stimpack's completion with mass Marine for a pre-Colossus timing attack. Pushing at a timing before the Robotics Bay is complete means Protoss will have to build Stalkers and Zealots, when they should be saving for the Colossus transition, and trade Mineral-only units for gas-units like Sentries and Stalkers. From then on Terran can transition into two Starport-Vikings (with Reactors) to hit the Colossus-based death-ball before it can have a three mining base macro backing it. Goal [ edit ] Trade Marines for gas-heavy units to hurt a Colossus or High Templar fast Tech and then transition strongly into the counter for which the enemy chose. Basic Build Order finishes around the same time as Level 1 References [ edit ]
Kovács Gyula. This article uses The native form of this personal name is. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals. Gyula Kovács (4 October 1875 – ?) was a Hungarian politician, Member of Parliament, who attempted to assassinate House Speaker István Tisza on 7 June 1912. Early life and career [ edit ] Kovács was born in Felsőireg, Tolna County, today part of Iregszemcse, which established from the merger of Felsőireg and Szemcséd in 1938. He finished his secondary studies in Pécs, where joined Royal Hungarian Honvéd as a volunteer. He became a reserve Lieutenant at 44th Regiment. After that he attended Hochschule für Bodenkultur in Vienna, then he went on an economical study tour to abroad. Returning to home, he began intensive farming on his estate in Tolna County and soon became a spokesperson for local farmers. He joined National Independence Agrarian Party of '48, led by István Szabó de Nagyatád, and was elected a member of the House of Representatives for Gyoma (today Gyomaendrőd) in the 1910 parliamentary election. However, Kovács shortly left the agrarian party for the Gyula Justh-led parliamentary group of the divided Party of Independence and '48. Tisza assassination attempt [ edit ] Former Prime Minister (1903–1905) and incumbent legislative speaker (1912–1913) István Tisza supported the reform of the common Austro-Hungarian Army to enhance the military power of the dual monarchy. In contrast, Independence Party was fighting for more Hungarian interests (i.e. use of the Hungarian language of command in the army). Tisza strongly pushed against opposition obstruction. He did not allow the opposition to speak up regarding rules of House of Parliament. Referring to an act of 1848, he called for the police force to force out numerous opposition representatives, including Kovács. Tisza managed to pass the Act of Protection, resulting in the removal of some members of the opposition party on 4 June 1912. As a result, the enraged Kovács, attempted to assassinate Tisza in the Hungarian Parliament Building on 7 June 1912. He had yelled, while jumped off the journalists' gallery: "There is still a member of the opposition!", and fired three times at Tisza. His shots, however, missed and the marks are still visible in the Parliament Building to this day. With his last shot Kovács tried to kill himself, but he survived without a permanent head injury.[1] Tisza then continued the session. Later, Kovács was tried but acquitted, referring to "deeper disturbance of consciousness".[2] His subsequent fate is unknown; he emigrated to the West. According to the Hungarian Catholic Lexicon, issued in 1933, he was still alive. References [ edit ]
The Red Bull Trans-Siberian Extreme is the longest bicycle road race in the world, a grueling endurance test of 14 stages that unfurl over 5,700 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok. The distance is so great that riders pass through seven time zones. They roll over roads through forested hills, along highways clogged with trucks. They spin along pavement, cobblestone and gravel, and through meadows as vast as the eye can see. For this year’s race, eight men and two women set off from Moscow’s Red Square on July 18. They have dropped out one by one, and by Monday, there were just three remaining: Pierre Bischoff of Germany, Aleksey Shchebelin of Russia, and Marcelo Soares of Brazil. On Wednesday, these three will begin the 14th and final stage, pushing to be the first to roll up in front of the opera house in Vladivostok, a port city near the border with China, on Aug. 14.
The white LG Nexus 4 has popped up a few times thus far, but now it has found its way into the hands of AndroidAndMe. The new image looks legit to us, so it appears this device is finally going to be a reality. What's potentially much more interesting is the assertion that Android 4.3 is going to be announced along with the new color option on June 10th. The white N4 reportedly has the same vibe as past white Nexus devices with a white back and black screen surround on the front. Although only the back is visible in the pic on AndroidAndMe. Specs are expected to be unchanged. There has been talk of LTE support in the white N4, but there's no mention of that in the new leak. We can't rule it out yet, though. As for the alleged Android update, sources are now saying Google intentionally bumped the announcement from the show in order to focus on proving it could push out new software and APIs without rolling a new version of the OS. A last minute change (whatever the reason) does seem likely as there are some loose ends out there still pointing to Android 4.3. The Bluetooth Low Energy support for API level 18 being the most blatant (Android 4.2 is API 17 by the way). The new software will presumably be made available on all current Nexus devices when it's released next month. [AndroidAndMe]
“There’s nobody else in Indonesia like her, who cares this much about marginalized groups,” Shinta Ratri, the leader of the school, gushed. Since her husband’s death in 2009, Ms. Sinta, a women’s studies major who was paralyzed from the waist down after a horrific car accident in the ’90s, has carried forth the family’s campaign for a feminist and tolerant Islam. “We live among different religions, ethnicities and cultures,” she said in an interview. “It’s necessary that we stand up to extremists.” Tears have been appearing in Indonesia’s pluralist fabric in recent years, as hard-line Islamic groups that were once at the margin of national politics exert ever greater influence. Jakarta’s first Christian governor in generations, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, also known as Ahok, is facing prosecution for “insulting the Quran,” after a vigorous campaign by Muslim hard-liners to have him unseated. Ms. Sinta was one of the few leading Muslim figures who stood up for Mr. Basuki after he was charged last year, praising him in a recent television appearance as “brave enough to step forward and take a position from the dominant group.” Her activism on behalf of minorities frequently puts her in the cross hairs of the hard-liners. For the last 16 years, Ms. Sinta has made a point of touring Indonesian cities during Ramadan, holding interfaith breaking-the-fast ceremonies to promote tolerance.
PORT-AU-PRINCE — In 2010, Haiti was hit by a 7.0 earthquake which took 90,000 lives and displaced more than 1.5 million people. In 2016, during the midst of recovery, Haiti encountered Hurricane Matthew, which left 35,000 homeless. These disasters forced many to halt their daily lives to support family and friends, as well as themselves, recover. The Haitian Educational Empowerment Act of 2017 (H.R. 162) aims at helping those who have had to put their educational endeavors on hold due to these tragedies to continue working towards their academic ambitions. Sponsored by Representative Alcee L. Hastings, the Haitian Educational Empowerment Act of 2017 would institute a scholarship program for Haitian students who were pursuing a collegiate education, but whose studies were interrupted by natural disasters. The program would be established through the U.S. State Department, and would apply to Haitian students who were enrolled full-time at either a Haitian university or a university within the U.S. This act has the potential to change the lives of those impacted by the natural disasters. Students who use this scholarship program to complete their education are in turn required to return to Haiti. With their knowledge acquired from achieving a higher education, the intention is that they will be able to help their country recover, as well as boost the economy and improve livelihoods. Access to quality education is a major problem in Haiti, with the majority of the population struggling to access basic schooling. Although the government is devoted to strengthening its education, issues arise from lack of funding, challenges in teacher training, and the difficulty of natural disasters. However, with the university graduates returning to Haiti from this scholarship program, there is much more potential in improving the education crisis. The Haitian Educational Empowerment Act of 2017 was just introduced to the house and referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The act was cosponsored by five representatives. If passed, this act can change the lives of the estimated 2.1 million people affected by these natural disasters. It has the potential to impact those able to complete a higher education, and also those who are helped by the returning graduates. – Kelly Hayes Photo: Flickr
Better-quality Batman v Superman photos have arrived While scans of new Batman v Superman photos from Empire magazine surfaced yesterday, hi-res versions are now available and can be viewed in the gallery below! With the magazine now out, we’ve also learned more about when Wonder Woman and Justice League start filming. According to the cover story, director Patty Jenkins is currently in London prepping Wonder Woman for principal photography to start this fall. Wonder Woman is scheduled for a June 23, 2017 release and stars Gal Gadot and Chris Pine. Preparations are also underway for Justice League, which will start shooting in Spring 2016. Justice League Part One is scheduled for a November 10, 2017 release, while Justice League Part Two is coming on June 14, 2019. Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice stars Henry Cavill in the role of Clark Kent/Superman, and Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne/Batman. The film also stars Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, with Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne and Diane Lane returning from Man of Steel, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Holly Hunter in a role newly created for the film. Jason Momoa will also be making an appearance as Aquaman. Directed by Zack Snyder, written by Chris Terrio, from a screenplay by David S. Goyer, the film is produced by Charles Roven and Deborah Snyder with Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Wesley Coller, David S. Goyer and Geoff Johns serving as executive producers. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is set to open worldwide on March 25, 2016. On a desktop, click Full Screen for bigger images or right click to download the photos!
Here is the letter we received from Governor LePage late last week: It looks like Maine's governor doesn't understand that the lawsuit he and other extreme right-wing Republican governors filed targets specific government officials. Clearly, Governor LePage is very confused. That's why we sent him this handwritten response: If you you want to read through quickly here is the text of the governor's note to yours truly: "I am in receipt of a letter from you concerning a lawsuit against President Obama. I believe you mistake me for someone else! I do not have a lawsuit against President Obama. I did file a lawsuit against illegal immigrants taking state money against state and federal laws. The United States was founded by the rule of law." And here is our response we are mailing out today: "Thank you on behalf of 3.8 million members of CREDO Action, including 18,000+ in Maine, for your handwritten note dated July 28, 2015. Though I realize you've been very busy with a lawsuit by House Speaker Mark Eves, legislative investigations, and possible impeachment, I was still surprised to learn that you are unaware of the lawsuit you filed on December 9, 2014. I am including a copy of the suit for your reference. If your name (one of only four governors) was erroneously included on this filing I recommend contacting Texas Attorney General and current Governor Greg Abbott who organized this filing. Also please note that illegal immigrants are not listed as a defendant in the attached document, however the United States of America, whose Chief Executive at this time is President Barack Obama, is included. I look forward to further clarification of this matter Want to help in keeping up the public pressure? You too can write to Governor LePage. Here are some quick quick talking points you can use in your letter: Your lawsuit against President Obama's executive actions to keep immigrant families together is cruel and clearly politically motivated. Without a permanent solution in place, the president's actions will keep immigrant families from being ripped apart due to our broken immigration system. You must drop your frivolous lawsuit against President Obama's executive action protecting the families of Maine immigrants and millions of aspiring Americans. Once you've written your letter, it'd be great if you can tweet a picture of your note and tweet the image to @CREDOMobile or email the photo to [email protected]. We'd like to feature your letters on social media to ensure the Maine media and Governor LePage get the message loud and clear. Here's the address to send your letter: Office of the Governor 1 State House Station Augusta, ME 04333-0001 LePage and other right wing GOP governors are clearly feeling the heat. Let's keep up the pressure. - Murshed
The time is upon us again. The NY Asian Fim Festival kicks off Friday June 27th with over 60 movies this year. There are a lot of great movies playing that I just won’t have time to see. I’ve went through all the trailers and all of the information on the different movies they are showing, and I’ve picked a list of 5 movies that I really want to check out, and so should you. This is movie looks a spiritual successor to the God of Gamblers series starring Chow Yun Fat. If you haven’t seen God of Gamblers you need to. Its pretty bonkers and awesome at the same time. Hopefully this movie is just as off the wall and amazing. Based on the trailer, I’d say it is. “A semi-sequel to God of Gamblers (1989), one of the most iconic Hong Kong movies of all time, this flick is a showcase for Chow Yun-fat, the Godzilla of Hong Kong movies: a massive megastar who towers over the landscape. A charmer who oozes so much debonair that he makes Don Draper look drab, Chow is firing on all cylinders in this no-holds-barred gambling movie, directed by Wong Jing, who will do absolutely anything to entertain an audience. Nic Tse (As the Light Goes Out) and Chapman To (3D Naked Ambition, Aberdeen) are members of a family of con artists who get sucked into a plan by gambling legend Ken (Chow Yun-fat), a man whose magic touch with cards lets him “read” them with his fingertips. Ken’s plan is to fleece a criminal of millions, and in the process there will be action! Romance! Card duels! Singing! Dancing! One of the biggest hits of the year in Hong Kong, it became a word-of-mouth blockbuster in China, and it’s easy to see why. If more American movies were this eager to entertain, or this able to pull off pure entertainment, we’d all be having a lot more fun at the movies.” In 2010, Confessions was one of my favorite films of the year. It’s one of those movies that I still think back on and want to watch again and again. Confessions and The Snow Whtie Murder Case were both novels written by Kanae Minato. I’m hoping that lightning will strike twice and The Snow White Murder Case will be a movie I talk about for years to come. “Powered by a complicated Chinese puzzle box of a murder plot, The Snow White Murder Case is helmed by the director of Fish Story and Golden Slumbers, both NYAFF/Japan Cuts favorites, and it’s one of the best brain-teasers of the year. Based on a novel by best-selling author Kanae Minato (who wrote Confessions), the film dissects the odd goings-on behind the grim discovery of a burned-to-a-crisp corpse found in a national park near Tokyo. The victim is a young officer worker, Noriko Miki (played by ice-queen TV actress Nanao), whose stunning beauty was the object of much jealousy at the cosmetics company where she worked. The finger-pointing begins and suspicion soon turns to her plain-Jane co-worker Miki Shirono (Mao Inoue), who conveniently vanished after the murder, and is said to have harbored deep-seated feelings of envy toward her former trainee. As food blogger and part-time TV news journalist Akahoshi Yuji (Ayano Go) takes his private investigation to the rabid world of social media, the so-called Snow White Murder Case turns into an out-of-control witch hunt with a full-blown Twitter storm at its center. Brain-bending twists and turns take the viewer and the film toward the unknown and unsuspected, while the camera gives a cold and hard, but not humorless, look at the damage wrought by the pettiness of a passive-aggressive, totally connected society.” This movie looks like an interesting thriller. A terrorist making his demands through a radio show and actually blows stuff up? Yes please. I’m also getting a bit of a Death Note vibe from that trailer so I definitey have to check it out if I get a chance. “After rocketing to fame as an off-handed serial killer in The Chaser, a cab driver pushed to extremes in The Yellow Sea, and one of Korea’s coolest gangsters inNameless Gangster, Ha Jung-woo finally gets the one-man movie he deserves. A disgraced TV news anchor demoted to drivetime radio call-in shows, Ha is a callow opportunist in career purgatory when a man phones in, blows up a bridge, and claims to have other bombs hidden around Seoul. Unfolding in real time, set mostly in the claustrophobic radio studio, the film is a showcase for Ha, who manipulates, bullies, cajoles, cowers, lies, and unleashes righteous anger as he goes up against an unseen terrorist, trying to save lives while also trying to resurrect his career. A master class in wringing out maximum suspense from one man and a microphone.” Uzumasa Limelight is about one of those things that we tend not to think much about. The lives of the people that make the movies that we love. I mean now a days that seems to be the norm in our social media, but back in the day, we barely knew the names of the people that made this amazing sword fighting movies, and the skill that went into making them. This looks like a fun little film I need to see. Director Ken Ochiai and actress Chihiro Yamamoto will attend the screening. “A moving, nostalgic portrait of the men behind the golden age of chanbara (sword-fighting dramas and films), Uzumasa Limelight—whose title refers to a Charlie Chaplin film about the twilight days of a stage actor—goes behind the scenes of Japan’s most distinctive film genre. Its protagonist is a professional extra named Kamiyama, who has devoted 50 years of his life as a kirareyaku in sword-fighting movies produced at Kyoto’s Uzumasa Studios. His specialty? He lives to die. Or more exactly “to be cut” and die a beautiful, spectacular death on the silver screen. Kamiyama, played by real-life kirareyaku Seizo Fukumoto, whose imposing physical presence dominates the film from start to finish, has become a master of the art, with his own signature style of falling down dead. Now an elderly man, he lives in very modest circumstances, but has earned immense respect from his more prominent peers, some of them movie stars. When the studio decides to discontinue its chanbara productions, Kamiyama finds himself at a loss: what will he do for the rest of his life? How can he use his specialized skills? Hope arrives in the form a young girl named Satsuki (Chihiro Yamamoto), who soon becomes Kamiyama’s disciple. Will the art of dying by the sword live on?” If you watch that trailer and need me to explain why I have that movie on this list, I got nothing for you. This movies looks like the reason the NY Asian Film Festival exists. Actress Fumi Nikaido will attend the screening. Presented with Japan Cuts: The New York Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema. “A back-to-bloody-basics film that pay tribute to old-school yakuza cinema and low-budget amateur filmmaking, Why Don’t You Play in Hell? is based on a screenplay bad-boy director Sion Sono (a NYAFF/Japan Cuts guest in 2009) wrote 17 years ago. Devoting most of their time and frantic energy to guerrilla filmmaking antics, it seems like it might be time for the “Fuck Bombers” to move on. A group of jobless film geeks, they’re trying to turn Sasaki (Tak Sakaguchi), a young brawler, into their “new Bruce Lee,” but the Bombers are nowhere near getting their action masterpiece made. New blood and inspiration come their way when an ambush set by a yakuza clan comes to a gory end in the home of boss Muto (Jun Kunimura), and is witnessed by Mitsuko, Muto’s 10-year-old daughter and star of a toothpaste commercial. Ten years later, she’s become a sultry, mean mess of a girl (played by 2014 Screen International Rising Star Award recipient, Fumi Nikaido). Determined to make his little girl a star, her father, fresh out of jail, crosses path with the gang of wannabe filmmakers, and gives the losers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shoot their movie. To make this happen, the yakuza becomes the film production crew and the Fuck Bombers join the “real” action. Needless to say, things are about to get messy. In what Sono himself called “an action film about the love of 35mm,” you’ll definitely feel the love. And the blood.” So there you have it. My top 5 movies to check out at the festival. It was really really hard to narrow it down to just 5. There are a lot of other movies at the NYAFF this year that aren’t on the list but look really interesting. You should visit the NY Asian Film Festival website and check out all of the movies for yourself and see if there is anything else you might like.
