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The name of the next Imperial era, known as gengō in Japanese, will be announced on April 1, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed Friday.
“Tradition dictates that the name of a new era is decided on and disclosed to the public following the start of the new Imperial era,” Abe said during a New Year’s news conference in Ise, Mie Prefecture, following his annual visit to the Grand Shrines of Ise earlier in the day.
“However, I believe it is best to announce the name on April 1, prior to the Crown Prince’s ascension, so as to minimize the impact the change may have on the lives of the Japanese people,” he added.
The new era name will be made public soon after it is approved at a Cabinet meeting on April 1, a month prior to the start of the new era. Crown Prince Naruhito is set to accede the Chrysanthemum Throne on May 1 following Emperor Akihito’s abdication the day before.
“The government will put its best efforts into preparing for the new era, so that the public can celebrate the historic succession of the Chrysanthemum Throne,” Abe said.
The announcement follows months of speculation over when the new era name would be revealed. The decision over when to make the announcement has proved to be a delicate balancing act between following age-old traditions and adapting to the requirements of the digital age.
According to local media reports, conservative politicians had voiced concerns over issuing the name of the new era while Emperor Akihito is still on the throne, citing reasons such as the risk of giving an impression of there being concurrent authority between the old and new Emperors. They believe in the principle of associating one gengō to one emperor, and called for the new era name to be announced and issued after the ascension of the Crown Prince to maintain tradition.
But the government had also been keen to ensure a smooth transition to the new era by securing adequate time for computer systems and software to be updated in time for May 1. In Japan, the Imperial era is still used in official documents and public records such as those related to tax or pensions.
Friday’s announcement suggests Abe put the need for time to iron out any technical glitches ahead of the concerns raised by his conservative base. | {
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Exploring the Structure of the Pro CS:GO Scene
Delving straight into the Counter Strike: Global Offensive e-sports scene can be a daunting task. When tuning in, you can be met with thousands of screaming fans or a live feed of five players sitting in a row in a nondescript room. This first part in a series of guides will help you to orient yourself, discussing the structure and composition of the scene, its teams, players and competitions. The first part of this series will focus on the structure of the tournament circuit, its advantages and disadvantages, and how to follow the scene.
Different from structures such as the LCS in League of Legends, Counter Strike operates in an open circuit. That means that any tournament organiser, and even your or me, can run a tournament on their own volition. There have been multiple attempts to create private leagues, more similar to traditional American sports or the League of Legends model, but these have all proved unsuccessful for reasons that will be discussed later. Combine an open system with a low barrier for entry and there is an explanation for the hundreds of lower ranked tournaments - including collegiate leagues - that can be viewed online. Valve have taken a hands off approach to policing what happens with their game, with the traditional wisdom being that, similar to DoTA, nobody owns the rights to stream the game. This has, however, come under question after the controversial Starladder major. If anyone can setup a tournament and stream it live, which ones are worth your while watching?
The Majors
Similar to the Grand Slams in tennis, the majors are the crown jewel tournaments of the Counter Strike scene. They are mandated by Valve themselves, and with that comes special supplemental additions to both the stream and the game. Whether it simply be the ability to watch on Valve’s own Steam platform through the SteamTV system or the whole micro economy of weapon skin drops for completing challenges related to the matches. These benefits ensure that the Majors are, for now, the tent pole event of the ecosystem. Valve themselves are not in the business of hosting Counter Strike tournaments, so they tender the contract to the big event companies who, ideally, can leverage their expertise to put on a show that is able to live up to the hype. The variation in tournament organiser, location and the fact that it currently only takes place twice a year mean the look of one major to the next can change directly. So far, Starladder, ESL, FaceIT, Eleague, PGL and Dreamhack have all had a chance to show the world what makes their tournament the best, most compelling option. Since the PGL Major of March/April 2016 the majors have had a total prize purse of $1,000,000 and a percentage of the proceeds of in-game ‘sticker’ items that are sold during the event.
ESL events
So, two majors a year, that doesn’t seem too complicated to follow- why do I need to continue reading? Well, for some, events such as ESL Cologne and ESL Katowice have come become just as, if not more, important than the majors for the growth and health of the scene. ESL have, through sheer dollar expenditure and will power, found themselves at the top of the pile of Counter Strike organisers. Whether its the aforementioned tent-pole events of Cologne and Katowice or smaller national championships or smaller events around the world such as the upcoming IEM Beijing. Their production design, talent staff and the teams on show are often the best available, sometimes more so than the Majors as they are not restricted by the often clunky qualifying processes of those events. “The Cathedral of Counter-Strike” is a fitting moniker for ESL Cologne, an event which, if combined with being selected as a major, will always showcase the best that the game has to offer. The fading sparkle of Virtus Pro’s fairy-tale run at Katowice 2014 still offers a glow to the event, but in recent years it has taken a backseat to Cologne as ESL’s darling.
Dreamhack
Although both are now owned by the same majority shareholder, Modern Times Group, Dreamhack is distinct from ESL in multiple ways. First of all, its main priority is not to put on the best show for viewers at home or to support Counter Strike itself. It is, at its heart, a LAN tournament organiser - and an extremely successful one at that. This slightly changes the look and feel of Dreamhack tournaments, with desk segments often looking less ‘made for television’ and polished as their ESL counterparts, and taking place in a large LAN hall rather than an a studio or an arena. One advantage of Valve’s Laissez-faire attitude towards the game is the ability of ‘the talent’ - hosts, interviewers, casters - to operate on a freelance basis. Although it is often the same 10-15 faces operating at most events, they themselves have the power to negotiate their appearances and are not tied directly to contracts or exclusivity - unless they wish to be in working for a company such as ESL. This leads to relatively unknown figures in the community one or two years ago, such as Vince ‘metuz’ Hill or Harry ‘JustHarry’ Russell coming up in the scene and developing a following quickly.
Starladder
Starladder’s loyalty to the series had finally been rewarded by Valve with the Starladder Major Berlin in August/September 2019. Although that event didn’t, perhaps, go as smoothly as either parties would have liked Starladder are still a big name in the tournament circuit. Although focusing much of their effort on the Russian/CIS/Eastern European market they often still find themselves with top tier talent on stream, a generally good viewing experience and usually a good percentage of top ten level teams attending. Although without the financial and name value clout of ESL or the gaming pedigree of Dreamhack, Starladder can fall back on their 8 seasons of StarSeries experience. A positive of not having the pressure of putting on the best show on the English language stream allows them to make interesting diversions to the norm, for example, hiring Auguste ‘Semmler’ Massonnat, a previous CS:GO commentator and community favourite who had previously retired to pursue casting in Overwatch.
CS_Summit
If all of these seem a bit too formal, try and catch CS_Summit. The Counter Strike itself almost takes a back seat to the shenanigans of the casters and players on stream. An almost Big Brother like set highlights the great chemistry and allows a more human side of both the talent and the players to emerge. With the relaxation in quality of on-air stream, the production of the extras and behind-the-scenes content strengthens - for example, Steel’s legendary Fair play PSA. Although often short and too rare, CS_Summit offers a breath of fresh air when glut of different events start to all blend into one. Although the company seems to dip and dive between games, the format is great for the Counter Strike scene.
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Twilights book fort. By luckythedog Watch
138 Favourites 7 Comments 2K Views
WATOMGSHCOLOR?!?!
Now. Color.
Finally color.
Some of my art still might be in black & white.
It has been awhile since I colored something in, so I feel like it's a bit messy, but I'll improve.
Btw, this is how I'll be spending my time studying for finals that is coming up.
IMAGE DETAILS Image size 1962x1394px 223.54 KB Show More
Published : Dec 4, 2015 | {
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Yankees manager Joe Girardi removed whatever bit of mystery might have looming over his bullpen's back end when he named the newly acquired Aroldis Chapman closer on the YES Network Monday night.
PLUS: A-Rod's role in 2016
It was the right move. Here's why:
1.) It was a foregone conclusion: When asked whether Chapman would take over Andrew Miller's spot as the Yankees' closer almost immediately after the Yankees got Chapman from the Reds for a package of middling prospects, general manager Brian Cashman all but signaled Miller would get pushed out of the role. According to Cashman, Miller told him he would be willing to pitch anywhere in the bullpen, and then in a subsequent interview with NJ Advance Media, Miller said it himself. If the plan was for Miller -- who completely deserved to keep his job -- to actually keep it, the Yankees would have confirmed that.
RELATED: David Bowie's connection to Yankees
2.) No false competition: Last year, the Yankees went into spring training with a legitimate closer's competition between Dellin Betances and Miller, two guys who'd close just about anywhere else. Miller won because Betances' control problems lasted into the first week of April. This time around, though, it would be tough to believe in any real competition for the job, considering Chapman's a four-time All-Star and the game's hardest thrower, and Miller's stated flexibility.
3.) Chapman's possible suspension: Reports have made it seem more and more likely Chapman will serve some sort of suspension for his alleged domestic abuse. It's likely Miller will take over in his absence. But it helps to have Chapman named the closer for when he returns. That way, even if Miller is dominating, it won't be a surprise when Chapman usurps him.
ALSO: Will Castro help Yanks steal more bases?
4.) Defined roles: Girardi's a big proponent of defined bullpen roles. He likes having a traditional closer, set-up guy, seventh-inning guy, and so on. He believes it's the best way to help relievers prepare on any given night. By naming Chapman the closer now, Chapman can transition a bit more easily into the Bronx than he might have if he felt like he was pitching for his job.
Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook. | {
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Reliance Jio is officially bringing the sought-after, Augmented Reality game ‘Pokémon Go’ to India in a partnership with Niantic. With this partnership, thousands of Reliance Digital stores and select partner premises in India will appear as ‘PokeStops’ or ‘Gyms’ in the Pokémon Go game beginning December 14.
This launch is in line with Jio’s mission to empower Indians with opportunities that are fuelled by the power of data and a Digital Life and to delight them on an on-going basis with entertainment-based app such as Pokémon Go. “We are delighted to partner with Jio to launch Pokémon GO in India.” said John Hanke, Chief Executive Officer and founder of Niantic. “It’s exciting to see Pokémon fans in India step out and explore their neighbourhoods in search of Pokémon and Jio’s disruptive high speed 4G LTE Network will be an excellent way to experience the game.”
On Jio’s social messaging app, JioChat, Pokémon players have access to an exclusive Pokémon Go Channel. The Pokémon Go Channel will enable Pokémon Go players to collaborate and be part of a community of players with daily tips, contests, clues, and special events. “With over 500 million downloads globally, we are excited to launch Pokémon GO officially in India on the Reliance Jio network,” said Mathew Oommen, President Reliance Jio. “Our partnership with Niantic not only brings access to the Pokémon GO app but also opens the door to more opportunities for our customers to enjoy content on Jio’s one-of-a-kind mobile broadband network.”
Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. | {
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Against the backdrop of WorldPride and the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, the impetus to scour the history of queerness and camp on film has rarely seemed so timely. Though queerness, as both material reality and theoretical possibility, offers a rejection of normativity, or even the idea of linear narratives, this milestone is nonetheless a reminder of how queer expression on film has changed and left an indelible mark on both cinematic and queer history. Here are 10 memorable, mostly underseen gems that explore the tensions of queerness and camp on screen.
Bound (1996, The Wachowski Sisters)
By now a classic of queer cinema, the Wachowskis’s debut kicked down the door of masculinist genre fare and opened up its potential to be rewritten. This romantic noir is a volcanic study of gender, queerness, and the ways in which queers are undermined by symbols and signifiers themselves, not merely the figureheads that hold them. For Bound, gorgeously stylized, genre itself is both a prison and a Utopia.
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969, Toshio Matsumoto)
A hybrid of nonfiction, an adaptation of Oedipus Rex, and an experimental drama, Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses offers an idea of what trans cinema can be, not merely as subject matter but as form and practice. Time is broken down and subjectivity imploded, and sex and gender are unhinged from reality. Delving into the underground drag and sex worker scene in Tokyo, the film unfurls in beautiful disarray, offering one of the most harrowingly pure expressions of cinematic queerness in history.
The Raspberry Reich (2004, Bruce LaBruce)
Ever the provocateur, Canadian filmmaker, photographer, artist, and pornographer Bruce LaBruce’s The Raspberry Reich is one of his most jovial attacks on the frequent hypocrisy of radical politics. As he gives his characters the right leftist credos to regurgitate, he interrogates and punctures their commitment to their professed ideology, like Agatha Christie knocking off victims in a mansion. So too does this give him the opportunity to explore cinema as a political medium. By erasing the lines between narrative, essay, and pornographic film, LaBruce unearths the inherent artifice and transactional nature of political posturing. Then again, there’s nothing hotter than someone whispering into your ear, “The revolution is my boyfriend.”
Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007, Jaime Babbit)
In this wicked satire of sex and politics, Babbit takes aim at the successes and failures of radical queer political groups, putting in her crosshairs a world of separatist lesbians. Like LaBruce, Babbit understands and sympathizes with the premise of the group’s rhetoric — that patriarchy dominates society tyrannically, and that all social spaces are therefore misogynistic. But their nonviolent activism (graffitiing public spaces with feminist proclamations) falls apart as the group splinters over differing opinions and the nuances of their political perspectives. The film builds a deep understanding of this group, with all their sweetness, angst, competition, empathy, love, and heartbreak.
Antiporno (2018, Sion Sono)
Sion Sono uses Antiporno, a treatise on power dynamics and textuality, to indict its audience. Everyone watching is complicit. A pink film version of a Michael Haneke lecture, the director peels back the layers of the relationship between two performers as they are haunted by memories of the past and each other, as well as the relationship the audience has with eroticism onscreen. Every wall is knocked down, and the artifice of the different scenarios is deconstructed and rebuilt ceaselessly.
Some of My Best Friends Are (1971, Mervyn Nelson)
Candy Darling’s star shone brighter than most actors could have hoped, and Andy Warhol wasn’t the only person to notice her rawness and exuberant energy. Taking place on the night of a Christmas party in a crowded Greenwich Village gay bar (and released just a couple of years after Stonewall), Darling’s timid voice, her ability to manifest a desire to fold into herself and disappear, demonstrate how virtuosic she was. Though other performers get their time in the spotlight (including Rue McClanahan), this Altman-esque ensemble belongs to Candy.
Dottie Gets Spanked (1993, Todd Haynes)
Perhaps one of the most fundamental tensions in camp studies exists between its relationship to aestheticization and its depth. Camp, it is often claimed, is all about the surface. Essayist Susan Sontag, whom many credit with popularizing the term, is heavily bent toward a vision of camp wherein failed seriousness trumps any possibility of authenticity. But many artists and filmmakers have interrogated camp’s complications. Todd Haynes’s half-hour PBS short film Dottie Gets Spanked, which traces a line between star persona, fandom, queerness, and latent proclivities, is stylized like a Lifetime Movie. It’s pastel enough to pass for basic cable, its colors subtly used so as to never betray the ludicrousness in its vision of desire. Over his career, the New Queer Cinema pioneer has never matched the empathy which suffuses Dottie Gets Spanked.
Angela Robinson is good at revising popular fantasies. In D.E.B.S., she takes the corny lesbian schoolgirl trope to its logical extreme. A giddy celebration of its own artifice of femininity, the film also deconstructs the espionage genre. This is a quintessential text of dyke camp.
Fireworks (1947, Kenneth Anger)
A sailor holds a firecracker between his legs, moments away from exploding. This 1947 short from filmmaker, artist, occultist, and Hollywood Babylon author Kenneth Anger writes a mythology around white masculinity, inscribing the fantasy of a sailor coming home (in more than one sense of the word) as a great American fever dream. Or maybe it’s a nightmare. The uniformed phantasmagoria is a forbear of everything from Tom of Finland comics to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s almost-pornographic reverie Querelle.
Golden Eighties (1986, Chantal Akerman)
Chantal Akerman, responsible for devastating films like Jeanne Dielman and News from Home, had a sense of whimsy too. Set in a shopping mall, this musical is like a cocktail of Jacques Demy’s ear for music and life and Chris Marker’s eye for the changing political landscape. Using the gossipy, dramatic world of salons and shops, Akerman borders on ethnographer as she observes the ups and downs of love and sex between mall employees, as well as the economic prospects of the European Union more broadly.
This article is part of our 2019 Pride in Art series supported by Swann Auction Galleries.
Swann’s first ever “Pride Sale,” a curated auction of material related to the LGBTQ+ experience and the gay rights movement, took place on June 20, 2019. A corresponding exhibition of works on offer ran from June 15 through the sale. | {
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The ink is apparently dry on the deal for the man who will direct The Dark Tower.
That man is Nikolaj Arcel, who was first reported to be attached to the project earlier this year and has now been officially confirmed (via Deadline) as the director by Sony Pictures, which picked up the massive adaptation of Stephen King's eight-novel cycle after it was developed and then dropped by both Universal and Warner Bros.
Although there have been several versions of the script, Arcel -- who directed A Royal Affair and co-wrote the original film version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in his native Denmark -- will do his own rewrite with fellow Danish filmmaker Anders Thomas Jensen. The movie will be based on King's first book in the cycle, The Gunslinger, which introduces us to the last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and the alternate, ruined version of our world in which he searches for the legendary Dark Tower of the title.
Still to be determined is how many movies Arcel will direct in the series, how many films are actually planned, and whether the original idea to bridge the movies with limited TV series is still in the mix (Deadline says it is).
We'll stay cautiously optimistic for now, because this project has nearly gone under twice before and could always collapse again, but the news that The Dark Tower has a director is a good sign indeed. His next task: finding the man who will play Roland.
(Via Deadline) | {
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En 2015, el gobierno Comunidad de Madrid se gastó 1.041.695 euros en financiar la asistencia religiosa católica en los centros hospitalarios públicos. La Consejería de Sanidad regional ha facilitado estas cifras tras una solicitud de información de eldiario.es a través del portal de Transparencia regional.
El Gobierno duplica el gasto en curas y misas en las cárceles hasta los 600.000 euros
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Según recoge esta respuesta, desde el 2010 hasta el año pasado esta partida no se ha visto afectada por la crisis, ya que durante este periodo siempre ha oscilado alrededor del millón de euros. Esta contestación asegura que en 2010, por aquel entonces bajo el mandato de Esperanza Aguirre, el ejecutivo madrileño destinó 1.018.514 euros a la atención al culto en los centros sanitarios; en 2011, se redujo a 978.588 euros; en 2012 también se mantuvo por debajo del millón de euros, 993.809 euros. Un año después, y a partir de entonces, el desembolso público volvió a superar esa barrera: 1.068.129 euros en 2013 y 1.011.099 euros en 2014. Este dinero se destina a pagar los salarios de sacerdotes, mantenimiento de capillas o material.
La asistencia católica en la Comunidad de Madrid se regula por un convenio ratificado el 2 de enero del 2008 entre el gobierno regional y la Provincia Eclesiástica de Madrid. En el documento, las dos administraciones daban continuidad a otro suscrito por el Gobierno regional de Alberto Ruiz Gallardón en 1997. En estas normativas señalaban que la asistencia religiosa en centros sanitarios está promovida por un acuerdo de 1985 firmado entre el Estado español y la Santa Sede, en el que se indicaba que era el Gobierno nacional el encargado de financiar este servicio. Sin embargo, debido a la cesión de competencias, actualmente son los ejecutivos regionales los responsables de asumir el coste de esa asistencia.
De esta resolución emitida por Transparencia, también se desprende que la asistencia católica sanitaria es la única que recibe dinero público del gobierno madrileño. "Solo existen gastos derivados del convenio firmado entre Comunidad y Provincia Eclesiástica", han contestado tras solicitar un desglose de subvenciones distribuidas por confesión religiosa. Esta redacción ha planteado esta cuestión a la Consejería de Sanidad, sin haber recibido respuesta por el momento
A pesar de que el Ejecutivo regional tiene también un convenio firmado con el Consejo Evangélico para que sus sacerdotes estén presentes en los centros sanitarios, una portavoz de este organismo ha confirmado que el acuerdo no conlleva una partida presupuestaria y que los evangélicos financian ese servicio con fondos propios del Consejo.
Según el documento firmado en 2008, la subvención pública que recibe la Iglesia Católica en la Comunidad de Madrid incluye el sueldo de los capellanes de cada hospital, los impuestos asociados a su contratación y "los gastos de adquisición, mantenimiento y renovación del equipamiento necesario del servicio".
Presupuesto distribuido por número de camas
La Archidiócesis de Madrid ha confirmado a esta redacción que actualmente cuentan con 57 sacerdotes, 45 trabajando a tiempo completo y 12 a media jornada, distribuidos por los 28 centros hospitalarios de la Comunidad de Madrid. "Como apunta el convenio, tener acceso a la asistencia religiosa es un derecho reconocido", ha indicado un portavoz de esta institución.
La distribución de los curas también se fijó en este concierto y depende del número de camas del hospital. Si tiene una capacidad inferior a 250 personas, contarán con dos sacerdotes; uno de ellos a media jornada. Conforme la capacidad del centro sanitario va aumentando, incrementa también el número de capellanes, hasta llegar a un máximo de ocho, si en el centro hay más de 800 plazas.
Según apuntan desde la Archidiócesis, el Hospital de La Paz es el que cuenta con más sacerdotes. Aunque no han especificado exactamente cuántos están trabajando actualmente en sus habitaciones. Además, de acuerdo a la información aportada por Transparencia, este centro es el que más dinero recibe para hacer frente a la asistencia religiosa: en 2015 obtuvo 124.515 euros y en 2013 llegó a recibir 158.687 euros.
El año pasado, el Gregorio Marañón fue el segundo hospital que realizó el mayor gasto anual, 85.585 euros. Seguido de cerca por el Ramón y Cajal 77.728 euros; el Hospital Clínico, 77.543 euros yel Doce de Octubre, 75.181 euros. A la cola se situó el Hospital del Tajo y el Instituto Psiquiátrico José Germain, que abonaron 7.856 euros para facilitar la asistencia espiritual a sus pacientes católicos.
Estas cifras por ahora solo recogen la ejecución de las partidas elaboradas por los gobiernos de Esperanza Aguirre e Ignacio González. Cuando termine 2016, se podrá comprobar si Cristina Cifuentes ha mantenido este gasto. Aunque la previsión que plantearon en los presupuestos diseñados por su ejecutivo conservaba la misma dinámica, con cifras muy parecidas en la mayor parte de los hospitales en los que esta cantidad aparecía desglosada. Por ejemplo, 124.461 euros en La Paz o 85.535 euros en el Gregorio Marañón.
Curas en los comités de ética
Como ya informó eldiario.es, a comienzos de este año el Gobierno de Cifuentes renovó el convenio por el que se regula la asistencia religiosa católica en los hospitales públicos madrileños. Desde el departamento de comunicación de la Consejería de Sanidad aseguraron en su momento que estas condiciones se prorrogan automáticamente año tras año.
Este acuerdo recoge una polémica claúsula, que plantea explícitamente que los representantes del servicio de asistencia religiosa católica "formarán parte del comité de ética y del equipo interdisciplinar de cuidados paliativos". Una cuestión a la que el departamento regional quiso restar importancia, asegurando que participan "porque tienen una formación en bioética, no por el hecho de ser sacerdotes". | {
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The beauty of Saturn’s delicate system of rings is indisputable, but human fascination with them isn’t all about aesthetics; those rings can tell us incredible scientific stories, too.
Now, a study published in The Astrophysical Journal has used the planet’s rings to answer a surprisingly frustrating question: How long is a day on Saturn? The answer: 10 hours, 33 minutes, and 38 seconds.
Saturn 101 How did the rings around Saturn form? How many moons does the planet have? See stunning NASA images of the gas giant studied by Christian Huygens and Giovanni Cassini.
This revelation is important because it’s “a fundamental property of any planet in the solar system,” notes University of Iowa physicist Bill Kurth, who worked on NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn but who was not on the study team. Knowing how long a given planet’s day lasts can help with interpreting its gravitational field and its internal structure. But for the ringed planet, it’s a variable that astronomers have been struggling with for decades.
“Saturn is the only planet whose rotation is hard to measure,” says Matthew Tiscareno, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute who wasn’t part of the new study. He explains that the terrestrial planets have surface features that can be tracked. The other three gas giants don’t, but they have tilted magnetic fields that wobble as these planets rotate, and the disturbances can be used to work out each planet’s rate of rotation.
Saturn, however, wasn’t playing ball. The gassy world’s swirling, chaotic clouds mean that no surface features can be properly tracked. At the same time, several spacecraft orbiting Saturn have confirmed that its magnetic field is freakishly on-the-level, aligned near-perfectly with its rotational pole. That means its rotation doesn’t cause any measurable change in its magnetic field.
The snare drum of the solar system
For years, it wasn’t clear how to solve this conundrum. Then, a research team led by Christopher Mankovich, a graduate student in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, had an idea.
Saturn’s rings are far from static. They sometimes ripple or experience waves, normally when orbiting moons tug at them as they pass near all that ice and dust. But these waves can also be triggered by the oscillations of material deep within Saturn’s enigmatic interior. If a moving mass creates localized changes in the planet’s gravitational field, then that pulls at the rings, too.
It’s a bit like a snare drum: Something rocks the main instrument, and the snare shakes in response.
“Although you can't hear its oscillations, Saturn is very much like a musical instrument,” Mankovich explains. “Its timbre, as in the set of allowed frequencies for its oscillations, is dictated by its overall structure: its size, shape, composition, temperature, and so on.”
It doesn’t take much effort to trigger those waves. If a mass equal to one of Saturn’s moderate-size moons shifts around within the planet, it can cause part of the rings to slosh back and forth. If this sloshing matches up with the frequency of the ring’s orbit, it resonates, turning a small slosh into a clearly observable spiral wave.
The properties of these waves depend on what they are travelling through and what generated them. With this in mind, Mankovich’s team created a bespoke numerical model, designed to use the ring waves to work out what the interior structure of Saturn must be like. Their model not only revealed some of the planet’s inner workings, but it also managed to finally calculate the length of a Saturnian day.
The team has done “a careful and reliable job” at solving this persistent query, Tiscareno says.
A beast of a space probe
So, what took so long? The fact that Saturn’s internal mass and its errant behavior can cause ring waves was first evidenced in the early 1990s, says Tiscareno. And a series of recent studies led by the University of Idaho’s Matthew Hedman further built on the notion to develop what the team refers to as kronoseismology, or the ability to see what’s happening inside Saturn using the waves in its rings, a concept first suggested in 1982.
Finally cracking the mystery all came down to the late, great Cassini spacecraft, says James O’Donoghue, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who was not involved in the study.
Plenty of spacecraft have visited Saturn, but Cassini—a “beast of a space probe”—circled the giant world for 13 years with instruments that could watch those rings in unprecedentedly high resolution. That enabled it to see tiny details that are “impossible to achieve” using ground-based telescopes, O’Donoghue says. (See, for instance, evidence from Cassini that the rings are raining on Saturn.)
Even though we know something within the gas giant is causing those ring waves to appear, no one knows what that something could be. One new paper on the preprint site arXiv.org suggests that giant impacts in Saturn’s distant past may to be responsible for “ringing the bell,” so to speak, and sparking the ongoing internal chaos, Mankovich notes. | {
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The woman who appeared in India's Olympic contingent in the opening ceremony has apologised for her "error of judgment".
Madhura Nagendra said she was taken aback by all the attention she had received, and that she hoped she would be forgiven.
She told NDTV that she was a proud woman who wanted to move forward and "do wonders in my country". | {
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The results are in.
I first want to thank everyone who took the time to respond to the survey! Your participation has led to interesting conclusions on uniform studies and how the baseball fanhood feels about the Padres current state of jersey affairs.
After a little over a week’s worth of responses, we have a solid collection of data from 2,043 respondents. Thanks to help from all of you on Twitter, we were able to spread the survey around and get a good sample of opinions from not just Padres faithful but fans of other teams across the States as well.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the results!
Demographics
Our survey seized responses from many age groups, but our largest majority of respondents were between the ages of 30-40 (32.9% total) with responses from 24-30 and 40-50 year-olds weighing in at about the same frequency (just south of 19% each). In a bit of a first-time-survey error I included the round age numbers in multiple categories, but let’s just call that a thought experiment:
When the survey first went live the die-hard fans overruled the data set. Fortunately as time went on active and casual baseball fans made their opinions known. Despite the balancing a majority of 47.6% of responses were from baseball die-hards with active watchers coming in at 38% and casuals at 13.6%. A very scant 16 voters (0.8%) identified as non-watchers of baseball.
Naturally the most responses were going to come from Padres fans (it was a Padres-centric survey, after all). Thanks to the help of Twitter, Uni-Watch, et al., the survey had 36% of its responses come from fans of other teams. Which teams weighed in the most? Somewhat unsurprisingly, fans of larger-market and more popular teams:
Chicago Cubs - 2.9% (60 responses)
New York Yankees - 2.5% (52)
Boston Red Sox - 2.4% (49)
New York Mets - 2% (41)
Los Angeles Dodgers - 2% (40)
Now to the meat of the survey...
Colorway Questions
A large portion of respondents do not like the current navy/white color scheme (66.2%). 12.8% of voters chose yes on navy/white. A fair portion feel indifferent regarding the colorway (21%) which in uniform-speak feels like a bit of a negative: the current colorway does not inspire one to feel one way or the other. Of course these respondents can also be truly indifferent to what the Padres wear.
Deep-diving into the indifference metadata showed that a whopping 85% of indifferent voters eventually chose one specific main color over the other. Digging deeper showed that 251 of the 429 total indifferent respondents were Padres fans who were indifferent to the navy/white, and 84% of those indifferent Padres fans preferred one main color over another as well. Which color, exactly? Let’s move on to find out.
An overwhelming majority of responses were in favor of the current Friday colorway (91.7%). 5.1% said no to the brown and 3.2% (65 respondents) were indifferent to the brown.
The indifference wasn’t too vague, either: of the 65 indifferent voters 63% of those really did not prefer brown.
The largest question of the survey for many Padres fans shows that a bit over 88% of total responses were in favor of the brown. There’s not much else to say here other than the majority of people who took the survey have spoken: brown should be the primary color of the Padres.
Padres fans made up 66% of the total brown vote while 34% of the brown votes came from fans of other teams, meaning about a third of brown support in this survey comes from other team’s fans. On the flip side the navy vote was a stronger percentage of Padres fans at 74%, leaving only 26% of the total navy vote to fans of other teams. A lot of navy-primary voters spoke of the ‘91-’98 uniform set in the comments and you’ll read more remarks from respondents further below.
Referring back to the aforementioned navy/white indifferent voters: 85% of indifferent voters ultimately voted brown and 84% of Padres fans indifferent to the navy/white wanted brown as well.
Another boon for the brown: a total of 78.6% of respondents related some form of brown to the Padres. The most related colorway to the Padres was the brown/yellow option at 41.5%; brown/yellow/orange came in second at 31.4%. The brown/orange had the worst showing of the brown options (5.7%), coming in as the only brown option to be outdone by a navy colorway. The 90s-era navy/orange colorway did well at 12.3% and was by far the most popular navy-related colorway. Navy/white was the second-most selected colorway at 4.6%. Even still, the combined percentage of navy colorways (20.9%) cumulatively were less relatable to the Padres than the second most popular brown option (the brown/yellow/orange).
Various “other” single answers asked for brown, white, navy, camouflage, purple(?), PCL colors, and ‘98 colors.
While the result here is somewhat obvious, my idea to include an “other” fill-in choice resulted in a lot of extraneous “other” votes. Some graph titles were blocked out due to the amount of responses; I’ll help navigate you below.
Brown and yellow was the most-selected choice with a nice-and-a-half percentage (69.5%) of all votes. Coming in second is the brown/yellow/orange (53.7%) and brown/orange barely takes third with a 30.2%.
Navy/orange almost overtook the brown/orange choice yet represents the highest-voted navy choice at just a shade over 29%. The one-year wonder navy/yellow was second in navy-primary votes with 11.4%. The navy/sand outperformed the navy/white choice in this exercise by a bit more than a percentage point.
Among the “other” answers were calls for brown, brown/navy (Salton Sea Birds colorway), the 90s pinstripes, camouflage, and PCL colorways (the Ron Fowler revenge, maybe).
Marketing/Opinions
This question and the next were meant to gauge the market for how much merchandise our respondents purchased during the year. If the Padres were to change their colorway, how profitable could it be?
The data here was relatively spread out across the various options. A majority of respondents spend north of $60 a year on merchandise.
A solid majority of those surveyed said they would purchase more merchandise if the Padres were to change their colorway.
Let’s check the metadata: of the 1,446 yes votes, 73% were Padres fans. 27% were other fans, which may indicate that if the Padres were to change colorways fans of other teams would buy Padres merchandise. Some comments confirmed this hypothesis. The fact that 2016 All-Star Game gear was the highest selling merch in MLB history (and was brown/yellow/orange) may also attest to that.
Every Padres fan who opted not to purchase more merchandise if there were a colorway change also voted navy blue as their preferred Padres primary color. Padres fans who voted no only made up 28% of that particular vote.
The 20.2% of indifferent votes were truly fans of other teams; only 5 Padres fans voted as indifferent.
The white chunk of the pie is inhabited by the “other” answers. The primary “other” response was “depends”. Depends on what? Respondents said it depended primarily on design. Some mentioned that it depended on which colorway the Padres changed to.
Additional Comments
The additional comments section did not disappoint. 32% of the total surveyed sounded off in the additional comments section and expounded on their Padres uniform opinions.
By far the most common comment from Padres respondents was “BBTB”, “Bring Back The Brown”, or some variation thereof. Clearly the vocal minority majority of brown fans were passionate in their responses for bringing brown back and that should be no surprise to even the most casual Friar fan.
PCL mentions: The PCL uniforms are mentioned in ten responses, which accounts for .004% of the total survey responses. Not many at all are clamoring for the PCL uniforms. Marver should be pleased; Ron Fowler, not so much.
Here is a sampling of the comments from pro-brown Padres fans. There were a metric ton of comments on the brown:
Full-season Founders Club member, please change these to Brown ASAP, stop with the excuses and let the fans have want they want.
The current navy/white sets are so bland, they might as well say “TEAM” across the chest. They have no character at all.
Please return back to the unis which displayed the RAK on the sleeve. 1980 - 1984. For me that's what brings back memories of Padres glory. I liked when the orange was incorporated. I loved the yellow and orange batting jerseys. And please!!!! bring back the swinging friar as the primary logo. Great, fun, kid-friendly iconic logo. I mean that is the Padre. My second choice would be the brown and gold but not the brown and orange unless you were to modernize the wordmark. But please more friar.
The blue and white combination too closely resembles the Brewers and Mariners. Brown is not used by any team and would allow anyone watching to immediately know the Padres are playing.
Friars literally wear brown and that uniform color set gave us character that differentiated us from the rest. Stop with the generic blue and white and return to your roots!
After buying a bunch of All-Star merch last year, I've decided to only purchase brown, yellow or brown, orange Padres gear for the inevitable future. I am no longer buying blue or navy, or other configuration with blue for the foreseeable future. We are not the Dodgers, Brewers, Rays, Yankees, Mariners, Tigers. We are the Padres. Embrace our history, win or lose, and our identity. Key example-- after many years of different inform schemes, the Astros finally went back to their origins and I feel that they have one of the most likable uni sets in MLB!
Brown is unique and traditional when you think of the idea of Spanish Padres in Mission Valley. There are so many blue teams in MLB. The Pittsburg Pirates are a unique team being black and yellow. Their uniforms stand out when they play other teams. The Padres would be unique in brown and this would differentiate them from other bland blue teams.
And some pro-navy thoughts from Padres fans:
Bring back the orange and navy blue!
Go back to the 90s logo, San Diego baseball club.
If the Padres were to stick with blue, I think it should go back to the sharp Navy and Orange set of the 90's. If they want to go back to brown, the classiest and most pure brown look we ever had was the original uni set from 1969. Those are what we should wear if we switch to brown full time. The current brown alternate is lame and too modernized. It doesn't look right.
The Padres are brown, that’s who they are. As much as I do love the brown and orange, the '98 jerseys are my favorite of them all.
The blue and orange pinstripes are easily the best Padres jersey ever.
The white jersey, blue pinstripe, and orange PADRES across the front was the coolest jersey, go back to those!
I really liked the Padres pinstripe uniforms, the swinging Friar and fondly enjoyed the Navy and Sand.
I've been a Padres fan for quite a few years, and while the Brown/Yellow will always have a place in San Diego baseball as an alternate, the 2016 home jersey was one of the best looking jerseys not just in San Diego Padres history, but baseball history. I wear it often and despite poor records some years, makes me proud to be a Padres fan.
The 1998 style uniforms should become primary again, that way navy blue is still integrated and they could keep the brown and yellow color scheme for Friday's and maybe a few other special games a year.
The Blue and Yellow that the Padres had in 2016 is less polarizing than the brown, looks fantastic, and is (amazingly) not the color of any other MLB team - making it very ownable from a brand perspective. It's a way to have the distinctness that the Brown offers, while looking better and turning off fewer people.
And finally, some thoughts from fans of other MLB teams:
I'm a lifelong Dodger fan (and their current Director of Graphic Design), but I've always felt our rivals to the south should be brown. People have a bias against brown because it's not used much in sports, but if you look in the fashion world, brown is actually a very popular and good-looking color. Right now, the Padres are practically invisible. Their uniforms are boring and forgettable, possibly the worst combo for a club trying to make a name for itself. Bring back brown and own it!
(If the above isn’t a telling comment on bringing back the brown, I’m not sure what is.)
Be unique. Drop the navy and adopt brown again. Too many teams utilize navy, and you should want to differentiate yourselves from the Brewers, et al.
Friar Brown = Padres
Padres should have never dropped the yellow accents from their 2016 uniform set. They were going in the right direction but strayed away quickly.
The navy and white is awful, and so is the wordmark. You guys are the most boring looking team in all of baseball. There's nothing classic like there is for the Tigers or Yankees, and their have been so many better iterations of your uniform that you keep going further and further away.
I think brown has become synonymous with the Padres and I would like to see a way to modernize that. Maybe with some sort of brown and blue combination, where the brown is a bit lighter than its current version.
I am not a Padres fan, but I've always loved their brown and gold color scheme. Adopting the color scheme in time for 2020 (when the Padres will hopefully be loaded with exciting young talent) could help revitalize the fanbase.
Brown and yellow is the first color combo that comes to mind when someone mentions the Padres. I love the uniqueness of it!