I am a lifelong political animal and a longtime Maryland Republican. I worked on the staffs of Maryland Congresswoman Helen Bentley and Congressman/Gov. Bob Ehrlich. I also served on the GOP staff of the House Financial Services Committee. I have lived my life, proudly, as a political moderate striving to make a positive contribution in and around the political arena — not an easy feat in deep blue Maryland, where an insular Democratic establishment has dominated state politics until very recently. But I have always been GOP to the core. Growing up, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were my icons. My sense of party fealty is such that I worked on the paid GOP convention staff in Philadelphia in 2000, and again, just recently, as a professional volunteer on the speechwriting staff in Cleveland. In fact, I personally drafted the speech of the "Benghazi mom," Patricia Smith. In that speech, I concluded with the following line: "If Hillary Clinton can't give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency?" As a political speechwriter, that was something of a home run moment for me. The New Yorker called the speech "the weaponization of grief." But weeks after the end of the 2016 GOP convention, I am confronted by an inconvenient fact: Despite what I wrote in that nationally televised speech about Hillary Clinton, I may yet have to vote for her because of the epic deficiencies of my own party's nominee. President Eisenhower would have never proposed banning Muslims from America. Nor would President Nixon. Nor would President Reagan. Donald Trump has betrayed and perverted their legacies. Consequently, I no longer recognize my party. I have never voted for a Democrat for federal office, but when I hear the president criticize the GOP nominee, I can't honestly disagree with him. I have no political home — a deeply uncomfortable place for me to be. My GOP pals regard me as a renegade, and my Democratic friends don't know quite what to make of me. What is this election really about? It should be about the future — every election should be. But this election is about the misery of the moment. While I'm proud of my service to the Republican party, I am not proud of the present state of American politics. I look around me; everything just feels awful and sad. The divisions in our national discourse are great, and there is no political hero waiting to rescue us from ourselves. Instead, we're confronted by the awful spectacle of a "Mothra versus Godzilla" election. And, just like in the movies, no matters who wins, Tokyo suffers. Regardless, the reality is, I cannot vote for Donald Trump. I could never vote for Donald Trump. So instead I am confronted by two painful choices: Vote for the most divisive political figure in the past 25 years or throw away my vote on a kooky Libertarian ticket. I believe this is a citizenship election similar to others we have had in our history. This is a time to stand up and be counted — just like supporters of the civil rights movement once chose to do. The central question in 2016: Are Muslim Americans an equal and welcome member of the American constituency? For me, the answer is a clear "yes." Now, the question becomes: Can we come together and find a positive solution to the issue of illegal immigration, just like President Reagan and congressional Democrats were able to achieve? The answer to that is, "we must." To choose otherwise embraces fear, as Donald Trump has chosen to do. Fear sometimes wins you elections, but it doesn't create jobs, build schools, reduce crime or improve the quality of life for all citizens. Great political leaders help us transcend our fears. Still, the prospect of voting for Hillary Clinton is uncomfortable to me, as if Dr. Van Helsing were compelled to vote for Dracula. But the only prospect more terrifying than voting for Hillary Clinton is not voting for her. The reality of American politics today is, she is the only choice. Richard J. Cross III is a former Capitol Hill and Annapolis press secretary and speechwriter who lives in Baltimore. His e-mail address is [email protected].
SWNS / Tony Kershaw It took Lily Madigan four years to muster the courage to tell her family, her friends, and her school that she identifies as female. It took another two months for her to arrive at the school gates finally dressed in the uniform that fits with who she is. In March, Madigan, who was in the lower sixth, made her way to St Simon Stock Catholic School – a state-funded academy – in Maidstone, Kent, in the blouse that the other girls wear. What happened next was not what she expected. And so, last week, six months after that day, Madigan, 18, contacted BuzzFeed News to reveal what she encountered and what it means to hope for liberation and understanding only to find the opposite. Madigan was nervous that morning as she got ready for school, she said. Her voice is soft; she mostly speaks in short sentences. Despite the nerves, she added, “it just felt right”. And, in any case, “it was a lot easier than wearing a boy’s uniform”. She felt sure the school would accommodate her decision: “I didn’t think it would be a problem; I assumed they would know their obligations.” Facebook / Lily Madigan Shortly after entering the school premises, Mr Williams, the head of sixth form, saw Madigan. “I was pulled over for my uniform,” she said. He took her to his office. “He said my dress code was incorrect. I said I identify as female, so this is the correct dress code for me.” Boys at the school’s sixth form have to wear a shirt, tie, blazer, and trousers. Girls can wear a skirt or trousers. Williams brought in Madigan’s “pastoral manager” to discuss the situation. St Simon Stock school's website says it “prides itself on the quality of its pastoral delivery”. The conclusion of this discussion was clear: “They said I was breaking the dress code and I had to go home. At that point I was pretty panicky,” Madigan said. This anxiety began to rise; she did not feel able to respond, and anyway, she added, she doesn’t like confrontation. “I just went.” At 14, Madigan realised who she was. “It’s always something I knew subconsciously,” she said, “but when I learned the term [transgender] it just clicked.” She eventually told her mother, over dinner, and then in January this year she told her friends at school. The reaction was really positive, she said. “They thought I was really brave for coming out, for being who I am.” The school’s reaction to her new uniform, therefore, shocked Madigan. “It made me feel that something was wrong with me. You think maybe you’re the problem. It’s alienating. You think school is supposed to be there for you and when that happens it breaks your trust.” Madigan didn’t go straight home – she was worried she would be in trouble with her mother, so she left the school grounds and wandered round the shops, stalling for time until the inevitable conversations had to happen. By the time she returned home, the school had already phoned her mother to invite them both in for a meeting the following day. “I was being treated like I’d done something wrong,” she said. Clear what was expected of her, Madigan arrived at school the following day – with her mother – wearing the boys’ uniform. It was like going backwards, she said. Lily Madigan Wearing the boys’ uniform had always been difficult for Madigan. “It’s horrible, like they’re trying to make you someone you’re not. It put me in a bad mood all day.” She had often felt depressed before then, she said, describing how it affects her: low mood, no energy, losing interest in things she likes. At the meeting, Madigan protested, telling the assembled adults that they had duties under the Equality Act 2010, which protects people from discrimination. It didn’t work. “They told me I wasn’t correct and had to wear the male dress code,” she said, “and things weren’t going to change and if I didn’t like it maybe it was best if I went somewhere else.” The meeting shook her up – the prospect of having to join another school and come out again was too much. “I didn’t think I’d be able to go somewhere else. That was scary. I felt like they had given me an ultimatum.” Defeated, Madigan returned to school the next day – and in the following weeks – in the boys’ uniform. “It made me go deeper into depression,” she said. “I was taking a lot of time off school. Just had really low mood.” Only then was Madigan diagnosed with depression. But she refused to give up. She had an idea: to start a petition calling on the school to relent and allow trans pupils to wear the dress code and use the bathrooms that fit their gender identity. Over 200 people signed it, mostly fellow pupils – the encouragement from whom was incredible, she said, but not surprising: “I knew they were supportive.” They were already calling her Lily. But again her efforts failed. kentonline Madigan decided to try something else. In the summer holidays, in between the lower and upper sixth (she is a year older than her classmates because she was self-taught for a year), Madigan emailed the principal, Brendan Wall, not only pleading her case but also informing him that she had changed her name by deed poll. She therefore asked that the school records be changed and teachers use her chosen name: Lily. To have her friends and classmates call her by this had meant a lot. “I was more grateful they called me Lily than I was sad that they [the teachers] called me Liam,” she said. But yet again, it didn't work. “He said he still wasn’t going to change anything,” she said – not only the use of her correct name, or the dress code policy to accommodate gender identity, but also the school records. And that was when she phoned a lawyer. Madigan looked on Google for appropriate solicitors, and rang up the firm Leigh Day, based in London, which specialises in equality issues. “They said it was a pretty clear case of them [the school] discriminating against me and they’d like to take the case.” The firm agreed to work pro bono. For a pupil to instruct a lawyer might seem extraordinary, especially in Britain, but for Madigan there was no other option. “I felt like it was just me fighting my side," she said. "It seemed like the logical thing to do at that point.” She and the solicitor set about planning their next move. “We sent him [the principal] a letter saying the things he had to change, otherwise we would go to court,” said Madigan. These included using her correct name, using the correct pronouns, allowing her access to the female facilities, allowing her to wear the female uniform, and introducing training for teachers about transgender issues. By then it was August – exam results season. Facebook / Lily Madigan The letter also “pointed out the laws the school was breaking – the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act – and it pointed out the school was breaking its own policy on diversity and equality”. The school’s diversity and equality policy promises to “promote equality and tackle any form of discrimination”; “provide positive non-stereotyping information about different groups of people regardless of gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion or age”; and to “respond to students’ diverse needs”. Guidance from the Department for Education on interpreting the Equality Act advises that it is “unlawful for schools to treat pupils less favourably because of their gender reassignment” and that this includes “anyone who is undergoing, has undergone, or is proposing to undergo a process” of gender transition. Two weeks later they got a response from the principal. He accepted all their points, she said. It also contained an apology. When BuzzFeed News contacted Brendan Wall to invite him to comment on a detailed account of Madigan’s version of events, he stated that, “The school has tried to work with and support Lily within a Catholic school community that prides itself on its inclusive policies and practice.” St. Simon Stock Catholic School He also forwarded the apology he had sent to Madigan: “I would like to offer an apology for any hurt to you which has been caused by individuals or the School in respect of this situation. It was never anyone’s intention to cause hurt; on the contrary, St Simon Stock staff, and the pastoral team in particular, have always wanted to support you on this important journey that you are undertaking and remain committed to help you succeed in your education and be happy.” After months of fighting, Madigan had won. “I was proud,” she said. “I was happy in one sense but…I wish it didn’t have to happen.” Shortly after, Lily Madigan returned to embark on her final year of school. She wears what feels comfortable; the teachers call her Lily and they use – mostly – the correct pronoun. The other students were amazed at what had happened, she said, and told her how much she had accomplished. Her attendance and her work has improved, she said – and her depression has, too. SWNS / Tony Kershaw
HYDERABAD: The state government on Tuesday said it would soon issue an order to regulate school fees from this academic year in all private schools , including CBSE ICSE and IB. The order would be based on recommendations of school fee regulatory panel after it gives its report on May 29.In a meeting at the school education department on Tuesday, the Tirupathi Rao-headed regulatory panel told all stakeholders that it has recommended to the state government that fees be increased only once in three years.Rao said at a media briefing, “We have also suggested that the government estab lish district fee regulatory committees (DFRC) and regulate it from academic year 2017-18,“ adding that a retired district judge or a retired state government officer of secretary rank would head the DFRC.According to Ramanjaneyulu, joint secretary in the law department and member of the committee, the new GO would be notified under the 1983 Capitation Fee Act and that all flaws pointed out in earlier HC and SC judgments would be corrected.In case of violation, school managements would be punishable as specified in the Act.The committee has given ti me till May 25 to all stakeholders to submit their final comments and the report would then be submitted to the government on May 29. The members representing school managements sought two weeks additional time from the committee, which education department sources said was not possible. Members of the Hyderabad School Parents Association (HSPA) said that they were happy with the recommendations. “We hope that the government notifies the GO without any delay and sets up the fee regulatory committees,“ the HSPA said in a press statement.
Paris Hilton I'm Suing the 'Plane Crash' Pranksters Paris Hilton -- I'm Suing the 'Plane Crash' Pranksters EXCLUSIVE Paris Hilton is telling business associates ... she will sue the people responsible for putting her on a plane that appeared to be in crash mode ... just to get a rise out of her. We're told Paris is furious over the stunt ... in which a TV crew got the pilot to pretend to shut down the engines in her plane, and then nose-dive to the ground. Paris says she was in mortal fear for her life ... something the video pretty clearly shows. Our sources say she's "totally freaked out" over flying anywhere ... something she's required to constantly do. She's already called her lawyers to find out who's responsible, and they told her she has a solid case for emotional distress. Paris tells them she had absolutely no clue this was a prank ... she wasn't in on it. She also doesn't believe anyone in her camp was involved. An Egyptian TV show host engineered the prank as they flew over Dubai. And Paris says ... it was a lot worse than it looked on video. She says the plane almost hit the water during the dive and then steeply pulled out of the dive, almost doing a loop as it ascended.
The Gambler is the sixth studio album by Kenny Rogers, released by United Artists in December 1978. One of his most popular, it has established Rogers' status as one of the most successful artists of the 1970s and 1980s. The album reached many markets around the world, such as the Far East and Jamaica, with Rogers later commenting "When I go to Korea or Hong Kong people say 'Ah, the gambler!'" (as per the sleeve notes to the 1998 released box set "Through the Years" on Capitol Records). The album has sold over 35 million copies.[1][2] Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating Allmusic link The title track "The Gambler" was written by Don Schlitz, who was the first to record it. It was also covered by several other artists, but it was Kenny Rogers' adaptation of the tale that went on to top the country charts and win a Song of the Year Grammy, later becoming Rogers' signature song. Although Johnny Cash recorded the song first, Kenny Rogers's version was released first. Both this song and "She Believes in Me" became pop music hits, helping Rogers become well-known beyond country music circles. Although largely compiled from songs by some of the music business's top songwriters, such as Alex Harvey, Mickey Newbury, and Steve Gibb, Rogers continued to show his own talent for songwriting with "Morgana Jones". The album was produced by Larry Butler. Its popularity has led to many releases over the years. After United Artists was absorbed into EMI/Capitol in 1980, "The Gambler" was reissued on vinyl and cassette on the Liberty Records label. Several years later, Liberty issued an abridged version of the album, removing the track "Morgana Jones". EMI Manhattan Records released "The Gambler" on CD in the 1980s.[3] An 'Original Master Recording' from Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs was released on vinyl (audiophile edition vinyl).[4] Finally, "The Gambler" was released on Rogers' own Dreamcatcher Records in 2001 as part of the Kenny Rogers "Original Masters Series." In Britain, both the title cut and the album did very well in the country market, but both failed to reach the top 40 of the pop charts. In the 1980s the single of "The Gambler" was re-issued and made the top 100 sales list, but again charted outside the top 40. It wasn't until the song was re-issued in 2007 when the song was adopted by the England Rugby Team at the Rugby World Cup that it charted at its #22 peak. Additionally, "I Wish That I Could Hurt That Way Again" was later a single in 1986 for T. Graham Brown, whose version went to #3 on the country charts.
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - The journalist who first published secrets leaked by fugitive former U.S. intelligence agency contractor Edward Snowden vowed on Monday to publish more documents and said Britain will “regret” detaining his partner for nine hours. U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald (L) walks with his partner David Miranda in Rio de Janeiro's International Airport August 19, 2013. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes British authorities used anti-terrorism laws on Sunday to detain David Miranda, partner of U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, as he passed through London’s Heathrow airport. Miranda, 28, a Brazilian citizen, said he was questioned for nine hours before being released without charge, minus his laptop, cellphone and memory sticks, which were seized. Greenwald, a columnist for Britain’s Guardian newspaper who is based in Brazil, said the detention was an attempt to intimidate him and stop him from publishing more secrets leaked by Snowden on U.S. surveillance of global internet communications. Snowden, who has been granted asylum by Russia, gave Greenwald from 15,000 to 20,000 documents with details of the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Asked by a reporter if the detention of his partner would deter him from future reporting, Greenwald said the opposite would happen. “I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I am going to publish things on England, too. I have many documents on England’s spy system. I think they will be sorry for what they did,” Greenwald, speaking in Portuguese, told reporters at Rio de Janeiro’s airport where he met Miranda upon his return to Brazil. Greenwald said in a subsequent email to Reuters that the Portuguese word “arrepender” should have been translated as “come to regret” not “be sorry for.” “I was asked what the outcome would be for the UK, and I said they’d come to regret this because of the world reaction, how it made them look, and how it will embolden me - not that I would start publishing documents as punishment or revenge that I wouldn’t otherwise have published,” he said in the email. Miranda told reporters that six British agents questioned him about all aspects of his life during his detention in a room at Heathrow airport. Brazil complained about the “unjustified” detention of Miranda under a British law used for suspects of terrorism. Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota called his British counterpart, William Hague, on Monday to express his concern. They agreed their governments would remain in contact over the incident, Britain’s ambassador in Brasilia, Alex Ellis, said in a statement. Many Brazilians are still upset with Britain’s anti-terrorism policies because of the death of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistaken for a suspect in a bombing attempt in 2005. Menezes was shot seven times in the head by police on board an underground train at a London station. Greenwald met with Snowden in June in Hong Kong, from where he published the first of many reports that rattled the U.S. intelligence community by disclosing the extent of surveillance by the NSA on telephone and internet communications. Snowden faces criminal charges in the United States after leaking documents disclosing the previously secret U.S. internet and telephone surveillance programs. Russia rejected American pleas to send Snowden back to the United States for trial, instead granting him a year’s asylum on August 1. The White House said on Monday that U.S. officials did not ask the British government to question Greenwald’s partner, though British authorities did give their U.S. counterparts a “heads up” before detaining Miranda. Brazil, whose president, Dilma Rousseff, is scheduled to make a state visit to Washington in October, declined to consider an asylum request from Snowden. But some politicians angered by the disclosure of NSA surveillance of internet communications of Brazilians proposed granting him asylum in Brazil.