Right now they have no identity, and brown is a strong, unique, ownable identity with clear history.
The brown/yellow color scheme is unique. The navy/white color scheme seems generic. The Swinging Friar Logo is unique too, they should use that as a sleeve patch.
The Padres in their current set are so bland and boring I sometimes forget they are in the MLB; and they change so much, be it a color, logo, or font it is hard to keep straight. I couldn't care less about the Padres but as a fan of baseball uniforms, I would love it if they made their brown and yellow set the primary unis and featured the swinging friar more prominently.
The blue pinstripe uniform with orange was your best look, but the brown, orange and yellow look is iconic San Diego Padres.
Shouldn't have abandoned Navy/Sand, that was a way to differentiate themselves from all the other blue teams out there. Navy and Orange also would work. I'd prefer going back to Brown rather than the lame way they utilize their current blue and white.
What can brown do for the Padres? A lot. It gives them an identity because right now they rank up with the Reds as the blandest team in baseball.
So what are your thoughts on the survey? Were the results exactly what you thought they would be? Surprised by a few of the comments? I’ll also be happy to (try) to answer any metadata questions you may have regarding the survey. Thanks for reading and thanks again for your participation! | {
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Rove skips House testimony for third time Jeremy Gantz
Published: Monday February 23, 2009
Print This Email This Karl Rove did it again. Or rather, he didn't do it again.
For the third time, the former Bush official and newly crowned king of D.C. Twitterers failed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to testify about his alleged involvement in the firing of U.S. Attorneys and the alleged political prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.
Rove's no-show Monday is not surprising especially to Siegelman, who said Monday in an exclusive Raw Story interview that Rove will never testify under oath "because he is guilty as sin." Rove's attorney has vehemently denied that his client was involved in the prosecution of Siegelman.
But the non-event marks another milestone in the increasingly complex political and legal battle between Rove and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI). Last week, Obama's acting assistant attorney general quietly filed a court brief saying it was necessary to delay the effort to force Rove's deposition in the congressional investigation.
"The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened," Obama White House Counsel Gregory Craig said February 14th. "But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So, for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle."
Conyers subpoenaed Rove in January; Rove did not appear. Rove has previously said he will not testify to Congress, citing Bush's claim of executive privilege. He's also refused subpoenas from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which called on him to testify in 2007.
On February 13th, Conyers subpoenaed Rove a third time, asking him to appear Monday for a deposition.
I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and todays action is an important step along the way, Conyers said last month. Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, its time for him to talk.
He still hasn't. Conyers' next move is unclear. Late Monday, both his own website and the Judiciary Committee's made no mention of the newly delayed deposition.
The next key date in the long-running sage appears to be March 4th, according to Talking Points Memo. That day is when the Obama administration is due to offer its opinion on the Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten case, in which former President Bush also asserted executive privilege.
"The new administration's stance on that case could well also determine how a judge would rule on the Rove case, should the issue go to court," TPM Muckraker's Zachary Roth reported.
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— Animal welfare activists and some North Carolina lawmakers are pushing for stronger penalties for animal abuse and more regulation of commercial pet breeders, in an effort to combat abuse cases and inhumane conditions at puppy mills across the state.
Although 70 percent of the state’s households have at least one dog or cat as a pet – higher than the national average of 63 percent – advocates allege that North Carolina has some of the weakest animal welfare laws in the nation.
The Humane Society of the United States estimates that there are more than 300 large-scale commercial breeding operations statewide. Those that breed animals for food or sell animals to pet stores are subject to federal and state regulation, but those that sell directly to consumers are not.
The Humane Society’s state director Kim Alboum said the lack of oversight is “ridiculous.” She says powerful interest groups have a hand in keeping animal welfare laws off the books.
“We have unbelievable support from the general public (but) we are working against the American Kennel Club, the National Rifle Association, the Pork Council and the Farm Bureau,” Alboum said.
Nineteen states currently register or regulate commercial breeders.
In 2009, lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 460, which would have imposed regulations at commercial breeding operations “to eliminate abusive practices and provide for the humane care and treatment of dogs and puppies by establishing standards for their care.”
The American Kennel Club, among other groups who profit from commercial breeders, was outspoken against it. The bill didn’t pass.
In an April email, an AKC spokeswoman said the bill would have “created numerous, confusing and costly burdens for (counties), taxpayers and responsible breeders, without actually protecting the health and welfare of dogs.”
Hunting and agricultural groups say the Humane Society's true goal is to outlaw hunting and farming. They've told lawmakers cracking down on puppy mills could be the first step toward that.
For Alboum, the issue is simple.
“Thousands of animals are suffering in North Carolina in puppy mills,” she said. “We just want them to have minimum standards. I can’t imagine why anybody wouldn’t want that.”
Laura Patterson learned the dangers of puppy mills first-hand when she bought an Italian Greyhound puppy that has needed about $10,000 worth of veterinary care because of conditions at a Greensboro-area breeding operation.
The dog has had two broken legs, a deformed tail and foot, liver and blood problems, bad teeth, allergies and acid reflux.
Patterson said she did all the research she could before she bought her puppy, Olive, and had no idea that the breeder was running a puppy mill.
But when the puppy mill got busted by the Guilford County Sheriff’s Office, Patterson was horrified by what she saw on the news.
“(The dogs) had been bred so much their insides were hanging out. Their dewclaws had grown where they were wrapped around. They were just emaciated,” Patterson said. “Some of the puppies were being eaten by rats, lying in their own feces.”
The breeder pleaded guilty to animal cruelty.
Alboum said the conditions Patterson described are common in puppy mill operations and they are exactly the reason she wants regulation. But S.B. 460 failed in 2010, and Alboum said she was told not to bother filing a similar bill this year.
In 2010, animal welfare advocates had some success in strengthening animal cruelty penalties.
Lawmakers passed Susie’s Law, named for a dog that was set on fire in Greensboro, which reclassifies the “malicious abuse, torture or killing” of an animal as a Class H felony, allowing a judge to send the offender to jail for up to 10 months.
Sen. Don Vaughan, D-Guilford County, authored the bill despite an unspoken rule he’s perceived in the General Assembly.
“One of the things you learn when you come (here), and this is my second term, is you don’t run any bills with regard to animals,” he said.
Still, he said, animal abuse needed to be addressed.
“I believe people who are involved with animals are just very fearful of change. I don’t know. It seems to me (to be) logical and good to punish those that abuse animals,” Vaughan said.
This year, Vaughan is sponsoring a bill that addresses animal neglect called Chamberlin’s Law, which was named for a dog that was tied up for months by its High Point owners without food or water. But legislative leaders have put it on hold.
"I was asked to pull it back because of all the attention it was getting in the committee," said Senate Rules chairman Tom Apodaca. "Most people favored it, but there were some groups who were scared it might go too far and affect their ability to do legitimate business."
The AKC does not support Chamberlin’s Law, calling it “too vague.” The organization did stress, however, that it takes a “strong line on animal cruelty” and has its own inspections program for breeders who register their litters under the AKC name.
WRAL requested interviews with the National Rifle Association, the NC Pork Council and the NC Farm Bureau, but all three groups declined to comment. | {
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Few games pack the emotional wallop of The Last of Us. The tale of a grizzled and grieving survivor of a zombie apocalypse reluctantly agreeing to ferry a child to the resistance, only to find that she has given him a new reason to live, introduced a new maturity to developer Naughty Dog, previously best known for its more lighthearted Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted series. It also gave the company a hit: The Last of Us sold more than 17 million copies, all but ensuring the company would invest in a sequel.
At the end of 2016, Naughty Dog revealed that it was working on The Last of Us Part II. And at E3 this week, we got our longest look yet at the game: a 12-minute sequence that blends cinematics and gameplay footage. A special moment at the outset, which finds the game’s heroine Ellie sharing a tender moment at a dance, grimly transitions into violence. Joel, who has become a father figure to Ellie after the events of the first game, is mentioned but never seen.
The first game was grounded in the evolving relationship between Joel and Ellie. So how will the sequel differ? Naughty Dog’s creative director, Neil Druckmann, says The Last Of Us Part II is a tale born of revenge. “The first game, at its very core, was trying to tap into this primal feeling that a parent has for their child. This unconditional love. How do we create a game that captures that? This game tells a very complementary story.”
Druckmann won’t say what exactly inspires the revenge story. But in doing research for the game, Naughty Dog watched documentaries in which revenge played a role, including Paradise Lost, a 1986 film about the murders of three boys in Arkansas. The documentary focuses in part on the rage of the parents of the dead boys, who vow to hunt down and kill the accused killers if they are not convicted of the crime.
“We wanted to deal with this primal feeling,” Druckmann says. ”I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where someone pushed you, or you saw a video of someone torturing an animal, and even for a split second, you’ve thought: I want to make this person pay. And that’s part of the research that we’ve done.”
The world of The Last of Us is still recovering from an infection that wiped out most of humanity and left terrifying zombie-like creatures lurking around every dark corner. Society is still fundamentally unstable, he says, and so the game’s characters are prone to seeking vigilante justice.
“With society broken down, how far would you go for justice?” Druckmann says. “How much would it consume you? How much would it take away from your humanity? How much would it destroy your relationships? Those are all interesting questions for us to explore.”
The Last of Us Part II will evolve from the original in other ways as well, Druckmann says. Ellie can now crawl and jump, dramatically increasing the complexity of the game’s level design. There will be multiple paths through sequences like the one depicted in the E3 demo, he says. The trailer shows Ellie getting caught as she attempts to sneak through a parking garage, but it’s also possible for her to make it out undetected, Druckmann says.
Many key questions about the sequel are still awaiting answers. Zombies, known in the game as “the infected,” are still part of the world. But what new dangers might be found within the game, Druckmann isn’t saying. We also still don’t know what role Joel plays in the new game. He appeared briefly in the game’s first trailer, asking Ellie if she was “really going to go through with this,” but he hasn’t been heard from since. (Incidentally, Ellie’s answer to that question was: “I’m going to find... and I’m going to kill... every last one of them.”)
Most pressingly, we still don’t know when The Last of Us Part II is coming out. Time will tell whether it’s as emotionally satisfying as the original. But from what we’ve seen so far, it certainly looks just as intense. | {
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The original by VirtoxThis kinetic sculpture is inspired by the unlimited freedom of 3d printing.It wobbles and turns with a slight movement of the hand.Now give it a good spin or puff of air and it erupts in erratic and wild behavior.Watch the video to see it go!are available separately.Available in:Extra small (2.5cm/1") starting at $11.50.Small (3.3cm/1.3") startin at $16.50.Medium (5cm / 2") starting at $25.Large (7.5cm / 3") starting at $50.Extra Large (10cm / 4") starting at $100.At the dawn of 3d printing it was accused of being fake, witchcraft or simply impossible.Seriously, check out the Youtube comments for a good laugh!But for real product reviews, see the comments on the bottom of this page.And after nearly 8 years, Gyro the Cube is already considered a classic in 3d printing.Why not get a key-fob too?Check out Gyro the Dodo The sculpture is composed of four concentric cubes, each one spinning around a different axis.But it needs to be aligned after you receive it:Each inner cube has two knobs which need to be placed into the corresponding clamps in the parent cube.It's easiest to start with the inner most and continue outward.And then... spin it away !Do not be alarmed if your cube will not run smoothly at first!Because of minor variations in the 3d printing process,sometimes a fresh cube needs to wear in a little, but it will loosen up very quickly.In the example video I am only blowing on it (M), to make it move, it's that smooth.Be careful with the L and XL versions, fingers may get pinched if handled carelesly.It is not suitable as a toy for small children!Be a little careful with the Metallic plastic version as this material is a little less flexible and robust than the Strong & Flexible materials.Blowing minds since 2009 | {
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San Francisco 49ers running back Raheem Mostert has proved that he can score plenty of touchdowns and catch passes out of the backfield for Jimmy Garoppolo.
But there is at least one thing he cannot do.
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Mostert is contractually barred from hanging ten.
The running back who was cut by six teams before finally finding success with the 49ers is unable to take part in “extraordinary sports” due to his three-year, $8.7 million contract, which includes surfing, according to ESPN.
49ERS' KYLE SHANAHAN REVEALS BILL BELICHICK REACHED OUT TO HIM AFTER SUPER BOWL LI LOSS
“That was put in this year. I'm not allowed to,” the New Smyrna Beach, Fla., native said Monday at the NFL’s Super Bowl Opening Night. “I'll be able to have time to do that when I'm done playing ball. I'm not too bummed about it. I have one objective, one goal, and that's to play the game I love right now and to play in the Super Bowl.”
Mostert thrust himself into the national spotlight during the NFC Championship game against the Green Bay Packers. He ran for 220 yards on 29 carries and scored four touchdowns. He got most of the playing time because Tevin Coleman left the game with an injury.
The success on the ground meant Garoppolo only needed to throw the ball eight times.
49ERS ASSISTANT KATIE SOWERS BELIEVES HEAD COACHING JOB IS IN THE CARDS
San Francisco plays the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV. | {
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A woman introducing Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally honored the “tree people” and “fish people” who lived in the United States before the “genocide” of the Native American people.
Trisha Etringer spoke before the Vermont senator took the stage for his campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on Sunday. Etringer called on the crowd to pay respect to the land where the event was being held.
“At this time, I’d like to recognize this land. Iowa is a place that was highly effected by genocide and colonization due to the rich and fertile soil that lies between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers,” Etringer said.
Native American at Bernie rally: “Humans, the four legged, the plant and tree people, fish people, and Mother Earth” lived in harmony before arrival of Americans pic.twitter.com/5TOIwj4xw2 — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 9, 2019
She continued, “Before our ancestors were murdered and cleared out of this area, they farmed and lived on this land in a way that humans, the four-legged, the plant and tree people, the fish people, and Mother Earth all benefited from.”
Sanders, 78, has been trying to pull ahead in the Democratic presidential primary, although he trails Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden in most polls.
Warren has struggled to regain the trust of Native Americans after claiming she was “American Indian” on her Texas Bar registration card despite not having tribal membership. | {
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El Salvador's Supreme Court has still not ruled to allow a critically ill woman access to lifesaving abortion care, despite petitions from the woman and her family, medical professionals, El Salvador's Ministry of Health, reproductive rights activists and international human rights groups like Amnesty International.
The court has only issued a temporary directive that the woman, identified only as Beatriz, be given "necessary medical care" while they consider her petition for an abortion. But time is short, as Amnesty's Human Rights Project Coordinator Kathryn R. Striffolino told Salon on Thursday:
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What it comes down to is that -- while the government is debating this, while the court is debating this, every minute that goes by -- Beatriz is suffering cruel and inhumane treatment. She is reaching the five month mark and the court has yet to rule.
As Salon previously reported, Beatriz is 22 years old and five months into a pregnancy with a non-viable, anencephalic (developing without a brain and certain parts of the skull) fetus. Doctors have diagnosed Beatriz as being at high risk for pregnancy-related death due to health complications caused by an autoimmune disease. But, because abortion is banned under all circumstances in El Salvador, Beatriz cannot go forward with the procedure without risking putting herself, and her doctors, in jail.
In addition to petitions from Beatriz's doctors and El Salvadorian reproductive rights groups like Agrupación Ciudadana Por la Despenalización Del Aborto, the country's Minister of Health Maria Isabel Rodriguez wrote a letter asking the court to intervene before Beatriz's kidney function further deteriorates. According to Rodriguez's letter, Beatriz's pregnancy classifies as a serious maternal illness and the court should approve her "urgent medical abortion."
Ministry legal advisor Carlos Castillo has also urged the court to resolve the case quickly and before Beatriz's condition worsens. He also called on the legislature to revisit the law banning all abortion in El Salvador.
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Until then, Beatriz, her family and her community must wait.
"Everything is so fluid right now, we just don't know," Striffolino told Salon. "Her life, literally, is in the hands of the court."
More to come as the story develops. | {
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Uber is now requiring the same good behavior from riders that it has long expected from its drivers. Uber riders have always had ratings, but they were never really at risk of deactivation — until now. Starting today, riders in the U.S. and Canada are now at risk of deactivation if their rating falls significantly below a city’s average.
“Respect is a two-way street, and so is accountability,” Uber Head of Safety Brand and Initiatives Kate Parker wrote in a blog post. “Drivers have long been required to meet a minimum rating threshold which can vary city to city. While we expect only a small number of riders to ultimately be impacted by ratings-based deactivations, it’s the right thing to do.”
For drivers, they face a risk of deactivation if they fall below 4.6, according to leaked documents from 2015. Though, average ratings are city-specific. Uber, however, is not disclosing the average rider rating, but says “any rider at risk of losing access will receive several notifications and opportunities to improve his or her rating,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch.
For example, Uber will offer tips to riders around encouraging polite behavior and keeping the car clean.
“Ultimately, we expect this to impact only a very small number of riders,” the spokesperson said.
This is part of Uber’s refreshed community guidelines, which will appear front and center on the Uber app and require confirmation of acknowledgment.
“Holding riders accountable for their behavior on the Uber platform is an important safety measure to protect drivers as well as fellow riders who may book shared rides,” Moira Muntz, spokesperson for the Independent Drivers Guild, said in a statement. “While most riders are respectful, banning riders who threaten driver safety, spew racist rants, and disrespect or damage our vehicles is the right thing to do. For too long there has been one-sided accountability and this is a positive step toward correcting that.” | {
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Plenty of evidence to impeach Bush
Letter to the Editor
I just couldn't let this get by: a recent call to stop calls for impeachment of Bush by Joe of Elk Grove Village.
He states that there is no indisputable proof to impeach Bush. Well, I have one bit of proof: How about when asked if he was still in the hunt for Bin Ladin? His response was and "I don't give it much thought anymore." That, my friend, is reason enough for me.
One of the things he is sworn to do is protect America from its enemies and he doesn't think about it much anymore. Are you kidding me?
Or maybe lying to America about weapons of mass destruction and taking us into a war we should not be in. It has cost some 4,200 fine military soldiers their lives and some 28,000 to be very seriously injured and who knows to what extent it has cost the Iraqi people, That's just for starters.
I'm sure though if he were brought before Congress or a court, he would follow the steps of all the rest who have come and gone in this administration. He would simply say "I don't remember" or "I don't recall" or what seems to be the new strategy, blame the Democrats.
Charles Bellizzi
Streamwood | {
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After sinking money and resources into them in 2008, the former Massachusetts governor won't participate in any of the informal contests this time around
Mitt Romney's campaign has just confirmed that the presumed front runner in the 2012 presidential campaign will not be participating in several high profile straw polls this year, prompting immediate pushback from at least one state party chairman.
Romney plans to take a pass on contests in Iowa (where he hasn't seemed prepared to compete anyway), Florida and Michigan.
Here's the statement from Matt Rhoades, Romney's campaign manager:
"Our campaign has made the decision to not participate in any straw polls, whether it's in Florida, Iowa, Michigan or someplace else. We respect the straw poll process. In the last presidential campaign we were both strengthened as an organization and learned some important lessons by participating in them. This time we will focus our energies and resources on winning primaries and caucuses. We look forward to bringing Mitt Romney's strong pro-jobs message to every part of the country." | {
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Governor Mark Sanford says “God will make him better” after he had an affair with an Argentinian mistress.
Apparently, God was missing when Sanford was secretly emailing the mistress, catching a flight to see her, and getting it on:
It’s in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience to both trust God in his larger work of changing me, and from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader… … In this regard I think all that has transpired will be particularly relevant in the way I deal with the legislative body and other state leaders going forward. Micah 6:8 asks us to do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly, and as I begin these steps into the last 18 months of this administration, it will indeed be with a more contrite and humble spirit.
Maybe Sanford didn’t read enough of his Bible because Micah 6:13, a few verses later, has God saying something very different:
Therefore, I have begun to destroy you, to ruin you because of your sins.
By the way, God has already responded to Sanford’s piece:
“At no point did I say that I was trying to make Mark Sanford a better person,” the Almighty told reporters. “And the only time that bastard has prayed to Me was last month, when his exact words were, ‘Please don’t let Jenny find out where I really am.'”
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Justice Department Will Phase Out Its Use Of Private Prisons
Enlarge this image toggle caption Charlie Litchfield/AP Charlie Litchfield/AP
U.S. Justice Department officials plan to phase out their use of private prisons to house federal inmates, reasoning that the contract facilities offer few benefits for public safety or taxpayers.
In making the decision, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates cited new findings by the Justice Department's inspector general, who concluded earlier this month that a pool of 14 privately contracted prisons reported more incidents of inmate contraband, higher rates of assaults and more uses of force than facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
"They simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and ... they do not maintain the same level of safety and security," Yates wrote in a memo Thursday.
At their peak, contract prisons housed approximately 30,000 federal inmates. By May 2017, that number will have dropped by more than half, to 14,000, Yates wrote. The Bureau of Prisons tends to use contract facilities to confine inmates who require only low security and who tend to be in the country illegally. The U.S. government spent $639 million on those facilities in fiscal year 2014, according to the inspector general report, in payments to three companies: Corrections Corporation of America, GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp.
The Justice Department announcement will not touch the vast majority of prisoners in the country who are incarcerated by state and local authorities. But federal officials hope their decision will be a model across the correctional field.
Last month, the DOJ declined to renew a contract for 1,200 prison beds in a private facility. And it is making changes to a new contract bid to reduce the size of demand there, too.
In a blog post to department employees, the deputy attorney general pointed out that the federal prison population has been dropping overall, to fewer than 195,000 inmates, because of a shift in how low-level, nonviolent drug criminals are treated. Yates did not shut the door on demand for private contract facilities in the future, however, and a new presidential administration could handle the issue differently.
Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, nonetheless said the Justice Department announcement represented a "major milestone in the movement away from mass incarceration."
"It has been a stain on our democracy to permit profit-making entities to be handed the responsibility of making determinations of individual liberty," Mauer said in a prepared statement. "Today's action moves us closer to a moment when government can once again assume this important responsibility."
Jamie Fellner, a former prison researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, "when the government does delegate, it's done a bad job of supervising" and adjusting the contracts accordingly.
"When private prisons fail as the inspector general suggests was going on with these particular ones, it's not just somehow because private business can't do corrections," Fellner said. "The principal overriding reason is ... [the Bureau of Prisons] failed to require contractually core best practices and standards; two, failed to supervise; and three, it failed to enforce the contracts. It just kind of keeps rolling over."
Immigrant advocates have for years lodged similar complaints — understaffing, poor medical care, increased security risks — at for-profit detention facilities used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold immigrants. The Bureau of Prisons, at its height, housed only 15 percent of federal inmates in for-profit prisons. ICE reports that it currently holds 73 percent of its detainees in private jails. (Updated at 12:10 p.m. ET on Aug. 19 with ICE statistics.)
Because ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security, the new Justice Department rule does not affect immigrant lockups.
An ICE statement released Thursday afternoon points out that immigrant detention facilities are different from federal prisons in that they only hold detainees temporarily. "ICE detention is solely for the purpose of either awaiting the resolution of an individual's immigration case or to carry out a removal order. ICE does not detain for punitive reasons," wrote an unnamed ICE official.
The statement continues that the Office of Detention Oversight conducts independent reviews of ICE detention facilities to be certain they comply with detention standards.
NPR's John Burnett contributed to this story. | {
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A new coloring book is making menstruation easier to talk about, one sex-positive illustration at a time.
Created by Toronto-native Andrea Yip, the Period Coloring Book is a sex-positive coloring book that aims to normalize menstruation. Yip, a public health practitioner and design strategist, told The Huffington Post she hopes the coloring book can lead to more open and honest conversations about periods, and the different types of people and bodies that menstruate.
“Periods are natural and normal,” Yip told HuffPost. “They help us keep in touch with our bodies, bond us with fellow bleeders, track time and cyclical changes, create feelings of relief, panic, pain, and surprise, and so much more!”
Andrea Yip The creator of the Period Coloring Book, Andrea Yip, with her illustrations.
The Period Coloring Book is still in the crowd-funding phase on IndieGogo. Yip hopes to raise enough money to produce the book in bulk.
“I believe that having open conversations about menstruation can help people better understand and celebrate their bodies, and ultimately make more informed decisions about their sexual health,” Yip said.
Yip hopes the coloring book can be a fun and easy way to start educational discussions around menstruation ― especially when it comes to topics people may feel are more taboo, like period sex and free bleeding.
“I hope it offers people the opportunity to engage in some period positive meditative coloring,” Yip said. “And I promise you’ll need more than just a red pencil crayon to color your way through the book.”
BRB, grabbing all the colors of the rainbow.
Scroll down to see a few illustrations from the Period Coloring Book.
Period Coloring Book Andrea Yip
Period Coloring Book Andrea Yip
Period Coloring Book Andrea Yip
Period Coloring Book Andrea Yip
Period Coloring Book Andrea Yip
Watch the video below to learn more about the project or head over to the Period Coloring Book’s IndieGogo page. | {
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By Lyndsey Garcia
We are constantly surrounded by visuals: television, advertisements and posters. Humans have been using visuals such as cartographic maps of the physical world to help guide our exploration and serve as a reminder of what we have already learned.
But as research has moved into more abstract environments that are becoming more difficult to interact with or visualize, the art of science mapping has emerged to serve as a looking glass to allow us to effectively interpret the data and discern apparent outliers, clusters and trends.
Now on display from from January 12 to April 10, 2015, the exhibit Places & Spaces: Mapping Science serves as a fascinating and intriguing example of the features and importance of science mapping.
The end result of a ten-year effort with ten new maps added each year, all one hundred maps are present at Duke at three different locations: the Edge in Bostock Library, the third floor of Gross Hall, and the second floor of Bay 11 in Smith Warehouse.
Science maps take abstract concepts of science and make them more visible, concrete, and tangible. The scope of the exhibit is broad, including science maps of the internet, emerging pandemics in the developing world, even the mood of the U.S. based on an analysis of millions of public tweets. Science mapping is not limited to the natural or technological sciences. Several maps visualize social science data such as Visualizing Bible Cross Connections and Similarities Throughout the Bible, where the axis represents the books of the Bible and the arches portray connections or similar phraseology between the books.
Angela Zoss, the exhibit ambassador who brought the project to Duke, comments, “The visualization helps at multiple phases of the research process. It helps the researcher communicate the data and understand his or her data better. When we try to summarize things with equations or summary statistics, such as the average, the mean, or the median, we could be glossing over very important patterns or trends in the data. With visualization, we can often visualize every single point in space for small data sets. One might be able to detect a pattern that you would never have been lost in simple summary statistics.”
The physical exhibit holds importance to the Places & Spaces project due to the physical printing of the maps. Some of the details on the maps are so intricate that they require an in-person viewing of the map in order to appreciate and understand the information portrayed. Such as, A Chart Illustrating Some of the Relations Between the Branches of Natural Science and Technology, is a hand-drawn map from 1948 showing the relationships between the branches of natural sciences and technology by using a distance-similarity metaphor, in which objects more similar to each other are more proximate in space.
The maps look more like works of art in a museum than a collection of maps to interpret data. Angela Zoss explains her love of visualization as, “Visual graphics can inspire an emotion and excitement in people. It can encourage people to feel for information that would otherwise seem dry or intangible. The exhibit heightens those emotions even more because you see so many wonderful examples from so many different viewpoints. Every visualizing person is going to make a different choice in the details they want represented. Being able to see that variety gives people a better idea of how much more is possible.” | {
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Kuala Lumpur is choking.
The city's normally sparkling twin Petronas Towers now are smudged outlines, faint behind a thick layer of smog.
As we flew into the Malaysian capital the haze was so dense that we couldn't see the ground below until we were almost on the tarmac.
It isn't the only casualty.
Fires on neighbouring Indonesia have shrouded parts of Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay peninsula and Singapore in blankets of smoke.
Those with homes closest to the blazes are having to breathe air which is officially classed as hazardous.
Earlier this week, Kuala Lumpur had the most polluted air on the planet when levels plunged to "very unhealthy", only to be over taken by fellow Malaysian city, Kuching, which is badly suffering.
Palangkaraya, the capital of Borneo's Central Kalimantan province, earlier this month hit 500 or "dangerous" on the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), according to data from the Indonesian government.
Image: The toxic haze has forced thousands of schools to close over fears for the health of over a million children
The toxic haze has forced flights to be cancelled and thousands of schools to close over fears for the health of more than a million children.
In central Kuala Lumpur, Chan Li Jin was with volunteers from humanitarian group Mercy Malaysia handing out facemasks to commuters. In just four days they've already given away 20,000.
"It makes me very depressed because you look out of the window and the scenery that you're normally use to you don't see anymore. Buildings, hills - they've just disappeared under the haze and it makes you feel worried because you don't know how it's affecting your health," Chan Li Jin said.
Fires and smog are an annual problem during the summer when slash and burn techniques are used on plantations in Indonesia to clear land.
Scientists claim exposure to smoke could lead to 36,000 premature deaths per year in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore if the current trend continues.
Tiny particles in the smog have been linked to breathing problems, strokes and cardiovascular disease.
Dr Helmy Haja Mydin, a respiratory specialist at Kuala Lumpur Pantai Hospital, explained: "I've had patients that have had no issues prior to this and who have come in with all kinds of symptoms so folks with rhinitis, those who are coughing or having phlegm and they end up having a bit of bronchitis so it's affected a lot of people across the age groups."
This week Indonesia brought in more than 5,000 extra troops to try to tackle hotspots while police have arrested 230 people suspected of starting fires.
Both countries have been cloud seeding to try to trigger rain.
Nearly 40,000 fires were detected from the start of the year to 16 September, according to NASA fire data.
The concern is that drier weather means the blazes will continue into October, causing further damage.
Greenpeace Malaysia campaigner Heng Kiah Chun told Sky News this was a wake-up call for the planet.
"We are now in a climate emergency, all the countries and governments and corporations around the world should stop pointing fingers and work together to solve this problem." | {
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For Immediate Release
BOSTON -- 200 community leaders from 45 U.S. states and affiliated islands are voicing their support for 100 percent clean, renewable energy. Environment America’s Voices for 100% Renewable Energy project, launched in 2017, brings elected officials, non-profit directors, academics, business owners, religious leaders, and others from across the nation together to call for a swift transition away from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy.
“The American public knows that acting on climate change is an urgent priority, and given federal headwinds, that action will have to be at the local level,” said Environment America Clean Energy associate Allie Astor. “We are seeing local leaders, including the 200 involved in the Voices for 100% Renewable Energy project, step up in their communities and show that they’re ready to lead the way.”
The newest batch of additions to the project are not only voicing support for 100 percent renewable energy but also driving this transition to happen in their respective communities.
At the state level, Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor, Mandela Barnes, played a key role in the proposal made in early March to decarbonize the state’s electricity supply by 2050. He states, “We want to adopt policies that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the impact fossil fuels have on our beautiful state.. Our policies will encourage businesses and communities to make smart energy choices. Wisconsin will lead the way when it comes to sustaining our Earth for future generations.”
At the city level, leaders from Keene, N.H., Cincinnati, Ohio, and Sarasota, Fla. have championed efforts in their communities to commit to 100 percent renewable energy. Sarasota has a commitment to meet 100 percent of their electricity needs with renewable sources by 2045. Stevie Freeman-Montes, Sustainability Manager for the City of Sarasota, attests, "I get asked all the time whether I think transitioning to 100% renewable energy is feasible. My answer is not only yes but that we must. If we can direct our collective focus on this one issue we can change the world we leave behind for our children and improve our current health and economy at the same time.”
College campuses are also embracing the vision of a future powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources. Last fall, the University of Richmond announced a plan to match 100 percent of its electricity needs with solar power. Andre Eanes, President of GreenUR at the University of Richmond, offered the following, “In my view, as well as that of the greater scientific community, transitioning toward renewable energy sources and practicing sustainable development are absolutely essential to our survival as a species... In the long term, the integrity of our magnificent global ecosystems, both marine and terrestrial alike, take priority over short-term profit maximization and the over-consumptive lifestyle that many associate with the 'American dream.’”
All 200 Voices for 100% Renewable Energy and their stories can be found here.
###
Environment America is the national federation of statewide, citizen-based advocacy organizations working for a cleaner, greener, healthier future. | {
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Equanimeous St. Brown is Notre Dame's star receiver. Osiris St. Brown is a highly touted Stanford freshman. Amon-Ra St. Brown is the jewel of next year's recruiting class. And their dad is a two-time Mr. Universe determined to make the world remember his sons' names.
It’s a Wednesday afternoon in Orange County, Calif., and a middle-aged man in a faded leather weight belt barks orders in a nondescript gym, herding what he calls his “house of 4.0 thugs” through a workout so intense that their biceps twitch.
His name is John Brown and he was once among the bodybuilding elite, a two-time Mr. Universe and three-time Mr. World with a jheri curl and boulder-like muscles. The 4.0 thugs are his three sons, Equanimeous, Osiris and Amon-Ra. They’re all wide receivers, each more highly regarded than the last. Equanimeous, a redshirt sophomore, is the top target at Notre Dame. Osiris, a true freshman, is one of the most heralded pieces of the latest Stanford recruiting class. And Amon-Ra, a senior, is arguably the No. 1 receiving recruit in the country at powerhouse Mater Dei High in Santa Ana.
Whenever the boys are all home, they go four or five times a week to an LA Fitness in a shopping center a short drive from their home in Brea. They lift for over an hour like a well-drilled NASCAR pit crew—everything is speed and precision. When one bench presses, the other two spot. As the set winds down, the spotters wordlessly slide off a plate apiece to set up their brother for a few cool down reps. He’s upright as soon as the bar touches the resting position. No sooner does he stand than another brother slides in to replace him. Then they shuttle between rapid-fire bicep curls and accelerated lat pulldowns before winding down with 20 minutes on the basketball court.
Each of the St. Brown brothers—their last name is different from their father’s—profiles as an NFL prospect. Leading the way is Equanimeous, who had four catches for 80 yards and a touchdown in the Irish’s 49–16 opening win last Saturday over Temple, building on a freshman season in which he led the team in receiving yards (961) and touchdowns (nine). Theories abound as to why they’re so accomplished. It could be simple genetics, which would be no accident since John readily cops to pursuing his wife, Miriam, for, “selective breeding.” Or it might be their demeanor, ravenously competitive on the field and equally distinguished in the classroom. (Yes, the 4.0 thugs routinely have 4.0 GPAs, according to their parents.) Then there’s John himself, who introduced the boys to weight training when they were as young as kindergarteners, feeds them entree portions of red meat for breakfast and turns his nose up at most high school and college strength coaches because most “don’t know s--- about lifting weights.”
Ultimately, a bombastic former athlete developed a unique regimen to train his three mixed-race, colorfully named sons, intending that they would dominate their chosen sport. In other words, this is the Ball family of football.
Only, the St. Browns are something else entirely, and even more unique. After all, what other accomplished sports family features a patriarch with a day job in women’s fashion and a passion for painting surrealist art? A matriarch who addresses her sons only in German and who once moved with them to Paris for a semester in elementary school? And siblings who are trilingual and took the SATs in three languages?
“It has fascinated me for years,” says Bruce Rollinson, Amon-Ra’s coach at Mater Dei. “To me, they’re regular parents with three well-rounded young men. But you have to look at the academics and athletics and go, ‘O.K., but they’re not normal.’”
Amon-Ra (left) is a five-star recruit with his choice of top college programs; Equanimeous (center) is Notre Dame's top target, and Osiris (right) chose to play at one of their mother's dream schools, Stanford. L: Louis Lopez/Modern Exposure; C: Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; R: Quinton Dominguez
It all begins with the names.
“No offense, but Jim Brown, John Brown—what is that? There’s too many of them,” John says. “I’ve got the option to use any name I want, I’m going to pick a slave name?”
There is, of course, an endless spectrum of possibilities between “John Brown” and “Equanimeous Tristan Imhotep J. St. Brown,” “Osiris Adrian Amon-Ra J. St. Brown,” and “Amon-Ra Julian Heru J. St. Brown.” Brown was active in the early 1990s in what he describes as “an underground black consciousness movement” when he learned of the power of traditional African names; Egyptian nomenclature intrigued him even more. With the exception of Equanimeous, a name he plucked from a character in a friend’s novel, the boys’ first and middle names follow a formula: An Egyptian name, a traditional name chosen by Miriam, a second Egyptian name and a “J” for John. (After Miriam delivered Equanimeous, John told her he was also adding a flourish to their surname. “Brown doesn’t look good on the back of a jersey,” he explained. Thus, St. Brown—which John says narrowly edged Von Brown.)
The boys’ temperaments are as distinctive as their appellations. Equanimeous, befitting the root word, equanimous, is calm and unflappable—“The perfect big brother,” John beams. He also has the most sublime physical gifts, 6’5’’ and 203 pounds with balletic body control. He was the best receiver in Southern California during his career at Anaheim’s Servite High, which all three boys attended before Osiris and Amon-Ra transferred to Mater Dei last year. “The two times we played against him, we schemed to stop him,” Rollinson. “I was blown away by his talent.”
Osiris is self-motivated and analytical. While his brothers have designs on business degrees he’ll major in computer science. “Even when he was little, the other two would be roughhousing and he would be sitting there with a book. He’d look up and say, ‘You guys really need to stop that,’” says Lorene Hunt-Daniel, John’s oldest sister. On the field, the 6'2", 183-pound Osiris excels in short-area quickness, and is fluid in and out of his routes. There’s a quiet intensity to his play, something that John says is a big part of why he sees more of himself in Osiris than his other two sons. “It’s controlled anger—but smooth,” John says. “If you don’t know, that’s what makes him more difficult and dangerous, because he’s real quiet. He’s not in your face. He just runs by you and you go, How did he do that?”
Amon-Ra, on the other hand, will yell. And talk trash. He’s the St. Brown who spins the ball like a top after big catches and makes no bones about his ambition to become the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. He’s a shade under 6'2" and 202 pounds, the shortest of the brothers yet also the one who benches the most that day in the gym. He also has Miriam’s sense of organization, and is so laser-focused during the school day that he uses only the most efficient routes to reach his classes. “I call him a man with a purpose,” the coach says. “Amon-Ra has no wasted energy in anything he does.”
“People always ask, ‘Who the best is out of all of them?’ I go, ‘It depends on the situation,’” John says. “Equanimeous is like good soul music. Osiris is like good jazz, smooth jazz. Amon-Ra is good rap.”
Georgia Quarterback Jake Fromm Is 'No Ordinary True Freshman'
John was an art major at Cal State Fullerton who still works as an artist; one work of one of a gladiator with an eyeball for a head stabbing a tiger hangs upstairs. Since before he had kids he has been determined to pour his creative energy into his offspring: Whether sons or daughters, they would be premier athletes. When he met Miriam at a 1987 fitness trade show in Cologne, Germany, she held a degree in physical therapy and stood 5' 9". “You’ve got to fall in love with the right woman,” John says. “I can love a little woman as well as I can a tall one. You’ve got to get the right one that’s thick and strong.”
He started his sons in weight training when Equanimeous was eight, Osiris six and Amon-Ra five. They benched pressed metal bars and used pig irons for dumbbells. The boys played everything from baseball to basketball to soccer but all came to prefer football. John made them a proposition. I think I can get you to the NFL, he told them, but it will be difficult. I will be demanding. Once we are in the gym, I am not Papa. I’m trying to make you the best in the world.
“I think any kid at that age, obviously, would say, ‘Yeah! We can go to the NFL,’ ” Osiris says. “We didn’t really know how hard it was going to be. We just wanted to do it.”
John tailored their training and diet around his own hard-earned lessons from bodybuilding. He calls it “athleticism power training” and it comes with unusual tenets. In a given week, he’ll work every muscle group from their necks to their feet, but stretching is forbidden. For the most part, so are lean proteins like chicken and fish. John is in the business of producing horsepower, raw explosive strength, so he blends them protein shakes at least twice a day and makes sure every dinner is loaded with red meat. The portions are always doubled, one for that night and a second helping for breakfast the next morning. Each time, they’re expected to eat until they’re stuffed. And if the meal is paired with a sugary beverage or a slice of cake for dessert, well, great. “You need those calories,” John says. Besides, he adds, “Kool-Aid is good for the soul.”
Miriam has her own regimen for her boys. When she came to the U.S. from her native Leverkusen, Germany, she barely knew any colleges aside from Stanford and Harvard. These became her sons’ benchmarks. She steers their academic careers just as John does in athletics, and is equally unafraid to buck convention.
It began when she enrolled them in Lycee International de Los Angeles, a French academy, for elementary school. When John once grumbled that he wasn’t sure how well they truly knew French, she decided the best way to find out was to withdraw for a semester and use the tuition money to put her and the boys up in Paris, where they’d attend school with the locals. They took their SATs in English, French, and German—and, Rollinson says, “I think you and I would both die for the scores they got [in French].”
But she addresses them exclusively in German, when talking or in texts. A three-way conversation among Miriam, John and one of the boys is like a two-on-one Ping-Pong match, with their son lobbing back responses in two tongues. When the boys finished their homework, they could play Xbox only after additional German reading. If they wanted to spend the night at a friend’s house, they had to do extra lessons in both German and French. Sometimes she’d seize their phones and only return them after they memorized 10 new English words.
The payoff came when the Cardinal offered Equanimeous a full scholarship. “I was dancing,” she says with a big smile. When Osiris signed there in February, she practically did backflips. It now affords Amon-Ra, whom all of Rivals.com, Scout.com and 247Sports all rank either No. 1 or No. 2 at receiver, a measure of freedom in his own recruitment. “She has one son going to Stanford,” says Amon-Ra, who counts the Cardinal, Notre Dame, USC, UCLA and Michigan among his favorites. “So for me, she doesn’t really care where I go.”
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Their multicultural and academic background is what the St. Browns believe distinguishes them from the Balls—the Chino Hills, Calf.-based basketball family and soon-to-be reality stars. They are aware of the comparison, and John says he’s met the family. “When I first heard about them, I was shocked to hear that. I go, ‘What? I thought I was the only one.’” He thinks his counterpart, LaVar, “should think more before he speaks,” but calls the Balls “a great family” and is especially impressed by LaVar’s entrepreneurial spirit.
John, too, is establishing his own brand, Cane Protein, which is the formula he’s fed his sons their entire lives. (He says the exact recipe is top secret). He’s had many ventures before, including a soft drink called “Chronic 187,” which featured the slogan “Murder your thirst, fool!” But he’s spent most of career in the fashion industry, designing and selling everything from t-shirts to socks. That includes the current family business, Velvet Stone, a women’s retail and wholesale clothing company. He designs the apparel and she handles the books.
“Those two together, they’re the perfect formula for success for their children,” Hunt-Daniel says.
John Brown (right, in gray) was determined to give his sons distinctive names and mold them into future NFL stars. Quinton Dominguez
John Brown grew up in Compton, Calif., the third of seven siblings. He first picked up a barbell in seventh grade. By ninth grade he was a regular at the Compton College gym. The weight room was also a hub for ex-cons, and John eagerly quizzed the biggest ones on how they grew so large during their years in lockup. Who else, he reasoned, could supply him with workouts he knew would bulk him up without supplements or steroids?
By 16 he was imposing enough to attract the attention of George Caracas, a local bodybuilder who mistook Brown for a competitor when he spotted him working out in a park. “You should be a bodybuilder,” Caracas told him. “Trust me. You can win Mr. Universe.”
He coaxed John into entering the Mr. Watts competition, in which men of all ages squared off. John finished third. Buoyed by his success, he stopped by a convenience store and pulled a few fitness magazines off the racks.
“I looked at myself, looked at the magazines [and] decided, ‘O.K., I’m going to go for it,’” he says.
And he made it. From the late 1970s through the mid-’80s, Brown was a bodybuilding icon. He stood 6’2” and 250 pounds at his peak, a colossus even by bodybuilding standards, but his size wasn’t nearly as unusual as his approach to competition. Sometimes, he lip-synched to the music while posing. More often, he would breakdance or pop and lock. He would take to the stage in a top hat, or a floor-length cape, and at least once bearing a dozen roses. He pioneered the strategy of posing to multiple songs in the same routine—one slow, to appease the traditionalists, and the other faster, to whip the crowd into a frenzy.
“He brought a performance element to the sport of bodybuilding that it hadn’t seen up until his arrival,” says Shawn Ray, a protégé of Brown’s who became an International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness Hall of Famer. “Nobody had ever seen a big guy move like that before. ”
In 1981, Brown fulfilled the destiny set out for him by Caracas, winning the Mr. Universe amatuer title to join the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno and Steve Reeves. The next year he won again, making him the only man in history to repeat in that division. He gained an especially ardent following in Europe, where he graced the covers of magazines and earned the bulk of his income. “His posing was so unique that everybody around the world wanted to see it,” Ray says, “and that kept his passport full and his bank account fat.
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Brown attributes his achievements to working backward. He knew he wanted to be a world champion bodybuilder; he just had to ascertain a formula for how to do it. He pored over all of his contemporaries’ measurements, their heights and weights, body structures and fat percentages. The data gave him a measuring stick. Then it became just a matter of doing the work.
As a teenager he built a bench press from materials he scavenged out of his neighbors’ garages. Once he grew bigger, his primary challenge became retaining enough weight to stretch across his humongous frame. He abstained from sex during the weekdays and woke up at 3 a.m. to eat a homemade concoction of ground beef, pork and beans that he called “dog food.” The routine was monotonous and he grew to detest the predawn chewing; rather than quit, he blended it into a drink. When he went out to clubs, he would dance only until a preset time; then, he would plop into the nearest chair, place his hands on his knees and sit still until his friends wanted to leave.
“I wouldn’t move, because I didn’t want to burn calories,” he says. “I was that disciplined.”
Brown has approached his entire life as an ongoing series of riddles to solve. He believes it’s the secret behind his and Miriam’s well-rounded sons. The Browns insist that none of their boys that intelligent or that disciplined. “Amon never read a book in his life,” Miriam jokes. They simply collaborate as parents to push—sometimes drag—their sons toward their full potential. It isn’t as though the St. Browns blend their own protein drinks or volunteer to cram foreign language vocabulary into their brains.
“We just gave them the answers,” John says. “Figure out the way to give your kids the answers. That’s all it is. It’s like a magic trick.”
From left: Osiris St. Brown, John Brown, Equanimeous St. Brown, Miriam Brown and Amon-Ra St. Brown. Quinton Dominguez
Ninety minutes after the workout, the boys are back home playing video games. They’re accustomed to being together. For most of their lives, they slept in the same bedroom, back when the family lived in a small condo instead of a two-story house. Despite all that testosterone in cramped quarters, they never had one fistfight. Which isn’t to say that they aren’t competitive. Each one gives the same answer when he’s asked who has the softest hands or runs the fastest or jumps the highest or is the best all-around: “Me.”
That cut-throat spirit is apparent with controllers in their hands. The sounds of teenage bickering waft down to the kitchen, where John sits by the island’s marble countertop. To him, these are the two best weeks of his year, the small sliver of time when the boys are all home and the family is whole again.
Even having one boy off at college taught John to dread the life of an empty nester. Now, two are gone. Next year Amon-Ra leaves. He’s gradually growing lonely. He and Miriam will go to at least one of the boys’ games each weekend, but seeing them on the field is not the same. “Coming home, knowing that when you open the door, they’re not going to be there to greet you—it’s like death,” he says. “I have a broken heart.”
John spent the last two decades being omnipresent in their lives. He took them everywhere he could when they were babies, from work to the beach to any errand in between. As elementary schoolers, he’d miss them so badly that he’d sometimes show up unannounced on a Friday afternoon and pull them out of class. “It’s a beautiful day!” he’d shout. “We’ve got to get out of here!” He’d march them to the car, pick up lunch and drive wherever they wanted to go. The destination was unimportant.
That couldn’t last, of course, which is why the gym matters so much to him. As demanding as he is, it’s never really been just about the workouts. “It’s the only place we go to where we’re all together again,” he says. His voice is soft, and his face crinkles into a wistful smile. “We’re all together, like nothing ever changed. There’s no girlfriends. There’s no friends. We’re all together. It’s just us.”
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Like every parent, he wonders how time slipped by so quickly. Was that the hidden cost of the work they put into raising them? How much did they miss when grinding day in and day out to lift their children to such lofty heights?
“It’s like a tornado,” John says. “We don’t get a chance to really appreciate it from that perspective, because we’re in it. That’s the difficult thing. I know they’re good. Of course I’m proud of them. But to see what other people see? I’m sure I will never see it.”
He is trying, though. The last few years he’s taken to sitting on the opposing team’s sideline during games and offseason competitions. He wants to hear what people say when one of the boys scores a touchdown, to reconcile the world’s outsized perception of the boys with his more tempered ones. He wants to feel O.K. that there is less time to teach and there are fewer answers to hand out now, because what he and Miriam have done already is more than enough.
Later that day, John sits down at his desktop computer and pulls up a trove of video. He’s been taping the boys almost as long as he’s been training them, and with a few clicks of the mouse he can relive everything. He summons clips from all ages. A night in a hotel room before a big Pop Warner game. An afternoon at home, when the boys run around shirtless with mohawks and kid-sized six-pack abs. An early morning on the field, where he laces into them for slacking off. “I was too hard on them that day,” he muses.
These are for him, mostly, although he says he only watches them about every eight months or so. But like everything else, there’s a larger purpose in mind: He wants to be ready in case someone ever decides to make a documentary. Because that way, John and Miriam Brown can ensure that everyone else sees what they do, instead of the other way around. That their three boys are already anomalies and may soon become superstars, but they are also still their children. And, as John says, and as the rest of the world is about to learn, “It’s really cool to hang out with them.” | {
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Google has been utilizing a new algorithm since June. The algorithm is designed to weed out “fake news”, and focus more on “authoritative” sources. Many Left-leaning websites assumed that this would mean Right-leaning sites would be hit the hardest and that Google and social media networks like Facebook would finally crack down on Conservative news sources for “fake news”. Well, it turns out that Google is cracking down on everyone, including websites that take on Social Justice Warrior stances by skewing the way the news is portrayed.
The website AlterNet is the latest anti-Trump, Left-leaning, “Progressive” website to complain about losing half their traffic since the implementation of the algorithm back in June. On September 28th, 2017 the editor-in-chief, Don Hazen, explained…
“It may be hard to imagine anything scarier than Donald Trump’s presidency. But this problem is actually bigger than Trump, and it is a situation that certainly helps him. This story affects you too, in ways you may not fully be aware of—in fact, it affects our whole media system and the future of democracy. “The story is about monopoly on steroids. It is about the extreme and unconstrained power of Google and Facebook, and how they are affecting what you read, hear and see. It is about how these two companies are undermining progressive news sources, including AlterNet. […] “But little did we know that Google had decided, perhaps with bad advice or wrong-headed thinking, that media like AlterNet—dedicated to fighting white supremacy, misogyny, racism, Donald Trump, and fake news—would be clobbered by Google in its clumsy attempt to address hate speech and fake news.”
The article goes on to explain how they used to average 2.7 million unique visitors a month, and after the implementation of the algorithm, they’ve lost an average of 1.2 million every month.
They even included a brief chart to show the decline.
AlterNet took the opportunity to beg readers for support for donations since they’ve lost so much traffic in such a short amount of time.
The comment section of the site is absolutely relentless in taking them to task. A majority of their commenters point out that AlterNet brought the decline on themselves by peddling the Russian conspiracy narrative and being so unabashedly anti-Trump.
AlterNet joins other left-leaning Social Justice Warrior sites such as WSWS who have also seen major drop-off in hits due to the new algorithm. This indicates that no site is safe and just about all alternative media across the board have been affected, seeing major drop-offs in hits and suppression of search engine results from organizations like Google and Facebook.
And yes, even we’ve seen a major drop-off in hits that coincide with the switch in the algorithm.
We saw the biggest dip (as indicated in the chart above) on July 2nd, where almost no traffic was getting through to the site. The domain host had no answers and we troubleshooted the problem over the course of a couple of weeks but couldn’t come up with an answer as to what was causing the problem. We eventually surmised it as “traffic throttling”.
Except, it’s a rather odd occurrence in our case because on average between Saturday and Tuesday the traffic is nominal, but between Wednesday and Friday there’s a major drop-off. The fluctuations pop up in various charts, with the inclines being the stats from Saturday to Tuesday, and the drop-offs being between Wednesday and Friday.
While it might be easy to assume that due to demographic fluctuations it’s just young people viewing more content on the weekend (and Monday and Tuesdays), the day-to-day real-time stats show that various articles just aren’t getting hits at all. This ties into what the other websites have been reporting about some pieces being suppressed on the engine or redirected so that the website simply does not see any traffic at all.
Google actually does reveal what content they have been removing from searches in the webmaster tools, and it synchs up perfectly with the real-time analytics on the site. In our case, majority of the content being removed from the feeds are the sociopolitical topics that used to be quite popular on the search engine but are being purposefully suppressed.
A quick example of articles removed from the Google News feed during September and end of August are below, along with the reasons for the removal.
Have you noticed the pattern in the articles removed from the feed? If not, it’s quite simple: The pattern centers around SJWs, censorship, or #GamerGate.
The other information-only articles we produce don’t appear to be affected, and anything non-political appears to be indexed without suppression.
In fact, our walkthroughs still appear to be indexed and even available in the news feed without any problems, such as FIFA 18, despite the fact that it’s about four times as long as the articles that Google removed for being “too long”. A perfect example is the Bungie Kekistan article, which is only 417 words.
Of course, we wouldn’t feel the hammer of Google’s social justice quite as hard as politically motivated websites because politically-oriented topics only pop up on this site infrequently, and they aren’t the main bread and butter of our pageviews. For sites like AlterNet, the issue is a lot more severe and readily pronounced since they rely on politically motivated content, and thus they are seeing major drop-offs in pageviews due to suppression just like WSWS.
Both Google and Facebook have mentioned in the past that they would be cracking down on fake news and “hate speech”, and we’re certainly beginning to see the results of that. Many, however, suspect that this could be Google and Facebook’s way of weeding out alternative news sources and helping keep established, mainstream media outlets front and center. | {
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Those cries, in the absence of evidence to back up any allegations of voter fraud or other wrongdoing, are dredging up fears that the votes of primarily people of color will not be properly counted. Concerns about protecting the right to vote of people of color have existed since some states put laws in place after the passing of the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed black men the right to vote. These anxieties increased in 2013 after the Supreme Court ruled against upholding what is considered the crux of the Voting Rights Act.
Though there is no evidence of foul play, President Trump suggested that some ballots shouldn’t be counted. He has gone as far as to say that the Republican candidates should simply be able to assume the seats.
And days after the election, GOP Senate candidate and current governor Rick Scott accused liberal activists of trying to steal the election from him.
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“Every Floridian should be concerned there may be rampant fraud happening in Palm Beach and Broward counties,” he told reporters Thursday at a news conference. “No ragtime group of liberal activists or lawyers from D.C. will be allowed to steal this election from the voters in this great state.”
And Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been accused of not wanting every ballot counted — something he denies — after he posted numerous tweets attacking the officials overseeing the ballot count in Broward County, an area with a sizable percentages of people of color who support Democratic candidates.
Fears about the integrity of elections in Florida in particular have existed since at least 2000, when the Supreme Court stopped a recount, thus allowing President George W. Bush to win the election. That anxiety resurfaced even before Election Day.
Hours-long waits to vote in predominantly black neighborhoods in the Miami area have prompted some to believe that powerful Republicans were trying to discourage people of color from casting their ballot for Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D), who would be the state’s first black governor, and incumbent Senate Democrat Bill Nelson.
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Similarly long wait times in Georgia in some predominantly black neighborhoods were also particularly noteworthy considering the dynamics of the governor’s race in that state: Democrat Stacey Abrams was seeking to become the first black woman in the country to hold that office. Republican Brian Kemp — also the secretary of state, who oversees elections — had been dogged by allegations that he was taking official actions to suppress minorities’ votes.
The Washington Post’s James Hohmann reports that Scott is forging ahead with plans for his Senate office, hiring staffers and meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to discuss committee assignments.
While turnout in this year’s midterm election appeared to have broken records, doubts about the fairness of the system could proliferate in the wake of the Florida recount controversy and Republicans' insistence on moving quickly.
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Planetary scientists have identified Jupiter's icy moon of Europa as one of their top targets for exploration, believing that its warm interior oceans may well harbor life. A new study published just this week, authored by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, found that conditions in the oceans on Europa may indeed be Earth-like and capable of harboring life.
Despite the wishes of the planetary science community to further investigate Europa, NASA has been wary of mounting such a mission because of the high cost—well above $1 billion. Additionally, planetary science hasn't been a priority in President Obama's NASA budgets, and the space agency has preferred to focus most of its robotic solar system exploration on Mars. The red planet is easier to reach, and NASA says it wants to explore Mars further to enable future human missions.
Congress has been more interested in planetary science, however. And in particular, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over NASA's budget, John Culberson (R-Texas), has fancied Europa. Even when NASA wasn't asking for Europa funds, the congressman was funneling money to the scientists at the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Between the 2013 and 2016 fiscal years, NASA requested just $45 million in Europa funding, but Congress appropriated $395 million. For fiscal year 2017, NASA requested $49.6 million in Europa funding, but a House appropriations bill released this week by Culberson's committee proposes $260 million for mission planning and development.
As part of the mission to Europa, Culberson would also like to send a lander to the surface of the heaving, ice-encrusted world. This would allow scientists to better characterize the oceans below and, if the lander touches down near a fissure, possibly even sample the ocean. However, there has been some concern that having both an orbital spacecraft and a lander in a single mission would prove too challenging for a single rocket to deliver.
So as part of the new House bill, the Europa mission is broken into two parts: an orbiter and, two years later, a lander. The plan would be for the orbiter spacecraft to swoop down into the harsh radiation environment near Europa (because of the moon's proximity to Jupiter) and out again to relay data back to Earth. The nominal mission would perform at least 45 flybys of Europa at altitudes varying from 2,700km all the way down to 25km above the surface. By assessing this data, scientists on Earth could determine where best to set their lander down on the surface two years later.
"We have increased funding for planetary programs and made sure we are going to complete the incredibly important mission to Europa that the planetary decadal survey mapped out because of the very high likelihood that life will be discovered in those oceans," Culberson said during a hearing Tuesday. "This will be a transformative moment in the history of humanity and the country."
In its documents about the Europa mission, NASA has not formally approved a lander, and it says only that the flyby mission will launch "sometime in the 2020s." The House bill is much more specific, calling for an orbiter launch no later than 2022 and a lander launch no later than 2024. Senior officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have told Culberson that those dates are attainable. Additionally, the bill specifies that NASA's next budget, for fiscal year 2018, includes a five-year funding profile to support those two launches.
NASA last visited the Jupiter system in the 1990s and early 2000s with the Galileo spacecraft. Galileo snapped images of Europa during 11 flybys, but the best of those pictures had a resolution of only about 10 meters per pixel. The spacecraft stored those images on a tape recorder with a capacity of 114 megabytes, but a flawed rewind mode hampered even that modest device. Yet this limited data was enough to tantalize scientists, and Europa has been a target of high interest for planetary scientists ever since. | {
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Brianne Pfannenstiel
[email protected]
Donald Trump delivered a hard-edged speech on immigration Saturday in Des Moines, capping a week of speculation that he’s softening his previously tough stance.
“These international gangs of thugs and drug cartels will be — I promise you, from the first day in office, the first thing I’m going to do, the first piece of paper that I’m going to sign is — we’re going to get rid of these people, day one, before the wall, before anything," he said to boisterous cheers from a crowd of about 1,800.
Trump headlined U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst's second annual Roast and Ride fundraiser at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. And although he skipped the "ride" portion of the event — a 42-mile, 400-person motorcycle ride through central Iowa — Trump joined a slew of Iowa Republicans for a rallying of the political troops and a family-friendly pork barbecue.
“We will use immigration law to prevent crimes," he said, delivering his remarks off a teleprompter. "And we will not wait until some innocent American has been harmed or killed before taking action. We will move justly, but we will move fast, believe me. And we will move tough.”
OBRADOVICH: Trump in Iowa: Clinton 'doesn't look presidential'
The Republican presidential nominee later welcomed to the stage the family of Sarah Root, a 21-year-old Council Bluffs woman who was killed in a vehicle crash caused by an immigrant in the country illegally.
Trump's appearance comes after a week in which he acknowledged a possible "softening" of his immigration stance, talking broadly about approaching the issue in a more "humane manner."
Trump has built his campaign on a promise to build a wall on the southern border of the United States to keep out undocumented immigrants while also calling for the mass deportation of those in the country illegally. He's pledged to unveil his immigration policy over the next week.
“I am with him 1,000 percent on immigration,” said Diane Brock of Newton, a retired airline operations manager who echoed the sentiments of many attendees. “The illegal alien criminals have got to go. It is not fair to the people who have been waiting to get into this country legally.”
Others said that even if Trump has somewhat softened his stance, they would be unconcerned with a possible reversal in his policy.
"It would be too hard to send everybody back," said Gale Livingston, a retired Ames resident who plans to vote for Trump in November. "He had to soften his stance. It doesn’t make me think less of him. In fact, it makes me think more of him.”
Trump also took some time to give a rhetorical nod to Iowa’s agriculture industry, touching on issues such as the Renewable Fuel Standard, environmental regulations and threats to family farms.
“Family farms are the backbone of this country,” he said, promising to end the "EPA intrusion" into family farms.
Trump promised to protect the Renewable Fuel Standard and corn-based ethanol, eliminate burdensome regulations like the Waters of the United States rule (“which is a disaster”) and provide tax relief.
“President Obama lied to you about his support for the Renewable Fuel Standard,” Trump said. “And you can trust Hillary Clinton far less than you could even Obama.”
Barack Obama campaigned in Iowa on his support of the RFS. But his administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has rolled back the level of ethanol that must be blended into the nation's gasoline.
Democrats, in turn, criticized the gathering, with Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Andy McGuire saying in a statement: "While other Republicans have distanced themselves from Trump’s candidacy and warned of the dangers of his leadership, Iowa Republicans, up and down the ticket, choose to stand with Trump and continue to condone his divisive rhetoric and rationalize his unpredictable behavior."
In advance of the event, the Clinton campaign issued a joint statement from Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Patty Judge and U.S. House candidates Rep. Dave Loebsack, Jim Mowrer and Kim Weaver that said of Trump: “No matter what he says, he can’t revise his history of attacking veterans, women, African-Americans, Latinos and Americans with disabilities. This is who Donald Trump is."
ALSO SATURDAY: Ashton Kutcher to Iowans: Clinton is one of us
The Roast and Ride event was intended to boost support and enthusiasm for Iowa Republicans as they enter the final stretch of the election cycle. Trump praised those Iowa Republican representatives who were on hand, including Ernst; U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley; U.S. Reps. Rod Blum, David Young and Steve King; Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds.
“A lot of states would like to have that roster, believe me," Trump said.
Last year's inaugural event drew seven Republican presidential contenders to Boone, though Trump was not among them. At the time, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was leading the pack of potential candidates, and Iowans still had nearly eight months to decide whom to caucus for.
Saturday, some Iowans said they were still deciding whether they would vote for Trump.
“As far as his overall politics that he has, I’m pretty on board with that," said Carla Davis, a 64-year-old Altoona resident and a registered nurse. "I would just say it’s more personality, demeanor. He’s just so rough around the edges that, you know, it scares me to have him sitting by that red button.”
Davis said she is a registered Republican and won't vote for Democratic nominee Clinton, but she would consider voting for a third-party candidate over Trump.
This was Trump's fourth Iowa event since accepting the GOP nomination last month in Cleveland, and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, also has made two solo stops.
Up for grabs are Iowa's six electoral votes, with recent polling indicating a too-close-to-call race. A Real Clear Politics rolling average of August polls shows Clinton with a slim advantage of 1.5 percentage points — well within the margin of error.
Full speech: Donald Trump at Ernst’s Roast and Ride
Ernst told reporters that if she could give the Trump campaign advice as he courts Iowa voters, it would be to focus on policy issues and Clinton's record.
“Hillary Clinton has given us so much to talk about, really, with the email scandal, her really bad policies overseas," she said. " ... That’s not acceptable — to be doing the name-calling back and forth. They need to focus on the issues."
And Trump remained largely on message Saturday, targeting his attacks to Clinton's policies, resorting only once to personal insult to say he didn’t think Clinton looked presidential — a remark that was not included in prepared remarks released to the media.
The response from those in the audience was largely favorable.
“I thought his comments were pretty good," said John Nahas, a steelworker and Des Moines resident. "We don’t have a country if we don’t have a border. Sanctuary cities are ignoring the law. I think he is a just person and he wouldn’t ignore the law.”
Funds raised at the event will benefit SoldierStrong, a charity for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year's event raised about $15,000 for America's Fund.
Des Moines Register reporter Bill Petroski contributed to this report. | {
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CMMG Pistol Banshee™ 300 MK10 10MM - Black
CMMG’s 10mm BANSHEE is the first AR capable of reliably running the wide assortment of 10mm ammunition on the market. It uses CMMG’s patent pending Radial Delayed Blowback operating system to significantly reduce felt recoil. The 10mm BANSHEE ships with one 30-round SGM Magazine (Glock Magazine Compatible) and uses CMMG’s patented bolt catch linkage to hold the bolt open after the last round.
Each 10mm BANSHEE comes with an H3 buffer and a 3.5oz tuning weight pre-installed in the carrier. A standard carbine buffer is also included in the box – ideal for those running lighter loads. For those planning to run the 10mm BANSHEE suppressed, check out our 8oz buffer (sold separately here) for additional tuning.
All BANSHEE 300 series firearms are the shortest configuration that we make in their respective caliber.
CALIBER: 10mm
BARREL: 8″, 1:16 twist, Medium Taper, 4140CM, SBN
MUZZLE: SV Brake, threaded .578-28
GAS PORT LOCATION: N/A
RECEIVER: Forged 7075-T6 AL Lower, Forged 7075-T6 AL Upper
HAND GUARD: CMMG RML7 M-Lok hand guard
FINISH: Cerakote Receivers, Hand Guard, and Ejection Port Cover (choice of 10 colors)
CHARGING HANDLE: CMMG Oversized Ambi
PISTOL GRIP: Magpul MOE
PISTOL BRACE: CMMG RipBrace with 6 Position Enhanced Receiver Extension and Ambi Sling Plate
TRIGGER: CMMG Single stage mil-spec style trigger
TRIGGER GUARD: Integrated Into Lower
SAFETY SELECTOR: CMMG Ambi
MAGAZINE: SGM 30rd Glock Magazine
WEIGHT: 5lbs 9oz(unloaded)
LENGTH: 24.3″(brace collapsed)
All Products come with CMMG’s Lifetime Quality Guarantee
ALL NFA RULES APPLY
Must be 21 to purchase.
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Building Safer Protocols Isn’t Rocket Science … It’s Just Common Sense
A nurse in Dallas has caught Ebola even though she was wearing full protective gear.
The Centers for Disease Control says she must have broken protocol, or else she couldn’t have caught it. Maybe she did … or maybe CDC assumptions are overly-optimistic.
But the whole point of protocols for dealing with life-and-death situations is to have backup systems, redundancy and a margin of error in case something goes wrong.
In other words, if a mistake could be fatal, you don’t just hope that there’s no human error or natural accident. You build safety systems in so that – if something goes wrong – no one dies.
Safe Removal of Protective Suits
CDC head Frieden said today that removal of protective clothing is one of the easiest ways to get exposed to Ebola, if done incorrectly.
He also said that it is “not easy to do right.”
Yes …and the protocol should reflect those facts.
Specifically, the CDC protocol should require:
(1) Spraying of bleach or other disinfectant or uv light on the healhcare worker’s protective clothing before it is removed (2) A buddy system, where an infectious disease specialist helps the healthcare worker take off their protective clothing without exposing themselves in the process
Respirators
Even the CDC now admits that Ebola can be spread if a carrier coughs or sneezes into the face of a healthcare worker.
And numerous scientists say that Ebola can be spread via aerosols created by vomit or the flushing of a toilet.
As such, CDC protocols must require frontline healthcare workers treating Ebola patients to wear respirators.
Phone Screening
Doctors should not have to guess whether patients have just come from Ebola hotzone countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea.
Receptionists at doctor’s offices and hospitals around the country must ask the patient on the phone – before they come in – whether they’ve recently traveled there.
If the answer is yes, extra caution should be used to examine the patient … or they should be sent to specialist facilities which know how to spot and handle potential Ebola patients.
Postscript: We think a travel ban from hotzone countries should be enacted. But if we're not going to do that, let's at least have a real screening test ...
30-Minute Test
A majority of Americans support banning all flights to the United States from countries experiencing an Ebola outbreak.
Screening people at West African airports with a thermometer can’t work, and is just for show.
But Japanese scientists have developed a test which can determine if someone has Ebola within 30 minutes. And the test is cheaper than the one currently being used in West Africa.
So – if we’re going to continue to allow folks from West Africa to fly into our country – why don’t we demand that they get tested for real?
A health agency like the World Health Organization, UN or Centers for Disease Control should buy the international airports in the hotzone countries one of the Japanese testing kits.
Then all travelers should be tested while they’re waiting for their flights.
Make sense? | {
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Sports of the Olympic Games
At the first Olympic Games in 1896, there were nine sports contested. Since that time many sports have been added (and removed too) from the program. Only five sports have been contested at every summer Olympic Games since 1896: Athletics, Cycling, Fencing, Gymnastics and Swimming.
In 2012 there were 26 sports contested, and in 2016 there was 28, and 33 are scheduled for 2020 (see list). In addition to the official sports on the program, there are other recognized sports that are set for possible inclusion in the future. See also the pages about the number of sports at each Olympiad, and also the changes over time.
Recent Changes
After the 2008 Olympics the sports of Baseball and Softball were dropped from the program. In August 2009 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted on the two sports to be added to the program for Rio 2016. There was a list of seven sports that they chose from: golf, rugby union, roller sports, karate, softball, baseball and squash. They selected golf and rugby union.
There are many other possible new sports for future Games. In February 2013, wrestling was dropped from the core sports list, and joined with baseball and softball (joint bid), climbing, karate, roller sport, squash, wakeboard and wushu to attempt to gain a place on the program for 2020. In May 2013 the IOC cut Karate, roller sports, sport climbing, wakeboarding and wushu from this list, leaving Baseball-softball, squash and wrestling to be shortlisted. Then in September 2013, they voted to return wrestling to the list of sports for the 2020 Olympic program. In 2015, further voting was held for the inclusion of more sports.
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MILAN — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles reduced its debt by more than expected in the first quarter, putting the carmaker well on course to become cash positive later this year.
Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne expects to cancel all debt during 2018 — possibly by the end of June — and generate around 4 billion euros ($5 billion) in net cash by the end of the year.
Marchionne has said that forecast does not include any one-off measures, nor the impact of the planned spinoff of parts maker Magneti Marelli, which he hopes to execute by early 2019.
The world's seventh-largest carmaker said on Thursday net debt had fallen to 1.3 billion euros ($1.6 billion) by the end of March, well below a consensus forecast of 2.6 billion euros in a Thomson Reuters poll of analysts.
FCA said capital spending fell 900 million euros in the quarter due to "program timing," which analysts said implied higher investments for the rest of the year.
The Italian-American group said first-quarter operating profit rose 5 percent to 1.61 billion euros, below a consensus forecast of 1.74 billion, as a weaker performance from its North American profit center weighed.
Shipments there were higher due to the new Jeep Wrangler and Compass models. But currency moves hit revenues and earnings, and costs related to new product launches added to the pressure.
FCA's shift to sell more trucks and SUVs boosted margins yet again in North America to 7.4 percent from 7.3 percent in the same quarter a year ago, although they were down from the 8 percent recorded in the preceding three months.
Marchionne, preparing to hand over to an internal successor next year, is close to his goal of ending a margin gap with larger U.S. rivals General Motors and Ford.
The 65-year-old has said becoming debt free and being able to compete on a par with U.S. peers would mean FCA no longer needed a partner to survive and could well succeed on its own.
The CEO has previously said tying up with another carmaker would help to meet the huge costs in an industry investing in electric vehicles and automated driving.
FCA shares fell immediately after the results, but recovered to trade up 3 percent at 19.71 euros by 1150 GMT, outperforming a 0.4 percent rise in Europe's blue-chip stock index.
($1 = 0.8214 euros)
Reporting by Agnieszka Flak
Related Video: | {
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A 25-year-old Bosnian Islamic extremist was arrested Thursday in Graz, Austria after police discovered he was plotting to drive a vehicle through the city’s Christmas market, emulating the Berlin terror attack last year.
The 25-year-old migrant, who was living at a homeless shelter in the city, is said to have wanted to rent a vehicle and run it through the Christmas market to kill and injure as many people as possible, Kronen Zeitung reports.
Police were tipped off by other residents at the homeless shelter, who said the Bosnian watched a large number of videos of terror attacks using vehicles on a shared computer. He bragged to some that he would “do it, like in Berlin”.
On two separate occasions, workers at the shelter claim that he asked for advice on how to rent a vehicle. A copy of an Austrian paper featuring a cover showing the Nice terror attack was found in the Bosnian’s pocked when he was arrested by police.
While there is currently no evidence that the 25-year-old worked with anyone else to plot the attack, investigators say that he regularly attended a mosque associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Previously, he attended the now-closed Taqwa Mosque, which was shown to have links to the Islamic State.
Earlier this year, Austrian police conducted raids in Graz and Vienna and arrested 14 people, including several Islamic preachers, who authorities say were plotting to overthrow the government and install an Islamic caliphate in its place.
Update: German police report they have successfully deactivated a bomb at the Potsdam Christmas Market https://t.co/jg52B1gP5z — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 1, 2017
Since the Berlin terror attack last year, Christmas markets have become targets for Islamic extremists and Islamic State supporters, which has forced governments to erect barricades — often dresssed up as decorations — to protect them.
Last month, six Islamic State supporters across Germany were arrested for plotting Christmas market attacks. All of those arrested had come into the country posing as asylum seekers, according to investigators.
Last week, a package containing explosive materials was found near the Christmas market in Potsdam, forcing the area to be evacuated. Police later claimed that the market was not the intended target for the device, however. | {
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Turn On The Jets Assistant Staff Writer Mike Donnelly breaks it down with Part 2 of his NFL Offseason Review, as graded by the Richter Scale. In case you missed Part 1, be sure to check it out Here, for a full explanation of each category. Also, make sure you are following Mike on twitter: @TheMikeDonnelly, along with the rest of the TOJ Staff. – CG
Magnitude: 6 – 6.9 – “Strong” (Can be destructive)
– This was a pretty important story that kind of got swept under the rug, but these two teams were hit hard for supposedly cheating the system during the uncapped season. The Redskins were docked a whopping $36 million in cap space (spread over two seasons), while the Cowboys were docked $10 million. For two teams that play in the same division as Super Bowl champion New York Giants, that’s a major disadvantage. At least last time Mike Shanahan cheated the salary cap, he got two rings out of it. This time? Not so lucky.
6.6 – Calvin Johnson signs 7 year / $132 million extension with $60m guaranteed– Megatron wasn’t a free agent who could have left Detroit or anything, but any time a player shatters the previous record for highest contract ever, it certainly can cause damage around the league. Not only will Calvin be playing to prove he’s worthy of it and continue to dominate defenses on the field, but now off the field every player is going to try to surpass this deal when their time comes. Could be big trouble.
6.7 – Mario Williams signs with the Bills– The only reason Mario’s 6 year / $100 million contract with $50m guaranteed is rated slightly higher than Calvin’s is because Mario was actually a free agent, welcome to sign with any team he chose. And for some reason, he chose to live in Buffalo for the next 6 years.
On the field, this gives them a potentially dynamic defense with Marcell Dareus, Kyle Williams, Nick Barnett, and rookie Stephon Gilmore. Oh, and yes, the Jets are planning on blocking him with Wayne Hunter or Vlad Ducasse. Should be fine.
Magnitude: 7 – 7.9 – “Major” (Can cause serious damage)
7.0 – NFL suspends 4 Saints players for roles in “Bountygate” – (To be clear, this is JUST the impact of the player suspensions, not the bounty scandal as a whole). Jonathan Vilma (1 year), Anthony Hargrove (8 games), Will Smith (4 games), and Scott Fujita (3 games) all had the hammer dropped on them by Commissioner Roger Goodell for their role in the bounty scandal, where they intentionally tried to injure opposing offensive players. Vilma got the harshest penalty, because he was found to be the one offering up cash rewards for injury inducing hits. Such harsh punishments show that Goodell means business and there is now a precedent set for future infractions. This is a big deal. In terms of this season’s impact on the field, it’s pretty big, but not Vince Wilfork big. Vilma is a shell of the player he used to be, Hargrove is now a backup for Green Bay, and Fujita was never that great to begin with. Smith’s absence will hurt the Saints, but they’ll get by.