Minutes before Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Patna to address a rally in north Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district on July 25, a volley of questions was fired at him from chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Twitter handle. Ruffled by the ploy, Modi began his speech by criticising the tweets, walking into a trap devised by the chief minister’s principal election strategist. Meet 38-year-old Prashant Kishor, the man who designed Modi’s high-tech and highly successful campaign for last year’s parliamentary polls but crossed over to Nitish Kumar and set up an election offensive that captured Bihar’s imagination. “Having worked closely with him during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, we knew the PM’s mind. The battle is half won, if one can rattle him,” Kishor told HT during the Bihar election. “He walked into our trap. Instead of saying what he wanted to, he started his speech by replying to our tweets.” Kishor flooded roads leading to the PM’s rally venue in Muzaffarpur with Nitish Kumar’s posters. His tactics forced BJP chief Amit Shah to camp in Gaya district for a couple of days ahead of an August 9 Modi rally to ensure Kishor did not play any mischief. Unlike the Lok Sabha campaign, Modi could not dictate the campaign discourse. Every time he would address a rally, Nitish would counter his claims with facts that emerged in research done by Kishor’s war room in a building near Patna’s Gandhi Maidan. “Our purpose was limited: do not allow a Modi hype to build,” said Kishor, a former UN health officer. People close to him have told HT that Kishor does not care much for ideology or parties. He prefers leaders who ‘deliver’ and strongly feels Indian elections will continue to turn more presidential. “People think of parties as too vague and amorphous. They want accountability. And can hold leaders for promises they have made,” said a source. And so he began working to turn the Bihar election into a presidential contest. Brand Nitish was reinforced. He coined catchy slogans like “Bihar me bahaar ho, Nitish Kumar ho”. When the Prime Minister announced a financial package for the state, hundreds of JD(U) posters came up across Bihar, urging people to not fall for the “eyewash” and ensure Nitish’s victory. Kishor’s team distributed 30 cycles to dedicated workers in every assembly constituency, each of them covering 50 houses every day. Over the next ten days, these cyclists went to 15,000 houses in every constituency, handing personal letters from Kumar and playing out his speech on mobile phones. The Ghar Ghar Dastak outreach campaign and sending DNA samples to the Prime Minister’s Office were aimed at stoking Bihari pride. When Lalu and Nitish were planning joint rallies, Kishor prevailed upon them to shun the idea. The leaders agreed and campaigned separately, covering 18-20 smaller public meetings every day each with a turnout of 5,000-plus people. When the poll results were announced on Sunday, apart from a surge in the clout of Nitish and Lalu, Kishor too surfaced as a bigger brand. The man with the Midas touch had once again shaped the outcome of an important Indian election through his master strokes, meticulous planning and implementation. International assignments have also started pouring in. In Tanzania, where elections just got over, the Kishor-founded Indian People’s Action Committee (IPAC) provided consultancy services to the wining Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) Party. “The world noticed the skills of this man who devised the key facets of Modi’s Lok Sabha campaign,” said one of his colleagues. The Grand Alliance win cements his position further in the sector.” (With inputs from HTC in Delhi) Read Bihar results: Congress, RJD gain big as Nitish trumps Modi’s BJP In Bihar poll battle, a wounding for BJP and salutary lessons First Published: Nov 08, 2015 20:45 IST
Holy crap, how did I miss this yesterday?!? http://www.politico.com/... Emboldened by a private primary poll commissioned by EMILY’s List, Schwartz has hired Obama campaign veteran Reesa Kossoff as communications director for her political operation and plans to open a state-level campaign account early next month, a source close to the five-term congresswoman said. The EMILY’s List survey, conducted by veteran pollsters Jefrey Pollock and Joe Hickerson, tested Schwartz in a three-way primary against state Treasurer Rob McCord and former Rendell administration official Tom Wolf, in a nine-way contest headlined by 2010 Democratic Senate nominee Joe Sestak, and in an eight-way field that does not include Sestak. In the latter survey, Schwartz led Sestak 18 percent to 15 percent with all other candidates finishing in single digits, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO that includes top-line results but not all of the data collected. - Politic, 3/28/13 Here's the poll they're referring to: http://www.scribd.com/... A few months ago, Schwartz hired Aubrey Montgomery, the juggernaut finance director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. Schwartz now has a strong new member on her team in Reesa Kossoff as her new communications director. Kossoff ran regional press in Ohio for the Obama campaign, where she pushed the president’s bailout of the auto industry. Schwartz's candidacy has me excited because she has been hitting Corbett hard on the economy, mandatory ultra-sounds and Corbett's refusal to expand Medicaid in the state of Pennsylvania as part of the Affordable Health Care Act. Corbett's lowest approval ratings are with female voters and Schwartz has been proven by the Democratic Governors Association, EMILY's List and PPP to be a strong candidate who beats Corbett from 5 to 11 points. Schwartz could very well be the first female Governor of Pennsylvania and make Corbett the first incumbent to lose re-election since 1968. Now, there are other big names like Treasurer Rob McCord and 2010 Senate candidate, Joe Sestak (D), who are also looking at the race but Schwartz has a big cash advantage. However, Sestak's op-ed piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette bashing Tea Party Senator Pat Toomey's (R. PA) remarks about welfare programs to me sounds like he wants revenge against the man who very narrowly beat him in 2010: http://www.post-gazette.com/... Yet from 1979 to 2007, the top 1 percent of households received a 300 percent increase in government benefits; those of the poorest 20 percent decreased by a quarter. It is doubtful that the wealthy were less incentivized to work because of their three-fold increase in governmental assistance; why are less fortunate Americans viewed differently? Leaders must address our debt and must reduce spending to make our future fiscally sustainable. But what we need is pragmatic discussion grounded on facts, not stereotyped characterizations of what drives different sets of Americans. - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 3/26/13 "We all want to have a safety net that works for the people who need us, but we've had a huge proliferation of these programs, we've had huge expansions in eligibility for these programs. "We've had huge increases in funding for these programs, and the net effect now is that there are people who discover that the government will provide food, shelter, health care, education, transportation, cash, a very long list of all the things you need, as long as you don't work very much, you don't make very much," Toomey said. "It creates a huge economic disincentive." The comments come months after the GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, saw his campaign derailed by his own taped words about the "47 percent" of Americans "who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it." Toomey, a leading voice among fiscal conservatives, acknowledged that he was treading on a politically sensitive topic, one he said was prone to distortion. But he said government aid had grown so generous that beneficiaries have to increase their income "enormously to offset what you're going to lose in these benefits." - Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/6/13 Here's what Toomey said earlier this month:Schwartz is legally allowed to transfer her $3 million of campaign funds as DCCC finance chairwoman to her campaign for Governor. Pennsylvania Democrats are hoping to avoid a crowded and expensive primary because they are going to need all the resources they can get to beat Corbett. Schwartz is socially liberal, a strong supporter of gay rights, gun control, the environment and abortion rights. She is also fiscally moderate and has a great ranking from the AFL-CIO. You can read about Schwartz here: http://www.dailykos.com/... Schwartz's connections the DCCC could help us pick up some seats in gerrymandered Pennsylvania and could help us win back some seats in the State Senate. I am very excited about this race and I hope we can avoid a nasty primary because Corbett is probably the worst Governor in Pennsylvania history and is a puppet for the Koch Brothers. Last year we made history by electing Kathleen Kane, the first Democrat and woman to the Pennsylvania Attorney General position and I want us to make history next year by electing Schwartz the first female Governor of the Keystone State. I'll have more on this race as more news develop.
A federal judge on Monday rejected an attempt by two Colorado electors to unbind their votes in the Electoral College, saying the effort designed to impede Donald Trump’s path to the White House is “a political stunt.” U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel denied a request for a preliminary injunction to nullify a state law that requires presidential electors to vote for the winner of the state’s popular vote. To do otherwise, Daniel said in his ruling from the bench, “would undermine the electoral process.” The president-elect and the Trump campaign intervened in the lawsuit to “defend the integrity of the electoral process” and applauded the ruling. “Your vote should count when you vote for president,” said Chris Murray, a Denver attorney representing Trump and the campaign. Two Democratic electors who pledged to support Democrat Hillary Clinton — the winner of Colorado’s nine electoral votes — argued the law is unconstitutional. Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich wanted to break their vow as part of a far-fetched effort to trade their votes for an alternative candidate and keep Trump from receiving his 306 electoral votes. Clinton won 232. The “Hamilton Electors” movement is trying to convince Republican electors supporting Trump to defect — and force the question to the U.S. House of Representatives. Even with the setback, an attorney for the electors said they remain undeterred and plan to vote for a candidate other than Clinton when the state’s Electoral College members meet at noon Monday. A third Democratic elector in Colorado, Micheal Baca, who is helping lead the broader effort, said after the court decision that he would do the same. The electors are deciding to “put their country above their party at this critical moment in history,” he said outside the federal courthouse in Denver. Micheal Baca is one of 10 electors across the nation who requested on Monday a national intelligence briefing on Trump’s ties to Russia before the Electoral College meets. Secretary of State Wayne Williams said he will replace electors who shift their allegiances and suggested they may face criminal charges. As public officers, the electors could face a misdemeanor criminal charge for failing to meet their public duty, which carries the potential for a $1,000 fine and up to one year in jail. Williams filed a separate legal action in state court to seek guidance on how to replace so-called “faithless electors,” given the unprecedented situation and ambiguities in Colorado law. A Denver judge is scheduled to hear arguments in the case Tuesday. The lawsuit to declare the state law unconstitutional remains pending in federal court, but the judge suggested no decision would come before the Electoral College meets. Jason Wesoky, an attorney for the two electors seeking to overturn the law, said he is still deciding whether to seek an emergency appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an injunction. But he maintained the lawsuit would move forward. Reacting to suggestions that his case is unprecedented, Wesoky said “just because the emergency brake has not been pulled, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be used.” In a more than two-hour court hearing, Wesoky argued that the U.S. Constitution states that his clients “cannot be coerced or influenced in any manner. … They must be allowed to exercise their free will.” At frequent intervals, the judge interrupted Wesoky to dispute his arguments. “Part of me thinks this is really a political stunt to prevent Mr. Trump from being president,” said Daniel, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton. Grant Sullivan, an assistant solicitor general representing Williams, Gov. John Hickenlooper and state Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, argued that the lawsuit relies on “an antiquated historical understanding of how the Electoral College worked in the 1800s.” The judicial precedents on the limited role of the electors, Sullivan added, “puts to bed that there’s a constitutional right that’s been hidden for 200 years.” Jerad Sutton, a Democratic elector not involved in the case, sat in the audience at the court hearing. “I think the will of Colorado is to not have Donald Trump in the White House, and that’s what we are trying to do here,” he said outside the courtroom. But, he acknowledged, he plans to keep his pledge and vote for Clinton.
Intel revealed the very first hint at its post-"Ice Lake"/"Tiger Lake" processor lineup, which will likely be built on the company's 7 nanometer silicon fab process. Its 12th generation Core processor will be built on the new "Sapphire Rapids" silicon, which will be a major micro-architecture change, and could put 8-core into more hands. The processor, along with its companion chipset, will make up the "Tinsley" platform, which is expected to hit the market in 2020.Following its 8th generation Core "Coffee Lake" lineup, Intel could built 2-3 micro-architectures on its new 10 nm process, namely "Cannon Lake," "Ice Lake," and "Tiger Lake," which could be released over the next three years. "Sapphire Rapids" could be launched on the process that succeeds 10 nm, likely 7 nm, with a launch timeline likely around 2020.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership would usher in an uncomfortable level of globalism and authoritarianism, Powell writes. (Photo: Chris Kleponis / Getty Images) Most people rightly assume that reducing trade barriers is good in and of itself. But it’s a mistake to think that the Trans-Pacific Partnership, involving 11 countries plus the U.S., is primarily a free trade pact. It’s also a misstep to grant the Obama administration fast-track authority and the attendant secrecy on all details of this trade pact. The experience with the Affordable Care Act, the executive order on immigration, and the ongoing nuclear agreement negotiations with Iran remind us that the devil in the details of an already-passed proposal can be harmful and problematic to correct. TPP has beneficial objectives such as opening Japan’s highly restricted agricultural markets to more imports from the U.S. But, as details of the trade pact get leaked, it is becoming apparent that trade liberalization may be a small part of TPP. Much of the agreement’s language appears to be devoted to establishing global authoritarian decision-making on environmental, energy, labor, immigration and even intellectual property policy. As for trade policy, TPP would give multinational corporations new powers that would circumvent American sovereignty and transfer the negotiation and implementation into the hands of stateless and faceless regulators and bureaucrats and away from congressional representatives and state legislators. Trade policy would then become more remote and opaque, with new legal impediments blocking American prerogatives in regulating and controlling U.S. markets. President Barack Obama’s executive orders have already stripped Congress from much of its authority over immigration, carbon emissions and the environment. Why help Obama further extend the transfer of power to supranational bodies and expand the Obama doctrine — the tenets of which include the downsizing of America, leading from behind and engaging the world through international rather than American institutions? Indeed it may be that Obama is pushing TPP under the guise of bipartisan trade expansion while being more intent on advancing the next steps of his very partisan political agenda. For instance, leaked parts of TPP show that the agreement enables multinational corporations to end-run U.S. laws that protect IP rich and venture capital-backed companies. The agreement facilitates the implementation of environmental regulations — such as those dealing with so-called climate change — that would trump those established by U.S. lawmakers. TPP may also establish a regime with the power to override Congressional actions imposing restrictions on the “free flow of labor” between the U.S. and Mexico. Make no mistake; the longstanding goal of globalists is international rule by bureaucrats unencumbered by fickle and changing democratic rule by sovereign states. No doubt some multinational corporate titans embrace TPP because of their success with regulatory capture, finding bureaucrats relatively easy to control — helped by the revolving door between regulatory bodies and the corporations they regulate. In the past under previous presidents, fast-track trade negotiations and agreements might have made sense, particularly when a multitude of tariffs existed before the establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995. But in the last two decades tariffs have been greatly reduced, leaving trade deals to focus more on global politics and power than on economic dysfunction. President Obama has already largely overturned the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances and dissipated much of America’s former power and prestige. Why the Republican-controlled Senate recently passed the fast-track provision to advance Obama’s secretive trade pact is an enigma. But now House members need to get out from under the illusion that TPP is primarily about expanding free trade. Above all, it’s time to reject the Obama doctrine. Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1M9rbyE
Google Cardboard, which was announced as a bit of a sideshow at this year's Google I/O and quickly brushed off as a gimmick, turns out to be pretty cool: it converts many Android phones into fully functional VR headsets with basically a few dollars' worth of materials. If you're enterprising enough, you can even make the Cardboard kit yourself — Google offers instructions on how to do it. It's no Oculus Rift, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper and more accessible. Now, Volvo might be the first company to turn Cardboard into a serious marketing tool: it's sending out Volvo-branded Cardboards to drum up hype for the upcoming launch of its redesigned XC90 SUV. The paper goggles are paired with an Android app (there's an iOS version coming soon) that takes you in and around the XC90's cockpit on a leisurely drive, accompanied to music. The experience is divided into multiple "episodes," so you can see what it's like owning a Swedish truck in different environments and at different times of day — only one episode is available at launch, with more to come. The Cardboard unit itself appears to be identical to the plain brown one Google offered at I/O, just dyed black and covered in Volvo branding. We had a chance to play with "Volvo Reality" today, and it's definitely cool: you can look a full 360 degrees around from the driver's seat of the vehicle, and I was a little surprised by how immersed I felt. It falls short on resolution, and you're not going to make a buying decision on this alone — the whole experience is pretty fuzzy, grainy, and inaccurate — but as a pure marketing tool simply to get the XC90 in peoples' minds, it's clever. Several people who tried it in our office found that it wasn't tracking very well, but it's probably as much the fault of the Nexus 5 we were using as the host smartphone as the Volvo app itself. The app and Cardboard are both free; you'll be able to request a Cardboard through the app starting on November 18th, though Volvo notes that supplies are limited. Once you have it, you'll be able to use it for any app that's Cardboard-enabled — not just Volvo Reality — though you'll be stuck with the Volvo branding, of course.