– While I was publicly against this trade, it is undeniable how big of an impact this move will have. Had this been graded strictly on his play on the field, it would be in the 5.0 range (or a -1.5 if based only on his passing), but there is so much more when it comes to Tim Tebow. The media attention, the scrutiny, his impact in the locker room and on Mark Sanchez, the off the field nonsense, and the fact that the possible Messiah will now be in the world’s greatest city is all enough to push this into the 7’s. If he runs in more than a few touchdowns and helps the Jets win a lot of games, this can easily register an even greater impact.
7.3 – Terrell Suggs tears Achilles tendon – Yikes. The reigning Defensive Player of the Year and unquestionably the most important player on the league’s most imposing defense tears his Achilles in May, likely knocking him out for the season. That’s a pretty major deal. Suggs claims he’ll be back in October, but logic seems to dictate otherwise. If Suggs is out for the season, or even severely limited upon his return, a Super Bowl contender takes a major step back. Unless of course Joe Flacco actually plays like the league’s best quarterback, which he hilariously claimed to be this offseason. (You read that right. He really said that.)
Magnitude: 8 – 9.9 – “Great” (Can be devastating)
8.0 – Redskins trade three 1st-Round picks, one 2nd round pick for Robert Griffin III – If you’re saying that’s an awful lot to trade, give yourself a prize, because you are correct. The Redskins have been desperate for a franchise quarterback for a very long time now, and after the Shanahans (Mike and Kyle) hilariously thought they could make chicken soup out of chicken sh– err, Donovan McNabb, Rex Grossman and John Beck, they needed to make a splash and get one of the best QB prospects to come out in years. Redskins fans finally have some hope as the RG3 era begins. Rarely do you see a player carry the entire weight of a franchise on his shoulders, but that’s what RG3 is doing here. Tough situation to be in.
8.5 – NFL Suspends Saints Coaches and Executives for roles in “Bountygate” – (As with the players section, this is strictly about the impact of the suspensions on the coaches and executives) A case could be made that no coach in the NFL has more of an impact on his team than Sean Payton does with the Saints. It’s as if he and Drew Brees share a brain out there. If Brees is the driver of the luxury automobile that is the Saints offense, then Payton is the engineer who specifically tailored every nook and cranny to fit Brees and the rest of the personnel to a T. Well, none of that will be happening in 2012, as Payton was given a full year suspension and is forbidden from contact with the team. Yikes.
Joining him on the couch this year is the new (and now former) St. Louis Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who was allegedly the mastermind of the whole bounty program. Williams was given an indefinite suspension and may never be allowed to return to the league. Good riddance. Interim Head Coach Joe Vitt was unable to escape punishment either, and was given a 6 game ban. General Manager Mickey Loomis was given 8 games. So if you’re scoring at home, the Saints decision maker (Loomis) is gone half the season, the Head Coach (Payton) is out for the entire season, and the guy replacing him (Vitt) is also missing 6 games. Yeah, this is going to have a pretty big impact on the Saints and the league in general.
9.0 – Junior Seau’s Suicide – In a truly sad story, legendary linebacker Junior Seau committed suicide on May 2nd. The motives are still currently unknown, but it very likely was the final call for help from the former player. This tale is sadly becoming all too prevalent amongst former players, and his death is hopefully going to be the wakeup call the league and players everywhere need. The sad truth is, many of these men are unprepared for life after football both physically and mentally. Things in the NFL are going to change in a big way going forward, and that’s why this gets such a high score.
Magnitude: 10+ “Massive” (Never recorded, widespread devastation)
10.0 – Colts cut Peyton Manning, draft Andrew Luck #1 overall – Never before has a team had a “once in a generation” player run their team for 14 years, then cut that player and be in a position to get the next “once in a generation player” that very same year. Think about this: Peyton Manning led this Colts team to the playoffs 9 consecutive seasons before he was knocked out of the entire 2011 season due to injury. In that time, he won a Super Bowl, played in another, won a whopping four MVP awards, and won at least 10 games in 11 of his 13 seasons as the starter. Not only that, but without him in 2011 the team, with largely the same players, went from 10 wins in 2010 and a division title to 2 wins and the #1 overall draft pick. Wow. You can see why many consider him to be the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill, but if anybody can do it, it’s probably Andrew Luck. The Stanford product is considered to be the best quarterback prospect to enter the league since–you guessed it– Peyton Manning. Over the last 30 years only Manning, Troy Aikman, and John Elway were considered such sure-things. That’s some pretty excellent company for young Mr. Luck. He’ll take his lumps early in his career on this poor team, but before long he will make Colts fans realize they made the right decision by cutting the legend for the young buck. There’s a very good chance you’ll never see a scenario like this unfold again.
10.0 – Broncos sign legendary QB Peyton Manning, trade possible Messiah– I could have lumped this one in with the last one, but it deserves its own section. How many times are you going to see a sure-fire Hall of Fame quarterback, perhaps the best of all time, who likely still has a few seasons left, come available in free agency? The answer is never. But that’s exactly what we saw happen this year, and the Broncos were the lucky winners of the Peyton Manning sweepstakes. That alone makes this worthy of a 10, but when you add the Tim Tebow factor, it really goes off the charts. When have we ever seen a player (who may or may not have magical powers) become so simultaneously beloved, hated, respected, worshipped, and criticized, lead a team to a playoff win, become a local hero, then get dumped by that team after his second year in the league because a legend like Peyton freakin’ Manning was signed to take his place? I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. This Peyton Manning thing has had major implications for three NFL teams: the Colts, Broncos, and Jets. It’s rare you see such a wild chain of events, but we did. And that’s why this gets a 10.
10.0 – Dolphins sign Jamaal Westerman – Just kidding.
10.0 – BountyGate – We’ve already covered the coaches and players getting suspended, but the “BountyGate” scandal is far bigger than any individual players or coaches. We are talking about one of the biggest scandals in NFL history, where players and coaches were rewarded with money bonuses for purposely injuring opposing players. That is reprehensible, and something we have never seen before (and hopefully never see again). This is the kind of thing that causes major changes in the league, and Roger Goodell has shown he isn’t taking this stuff lightly any longer. This was a major story, not just for the Saints, but for the NFL as a whole, and that’s why this gets a 10 spot. | {
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A potentially landmark legal case is currently underway in the U.S., with a middle school in Palo Alto, California, having been accused of “genetic discrimination” against a student. Though a district court initially dismissed the lawsuit in 2013, an appeal has now been filed which, if successful, could set a new legal precedent regarding the ways in which people’s genetic information can be accessed and used.
The lawsuit relates to an incident that occurred in 2012, when an 11-year-old boy named Colman Chadam was told that he would have to transfer away from Jordan Middle School because he carried certain “genetic markers” for cystic fibrosis. The school’s decision came after the parents of two other students who suffer from the condition raised concerns about Chadam’s attendance, as it is considered dangerous for people with cystic fibrosis to come into contact with each other.
The disease is caused by a mutation in a gene that codes for the production of a protein involved in transporting chloride ions across cell membranes. This results in abnormal amounts of mucus secretion in several organs, particularly the lungs, which increases a sufferer’s susceptibility to infection. Therefore, when two sufferers of the condition meet, the chances of an infection spreading from one to the other is relatively high.
However, despite his genetic markers, Chadam does not actually suffer from cystic fibrosis, and therefore does not pose any danger to other students with the condition. In fact, these markers were only discovered because doctors decided to conduct extensive genetic tests after treating Chadam for a congenital heart problem at birth.
In spite of this, his parents decided to disclose this information to the school when filling out medical forms during enrolment, and this was later divulged to other parents. The school then decided to remove Chadam after coming under pressure from the parents of two siblings who suffer from cystic fibrosis, before allowing him to return two weeks later.
The following year, his parents filed a lawsuit accusing the Palo Alto School District of “genetic discrimination,” which they claimed contravened the Americans with Disabilities Act. A district court ruled against the Chadams, finding that the school had acted in the interests of the safety of its pupils.
However, an appeal was lodged with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last month, and has gained support from the Departments of Justice and Education. If successful, it could result in the expansion of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, which currently outlaws genetic discrimination in all processes related to employment and health insurance, but has never before been applied to education. | {
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Interestingly enough, Jack In The Box released a similar concept earlier in June with their Hella-Peno Burger. Jack's burger featured jalapeños and deep-fried jalapeño poppers. While fast-food chains are competing to create the most sellable jalapeño-popper burger, the stoners of the world are ecstatic. | {
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It’s often said that porn is a, “$[Insert random digit here] billion industry.”
A recent article published by business news site, Quartz, tends to agree. The article places the industry’s value at anywhere between $6 billion and $97 billion, with the more realistic estimates ranging from $6 billion to $15 billion.
Regardless of what the actual value of the porn industry is, we’re still talking about an absolute ton of money—especially when you take into account the fact that those are possible values for the industry whose main product is shown to harm the lives of its consumers and suppliers (more on that later).
Why, then, is the porn industry so valuable?
Why the porn industry is worth so much money
To put it simply, the industry is loaded with individual porn businesses that generate a ton of money.
Two of the biggest markers for business value, according to Forbes, are recurring revenue and growth. The former speaks to the amount of money the business makes through “automatically recurring contracts or subscriptions,” while the latter looks at how fast the business is growing.
The porn industry is chock-full of porn businesses that receive a lot of recurring revenue and are growing significantly.
Related: Tube Sites Are Free, So How Does The Porn Industry Actually Make Money?
With porn businesses, however, these two business value markers are heavily intertwined.
A huge part of that has to do with the way that porn businesses, and therefore the porn industry, make their money.
How the porn industry makes their money
Porn businesses generally make money in two ways.
The first way is subscription-based. Every month, the customer pays a predetermined amount of money in exchange for access to the product or content the business provides—think Netflix, but with porn. In order to draw customers in, businesses that use this model pay other businesses to advertise their product or content.
The second way is ad-based. These businesses offer free content to their customers, but must sell space on their website or application to businesses who desire to advertise their product or content in order to make money. This time, think YouTube.
Related: Death To Porn: How The Internet Is Killing The Porn Industry
The problem for a porn business, however, is that non-porn business aren’t often interested in selling ad space to a subscription-based porn business, nor in buying ad space from an ad-based porn business. This is because porn is often blocked from traditional advertising outlets.
So, what do the two types of porn businesses do? They sell and buy to and from one another.
And this is where Forbes’ business value metrics really come into play.
How recurrent revenue and growth intersect in the porn business
That’s a lot of fancy jargon, so let’s break it down.
If an ad-based business is growing quickly—that is, it has more and more customers viewing its free content every year—subscription-based businesses will be more willing to pay to advertise their own product or content.
Related: Which Is Better: Paying For Porn Or Watching It For Free?
And when a subscription-based business is growing quickly—that is, it has more and more customers regularly paying for its product or content every year—it will have more money to advertise its product or content on ad-based business’ websites or applications.
Because porn consumption, or growth, is consistently on the rise, more money, or recurrent revenue, will flow into both ad-based and subscription-based porn businesses.
Basically, all porn businesses win when more people view and when more people pay specific sites. Therefore, so does the porn industry at large.
Why this matters
As the porn industry’s value increases, so does its influence—and not necessarily for the better.
In 2012, Los Angeles County made it a requirement that porn actors wear condoms when filming for greater protection from sexually transmitted infections. The law led to a “95% drop in porn permit requests over the next four years.” Subsequently, porn film productions in Las Vegas jumped significantly during the same time span.
Related: How The Porn Industry Quietly Fought To Stop Keeping Official Records Of Performers’ Ages—And Won
Four years after the LA law, however, California lawmakers went ahead and proposed a similar measure “requiring porn performers throughout the state to use condoms on set.” But, due to the significant potential reduction in state and local tax revenues, the proposed law was shut down.
In other words, the porn industry is also dictates how states are run because of how much “sway” their pockets carry.
Will they buy you, too?
In the porn industry, not much else matters but money and growth because money and growth translate into value and influence in society and consumers’ lives.
That means the industry and its businesses don’t keep track of how much harm they can contribute to in their consumers’ and suppliers’ lives—as long as the consumers keep coming back because they are addicted or because performers keep performing.
So, we have one question for you: will you let the porn industry buy you, too? | {
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[Editor's note: We asked worker-owners to answer one or both of the following questions: 1) What role should or could worker-owners and individual cooperatives play in scaling up the co-op movement? 2) If your region (city, county, sector) had access to a million or more dollars to fund co-op development, how would those funds be most wisely spent? We are planning on collecting all of the responses we recieve into an ebook. If you are a worker-owner/co-op with some ideas of your own, please let us know.]
I think there is more than one path for scaling up the movement. These paths can all co-exist and should be invested in. I really like the folks who are focusing on creating "motors" for coop development—be that funding and planning mechanisms like the Mondragon bank or tax and reinvest models like the Italian coops, or training and infrastructure support like what folks at Arizmendi and WAGES are doing. But my personal experience is with what we refer to as the "spinoff" model.
My coop, Design Action collective, is a spinoff from Inkworks Press. Inkworks Press is a worker owned union printshop that was founded in 1973. Through the "desktop publishing revolution" of the 80s, Inkworks began to develop desktop publishing and graphic design services within the shop. That service kept expanding, and finally in 2003 we spun off the design services to start Design Action. Design Action is now a 11 member studio, having first expanded to include web design and now web development (coding). And we continue to expand our services in areas of visual communications, messaging, and other new media.
The beauty of the spinoff model is that it allows members to continue to grow and experiment with new ideas and services—a counter to the "burnout" concerns that often plague longstanding worker coops. This also allows longstanding coops to open up spaces for new people to enter the sector at a place where there is a proven model, rather than having to start from scratch each time. Successful worker coops have low turnover rates, but also often have no room for personal growth or innovation within.
By encouraging existing coops to develop new services, we both expand the sector and address stagnation. Sometimes new services can continue to be housed in the "mothership," but sometimes when you already have a service that is tried and true, new ideas can be hard to take the risk on. In those cases, developing and then spinning off those services can be a win-win for all involved. The folks who are keen to expand, try new ideas and take risks can do so without risking everything for everyone. The folks who are focused on keeping the core services going can do that, and yet still benefit from the new (presumably complementary but not competing) services that are being developed in the new sister shop. When Design Action spun off from Inkworks, we were able to expand our print design services to other types of printing that Inkworks didn't specialize in (shirts, banners, stickers) and Inkworks was able to invest in modernizing it's electronic prepress and digital printing services. Design Action directed it's print work to Inkworks. Inkworks directed it's design work to Design Action. It was a win-win and both services were able to expand.
At the end of the day, one can imagine an interweaving web of related services being offered by multiple small to midsized cooperatives. This, rather than the old model of growth that results in a single large entity that tries to do it all at the expense of direct democracy and lacking in agility and creativity. We like to refer to it as a "hub and spoke" model of services. Customers can connect at any "node" in the network, and still access all the services available through the various member shops. In the biggest picture vision of this model, one could imagine a vary broad network of shops serving not just a particular sector, but a whole community or communities.
The main challenge in this model is that developing a new service within the mothership requires a high level of commitment from the individual members who are taking the lead initiative. So on the second question of what would be a wise way to spend funds to support this model, one answer is Innovation and Training Grants. If a shop could access funds to reduce the cost of members developing new but not immediately profitable services, that would encourage innovation and initiative-taking. And if on the other hand, we fund the training of new people into the positions that are being vacated, then opportunities will continue to grow and longstanding coops will continue to be refreshed.
While it's always important to invest in creating new cooperatives and fund new ideas and new training programs from scratch, there is also a logic to investing further in projects who already have a track record of success. The learning curve is less steep and the infrastructure needs are much less. And there is already a team of experienced folks working on together as a support network—so each dollar granted will go that much further.
Go to the GEO front page | {
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You can thank Technology Will Save Us for the idea, an organization founded to foster creativity in youth through hands-on technology. The kit is aimed at children 8 and up, offering a piece of buildable, wearable tech that can be programmed to perform a wide variety of tasks using an online tool called Move.
The Mover Kit can be assembled in about 15 minutes and is comprised of a Mover board, 8 RGB LEDs, accelerometer, magnetometer, USB connector, rechargeable battery, snap band bracelet, and a lanyard. The device went through several different prototypes in tests with over 300 children, and it offers several different options for kids to repurpose it every single day if they choose to.
So far the Kickstarter has raised over $29,000 of its $50,000 goal with 28 days left to go. It's an interesting addition to the growing number of projects aimed at children with simple-to-understand code and assembly, and might even end up appealing to DIY beginners as well as kids if it hits production. | {
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Vietnam seeks reassurances from Trump after his praise for China Trump next heads to Vietnam on his tour of Asia.
-- After two days of high-stakes meetings in China, where President Donald Trump flattered and smiled alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president will move on to his penultimate stop of his 13-day Asia tour in a country pushing back against Chinese influence -- Vietnam.
Decades after the two countries fought a war that killed tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, the two countries have become close allies, united in their distrust of China and especially its actions in the South China Sea. But there are areas of contention, too, especially over Trump's favorite topic, trade.
Trump will meet with the Vietnamese leadership on Saturday in the country's capital, Hanoi, but on his first day there, he'll take part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the city of Da Nang, attend a gala dinner and cultural performance, and meet with Vietnam War veterans.
All eyes will especially be on his appearance at the APEC summit, where he delivers a major speech and may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Potential Putin meeting?
It is that possible meeting with the Russian leader that is drawing the most attention, given the ongoing investigations into any potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia's interference in the 2016 election. When the two leaders met for the first time in July, there were questions about how much Trump pressed Putin on that interference.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said a meeting is still under consideration but will only happen if there is "sufficient substance." However, Russian leaders have said repeatedly that a meeting will take place, with the Kremlin's spokesman saying Thursday that all that remained was agreeing to the time and format.
Trump will raise the issue of Russia's interference again, according to Tillerson, who told reporters, "It stays on that list" of topics for the U.S.
Trump's other meeting on Friday is with veterans of the war that he infamously didn't serve in, with accusations that he dodged the draft; Trump maintains that he had bone spurs and received a doctor's note that cleared him.
Strategizing over the South China Sea
Among the top issues Trump will discuss with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is China's increasingly assertive role in the region. As China's neighbor to the south, Vietnam opposes China's island-building in the South China Sea and its military buildup on those new islands.
Distrust of China runs deep in Vietnam, stemming back through centuries of fighting, with deadly conflicts as recent as 1979 and 1988.
But the country also worries about an "America First" foreign policy that could mean a less influential role in the region -- or that Trump's flattery of Xi while in Beijing means that he has softened the U.S.'s position with regard to China.
The two countries "affirmed that the South China Sea is a waterway of strategic significance to the international community ... [and] underscored the importance of freedom of navigation and overflight" when Phuc visited the White House in May. But he will be seeking reassurances from Trump that the U.S. will not abandon its ally, as well as possible new steps by the U.S. to counter Chinese influence.
Growing trade ties
Trump's favorite topic will also be an important one in Vietnam, as it has been in his first three countries of his visit -- Japan, South Korea, and China.
Like in those countries, Trump will seek to "remove unfair trade barriers," according to a senior administration official, and shrink the U.S.-Vietnamese trade deficit.
But the Vietnamese have their own bones to pick with America, angry over Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multi-sided trade deal that was meant to push back on China and its often one-sided trade practices. Sixty-one percent of Vietnamese opposed Trump's decision to withdraw, among his first as president, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in the spring.
In May, Trump and Phuc signed new trade deals that have seemed to soften the blow of TPP withdrawal and drawn the allies closer. The deals, worth $8 billion, included $3 billion of U.S.-produced content that would support more than 23,000 American jobs, according to White House estimates at the time.
Vietnam is the fastest-growing market for U.S. exports, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in May, rising 77 percent since 2014 to $4.4 billion.
"We think Vietnam is an excellent partner in the region and that there's a lot of opportunity for us to engage in finding ways to work together bilaterally and regionally to promote growth throughout the region," a senior administration official said before Trump's trip. | {
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By combining signals recorded from radio antennas on Earth and in space – effectively creating a telescope of almost 8-Earth-diameters in size – scientists have, for the first time, gotten a look at fine structure in the radio-emitting regions of quasar 3C273, which was the first quasar known and is still one of the brightest quasars known. The result has been startling, violating a theoretical upper temperature limit. Yuri Kovalev of the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow, Russia, commented:
We measure the effective temperature of the quasar core to be hotter than 10 trillion degrees! This result is very challenging to explain with our current understanding of how relativistic jets of quasars radiate.
These results were published on March 16, 2016 in the the Astrophysical Journal.
A March 29 statement from the Max Planck Institute explained:
Supermassive black holes, containing millions to billions times the mass of our sun, reside at the centers of all massive galaxies. These black holes can drive powerful jets that emit prodigiously, often outshining all the stars in their host galaxies. But there is a limit to how bright these jets can be – when electrons get hotter than about 100 billion degrees, they interact with their own emission to produce X-rays and Gamma-rays and quickly cool down.
But, once again, quasar 3C273 has surprised us, this time with a temperature much higher than that thought possible.
To obtain these new results, the international team used the space mission RadioAstron – an Earth-orbiting satellite, launched in 2011 – which employs a 10-meter radio telescope aboard a Russian satellite. RadioAstron is what astronomers call an Earth-to-space interferometer. In other words, multiple radio telescopes on Earth are linked to RadioAstron to obtain results not possible from any single instrument. In this case, the Earth-based telescopes included the 100-meter Effelsberg Telescope, the 110-meter Green Bank Telescope, the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory, and the Very Large Array. These astronomers’ statement said:
Operating together, these observatories provide the highest direct resolution ever achieved in astronomy, thousands of times finer than the Hubble Space Telescope.
The incredibly high temperatures weren’t the only surprise from this study of quasar 3C 273. The RadioAstron team also discovered an effect they said has never seen before in an extragalactic source: the image of 3C 273 has a substructure caused by the effects of peering through the dilute interstellar material of the Milky Way. Michael Johnson of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), who led the scattering study, explained:
Just as the flame of a candle distorts an image viewed through the hot turbulent air above it, the turbulent plasma of our own galaxy distorts images of distant astrophysical sources, such as quasars. These objects are so compact that we had never been able to see this distortion before. The amazing angular resolution of RadioAstron gives us a new tool to understand the extreme physics near the central supermassive black holes of distant galaxies and the diffuse plasma pervading our own galaxy.
Read more via Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy
Maarten Schmidt’s revelation about quasars is due to 3C272
Bottom line: Scientists combined radio telescopes on Earth and with the Earth-orbiting radio telescope RadioAstro to learn that the famous quasar 3C273 has a core temperature hotter than 10 trillion degrees! That’s much hotter than formerly thought possible. | {
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NASHVILLE, TN – SEPTEMBER 23: Head coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide runs onto the field with his team prior to a game against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the first half at Vanderbilt Stadium on September 23, 2017 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)
Nick Saban takes questions from fans during his weekly radio show, and on Thursday night, he fielded one about the recent protests in the NFL.
The question came from a retired veteran who wondered if Saban would welcome former Alabama players, now in the NFL, back to the Crimson Tide sideline after participating in protests. Saban answered that question in an indirect way while making it clear he believes those protesting during the national anthem are not trying to “disrespect” veterans.
“I don’t think that what these people are doing is in any way, shape or form meant to disrespect a veteran or somebody like yourself who has worked so hard, fought so hard and sacrificed so much for all of us to have the quality of life that we want to have,” Saban said. “But one of the things that you also fought for and made sacrifice for was that we could all have the freedom to have a choice in terms of what we believe, what we do and what we said.”
Here’s the full transcript of the exchange, via Chandler Rome of the Anniston Star:
Q: “I’m a retired veteran. I’d like to get your take on the players of the NFL that won’t stand for our national anthem. I’d also like to know if some of your previous players from Alabama that won’t stand for the national anthem would be welcomed on your sideline. That’s my question.”
A: “First of all, I’m just a football coach. I don’t have all the answers to all the problems that we have in society. The one thing that’s a little disappointing to me is something that has always been really unifying, something that created spirit in our country and was very unifying is no longer that way. That’s a little bothersome to me.
“I don’t think that what these people are doing is in any way, shape or form meant to disrespect a veteran or somebody like yourself who has worked so hard, fought so hard and sacrificed so much for all of us to have the quality of life that we want to have. But one of the things that you also fought for and made sacrifice for was that we could all have the freedom to have a choice in terms of what we believe, what we do and what we said.
“This is not something … and, look, I respect people’s individual rights. I have my opinions in terms of what I would do and how I would do it. I’m not one ever to disrespect the symbols that represent the values of our country. I also respect individual differences that other people have and they have the right to express those — whether it’s our players or somebody else, whether I agree or disagree, I do think they have the right to do that.”
Players, led by Colin Kaepernick, have been protesting during the national anthem dating back to last year’s NFL preseason. From the start Kaepernick, who first sat during the anthem and then took a knee, said he was doing it to bring attention to racial injustices in our country. Since then, a handful others followed suit (some by taking a knee, others by raising a fist), but the protests exploded last week when President Trump called out players who have kneeled during the anthem, saying they should be fired.
Whether it carries over into college football remains to be seen. Most college teams remain in the locker room during the anthem for various reasons (pregame ceremonies, broadcast schedules, etc), so any protests would not be as frequent as they were in the NFL. There are no NCAA requirements for teams being on the field for the anthem. It’s an “aspect of gameday operation that the home school handles,” an NCAA spokesperson told The Athletic earlier this week.
Northwestern already said its team will walk onto the field arm-in-arm for its game at Wisconsin on Saturday after the anthem is played (Wisconsin’s pregame procedure keeps teams in the locker rooms during the anthem) in a show of unity. However, Northwestern is one school that has teams on the field for the anthem. When the Wildcats return home against Penn State on Oct. 7, coach Pat Fitzgerald told the Chicago Tribune he would not have a problem if his players chose to protest during the anthem.
It wouldn’t be the first time. There were a handful of protests during the anthem last year with players at Nebraska taking a knee and players at Michigan, Michigan State and Nevada raising their fists.
View photos Michael Rose-Ivey #15 of the Nebraska Cornhuskers kneels during the National Anthem before the match-up against the Iowa Hawkeyes , on November 25, 2016 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. (Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images) More | {
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Thank you to Related Garments for providing me with product, free of charge, in exchange for this honest blog review. All opinions are 100% my own.
In the past, my husband has needed some major help in the undergarments department. Ratty, tatty, and completely ridiculous, I was always begging him to “upgrade” to something with a little more style and definitely fewer holes. So last Christmas, I was absolutely thrilled that I found a great solution with Related Garments. And now that my husband has been sporting some great pieces from them for about six months, I’m back to share that we’ve BOTH been happy with their products!
Related Garments offers coordinating undergarments to help men “Undress To Impress”. Each Related Garment Boxer Brief comes with two pairs of coordinating socks: one pair of regular and one pair of no-show. They also offer some great package deals that can stock a drawer while enjoying a discount.
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~Boxer Briefs: Jacquard comfort stretch waistband and non-slip hem
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Previously, my husband was a “boxers only” man but Related Garments stretched him out of his comfort zone and, once he gave them a shot, he really likes their Boxer Briefs. I am really enjoying the fact that I think he looks great in them and I love to see him take a few extra seconds to grab the matching pair of socks. (Previously, he could have cared less about anything matching, much less his undergarments.) So to see that boost in his effort and confidence is great.
Final Thoughts: With six months of “wear and tear” on my husband’s Related Garments, they all still look amazing and almost new! So not only is he completely styling and sexy, they hold up well to washing and drying. It’s a win win!
Buy It: Head over to Related Garments to see for yourself the great selection they offer and to order Father’s Day gifts for the men in your life.
Connect: Don’t forget to like Related Garments on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and Pinterest, and Instagram for all the latest news and promotions.
Win It: Related Garments is generously offering one of our lucky readers their very own “The Weekday Package”, valued at $145! This giveaway is open to everyone and will end June 22nd, 2016. For your chance to win, enter the Giveaway Tools below. Good luck!
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I’m a city girl turned country by my awesome husband and we have three busy boys and two darling daughters. I love spending time with my family, reading Karen Kingsbury novels, and catching up with friends while our kiddos have play dates. I’m blessed beyond measure and can’t wait to see what God has in store.
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Rest in peace. Nice gesture of you to animate this oneWish she was here to see this. She'd love it | {
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Only Mr. Trump knows whether the bans are the result of pique or some carefully thought-out strategy (he denies the latter).
But that doesn’t matter.
As of now, there is only this: The all-but-confirmed standard-bearer of one of the United States’s two major political parties is actively stripping credentials from news organizations that report things that he deems unfair or inaccurate. He has a black list and, unlike the one that Nixon kept, this is not a secret. Quite the opposite.
I called and sent email to the Republican National Committee a couple of times on Tuesday, to see whether the party Mr. Trump will soon be nominated to lead would carry out the same bans, but I did not get a return call.
I did get a call back from Mr. Trump, who said that he was exercising his right to choose whom he grants credentials to as he runs a campaign that he has mostly paid for himself. “I’m from a different world, other than politics,” he said. “In my world, when people don’t treat you fairly … ” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to: You cut them off.
“I don’t want good stories,” he said, “I want fair stories.”
To his mind, The Post had not been fair in its coverage of his speech, as evidenced by its decision to change its headline. But why, I asked him, was that the incident that led him to ban the paper. It was “the last straw,” he told me. At The Washington Post, he said, “virtually every article is negative even when I have big victories.” | {
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Tesla is breaking ground on Gigafactory 3 in China today as it moves forward with its accelerated plan to establish manufacturing capacity in the country due to the uncertain trade situation.
Earlier this summer, Tesla announced a deal with the Shanghai government to build a wholly owned local factory.
Tesla then accelerated the Gigafactory 3 plans in response to the trade war between the US and China.
In October, Tesla announced that it secured 210-acres of land for Gigafactory 3 in China and said that it is ‘on track’ with an accelerated construction plan.
Last month, Deputy Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee and Mayor of Shanghai Ying Yong stated that Tesla “basically completed land leveling and is about to start construction” at Gigafactory 3. The project is “expected to be partially put into operation in the second half of next year.”
Now CEO Elon Musk confirmed that they are breaking ground at the site today:
Looking forward to breaking ground on the @Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory today! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2019
That’s “today” in China, but it’s actually going to be early tomorrow morning in North America.
As shown by a recent drone flyover, construction work has started at the site, but it doesn’t look like they have started building the actual factory structure, which is likely was is going to justify a groundbreaking ceremony.
The company has recently obtained a building permit for the first phase of construction at the site and they plan on moving fast.
Tesla has been guiding “some parts of Model 3 production” at Gigafactory 3 by the end of 2019.
It would mean going from dirt to a production-ready site in less than 12 months.
Update: Musk confirmed that they want construction done by the summer and production by the end of the year:
Aiming to finish initial construction this summer, start Model 3 production end of year & reach high volume production next year — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 7, 2019
When first announcing the plant, Tesla said that it expects “construction to begin in the near future” and that it “will take roughly two years” until they start volume production with a planned capacity of 200,000 units and “then another two to three years before the factory is fully ramped up to produce around 500,000 vehicles per year for Chinese customers.
We will report back with more information after the groundbreaking ceremony.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
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"Inciting dolls," that is the terminology used by Tax Authority officials to describe boxed dolls which were seized in Haifa as part of a shipment from the UAE.
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Boxes within the shipment contained about 4,000 dolls. The dolls feature a scarf bearing an image of the Al Aqsa mosque, and they were adorned with nationalist phrases like, "Jerusalem, we are coming," and Jerusalem for us." All the dolls – which were painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, feature a cocked arm holding a rock.
Video: Tax Authority (צילום: דוברות רשות המסים )
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As a result of the symbolism, the dolls were deemed inciting materials. The dolls faces were covered in Keffiyehs and were bound for sale in the Palestinian territories.
Photo: Haifa customs
The containers in which the dolls were found were labeled as clothing, carpets and plastic items. A source told ynet that the container was identified by the "profiling" system at the Haifa cargo terminal. After the containers were identified as suspicious, they were sent to an x-ray which showed the undeclared dolls.
Photo: Haifa customs
Other unlisted items were found in the containers, including soles for military boats and candles. The Haifa customs drug unit seized the goods and has opened an investigation.
Haifa port's customs manager, Kobi Yahav, said, "Customs units will continue their day to day work in preventing smuggling attempts to Israel. We place special importance on weapons and incitement materials, especially in times like these." | {
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Feeling the way over the flooring Photo courtesy Joke Post/ Arakawa + Gins
Architecture has always been designed to prolong life, from the bunkers built to protect soldiers to the caves that sheltered the earliest humans from the elements. But in thinking about prolonging life now, scientists are more apt to study how science and computers can help us. We're told to get off the couch to exercise and eat right, but Arakawa and Gins would likely argue that the complacency and familiarity inherent in being a couch potato is the bigger risk. The architecture that we inhabit shapes us, and Arakawa and Gins think they have developed architecture with a far better effect.
When Arakawa met Madeline Gins, he explained that Helen Keller was the ideal way to think about art. Because she was blind and deaf, she had to re-evaluate the world every time she moved, and just learning about language gave her a new world [source: Delville]. This blank slate may be what Arakawa and Gins are trying to create for occupants of their residences. A blankness may imply that no thoughts have already filled the space, thoughts that may lead you to believe that you have to die. And if you have to work really hard within that blankness, as Helen Keller did, you may forget that you have to die. If Helen Keller had known that she didn't have to die, she may have been a prime candidate for immortality.
Helen Keller was much more aware of her surroundings than a person who can see and hear may be, because the latter person takes their surroundings for granted. Arakawa and Gins force even the most able-bodied among us to be a part of our surroundings, to let them change us and mold us. Indeed, the pair sees our surroundings as a vital part of us; they use the term architectural body to refer to both the person and the person's surroundings. This, to them, is the whole. The Bioscleave House draws its name from the way a body holds, or cleaves, to these surroundings.
" " This bathroom without a door may change your perception of privacy. Photo courtesy Joke Post/ Arakawa + Gins
So rather than sitting back and taking in the view from the couch, Arakawa and Gins want you up and climbing over bumpy floors, being thrown off course by an unconventional house. Not only may it have the physical benefit of stimulating the immune system, this process is also reordering your thinking of what a house should be. If architecture is indeed one of our defining relationships to the world, then in turn, we're reordering our theories about how the world should work. We see there's more than one possibility, and more than one way to do things. If you don't have a theory that concludes that you have to die, well, then, maybe you don't. Changing your reality by changing your perception isn't a new idea, as evidenced by countless philosophy tomes and "The Matrix" movies.
Maybe it all sounds a bit kooky, and even some of Arakawa and Gins' friends debate whether the two buy their own lines [source: Bernstein]. It may just be an art project in which the viewer becomes a very large part of the art. Yet their Web site reminds us that it once seemed incomprehensible that humans could fly, and that architecture solved that problem through the design of the airplane.
A neuroscientist at MIT says that as disorienting as the house appears now, it will likely become familiar and counteract the off-putting effect that Arakawa and Gins have tried to develop [source: Simon]. But are there any other examples of the effects of Arakawa and Gins' work? On the next page, we'll take a look at some other reversible destiny projects. | {
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People meditate (and people have been meditating for thousands of years) because of the myriad benefits associated with the practice. It can promote calmness and relaxation. It can increase your ability to cope with illness or adversity. It can help you connect with yourself and process emotions. It has been linked to numerous physical health benefits, too, like improving blood pressure, helping with insomnia, and fewer flare-ups for some chronic conditions, like ulcerative colitis, for people with those problems.
“To summarize the benefits would be a little futile,” says Jill Emanuele, PhD, senior director of the Mood Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute in New York City — because they are so numerous.
Traditionally, meditation is a spiritual practice that helps people better understand and connect with themselves and the world’s spiritual forces around them — and the purpose remains the same today, she explains.
One of the defining benefits of a regular meditation practice is an increased ability to think more flexibly and to come to a clearer understanding of your life and the world around you, says Emanuele, who specializes in using mindfulness-based interventions for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. “It’s a way of connecting to something bigger than you (however you define that — maybe it’s God, maybe it’s the universe) and gaining insight into yourself.”
But meditation happens in your thoughts inside your head. So how do you know when you’re doing it and when you’re just in touch with yourself? And is there even a difference?
If you’re not being intentional, it’s not meditation
Meditation is an activity that focuses the attention on what’s happening in the mind and in the body at the present moment, rather than allowing your attention to wander to the various trains of thoughts and feelings that crop up, explains Harold D. Roth, PhD, director of the Contemplative Studies Initiative and professor of religious studies at Brown University. “It happens through the practice of returning your attention again and again and again to the present moment.”
There’s no one way to do it, but it does need to be deliberate. In other words, you can’t accidentally meditate — and it’s not happening if you’re zoning out.
Meditation is a subtype of a broader category of activities that focus your attention and awareness of what’s happening in the mind and body in that moment, Roth explains. This broader category is contemplation.
It happens through the practice of returning your attention again and again and again to the present moment.
Contemplative activities can be intentional, like meditation and prayer — or they can be unintentional, such is the case when you’re jogging and get in the “zone” of thinking only about your movement or painting and you find yourself completely absorbed in the moment. But the latter unintentional contemplative activities aren’t necessarily meditative ones.
Here’s where defining what is and what is not meditation get a little tricky. Even if you’re being intentional, not just any activity can be meditative, Roth says.
Let’s say you deliberately set out on a run and solely focus your attention on that run (what the pavement feels like, the temperature, the sounds around you), it can be a contemplative practice, in that it puts you in a state of focus and concentration that can help you feel more calm and present in the moment (much in the same way meditation does). But traditionally, this type of contemplative practice isn’t recognized as meditation, Roth says.
When you’re meditating, you’re training yourself to sit with uncomfortable stuff
What a lot of the mediation techniques do have in common is that you’re focusing on one thing, Emanuele explains. That one thing might be your breath, it might be the sounds around you, it might be a mantra, or it might be something else.
“And whatever it is that you’re focusing on, you’re letting go of any feelings associated with it — past or present — and really just being in the moment,” she says.
If you’re letting go of the problematic thoughts that crop up, how is that helping to deal with them?