The Kepler Space Telescope announced a new bonanza of distant planets this month, reconfirming that solar systems, some possibly hosting life, are common in the universe. So if humanity someday arrives at an extraterrestrial cocktail party, will we be ready to mingle? At the Wild Dolphin Project in Jupiter, Florida, researchers train for contact by trying to talk with dolphins. Behavioral biologist Denise Herzing started studying free-ranging spotted dolphins in the Bahamas more than two decades ago. Over the years, she noticed some dolphins seeking human company, seemingly out of curiosity. “We thought, 'This is fascinating, let's see if we can take it further,'” Herzing said. “Many studies communicate with dolphins, especially in captivity, using fish as a reward. But it's rare to ask dolphins to communicate with us.” Dolphins have large, sophisticated brains, elaborately developed in the areas linked to higher-order thinking. They have a complex social structure, form alliances, share duties and display personalities. Put a mirror in their tank and they can recognize themselves, indicating a sense of self. When trained, they have a remarkable capacity to pick up language. At the Dolphin Institute in Hawaii, Louis Herman and his team taught dolphins hundreds of words using gestures and symbols. Dolphins, they found, could understand the difference between statements and questions, concepts like “none” or “absent,” and that changing word order changes the meaning of a sentence. Essentially, they get syntax. __Easier Language Through Math__Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, also studies animal communication in preparation for extraterrestrial contact. Doyle uses information theory – a branch of math that analyzes the structure and relationships of information – to analyze radio signals, hoping to better detect intelligence in space. “Information theory is an example of an intelligence filter we can use to sift the signals we get from space,” Doyle said. “Otherwise, we might miss them.” Using information theory it's possible to separate binary code from random 0s and 1s, for examples. By analyzing dolphin sounds, it's possible to know that adults send information when they whistle, but not babies. Like human babies, they just babble until they've learned language. Information theory also shows that humpback whales have rules of grammar and syntax. “At SETI meetings we always ask 'Are we alone?'” Doyle said. “No, we're not alone. There are many animals communicating right here that we don't understand.” Doyle is interested in applying information theory to bees. Social bees are capable of complex group decisions, it seems, but their intelligence is a product of the hive. He also plans to study the communication between trees, because they share information about pests and threats via chemicals. “Who knows? Brains might not be necessary,” Doyle said. Some tantalizing studies even suggest dolphins share their own language (see sidebar, "Easier Language Through Math"). All are qualities we'd hope to see in an alien, and no daydream of contact is complete without some attempt at communication. Yet with dolphins, our attempts have involved teaching them to speak our language, rather than meeting in the middle. Herzing created an open-ended framework for communication, using sounds, symbols and props to interact with the dolphins. The goal was to create a shared, primitive language that would allow dolphins and humans to ask for props, such as balls or scarves. Divers demonstrated the system by pressing keys on a large submerged keyboard. Other humans would throw them the corresponding prop. In addition to being labeled with a symbol, each key was paired with a whistle that dolphins could mimic. A dolphin could ask for a toy either by pushing the key with her nose, or whistling. Herzing's study is the first of its kind. No one has tried to establish two-way communication in the wild. “This is an authentic way to approach this, she's not imposing herself on them,” said Lori Marino, the Emory University biologist who, with Hunter College psychologist Diana Reiss, pioneered dolphin self-recognition studies. “She's cultivated a relationship with these dolphins over a very long time and it's entirely on their terms. I think this is the future of working with dolphins.” For each session, the researchers played with the dolphins for about half-an-hour, for a total of roughly 40 hours over the course of three years. They reported their findings of this pilot study in the December issue of Acta Astronautica. Herzing's team found that six dolphins, all young females, were interested in the game, and would come to play when the game was on. Young males were typically less social and less interested in humans. “This is when the females have a lot of play time,” Herzing said, “before they are busy being mothers.” To Herzing's surprise, some of her spotted dolphins recruited bottlenose dolphins, another species, to the game. This shows their natural curiosity, Herzing said. In the wild, dolphins communicate across cetacean species lines, coordinating hunting with other dolphins and even sharing babysitting duties. Herzing found the study sessions were most successful when, before playing, the humans and dolphins swam together slowly and in synchrony, mimicked each other and made eye contact. These are signs of good etiquette among dolphins. Humans also signal their interest in someone with eye contact and similar body language. Perhaps these are universal – and extraterrestrial – signs of good manners. Before we hope to understand extraterrestrials, then, perhaps we should practice with smart animals right here on Earth. Astronomer Laurance Doyle of the SETI Institute was struck by this thought at a recent conference. “From the way the presenter was speaking, I thought he was going to announce that he had found a signal of extraterrestrial intelligence,” Doyle said. “We've been waiting for this for years, but I thought, 'We're not ready!' We can't even speak to the intelligent animals on Earth.” Image: Two Atlantic spotted dolphins in the wild. (Ricardo Liberato) See Also: Citations: “SETI meets a social intelligence: Dolphins as a model for real-time interaction and communication with a sentient species.” By Denise L. Herzing. Acta Astronautica, Vol. 67 December 2010. “Information theory, animal communication, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.” By Laurance R. Doyle, Brenda McCowan, Simon Johnston and Sean F. Hanser. Acta Astronautica, Vol. 68, February-March 2011.
Rome is facing a "guano alarm" as millions of starlings leave the city covered in a thick layer of droppings, Italian media report. Some four million starlings annually overwinter in the capital, but this year spending cuts have derailed efforts to discourage the birds from settling in central areas. In previous years, anti-starling measures have included pruning plane trees and broadcasting amplified cries of birds of prey through loudspeakers. But such efforts have not been put into action in 2013, so the birds have deposited a thick layer of droppings on streets, vehicles and buildings, reports La Stampa. The tree-lined Lungotevere, the boulevard running along the river Tiber, is particularly badly affected. Sections of it are thick with droppings, creating slip hazards for pedestrians, cyclists and motorbike riders alike. Photos published by Corriere della Sera show vehicles blanketed with guano. Pedestrians arm themselves with umbrellas or run for cover. The situation is so bad that some residents bang on pots and pans in the streets and squares to scare the birds away, just as people used to do in years gone by. Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.
House Speaker Paul Ryan delivers remarks in connection with Obamacare repeal legislation the U.S. Capitol on Jan 7. Efforts to undo President Barack Obama's signature health care law are expected to be renewed under President-elect Donald Trump, but Democrats worry such moves will set back progress on mental health reform Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Democratic supporters of a medical innovation bill headed to President Barack Obama's desk say they fear its mental health provisions will be outweighed if Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump are successful at repealing Obama's signature health care law. Though members of both parties overwhelmingly came together this week to pass the 21st Century Cures Act, a bill that includes provisions to make it easier for patients to access mental health treatment, they also made it apparent their consensus will end when it comes to the Affordable Care Act. In recent weeks, lawmakers have highlighted Obamacare's contributions to the mental health arena, including that it's given millions of previously uninsured, low-income people access to coverage through Medicaid and has required insurance plans to cover mental health and addiction treatment. The law also expanded upon previous parity regulations mandating comparable mental health and physical health coverage. The Cures Act given final approval in Congress on Wednesday provides for a new agency position called the assistant secretary for mental health and substance use and directs government health agencies to better define privacy laws so family members can help loved ones receive care. It also expands a grant program for assisted outpatient treatment, or court-ordered care for people with serious mental illness who otherwise might not seek help. On the House floor last week, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat and the ranking member on the chamber's Energy and Commerce Committee, said he was pleased about the bill's mental health provisions but warned they would "be far outweighed by the catastrophic harm caused" by an Obamacare repeal and replacement plan. Other Democrats agree. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., says Obamacare's repeal would be "devastating" to progress on mental health. "If we disrupt the important groundwork we've laid, families will be the ones who feel the impact," she says in an emailed statement. Most Republicans have not provided specifics about what a replacement plan would look like and how it would involve mental health coverage, though party members have pointed to House Speaker Paul Ryan's "Better Way" outline, which includes proposals that would be tied to mental health services. Among them are encouraging the use of health savings accounts and the potential administration of Medicaid through block grants. It also promises coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Rep. Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican who has championed mental health reform in Congress, says he thinks a replacement plan gives lawmakers the opportunity to improve the country's mental health care services. "We have worked so hard on [mental health] for four years," he says. "We are not going to let that slide." Murphy introduced a mental health bill following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, in which it was later found that the gunman had not received needed treatment for mental illness. After changing his bill to address concerns about patient rights, Murphy's Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act was added to the 21st Century Cures measure. Murphy, a psychologist, says interest in Congress about mental health issues and care has grown, and he is optimistic bipartisanship on related policy areas can be achieved. On Monday, lawmakers briefly celebrated such bipartisanship in a press conference. "This legislation shows that there really is nothing political about the issue of treating people with mental illness," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who introduced the Senate's companion to Rep. Murphy's mental health legislation. But in an emailed statement to U.S. News, the senator says Obamacare's repeal would result in "millions of people across the country who would lose insurance and – overnight – lose access to psychiatrists and psychologists and medications." Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, shared similar thoughts. "This is the epitome of our institution when we can come together and pass a major piece of legislation that impacts every life ... whether you're a liberal or conservative," she said at Monday's press conference. "I'm beginning to wonder what I am," she joked. But Johnson stood firmly with liberals when it came to Obamacare's repeal, also telling U.S. News in an emailed statement it would undo mental health reforms in the Cures Act, "leaving vulnerable and low-income patients back at square one." With Trump having won the White House, congressional Republicans say they plan to tackle the dismantling of Obamacare as a first order of business next year. The president-elect vowed during his candidacy to repeal and replace the law – a welcome position for Republicans who have been opposed to the bill since its final passage with no GOP support in 2010. GOP lawmakers are expected to tackle at least part of the repeal effort through a reconciliation bill, a spending-related measure that requires only a simple majority of votes in the Senate and can avoid a Democratic filibuster. The bill may be similar to a measure previously vetoed by Obama that called for certain parts of the law to gradually phase out, including Medicaid expansion. Andrew Sperling, director of federal legislative advocacy at the National Alliance for Mental Illness, which supported Obamacare's passage, says he expects his group to oppose the law's repeal, though it hasn't made an official statement as it waits to see what legislation is introduced. "NAMI is already working on a series of positions about what we need to work to protect and retain in a replacement bill," he says, pointing to provisions that mandate health insurance plans cover mental health and addiction treatment, as well as requirements for parity. The group also is opposed to distributing Medicaid funds through block grants. "We have allies on both sides of the aisle," Sperling says. "But there is still a fairly wide political divide between Republicans and Democrats about the [Affordable Care Act.]." Others say they aren't concerned. John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, which advocates for legislative mental health reform, says he thinks Congress understands the need to address the issue in an Obamacare replacement plan, given how costly treatment for people with mental illness can be. He also acknowledges that people with severe mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, have been helped through the expansion of Medicaid. "I think everyone recognizes this crisis," he says. "We don't know yet where things are going to end up." DJ Jaffe, executive director of Mental Illness Policy Org, also says he is waiting until more details are put forward. "I am an uber-liberal, but on this issue conservatives tend to be better," he says. Rep. Murphy says a full repeal and replacement plan will take time. "Don't think we'll just walk in and repeal and replace and that will be it," he says. "It'll take months to think about, and we'll be looking at how to do it correctly." He says a Republican replacement plan will include coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, and will allow for the opportunity to create a more transparent system in regard to how states use federal money for mental health services. He also supports Medicaid being distributed through block grants, and says a replacement plan can make sure funds go toward effective, evidenced-based programs. Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., says he thinks mental health reforms under Obamacare didn't go far enough and could be strengthened. He cited research showing insurance companies are skirting parity rules, and called for more enforcement. "Rolling back Medicaid or essential health benefits will only make it that much harder for families across the country to gain access to behavioral health care we so clearly need," he says. Kennedy pointed to the fact that patients still struggle to get mental health care because there aren't enough providers, and said many patients have to wait months to see a doctor. "I hope they don't repeal it," Kennedy says of Obamacare. "The state of our mental health care in this country is that we have a lot of work to do and a long way to go."
Donald Trump Jr.’s overeager response to a Russian intermediary’s offer for dirt on Hillary Clinton—“I love it”—essentially ensured that his subsequent meeting with Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya would become a key focus for federal investigators. Trump Jr., his lawyers, the White House, and his father have all dismissed that meeting, which took place at Trump Tower in June 2016, as meaningless. “It was a 20-minute meeting, I guess, from what I’m hearing,” Trump said in defense of his son. “Many people, and many political pros, said everybody would do that.” But in a two-and-a-half-hour long interview with Bloomberg in Moscow, Veselnitskaya offered a much more damning account of the meeting, in which she says Don Jr. hinted at a quid pro quo deal. The “dirt” Veselnitskaya was peddling was information that the Clinton campaign may have received money from the wealthy Ziff family that evaded U.S. taxes. (A spokesperson for the Ziffs said it had no comment.) In exchange for proof that the Clinton campaign received said illegal donations, Veselnitskaya said Trump Jr. indicated that, if his father won the election, the Magnitsky Act—a retaliatory measure the U.S. leveled against Moscow, blacklisting suspected human-rights abusers—would be re-examined. “Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,’’ Veselnitskaya recalled Trump Jr. saying. He allegedly added, “I understand our side may have messed up, but it’ll take a long time to get to the bottom of it.” (A lawyer for Trump Jr., Alan Futerfas, told Bloomberg that the eldest Trump son had no comment on Veselnitskaya’s interview.) After Veselnitskaya presented her case to Trump Jr., she says he asked, “This money the Ziffs got from Russia, do you have any financial documents showing that this money went to Clinton’s campaign?” When she conceded that she did not, the meeting quickly unraveled. “The meeting was a failure; none of us understood what the point of it had been,’’ the lawyer said. Now, Veselnitskaya wants to share her account with the Senate Judiciary Committee on the condition that her testimony be made public—a condition that the committee has not yet agreed to, Bloomberg reports. She added that she would also speak to special counsel Robert Mueller. (The Clinton Global Initiative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.) Veselnitskaya’s account follows a sharp escalation in the special counsel’s probe; last Monday, Paul Manafort and his deputy and longtime business associate, Rick Gates, were indicted on charges of money laundering and conspiracy. (Manafort and Jared Kushner also attended the June 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya.) That same day, unsealed court documents revealed that George Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his Russian contacts. Papadopoulos’s case in particular fits with a broader pattern of Trump aides making contact with Russian operatives that has come into focus in recent weeks. As The Washington Post reports, no fewer than nine figures in Trumpworld were in touch with Russians at some point during last year’s campaign or transition. Veselnitskaya’s account of the meeting could help Mueller and Congress determine whether this string of contacts amounts to collusion, or whether it’s pure coincidence.
45User Rating: 4 out of 5 Review title of Doog Saibot Good but Frustrating A good Xcom style game set in the Warhammer universe. I have never played the tabletop game so I can't speak to that. While it is good you had better clear the room of anything valuable because chances are your controller is going to go flying. I like a good challenge but the difficulty feels forced. You will lose and you will lose often. Not because the A.I. outsmarted you but because it feels like there are multiple RNGs working against you. I can see a 95% hit chance missing once or even twice but I either have the worst luck ever or the game is just like you are going to lose now. Imagine a difficult platformer not because of level design but because your jump button only works half the time. And alone check is worst idea ever. That being said, I do like the game and it can be rewarding. But only when the RNG says so.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi continues to insist that Democrats can pick up 17 seats in the November to retake control of the House. She also insists that fallout from ObamaCare will not hurt Democrats this fall. Setting aside that delusion, the Democrats’ chief problem isn’t ObamaCare. It’s math. There are 188 House seats that at least lean Democrat, according to the Cook Political Report. To win a majority, then, Democrats have to win all of these seats and win 30 seats that lean Republican. That’s a tall order in any election cycle. Unless President Obama’s approval ratings climb in the coming months, it is all but impossible. Now, just because a congressional district is rated “R” or “D” doesn’t itself preclude a candidate from the opposite party winning an election. Elections often turn on the strengths of individual candidates. The challenge for Democrats, though, is there are few Republicans in Democrat-leaning districts. Just 5 Republicans represent districts that lean Democrat. Three Republicans represent districts that are evenly split between the parties. Democrats, however, hold 14 congressional seats that lean Republican. They hold 5 seats that are considered “even.” Is it likely that elections in the middle of President Obama’s second term will create a wave that allow Democrats to win a host of Republican-leaning districts? In 2010, when a Republican wave captured 63 seats to take control of the House, only 11 of those were in Democrat-leaning districts. One could argue that Republicans underperformed in 2010, largely recapturing seats that were Republican. Most of these seats have become even more Republican as a result of redistricting. Republicans taking control of the House in 2010 overshadowed the rout Democrats suffered in state houses. Prior to the 2010 election, Democrats controlled 32 state houses and Republicans just 16. After those midterms, the power flipped, with Republicans winning 30 state houses and Democrats controlling just 18. Republicans also, for the first time since the 1920s, had a majority of state legislators. As a result, Republicans had complete control of the redistricting process in many states. They used this to solidify the number of safe Republican seats. Republicans go into the elections now with 199 “safe” Republican seats, requiring just 19 seats that lean Republican for a majority. If the GOP simply wins the districts carried by Romney in 2012, it would have an 11 seat majority. Democrats have just 162 seats considered “safe.” It should be noted that the Cook Political Report bases its partisan rating of a district on votes in Presidential election years, not midterm elections. It measures the vote for a presidential candidate in the district relative to the national vote. As we’ve seen in at least the past 5 midterm elections, the outcome can be very different than the vote in a presidential year. So, it is entirely possible that the Democrats’ already weak position is overestimating their election prospects. Of course the election is eleven months away and the Republicans are preternaturally disposed to try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Republicans, though, can’t overcome math. Democrats need a wave bigger than 2012. That possibility crashed on October 1, 2013.
Pixode, a company that started in 2010 making mobile games, just announced Tuesday the launch of what it describes as a “Crypto 2.0” platform in Open Assets and a colored coins wallet called Coinprism “Colored coins are about taking a fraction of a Bitcoin, and tagging it with a secondary, user-defined value,” founder Flavien Charlon said in a release. “That value can then be stored on the block chain, and transferred simply by transferring the underlying bitcoins. “This opens a wide range of possibilities. An interesting use case is the ability for a company to issue shares in the form of colored coins, which can then be traded in a purely decentralized way on the Bitcoin block chain. This allows companies to run IPOs on the block chain in minutes, and for the price of a Bitcoin transaction.” The Open Assets platform could also be applied to smart contracts or precious metals, he said. Coinprism is one application of Open Assets, a wallet for storing, sending and receiving colored coins. wallet. “Coinprism has a strong focus on security, and private keys are always encrypted on the client before being transmitted to the server,” Charlon said. Pixode last year also released Predictious , a predictions and derivatives market. We reached out to Charlon recently to get some details about the projects. Cointelegraph: What are some other applications you imagine for Coinprism? Flavien Charlon: Bitcoin exchanges could decide to allow people to withdraw and deposit so-called “USD coins.” Those "USD coins" would be each worth one dollar, redeemable at that exchange. People can then start using that as a payment worth exactly one dollar, so they are not exposed to the volatility of Bitcoin while still getting all the benefits of a decentralized network. This can also allow people to do arbitrage between exchanges without even having to go through the traditional banking system. As a second example, colored coins can be used as a way to do decentralized and truly anonymous voting. A company like Coca-Cola could distribute "vote coins" by putting a private key on each bottle of Coke they sell, each with one "vote coin." Then at some point, when trying to decide what new product to put to market, they can ask their customers to send their vote coins to either one address if they want the new flavor to be X or to a different address if they prefer the new flavor to be Y. They can then simply count the number of "vote coins" on each address to know what their customers prefer. Another application of Coinprism and colored coins is loyalty points or air miles. Starbucks could decide to give Starbucks points to their customers when they purchase a coffee in the form of colored coins. Customers could store them on their Bitcoin wallets, send them to their friends and family, or even trade them on the block chain. Those points could then be used to purchase drinks from their shops. CT: You've done closed beta. What did you learn from that early feedback? FC: What we have learnt so far is that it is important for us to work closely with companies trying to build on top of the Open Assets platform and enable them as much as we can. Although we cannot name them, a few companies are already integrating colored coins with their service, and this will be key to adoption of the technology. We think Open Assets is superior to existing metacoin alternatives, and the interest we saw during the beta also tends to confirm that. Those businesses are looking for a way to store assets on the block chain but don't want to depend on a "middleman coin" like Mastercoin or Counterparty. This is why Open Assets is great for them. CT: Trading assets on the block chain sounds like a regulatory minefield. Is that accurate? What sorts of regulatory issues have you run into? FC: It varies greatly with the type of assets and jurisdiction. For assets like stocks, it will be primarily up to the company issuing the shares to verify that this is legal in their jurisdiction. This may be challenging in the US because the SEC has tight regulations around this. In Europe and many other countries, however, the regulatory environment is more friendly. However, one way to go around that issue is to use colored coins for crowd funding and do something similar to what happens on Kickstarter. Investors don't receive actual equity; the colored coins they buy give them the right to receive the product before everyone else (and possibly some other perks). Then, that coin can be sold and bought. Up until the product is released, the coin would have a market price moving up and down, which will give the company a good idea of how excited people are about their product under development. They can also use that information when they finally go to market to find out what price people are really willing to pay for their product. These types of presales fall outside of the scope of SEC regulations. CT: Your team launched Predictious about 10 months ago, right? How has the response been? What are some things you learned from that startup? FC: Yes, we have been running Predictious for about 10 months now. We are seeing growth in the transaction volume on a monthly basis. The most popular markets we have are the markets for predicting the price of bitcoin in the short term (end of the week), as many people like to use this as a way to hedge the risks associated with a bitcoin position. The most important thing we've learnt is that we need to keep a close relationship with our users. A lot of the services in the crypto world can be sketchy. Users really appreciate a service that stands out from that. One of our area of focus, for example, is a friendly and responsive customer service. An Irish startup has launched a couple of colored coin projects to facilitate the exchange of assets along the Bitcoin block chain with the same ease as the bitcoin currency itself.
Does the world really need one more teens-a-mess reality show? According to Lifetime, yes. The network picked up eight hour-long episodes of a new series titled Teen Trouble. The show's host, Josh Shipp, is a teen behavior specialist, motivational speaker, and former advice correspondent for MTV's Total Request Live. He's also the author of The Teen's Guide to World Domination: Advice on Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Awesomeness. In Teen Trouble, Josh will "embed himself" into the "hidden lives" of teens who are abusing drugs and alcohol, stealing from family, and otherwise breaking the law. He will then confront the teens and parents with a few harsh truths. CLICK CONTINUE READING FOR MORE! Josh's goal is to help the teens identify the root of the problem, shock them with real-life examples, and motivate them to change their path and move forward with their lives. Those real-life examples include spending time with former troubled teen who still suffer because they didn't get help, hearing stories about troubled teens who have lost their lives, and meeting others who have successfully overcome similar teen troubles and are now living happily. Lifetime Renews Dance Moms In some cases, Josh will throw the kids into unpleasant experiences, including spending time in prison, sleeping in a morgue, and living on the street with prostitutes. Teen Trouble premieres December 28 at 10 p.m. EST/PST on Lifetime. TELL US – WILL YOU WATCH TEEN TROUBLE? Photo credit: Lifetime
About 30 people were evacuated within a 1.5 mile radius of a train, whose 15 cars derailed on Friday in Trenton, South Carolina. One of the cars was reportedly carrying ammonium nitrate, which can be used in explosives, and had spilled after the derailment while another was reportedly carrying anhydrous ammonia, but did not spill. Eyewitnesses to the incident said, according to NBC News, that the derailment happened after a tree fell on the tracks. Derrick Becker, public information officer for the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, said, according to the Associated Press (AP), that nobody was hurt during the accident. Aiken County Hazmat officials responded to the incident involving the 39-car train, but did not find any harmful spills, AP reported. Officials said there was no danger to the public at the time and added it will take them until Saturday to clean the spill caused by the accident. Residents in the Edgefield County -- near the derailment site -- were asked to evacuate to Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, WAGT 26, a local news network, reported. Both ammonium nitrate and anhydrous ammonia are generally used in fertilizers but the former is potentially explosive.
Of course, the Fourth Amendment does apply to the Americans that foreigners talk to on the phone or by email. A coalition of American journalists, attorneys, and nonprofits challenged FISA on the basis that the government is very likely monitoring their communications with non-Americans located abroad in violation, they claim, of statutory and constitutional law. The members of the coalition could not know for certain they were being monitored because under FISA, the government does not have to tell them. But given who they were talking to, and how often, the coalition assumed the government was listening is on at least some of their conversations. In a five-four decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court dismissed the collation's challenge to FISA for lack of standing (pdf). The doctrine of standing says that the parties before the court must have been injured in fact, and not merely speculating as to some possible harm. Which generally makes sense: you want the people who really have a stake in the outcome to litigate the case. Here, however, no one knows who has that stake because no one knows which Americans, if any, are being spied upon. The coalition could not prove that any single communication had been intercepted under the authority of FISA, or that their burdensome practice of leaving the country just to talk to non-American sources and clients in confidence was in fact prudence or paranoia. Put another way, the coalition could not challenge our secret surveillance laws because they are secret. There is no one who can complain of his or her rights having been violated, because anyone's whose rights have been violated doesn't know it. That's the catch when it comes to assessing the legality of the government's secret activities. This is not the first privacy Catch-22 on record. In Laird v. Tatum, a 1972 case upon which the Clapper majority heavily relies, the Supreme Court dismissed an action against a group who alleged that the U.S. Army's then-practice of monitoring their lawful political activity had a chilling effect on the exercise of their First Amendment right to gather in protest. The Court's avowed basis for the dismissal was that the group could not point to any adverse action the Army had taken against them, or to any instance in which the Army had infiltrated their ranks -- they were watching from a distance. But what it really seemed to boil down to was that the group couldn't show any evidence they were cowed by the Army's attention. After all, the Court implied, they brought a lawsuit! People who challenge government surveillance are not chilled by it. Only people who too afraid to bring a lawsuit can, well, bring a lawsuit. This is not to say that either Laird or Clapper is illogical, or to deny the decisions reflect real and important values. Whatever its flaws, the FISA surveillance regime is better than what came before it. And others can challenge the statute, such as the telecommunications carriers, or any citizen convicted (if not targeted) on the basis of FISA surveillance. Finally, even had it reached the substance of the challenge, courts are historically reticent to overrule activities that have the support of both the President and Congress. But Clapper does point to a problem citizens seem to face in challenging surveillance excess. Anyone crazy enough to try it, isn't really crazy. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected].
"Anybody you see around here dressed in a Tyvek suit will be someone from Greenpeace," David Stoltzfus joked as we surveyed the thousands of carefully numbered corn plants growing in the stony rust-colored soil of a former sugar cane plantation just a few miles inland from the spectacular Wailea Beach. Stoltzfus, who heads Monsanto's Piilani seed production farm on Maui, was referring to the white disposable coveralls that protesters wear for the TV cameras when "decontaminating" biotech crop fields. Hawaii is the epicenter of a furious campaign to shut down production farms that yield genetically modified seed. It was September, and I was there to see for myself the "Frankencorn" that haunts activists' choleric imaginations. Anti-biotech signs and literature were scattered across the Hawaiian Islands. The Crystals and Gems Gallery in Hanalei, a trendy little town on Kauai, displayed several protest posters and offered fliers urging a ban on biotech crops. The gallery is the sort of place where, when my wife picked up an attractive stone and asked a clerk what it was, the reply was, "Do you mean, 'What does it do?'â€Š" Apparently, that particular rock can dispel negativity. After being advised on the therapeutic properties of various crystals, we asked the clerk what all the anti-biotech literature around the shop was about. She informed us that biotech crops cause cancer, stating emphatically that Kauai's cancer rates were exceptionally high, especially among people who live close to the seed company fields where biotech crop varieties are grown. She added that eating foods containing these ingredients disrupts satiety signals to the brain, causing people to eat too much, resulting in the obesity epidemic. Don't ask me to explain. Why are the seed companies in Hawaii in the first place? Three words: perpetual growing season. Plant breeders here can produce three crops per year instead of just one. This speeds up the development of new crop varieties from seven years to just four. The seeds can then be transferred to mainland production farms, where bulk quantities of the new, improved seeds can be grown to supply farmers around the world. Standing in that Maui field, looking at the tens of thousands of inbred corn plants that will be crossbred to produce seed, underlined the enormous benefits of hybridization. The inbred parents of future hybrid corn stand a spindly four or so feet tall. Their high-yielding hybrid offspring will grow as high as 16 feet. Stoltzfus, a lanky plant breeder from Iowa, explained: "Primarily what we are doing here is just farming. We have no labs. We grow corn, capture seed, and develop a product that can be sold to farmers somewhere in the world." All of the lab work that goes into making modern pest- and herbicide-resistant crop varieties takes place on the mainland. Hawaii was the site of one of the first great successes of crop biotechnology. In the 1990s, the Hawaiian papaya industry was saved by the creation of a genetically enhanced variety modified to resist the ringspot virus that was then devastating growers. Today about 80 percent of the papayas grown in Hawaii come from these biotech varieties. Instead of celebrating this triumph of human ingenuity, anti-biotech activists are urging the Hawaiian state and county governments to force growers to cut down and burn all of the disease-resistant papaya trees. Some of them aren't waiting: In September, 100 of the trees were macheted down during the night. The anti-biotech campaign has frightened residents so much that state and local politicians are proposing and passing legislation that could end up pushing seed companies off the islands. In October the county council on the Island of Hawaii (a.k.a. the Big Island) passed a bill that would prohibit the open-air cultivation, propagation, development, or testing of genetically engineered crops and plants. The bill justifies the ban on the ground that it aims "to protect Hawaii Island's unique and vulnerable ecosystem" by "preventing the transfer and uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered organisms onto private property, public lands, and waterways." Violators of the ordinance will be fined $1,000 a day. Amusingly, the bill exempts genetically modified papaya. During my visit to Hawaii, I ate as much papaya as I could. The measure may be harsh, but it is ultimately symbolic: None of the seed companies operate on the Big Island. The center of the opposition to agricultural biotech is on the island of Kauai, where the county council passed a bill in October that would restrict seed companies' ability to grow biotech crops and use pesticides. The bill justifies its restrictions by citing concerns about the impact of commercial crop cultivation and pesticide use "on the natural environment, and on human health." The bill further finds that "genetically modified plants could potentially disperse into the environment of the County of Kauai through pollen drift, seed commingling, and inadvertent transfer of seeds by humans, animals, weather events, and other means. This could have environmental and economic impacts." Among other requirements, the Kauai bill mandates 500-foot buffer zones around seed company fields, disclosure of what types of seeds are being grown, and notices to properties within 1,500 feet of a commercial agricultural entity when it plans to spray pesticides. Violators would be punished with civil fines of $10,000 to $25,000 per day and/or criminal penalties of $2,000 and up to a year in jail. On October 31, Kauai Mayor Bernard Cavalho Jr. vetoed the bill, citing a legal analysis that found the county did not have the authority to adopt such legislation. In November, the County Council voted to override his veto; the bill is slated to go into effect in August. The justifications for these laws don't withstand much scrutiny. Local cancer rates are not in fact up: The Kauai Health Department reported in April 2013 that "overall cancer incidence rates (all cancers combined) were significantly lower on Kauai compared to the entire state of Hawaii." Nor did the department find higher rates of cancer in those districts where the seed company farms are located. Both the Hawaii County and Kauai County bills ostensibly are intended to protect the state's environment from contamination by biotech crops. Some 90 percent of the biotech crops grown in Hawaii is seed corn; the rest is seed soybeans and canola. None of these crops can commingle with or pollinate any native Hawaiian species. Fears about the "uncontrolled spread of genetically engineered organisms" are overblown. No forests, swamps, or prairies anywhere have been overrun with domesticated corn, soy, or canola plants gone wild. And when worrying about keeping Hawaii's ecosystems pristine, keep in mind that half of the plant species now living on the islands are nonnative, including such iconic but fading agricultural staples as taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, pineapples, and coffee. As for "economic impacts," the biotech seed companies produce about 34 percent of the value of all Hawaiian agricultural crops and employ around 2,000 people, more than 20 percent of the state's agricultural work force. The chief goal of the anti-GMO campaigners is to disrupt the progress of the technology they abhor by spreading disinformation to frighten the citizens of Hawaii. Sadly, they are succeeding.
It has taken hold with conviction: the idea that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker ginned up a phony budget crisis to justify his bold bid to strip state employees of most bargaining rights and cut their benefits. A volley of e-mails, blog posts and inquiries to reporters followed a Madison Capital Times editorial on Feb. 16, 2011, that said no state budget deficit exists for 2010-’11 -- or if it does, it’s the fault of Walker and the Republicans in the Legislature. Liberal MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow joined in Feb. 17, accusing Walker of manipulating the situation for political gain. "Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsin’s finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year," she said. "I am not kidding." She added a kicker that is also making the rounds: Walker and fellow Republicans in the Legislature this year gave away $140 million in business tax breaks -- so if there is a deficit projected of $137 million, they created it. Maddow and others making the claim all cite the same source for their information -- a Jan. 31, 2011 memo prepared by Robert Lang, the director of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. It includes this line: "Our analysis indicates a general fund gross balance of $121.4 million and a net balance of $56.4 million." We were curious about claims of a surplus based on the fiscal bureau memo. In writing it when it was released, reporters from the Journal Sentinel and Associated Press had put the shortfall at between $78 million and $340 million. That’s the projection for the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2011. Walker himself has settled on $137 million as the deficit figure, a number reporters have adopted as shorthand. We re-read the fiscal bureau memo, talked to Lang, consulted reporter Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel’s Madison Bureau, read various news accounts and examined the issue in detail. Our conclusion: Maddow and the others are wrong. There is, indeed, a projected deficit that required attention, and Walker and GOP lawmakers did not create it. More on that second point in a bit. The confusion, it appears, stems from a section in Lang’s memo that -- read on its own -- does project a $121 million surplus in the state’s general fund as of June 30, 2011. But the remainder of the routine memo -- consider it the fine print -- outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal. The result, by our math and Lang’s, is the $137 million shortfall. It would be closer to the $340 million figure if the figure included the $200 million owed to the state’s patient compensation fund, a debt courts have declared resulted from an illegal raid on the fund under former Gov. Jim Doyle. A court ruling is pending in that matter, so the money might not have to be transferred until next budget year. To be sure, the projected shortfall is a modest one by the standards of the last decade, which saw a $600 million repair bill one year as the economy and national tax collections slumped. But ignoring it would have meant turning away eligible Medicaid clients, which was not an option, Lang said. This same situation has happened in the past, including during the tenure of Doyle, a Democrat. In January 2005, a fiscal bureau memo showed a similar surplus, but lawmakers approved a major fix of a Medicaid shortfall that would have eaten up that projected surplus. Reporters who cover the Capitol are used to doing the math to come up with the bottom-line surplus or deficit, but average readers are not. (The Journal Sentinel’s Stein addressed these and other budget questions in a follow-up story.) So why does Lang write his biennial memo in a way that invites confusion? Lang, a veteran and respected civil servant working in a nonpartisan job, told us he does not want to presume what legislative or other action will be taken to address the potential shortfalls he lists. Admittedly, the approach this time created the opportunity for a snappy -- and powerful -- political attack. But it is an inaccurate one. Meanwhile, what about Maddow’s claim -- also repeated across the liberal blogosphere -- that Walker’s tax-cut bills approved in January are responsible for the $137 million deficit? Lang’s fiscal bureau report and news accounts addressed that issue as well. The tax cuts will cost the state a projected $140 million in tax revenue -- but not until the next two-year budget, from July 2011 to June 2013. The cuts are not even in effect yet, so they cannot be part of the current problem. Here’s the bottom line: There is fierce debate over the approach Walker took to address the short-term budget deficit. But there should be no debate on whether or not there is a shortfall. While not historically large, the shortfall in the current budget needed to be addressed in some fashion. Walker’s tax cuts will boost the size of the projected deficit in the next budget, but they’re not part of this problem and did not create it. We rate Maddow’s take False.