A meditation practice is about training yourself to sit with things that are uncomfortable. If you’re focusing on your breath, you’re training yourself to concentrate only on that even if you have the urge to start thinking about what you’re going to make for dinner that night or a big presentation coming up at work. You’re training yourself to stay focused on one thing even if it’s uncomfortable, so that when you’re not meditating and you need to deal with an uncomfortable thought that comes up, you can stay with it rather than ignore it.
“You might be on the train (not meditating) and all of a sudden a thought comes to you that might be a little disrupting, but you can sit with it because you learned how to sit and practice being in the moment by focusing on your breath,” Emanuele explains.
Roth adds: “[Meditation] enables you to respond less emotionally to stressful situations so that you can maintain a clarity of mind and a freshness of approach to whatever situation you encounter that will enable you to call upon all of the resources of your mind and body.”
You can get some of this same benefit out of a contemplative practice (if you deliberately focus on bringing your attention back to the present moment while you were doing it), but you tend to get the most benefit out of a traditional meditative practice, where the activity is solely focused on the meditation, Roth says.
Is mindfulness meditation?
Central to many different variations of meditation is mindfulness, Roth explains. “It’s the technique or practice of returning again and again and again to the object or subject of meditation.”
It’s the feature of meditation where you stay in the moment, Emanuele adds — “and not get caught up in the past and the future or judge any thoughts that come up.”
And here’s another point where the definitions get confusing: Mindfulness is part of many meditation practices; but in everyday language, we often use the term “mindfulness” to describe the practice of being present in the moment in a whole host of ways outside of meditation, too.
You can practice this type of mindfulness in an infinite number of ways, Emanuele says: through prayer (focusing only on your prayers), immersing yourself in nature (focusing on the color of the leaves on the trees, the way the ground feels beneath your feet, the way the sun shines light on objects around you, and so on), or through a relaxing activity (like knitting or painting or jogging). But for all of them, you need to stay focused on the present moment. When you get distracted, return your attention to whatever you were focused on again and again, Emanuele says.
Something else you should know about meditation: It’s kind of doing burpees — even if you’re not enjoying it, it’s probably good for you
Cumulatively one of the effects of regularly meditating is that you’re able to deal with things that are troubling more effectively and you’re able to relax when you know it’s time for your body and mind to relax, Emanuele says. But that doesn’t mean meditation is always going to be relaxing in the moment. You might not like doing it and it might be uncomfortable, she says. “It can bring up stuff that maybe you’re not wanting to be so connected with.”
That’s why it takes practice. Just like practicing playing an instrument or playing a sport, sometimes it’s going to go really well, and other times it’s not. But if you keep doing it, you will get better at it, Emanuele adds.
A simple way to start meditating, she says: Pick something to focus on for a full minute. “Set the timer and see if you can focus just on that one thing.”
Another way to try out a mindfulness or contemplative practice is to do it in the shower, she says. Focus on the sounds of the water, how the water feels on the body, how the soap feels on your skin, and how it looks.
And, remember to be patient, Roth adds. Neither meditative nor contemplative practices are going to change your life overnight. And the more you objectify the experience by setting specific goals (in terms of what you want meditation to help you accomplish), the less likely you’ll actually see those benefits, he says. “If you keep doing that, you will be pulled away from being focused in the present moment and always a few steps behind your own experience.”
Plus, he adds: “You can get really stressed out if you think you haven’t reached the goal or made enough progress towards it.”
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The reliability of your online connections are more important than ever. We built a network you can depend on that sees threats, fixes problems before they occur and delivers 99.99% network reliability^. | {
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"Every year you have something to prove," Taylor told reporters Friday. "This is a competition-driven league. It's not like the NBA where everything is guaranteed. You can get cut at any given time. Any time you step on that field, you have something to prove, and that's been my mindset every time I step on the practice field." | {
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Tips For Couples Looking For A Woman On A Threesome Site
Posted by CoupleLookingForAThird.com | Sep 24, 2019
Dating websites are a popular new way to find people to date and hookup with. These websites make it much easier for people to find the right partner, that includes a couple looking for woman. To help make dating even easier, specialized dating websites have appeared around the internet for those looking for specific dating desires. One such example is threesome sites for a threesome hookup.
But a threesome site is different from dating in person. While it is simpler in some ways, it is also unique. Learning how to best use a threesome site will help to make it more likely to be successful when a couple is looking for a third. Today we are going to explore some essential tips for couples looking for a woman on a threesome site.
Do It As A Couple
One of the most important parts of using a threesome site as a couple is that you are a couple. Maybe a couple looking for woman but still a couple. That means that you need to do each step on this list together. Both of you will work together to find a woman who is right for both of you.
Try to schedule a little time every day to use the dating site together. Another option is to communicate about it over text and both read messages. No matter how you do it, do it together as a couple looking for a third.
Find The Right Site And Try Multiple Sites
A couple looking for a third has a lot of options on the internet. A number of sites are specifically for finding a threesome and these are great options. Beyond those sites, there are also plenty of traditional and other specialized dating sites that can also be used to find a threesome. Take a look at each of these sites.
You will want to find sites that look right for you. Don't use every site, instead, narrow it down to a few that have the features you want. This will help you to not become overwhelmed by creating profiles or the number of messages.
Take Time Setting Up Your Profile
On a dating site, a profile is everything. The most important thing you can do when looking for a threesome hookup is to take your time setting up your profile. Fill out each section as a couple and you will have a much better profile. You and your partner will want to make sure that you fill out every question and section on your profile.
Make sure to indicate on your profile what you are looking for. If you are a couple looking for woman, it is important to say that or else you might end up getting messages from other couples or from men who want to join you. Also, be specific that you are looking for a threesome hookup and not something serious or vice versa.
After you have filled out each section, make sure to read over it. By reading over each section you will find mistakes and be able to improve upon your writing. Very few great profiles are written for the first time.
Have Good Photos on a threesome site
All dating websites have the option to have a photo or multiple photos as part of your profile. In order to have the highest chance of having a threesome hookup, it is important that you upload at least one photo. Make sure to have a high-quality photo with no pixelation or other distortion.
When using a threesome site, it is important that you use a photo of both you and your partner. Without both of you in the photo people will question whether or not your profile is legitimate.
Have A Plan for Threesome Dating
Before starting to message other users and responding to messages it is important to have a plan. How are you going to respond? What are you going to ask for? What should you suggest? Are you going to have a strict idea of what you want? Etc. These are all questions that you will want to have at least an idea of beforehand.
These aren't going to be questions you want to answer on your own. As a couple, you will want to answer these questions together. The most enjoyable threesome hookup is when you all enjoy yourselves.
Read Their Profiles
Don't message people at random. Dating sites, including threesome sites, have profiles for a reason. Read through each profile and look for ones that you like. Don't forget to look at the pictures too. This will help you to find the right woman for your threesome hookup. By reading the profile you will also have an idea of what to write for your first message.
Send Out Carefully Worded Messages
Don't wait for messages to come to you. Look through the dating site and find women that you are interested in. As a couple message each woman that you are interested in. For each message that you send out, take something from the person's profile and use it to come up with an ice breaker.
When you message someone on any dating site you don't want your message to be explicitly sexual. If you can find a way to make a crafty sexual joke that is okay but it may rub some people the wrong way.
Respond To Every Message
Every message you get is a chance to hook up. It is also a chance to get experience in talking with someone on such a site. Respond to every message even if it is to say no or to find out more information about a person. Of course, if the message seems like spam or a bot, there is not needed to respond to that message.
Be Safe
Safety is important when you are dating online. It is even important for a couple looking for woman. Most people assume that as a couple it is less risky to use dating sites but that is wrong. The first thing that you need to do is spend some time getting to know someone before you meet up with them. This helps you to make sure they are a real person and also get a feel for them.
The first time that you meet someone, you should always meet in public. A public setting allows you to have witnessed and to feel more comfortable. Remember that the other person will also want to be safe and you should think of how they feel too.
Never give out personal information on a dating site until you get to know someone in person. This helps to keep your information safe and private.
Get Experience
Experience is important when using a dating site, being a couple looking for a third, and when you are sending flirty messages. Try to get as much experience as you can. Don't just settle for experience with messages, try to get as much experience with a third as possible.
Use any experience you get to recraft your profile and to better craft messages.
Joining a threesome site as a couple looking for a woman is a great way to enjoy yourself as a couple. It may feel odd at first as most people aren't used to these sites. Dating sites by themselves can be uncomfortable too. With these tips though you will be a successful couple looking for a third in no time. If you have a tip for everyone else, make sure to leave it in the comments down below. | {
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VLADIVOSTOK, September 4. /TASS/. The current migration crisis in Europe was absolutely expected, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters at the Eastern Economic Forum on Friday.
The crisis is rooted in the wrong foreign policy that the West and namely the United States conducts in the Middle East and Northern Africa, Putin said, reminding that Russia warned its partners about the possible consequences several years ago.
"What is this policy about? This is imposing its standards without taking into consideration historic, religious, national and cultural specifics of these regions," Putin said. "This is first of all, the policy of our American partners."
Putin said he was surprised how the US mass media criticize Europe for cruelty against migrants. He stressed that the US is not affected by this migrant flow while Europe, which blindly follows Washington's instructions, suffers the most.
On Thursday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Europe could learn from Russia how to deal with the refugees. She reminded that Russia has accommodated hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine."These people were provided with shelter, food and benefits," she said. The diplomat expressed concerns about the EU’s "helplessness" over the influx of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.
Europe has been at the epicenter of the unprecedented migration crisis. In the past months, the flow of migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East, and particularly Syria, to the European countries has increased.
In the recent weeks, the migrants have been storming border fences, trains and ferry boats. According to the European Commission, since the start of the year, more than 400,000 migrants have officially applied for asylum in 28 EU member-states. The flow of illegal migrants may reach 1 million people, a five-fold increase compared with last year. | {
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In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Meghan Daum about her book The Problem with Everything. They discuss contemporary feminism, violence against women, campus sexual assault, moral panics, new norms of conversation, the 2020 Presidential campaign, and other topics.
Meghan Daum is the author of five books, including My Misspent Youth, The Quality of Life Report, Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House, The Unspeakable, and Selfish, Shallow & Self-Absorbed. Meghan also writes a biweekly column about culture and politics for Medium. She was an opinion columnist for The Los Angeles Times from 2005 to 2016 and has written for numerous journals and magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Vogue.
Website: www.meghandaum.com
Twitter: @meghan_daum | {
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In a statement, Tesla said it was pleased with the decision.
“The ruling is a win for consumers who are increasingly looking to purchase electric vehicles,” the company said. “We look forward to continuing to serve our customers and grow our business across the commonwealth.”
The state statute at issue in the legal battle says an automobile manufacturer must sell its cars through independent dealerships in Virginia unless no dealership is available in a community that can do so “in a manner consistent with the public interest.”
Tesla, which was founded by tech industry tycoon Elon Musk, has argued that its direct-to-consumer business model means no independent dealer could sell its cars profitably, and thus no dealer could do so in a manner consistent with the public interest.
Holcomb agreed and granted the company’s petition to open a store, even though a DMV hearing officer had previously recommended that Tesla’s application be denied.
While his ruling upheld Holcomb’s decision, Rupe also expressed “serious concerns about the evidence in this case.” | {
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(CNN) — More than 318 million people visited the National Park Service sites around the United States in 2018, a nearly four percent decrease from approximately 331 million visits in 2017.
"America's national parks are national treasures that tell the story of our nation and celebrate its beauty, history and culture," said Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt in a press release.
"I am pleased that so many Americans and visitors from around the world continue to take advantage of the affordable and accessible recreational opportunities provided by these sites," said Bernhardt, whose department oversees the National Park Service.
"The visitation to our national parks continues to affirm that Americans are in love with their public lands and hold dear the stories of our nation embodied in the natural, cultural and historic landscapes we protect in the National Park System," said National Park Service Deputy Director Dan Smith, in the same release.
The National Park Service oversees 419 sites covering more than 84 million acres in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Those 419 sites include the 61 headliner national parks as well as national recreation areas, seashores, parkways, memorials, battlefields and more.
Related content Great Smoky Mountains National Park will get its first female chief ranger
Many visitors probably stayed away during the recent government shutdown, even though many NPS sites were open.
In some previous shutdowns, the park service had closed many of the sites due to lack of funding for staffing.
In the most recent shutdown , from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019, the gates mostly remained opened but often without sufficient staffing to clean bathrooms or in one case, to protect Joshua Tree's famous plant life. (In several cases, park user fees, state and local governments, non-profits and businesses helped keep NPS sites open.)
Top three park sites attract more than 41 million visits
With more than 15.2 million visitors in 2018, Golden Gate National Recreation Area took the top spot back from the Blue Ridge Parkway, the 2017 winner, which came in second place with 14.7 million visitors last year. The two park sites have been swapping the top and second place slots since 1979, the park service said.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (11.4 million) came in third place, followed by Gateway National Recreation Area (9.2 million) and the Lincoln Memorial (7.8 million).
Related content As Grand Canyon National Park turns 100, two friends hike the entire length to save it
The top 10 park sites attracted more than 4 million recreation visits each, including Lake Mead National Recreation Area, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Grand Canyon National Park, Natchez Trace Parkway and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Among the 61 national parks, Great Smoky Mountains National Park came in first place, followed by Grand Canyon National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Zion National Park and Yellowstone National Park.
Great Smoky Mountains and Grand Canyon have held the top two spots since 1990.
Most popular National Park Service sites (419 total)
1. Golden Gate National Recreation Area (CA): 15,223,697 visits
2. Blue Ridge Parkway (NC/VA): 14,690,418 visits
3. Great Smoky Mountains National Park (NC/TN): 11,421,200 visits
4. Gateway National Recreation Area (NY/NJ): 9,243,305 visits
5. Lincoln Memorial (DC): 7,804,683 visits
6. Lake Mead National Recreation Area (AZ/NV): 7,578,958 visits
7. George Washington Memorial Parkway (DC/MD/VA): 7,288,623 visits
8. Grand Canyon National Park (AZ): 6,380,495 visits
9. Natchez Trace Parkway (AL/MS/TN): 6,362,439 visits
10. Vietnam Veterans Memorial (DC): 4,719,148 visits
Most popular National Parks (61 total)
l e v a r t
1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park (NC/TN): 11,421,200 visits
2. Grand Canyon National Park (AZ): 6,380,495 visits
3. Rocky Mountain National Park (CO): 4,590,493 visits
4. Zion National Park (UT): 4,320,033 visits
5. Yellowstone National Park (ID/MT/WY): 4,115,000 visits
6. Yosemite National Park (CA): 4,009,436. visits
7. Acadia National Park (ME): 3,537,575 visits
8. Grand Teton National Park (WY): 3,491,151 visits
9. Olympic National Park (WA): 3,104,455 visits
10. Glacier National Park (MT): 2,965,309 visits
Still free for fourth-graders
Related content 'Firefall' is back and glowing at Yosemite National Park | {
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Sinaloa cartel gunmen took over a Mexican city on Thursday, turning the streets into an apparent war zone. Their mission was to rescue the son of the notorious drugs lord, El Chapo, who had been captured by police. Officers were forced to release Ovidio Guzmán López after gang members threw up roadblocks with blazing trucks, and staged a prison break of 51 of their comrades.
The battle came only a week after Mexico’s interior secretary Olga Sánchez Cordero pledged that the country would “very soon” see results of the deployment of a 70,000-strong National Guard – a showpiece unit formed this year by president Andrés Manuel López Obrador – against resurgent violence and record murder levels.
But on Monday, 14 police officers were killed by cartel gunmen in Michoacán. Fifteen more lives were lost next day during a firefight in Guerrero. In Thursday’s fighting, a soldier and civilian were killed in Culiacán, in Sinaloa state, and others wounded – with questions hanging over how it happened.
In reality, the new National Guard is deployed mostly against migrants in a joint policy with the US. While hundreds of guards blocked a convoy of Hondurans in Tuzantán last weekend, security minister Alfonso Durazo conceded on Friday he had deployed only 35 troops to seize Ovidio Guzmán López – “The Mouse”, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s fourth son by his second wife, Griselda López Pérez – blacklisted in the US in 2001 and charged last February with cocaine trafficking.
What’s going on? On the surface, Amlo – as the president is known – at last cracks down on a cartel long known for its conviviality with government, but is outgunned; unconfirmed reports indicated the detention on Tuesday of Ovidio’s mother.
But why mobilise a paltry crew of 35 against a mafia boss? How did such a cartel counter-force arrive to confront and humiliate it immediately? There’s choreography at play – but by whom, of what?
Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, currently in jail in the US. Photograph: Alfredo Estrella/AFP
Even the story’s telling compounds its mystery. Durazo at first sought to have Mexicans believe that a routine patrol was fired upon from a house which, when raided, happened to be harbouring Ovidio Guzmán. (For El Chapo’s son to draw fire on himself beggars belief even by the standards of his own outrageous reputation.) Only later did Durazo concede to a news agency that Ovidio had been released.
The president then contradicted his own minister, confirming that the operation was “based on an arrest warrant for an alleged criminal”.
Two other factors further muddy the waters: one video clip shows troops and cartel gunners giving one another high-fives after the former were surrounded and neutralised. The prison break would hardly be the first time authorities have been directly or indirectly party to an escape, not least one by El Chapo – who founded the Sinaloa cartel and is now in jail in the US – himself.
The cartel has fragmented since Guzmán’s extradition and conviction. Factions compete for the succession: one led by the guiding but ailing hand of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, suspected of delivering El Chapo to the US authorities, or at least withdrawing his official protection; another, loyal to Guzmán, is led by his sons, “Los Chapitos” – Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar (son of El Chapo’s first wife Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernández) and Ovidio.
A third interest, led by Dámaso López, “El Licenciado”, now captive in the US, defected to the rising Jalisco New Generation cartel, to which Sinaloa is losing initiative within Mexico.
Such an attack on the state is not El Mayo’s usual strategic style. It is more typical of Guzman’s sons, whose brazen tactics he abhors.
British film-maker Angus Macqueen – who penetrated further inside the Guzmán family than any foreign reporter, interviewing El Chapo’s mother – noted: “This is the first open confrontation between the authorities and the Sinaloa cartel. The remarkable thing is the speed with which hundreds of armed cartel members arrived and dominated the centre of this town.”
Anabel Hernández first described the state sanctioning of El Chapo’s escape from jail in 2001 and named the cartel’s connections at the apex of power in her book Narcoland; after numerous threats to her life, she has completed a new volume on the inner workings and reach of the Sinaloa cartel.
“What happened in Culiacán just doesn’t make sense,” she told the Observer. “No sense in the government sending 35 people to take Ovidio. That’s his girlfriend’s house, and they’d have followed him there with intelligence. There’s the municipal police and an army base in Culiacán; helicopters can arrive easily from [nearby] Mazatlán.”
And, she cautions: “Never forget that the Sinaloa cartel remains a vast organisation across 70% of the world. It’s far bigger than El Chapo, and after he was sentenced, the sons got a very small part; the huge share came under El Mayo. But the sons have money to spend, and that’s what happened in Culiacán: if you pay people to carry the weapons, you get what you want.”
Official collusion at some level is inevitable in Thursday’s battle-as-theatre. Hernández puts the events in perspective: “For a decade, war between the cartels is reflected within the police, army and all forces.
“One cartel is protected by some officers, another cartel by others. That has not changed – the prison break yesterday must have been sanctioned from within the authorities. All we can be sure of is that someone betrayed the government in Culiacán yesterday.” | {
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El director de Relaciones Gubernamentales para América Latina del banco Citi, Shawn Sullivan expresa: "Nos gustaría que usted considere, lo antes posible en su agenda, dar un mensaje personal y presencial a los mercados globales en la Ciudad de New York".
"Queremos hacerle saber que puede contar, en forma inmediata, con nuestros buenos oficios y el respaldo de nuestros 200 años de historia como banco global, con el fin de organizarle reuniones, diálogos y una presentación personal y dedicada con nuestros principales ejecutivos globales y regionales e inversores de la comunidad global en nuestra casa matriz", agregan.
La carta fue enviada directamente desde la casa central de la entidad que dejó de atender pequeños clientes durante el gobierno de Mauricio Macri. | {
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Welcome to Lalin art & Computer !
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Johnathan (Jessica) Yaniv
Trans activist Jessica Yaniv sued several business owners in British Columbia after the salons refused to “wax her (his) balls.”
The business owner argued in court over the summer that she was not comfortable “waxing male genitals.”
Yaniv lost his cases against female estheticians who refused to wax his balls.
The Post Millennial reported:
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Jessica “Jonathan” Yaniv, who infamously brought human rights complaints against multiple British Columbia estheticians for declining to perform services on her male genitals has lost her cases. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms today issued a news release declaring victory on behalf of their clients, as an early ruling in favour of the mostly home-based salon workers was announced just one day after the Canadian federal elections. According to the news release, The decision noted, “human rights legislation does not require a service provider to wax a type of genitals they are not trained for and have not consented to wax.” The decision further found that Yaniv “engaged in improper conduct,” “filed complaints for improper purposes,” and concluded Yaniv’s testimony was “disingenuous and self-serving.” Finally, noted the Tribunal, Yaniv was “evasive and argumentative and contradicted herself” while giving evidence.
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ordered costs of $2,000 payable to each of the female estheticians represented by the Justice Centre targeted by Yaniv. | {
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Saturn's moon Titan has a mysterious ice formation that stretches nearly halfway across its massive surface.
Scientists, who are unsure what type of geologic feature the ice block may indicate, based their new research on data gathered from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which spent 13 years examining the Saturn system.
"It's a good example of how we're doing really well at continuing to mine these amazing Cassini data for new results," Jani Radebaugh, a planetary scientist at Brigham Young University who wasn't involved in the new research, told Space.com. "We're far from being finished with understanding Titan to the degree we can with Cassini."
MYSTERY SEA OPENED UP DURING THE ANTARCTIC WINTER. NOW, SCIENTISTS KNOW WHY
Titan, which is 50 percent larger than Earth's Moon, has an atmosphere that's rich in nitrogen – and contains some methane, hydrogen and other gases – where liquids made of organic compounds rain down on its surface. The moon's surface temperature is a bone-chilling −179.2 degrees Celsius, and Titan only receives 0.1 percent of the light that the Earth gets.
"What we're curious about is, beyond that global gentle snowfall of organics, what's happening?" Radebaugh told Space.com. "It can be really hard to see through that layer to be able to see what's going on."
Researchers used a technique called principal component analysis, which allows them to pick up on smaller elements in the data that might be overlooked otherwise, according to Space.com.
ALASKA'S EXCELSIOR GLACIER IS BEING REPLACED BY A LAKE 5 TIMES THE SIZE OF CENTRAL PARK
Still, scientists said more research is needed to discover what exactly caused the uncovered ice on Titan's surface.
"It's a big feature that tells us something about the way that Titan was in the past, but we don't know really what it is," lead author Caitlin Griffith, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, told Space.com. "I think right now it's basically telling us that it's complicated, the surface is fairly complicated."
The research is described in a paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy. | {
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My first classic car is my first proper restomod project. Tom Cruise, save me!
Searching endlessly on Craiglist, eBay, and various classic car listings can yield limitless possibilities. Will I bite the bullet and spring for a 911 bare-metal husk with minimal rust and let it stand on concrete blocks? Or will I fulfill my inner rock star wannabe days and spring for something with a V-8?
The reality is, I couldn't afford the keychain to many of these projects, let alone possess the bandwidth to see a proper build through with my busy schedule. So what am I—a hopelessly romantic classic car fanatic—to do? Get real, that's what.
I had to lay the groundwork for what it was I was after. First things first, determining the driving experience.
Photo 2/8 | Project Mg Mgb Gt Passenger Side Profile
Roadster? No.
Coupe? Yes.
Rear-wheel drive? Yes.
Manual? Well, duh! Of course.
Decade? 1967-1972 seemed to yield a few gems.
BMW 2002? Getting pretty pricey these days.
Datsun 240Z? Again, wonderful but starting to pick up steam amongst collectors and gearheads.
MGB GT? "Yes. However, to be honest, I hadn't thought about this one until my good friend Justin Jurgens up at British Sports Cars in San Luis Obispo, California, mentioned it.
Photo 3/8 | Project Mg Mgb Gt Driver Side Door
"You know, Ezekiel, the right MG B GT would be a great project. Plenty of parts thanks to Moss Motors, plenty of enthusiasts who respect the car and will always want to own one at some point. And they are nearly bulletproof...nearly. They make wonderful entry-level classic cars."
Justin's words were the sweet nothings I'd longed to hear from somebody with a professional background.
As if I were at the bar with friends looking for affirmation that hiring an escort was a good idea. Unbeknownst to me, Charlie Sheen, who overheard the whole exchange, turns around to me and says, "You won't be disappointed!"
Luckily for me, a few things played out in my favor to see this endeavor through. Justin found the perfect car quite literally the evening after our conversation about the B GTs. This project was always meant to be a family project, so with the assistance of my father, mother, and brother, we all agreed the MG B GT that Justin found would be our first collaborative family restoration project. Naturally, Mom held the most electoral votes in this election, and she was enamored with the idea. "The car shows great bones, and it should be plenty of fun to see it all come together. Do it!"
Photo 4/8 | Project Mg Mgb Gt Passenger Side View
Like all classic cars, our B GT did come with a few issues that needed to be addressed. First, the transmission. The car was driveable but needed some love. Primarily, the Overdrive switch, gears, and reverse.
Since the engine was already out of the car, we decided to take a look at all the bits and drop in a new APT street/race cam along with new rockers, valves, and a period-correct burgundy paintjob before we had even taken delivery.
We sunk money into the project without even officially owning the car, but the day had arrived for us to drive up to San Luis Obispo and retrieve the car. A check was signed and the title was in our hands. Insurance was a little difficult to set up, seeing as this was to be the new "daily driver." Not only that, but the company that uses a lizard for a mascot had no idea who MG was. (I think that lizard's accent is fake! -ed.)
Firing up the car for the first time was thrilling and simultaneously scary as hell. Yes, we finally had a true classic car in our family, but I had to drive it 200 miles to get home. A deep breath, a small prayer to our favorite petrol-based deity, and we were off. I topped off the fuel tank and then optimistically grabbed a bottle of wine to celebrate with once we got home.
Not even two minutes on the road and I realized two things. Mechanical brakes are no joke and modern car drivers are total jackasses. There is no sympathy left on modern roads for your fellow motorists. Crappy modern econoboxes with questionable leasing terms can hit 100 mph faster than the Ferraris of a bygone era. Equip these questionable, inconsiderate jackholes with a need to see every social media post in real time, and your romantic drive along the California coast now becomes a test of your best Mad Max automotive survival skills.
Photo 5/8 | Project Mg Mgb Gt Passenger Side Fender
Luckily, the British sports car crew put the car in tip-top mechanical shape, so the journey home was without incident. A few points on the trip, I even pulled past a couple giant SUVs in the passing lane cracking past that 80-mph threshold with oil and water temps holding steadfast.
Just 12 hours later, the B GT and the family all arrived back home in one piece. A few deep breaths later, the aforementioned wine now open, and another dose of reality set in. How would I start the project off?
Well, the car was rough. Rust free, but rough. It's clearly been lovingly driven it's entire life, but in turn, it's also been lived in it's entire life. A respray sometime in the '70s, RV camper-style seat covers, locks that don't quite lock, a wire-jungle in the engine bay, tired suspension, and brakes and a dash with more cracks than a shattered iPhone screen.
Phase One: Spruce It Up
Yes, things need to be seriously tended to before you start a project. Most people think projects start just like they do on TV. An epic rendering, a dramatic yet fun-filled teardown, and all hands on deck for the next few months to a classic car with a new lease on life. WRONG!
Reality is, for most of us with day jobs, limited garage space, and HOAs with more rules than North Korea, restorations or rebuild projects tend to take a bit more planning. Not to mention budgeting. For our project, British Conduct, we started with the motor. Classic ignition systems using points can be cumbersome, unreliable, and pending driving habits fail frequently. When we handed the project over to Frank Monise Motors in Montclair, California, for an oil change and valve adjustment after our road trip, the family decided to upgrade our points system to an electric system from Moss Motors. We also discovered the locks weren't really locking, let alone accepting the said key provided to us. A fairly simple fix, but nonetheless, another fix.
Photo 6/8 | Project Mg Mgb Gt Passenger Side Front View
Phase Two: Dream
The best part about sorting out a project car is diving into the massive amounts of history, clubs, parts, and current builds to use as inspiration. When the family had a powwow, we decided to forgo the BMW S52 engine swap along with a fully re-engineered independent suspension. What we wanted to do was breathe some new life into the car with modern parts and style. Sure, a Magnus Walker build would be great, but we didn't have the budget. So getting the car back to a more acceptable driving standard was key. Modest wheels and tires thanks to Fifteen52 and Pirelli, overhauled and refreshed suspension parts thanks to Moss Motors, and an interior that is functional and a tad more comfortable. As much as I'd like to drive with my thighs, the reality is that the original steering wheel will have to be replaced by a smaller and sleeker Momo Prototipo for "big boy" driving.
Phase Three: Assemble!
None of this dreaming is possible without the right team. Luckily, one of the leading experts in all things MG is located just a hair over 40 miles from my home, where the car is stored. Frank Monise Motors will be implementing its decades of British motoring knowledge on Project British Conduct—everything from the daily maintenance tips and tricks to the hard-core suspension overhaul. Not to mention a detailed inspection of the interior bits.
Photo 7/8 | Project Mg Mgb Gt Front Grill
Phase Four: Dream some more
Taking the dream a bit further will be CFI Designs in Pomona, California. The skilled hands of Kyle Pecarovich will straighten out the tired bodywork and help add some metal details that most would quiver at. The rear passenger quarter-panel clearly met with a metal object at some point in its life. Not to mention the need to inspect the common rust areas along the rocker panels and fender seams.
In the end, the goal is to show our fellow enthusiasts that not all classic project cars need to pony up thousands upon thousands of dollars to achieve a respectable driving experience. The parts available on today's shelves are far better than the refurbished, hunted, or classic aftermarket replacement bits from a bygone era.
The MG B GT is a unique package that is often overlooked for the iconic shapes of its German counterparts. The B GT boasts a durable driving experience and a history to rival the best coach-built vehicles of its day. Many do not know that Pinin Farina was the source for the unique silhouette. So it's with this car, this team, and these supporters that we start our newest and first restomod build in european car magazine. Welcome to Project British Conduct.
You can follow the project by connecting with these social media channels: Instagram: @AutomotiveConduct or #BritishConduct. | {
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While colors are commonplace in everyday metaphors, relatively little is known about implicit color associations to linguistic or semantic concepts in a general population. In this study, we test color associations for ordered linguistic concepts (letters and days). The culture and language specificity of these effects was examined in a large group (457) of Dutch-speaking participants, 92 English-speaking participants, and 49 Hindi-speaking participants. Non-random distributions of color choices were revealed; consistencies were found across the three language groups in color preferences for both days and letters. Interestingly, while the Hindi-speaking participants were presented with letter stimuli matched on phonology, their pattern of letter-to-color preferences still showed similarities with Dutch- and English-speaking participants. Furthermore, we found that that the color preferences corresponded between participants indicating to have conscious color experiences with letters or days (putative synesthetes) and participants who do not (non-synesthetes). We also explored possible mechanisms underlying the color preferences. There were a few specific associations, including red for “A,” red for “Monday,” and white for “Sunday.” We also explored more general mechanisms, such as overall color preferences as shown by Simner et al. (2005) . While certainly not all variation can be explained or predicted, the results show that regularities are present in color-to-letter or color-to-day preferences in both putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes across languages. Both letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences were influenced by multiple factors. The findings support a notion of abstract concepts (such as days and letters) that are not represented in isolation, but are connected to perceptual representational systems. Interestingly, at least some of these connections to color representations are shared across different language/cultural groups.
Introduction
According to the British Psychologist Chris Arnell, the third Monday in January is the day of the year at which people feel the most depressed. He coined this notion with the term “Blue Monday” (Stone et al., 1985; see also Chow et al., 2005). Interestingly, in Dutch there is an expression of “blauwe Maandag” (blue Monday), indicating a short and meaningless period of time. Color perception is an elementary property of our visual system, based on the receptors' sensitivity to different wavelengths of light. In daily life, however, these simple physiological processes have a wide array of effects, ranging from metaphorical use of color terms in poetry or songs, using certain colors to signal certain connotation (Meier et al., 2004; Meier and Robinson, 2005; Moller et al., 2009; Fetterman et al., 2012), or choosing a particular color for the interior of a house based on the atmosphere that color provides the house. It seems that our ability to “simply” discriminate different wavelengths of light is in our cognitive and affective system interconnected with many different concepts, feelings, associations, and memories (Palmer and Schloss, 2010; Taylor et al., 2013). However, little is currently known about which regularities do or do not exist, and what are the underlying mechanisms explaining such associations. One condition that reflects and augments our understanding of our ability for these types of cross-domain associations is synesthesia.
Synesthesia is a fascinating condition wherein one particular sensation evokes another, seemingly unrelated, sensation. Common types of synesthesia include colors evoked by letters or numbers, or by other ordinal sequences such as the days of the week (Baron-Cohen et al., 1987; Mattingley et al., 2001; Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001; Beeli et al., 2005; Simner, 2007). Synesthesia can occur in a wide variety of sensory modalities (Novich et al., 2011), exemplified by synesthesias like taste-word synesthesia (Ward and Simner, 2003; Simner and Haywood, 2009; Jones et al., 2011; Richer et al., 2011) or movement-sound synesthesia (Saenz and Koch, 2008). These experiences of synesthetic sensations have a truly perceptual nature and can activate the corresponding sensory cortex (Aleman et al., 2001; Smilek et al., 2001; Nunn et al., 2002; Palmeri et al., 2002; Barnett et al., 2008b). However, other types of synesthesia are more conceptual in nature. For example, for grapheme-color synesthetes, it is not uncommon to associate a particular personality with each letter (Simner and Holenstein, 2007; Smilek et al., 2007a; Amin et al., 2011). Synesthesia is well established as a genuine and “real” condition (Baron-Cohen et al., 1987; Cytowic, 1995; Paulesu et al., 1995; Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001; Asher et al., 2006; Eagleman et al., 2007; Barnett et al., 2008a).
One of the currently most debated issues is the degree to which this condition is “special” or unique (Cohen Kadosh and Terhune, 2012; Eagleman, 2012; Simner, 2012a,b). In recent years, a body of synesthesia research has gleaned a set of properties that set synesthetes apart from non-synesthetes. In short, synesthetes differ from non-synesthetes in their functional and structural brain properties (for a review see Rouw et al., 2011), as well as in their cognitive profile (for a review see Rothen et al., 2012). Furthermore, synesthetic experiences themselves are traditionally distinguished from normal associations by their specificity, consistency, and automaticity (in the sense that evoking concurrents does not take effort), and by the conscious and perceptual nature of the synesthetic experience (Baron-Cohen et al., 1987; Simner et al., 2005; Simner, 2012a). In contrast, commonalities between synesthetes and non-synesthetes have been found in shared trends in inducer-concurrent associations (e.g., Ward et al., 2006). For example, lighter stimuli fit better with higher pitches, and darker stimuli fit better with lower pitches (e.g., Ortmann, 1933; Karwoski et al., 1942; Marks, 1975, 1978; Hubbard, 1996).
This raises the important question why non-synesthete participants show synesthesia-like mappings across sensations. Note that the question whether the nature of an associative experience is shared, is different from the question whether the specific association is shared (Rouw et al., 2011). In particular, critical to having synesthesia (Simner, 2012a,b; Deroy and Spence, 2013) is the conscious (explicit), specific and oftentimes perceptual nature of the synesthetic concurrent. Despite absence of these explicit experiences, inter- or intramodal associations across sensations have been obtained in non-synesthetes (Marks, 1987, 1989; Vroomen and deGelder, 2000; Spence, 2011). Thus, perhaps the seemingly subjective and irregular color associations of synesthetes, are somehow related to general regularities in the typical population (see Rich et al., 2005; Simner et al., 2005).
Unfortunately, non-synesthetic cross-sensation correspondences are often measured as associations between scales (e.g., “intensity” mechanisms such as increasing loudness of sounds to increasing luminance (Stevens and Marks, 1965; Marks and Stevens, 1966), or “magnitude” processing, such as the non-synesthetic correspondence between numerical quantities and physical size (Moyer and Landauer, 1967; Henik and Tzelgov, 1982; Foltz et al., 1984; Walsh, 2003; Cohen Kadosh et al., 2007). While these types of correspondences are intriguing in their own right, they do not allow for a direct comparison with synesthetic associations, which are marked by the specificity of the associations, e.g., between a particular pitch and a particular color. In fact, the most common synesthetic concurrents are specific colors.
In this study, we will examine linguistic-color associations in a “general” population (of both non-synesthetes and synesthetes), focusing on letters and days as inducers, and colors as concurrents. These associations were chosen as they constitute the most common synesthetic associations. Main hypothesis of the current study is that patterns of color preferences can be obtained in such a general population as well. Furthermore, the study explores potential mechanisms underlying such letter-color and day-color preferences. First, perhaps the non-synesthetic associations depend on a particular orthographic or phonological property of the letter/word. We therefore compare non-synesthetic letter-color and day-color preferences across different language groups. Second, we asked participants about conscious color associations (to be able to exclude putative synesthetes from our analyses with non-synesthetes). A conscious sensory experience is a key characteristic of synesthesia, which might or might not be related to the patterns of color associations. We contrast these participants without conscious color associations, with participants who do experience colors with (certain) days, letters, and/or numbers. We hypothesize that there are similarities in the patterns of color preferences between the two groups. Third, a set of factors are explored that might help explain general color preferences, such as within-language cross-associations and ordinality effects. Below, we summarize what is currently known about factors underlying patterns of letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences. The current knowledge stems mostly from synesthesia research, but a few studies have compared the synesthetic patterns with general (non-synesthetic) cross-modal correspondences.