As former players, former coaches, prognosticators and pundits alike weigh in on the state of Auburn's football program following its horrendous offensive collapse at LSU, Gus Malzahn is sticking by his coaching staff. Asked if he had full confidence in his staff following Saturday's 27-23 defeat in which Auburn blew a 20-0 lead, the first AP top-10 team to do that against an unranked opponent in 182 tries since 2013, Malzahn answered affirmatively. "Yeah I do," he said. "It's the end of the world, OK? I'm frustrated we got beat. We were up. I'm very disappointed but we're going to rebound. So I'm not going to say I'm frustrated with our coaches, our players. No; we're going to rebound and that's what we're going to do." Auburn 'hurting' after historic loss at LSU Auburn is trying to come to grips with its latest stunning loss at LSU. Malzahn and the few offensive players made available for interviews after the debacle in Baton Rouge cited execution more than play-calling as the issue with Auburn's offense, which gained just 66 yards in the second half including just six passing yards. But play-calling, which was already a point of contention among a disgruntled fan base during the worst offensive performance in Malzahn's coaching career in the loss to Clemson, has been critiqued far and wide since. Auburn (5-2, 3-1 SEC) ran 17 straight times on first down and went just 3 of 14 on third downs. Jarrett Stidham, who was 9 of 26 for 165 yards with a touchdown, was either throwing deep or quick screen passes with little in between. Jarrett Stidham is not allowed to audible out of play calls Jarrett Stidham had an interesting revelation after Auburn's offense faltered after building a 20-point lead against LSU Asked if there were missed opportunities in the passing game outside of deep throws, Stidham again cited execution. "We just didn't execute the play," he said. "There's numerous plays where if it was an RPO, it just, like I said, there wasn't the right amount of execution on a lot of plays collectively as a group. So, we looked at the film and we're going to get better from it. We're past it, we're ready to move on." RELATED: Gus Malzahn can't save Jay Jacobs, but can he save himself? While those outside the program far and wide put Malzahn, who is making $4.725 million and is signed through Dec. 2020, on the hot seat and question his leadership of the program moving forward, Stidham and other players considered to be leaders on the Auburn roster are trying to stay positive and focus on the task at hand. "I think the main thing is just to keep everybody on the same page, keep everybody upbeat and positive because right now we're sitting second in the West and we've just got to take it week by week," Stidham said. "All of our goals that we want to accomplish are still there. We've just got to get better each week and try to stay positive and do the best we can." James Crepea is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @JamesCrepea.
From time to time Ahrefs has linked to SEO Theory through its marketing feeds aggregator. I have always considered these to be high-value links because they drive traffic from a Website that a lot of people trust. I have never looked at the source code to see if the links were passing PageRank and Anchor Text. In my experience a lot of Web marketers place relatively no positive value in feed aggregation; they may even flag these perfectly legitimate Websites as “spam” in their link audits. I imagine a lot of perfectly good aggregator sites have been disavowed in cleanup campaigns as well. I single out Ahrefs’ aggregator for two reasons. First, it’s a great example of exactly the kind of earned links I enjoy receiving for my sites. Second, it illustrates one of the problems with value-based link acquisition. How do you assess the risk associated with a scalable link building technique? I have been building links since 1996. I never stopped building links, although some people in the SEO world have painted me as against linking (I was only ever against inefficient uses of time and resources). I have found a lot of reasons NOT to build certain kinds of links again, far too many to mention here, but Ahrefs’ has given me the perfect excuse to write a case study on risks associated with link building strategies. Of course, I am referring to their 90-expert white hat link building roundup article published here. What Is Risk? How Should It Be Measured? This is an important question in the theory of link management, for nothing on the Web comes labeled with a warning. Most marketers tend to speak of “risk” in terms of what a search engine might do about a given link. But there are other risks associated with link building, some far worse than anything you will see coming from a search engine. At the end of the day, if Google stops sending you traffic you still have other options for getting traffic. You may not feel confident in those options but they exist, and the past 2-3 years have seen many companies share anecdotes about how they have built up non-Google traffic through social media, links, alternative search engines, online advertising, and even offline advertising. In the sink or swim world of Website marketing I never advise a client to wait for Google to run another update. Hence, search engine algorithmic risk is not the incredible monster that fear and rumor have made it out to be. But we’ll come back to that. For the purpose of this case study let us speak of four types of risk associated with links: Negative valuation Inappropriate referral Value dilution Search penalties and downgrades Negative valuation is the worst of these risks. The Streisand Effect is a good example of negative valuation. You may want to change what people see in the search results about you and so you engage in positive reputation management: you build links to all the “good” stuff that has been published about you. But then someone sees what you are doing and they start linking to all the bad stuff. You can’t have it taken down and you can’t outlink it. Negative valuation decays your ability to manage search results and it can be devastating when it goes viral. Inappropriate referral is the next worst-case scenario. You’ll often run into this when you buy an expired domain. Now, a lot of Web marketers buy expired domains and turn them into zombie link slaves, but every now and then an entrepreneur resurrects an old domain name that was used for an entirely different business. You have to live with the legacy of those old links, many of which can still send a lot of traffic. Worse, they may continue to pass good, strong anchor text that causes your site to rank well for queries you have no interest in. If you only receive a little bit of inappropriate referral traffic it’s not really a problem, but once in a while someone receives a LOT of inappropriate referral traffic. These visitors tie up your Web hosting resources, your TCP connections and SQL database connections and bandwidth. The visitors you want may have to stand in line to wait for access to your content, and many of them will simply go elsewhere. Inappropriate referral is a convenient tool for hostile (negative) SEO campaigns. If your Website suddenly has thousands of pornography links pointing to it from random domains, the chances are pretty good people will come searching for some of that stuff. They are not finding what they want and your analytics are screwed up. But your analytics are screwed up by zombie referral traffic, too. Another form of inappropriate referral is an inherited penalty when you resurrect a burned domain. Value dilution is the self-inflicted gunshot wound of SEO bloggery. You come up with a great idea for acquiring links and you decide you just have to share it on your blog (or maybe someone else’s blog). You do this because you are a marketer trying to make a name for yourself or hoping to generate leads, or whatever. It works. It usually works too well. Eventually more people start doing what you are doing (because you keep telling them to do it) and the return on investment from this technique begins to decline. One way that ROI drops on a link building technique is that whereas you were able to get lots of links by hand last year, this year someone has automated the process and now you feel you have to subscribe to some tool (or create your own). Your great technique now costs you more time and money and other people will be snatching links out from under you because you cannot stay at it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Value dilution also kicks in when the technique scales so widely through overuse that the search engines declare it to be spam. And that leads us to the little sister of link risk: Search engine penalties and downgrades. These are not so bad because you CAN recover from them, or ignore them. If you invest in the shadow domain/cloaking strategies of high-end spammers penalties become meaningless to you. You just practice churn-and-burn SEO. You don’t even have to cloak with churn-and-burn; you can just build Website after Website, milk each one for all it’s worth, and then move on. Many of you (or some of your clients) are frustrated with the Google Penguin and Panda algorithms. You are waiting for updates to come in and tell you if you have fixed the problems. Of course, there are ways to get around both algorithms. When I explain these methods to business owners they usually say, “But I don’t want to do that. I just want Google to fix my rankings.” And some people still want to compensate for their downgrades or penalties with more links (especially now that we know Google will rebalance the link equation if you earn enough good links). Nonetheless, your frustrations are misplaced. You can do far more about a link-based penalty (manual action) or (Penguin) downgrade than you can do about any of the above three scenarios. Consider yourself fortunate if a penalty or downgrade is the only link-based problem your site has to overcome. Cost in Time and Resources might be a fair fifth “risk” category, but I’m not sure everyone would agree this is a risk. So I will agree that it’s closely related to risk but something different. Still, you should assess the time-and-cost versus expected return on investment. Content Quality is another risk-like factor that most people don’t agree on how to assess. Everyone talks about “great content” but what does that mean? The official, formal SEO Theory definition of “great content” is that great content requires absolutely no outreach to earn links, and it constitutes 10% or less of all Web content. If you are really producing “great content”, you should not be sending outreach emails or social media pokes to anyone. There is no need for that with “great content”. Let’s sum all this up by naming it the Risk+Cost Ratio. The higher the Risk+Cost to links earned ratio, the less valuable those links will be in the long run. You don’t have to agree with me on how I define or value these risks and related factors, but these are what I am applying to some of the link building ideas in the Ahrefs article. The above list is the ruler by which I measure the link building techniques below. Common sense will tell you to use all of these ideas sparingly. Link Building Technique Source My Opinion on the Risks Skyscraper technique Brian Dean This is a variation on content curation and I have been doing stuff like this since the 1990s but it is time-and-resource intensive . There is a risk of value dilution because this technique is so popular. And if you follow Brian’s formula to the letter there may be a future risk of search penalties and downgrades . Remember Eric Enge’s Law: Differentiate or Die. Broken link building ? I know I did broken link building back in the 1990s. A lot of people were doing it then. This may be one of the oldest non-spammy link building techniques. But it can definitely lead to value dilution and search engine penalties and downgrades . Remember, just because a lot of people believe a link building technique is “white hat” does not mean it is always that simple. If you buy old domains to redirect their links then you also risk creating inappropriate referral traffic . Outdated link replacement Nimrod Flores He is probably not the first person to think of this. In fact, I remember a lot of Wikipedia link wars where marketers kept changing outdated links. I have never heard of a spam downgrade or penalty for this, but it can lead to value dilution and inappropriate referral traffic . Image link building ? I started doing this when I became frustrated with hotlinkers in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Boy, was that a mistake. It sucks up bandwidth and Google changed the way it handles links associated with images. Gareth James’ method looks more productive simply because of the follow up outreach, but it could become the next form of widget spam (thus risking search penalties and downgrades ) and it costs time and resources . I can see a risk of value dilution as well but once people see how much work is involved in this, they may be less likely to jump on this bandwagon. Killer content ? If you do it right, they WILL come without your doing anything and they WILL link. It’s just really hard to create killer content. It’s not killer if you have to shore it up with social media and email outreach. Also, if you seriously have to invest 40 man-hours in killer content, it’s probably not going to be that. You’re way overthinking it. Killer content almost leaps off the keyboard when you create it. You usually don’t even realize it is that good until the comments, shares, and links bury you in an avalanche of attention. Killer Websites take a long, long time to create but these are easier to achieve than simple “killer content” (whatever that is supposed to be). The Tortoise Me I have been telling people to just consistently create good content on their sites since I was a moderator in the Search Engine Forums in 1999. In recent years the Tortoise “good content” strategy has won many supporters, including Neil Patel and Brian Harnish. It’s easier to create “good” content than it is to create “great/killer” content. There is, of course, a time-and-effort cost associated with the Tortoise technique. Attractive Resources ? There are several variations on this method in the Ahrefs article, including surveys (John Rampton), in-depth white papers (Murray Newlands), and statistics-rich data (Michael Arce). This technique is time-and-resource intensive . If too many people publish the same or similar data/presentations there would be at least a low risk of search engine penalties and downgrades . But the almost infinite potential for variation leads me to suggest there may be little or no value dilution risk. Ego Articles ? Those awful Expert Roundup Articles (ERAs) so many of you love to produce these days top the list. I expect them to eventually lead to spam penalties or Panda-like downgrades . The Ahrefs’ article is exceptional. The risks associated with this strategy include value dilution and search engine penalties and downgrades . You cannot manufacture that much content using the same pool of “experts” AND maintain distinctiveness. Another example of ego articles is Top Lists Spam. Too many people are doing this. Same risks as for ERAs. Floyd Buenavente’s Followup Interview technique is an interesting variation but it could also fall prey to value dilution . Local citations ? I’m not sure who first propagated this idea. Adam Steele mentioned it in the Ahrefs article. Search engines don’t actually use citations like links. Everyone should know that by now. They are very restrictive about which citation sources influence the local ranking algorithms, too. There is a time-and-cost factor to consider with this technique. I would say there is some minor chance of earning search penalties and downgrades too, but that risk probably correlates highly with value dilution . It will depend on how many people do it. And not every Website can benefit from local search. Bottom line: learn which citation sources really matter. Resource Page Links ? This is almost certainly THE oldest link building technique. Back when we first started building the Web everyone had resource pages. There is a risk of earning search engine penalties and downgrades but my partner Randy Ray and I still ask for links from resource pages. There is also a low risk of inappropriate referral , depending on how you select your resource pages. Original Research Andy Crestodina This is technically a sub-category of Killer Content but it’s a good angle to explore. Find a widely used but poorly supported maxim and publish adequate research to show why it is true. There is a time-and-resource cost associated with this technique. You also have to expect value dilution if a lot of people try this. If a lot of people choose the same topics there might be a low search penalty and downgrade risk as well. Stealing Competitor Backlinks ? Bishal Biswas mentioned this technique. I vaguely recall someone discussing it on a mailing list over a decade ago so this technique has been around for a long time. There is a moderate risk of earning search penalties and downgrades with this technique because, as with copying competitor backlinks, you have no way of knowing if those links help or hurt the competitor sites. It is also time-and-resource intensive . Private Blog Networks ? PBNs are favored by many spammers these days but many large corporations publish private networks of Websites (not always blogs). Heck, I have a private blog network (Xenite.Org, SEO Theory, SF-Fandom, etc.). It’s not evil, immoral, or a violation of search engine guidelines to publish multiple Websites. But there is a moderate-to-high risk of search engine penalties and downgrades when you use PBNs for link building. There may be a low risk of inappropriate referrals as well. Web 2.0 Splogs ? Moderate-to-high risk of search engine penalties and downgrades when you use these for link building. Web 2.0 splogs (built on free-hosting services like WordPress.com, Blogspot, Tumblr, Weebly, et. al.) are really a sub-category of PBNs. Guest Posting ? I still write occasional guest posts. But there is a moderate risk of search engine penalties and downgrades . And value dilution set in long ago. It is also time-and-resource intensive . Scholarship Link Building ? There is a moderate-to-high risk of search engine penalties and downgrades associated with this link building technique. My partner Randy Ray and I advise our clients to make the scholarships meaningful and useful. There is also a moderate-to-high risk of value dilution because we have a limited pool of schools that accept marketing-driven scholarships. This is also a time-and-resource intensive technique. And you may get inappropriate referrals . Infographics ? High risk of search engine penalties and downgrades . Infographics are a form of widget spam and value dilution set in years ago. It is still possible to produce good infographics but they are a time-and-resource intensive technique. Product Leveraging ? This is a sub-category of Ego Articles but Jeremy Rivera describes the technique very well. There is a low risk of value dilution but it is a time-and-resource intensive process. Content quality may be uneven depending on the industry or niche. Enge’s Law also applies here: differentiate or die. Solicit Content Jon Dykstra I’m not sure he should really get full credit for this idea but his explanation strikes me as being relatively unique. It’s time-and-resource intensive . Industry Association Memberships ? An older technique that still works, it is not (in my opinion) very scalable. Time-and-resource intensive . Influencer Outreach ? A lot of people integrate this into other techniques but Marko Saric explained how acting just like a PR agency can make this an effective technique. I occasionally create content on my private Websites for a few PR firms that work with the entertainment industry. This is a time-and-resource intensive technique that carries a risk of value dilution . Providing a small, select group of bloggers with exclusive content is better than making it available to everyone. See Matthew Capala’s contribution for an example. Buzz Chasing ? This was actually very popular for content creation a few years ago, and probably still is. Melanie Nathan explains how she might chase a breaking story with some media outreach for specially created timely content. This is time-and-resource intensive and there is a risk of value dilution . Paired Post ? Paul Shapiro described this technique but I know it has been done by many people. This is a time-and-resource intensive technique and there is a risk of value dilution . There may also be a low-to-moderate risk of search engine penalties and downgrades . Lifestyle Content John Deere Okay, John Deere invented “Content Marketing” but Reggie Paquette’s explanation of how his team develops “Lifestyle Content” for ecommerce Websites is a natural example of true content marketing. Many affiliate marketers use this technique, too. It’s a time-and-resource intensive process . Enge’s Law probably applies, although I’m not sure there is much risk of value dilution among ecommerce sites; there is a greater risk of value dilution among affiliates. Copy Competitor Links ? This is a high-risk technique simply because you do not know which links pass value and which links hurt. A lot of Web marketers have been doing this for years. I only go after the barest, minimalist, absolutely necessary links from the most dominant Websites in a niche because everyone who is anyone in the niche has to have them. Gold Mining Kevin Indig This is a sub-category of Influencer Outreach. It is a time-and-resource intensive process. There is a low-to-moderate risk of value dilution simply because there are so few high-value influencers. Social Sharing ? This is more controversial than risky, given how many social media services now automatically add “rel=’nofollow'” link attributes to the links you publish. The secondary links you earn from social media shares can be quite valuable. This is a time-and-resource intensive technique. Advertising ? Servando Silva is notable for discussing it in the Ahrefs article. This is a time-and-resource intensive technique and the return on investment may not be easy to measure (unless you do this exclusively). Forum Marketing ? This is another very old technique. There is a risk of earning search engine penalties and downgrades but many forums now offer special marketing sections where the crawlers are blocked. Some forums may welcome announcements from marketers (like press releases). Your best bet is to work with forums that cater to specific interest niches. Blog Commenting ? There is a high risk of earning search engine penalties and downgrades but you can still do this effectively assuming you don’t annoy everyone. Value dilution set in years ago. There is also a risk of negative valuation and a low risk of inappropriate referrals (high risk if blast spammy blog comments). The key to success is to contribute real value to the discussion. Enge’s Law also definitely applies here. Leverage Vendor Relations ? Tyson Downs explains how he does this in the Ahrefs article. There is a low-to-moderate risk of Negative Valuation and a low risk of earning search engine penalties and downgrades . There may also be a low risk of inappropriate referrals . Rewarding Favorable Content ? Although similar to incentivized blogging, the rewards are offered after the content has been created without any prior knowledge of a possible reward. Still, sending gifts to bloggers and asking for links incurs a moderate-to-high risk of search engine penalties and downgrades . Michael Salvo explains how he does it in the article. Using the gifts to establish relationships whereby you can ask for links later on may be less risky. There is also a risk of Negative Valuation , as anyone who has been “outed” by a blogger can attest. Passive Link Requests ? This is another old technique. You ask your visitors to link to your site, usually by including a “how to link to us/this article” box somewhere on each page. There is a high risk for inappropriate referrals . A high-traffic Website may not be hurt by that. Contests ? Technically, contests are NOT forbidden by search engine guidelines. You can run contests all day long. You just cannot require contestants to link to your site. It’s advisable to not even ask for links in conjunction with a contest. When done right your only risks should be inappropriate referrals and time-and-resource intensive . A business with a bad reputation for poor products, poor customer service, or aggressive billing practices incurs a risk of negative valuation . There are other ways to build links. And some of the responses in the Ahrefs article were really just techniques that are mentioned above but given with different names. It is impossible to concisely classify everything. Many link builders now make extensive use of rogue crawlers and botnets. Some of you may know this already, but most of you appear to unleash these heinous tools on unsuspecting Websites without any consideration for the harm you do to them. It doesn’t take much effort to use up all the available TCP connections or bandwidth for many personal blogs. Web marketers just trample the Web like barbarians crushing fine works of art in their zeal to get to the gold in the temples. If/when the Web converts over to the HTTP/2 protocol set those precious TCP connections won’t be devoured so greedily by crawl spam, but there are other ways that your random trawling for link resources hurts unsuspecting Websites. Maybe just seeing a sampling of the many different ways people can build links will help marketers behave more responsibly. But the greatest danger to effective link building remains your willingness to share your ideas. The more you share, the less effective these techniques will become. You may think that all these “X link building experts share tips” articles are a great idea, but you are a crowd of Once-lers cutting down Truffula Trees so that you can make an endless supply of Thneeds. Trust me: once you burn all the great link building techniques you will go back to writing an endless stream of “SEO is dead”, “link building is dead”, and “Google hates me” articles. Sharing is not caring in Web marketing. If you want to reduce the risks associated with your link building, stop participating in all the Expert Roundup Articles. Stop writing ERAs about link building. What is coming down the road is easily preventable, but the Web marketing community acts like it doesn’t care at all about the consequences of all these “great articles”. In the end the very companies that pay us to help them improve their search referral traffic will trust us even less than they do today, and in case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of people who don’t think much of the SEO industry. Calling yourselves “Content Marketers” or “Outreach Specialists” or BazizzWhamagadgets will not fool the public. When it comes to assessing risks associated with link building, the issue is not all about search penalties. It never was. Follow SEO Theory Manage your ONCE DAILY DIGEST subscriptions here. You'll be notified when a new article is published on this site. Leave Blank: Do Not Change: Your email: A confirmation email will be sent to new subscribers AND unsubscribers. Please look for it! Do you want more than just reposts of the week's SEO discussions and news? Get the LARGEST weekly SEO newsletter now ... Most SEO newsletters recap topics mentioned in social media and on popular marketing blogs.Do you want more than just reposts of the week's SEO discussions and news?