Color Preferences to Linguistic Elements
While synesthetic linguistic-color associations may seem “arbitrary,” studies show that they are not actually completely random. Cross-participant patterns of color preferences are consistently found in synesthetes (Marks, 1975; Rich et al., 2005; Simner et al., 2005; Barnett et al., 2008a). Barnett et al. (2009) found concordance between their study on synesthetic color preferences and those of Rich et al. (2005), and Simner et al. (2005). Studies with synesthetes have found that phonological and orthographical properties, as well as the meaning/conceptual properties of the inducers affect the concurrents (colors) in synesthesia (Barnett et al., 2009; Asano and Yokosawa, 2011, 2012; Brang et al., 2011). Simner et al. (2005) furthermore showed that these biases in color associations are shared between synesthetes and non-synesthetes. For example, the letter A tends to be red and F tends to be green. Letter-color preferences were also shared across language classes: non-synesthetic German participants had significant letter-color correspondences, which showed similarities with the English pattern of color preferences.
A more complex picture appears when the mechanisms underlying the linguistic-color preferences are examined. The regularities can both be based in a “first-order” relationship (a category of color relates to a category of letter/day inducer) and “second-order” relationships (relative differences in inducer relates to relative differences in the concurrent) . As we will explain below, most researchers have studied second-order relationships, although a few findings on first-order of regularities are also reported. We examine both types of relationships, which we view as complementary rather than in conflict in providing explanations for obtained color preferences.
For the sake of clarity, we divide the current literature in two types of data sets on linguistic-color associations in non-synesthetes. The first set relates to number-color associations. As discussed above, quantitative differences between numbers have been related to quantitative changes in color properties. Cohen Kadosh and Henik (2006a) found in non-synesthetes an interference of irrelevant color luminance variations on numerical comparison and vice versa. This effect was replicated in Cohen Kadosh et al. (2008). The same authors used the same paradigm to study synesthete MM in 2006 (Cohen Kadosh and Henik, 2006b). The outcome of this testing partly contradicted their earlier findings; while the synesthete showed the congruity effect between luminance and numerical size, the controls now did not show this effect. Cohen Kadosh et al. (2007) studied nineteen digit-color synesthetes and found that magnitude of the inducing digit was related to luminance (but not to the hue or saturation) of the synesthetic color experience. The non-synesthetic magnitude-luminance effect might be age-dependent; Smith and Sera (1992) showed that two-year-old children, but not adults and older children, associate brightness with small objects and darkness with large objects. In summary, there is a tendency to relate brighter color with smaller numerical value and vice versa. This effect has so far been more clearly and consistently found in synesthetes than in non-synesthetes.
The second set relates to letter-to-color associations in non-synesthetes, which was examined in an elegant study by Simner et al. (2005). In this study, both synesthetes and non-synesthetes showed significant linguistic-color preferences. There was little to no relationship between color preference and alphabetical/presentation order of the letters. Instead, characteristics of the graphemes themselves influenced color preferences; the stimulus letter tends to elicit a color name beginning with the same letter (e.g., b -> blue). This effect was replicated in synesthetes by Rich et al. (2005). These “first-order” relations suggest shared characteristics between synesthetes and non-synesthetes in generating letter-color associations. There are also, however, differences between synesthetic and non-synesthetic preference patterns. First, synesthetes produced a greater depth of color descriptions, longer descriptions, and more color terms (Simner et al., 2005). Second, Simner et al. related properties of the color names to the preferences to those colors. These were three different types of properties (see Supplementary Material); the typicality or ease with which color names are generated according to the Battig and Montague orderings (Battig and Montague, 1969), the frequency (in English) of these color names, and how early these color names are learned in life according to Berlin and Kay's typology (Berlin and Kay, 1969, but see Pitchford and Mullen, 2005). Synesthetes tend to pair high frequency graphemes with both high frequency color terms and with the earliest (i.e., earlier learned in life) color distinctions. In contrast, non-synesthetes showed no effect of grapheme frequency, and preference patterns were not influenced by color name frequency, and the Berlin and Kay (when color names are learned). Non-synesthetes did, however, show an effect of order of material and typicality/ease of generation. Letters presented early in testing are paired with more “typical” (easy to generate, as defined by Battig and Montague) colors. The “ease of generation” ranking did not correlate with color choices of synesthetes.
The role of letter frequency in synesthetic color preferences is somewhat debated. Beeli et al. (2007) found, in German-speaking synesthetes, a positive correlation between letter frequency and saturation (highest linguistic frequency is least saturated). Digit frequency was found to be associated with luminance (with lower-frequency digits generating darker colors). Smilek et al. (2007b) found a relationship between grapheme frequency and luminance, and consistent with Beeli et al., this was stronger for digits than for letters. In a reply to the study by Beeli et al., Simner and Ward (2008) compared this data with their previous findings, by converting the synaesthetic physical color choices from Beeli et al. into the 11 color terms from Berlin and Kay; i.e., black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, brown, orange, purple, pink, and gray. Simner and Ward found that higher-frequency graphemes tended to be paired with higher-frequency color terms, and proposed that certain aspects of the HSL color space (upon which Beeli et al. based their conclusions) may be predicted from color naming. These effects of letter frequency on color preferences were however much weaker (Smilek et al., 2007b) or not present at all (Simner et al., 2005) in non-synesthetes. Watson et al. (2012) found that different letter properties had independent mappings restricted to different dimensions of synesthetic color. Shape was related to hue and letter frequency to luminance. Similarly, Brang et al. (2011) found that more similarly shaped graphemes were related to more similar synesthetic colors. This effect was strongest in individuals who experience their synesthetic color in the outside world (projector synesthetes, Dixon et al., 2004).
Another factor affecting the linguistic-color preference is the phonetic characteristic of the linguistic unit. Rich et al. (2005) found phonetic associations influencing color choice (e.g., the letter i evokes the color white, and the letter j, /dz/, evokes the color orange). A role for phonetic properties of vowels was also found in a meta-analyses performed by Marks (1975). In all these studies, the vowel “a” predominately aroused the colors red and blue, e and i tended to be yellow and white, o tended to be red and black, u was usually blue, brown, or black, and ou (in French) was brown. The author notes that there was no systematic linguistic relation between colors and vowels in their study, (e.g., this would have explained if ou was red (“rouge”) and the e was green (“vert”). Instead, the authors show that vowel-color synesthesia reflects regularities between the sound of the vowel and the hues and brightness of the colors (e.g., brighter colors with higher pitched vowels).
In summary, both synesthetes and non-synesthetes might show non-random patterns of linguistic-color preferences. Interestingly, there is evidence for some highly specific relationships across languages (e.g., the letter A tends to be red and the F tends to be green). In this study, we will probe such specific relationships, and also extend this exploration to days of the week. Furthermore, possible mechanisms underlying color-preference tendencies are explored. These can be language-specific factors; we will test the hypothesis that non-synesthetes use specific relations based on linguistic properties (such as the “r” is red or “b” is blue). Factors may also be cross-language; we will explore if phonological similarities/similar concepts across languages lead to similar color preferences. Some effects are not, or not consistently, obtained in non-synesthetes, such as the frequency effects and the tendency to relate brighter colors with smaller numerical value. Other factors have not yet been studied in non-synesthetes (in particular the effect of ordinality, see below). One factor that did however clearly relate to color preferences in non-synesthetes was “ease of generation” of the color names. This is one of the three factors studied by Simner, and in following of their findings we will test the hypothesis that for non-synesthete this particular factor helps explain preferences of colors assigned to letters or days.
One important factor that has not yet been studied in non-synesthetes, is the sequence effects reported by Rich et al. (2005). In line with the reasoning that color associations reflect the age at which they are acquired, synesthetic colors for days of the week (learned earlier) were less likely to be predicted by the initial letter of the day than were those induced by months of the year (learned later, when the child has already learned to read and write). Similarly, as the conceptual relationship between digits and numbers is learned before the spelling of these number words, the concept of ordering was reflected in the color choice (same choice for “one” and “1”), rather than the spelling of the word (“one” and “O”). Sequence effects are of particular interest because of the strong correlation between cultures that might not share specific letter forms, allowing the relative influence of each effect to be explored in the current participant groups.
Current Study
In a series of experiments, participants are asked to assign particular colors to particular letters, numbers, and days of the week. We expect that non-random patterns of letter-to-color and day-to-color preferences are obtained. Furthermore, we hypothesize that similarities in these color preferences are obtained across languages. Third, we expect that the patterns of color preferences of the participants with no conscious color experience show similarities to the patterns of preferences of the “putative synesthetes,” who indicate conscious color experiences with the days/letters. The study also contains exploratory analyses, examining possible mechanisms underlying obtained color preferences. The setup of the study is as follows. We first present day-to-color preferences. We test each of the three hypotheses: patterns of preferences, similarities in these patterns despite diversity in language, and similarities in these patterns despite diversity in (the presence or absence of) conscious color experiences. Next, mechanisms underlying the day-to-color preferences are explored, in particular the role of overall color preferences (e.g., a tendency to choose “blue,” independent of which stimulus is presented). In the second section, this same sequence of analyses is repeated for letter-to-color preferences: testing the three hypotheses, followed by exploring the role of overall color preferences. The third and final results section explores the role of overall color preferences, across language groups. In particular, what is the role of the three factors examined by Simner et al. (2005): ease of color generation, entry in language (age of acquisition of the color term), and color name frequency.
Materials and Methods
Participants
Dutch
First-year Psychology students at the University of Amsterdam (all Dutch-speaking and living in the Netherlands) received course credit for participating in the current experiments, which were both part of a two-day testing session for all first-year Psychology students. Included were 429 participants, (125 male, 299 female and 4 missing information), mean age = 21 (SD = 6). Experiments were approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Amsterdam, and all participants read and signed an informed consent form before starting the experiment.
English
As a match comparison 92 English-speaking participants (living in the USA) were included in the current study (41 male; mean age = 21 ± 2). English-speaking participants were students at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the experiment was approved by the UCSD Human Research Protections Program. Participants completed the survey online on a lab computer after completing an unrelated behavioral experiment in the Department of Psychology and were compensated with credit for experiment participation in psychology courses they were enrolled in.
In contrast to the Dutch-speaking participants (all are Dutch natives), the UCSD participants come from diverse backgrounds. The majority (39) indicated English as their native language, 13 indicated Chinese/Mandarin/Cantonese, 6 Korean, 8 Spanish, 8 Vietnamese, and 18 indicated a variety of other languages. The majority of participants (67) were born in the USA, while 25 participants were not (e.g., 4 in China, 5 in South Korea, and 5 in Vietnam). 21 Participants indicated that both parents were born in the USA, but the majority of participants indicated that either one or both parents were not born in the USA, [e.g., both parents in Vietnam (10), Mexico (6), Iran (3), or China (11)].
Hindi
Forty nine Hindi speaking participants were recruited by flyer and word-of-mouth from the general UCSD community and participated in the survey (mean age = 35, SD = 7.34). These participants included 23 females and 26 males. Most of the participants (45) were born and raised in India. The others (4) were born in the United States, but were still fluent in reading, writing and understanding Hindi. 22 of the participants currently reside in the United States, while 26 reside in India, and 1 in Malaysia. Participants who reside in the United States moved from India on average about nine years ago and thus have strong cultural roots in India. Participants were given either an online survey or an identical paper version.
Non-USA/non-english
The previous three participant groups were tested in order to increase diversity in language/cultural background. As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, none of the three groups are however purely monolingual/monocultural. In particular, all participants are familiar with the English language. This means that obtained effects might be driven by shared English language/ cultural influences that language and culture. Indeed, it is not easy to truly avoid this factor: in these modern times there are fewer and fewer mono-cultural participants (i.e., no influence of other culture/language through movies, television, music or internet). Unfortunately, testing such mono-linguistic/mono-cultural participants would have implied a type of recruiting that was not feasible in the context of the current project. Instead, we examined whether the effects seemed driven by the relative influence of language/culture. This was done by comparing previous results with results pertained in subgroups of participants with a strong cultural influence other than USA/English language.
In this “Non-USA/non-English” participant group, we selected a subgroup of 23 participants within the “English” participant group who were not born in the USA, neither were their parents, and who indicated a language other than English as their native tongue (see also description “English participants” above). Almost all (N = 20) of these participants indicated the same native country for themselves and their parents, with a major language of their native country as their native tongue. The native languages in this group were Chinese (N = 5), Korean (N = 4), Vietnamese (4), Spanish (N = 2), and Burmese, Farsi, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Khmer, Swedish, Tagalog. Similarly, in the “Hindi” participant group, we selected a subgroup of 15 participants who were born in India, as were their parents, and who indicated that their mother tongue was not English. All of these native languages are spoken in India, (Hindi (N = 5), Bengali (N = 2), Tamil (N = 2), Gujarati (N = 2), and Kannada, Kateli, Punjabi, Urdu). All of these 15 participants were living in India. These two subgroups can be correlated with the Dutch participant group (as these participants are all native Dutch, with Dutch as native tongue). We examine if correlations across languages are still present with these subgroups. Furthermore, the two Hindi/English subgroups are taken together (38 participants total), which is a sufficient number of participants to examine if similar color-to-day and letter-to-day regularities persist in this subset of participants, as compared with the previous findings in Hindi/English participant groups.
Procedures
This study examines regularities obtained in color preferences, in a “normal” participant group. It originally started with the question whether in a large group of first-year Dutch Psychology students, non-random patterns of color preferences would appear. Interestingly, the students often indicated that they felt that their assigning of a color with a day, letter or number seemed “random.” Results showed however that these ‘random’ answers did indeed reveal regularities. As the non-random patterns were obtained, we then examined if these patterns were similar across participant groups with a diverse cultural and linguistic background. We also asked participants if they had conscious color associations with the stimuli (days and letters). Unfortunately, logistical constraints prevented more elaborate testing of the color associations of these participants. Still, the question whether participants experience colors is by at least some researchers taken as the defining feature that separates synesthetes from non-synesthetes (Deroy and Spence, 2013), and other researchers have challenged the standard test of using consistency to determine synesthesia (Simner, 2012a). No doubt, this is an interesting and important factor by itself in understanding patterns of color-preferences. We therefore focus on the role of this factor on the color preferences. As more elaborate testing would likely exclude at least some of these participants as “synesthetes,” we separate those participants with conscious color experiences from those who do not, by referring to these groups as “putative synesthetes” vs. non-synesthetes.
Dutch
First, participants read a short description of synesthesia, followed by probe questions designed to reveal any possible synesthesia; participants were asked whether to them, days of the week, certain letters, and/or certain numbers have a certain color. If participants responded “yes” to any of the probe questions, they were asked to describe the color they associated with each item (e.g., day of the week), as precisely as possible. Those who responded “no” (non-synesthetes) were instructed to still assign a color: although to you days/letters/numbers do not have a color, we would still like to know which color you chose with a certain day/number/letter. Each participant was tested twice (test-retest). In the retest, the participants indicating no colors with days, letters or numbers received additional instruction to remember which color they had provided last time, and to provide as accurately as possible the same color description as before. Participants indicating they did experience color were simply asked to provide their color association again (no instruction to remember or match their previous description). These same questions were repeated for several categories: 7 days of the week, all 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, and numbers (1–14 as well as the numbers 20, 50, 100, 250, 4000, and 20.000). In the retest, presented at least two weeks later, the same categories were repeated but with the items rearranged in a random order. The whole test was presented in Dutch.
English
As in the Dutch survey, participants read a short description of synesthesia on the computer-screen, followed by questions about synesthesia and then questions about their color associations. The main stimuli where all days of the week, and letters printed in lower case or upper case [A, S, U, K, T, W, n, b, s, l, F, H, I (capital i), D, i, E]. While the UCSD students saw 16 stimuli in total, two letters were presented twice, in upper case and in lower case (s and i). As participants assigned highly similar colors to capital and small font, and because we would not compare them in subsequent analyses with the other language groups, the two lower case versions of the letters i and s were not included in further analyses, leaving 14 letters in the analyses. For the follow-up analyses, participants saw 10 words and 10 non-words (scrambled versions of each of the real words), and 11 numbers. Putative synesthetes were asked to provide the color of each item (e.g., day of the week), as precisely as possible and then to rate how strongly the color was perceived on a scale of 1–100. Non-synesthetes were asked to provide a color that they associated with the item. The colors of letters and days were analyzed and can be compared with those from the Dutch sample. (The color associations with words raised new questions that are now explored in a separate study).
Hindi
All participants were presented with the same questionnaire as the English-speaking participants. 30 Surveys were administered on paper and 19 online. Participants were asked about their color-associations for days of the week (Monday to Sunday), numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), letters (phonetic translations of the letters in the English test) and words (again, the word-colors are not further analyzed). For each of the 14 letters in the English test, a phonetic translation was provided (see Table 1). To more clearly define the exact sound on which the letter should be translated, we provided an English word defining pronunciation of each letter. These were: wear, some, zoo, cat, tin, wobble, know, best, lamp, fun, hush, these, dumb, and ache. This translation was then send to an independent Hindi-speaking evaluator for back translation. If this resulted in a different letter than the original English letter, the letter was again translated. This process was repeated until no discrepancies between translation and back translation remained. The whole survey was presented in Hindi.
TABLE 1
Table 1. Hindi letters used in these experiments, and their matching phonetic sounds.
In Hindi, each of the seven days of the week is apportioned to one or more Hindu gods or goddesses, and several days have folklore or ritual fasting associated with them. The seven days are named after the “celestial bodies” of the solar system: Raviãra: Sunday, day of Sun; Somavãra: Monday (day of Moon), Mañgalvã: Tuesday (day of Mars), Budhavãra: Wednesday (day of Mercury), Guruvãra: Thursday (day of Jupiter), Sukravãra: Friday (day of Venus), and Sanivãra: Saturday (day of Saturn).
Coding
Each color-item association made by each participant was coded by two research assistants according to the coding schema of Simner et al. (2005) and Rich et al. (2005). These coding schemes includes eleven basic colors: red, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, orange, brown, black, gray, white (Berlin and Kay, 1969). In accordance with these earlier studies descriptions of other colors, were recoded according to a fixed pattern. For example, “apricot” was coded as light orange. Responses that could not be classified as a color (e.g., clear or transparent), or responses that included several colors (e.g., green and blue, or rainbow) were excluded. Turquoise was coded into green.
Results
Prevalence of Explicit Color Associations
Dutch
Questionnaire. In the Dutch questionnaire a test—retest was administered. We identified participants who said “yes” to the questions on explicit (conscious) color associations both times. Of the 457 participants, 47 indicated in both the test and retest that they perceived colors with days (10%), 7 indicated colors with letters (2%), and 12 indicated colors with numbers (3%).
English
Questionnaire. Of the 92 participants, 15 (16%) indicated that they saw colors with days of the week, 10 indicated colors with letters (11%), 9 indicated colors with numbers (10%).
Hindi
Questionnaire. Of the 49 participants, 15 (31%) indicated that they saw colors with days of the week, 3 indicated colors with letters (6%), 2 indicated colors with numbers (4%).
Color Preferences in Dutch, English and Hindi Subgroups: Days
In this section we present the patterns of color preferences for days of the week. In each of the three language groups, non-random color preferences were present for each of the days of the week. In the next sections, we first correlate results across languages, and then examine if these results still hold in a subgroup of participants selected on their non-English, non-USA background. Next, we examine results separately for participants indicating color-day associations (“putative synesthetes”) and those not indicating color-day associations (non-synesthetes). The last subsection of this paragraph examines the effect of overall color selection biases on color-item preference patterns (across the three language groups).
Cross-language
First, we examined cross-language consistencies in these day-color preferences. The number of participants choosing a particular day-color combination (N stands for number of color-to-day categories used by participants in that test) were correlated between the three participant groups. The distribution of these variables was not normally distributed (Kolmogorov-Smirnov of Dutch and Hindi color choices p < 0.1 and of English color choices p < 0.05), thus non-parametric correlations are calculated in this results section (“Days”). The Spearman's correlations showed consistencies in the order of day-color preferences across these languages: Hindi—English [rs (64) = 0.51, p < 0.001]; Hindi—Dutch [rs (66) = 0.54, p < 0.001], and English—Dutch [rs (73) = 0.84, p < 0.001]. These correlations suggest that participants did not randomly chose colors for weekdays. While some days do not show a clear first-choice color, there are a few days with high similarity of most important color choices across languages. Table 2 shows similarities in the primary and secondary color preferences across languages. The strongest cross-language effects are obtained with Monday and Sunday: in each language group the strongest preference for Monday is red or blue, and for Sunday it is white or yellow. See Supplementary material for an overview of color choices per color category for these days, for each of the three language groups.
TABLE 2
Table 2. Consistency between languages for day-color preferences.
Non-English Native Language Subgroups
We selected a subgroup within the English-speaking participants who were not born in the USA, whose parents also were not born in the USA, and who indicated that their mother tongue was not English (see “Participants”). Similarly, in the Hindi group we selected a subgroup whose native language was not English, were currently living in India, were born in India, as were there parents. These two groups allowed to examine if the obtained effects were due to an underlying shared language/cultural influence (in these participant groups, USA/English). We examined the degree to which effects are diminished in these subgroup with a relatively weak influence of USA culture/English language. The color-word preferences of this group of participants were correlated with the color-word preferences in the Dutch subgroup, who also do not have a USA/English background. Both subgroups still showed significant correlations with the Dutch group; English [rs (77) = 0.46, p < 0.001] and Hindi subgroup [rs (77) = 0.36, p < 0.001]. The correlation between the two subgroups is however only marginally significant [rs (77) = 0.19, p < 0.1]. Next, we examined the degree to which in these participant groups the main effects (as reported in the previous section) were still present. We collapsed the two subgroups (Hindi and English participants with relatively little English/USA background), as else there would be too few counts or participants in these item-by-item comparisons. This subgroup has 38 participants (note that sometimes invalid answers were given, so not all color choices to a particular day add up to 38). For the color-to-days, the main effects were a red and a blue color preference with Monday, and white and a yellow color preference with Sunday. The first and second choice for Monday are still blue (N = 8, 26%) and red (N = 7, 23%). Similarly, the first choice for Sunday is still white (N = 6, 20%). The second choice is now red (N = 5, 17%) as much as yellow (N = 5, 17%). Thus, the main effects in day-to-color preferences are largely preserved in these participants with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Overall, even though none of the participants included in this analysis had English as their native language or USA as their cultural background, they still shared regularities in their color-to-day preferences. However, the effects were stronger in the combined/more inclusive groups, and a possible influence of USA culture or English language (e.g., through movies, music and internet) cannot be excluded. The results are still clearly present when nobody in the participant group has an English/USA background, raising the question of why across participants with different language/cultural backgrounds, certain days tends to evoke a particular preferred color association.
Explicit vs. Implicit Color Preferences
Next, cross-language correlations were examined separately for participants indicating color-day associations (“putative synesthetes”) and those not indicating color-day associations (non-synesthetes). This analysis revealed similar patterns of day-to-color preferences between languages, with the consistencies somewhat stronger for non-synesthetes (participants indicating that to them days of the week do not have color). The correlation between Hindi and Dutch speaking participants was significant for non-synesthetes [rs (67) = 0.54, p < 0.001], but not for putative synesthete participants [rs (67) = 0.31, p < 0.011]. The correlation between Hindi and English speaking participants was a bit higher in non-synesthetes [rs (63) = 0.52, p < 0.001], than in putative synesthetes [rs (41) = 0.46, p < 0.003]. This same pattern was obtained for non-synesthete English and Dutch speaking participants [rs (73) = 0.84, p < 0.001] vs. putative synesthete participants [rs (49) = 0.63, p < 0.001]. We offer two cautionary notes regarding these analyses. First, no thorough screening of putative synesthetes took place, so the “synesthete” group could in fact be a mix of synesthetes and non-synesthetes. Second, there are relatively few participants in each synesthetic group.
As can be expected based on these correlations, within each language group the putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes were very similar in their day-to-color preferences. Significant correlations for color-to-day preferences were obtained between putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes within the Hindi [rs (71) = 0.58, p < 0.001], English [rs (45) = 0.63, p < 0.001], and Dutch [rs (90) = 0.86, p < 0.001] speaking participants.
There are similarities across participants in day-to-color preferences. These similarities are found both across languages. Furthermore, they are not dependent on the trait of synesthesia, if anything the cross-language effects were stronger in non-synesthetes than in participants indicating explicit day-to-color associations (putative synesthetes). What factors underlie these strong correlations? To examine this question, we first consider the role of overall color preferences. For example, participants might exhibit a general bias to choose red more often than gray; such overall preferences could skew the day-to-color preference patterns.
Overall Color Preferences
This section presents exploratory analyses examining possible underlying mechanisms to the day-to-color preferences. First, to examine the effect of overall color selection biases on color-item preference patterns, we calculated overall color selection preferences in the three participant groups. Next, we related these preferences to the three factors studied by Simner et al. (2005), as explained in the Introduction: 1. order of entry of color into language (e.g., “white” is learned earlier in life than “yellow”); 2. color name frequency (in English language); 3. ease/order of color generation (in spontaneous generation of color words, some are produced earlier and more often than others). The sequence in which colors are ordered according to color entry and color name frequency did not correlate with overall color preferences in English, Hindi or Dutch speaking participants. In contrast, the color frequency did correlate with ease of color generation in all three participant groups [rs (11) ranged between 0.84 and 0.96, p < 0.001]. Thus, the most frequently produced colors were those ranked highest for typicality/ease-of-generation (Battig and Montague, 1969).
This raises a question of whether the cross-language correlations are driven by this overall bias. The analyses performed on day-to-color preferences per participant group were repeated while controlling for the factor “ease of color generation.” This analyses showed that the correlations were still significant: English and Hindi [rs (61) = 0.32, p < 0.05], English and Dutch [rs (61) = 0.76, p < 0.001], Dutch and Hindi [rs (61) = 0.40, p = 0.001].
The overall number of choices for a color was related to ease to generate these colors. What, then, is the influence of these general color preference on the patterns of day-to-color associations we obtained? Are the correlations amplified by general color biases within the participant group? We next examined day-to-color preferences while controlling for overall color biases. First, the overall color selection frequencies (across days) were calculated for each color in each language group. Then, for each language group, and for each day, a chi-test was computed to determine whether the number of selections for a given color was significantly different from the expected value (based on the weekly percent selection of that color in that language group). Following the previous results, we examined whether the red and a blue color preference for Monday still holds, and the white and yellow color preference for Sunday. Table 3 shows only the chi values that are at or below 0.05 (and for which the color is chosen more often than on average across all weekdays). Note that this is an exploratory study only, thus the variety of results in the whole table is mostly meant to create hypotheses for follow-up studies.
TABLE 3
Table 3. Colors for each of the weekdays that were significantly different from expected values (in a chi-test), in the Dutch (D) English (E) and Hindi (H) speaking participant groups.
Some clear effects are obtained in this analysis. First, red is assigned to Monday in all language groups at a significantly higher rate than to the other days of the week. Interestingly, red is also chosen at a significantly higher rate only for Monday in all language groups. The other effect shared by all language groups is assigning the color white to the Sunday. The association between yellow and Sunday was not confirmed by this analyses and thus may in fact be reflecting an overall color bias. Finally, blue is now only found related to Monday. This effect is present in Dutch and English but not in Hindi speaking participants. Possibly it reflects the notion of “Blue Monday,” which exists in Dutch (“blauwe maandag”) as a saying, and as an urban myth (the most depressing day of the year) in English. As far as we know such expression does not exist in Hindi. The rest of these (exploratory) tests showed that the only other day related to white is the Saturday (in the Dutch speaking group). Furthermore, primary colors black, white and gray are only given to Monday or week-end days. Different from the previous analyses that did not take overall color bias into account, we now also find that days in the middle of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and also Friday) are matched to secondary and/or more complex colors, namely purple, pink, orange, yellow, green, and brown.
Summary: Day-to-Color Preferences
In this section we present the patterns of color preferences for days of the week. In each of the three language groups, non-random color preferences were present. We obtained cross-language correlations on the patterns of color preferences. Next, we explored possible underlying mechanisms. We first established that these results still hold in a subgroup of participants selected on their non-English, non-USA background. The cross-language correlations were still present, and specific main effects were also still present: a preference for red or blue color with “Monday” and white color preference to “Sunday.” Next, we examined results separately for participants indicating color-day associations (“putative synesthetes”) and those not indicating color-day associations (non-synesthetes). Synesthesia does not appear to be the underlying reason for the cross-language similarities; instead the cross-language effects were stronger in non-synesthetes than in putative synesthetes. The last subsection of this paragraph presents exploratory analyses on the effect of overall color selection biases on color-item preference patterns (across the three language groups). It showed that while “ease of color generation” affects color choices, taking out this factor still results in significant cross-language correlations. Furthermore, taking out overall color preferences still shows particular day-to-color main effects (e.g., red Monday and white Sunday).
Color Preferences in Dutch, English and Hindi Subgroups: Letters
In this second subsection, we show patterns of color preferences for letters. Analyses are with the 14 letter stimuli presented to all language groups. These letters were chosen from the latin alphabet to include both vowels and consonants, letters from both the beginning and end of alphabet, and letters with both curved and straight-shapes. For the hindi questionnaire, letters were translated based on their phonological properties (see methods section). We first examine letter-to-color preferences across the three language groups. We then examine whether cross-language similarities in letter-color preferences still hold in a subgroup of participants selected on their non-English, non-USA background. Next, results are examined separately for participants indicating color-day associations (“putative synesthetes”) and those not indicating color-day associations (non-synesthetes). The last subsection of this paragraph examines the effect of overall color selection biases on color-item preference patterns (across the three language groups).
Dutch, english and hindi subgroups
First, a cross-group analysis was performed on color preferences with letters. English and Hindi letters were matched on phonology (but of course differed in orthography), see Table 1. The distribution of these variables (reflecting the number of particular colors assigned to particular letters, in each of the three language groups) was not normally distributed (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of Dutch, Hindi and English color choices were all significant, p < 0.005), thus non-parametric correlations are calculated in this results section (“Letters”). English-to Hindi color associations correlated significantly [rs (136) = 0.43, p < 0.001]. English and Dutch letters had exactly the same shape, and similar (but not exactly the same) phonology. Again significant correlations [rs (167) = 0.68, p < 0.001] were obtained. Dutch and Hindi had different orthography and similar (but not exactly matched) phonology, but still color preferences correlated [rs (139) = 0.59, p < 0.001].
As can be viewed in Table 4, the (first and second) strongest color-to-letter preferences have different cross-language consistency for the different letters. A few specific effects, however, do arise. First, there is a strong tendency to choose red for the letter/sound “A.” This effect is present in all language groups. Second, there is a tendency to choose blue for the letter/sound B. See Supplementary material for the percentage color choices for the letter A and letter B in the three language groups. Perhaps this is because of linguistic priming; both the English and Dutch color words (“Blue” and “Blauw”) start with the letter B. (In Hindi the word blue starts however with “N”). Other preference effects are weaker, and not expected: for example, it is not clear to us why the letter T has a green or blue color.
TABLE 4
Table 4. Consistency between languages for letter-color preferences.
The “Red A” replicates earlier findings (Rich et al., 2005; Simner et al., 2005; Barnett et al., 2009). In this study, the effect is replicated in different participant groups with different linguistic backgrounds; Dutch, English and Hindi. The preference for the color red for the Hindi letter pronounced as “A” indicates that it is not the shape, nor the particular (latin) letter identity. One possible explanation is that the red color is somehow connected with the position of the letter in the alphabet: the first letter in each of the three alphabets gets a “signal” color. While not all calendars are typeset in the same way, for many people (in USA, Holland, India), Monday is the start of a new workweek. Similarly, the red color of the Monday could be to mark it is the first day of the (work)week. To explore this explanation, the preferred color for the number 1 was determined for each of the three language groups. In the Hindi subgroup, of all number-color combinations, the highest preference was obtained for red “1” (14 participants indicated a red “1,” 33% from the total of 42 provided colors to the number 1). In the English group, red and blue were most often chosen (each 17 participants, 18.5% of the choices). The Dutch participant group behaved differently, with white (22%) and yellow (21%) as most common color choices. The preference of white with the number 1 is in line with previous findings with English and German speaking synesthetes (Beeli et al., 2007; Barnett et al., 2008a) and English speaking synesthetes as well as non-synesthetes (Rich et al., 2005). Thus, while there is some support for the idea of the red color of “A” or “Monday” as signaling the first (ordinal) item in a sequence, the evidence for associating the number “1” with red is rather mixed.
Non-english native language subgroups
We looked at the subgroup of participants in both the Hindi-speaking and English-speaking groups who were not born in USA and did not have parents born in the USA, and whose native language was not English (for details see the “participants” section). If an overall USA/English language influence is driving the shared color-preferences, the effects should be diminished in the current subgroups. The letter-color preferences of these two subgroups correlated [rs (153) = 0.84, p < 0.001]. Furthermore, the color preferences of both groups correlated with the Dutch group; English participants [rs (154) = 0.46, p < 0.001] and Hindi participants [rs (153) = 0.56, p < 0.001]. The Hindi subgroup also correlated with the color preferences of the Dutch participant group [rs (153) = 0.56, p < 0.001]. Thus, while none of the participants included in this analysis had English as their native language or USA as their cultural background, they still clearly showed shared regularities in their color-to-letter preferences. Furthermore, these correlations were of comparable size to the ones obtained in the previous (overall) analyses. Next, we examined whether the main color-to-letter regularities reported above still persist in this combined subgroup (English and Hindi who are non-native English/USA). These participants showed a clear and strong letter-to-color preference for the letter A (N = 18, 51%). Next, there was a tendency to choose black with the letter K (N = 10, 28%), for blue with the letter “b” (N = 9, 28%), and green for T (N = 9, 24%). This is in line with the findings in the native Dutch group (see Table 4), where the strongest effects were a red A and a blue B.
Explicit vs. implicit color preferences
Cross-language consistencies were examined in putative synesthetes (participants indicating explicit color associations with the letters/days) vs. non-synesthete participants. While orthography was different, the Hindi- Dutch correlation in non-synesthetes were significant [rs (139) = 0.26, p = 0.002]. It was however not significant between putative synesthetes [rs (139) = 0.09, p = 0.27]. Similarly, the Hindi - English [rs (134) = 0.44, p < 0.001] correlations were significant in non-synesthetes, but again not significant for putative synesthetes [rs (71) = −0.05, p = 0.70]. The English and Dutch alphabet has the same orthography (but sometimes different pronunciation) and showed significant correlation in non-synesthetes [rs (79) = 0.31, p = 0.006] and in putative synesthetes [rs (79) = 0.29, p = 0.009].
While between languages the correlations were higher for non-synesthetes than for putative synesthetes, there is an overall effect of between-participant consistency in letter-to-color choices. In each individual language group the putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes were very similar in their day-to-color preferences: English [rs (84) = 0.42, p < 0.001]; Dutch [rs (182) = 0.56, p < 0.001] and Hindi [rs (140) = 0.23, p = 0.007].
Overall color preferences
Next, the overall color preferences (collapsed across letters) were calculated per language group. Color preferences of the English speaking group correlated highly with the Hindi group [rs (13) = 0.91, p < 0.001] and with the Dutch group [rs (14) = 0.95, p < 0.001, N = 14]. The Dutch overall preferences correlated highly with the Hindi preferences [rs (13) = 0.91 p < 0.001].
To examine the nature of the overall color bias, these color preferences were correlated with Color Frequency, Color Ease, and Color Entry. Frequency of Color Name did not correlate with color preference, for the English participants (the factor was extracted originally from English language, see Simner et al., 2005) the correlation was [rs (11) = 0.05, p = 0.89]. Color entry specifically correlated in Hindi subgroup only, [rs (10) = 0.65, p = 0.04] (this is significant both for putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes). Ease of Color Generation correlated with preferences in all groups, English [rs (11) = 0.85, p = 0.001], Dutch [rs (11) = 0.90, p < 0.001], and Hindi [rs (11) = 0.89, p = 0.003].
This raises a question of whether the cross-language correlations are driven by this overall bias. The analyses performed on color-letter preferences per participant group were repeated for letters, while controlling for Ease of Color Generation. This analyses showed that the correlations were still significant: English and Hindi [rs (129) = 0.331, p < 0.001], English and Dutch [rs (129) = 0.60, p < 0.001], Dutch and Hindi [rs (129) = 0.28, p = 0.001].
Chi-test
As previously performed in the analyses of colored days, we examined the pattern of color preferences with letters while taking overall color bias for letters into account. For each language group, and for each letter, a chi-test was computed to determine whether the number of selections for a given color was significantly different from the expected value (based on the percent selection of that color in that language group). We examined whether the main effects in the previous analyses still hold in this control analysis; these were red/A, blue/B, and a green or blue T. This analysis only showed that the “red A” and “blue B” effects are still present in Dutch and English, but not Hindi, subgroups. The blue or green association with T is not present. Table 5 shows only the chi values that are at or below 0.05 (and for which the color is chosen more often than on average across all letters). As with Table 3, please note that these results are exploratory only. These patterns will need to be confirmed by further research on larger samples of individuals in these language groups.
TABLE 5
Table 5. Colors for each of the letters that were significantly different from expected values (in a chi-test), in the Dutch (D) English (E) and Hindi (H) speaking participant groups.
Summary: Letter-to-Color Preferences
In this section we present the patterns of color preferences for letters. We found cross-language similarities in color choices, even with the Hindi language group were letters were matched based on phonology. While most letters do not show a clear and strong “first choice” color across languages, a few specific preferences do appear. Particularly strong is the cross-language preference for red with the letter A, but also a preference of blue with B and of green or blue with T. Next, we explored possible underlying mechanisms for non-random color preferences. We first established that both the cross-language correlations and the obtained specific “first-choice” effects still hold in a subgroup of participants selected on their non-English, non-USA background. Next, we examined results separately for participants indicating letter-to-day associations (“putative synesthetes”) and those not indicating these associations (non-synesthetes). Synesthesia does not appear to be the underlying reason for the cross-language similarities. Again, while there are similarities in color choices between putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes, the cross-language regularities were stronger in non-synesthetes than in putative synesthetes. The last subsection of this paragraph presents exploratory analyses on the effect of overall color selection biases on color-item preference patterns (across the three language groups). It showed that while “ease of color generation” affects color choices, taking out this factor still results in significant cross-language correlations. An exploratory analyses showed that some specific effects, such as green or blue with T, might be explained by overall color preferences. There are however still specific “red A” and “blue B” effects.
Overall Color Preferences (Across Language Subgroups)
We next explored the role of overall color preferences in the assignment of colors to days and letters. The data are collapsed across the three language groups. In this section we examine the role of three factors possibly influencing color biases, following the analyses of Simner et al. (2005): ease of color generation, color entry, color name frequency'. As in Simner et al., the color name frequency was measured with English color words (Appendix I). Based on the previous results, we expect that the factor “ease of color generation” is particularly important for non-synesthetes, as compared with the putative synesthetes (who indicate to experience colors with days or letters).