US Secret Service If the aim of the game in Silicon Valley is getting noticed, RadiumOne definitely stands out. But not just for its technology. The San Francisco-based provider of digital ad-buying tech was pushed into the spotlight last month after founder and CEO Gurbaksh Chahal got fired following his conviction for misdemeanor domestic violence and battery. Chahal isn't the first high-level executive to engage in behavior that reflects poorly on a company, and he likely won't be the last. But CNET has learned that there's an even weirder story concerning another employee who worked at 5-year-old RadiumOne until February: Brad Smith, the company's ex-director of engineering. Described by a former employer and hackathon organizers as a kind of geek wunderkind, Smith was allegedly living and working under a fake identity and since 2008 had been on the lam from the US Secret Service for identify theft, among other things. Few people, including work colleagues at RadiumOne, knew about Smith's secret life -- until now. Before the board fired Chahal for battering his girlfriend, RadiumOne wasn't well-known to those outside of tech circles. The mobile advertising startup, which raised $33.5 million from well-known venture capital funds including Trinity Ventures and Crosslink Capital, created software that automates the process of media buying for digital marketers. Customers include Condé Nast Britain and professional cycling team Omega Pharma-Quick Step. It has 200 employees. Gurbaksh Chahal Chahal's transgressions are now part of the public record given that the ousted CEO put up a widely cited, albeit tone-deaf defense of his actions. In a since-deleted blog post on April 27 that he titled "Can You Handle the Truth?," Chahal acknowledged having lost his temper at his girlfriend. That wasn't the final word. One former RadiumOne executive, ex-Vice President of Marketing Doug Chavez, subsequently challenged Chahal on Twitter, leading to a nasty back-and-forth between the two, with each claiming the other was unfit to work with. Smith's history as a wanted man with previous felony convictions and who did prison time for hacking isn't as widely known. To be sure, this isn't the first time a tech company hired someone with a dubious or altogether fake background. In 2012, Yahoo fired CEO Scott Thompson for padding his resume with claims of an unearned computer science degree. Last year, enterprise social-media company Yammer reportedly discovered, after federal investigators showed up at its offices, that one of its contractors in San Francisco was working under a fake name while being sought for child molestation in Georgia. And in 2000, then-Lotus CEO Jeff Papows resigned after it was discovered he lied about being a captain and fighter pilot in the US Marines, about his educational background, and even about having a black belt in tae-kwon-do. That each person was able to situate himself in a top spot at a high-profile Silicon Valley company raises questions about hiring practices and the due diligence that you assume accompanies the hiring of new employees. That question may be especially relevant in the case of acqui-hires -- when a company brings on a team of employees as part of an acquisition -- which is how Smith arrived at RadiumOne. When a company brings on a team through a buyout, it may not do the kind of intense scrutiny it might do when making an individual hire. That's especially true in the fast-paced world of Silicon Valley tech, say recruiting specialists. "The selectivity and rigor with which they select people is not found when they acquire a company," said Stephen Kane, a Hillsborough, Calif., specialist in human resources. "That's the problem." And it may become an even bigger problem if the company is planning to go public, as RadiumOne may be preparing to do. "The individual in question, then operating under the name of Brad Smith, became an employee of RadiumOne following the acquisition of a company, [Focal Labs], in 2011," RadiumOne said in a statement. "The company takes its hiring obligations seriously. "Normal background checks were conducted on these newly acquired employees but as the individual in question had given a false name and Social Security number, the checks revealed nothing improper in his background. The day RadiumOne discovered that Brad Smith was operating under a false identity, the company terminated his employment." Smith was unavailable for comment. Wanted by the Secret Service It may not be common knowledge that law enforcement still issues wanted posters like the ones shown in post offices in old Westerns. But it does. The online version of the poster featuring Bradley Raymond Anderson's name is topped with a red all-caps banner reading "WANTED BY THE U.S. SECRET SERVICE." It notes that Anderson is 5-foot-11, weighs 160 pounds, has hazel eyes, and was born on April 10, 1979. Or maybe May 10, 1977. The government issued a federal warrant for his arrest on September 10, 2008. The grand jury's seven-count indictment charged Anderson with identity theft, using stolen credit card numbers, possessing machines for making credit cards, and attempting to steal a Social Security number. The list of property the government alleges Anderson stole along the way numbers 23 items. It includes a Nexus 40-inch flat-screen TV, a Nikon D50 digital camera, an HP Pavilion laptop computer, an "Apple Mac Book laptop, gray in color," and a KitchenAid mixer. And, oddly, $89 in cash. US vs. Bradley Anderson According to Jon Dalton, a Secret Service special agent in Portland, Ore., the feds tracked Anderson to San Francisco earlier this year, where they discovered he was "living and working" under a false name. But he avoided capture and absconded to Portland in February, where he finally surrendered. A clerk in the federal district court said US Marshals arrested Anderson on February 20, 2014. Gerri Badden, the public information officer for the US Attorney's office in Portland, confirmed that the US government considers Bradley Raymond Anderson and the Brad Smith who worked as director of engineering at RadiumOne to be "one and the same." For the purposes of this story, we'll refer to Anderson, aka Smith, as "Smith." The wanted poster shows two photos of Smith. In one, he's wearing an orange T-shirt, with his head tilted to the left. That same photo can be found in the Facebook account of RadiumOne employee Brad Smith -- which was opened in 2008, just 18 days after the federal warrant was issued. That photo also appears on the Crunchbase page for Focal Labs, a startup that Brad Smith co-founded with Fergus Hurley and Maxime Domain and sold to RadiumOne in 2011 for an undisclosed sum. CNET Some who have worked with Smith easily laud his talent. His help was "super valuable" in launching their product, said Steve Echtman, CEO of HearPlanet, a travel app maker Smith worked at from mid-2008 to mid-2009. "He was just overall a really good developer...He was a well-rounded engineer." Smith was also the co-founder of PayWithBits, which it positioned as a "Square for Bitcoin." PayWithBits was featured in TechCrunch last year. His work outside of RadiumOne peaked at the Consumer Electronics Show last January when Smith was part of a team that won the top prize in the AT&T Developer Summit Hackathon in Las Vegas. "Until we were recently notified by law enforcement that this is the same person, we were unaware of any investigation into his activities," an AT&T spokesperson said. On Facebook, on January 6, Smith crowed that he had "just won $25,000 in Vegas." The next day, he posted a photo of himself hoisting a huge $25,000 check over his head at an AT&T party headlined by rapper Macklemore. Screenshot by CNET Smith could not be reached for comment, but his attorney Stephen Sady, a federal public defender in Portland, offered this statement: "Brad has been living as a productive and pro-social member of the community for the past six years. We have every intention of working with the government to assure that any harms from the past are remedied, and [we] look forward to Brad continuing to provide his expertise and creativity in the tech community." What is RadiumOne? RadiumOne has its main offices in a tall building in the heart of downtown San Francisco -- just two blocks from CNET's headquarters. The company was founded in September 2009 by Chahal, who had already struck gold once when he sold a previous ad network, BlueLithium, to Yahoo for $300 million in 2007, and who won Ernst & Young's 2013 entrepreneur of the year award in the platform technology category. On its website, RadiumOne says it "builds intelligent software that automates media buying, making big data actionable for marketers and connects them to their next customer." That's the kind of description guaranteed to induce yawns for those not deeply involved in ad networks. But for an enterprise company, making money is the way to the hearts of investors, and it's clear RadiumOne was attractive enough to venture capitalists to raise a $10.5 million A-round of funding in late 2009, and a $21 million B-round in March 2011 led by Crosslink Capital. That round valued the company at $200 million. Some think an IPO is in its near future. "When we look at potential portfolio companies, we try to identify who has the technology and vision to really disrupt an industry and make a global impact," Jim McLean, a partner at Crosslink Capital, said in a RadiumOne release after the 2011 funding round. One can imagine that the Chahal follies imperiled the company's chances at a lucrative IPO, perhaps forcing the board's hand more than any moral imperative. "I think the decision was made because the negative publicity [surrounding Chahal's conviction] was too much," said Tasso Roumeliotis, the founder and CEO of Location Labs, a mobile services company that develops safety and security services around device location management. "It would have hampered their ability to go public and it would have been a black stain." Whether or not the company is a good place to work, it's clear there was some friction at the top levels. Chavez, the former vice president of marketing, left RadiumOne last year. In a tweet on April 27, the same day that Recode broke the news that the CEO had been fired, Chavez wrote, "I resigned because working with [Chahal] was insufferable." To which Chahal quickly responded, "More like you got terminated because you have no skills." So this is happening: pic.twitter.com/lesv04c2eQ -- Ben Parr (@benparr) April 28, 2014 Chavez declined to comment for this story. He posted his (rather cordial) resignation letter, dated April 23, 2013, on Twitter, writing to Chahal that "I believe it is time to hand the Marketing reins over to some fresh Marketing blood and new marketing perspective...I am tendering my resignation as VP of Marketing from RadiumOne. I'm happy to work with you and the team to ensure a smooth transition as I exit. We can discuss a mutually agreed upon last day." On April 27, RadiumOne issued a press release announcing Chahal's firing, and his replacement by COO Bill Lonergan. "Bill has an extraordinary professional background and has helped build BlueLithium and RadiumOne into industry leading brands," the company said in its statement. "We are confident he will continue RadiumOne's impressive trajectory." The release made no mention of Chahal's legal problems. Nor, of course, did it mention the company had somehow allowed a man wanted by the Secret Service to be hired, and promoted to a position as director of engineering. No Ax Murderers For a well-funded startup to miss the warning signs in the made-up background of someone like Brad Smith is puzzling. Smith's LinkedIn profile lists no educational background, and offers professional experience only dating to 2008 -- coincidentally the same year the Secret Service issued its arrest warrant for Bradley Raymond Anderson. According to Kane, the Silicon Valley-based human resources specialist, well-run companies usually "go through extraordinary lengths to make sure that [a potential hire] not only is not an ax murderer, but also fits into their culture." New hires at all companies are also required to fill out an I-9, a federal identification document that establishes whether someone is eligible to accept employment. Kane -- who was speaking generally, and not about the Smith case -- said that form should reveal whether someone is using a real Social Security number or one, say, "for somebody who died in 1963." According to Location Labs' Roumeliotis, who has advised friends on M&A deals, "I will tell you it's sloppy sometimes. You have inexperienced CEOs, and there's competitive pressure. [Vetting teams during an acquisition] can be very sloppy from a deal perspective." Once someone's onboard at a company, they would likely not have to go through much additional vetting as they are promoted up the org chart, Roumeliotis added. "I would say once you're in, you're in." Exactly how Smith managed to evade the I-9 trap he no doubt encountered when he joined RadiumOne is unclear. His Secret Service Wanted poster may offer a clue. He is, it states, "proficient in manipulating and creating false identification documents." Brad The App Guy So which Brad is it? The Secret Service's Wanted poster says Bradley Raymond Anderson also uses Brad Smith or Brad Anderson as aliases. In anything tied to RadiumOne, or other technology work between 2008 and early 2014, he was known as Brad Smith. It's not clear exactly when he left RadiumOne, but the company claimed him as an employee in January when he helped win the AT&T hackathon at CES with SafeNecklace, a "'leashless' wearable solution for tracking kids during outings." On February 3, Smith checked in on Foursquare at RadiumOne headquarters in San Francisco. By February 20, he was in federal custody. On February 25, US Magistrate Judge Paul Papak released Smith, pending trial. Oregon doesn't require bail, so he didn't have to put up any money. But Papak issued a number of conditions for his release: He is not to touch controlled substances, he can't leave Oregon without authorization, and he must submit to a search of his person, his residence, or his car at any time. Screenshot by CNET Unsurprisingly, his "computer use is restricted to work use," and he is "not to possess or obtain any mail, financial or identification documents in any person's name other than [his] true identity." Smith is due to appear in federal court for a three-day jury trial starting July 8. Despite years in a director-level job at a high-flying startup, he is being represented by Sady, a federal public defender known in Portland for battling the government and often winning the "reduction or dismissal of the most serious charges against his clients," according to The Oregonian. Now, freed while he waits for trial, he appears to be looking for client work. At the top of his LinkedIn profile, where he calls himself an iOS developer and entrepreneur, he doesn't use a last name at all. There, next to a picture in which he wears a gray fedora and a black T-shirt festooned with app logos, he simply calls himself "Brad The App Guy." CNET's Roger Cheng contributed to this story. Update, 2:10 p.m. PT: Includes comment from RadiumOne. Correction, 6:54 p.m. PT: The story originally misstated when Doug Chavez left RadiumOne.
Despite the success achieved by her single, “All About that Bass,” and the other songs that followed suit, Meghan Trainor claimed she remains broke because she’s still not yet paid. The singer said she has to wait until April to get her money. "I haven’t made any money yet. They say I will get a big fat cheque after nine months which will be in April so I’m hoping that’s right,” Meghan Trainor said. She added that people are quick to assume that she became rich overnight when her “All About that Bass” made all those charts, but in reality, she cannot even make any big purchase yet. However, she quickly added that she’s already working on it. Her first new album “Title” would certainly make her rich in no time as it quickly went up the ranks and even pushed Taylor Swift’s album out from the top spot in the Billboard Charts, which was perched on that premiere rank for three weeks now. According to Reuters, “Title,” which included her hit song “All About That Bass” and “Lips Are Moving,” already achieved significant sales of 195,000 albums as well as 377,000 song downloads. The album was already streamed around 8 million streams, as shown by the figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The debut of this album also came three weeks ahead of the Grammy Awards where Trainor received nominations for two Grammys! Trainor is nominated for both the categories of song and record of the year for “All About That Bass.” She once talked about how she came up with the song to Radio.com and she said she does not even know how the song happened. All she knew was the she turned serious during that songwriting session instead of “pretending she’s Rihanna.” She also said that even though she knew the song was special, she never expected that it would become such a hit. Trainor added that the song’s lyrics “my momma she told me don't worry about your size” is not that far-fetched from reality as her mom is her biggest supporter, always telling her she is gorgeous and asking her to stop destroying herself “in front of the mirrors” by comparing herself to other girls. To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail: [email protected].
What Hillary Clinton knows about Vladmir Putin is very simple: Putin’s economy is exactly one commodity deep. So when Hillary Clinton gives a speech about the growing power of U.S. oil and gas ... “We can have a North American energy system that will be unbelievably powerful. If we have enough of it, we can be exporting and supporting a lot of our friends and allies.” What she’s really doing is putting Putin on notice that he can no longer use pipelines between Russia and Europe to both bully European politics and (literally) fuel the Russian economy. Those Wikileaks speeches where Hillary Clinton talks up the idea of fracking? American progressives may not like them, but Russian authoritarians hate them, because keeping world oil and gas prices high is the only chance that the oligarchs have to pocket massive wealth for themselves—and to fund a first-rate army in what is, increasingly, a third-rate power. Truthfully, it’s not necessary to frack every stone in either America or Europe to keep Putin’s Russia on the rocks. It’s not even clear that there’s a need for any additional fracking. What’s necessary is that oil and gas prices stay low. With the U.S. producing at record volume and OPEC unable to agree on production cuts, Russia finds its shallow economy getting shallower by the day. At this point, increasing use of renewables can probably replace fossil fuels quickly enough to keep those prices down. And Hillary Clinton is very, very aware of this fact. … Clinton made the direct link between America’s energy fortunes and targeting Moscow. “We are now energy independent, something we have hoped for and worked for over many, many years,” she said in a July 2014 speech. “That gives us tools we didn’t have before. And it also gives us the opportunity not only to invest those resources in more manufacturing and other activities that benefit us directly here at home, but to be a bulwark with our supplies against the kind of intimidation we see going on from Russia.” This is the sore point for Russia. Keep the price of natural gas low, and Russian wealth goes away. Take the need for oil and gas away … and Russian power disappears with it. Clinton doesn’t have to go to war with Putin. She can starve him out. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s susceptibility to conspiracy theories and lies makes Putin’s mouth water with possibilities.
Bitcoin usage has been the domain of tech savvy individuals. Just like the internet in the early 1990s may have been too complex and unpolished for many to use, some think bitcoin isn't ready for most people. Others disagree. Can those who have never touched bitcoin be converted into users in under two hours? Bitcoin enthusiasts will be testing that theory in Chicago, Illinois, by hosting a Bitcoin for Beginners workshop at the North American Bitcoin Conference July 19 and 20. Related Link: iPhone No Longer Barrier To Bitcoin Adoption Free and open to the public, everyone from programmers to teenagers to grandparents are invited to attend the workshop. The event may prove to be a success if these diverse attendees are able to use the currency without issue. Detractors may be proven right if attendees are still unable to grasp the cryptocurrency. Helping Eliminate The Learning Curve Bitcoin uptake has been plagued by myths and difficulty understanding it. Many people who have heard about bitcoin still don't understand what it is and have many misconceptions about the complex topic. Tackling these myths, the educational workshop will equip attendees with a bitcoin wallet from Coinbase containing $10 worth of bitcoins. After receiving their wallet, attendees will learn how to make purchases from online retailers such as Overstock and traditional retailers like Reeds. Attendees will also learn how to donate to charities and how to exchange bitcoins for U.S. dollars. This workshop is one of the first attempts to bring bitcoin into contact with everyday people on a wide scale. Disclosure: At the time of this writing David Smith has a long bitcoin position, owns So What’s Bitcoin and is one of the Bitcoin for Beginners workshop organizers.
Film Poster. I'm not very good in front of the camera as you'd have seen in the video above(I'm much better behind the camera, promise!) so I'd go into the details here through writing. It's a horror film made by people who love horror. I discussed the premise of the film in the video as well as the characters and their motivations. As it's a short film, clocking at 5-6 mins, I'd like to keep the narrative surprises till it's in your hands (So you get the best immersive experience). Instead I'd like to discuss the general themes it caters, how it came to be and what it hopes to achieve. This is a very ambitious project with a strong emphasis on horror, both psychological and physical. Still, it's not jammed with jump scares but rather the focus is on evoking the unsettling and under-your-skin eerie feeling. It's a horror film made by people who love horror and are passionate about making an exciting and memorable horror film. It's not meant to create jump scares by devising a generic narrative formula or to provide shock value or have monetary gain for me and my team. Rather it's borne out of pure love of horror and with a passion to create something truly original and exciting. Something which would stand on its own by being different to anything on the market and be remembered as a memorable horror experience by the audience. Sneak Peek at Audrey's cannibal character from our storyboard. Dave's character is a timid young boy who is almost equally deranged but with some humane characteristics still left in him. Inception of an Idea for "Hunger" and how it all came together. As a writer, I always wanted to write something which I as a reader would love to read. I read many famous horror writers and specially spent my time in the horrifying worlds created by the pen of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. The inspiration started flooding in and I started writing horror. I wrote dozens of horror scripts with very ranged premises from apocalypse to zombies and psychological horror to metaphysical horror with ghosts. At the time, I was also fascinated by the famous serial killer Ed Gein's story and read a lot about his upbringing and his relationship with his mother. Although I had the premise of "Hunger" already on paper but Ed Gein's story really piqued my interest in polishing and developing the twisted relationship of "Audrey" and "Dave" in Hunger. Ed Gein's life story really motivated me in creating a character equally twisted and real for "Hunger". I didn't just wanted to write another cannibal story, I wanted to go deeper into the psyche of the characters and their deranged behaviour. While writing "Hunger", I realized that I have something special and if I want to make my directorial debut, I'd make this film. So, after many sleepless nights I finished the script which I'd be proud of. That's how Hunger came to be and after that it was just the determination and passion to make this film as I truly believed that I have something exciting and memorable in my hands. Once I was satisfied with the script, I started developing the process further to bring this story from the page to the screen. I started gathering a small team of very talented people who were equally passionate about the project and wanted to make something which we're all proud of. It became a passion project of everyone involved and we started pushing hard to make it a reality. How we created a very small budget without compromising on the quality. We set a very small budget for our short film as we wanted to only spend money where it was absolutely essential, namely, gear for camera, lighting, location and props etc. Most of the team even wanted to work just for the experience and being a part of the project as their only reward. Plus, the script relied on atmosphere and psyche of the characters rather than VFX and explosions which really helped in keeping the budget to very minimal. (Not to say that our film won't have exciting visually-driven scenes with some very interesting twists but let's keep some surprises for you to see yourself :)). So with lots of planning and lots of online-hunting we(me and my Producer) managed to gather a team of few people covering the big positions and secured the main location for the film. The pictures of the location will be coming very soon in the further updates :). Of course there were areas where we couldn't compromise e.g. insurance, but still we managed to keep the budget tight without exceeding the 1000 pound mark. We do have a very high profile actor quite interested in the project but nothing is set in stone so we can't reveal any further info but keeping fingers and toes crossed!! Concluding message and future updates. Now the project would be in yours hands and if you believe in its potential and want to contribute in making a true bone-chilling genre film, please do so. This is the film for all the film lovers; this film is yours! While we eagerly await its progress on Kickstarter, we'll be finalizing the props and the location plus few other small things. Keep checking this page to see the progress of the production and keep spreading the word around. P.S. If you have any questions about any part of the project, please feel welcomed to drop me a message and I'll get back to you asap. Talk to you soon! Usman Haider Writer/Director
Well, I don’t have a machine for peering into the souls of Obama’s critics, so I can’t measure how much racism is in there. But my impression is that race is largely beside the point. There are other, equally important strains in American history that are far more germane to the current conflicts. For example, for generations schoolchildren studied the long debate between Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians. Hamiltonians stood for urbanism, industrialism and federal power. Jeffersonians were suspicious of urban elites and financial concentration and believed in small-town virtues and limited government. Jefferson advocated “a wise and frugal government” that will keep people from hurting each other, but will otherwise leave them free and “shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Photo Jefferson’s philosophy inspired Andrew Jackson , who led a movement of plain people against the cosmopolitan elites. Jackson dismantled the Second Bank of the United States because he feared the fusion of federal and financial power. This populist tendency continued through the centuries. Sometimes it took right-wing forms, sometimes left-wing ones. Sometimes it was agrarian. Sometimes it was more union-oriented. Often it was extreme, conspiratorial and rude. The populist tendency has always used the same sort of rhetoric: for the ordinary people and against the fat cats and the educated class; for the small towns and against the financial centers. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. And it has always had the same morality, which the historian Michael Kazin has called producerism. The idea is that free labor is the essence of Americanism. Hard-working ordinary people, who create wealth in material ways, are the moral backbone of the country. In this free, capitalist nation, people should be held responsible for their own output. Money should not be redistributed to those who do not work, and it should not be sucked off by condescending, manipulative elites. Barack Obama leads a government of the highly educated. His movement includes urban politicians, academics, Hollywood donors and information-age professionals. In his first few months, he has fused federal power with Wall Street, the auto industry, the health care industries and the energy sector. Given all of this, it was guaranteed that he would spark a populist backlash, regardless of his skin color. And it was guaranteed that this backlash would be ill mannered, conspiratorial and over the top — since these movements always are, whether they were led by Huey Long, Father Coughlin or anybody else. Advertisement Continue reading the main story What we’re seeing is the latest iteration of that populist tendency and the militant progressive reaction to it. We now have a populist news media that exaggerates the importance of the Van Jones and Acorn stories to prove the elites are decadent and un-American, and we have a progressive news media that exaggerates stories like the Joe Wilson shout and the opposition to the Obama schools speech to show that small-town folks are dumb wackos. “One could argue that this country is on the verge of a crisis of legitimacy,” the economic blogger Arnold Kling writes. “The progressive elite is starting to dismiss rural white America as illegitimate, and vice versa.” It’s not race. It’s another type of conflict, equally deep and old.
She was turning tricks on the taxpayers’ dime! The Sofitel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of a sex attack in his suite wasn’t just a hotel hooker — she continued to work as a prostitute in a Brooklyn hotel where she was stashed by prosecutors, The Post has learned. The so-called victim, whose web of lies has crippled the Manhattan DA’s case against the former International Monetary Fund boss, played host to a parade of paying male visitors in the weeks after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, a prosecution source said. “While she was under our supervision, there were multiple ‘dates’ and encounters at the hotel on the DA’s dime,” the source said of her paid hotel room. “That’s a great deal for her. She doesn’t have to cover her expenses.” The woman has a regular fleet of gentlemen callers who range from wealthy clients she met at the Sofitel to counterfeit-merchandise hawkers and livery-cab drivers, said sources close to the defense investigation. Some of her clients also gave her pricey jewelry, the source said. Nothing happened in the first two weeks of her stay at the hotel, when she was under around-the-clock supervision provided by the DA’s Office, said a law-enforcement source. Prosecutors were apparently worried about the woman’s emotional state and that reporters knew where she lived. There was an additional concern that DSK representatives might try to bribe her or that she might get cold feet. And because she couldn’t go home, they decided that having her stay in a hotel under their watch was the best way to keep her safe and secure her cooperation. But starting about June 1, the arrangement changed — she was dropped off and picked up when prosecutors needed her but was otherwise free to do as she pleased, the source said. It’s unclear how many encounters took place, the source said. The woman is still being housed by the DA’s Office but it’s unclear if it’s the same location or how much money has been spent to house her, the source said. “I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that it’s not true,” a senior prosecutor said about whether the woman was turning tricks while at the hotel. Also, The DA suspects that the $100,000 she deposited into her accounts over the last few years included proceeds from sex-for-money exploits, said another prosecution source. Additional reporting by Laura Italiano
THAT’S in Queensland ... The last time the Maroons had an entire team hailing from Queensland was way back in 1991. Back when a young bull named Mark Geyer was going to-to-toe with Maroons great Wally Lewis. That’s in Queensland ... Of the 179 players to represent the Maroons, 32 weren’t born in Queensland — that’s nearly 18 per cent. media_camera Greg Inglis — a true Queenslander? That’s in Queensland ... Nearly 10 per cent of players to represent Queensland were born in NSW. That’s in Queensland ... Non-Queensland players have played a combined 246 games since 1980, 166 of those were players of NSW birth. That’s in Queensland ... More than 17 per cent of the total amount of points for Queensland were scored by non-state players. That’s in Queensland ... Since 1995, in 15 of the 20 series, more than 25 per cent of the Maroons side have not been Queenslanders. This shows Queensland will do anything to win. They will beg, borrow and steal players from other states or nations to win State of Origin. And even their deceit wasn’t enough to beat NSW last year. Some players to represent Queensland wouldn’t even know where the state was. Finder.com.au has found a dramatic increase in the number of non-Queensland players representing the Maroons over the past 20 years. BUZZ: Origin must stand alone FOCUSED: Blues rookies “Origin ready” media_camera Revealed: The Maroons who aren’t from Queensland... The team to play NSW on Wednesday night at ANZ Stadium will boast Kempsey via Bowraville product Greg Inglis and Sydney-born Sam Thaiday. Inglis is one of the greatest players to ever come from NSW. Although he’s spent three days in hospital battling tonsillitis — probably due to overexposure to the unfamiliar Queensland climate last week — Maroons coach Mal Meninga is adamant the Maroons star will be fit for Origin I. “A player of Greg’s calibre, it’s good to have him in the Maroon jersey on Wednesday night,” Meninga said. NSW don’t harbour Queensland’s desire to pinch players. Of the 257 players to represent the Blues only 20 — or 7.8 per cent — were not born in the premier state. And just 1.6 per cent of players to represent NSW were born in Queensland. “Queensland will do anything they can to win,” said former NSW skipper Ben Elias, who was tried to separate Lewis and Geyer during their now-iconic encounter in 1991. “They will steal players from anywhere and everywhere. It didn’t work last year though. “Greg Inglis is the obvious example. Born and bred in Macksville. “No matter what happens in State of Origin results-wise, NSW has always maintained its dignity and honour.” Show your support for NSW and become a brick in the #BLUEWALL The 17 NSW-born players to represent Queensland have a 52.4 per cent winning strike rate. In 2009, a whopping 38 per cent of Maroons players weren’t born in Queensland. One well-connected NRL source also had a crack at Queensland. “They talk about Queensland passion, what a joke,” he said. “They will choose a player who once flew over Queensland. A player who once visited Brisbane, they’ll select him too. “Even the bloke who famously shouted “Queenslander”, Billy Moore, was born in NSW. “Their passion is so hollow. It’s actually become quite comical.” NSW coach Laurie Daley would not be drawn on the statistics. The Blues returned to Sydney from Coffs Harbour on Sunday night and will set up camp at Sydney Olympic Park. The team will have a captain’s run on Tuesday before Wednesday night’s opening game, which will still fail to sell out.
CONAKRY (Reuters) - Security forces in Guinea killed more than 150 people in a crackdown on opponents of military junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, a local rights group said on Tuesday. The violence on Monday was the worst since Camara seized power in a 2008 coup and follows months of tension with opponents who demand he honor a longstanding pledge to ensure a transition to civilian rule. WHAT LED UP TO THE CRACKDOWN? Opponents believe Camara is preparing to run as a candidate in a presidential election due to have taken place this year but now postponed to January. While he himself has made no formal declaration, his supporters have in recent weeks said there should be no impediment to him standing. Two days after Camara held a rally for his supporters in the city of Labe, a coalition of rival parties sought on Monday to hold their own event at a stadium in the capital Conakry. It was banned but thousands of people took to the streets and broke into the stadium anyway — prompting an immediate and massive crackdown by security forces. DOES THIS AUGUR WIDER UNREST? The violence used by the military on Monday could suggest a deliberate attempt by authorities to dissuade critics from any new challenges to Camara’s rule. Aside from the use of live rounds, eyewitnesses reported gratuitous abuses by soldiers including sexual attacks on women, while media covering the events said they were assaulted by soldiers and their equipment destroyed. Several prominent opposition leaders including Cellou Dalein Diallo of the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG) were arrested on Monday and it is not clear when they can expect to be released. Guinea was quiet on Tuesday, but with the presidential election due on January 31, the country is set for a volatile four months that could spill over into violence at any time. WHAT IS THE REST OF THE WORLD DOING? The crackdown brought swift and unequivocal condemnations from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former colonial power France, which said it would consult with European Union and other partners on what steps to take. The African Union recalled that it had given Camara a deadline of mid-October to confirm he would not be standing in the election or face sanctions. The AU warned that its Commission was already preparing a report on the developments and possible sanctions, but did not elaborate on what moves were possible. The statements amount to concerted external pressure on Camara to relinquish power as promised, but the junta leader has in recent months maintained an openly defiant stance to such calls. WHAT ABOUT THE ECONOMY? Camara’s weak point may be his reliance on outside investors to ensure Guinea draws benefit from its huge bauxite reserves. Mining firms such as UC RUSAL and Rio Tinto have not indicated they are ready to leave the country despite a series of disputes. Officials say government revenues from mineral exports is already expected to fall dramatically next year, putting public finances under strain. Analysts believe Guinea’s move to rescind a bauxite refinery deal with RUSAL this month was an attempt by the leadership to apply leverage for better terms on the contract rather than aimed at kicking RUSAL out. For now, investors are staying. But if Camara lets things get out of hand — either on the streets or in the economy — they could change their mind.
Chinese Army units have been undergoing intense training near the border with Myanmar in anticipation of an ethnic war there spilling into southwest China, according to official Chinese news media reports on Friday. The training has been taking place in the hills of Yunnan Province. It borders Kachin State in northern Myanmar, where a civil war between an ethnic Kachin rebel army and the Burmese Army has been unfolding. The fighting intensified in late December, and Chinese officials and news organizations reported that shells had landed in China and that Kachin refugees had begun living in hotels and the homes of family and friends in Yunnan. Last month, the Myanmar government announced a cease-fire with the rebels of the Kachin Independence Army in order to hold peace talks, but foreigners in the area reported continuing attacks by the Burmese Army in the days after. One Chinese news report on Friday said there had been “no significant improvement” in the peace talks. The goal of the military training in Yunnan was to ensure that the Chinese army units can “fight a battle, and be victorious in battle,” according to a report on Thursday by Xinhua, the state news agency, that was cited by several other news Web sites.
Yandex has shown some empathy towards the Windows platform before, but today, they are releasing an all new UWP app for their Weather service called Yandex.Weather. The app has a nice MDL2 design matching the Windows 10 system but still manages to keep some personality. This is how apps should be made. It features pretty accurate weather predictions and a nice live tile to it. However, it seems to be missing the beloved dark theme which Windows users, and especially phone users learned to love which is a bummer but may be updated in the future. Other than that, it works pretty well, operates smoothly and displays very detailed data. You can go ahead and grab the app from the Windows Store by following the link below: Share This Further reading: Microsoft

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