Days
We first looked at the color responses provided with days of the week, across language subgroups. The data were collapsed to letter-color preferences over the three language groups. In these collapsed data, we calculated the percentage of number-color choices separately for putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes. These variables indicate, per day, the ratio of how often a certain color is chosen (from all color choices for that day). These two variables, percentage day/color choice for putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes, were not normally distributed [Kolmogorov-Smirnov; Ks (85) = 0.16 p < 0.001 and Ks (85) = 0.14, p < 0.001], respectively), thus a non-parametric correlation was calculated. The correlation showed a high correspondence between the synesthetic and non-synesthetic color choices, [rs (85) = 0.87, p < 0.001].
Next, we examined whether the color choices were related to ease of color generation, and found this significant for both non-synesthete [rs (77) = 0.73, p < 0.001] and putative synesthete [rs (77) = 0.68, p < 0.001] participants. Entry in language (age of acquisition of the color term) showed a significant, but weaker, correlation with both and non-synesthete [rs (77) = 0.28, p = 0.01] and putative synesthete [rs (77) = 0.33, p = 0.003] participants. There was no significant relationship with color name frequency. As this latter factor might be a more language-specific effect, we separately examined the English participant group, but again found no correlation between color name frequency and color preference in putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes (p > 0.1).
A possible alternative explanation for the cross-participant similarities is that ease of color generation underlies the correlations. Therefore, the correlations were repeated with ease of color generation partialled out; still a strong correlation was maintained between “putative synesthete” and non-synesthete color choices [rs (74) = 0.80, p < 0.001].
Thus, there are regularities in day-to-color preferences, and these are shared between the participants who indicate that to them, days have color, and those who do not experience color with days. For both participant groups, overall color preferences to days are related to ease of color generation and entry into language.
Letters
We then explored the overall color biases with letters, across language subgroups. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests also indicated that neither ‘putative synesthetic’ [Ks (182) = 0.20, p < 0.001] nor “non-synesthetic” letter-to-color percentages [Ks (182) = 0.12, p < 0.001] were normally distributed, therefore a non-parametric correlation was used. This showed similar overall color-to-letter preference for putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes [rs (182) = 0.69, p < 0.001].
Non-parametric correlation analyses showed a strong effect of “ease of color generation” on the color choices of non-synesthetes [rs (154) = 0.77, p < 0.001] and a significant, but weaker, effect with the putative synesthetes [rs (165) = 0.33, p < 0.001]. Furthermore, “color entry” correlated with non-synesthete color choices [rs (140) = 0.28, p = 0.001], but not those of the putative synesthetes. There was no effect of “color name frequency” on the choices of color categories of non-synesthetes or putative synesthetes. As color name frequency was measured with English color words, a separate analyses on the “English” participant group was performed. This however again showed no correlation between color name frequency and color preferences, either in the non-synesthetes [rs (160) = 0.05, p = 0.51] or in the putative synesthetes [rs (85) = 0.15, p = 0.16].
If ease of color generation influences both synesthete and non-synesthete color choices, does this explain the obtained correlation between the two participant groups? A partial correlation was run, showing that synesthetic and non-synesthetic color choices still correlated [rs (151) = 0.671, p < 0.001] when controlling for the factor “ease of color generation.”
Summary: overall color preferences
There was a clear effect of “ease of color generation” on the color choices, somewhat stronger with the non-synesthetes but also significant for putative synesthetes. There is a weaker effect of “entry in language” (age of acquisition of the color term) on both participant groups, and no effect of “color name frequency”. Note however that in previous results this effect was related to specific properties of the color that were not measured in the current study, as the naming procedure in assigning colors only defines categories of the color hue. The cross-participant correlations (putative synesthetes and non-synesthetes) show that there are regularities in the data. These regularities are still present if the overall color preference based on “ease of color generation” is partialled out.
Discussion
In the current study we find statistically significant, non-random patterns of day-to-color preferences and letter-to-color preferences in non-synesthetes. Moreover, there are similarities in these patterns across three language groups: Dutch, English and Hindi language. The third hypothesis was also confirmed: there are similarities in the patterns of color preferences for non-synesthetes as for the putative synesthetes in this study. While clearly not all variation is explained by cross-language associations, and random (or unexplained) influences are also present in the color choices, results suggest regularities as well. As discussed in the Introduction, regularities can both be based in a “first-order” relationship (a category of color relates to a category of the letter/day inducer) and “second-order” relationships (relative differences in inducer relates to relative differences in the concurrent). As expected, our results indicate a role for both types of regularities, in a complementary rather than excluding manner. A few specific day-to-color preferences appear to be particularly strong and consistent, such as red/Monday, blue/Monday, and white/Sunday. The day-to-color preference patterns were furthermore shared over different language groups, and also present in participants with a cultural background other than USA/English. In letter-to-color preferences, we also obtained certain specific preferences. The strongest effect is the red/A bias, which has previously been reported in English (Marks, 1975; Simner et al., 2005) and is now extended to English, Dutch and Hindi language subgroups. Furthermore, biases for blue/B, and green or blue T were obtained. The overall letter-to-color preference patterns are at least to some extent shared across the language groups (and were still present in participants with a cultural background other than USA/English). The similarities in the patterns of color preferences between Hindi and English/Dutch indicates that orthography of the letters, and linguistic properties of the weekday names, are not the only or defining characteristics of the color preferences. As we will explain below, it is likely that different factors are simultaneously at play in generating color preferences. As expected, there are shared biases in color preferences of participants with conscious color experiences with letters (“putative synesthetes”), and participants who do not report such a conscious color association (non-synesthetes). Exploring the patterns of color preferences, we also obtained differences between the groups, as the participants without any explicit color associations showed stronger cross-language similarities (both with letters and days) than the participants who indicated to have conscious color associations with this material. Perhaps not surprising (and in replication of the results of Simner et al., 2005), the factor “ease of color generation” influenced color preference, and this effect was effect was somewhat stronger for the non-synesthetes (compared with putative synesthetes). Importantly, partialling out this factor still led to significant correspondences in cross-language color associations.
Exploratory analyses examined the factors driving the color preferences. Possibly, the preference of “red” with Monday or the letter A is to mark the start of a sequence (of the workweek/ of the alphabet). In line with obtained linguistic effects in synesthetes (Rich et al., 2005, but see Marks, 1975; Simner et al., 2005), there might be effects in non-synesthetes as well. An example of such linguistic-specific effects is the preference of blue with “b” (Simner et al., 2005), which in the current study was obtained both in English as in Dutch (the Dutch word for blue is “blauw”) but not in Hindi (Hindi word for “blue” does not start with a b). These are not the only factors influencing color preference, however. Non-synesthetes showed an overall bias to select colors that are easy to generate (Battig and Montague, 1969). To a lesser extend, there was also a bias to choose colors that were learned earlier in life (Berlin and Kay, 1969).
Mechanisms that allow associations between seemingly unrelated sensations appear to be common to us all. This is illustrated by the mere existence of figurative speech and metaphors, prevalent in art but also ubiquitous in daily life. These cross-modal correspondences resemble synesthesia, in terms of making the same type of associations. One famous example is the association of made-up round vs. spiky shapes with their imaginary names: (“maluma” vs. “takete,” Köhler, 1947; “bouba” vs. “kiki,” Ramachandran and Hubbard, 2001). Another well-known finding is the connection between numbers and space in the spatial-numerical association of response codes (SNARC, Dehaene et al., 1993; Fias et al., 1996). Cross-modal mappings exist across different types of information (e.g., pitch /musical intervals to brightness or shapes (Karwoski et al., 1942; Marks, 1974; Hubbard, 1996) or taste/flavors to sounds (Simner et al., 2010). Furthermore, increased intensity tends to be intuitively related to increased intensity across different types of media (e.g., loudness/brightness/size/ (Marks, 1974, 1987). For a review of cross-modal correspondences see Spence (2011). Clearly, the similarity between synesthetes and non-synesthetes exists in the type of associations made. The current study suggests that while participants without conscious color experiences often commented during the experiment that their answers were “completely random,” in fact they were not. As synesthetes, they show patterns or biases in their patterns of color-to-concept associations. Furthermore, non-synesthetic biases in cross-modal correspondences can even be found cross-language/culture. We suggest that the biases that are likely to influence a particular color chosen with a particular letter or day might be more generally shared across cultures and languages as well as across individuals.
One limitation of the current study is a degree of similarity between cultures; Dutch and American participants share a shared influence of a culture in the structure of the work-week and weekend, and associations such as Sunday as a day of rest or religious day. Hindi-speaking participants, currently living in America, may share some of these influences, depending on the duration of their time in the United States. While the questionnaire itself was completely in Hindi and the participants were native speakers, this might have influenced their color choices. The commonalities in letter-sounds could be due to some shared cultural/language aspect, or translation of English influences into the native (Hindi) language. Alternatively, the commonalities are related to cross-language sound-to-color associations which are either biological or learned pre-literacy. Spector and Maurer (2008, 2011) found that some shape-to-color associations are present pre-literacy and depend on the shape of the letter, while others are later learned literacy effects (such as the red A and green G). These findings show the influence of shape of the letter (Brang et al., 2011), the current results furthermore show an influence of sound of the letter. Given possible shared language/cultural influences, it would be interesting to see if correspondences can also be found in other, additional languages/cultures.
In this and previous studies, similarities are obtained in the cross-linguistic associations in synesthetes and non-synesthetes. What does this tell us more generally about how “different” synesthetes are? As we have argued before (Rouw et al., 2011; “trait vs. type”), similarity between synesthesia and non-synesthetes lies in the exact correspondences made between apparently unrelated modalities (“type”). What is different between these “normal” cross-modal correspondences and synesthetic experiences (“trait”). Most important is the phenomenology of the experience, which is more explicit/conscious, precise, and consistent in synesthetic than in non-synesthetic experiences. Presumably, synesthetic concurrents (but not non-synesthetic color associations), are really qualitative experiences, rather than mere (semantic) associations. In line with these reports, functional and structural brain differences between synesthetes and non-synesthetes are found in sensory brain areas (Nunn et al., 2002; Hubbard et al., 2005a; Rouw and Scholte, 2007; Hupe et al., 2012). Second, non-synesthetes have to exert effort to generate associations (there were many comments during the experiment from the non-synesthetic participants; that it was a silly task, and their color choices felt “completely random”). In contrast, for synesthetes the associations are described as “automatic” in the sense that it takes little effort to produce the concurrent when presented with the inducer. This characteristic of synesthesia might very well be related to the overwhelming evidence (Esterman et al., 2006; Muggleton et al., 2007; Weiss and Fink, 2008; Jäncke and Langer, 2011; Rouw et al., 2011; Specht, 2012) of the role of the parietal cortex in synesthesia. This is most commonly interpreted as reflecting the “hyper binding” present in synesthetes (although the parietal cortex has also other roles (Hubbard et al., 2005b; Cohen Kadosh et al., 2008). Importantly, next to these behavioral and brain differences between synesthetes and non-synesthetes, there is evidence for a genetic predisposition for synesthesia (Asher et al., 2009; Brang and Ramachandran, 2011; Mitchell, 2011; Tomson et al., 2011) and synesthesia has been found “running in the family” (Barnett et al., 2008a). The studies on the patterns of color preferences show how the nature of the color experiences are different: the (putative) synesthetes show more diverse, more specific, more consistent color associations than the non-synesthetes (Palmeri et al., 2002; Hubbard and Ramachandran, 2005; Eagleman et al., 2007). Furthermore, non-synesthetes are more influenced by general factors as evidenced in the current study (see also Rich et al., 2005; Simner et al., 2005; Barnett et al., 2009) by stronger cross-language effects, as well as a stronger effect of the factor “ease to generate color name.” Thus, evidence so far indicates that the differences are found when examining the trait of having synesthesia (what underlies having these experiences). While similarities are found when examining which particular types of associations are made. The trait provides a predisposition to develop unusual experiences (Rouw et al., 2011). The types are shared biases leading to non-random patterns of associations. Furthermore, these biases are shared among different (language/culture) groups. Whether nature or nurture (or a combination of the two) underlie these associations, is a topic of future research.
As a final note, previous studies have examined synesthesia in non-English languages. Simner and colleagues (Simner et al., 2011) found that both native and non-native Chinese speakers with synesthesia experience colors with Chinese characters. Again, these linguistic-to-color associations show (non-random) patterns of associations. For at least some of the synesthetes, the color choices of the characters and words are influenced by the initial letters. Asano and Yokosawa (2012) studied synesthetic coloring of Kanji characters, which are acquired later in life than other types of graphemes in Japanese language. Synesthetic colors were found related to phonology and meaning more than to orthography. At least some influence from earlier learned languages on the later languages were obtained. Indeed, age of acquisition could influence color-letter associations (Asano and Yokosawa, 2011). Barnett et al. (2009) examined synesthetic colors with months, days, and numbers in bilingual synesthetes. The (across-language) words had more similar colors based on commonalities in visual form across languages. In particular months (as compared with numbers or days) had similar colors based on beginning with the same first grapheme, the authors suggest that this is possibly because months are learned later in life when the child is already learning to read and write. Again, these findings with synesthetic colors suggest a mixture of effects influencing linguistic-color associations. This does not necessarily mean that one finding conflicts with another: the different influences can point at different moments in life influencing color preferences, earlier for perceptual involvement of low-level perceptual processing (e.g., Brang et al., 2011) and later for more conceptual, semantic or linguistic influences (e.g., Barnett et al., 2009; Asano and Yokosawa, 2011, 2012).
While analyses of putative synesthetes vs. non-synesthetes should be interpreted with care, the results show similar patterns of color preferences between these groups, both cross- and within-language. Color choices are most likely driven by multiple factors, including linguistic/phonetic influences, orthographic properties, and sequence/ordinality effects. More general effects are also present, such as ease with which the color name is generated. We propose that both synesthetic and non-synesthetic associations show that abstract concepts are not represented in isolation, but are connected to other representational systems. The presence of connections across-representation is independent of whether participants report conscious associations (as occurs in synesthesia) or not. Interestingly, we found that patterns of day-color and letter-color associations are present in non-synesthetes, and biases in color preferences are shared across different language/cultural groups.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Jackie Thind. Thanks to Marcus Spaan for help with the data collection of Dutch participants. We thank Sharma Aditya, Chaintanya Bhatt, Bhuvan Molparia, for help with translation. We thank the participants for their effort and time. We thank the reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.
Supplementary Material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://www.frontiersin.org/journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00369/abstract
Footnotes
References
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There are many ways to measure the distance between "going indie" and independent sustainability in the world of game development.
Tanya Short can measure it in months and years: Five months between leaving Funcom and founding Kitfox Games; One year for the company to become financially sustainable; Nine months in a Montreal startup accelerator (working for close to minimum wage); One year at Kitfox and counting, thanks to the funds from her Moon Hunters Kickstarter and a grant from the Canadian Media fund.
Daniel Cook and Spryfox Games can measure the distance by the games themselves: Eleven released, three profitable, four that broke even, and five that just didn’t work out; Five (or 20) unfinished prototypes waiting in the wings.
Keaton White can measure it by continents: He crossed three before he started his company, Abyssal Arts, in the UK, all the while using contract work and translation jobs to set himself and his wife up in their new home, while creating up Zombie Playground and Shroud.
And for others, the number is counted in abandoned projects, the broken bits of code, and left-behind business models--numbers that loom large when not just creative achievement is at stake, but also when it comes to paying rent and putting food on the table.
For Short, Cook, White, and other independent developers, there’s a period where, plain and simply, their games were not their main source of income. This is counter to any glorified notion about "going indie." Often, games aren't a developer's main source of income far past their first game. So then, how do you survive? How do you eat and pay the bills? How do you find the time to make a great game while bringing in that money? To get to these answers -- which vary wildly depending on who you ask -- you need to understand that what's financially in store for you when you "go indie." It's not as glamorous as you might think, but true independence is attainable.
Scrapped together from nuts and bolts
For married developers in the middle of their careers, Short begins by explaining where that support begins -- partners and spouses. “My partner is still in the industry," she says. "There were a few months in between Funcom and Execution Labs in which I was supported by my partner, and at Execution, I was only getting minimum wage. So to be comfortable and keep paying off my student loans, he's been supporting me throughout this whole Kitfox adventure.”
It's the same situation for White. “A good way of putting it is that we've been relying on my wife's income, and supplementing that with savings from my past job with addition to a little bit of contract work.”
Peter Curry, with his brother Robert Curry of Mini Metro, had a similar scenario. “Robert and I were both financially supported by our partners during the 2008-2011 period. In 2013, when I was working full time on Mini Metro and before it started to earn, Marry and I were dipping into the savings she’d managed to build up while she was working, supplemented by the pre-order income.”
" A good way of putting it is that we've been relying on my wife's income."
It’s a similar story with many developers, but it’s also just the beginning of a larger answer to those questions about gaining financial independence as an independent. As more and more developers opened up about their primary source of income from the start of their careers, the answers grew wider and wider.
Contract work becomes the next most obvious step. Short and Kitfox games partnered with Cartoon Network to create Steven Universe: Heap of Trouble . Some of White’s contract work was for his former employer, Capcom Japan, and developer Neil Rennison started his company Tin Man Games in 2008 on the back of his former work in an art outsourcing company he’d run for several years before. In particular he says, “There was one primary source of income from my outsourcing for at least the first couple of years. One [game] in particular, a Need for Speed title on Wii/PS2 for EA really got things moving.”
“Around early 2011 I decided to work on my final outsourcing project," says Rennison, who at one point even took a part-time job lecturing at a local university. "Tin Man Games now has a steady income and while there have been some months where I have had to drop my salary to keep the cash flow steady, on the whole I can now say I earn a living from it.”
Adam Saltsman ’s indie career is practically defined by contract work. “I did my first freelance jobs on nights/weekends, where my main income was my old desk job as a digital photography software programmer and designer. After a year or two I started freelancing full-time, but my wife and business partner Bekah kept her day job, which had a good salary but maybe more importantly good health insurance. It took us at least three years to go from part-time freelancing to full-time internal independent development.”
"My primary source of income probably was student loans, in law school."
One surprising "going indie" financial scenario is that of Michael Hartman , president and CEO of Frogdice Games, as he was on the road to publishing his text adventure Threshold . Even though most developers speak about student loans with the tone one would give an axe hanging over their heads, Hartman’s experience with law school proved dramatically different.
“My career started in 1991 while I was at college. I started making basically what is now the equivalent of DLC to BBS Door games...I wouldn't say school was a source of income per se, but in a way it was," Hartman explains. "I went to undergrad on scholarship, so I guess my income was my scholarship, because that paid room and board. Then when I was in law school -- you go to law school on student loans. There's virtually no law school scholarships. They assume, ‘Hey, you're gonna be a lawyer, you can pay back your loans, you don't need a scholarship.’”
Hartman started making money off Threshold after he introduced monetized mechanics in order to finance the purchase of a new server. When it came time to take the Bar, he realized he was in a very lucky place. “We gradually expanded upon that [business model], and Threshold started generating income, and I got to the point where it was going to cost $4,000 to take the bar exam -- between exam costs, and bar prep class, and everything like that. So I had this fish or cut bait moment where I was like, ‘well either I'm going to have to spend $4,000 on the bar exam, or I'm gonna decide that I'm totally gonna be a game developer.’”
“There was a two-year period where [Threshold] was not my primary source of income," he adds. "My primary source of income probably was student loans, in law school. And then by 1998, I was like, 'This is gonna be enough to actually live on.'"
So Why Aren’t We Talking About This?
None of these situations are the public story of indie games.
Hartman and other developers speak fondly of their time at the Indie Megabooth at PAX, a fixture that might best describe public perception of the indie game scene: A well-stocked group of independent developers crammed together with a carnival of small games and bright ideas. Their budgets may be low, but everyone’s either showing off a recently launched game, launching something on a crowdfunding platform, or showing final builds in the months or weeks before release. Everyone talks about features, art assets, but no one talks about the anxiety of budgeting for next month’s rent. Or the creeping dread of pacing out how long your those student loans are set to last. But the anxieties are there, and most independent developers are well aware of the social and financial ecosystem they must navigate in order to thrive and survive.
Daniel Cook’s thoughts on the matter are blunt. “The games industry...is less a meritocracy than it is a reputation-based market," he says. "Are you hip? Are you, as a brand, culturally relevant? Is your work enlightened? Many developers are faking it till they make it and as such are immensely aware of showing certain weaknesses. There are certain standard roles that are acceptable, such as 'Starving artist' or 'youth fighting the man.' Breaking out of those roles in a public fashion can feel like a betrayal within some communities.”
"The games industry...is less a meritocracy than it is a reputation-based market. Are you hip? Are you, as a brand, culturally relevant?"
“Business development is a particularly interesting example. In our rush to see games as ‘art,’ we imported a lot of shallow, stereoptypical concepts about what art is and how artists should behave," Cook continues. "The media, the schools, and many developers are at fault here. There was never a real critique of the fine art industry as this $66 billion business machine that uses ‘artists’ as cheap disposable labor in the service of crushingly-powerful institutions. In another industry, we’d have labeled the folks making games on new digital platforms as ‘entrepreneurs,’ but because of the rush to be ‘art,’ mere discussion of business takes on a negative tinge. The result is a lot of very poorly-equipped folks trying to run businesses for the first time.”
Short, meanwhile, digs into some of the more personal reasons that the conversation about making a living becomes awkward -- reasons that have made her more determined to try and open the conversation up with other developers. “A lot of people will only talk about their games if they are massive successes, and there's a lot of reasons for that. I don't think people shame failure, and I don't think it's only embarrassment or anything like that. The reason I haven't talked loudly about how many copies of Shattered Planet we sold isn't because I'm embarrassed, it's because it feels...it feels dirty, a little bit? Like sleazy or something? Or gross..to talk about how many we sold.”
“Part of it is imposter syndrome , like you feel like you sold more than you deserved, or somebody who made a better game didn't sell as well," she explains. "And part of it is you didn't sell as well as other people might have, and so people maybe would be surprised. 'Oh! I thought you were more successful than that!'"
But there’s an even more specific struggle she and Kitfox have grappled with: their platform partners. When you can’t discuss how many copies you’ve sold, how can you explain the budget/sales formula that helped keep your indie company afloat? “From what I understand, Valve for example, does not like you exposing what exactly you've sold on their platform, using their various algorithms. Nobody has explicitly told me not to share, but that's the rumor I've heard. To be fair, if the rumor is true, I think it likely has good reason -- they want people to make good games rather than chase get-rich-quick schemes like on the app stores. But the end effect is that various things encourage a little bit of opaqueness. I wouldn't call it secrecy, I don't think any indies are particularly secretive, but I definitely have felt a little bit of pressure to be less transparent than I actually would be.”
"The reason I haven't talked loudly about how many copies of Shattered Planet we sold isn't because I'm embarrassed, it's because it feels...it feels dirty, a little bit?"
The Apple Store and Google Play Store have also obscured sales, presumably contributing to an inability for full transparency. Short’s game Shattered Planet was published on Steam, the App Store, and the Google Play store, creating a set of business partnerships that are now essential to keeping her company afloat, and creating a situation where she needs to balance business partnerships as a company, not just an individual. And that’s another “unspoken” part of the conversation to her: the fact that she needs to do this as a company.
“I think if you were to do a survey on tigsource or r/gamedev, or r/indie or whatever [asking where revenues are directed], I think you'd find [paying the salary] is the minority," says Short. "Even though all of the high profile ones pay themselves out, the perception is that indies do it for the love, and indies don't need to pay themselves salary. Even the phrasing on Kickstarter has to be very careful. You can say you're paying for art and programming, but if you say you're paying for food and rent, then I think you'll get fewer backers.”
She adds, "We have to always know that we have some sort of salary every month. [But] there's a whole subculture of people who see indie in a part-time, almost hobbyist kind of fashion, versus people who are doing it as their day job, their profession, who have to make money at it. That lack of awareness is definitely unhelpful.”
Facing the good and the bad, independently
There’s another thread weaving in and out of these conversations -- what advantages and disadvantages do you bring to your career when you strike out alone as an independent developer?
While Hartman’s story reflects developers who’ve been working independently all their lives, prior professional experience in the game industry is part of so many successful developers' careers. Short’s experience at Funcom gave her time to practice her game design skills with her colleagues; White’s personal circle consists of four other developers with experience to his stint at Capcom.
And there are husband-and-wife duos like DoubleBear's Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda and Brian Mitsoda, who credit their years in the industry for giving them resources, experience, and background to create the Kickstarted game Dead State . "When we set out, our primary source of income was Brian's savings, then my full-time work at ArenaNet until the Kickstarter gave workable funds to move the project to full-time and hire additional staff," Annie explains.
" In our rush to see games as ‘art,’ we imported a lot of shallow, stereoptypical concepts about what art is and how artists should behave"
"Brian's extensive experience in the game industry and his notable work on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines helped give our company and our project a higher amount of attention, even before the Kickstarter (and potentially [my] work on other RPGs, to a lesser degree)," she adds. "While this didn't give us immediate financial help, this did help draw attention and support to the company and the project at an early stage."
Los Angeles developer Arthur Danskin admits he was able to leave his job at Nvidia to work on his game Reassembly in part because of his parents paying for college and giving him a huge base experience to start with. “My parents paid for my college," he says. "And that was huge. Also my dad was a software engineer, so that helped me become a software engineer. Being able to have that programming experience has been super invaluable to me too. Working as a normal software engineer, I think I'm much more prepared technically than other indie developers. My game's more technical than other indie games, and that experience was incredibly helpful.” Reassembly
Then there are the challenges, many of which aren't exclusive to being "indie," but the difference is facing challenges more directly -- independently. Short made clear that the tech industry’s struggle with sexism has been a part of her life too, even if it’s just a subtle way. “Being the female lead of a team is both an advantage and a disadvantage," she says. "I haven't suffered any explicit harassment. You read articles, and investors are statistically, very focused on investing in male-led companies. And obviously we got investment, so I dunno? But the possible ways that someone could passively undervalue your work are everywhere, even when there's no proof anywhere that something's going wrong in your particular case. I don't have any horror stories per se, but I'm definitely bracing, since I'm the primary person who speaks for the game in the Kickstarter video.”
Where you choose to "go indie" is also a decision you must live with. Hartman, while ultimately satisfied with the Kentucky location for his company, doesn’t ignore that geographic location can be a double-edged sword too: the choice is a low cost of living vs. access to opportunity. “If we were in San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, or Austin, we'd be out of business," he says. "Now granted, maybe if we were there, other magical things would have happened, Like, we would have bumped into some company and they would have needed something and we would have partnered and we would have made some game and it would have made $10 million. Those locations offer investors and partnerships. Either one of those can be gigantic.”
It’s time to talk
Ismail’s recent piece about the state of the game industry is a testament to the industry’s literal struggles, but it’s also a giant warning sign to one big fact: We aren’t talking about those struggles. And we especially aren’t talking about them in the world of indie development, instead complacently creating a knowledge gap that fails to properly acknowledge the struggle, the , and sometimes the downright failure of striking out on ones’ own. Vlambeer co-founder Ramiunprofitability
Most of the developers interviewed here have spent two to three years crossing the gap between going independent and launching their first games. Their incomes came from an array of places at a variety of points in their lives. If the game industry continues to praise the art, ingenuity, and innovation that comes out of the independent space, we must discuss how to support creators, and how they support themselves, if we want to be continually enthralled by what they create. | {
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Happy Holi Everyone!
Known as the Festival of Color, Holi is celebrated across most of India. It starts this evening and ends tomorrow night. People celebrate this holiday by covering each other in colorful powder and dyed water. The wild festivities usually leaves both the people and the town covered in a smattering of vivid colors.
We thought today would be the perfect time to announce that Holi will be making its debut as a holiday in Papa’s Scooperia! Expect lots of color around town while unlocking the sweet flavors of India!
Stay tuned for more sneak peeks of Papa’s Scooperia!
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There are greater numbers of luxury supercars and hypercars in China than ever before. It is of course, inevitable that some would end up involved in accidents. One such example is this orange Lamborghini Aventador which smashed into a bus in Hefei, 500 km outside Shanghai.
The accident happened on Wuhu Road at around 2 pm yesterday. Police officers on the scene were said to understand the driver of the Lamborghini had swerved onto the wrong side of the road to avoid a motorcyclist.
The photos appear to show the Lamborghini Aventador on the opposite side of a carriageway divided by a hedgerow. The implication is that the driver lost control of the Lamborghini Aventador, smashing through the hedgerow and into the right side of the bus.
Chinese media doesn’t report any injuries, although we can’t be certain that nobody was hurt. The impact looks quite severe, especially on the right side of the car. The damage looks beyond economical repair as the damage appears to extend into the carbon fibre monocoque.
The Lamborghini Aventador has quickly become the quintessential supercar. Introduced in 2010, the Aventador featured a completely new 6.5 litre V12 engine pumping out 700 hp. A Roadster version became available to customers last year. | {
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November 2nd, 12:20 IST AM – Diablo 4 announced
Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 have been rumored to be launching at Blizzcon 2019. Previously, some twitter users had reported the same from internal sources. However, we finally have some credible information confirming the existence of Diablo 4.
A new artbook, “The Art of Diablo”, which can be found on Amazon here, will be released after Blizzcon 2019. The advertisement (thanks to Reddit user eskay2001) for the artbook on GameStar magazine reads as follows (translated from German):
“Featuring over 500 artworks from Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo III and Diablo IV, this book features many noteworthy artworks created for Blizzard Entertainment’s iconic action role-playing game that has given generations of fans everlasting nightmares.”
This can be found on page 27 of the aforesaid magazine. Readers who wish to have a look at it themselves, reading sample or buy the issue directly. | {
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Misyaar marriage was mentioned on your website. What is this marriage? Is it halaal or haraam?.
Praise be to Allah.
Firstly:
Misyaar marriage is where a man does a shar’i marriage contract with a woman, meeting the conditions of marriage, but the woman gives up some of her rights such as accommodation, maintenance or the husband’s staying overnight with her.
The reasons that have led to the emergence of this kind of marriage are many, such as:
1.
Increase in the number of single women who are unable to get married, because young men are put off marriage due to the high cost of dowries and the costs of marriage, or because there is a high divorce rate. In such circumstances, some women will agree to be a second or third wife and to give up some of their rights.
2.
Some women need to stay in their family home, either because they are the only care-givers for family members, or because the woman has a handicap and her family do not want the husband to be burdened with something he cannot bear, and he stays in touch with her without having to put too great a burden on himself, or because she has children and cannot move with them to her husband’s house, and other reasons.
3.
Some married men want to keep some women chaste because they need that, or because they need variety and halaal pleasure, without that affecting the first wife and her children.
4.
In some cases a husband may want to conceal his second marriage from his first wife, for fear of the consequences that may result and affect their relationship.
5.
The man travels often to a certain place and stays there for lengthy periods. Undoubtedly staying there with a wife is safer for him than not doing so.
These are the most prominent reasons for the emergence of this kind of marriage.
Secondly:
The scholars differed concerning the ruling on this type of marriage, and there are several opinions, ranging from the view that it is permissible, to the view that it is permitted but makrooh, or that it is not allowed. Here we should point out several things.
1.
None of the scholars have said that it is invalid or is not correct; rather they disallowed it because of the consequences that adversely affect the woman, as it is demeaning to her, and that affects the society as this marriage contract is taken advantage of by bad people, because a woman could claim that a boyfriend is a husband. It also affects the children whose upbringing will be affected by their father’s absence.
2.
Some of those who said that it was permissible have retracted that view. Among the most prominent scholars who said that it was permissible were Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn Baaz and Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez Aal al-Shaykh; and among the most prominent scholars who said that it was permissible and then retracted it was Shaykh al-‘Uthaymeen; among the most prominent scholars who said that it is not allowed at all was Shaykh al-Albaani.
3.
Those who said that it is permissible did not say that a time limit should be set as in the case of mut’ah. And they did not say that it is permissible without a wali (guardian), because marriage without a wali is invalid. And they did not say that the marriage contract may be done without witnesses or without being announced, rather it is essential to do one of the two.
Thirdly:
Opinion of the scholars concerning this type of marriage:
1.
Shaykh Ibn Baaz (may Allaah have mercy on him) was asked about Misyaar marriage; this kind of marriage is where the man marries a second, third or fourth wife, and the wife is in a situation that compels her to stay with her parents or one of them in her own house, and the husband goes to her at various times depending on the circumstances of both. What is the Islamic ruling on this type of marriage?
He replied:
There is nothing wrong with that if the marriage contract fulfils all the conditions set out by sharee’ah, which is the presence of the wali and the consent of both partners, and the presence of two witnesses of good character to the drawing up of the contract, and both partners being free of any impediments, because of the general meaning of the words of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): “The conditions that are most deserving of being fulfilled are those by means of which intimacy becomes permissible for you” and “The Muslims are bound by their conditions.” If the partners agree that the woman will stay with her family or that her share of the husband’s time will be during the day and not during the night, or on certain days or certain nights, there is nothing wrong with that, so long as the marriage is announced and not hidden. End quote.
Fataawa ‘Ulama’ al-Balad al-Haraam (p. 450, 451) and Jareedah al-Jazeerah issue no. 8768, Monday 18 Jumaada al-Oola 1417 AH.
However, some students of the Shaykh said that he later retracted the view that it is permissible, but we could not find anything in writing to prove that.
2.
Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez Aal al-Shaykh (may Allaah preserve him) was asked:
There is a lot of talk about misyaar marriage being haraam or halaal. We would like a definitive statement about this matter from you, with a description of its conditions and obligations, if it is permissible.
He replied:
The conditions of marriage are that the two partners should be identified and give their consent, and there should be a wali (guardian) and two witnesses. If the conditions are met and the marriage is announced, and they do not agree to conceal it, either the husband, the wife or their guardians, and he offered a waleemah or wedding feast, then this marriage is valid, and you can call it whatever you want after that. End quote.
Jareedah al-Jazeerah, Friday 15 Rabee’ al-Thaani 1422 AH, issue no. 10508.
3.
Shaykh al-Albaani was asked about Misyaar marriage and he disallowed it for two reasons:
(i)
That the purpose of marriage is repose as Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): “And among His Signs is this, that He created for you wives from among yourselves, that you may find repose in them, and He has put between you affection and mercy. Verily, in that are indeed signs for a people who reflect” [al-Room 30:21]. But this is not achieved in this kind of marriage.
(ii)
It may be decreed that the husband has children with this woman, but because he is far away from her and rarely comes to her, that will be negatively reflected in his children’s upbringing and attitude.
See: Ahkaam al-Ta’addud fi Daw’ al-Kitaab wa’l-Sunnah (p. 28, 29).
4.
Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him) used to say that it was permissible, then he stopped saying that because of the negative effects, as it was poorly applied by some wrongdoers.
Finally, what we think is:
That if Misyaar marriage fulfils the conditions of a valid marriage, namely the proposal and acceptance, the consent of the wali and witnesses or announcement of the marriage, then it is a valid marriage contract, and it is good for some categories of men and women whose circumstances call for this type of marriage. But this may be taken advantage of by some whose religious commitment is weak, hence this permissibility should not be described as general in application in a fatwa, rather the situation of each couple should be examined, and if this kind of marriage is good for them then it should be permitted, otherwise they should not be allowed to do it. That is to prevent marriage for the sake of mere pleasure whilst losing the other benefits of marriage, and to prevent the marriage of two people whose marriage we may be certain is likely to fail and in which the wife will be neglected, such as one who will be away from his wife for many months, and will leave her on her own in an apartment, watching TV and visiting chat rooms and going on the internet. How can such a weak woman spend her time? This is different from one who lives with her family or children and has enough religious commitment, obedience, chastity and modesty to help her be patient during her husband’s absence.
And Allaah knows best. | {
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Salt Lake City police Detective Robert Ungricht said the two men were waiting for a bus at 2250 S. Highland Drive about 5 p.m. Monday. An argument broke out over whether the suspect was too drunk to board the bus, culminating in the suspect charging the other man with the hatchet. | {
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The self-driving car industry is blowin’ it.
The definitions of self-driving—from ADAS to SAE automation levels to the inconsistent nomenclature used by the media—are a semantic disaster concealing a vast opportunity. There is no doubt increasing automation will make driving safer, but the safest possible implementation is one that maximizes human capabilities rather than treating them like a cancer.
Automakers are missing the biggest opportunity to profit from saving lives on what is likely to be a long, gentle ascent to Level 4. It requires tossing the insufficient logic behind L2/L3 semi-autonomy and probably even Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and deploying the same hardware and software being developed for L4 as a way to augment human driving.
Though augmented driving represents a clear break from the current crop of semi-autonomous systems, it’s not without precedent. Aircraft are being transformed by automation just as profoundly as cars, but because there is no impetus to move toward pilotless airliners, flight automation systems have been developed to enhance rather than replace human pilots. By following the example set by the commercial aviation sector, automakers can replace the risks inherent to semi-autonomy with the comprehensive assistance of augmented driving.
The Problem is the Transition Gap
Virtually all criticism of Semi-Autonomy focuses on transitions, meaning the length and nature of the control handoff from the system to a human operator.
Transitions are not the problem.
The flaw in Semi-Autonomous driving is inherent: it temporarily substitutes rather than comprehensively assists. The more it improves, the more human skills decline. Even as it improves, every “failure” is attributed to technology rather than human ignorance of it. Its perceived limitations discourage rather than encourage adoption of any form of automation, including future iterations decreasingly skilled drivers will need most, like L4.
Even if someone could “perfect” transitions the overall safety of partial automation will always remain hostage to the atrophying skills of humans in the loop. As Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger stated in an interview about automation, driver’s education is “a national disgrace.” Human driving skills — especially in the United States — have never been great, and the recent spikein American road deaths suggests they are in decline well in advance of automation’s rise. If semi-autonomous systems continue to focus on replacing these skills rather than enhancing them, they will contribute to the very problem they are supposed to solve.
The “transition gap” between declining skills and rising automation will always exist, as untrained humans will always place more faith in technology (and their skills) than warranted. This gap is inherent to semi-autonomy because it is totally binary: it is on, or it is off. That such systems are safer than the average human driver when engaged makes commercializing them a moral imperative, but since they can never improve as quickly as human skill declines, and since the only solution offered by current thinking is L4, they will remain a conceptual dead end, a snake of safety technology eating its own tail until L4 magically becomes ubiquitous at some future date.
That’s nowhere near the best we can do using all the technologies developed along the way. | {
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Fresh revelations have been made directly implicating Pope Benedict XVI in mishandling the case of a paedophile priest in his former archdiocese of Munich.
According to the New York Times, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was copied in on a memo from his deputy in which the priest was transferred to parish duties in Bavaria that brought him into contact with children. As a result of that decision by the then vicar-general, Father Gerhard Gruber, the priest was able to continue abusing boys, for which he was later tried and convicted.
A spokesman for the archdiocese told the Guardian: "The report does not contain false information, but the interpretation – that Cardinal Ratzinger knew – is pure speculation." The spokesman added: "I do not know if any copy [of the memo] exists. But it is a usual procedure that a decision about priests goes to the office of the archbishop. But it is not usual that he takes note of every written piece of paper; every decision of the vicar-general."
Father Peter Hullerman, who was known to be a paedophile, was originally moved to Munich to allow him to undergo therapy. The future pope attended a meeting in January 1980 at which the transfer was agreed, the New York Times reported today. The paper said the reason for the priest's transfer was clear, even though not explicitly stated.
The allegations come a day after the Vatican responded angrily to the allegation that as a cardinal the pope had ignored an American diocese's request that another predatory priest should be defrocked.
Hullermann had been removed from his previous parish in September 1980 and did not deny the allegations made against him. Correspondence at the end of that year referred to a formal request that he should be transferred for psychiatric treatment in Munich.
Although sexual abuse of boys was not explicitly mentioned in the letter from Essen, it stated: "Reports from the congregation in which he was last active made us aware that Chaplain Hullermann presented a danger that caused us to immediately withdraw him from pastoral duties." It warned of possible legal action but suggested that Hullermann could teach religion "at a girls' school".
A report, drawn up by one of Ratzinger's closest colleagues before the meeting, stated that a young chaplain needed "medical-psychotherapeutic treatment in Munich" and a place to live with "an understanding colleague". It presented the priest from Essen as a "very talented man, who could be used in a variety of ways". As soon as he arrived, however, Hullermann was placed in a parish where he continued to abuse boys before being convicted six years later.
The suggestion that the pope was more closely involved in the case than previously suggested followed allegations that while he was head of the congregation in Rome in the mid-1990s, he acceded to a plea from an American priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, not to be disciplined or defrocked for abusing as many as 200 deaf boys at a school where the chaplain taught between 1950 and 1974. Murphy died a few months later and there have been allegations that earlier bishops in his US diocese had ignored the complaints against him and that the diocese tried to hush the matter up.
The continuing and spreading allegations are devastating for the authority and reputation of the church – the world's largest Christian denomination, with more than 1 billion adherents. Previously the Vatican has denied accusations that it has covered up systemic abuse by priests in many countries for decades in the interests of protecting its reputation. It formerly blamed a handful of perverted priests and even suggested that abuse was a problem of the church in "Anglo-Saxon" countries, including the Irish diaspora.
The pope has apologised for the way the church handled allegations without accepting any personal responsibility for his actions in Munich nor during his 24 years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. But the accusations are getting closer to him all the time.
The Vatican's spokesman, attempting to stem the relentless tide of allegations that the church – and now the pope himself – covered up or dismissed complaints against clergy paedophiles in the 1980s and 90s, complained about an "obvious and ignoble attempt to strike at all costs Benedict and his closest collaborators". A statement published in the official Vatican daily paper, L'Osservatore Romano, said: "The prevalent tendency in the media is to gloss over the facts and force interpretations with the aim of spreading an image of the Catholic church almost as if it were the only [institution] responsible for sexual abuses."
Meanwhile, speculation is rife that Cardinal Seán Brady, the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, will shortly offer his resignation following accusations that as a young priest he took part in a cover-up and the silencing of victims of a paedophile priest there. The cardinal has apologised, but has so far resisted calls that he should go. | {
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Bob Simon, the journalism icon who died Wednesday in a car crash in New York City at the age of 73, was no stranger to dangerous situations. Renowned for his warzone reporting, Simon braved risks in Vietnam, the Middle East and numerous other conflict zones. Longtime "60 Minutes" colleague and "CBS Evening News" managing editor and anchor Scott Pelley recalled Simon's motivation for reporting from such hotspots.
"Bob had a sharp intolerance for injustice and he had equal opportunity rage for every injustice committed in every corner of this earth," Pelley said.
Simon encountered and survived many close calls reporting in the field, including 40 days in an Iraqi prison where he was beaten, starved and threatened with death.
Pelley described him as "a man of enormous courage."
"At the age of 73 and having been from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic Circle and everywhere in between -- what an amazing life," Pelley said.
Among the memories Pelley has of Simon, one moment in particular stands out.
"I'll never forget an interview he did with an Israeli general, for example. He looked up at the general and he said, 'You're one of the greatest generals that Israel has ever produced,' and the man smiled and nodded and Bob said, 'So why are you killing children?'" Pelley said. "There was a Bob Simon punch, a roundhouse punch, that he could knock anybody out with, and it was in the form of a question."
Pelley recalled learning the ropes of being a war correspondent from Simon during the opening days of the Gulf War in 1991.
"We had a plan that if there was ever an air raid where our CBS bureau was, we would all muster in the bureau, everyone would be accounted for and we would go to the bomb shelter. Well, one night, sure enough, the air raid sirens go off, the Scud missiles are coming into Dhahran, Saudi Arabia," Pelley said. "There are explosions everywhere. Everybody musters in the bureau -- we can't find Bob."
They did, eventually.
"He was on the roof, on the phone with CBS Radio describing the explosions as they landed," Pelley said. "And in that moment, I said to myself, 'Got it. That's what a war correspondent does.'"
Anyone who watched Simon's work on "60 Minutes" and "60 Minutes II" knew his range as a reporter, his skill with storytelling and the grace of his words.
He helped us understand the language of elephants and took us back to the nuclear calamity at Fukushima. He showed us the world through the eyes of Sudan's "lost boys" and made us comprehend the enormity of the massacres in Srebrenica.
A stark contrast to the depravity he witnessed, Pelley said, was Simon's love for his family.
"[He] lived to see his grandson grow to the age of 3, which was the joy. My wife once asked him, 'What's it like to be a granddad?' and he said, 'Well, there is one perfect child.' And it was wonderful."
Simon was also a "great lover of opera, great lover of music, great lover of the human spirit," Pelley said.
"When the human spirit overcame those injustices ... that was what Bob loved to see. Hemingway-esque, really. Epic stories of human struggle," Pelley said. "I think he threw himself into these situations because he could write great things about epic events." | {
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Our 30 Partners in 30 Days series rolls on. Today, we introduce you to #11 of 30, ProfiCRM! They are a CRM (customer relationship management) software targeting small and medium teams, to help them grow faster. They have implemented the Hydro APIs within the ProfiCRM application to improve user security using blockchain.
Here is how they describe themselves: | {
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Jason Cipriani/CNET
You're at dinner. Suddenly you're stuck with the check as everyone promises to pay you back later. Sure, they can hand you cash the next time you see them, but maybe you'd rather just have the money go directly to where it came from -- your bank account.
To request an electronic transfer from your indebted friends, you'll have to pick a money transfer method. There are plenty of apps available now, but they're not all the same. For instance, some take days to complete a transfer, while other promise money in your pocket within 24 hours. Some require you to set up a new account, while other options get the job done with a few clicks.
As you sort through the options, pay attention to the delivery time, as well as any transfer limits. If you plan to use a money transfer app to pay the rent or get reimbursed for a vacation you spent thousands on, make sure there's plenty of wiggle room for the total transfer amount.
And finally, consider the person on the other end. If the person you're requesting money from already uses one of these services, it's worth finding out.
Editors' note, April 11, 2017: This post has been updated with details on Facebook Messenger and Gmail.
1. Direct bank transfer
How it works: If the person who owes you money uses the same bank, this is by far the fastest transfer method, since the funds are transferred directly to your account and are usually available within 24 hours. Many banks, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have simple transfer tools available within the same portal you use for online banking.
There is also a way to transfer money to people outside of your bank's network, but it often takes longer and requires a little more wrangling. The sender will need your account number and routing number, plus (depending on your bank) there could be a fee involved. It's like paying with a check, but online. In this case, it's probably better to use one of the next four options on this list.
Delivery speed: 24 hours to customers of the same bank; 2 to 4 days to people using different banks
The fees: Free.
Transfer limit: Varies based on bank.
The app: Most banks have accompanying apps that include transfer tools, but most lack the option to request money -- the sender needs to initiate the transaction.
The breakdown
Delivery speed Fees Transfer limits Withdrawal limits Has app? Direct bank transfer 24 hrs for same bank; 2-4 days for different banks None Varies n/a (direct deposit) Transfers included in most bank apps Facebook Messenger 1-3 business days None $10,000/month n/a Yes Gmail/Google Wallet 3 business days None for debit; 2.9% for credit $10,000/transaction; $50,000/5 day period $3,000/24 hours Yes PayPal 3-4 business days None for bank acct. transfers; 2.9% + $.30 for debit and credit Varies $500/month; more with verification Yes Square Cash 1-2 business days None $250/week; $2,500/week after verification n/a (direct deposit) Yes Venmo 1 business day None for debit; 2.9% for credit $300/week; $2,999/week with verification $999/week; $19,999/week with verification Yes
2. Facebook Messenger
How it works: Facebook's standalone chat app can be used for more than just messaging. Once you're in a chat with someone, tap the plus sign and then Payments. (If you're using Messenger on the desktop, you click the dollar sign instead.) Enter the dollar amount, specify what the payment is for, then tap Request or Pay. The company also just announced support for group payments, helpful for things like splitting a check at a restaurant. It works the same way, but you access it via a group conversation rather than an individual one.
For the moment, Messenger can draw funds only from debit cards, though you can keep more than one on file and switch between them as needed.
Delivery speed: Available instantly in your Google Wallet account; about 3 days to withdraw funds.
The fees: Free.
Transfer limits: $10,000 per transaction; $50,000 per five-day period.
The app: Messenger can be used to send and request money, but it also lets you play games, share your location, request a ride from Lyft or Uber and much more.
3. Gmail/Google Wallet
How it works: If you have a Gmail account, requesting money is as easy as attaching a photo to an email. Just head to your inbox, compose a message to your payee, fill out the subject line and body as you please, then click the dollar symbol in the bottom toolbar of the message window.
At this point, if you don't have Google Wallet, you'll be asked to set up an account. When you're done, choose the Request option, enter the amount due, and you're set.
Delivery speed: Available instantly in your Google Wallet account; about 3 days to withdraw funds.
The fees: Free.
Transfer limits: $10,000 per transaction; $50,000 per five-day period.
The app: Like PayPal, Google Wallet's app can be used to send and request money, but it has other mobile wallet functionalities. And Gmail for Android now supports this functionality as well: Just tap the attachment icon and choose whether you want to send or request money.
4. PayPal
How it works: If you have a PayPal account and the person who owes you has a PayPal account, the process is pretty simple. Just log into your account, head to the Request Money tab, and fill in the blanks.
PayPal recently made this process even easier with PayPal.Me, a special link you share with friends and family to get paid. You can create that link from your PayPal account and customize it with your name. Then simply share that link in an email, text message or anywhere else online with anyone who owes you money, and they'll be directed to a simple page where they can submit the payment. They'll need a PayPal account to do this, just as before.
If the debtor doesn't have a PayPal account, they'll be prompted to set one up. In this case, consider whether or not this person will want to do this. In some cases, it might be better to do a bank transfer (option 1) or use Square Cash (option 2).
Like Venmo, any money you receive will be added to your PayPal account balance -- in order to get the cash in your checking account, you'll need to "withdraw" it.
Delivery speed: 3 to 4 business days
The fees: Free for bank account and PayPal balance transfers; 2.9% plus $0.30 for debit and credit card transfers.
Transfer: Sending limits vary. Withdrawals are limited to $500 per month; more with identity and bank account verification.
The app: PayPal's app lets you send and request money, as well as conduct mobile payments with your phone. Read more about how PayPal works as a mobile wallet.
5. Square Cash
How it works: If you don't want to deal with setting up an account just to receive (or send) money, Square Cash is the best option. To request money, all you have to do is compose an email to the debtor, enter the balance in the subject field, and CC [email protected]. You can use the body of the email to include details about the request, if you like.
Once the recipient receives the email, you'll both be asked to provide banking information before the transfer is initiated. It's just too easy.
Delivery speed: one to two business days.
The fees: Free.
Transfer limit: $250 per week; $2,500 per week with identity verification.
The app: Square's app lets you send and request money just as easily as sending an email.
6. Venmo
How it works: Venmo isn't just a the name of an app -- it's a verb. "I'll just Venmo you," I've heard my friends say. After setting up an account and verifying your banking information, you'll be asked to add "friends" to the app, to whom you can send and receive money requests.
But before you sign up, know that Venmo has a couple quirks. First, there's a social element. When sending or requesting money, there's an option to make the transaction public (viewable by anyone on Venmo), friends-only, or private. You'll most likely use the private option, although it's pretty easy to miss this part when setting up the request.
The other thing about Venmo is that money isn't deposited directly into your bank account. Instead, it's added to your Venmo account balance, which you can use to pay friends in the future. When you're ready to put the cash in your checking account, you'll have to "cash out."
Delivery speed: one business day.
The fees: Free for checking accounts; 2.9 percent for credit card transfers.
Transfer limit: Transfers are limited to $300 per week; $2,999 per week with identity verification. Cash-outs are limited to $999.99 per week; $19,999 per week with identity verification.
The app: Venmo's app is easy to use and even enables a feature that allows you to accept friends' payment requests with a text message. | {
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Spy drones are getting shot down in air-to-air combat across the Middle East and South Asia.
Get used to it. Clashes between drones and manned warplanes could become much more frequent in coming years. And eventually, the drones might start winning.
On June 8, a US Air Force F-15E manned fighter jet intercepted and shot down an Iranian-made Shahed-129 armed drone that had just attacked US-allied fighters in southern Syria. It was unclear who—Iran, the Syrian regime, or some pro-regime, Iran-backed militia—was operating the Shahed drone.
Two weeks later, on June 20, an American F-15E destroyed another armed Shahed-129 as it flew toward pro-US fighters in the same area where the previous Shahed had gone down. The very same day, a Pakistani JF-17 manned fighter destroyed an unspecified Iranian drone as it reportedly flew on Pakistan's side of its border with Iran.
"Current military UAVs, including those in the US arsenal and the Iranian Shahed that was recently shot down, look like sitting ducks to a manned fighter aircraft."
If it seems like drone shoot-downs are becoming more common, it's because they are. No sooner had armed forces across the world begun adopting large, remote-controlled aircraft in the mid-1990s than enemy aircraft began trying to shoot them down. But the engagements were rare.
In the spring of 1999, a Serbian Mi-8 transport helicopter flew alongside a US Air Force Predator drone surveilling Kosovo during the NATO intervention in that country. The door gunner on the Serbian copter opened fire, destroying the American drone.
Three years later, in December 2002, an Iraqi MiG-25 fighter intercepted a US Predator drone spying on southern Iraq. The Americans had outfitted the Predator with air-to-air missiles for self-defense, but the MiG-25 was faster and its weapons traveled farther. Both aircraft fired missiles. The MiG dodged but the slow-moving Predator went down in flames.
And in an ironic preview of things to come, in September 2009 a USAF Reaper drone— a larger version of the Predator, a so-called "hunter-killer" drone—malfunctioned over Afghanistan and flew toward Tajikistan. Rather than risk the unmanned aerial vehicle falling into foreign hands, the Air Force sortied an F-15E to shoot down the drone.
With more and more countries adopting bigger and better drones—and arming them— mid-air clashes are becoming common. China, Iran, and the United States are all enthusiastic exporters of large, weaponized drones.
At last count, no fewer than a dozen countries possess Predator-style drones armed with bombs or missiles. Many non-state groups, including Hezbollah and Islamic State, have bought similar UAVs or improvised their own by strapping small explosives to commercial-style quadcopters.
Read more: The Islamic State Is Pioneering a New Type of Drone Warfare
But the current generation of killer drones is propeller-driven, slow, lacking in maneuverability and still relatively unsophisticated compared to traditional fighters.
"Current military UAVs, including those in the US arsenal and the Iranian Shahed that was recently shot down, look like sitting ducks to a manned fighter aircraft," Todd Humphreys, a professor and drone expert at the University of Texas at Austin, told Motherboard.
The Pentagon got so worried about its Predators flying near the Iranian border that, in 2013, it began sending F-22 stealth fighters to escort the Predators and intercept any Iranian jets that tried to shoot down the slow-flying drones.
The aerial balance of power could tip in coming years. The US, Russia, China, Iran, and several European countries are all developing armed, jet-powered drones that are faster, more maneuverable, and more heavily-armed than current models.
"UAVs will eventually achieve superiority," Humphreys said. "They'll pull Gs far beyond what a human can withstand, and they'll react so quickly and coordinate among themselves so effectively that it'll be the manned fighter aircraft that become the sitting ducks."
"I suppose the transition to UAVs being superior in dogfights will happen sometime in the next 20 years," Humphreys added. | {
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New independent watchdog to keep extremists off internet
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson walks down the street near United Nations headquarters in New York, Monday, Sept. 23, 2019. Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS -- The leaders of New Zealand and France are backing a watchdog organization aimed at keeping internet platforms from being used by extremists - and preparing speedy responses to future attacks.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday the Global Forum to Counter Terrorism, which was established in 2017 by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube after terrorist attacks with internet links, is being turned into an independent organization.
The new organization is limited to companies operating internet platforms and services and will be led by an executive director selected by its governing industry-linked Operating Board, Ardern said. An Independent Advisory Committee with a majority of members from civil society and a minority from government and inter-governmental organizations will guide the Operating Board.
Ardern said establishing an independent organization marked "a real sea change to respond to the serious and difficult issue" of extremists who have recruited supporters and streamed attacks online.
The killings of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15 were broadcast live on Facebook, drawing outrage and fueling debate on how to better regulate social media.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, the forum's current chair who joined Ardern at Monday's news conference, said "we've shared more than 200,000 digital fingerprints with our partners, because when terrorists try to use one platform, they try to use all platforms.
"And when one of us find them, we can take them down off multiple platforms," she said.
At a gathering in Paris in May, Ardern, French President Emmanuel Macron and others signed the "Christchurch Call," committing to act against terrorist and extremist content online.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country is among almost 20 nations backing the "Christchurch Call," said at a U.N. meeting before the news conference that the internet must not become "a place to watch mass murder unfold."
He said scientists are working on technology to stop violent attacks from being broadcast live on the internet. The British government says it'll fund data-science experts to work on an algorithm to improve the detection of violent and harmful videos.
Ardern said more countries, organizations and online companies have signed on since May, including Google and Amazon.
The U.S. hasn't joined, citing privacy concerns, and tech firms are struggling with the sheer volume of content.
Ardern said the independent forum's goals include improving the capacity of technology companies to prevent and respond to abuse of their platforms by terrorists and violent extremists, and to fund research on their online operations.
"We're trying to create a civil defense-style mechanism," Ardern said. "The same way we respond to natural emergencies like fires and floods, we need to be prepared and ready to respond to a crisis like the one we experienced."
Sandberg said the fastest-growing internet message platforms are encrypted but people using them often use other platforms that are not, allowing them to be removed from both.
"We can't stop because we're going to have to stay one step ahead, learn from our mistakes, and continue to do all we can over the long-term," Sandberg said.
___
Corrects spelling of Ardern's first name. | {
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Many have heard me and other members of the Paizo crew discuss our constant efforts to make the Pathfinder RPG a welcoming place for gamers of all stripes. Regardless, I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of pointing out places where we get things right (or make an honest attempt to get things right) in a professional venue. To me, that sounds like corporate bragging, and, worse, it sounds like marketing, when really it’s just people trying to be decent to each other.
That being said, I’ve had many readers ask me what Paizo products they can go to if they want to see more LGBTQ characters in Pathfinder. The answer’s a ton of places, literally dozens of adventures, sourcebooks, novels, and more.
So, for my personal reference, for your use (because if you’re here you’re an interested, charming, wonderful person), and for the guidance of those about to ask, I’ve assembled this list of 50 LGBTQ characters from the Pathfinder RPG. These are the first 50 characters who either leapt to mind or were on hand, and as such the sources and dates are skewed toward more recent characters. That also means that this is incredibly far from a comprehensive list. If you’re interested in the particulars of a character’s gender, sexuality, portrayal, role, or other specifics, I encourage you to either check out the PDF of the book in question or ask your fellow gamers on the product discussions linked with each. Additionally, at the end I’ve included a few links to past (and one future) discussions about LGBTQ topics and inclusivity in the Pathfinder RPG and the wider RPG world.
Hopefully these will be helpful next time you have a could-be gamer friend who says “I don’t know if that’s for me.” Turns out, Pathfinder’s for everybody, so come play!
50 LGBTQ Pathfinder RPG Characters
Azaz Arafe & Khelru (2014)
Lovers in the Scorched Hand
Pathfinder Adventure Path #79
Bors & Roshad (2014)
Married Members of the Iridian Fold
Redemption Engine
Dredge (2014)
Gender-Fluid Halfling Rogue
Pathfinder Adventure Path #79
Lady Sophronia (2014)
Gender-Fluid Ghost
Pathfinder Adventure Path #82
Muminofrah (2014)
Bombastic Noblewoman
Pathfinder Adventure Path #81
Vera & Xulaine (2014)
Cleric of Cayden Cailean and Sweettalker
Redemption Engine
Agrit Staginsdar & Sara Morninghawk (2013)
Prominent Couple in Trunau
Towns of the Inner Sea
Alexius Demetri & Lycio Vallant (2013)
Owners of the Heldren Sawmill
Pathfinder Adventure Path #67
Aron Kir & Sosiel Vaenic (2013)
Heroic Lovers from Kenabres
Pathfinder Adventure Path #74
Arshea (2013)
Empyreal Lord of Freedom, Physical Beauty, and Sexuality
Pathfinder Adventure Path #2, Inner Sea World Guide, Chronicle of the Righteous
Bella Belvorica & Solveig Ayrdahl (2013)
Duty-Parted Lovers in Whitethrone
Pathfinder Adventure Path #68
Cesseer of Ning (2013)
An Ukara or “battleflower” from the Suzerainty of Ning on Triaxus (Ukara renounce all outward expressions of gender and are sought after as consorts regardless of gender or sexuality)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #70
Irabeth & Anevia (2013)
Married Heroes of the Worldwound
Pathfinder Adventure Path #73, Online Discussion
Lona Orames & Duranna Alnurris (2013)
Cloud Giant Lovers
Castles of the Inner Sea
Marislova
Half-Elf Magus in Artrosa (2013)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #69
Porfirio & Dragomir (2013)
Crusader Lovers
King of Chaos
Princess Cassisoche & Lady Ilya (2013)
Princess of Irrisen and Proprietress of the Frosthall Theater in Whitethrone
Irrisen, Land of Eternal Winter
Esmerelda Darkshadow (2012)
Tragic Eldritch Knight
NPC Codex
Filario Grantsliem (2012)
Desperate Member of the Gray Maidens
Pathfinder Adventure Path #62
Herifax & Kanya (2012)
Harpy and Catfolk Lovers
Pathfinder Adventure Path #63
Mother Lanani Shabu (2012)
Halfling Tribe Leader
NPC Codex
Salty Chuzek & Dagoros Wildrum (2012)
Monster Hunters in Myscurial
Isles of the Shackles
Variel (2012)
Adventurer Father of Varian Jeggare
Queen of Thorns
Vonran Vilk (2012)
Former Pathfinder Society Master of Blades
Pathfinder Society Scenario 3-16: The Midnight Mauler
Aaqir al'Hakam & Emir Thalzar Gaatan (2011)
Qadira Faction Head, Raising Three Adopted Daughters with Husband
Pathfinder Society
Molly & Marzalee the Weaver (2011)
Dwarf and Ant Queen Partners
The Harrowing
Sonnorae (2011)
Creator of the Harrow
The Harrowing, Occult Mysteries, Online Discussion
Vitta (2011)
Master Thief and Lock-Breaker
Worldwound Gambit
Elias Sayer and the Tallow Boys (2010)
Head of an Organization of Gay Information Brokers
City of Strangers
Queen Illeosa & Sabina Merrin (2008)
Ruler of Korvosa and Bodyguard
Pathfinder Adventure Path #7
Cyrdark Drokkus & Sir Jasper Korvaski (2007)
Prominent Couple in Sandpoint
Pathfinder Adventure Path #1
Kyra & Merisiel (2006, 2013)
Pathfinder Iconic Characters
Pathfinder Comic, Volume 5
Inclusivity and Diversity in RPGs
Besides the characters noted above, the following includes just a few of the articles, interviews, seminars, and ongoing discussions that touch on GLTBQ topics and inclusivity in the Pathfinder RPG.
Diversity in Gaming (Upcoming; Gen Con 2014)
Paizocon: Diversity in Gaming (2014)
The Inclusive Fantasy World of Pathfinder (2013)
Know Direction: Homosexuality in Golarion Podcast (2013)
Podcast, Transgender Characters Note
Gen Con 2012: Queer as a Three-Sided Die Panel (2012)
Joe Carriker, Jeremy Crawford, Steve Kenson, and Wes Schneider
Part 1, Part 2
Homosexuality in Golarion, Paizo Messageboards (2008) | {
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Tags
When most people think of starting a business, or contemplate others doing so, the common belief is that a person should go into a business they have knowledge in — not just something they know about, but something they know lots about. But is expert knowledge of a particular industry really a prerequisite to opening a new business in that industry or taking over an existing business?
Self-made billionaire Sheldon Adelson says the secret to his success was "never knowing anything" about the businesses he entered. That sounds like an exaggeration, but he emphasized that point when speaking to students at UNLV recently, upon receiving the Hospitality Industry Leader of the Year by the UNLV's Harrah Hotel College.
"You could hand me your laptop and I wouldn't know how to turn it on," Adelson told the students. "It was amazing I had success in developing Comdex."
Comdex was a computer expo held in Las Vegas and was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world. Geek Week, as it was called, had a stunning rise from its beginning in 1979, with 167 exhibitors and just over 3,900 attendees to a peak in 2000 of 2,337 exhibitors and over 211,000 visitors.
Adelson's company, the Interface Group, sold the show to Softbank Corp., a Japanese software conglomerate, in 1995 for nearly $1 billion.
Adelson purchased the Sands hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip in the early '90s with hopes of building a convention center to house Comdex. "Entrepreneurs are not in the business of making others rich," Adelson said, explaining why he bought the Sands to build his own convention center rather than leasing facilities from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, an entity funded by the room tax that operates the competing Las Vegas Convention Center.
Adelson knew little about the gaming industry and says he doesn't even know how to play baccarat, the game that generates most of his company's earnings at casinos in Macau and Singapore, properties that generated more than 83 percent of the company's revenues in the latest quarter.
Gaming insiders laughed at him for thinking he could build a fortune catering to low-rolling convention goers. Now Las Vegas depends on convention traffic to fill its rooms during weeknights. Every new property built in Vegas includes convention space — after Adelson proved the model works.
Scholars in the area of entrepreneurship might call Adelson's acumen Kirznerian alertness, or Schumpeterian innovation, Schultzian adaptation, or Misesian foresight of future consumer preferences. Or more completely, as they explain in their new book, Organizing Entrepreneurial Judgment: A New Approach to the Firm, Nicolai Foss and Peter Klein stress an entrepreneur's judgment making "in the specific context of exercising control over heterogeneous resources in the service of satisfying future imagined customer preferences."
However, for the seventh-richest man in America, it's much simpler. "This is the nature of entrepreneurship. It's the willingness to take a risk," Adelson said. "It's a willingness to do things a little bit different."
Thinking differently included not accepting the Las Vegas business-as-usual practice of kowtowing to the Culinary Union. When Adelson purchased the Sands, he inherited its union employees and didn't necessarily care one way or the other about being a union property. This changed one morning when Adelson went to buy a yogurt.
The Culinary Union employee working behind the counter refused to serve him. The employee who had the job classification that allowed for waiting on customers was on break. The two employees left behind the counter could not, per the union contract, serve him (or anyone). What Adelson quickly realized was; he couldn't operate a 5-star resort with those union rules.
However, the Culinary leadership wouldn't budge, and told Adelson that the Venetian would never get out of the ground if he didn't sign their contract. After all, Las Vegas is a union town, the "new Detroit" they called it. Bartenders and maids can't be outsourced to India.
Adelson believed his employees should vote as to whether they wanted union representation. The union brass would have none of it. They would only organize from the top down, demanding that Adelson sign a "neutrality agreement" that is anything but. Adelson chose to fight, and against all odds, the Venetian remains the only nonunion Strip property to this day. But the fight goes on daily; with labor laws stacked in the union's favor, it takes crafty lawyering and Adelson's iron will to keep them at bay.
Forbes magazine estimates Adelson to be worth $24.9 billion, with the majority of his wealth being Las Vegas Sands Corporation stock. But a look at the price chart for LVS shows that it has been anything but a smooth ride, illustrating Adelson's determination, confidence, and guts.
The company began trading on December 14, 2004, with the shares jumping in price 61 percent the first day of trading to close at $46.56. The stock then steadily marched upward to over $133 in the fall of 2007. People around Vegas thought the shares could hit $200. But the financial crisis eradicated funding for Sands projects in Macau and Singapore. The company was bogged down with over $10 billion in debt and Las Vegas Sands shares went into free fall, declining to under $2 each in early 2009. But while the public believed a bankruptcy filing was possible, Adelson was shaking up Sands' management and investing another $1 billion of his own money in the company.
Recently, Las Vegas Sands reported to Wall Street that it collected more than $1 billion in pretax earnings during just the first quarter of this year, a first for a gaming company.
While academics try and identify what entrepreneurship is and what entrepreneurs do, with the hopes of training future generations of Sheldon Adelsons, what is apparent is that success can't be created without change. And changes to an industry or to the world don't come from tired, internal thinking but from fresh, external thinking.
Also, it's apparent that entrepreneurial abilities lie outside the particular skills and knowledge needed in a specific industry. You don't need to know how to make a Bloody Mary to start a successful saloon. At the same time, knowing how to make a killer martini doesn't mean the bartender has the required business judgment to make the saloon successful.
"Knowledge can be a subtle curse," writes Jonah Lehrer in his impossible-to-put-down Imagine: How Creativity Works. "When we learn about the world, we also learn all the lessons why the world cannot be changed. We get used to our failures and imperfections." Lehrer goes on to point out that to be creative over time, "to not be undone by our expertise — is to experiment with ignorance, to stare at things we don't fully understand."
Studies show that people's creativity tapers off as they get older. But Dean Simonton, a psychologist at UC Davis, explains that it's not age that saps creativity; it's that experience in a discipline makes people risk averse and they become part of the status quo. "If you can keep finding new challenges, then you can think like a young person even when you're old and gray," says Simonton.
Adelson, while now a billionaire many times over, started or acquired 50 businesses, and each time, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Howard Stutz writes, "he wasn't sure exactly what he was getting himself into." Suffice it to say, the success of one of the businesses overshadows the other 49. However, Adelson has for the most part been consistently successful, starting with the first business he purchased — Vend-A-Bar, a candy-bar vending company he bought at age 16, using $500 he had saved, a $3,000 loan from a credit union, and a seller-carryback note of $6,500.
The young entrepreneur had to repair half the machines that came with the sale, but he expanded the business selling ice cream at the factories where his machines were located during the summer.
He learned court reporting at night, and became the secretary to Celia D. Wyckoff who had taken over Magazine of Wall Street from her husband after their divorce. By 1963, Adelson was in the mortgage business and at age 30 was a multimillionaire. But at the end of the decade he was broke. In the 1984 book The Computer Entrepreneurs: Who's Making It Big and How in America's Upstart Industry, authors Robert Levering, Michael Katz, and Milton Moskowitz, write of Adelson's brief downturn:
Not one to dwell on failure, he refers to that incident as a "two-hour cry," as opposed to the "half-hour cry" he had a couple years later when he lost $1 million in a condominium development that went bust.
Quickly back on his feet, Adelson purchased a small publishing company, but "He was no more interested in publishing than he was in quantum physics. It was just another company to invest in."
Adelson saw the trade show as "a magazine in the flesh," with the exhibitors as the advertisers, attendees as the readers, and the editorials as the conference. "Hey, I got a magazine. Why can't I do something like this? I'd make a million dollars in three days," said Adelson, and eventually Comdex was born.
At age 78 Adelson is not slowing down. Besides expanding his Asian presence with possible projects in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, he intends to test his integrated-gaming-resort model in Spain, at a cost of $35 billion. "We are looking at 12 integrated resorts, 3,000 rooms each. A mini Las Vegas, about half the size of the Las Vegas strip in Spain for the European market," said Adelson, speaking recently ahead of the opening of another Macau property.
Clearly something continues to drive the man Levering, Katz, and Moskowitz call "a Jewish Horatio Alger." Mises perhaps described it best in Human Action: the entrepreneur is "a speculator, a man eager to utilize his opinion about the future structure of the market for business operations promising profits." And while the entrepreneur is confident in his view of the "uncertain future," that view "defies any rules and systemization."
Hard to define and impossible to model, entrepreneurship makes the capitalist world go around and the rest of us much better off. | {
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January 18, 2012, will still be talked about decades from now. It is the day tens of thousands of websites, including giants such as Google, Wikipedia and Reddit, decided to take a stand against what they see as a hostile takeover of the Internet by Hollywood, the recording industry, and other rightsholders. As it faces two draconian anti-piracy bills, the free Internet is at stake. Whatever the outcome may be, history is being made today.
At TorrentFreak we’ve been covering copyright battles for more than half a decade. When a new anti-piracy bill emerges, wherever in the world, there has always been a push-back from civil rights groups and Internet users. Unfortunately, these protests are almost exclusively ignored by lawmakers.
Could this pattern be broken today?
Judging by the scope of today’s protests it’s now or never. In the coming hours hundreds of millions of Internet users will be confronted with blacked out pages and similar “strikes” in opposition to the PIPA and SOPA bills, and if enough people take action the people in Washington may just listen.
The first signs are positive, but there’s still a long way to go. Here’s how YOU (corporate pawns) can help:
– Tell Congress you oppose PIPA/SOPA.
– Not in the US? Email the State Department.
– Call your Senator.
– Leave your computer and visit a Senator.
– Discuss, share and inform others about the bills.
For those who are wondering, TorrentFreak is not going dark. Our purpose has always been to inform the public, whether it’s the latest news or a call to action like this article. We believe we can contribute and achieve more by keeping the site online than to black out completely. That said, we are alerting all visitors to take action through the excellent censorship script put together by FAT LAB.
To save an impression of today for future generations, we’ve listed below a few of the many protest pages being run today. Did we miss a good one? Paste a link in the comment section and attach a screenshot!
Google
Google has blocked its logo to protest PIPA/SOPA and added a link to a resource page where people can take action.
Demonoid
Demonoid, one of the largest BitTorrent communities, is going dark completely, with a nice spotlight effect.
Firefox
Firefox users will be welcomed with a dark themed default home page today, alerting people about the looming PIPA/SOPA threats.
Reddit
The online community Reddit will point the public to a resource site where they can take action.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia will be completely inaccessible for 24 hours, except the pages about censorship, PIPA and SOPA, of course.
WordPress
WordPress is joining the protest as well, and has decided to censor itself today.
Minecraft
Minecraft is protesting as well, but in red with the tagline “PIPA & SOPA, How About NOPA.” | {
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Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield
Sheffield's Lyceum Theatre, shot from an emergency exit walkway at the Odeon.
Done | {
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Lady Gaga Nude in Vanity Fair: Admits Cocaine Use (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
covers the September 2010 issue of Vanity Fair and provides some interesting insight into her drug use. The 24-year-old singer revealed that she is "terrified of heroin", but still does "mostly cocaine".
The musician sat down with VF for a candid interview and talked about her drug habits. She said, "I won't lie; it's occasional. And when I say occasional, I mean maybe a couple of times a year."
Concerned that her fans might get the wrong idea, she tells about hitting rock bottom: "I do not want my fans to ever emulate that or be that way. I don't want my fans to think they have to be that way to be great. It's in the past. It was a low point, and it led to disaster. I was completely mental and had just been through so much."
Gaga opted to go to her 82-year-old grandmother in West Virgina instead of checking into rehab. Thinking that her life was over and there was no hope, she sobbed constantly. Her wise relative told her, "I'm gonna let you cry for a few more hours. And then after those few hours are up, you're gonna stop crying, you're gonna pick yourself up, you're gonna go back to New York, and you're gonna kick some a**."
Check out the entire interview: Lady Gaga on Sex, Fame, Drugs and Her Fans.
Lady G also posed nude for the VF issue. Check out the pics below. We'll add the behind the scenes photo shoot video the moment it is released by VF. In the meantime - check out what the morning talk shows had to say about the new photo spread:
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Peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors will lead to an agreement with the Palestinians, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday as a French envoy visited Jerusalem to solicit support for an international conference on the conflict.“The Arab world softening its views toward us will help us when the time comes to reach a real and lasting agreement with our Palestinian neighbors,” Netanyahu said.“If someone thought earlier that a breakthrough with the Palestinians would lead to improved relations with the Arab world for us, the opposite is happening and will continue to happen.”The prime minister spoke at a Likud faction meeting at Jerusalem’s Menachem Begin Heritage Center on the same day French envoy Pierre Vimont held talks with Foreign Ministry Director-General Dore Gold and Netanyahu’s special diplomatic envoy Isaac Molho.Gold, in the past, has spoken against the idea of international conferences to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The Foreign Ministry issued a skeptical statement following Gold’s meeting with Vimont.“The Israeli side emphasized the importance of the principle of direct negotiations,” the Foreign Ministry said. “There should be bilateral talks without preconditions.”It added however, that the Palestinian Authority must fight against terrorism and incitement.The Foreign Ministry said those who met with Vimont asked questions in an attempt to understand the French initiative. Vimont is scheduled to meet with senior Palestinian officials on Tuesday, including Foreign Minister Riad Malki.Some reports suggested he also might meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The PA leadership has already accepted and welcomed the French initiative, but does not expect it to succeed.The US Administration recently launched an effort to scuttle the French initiative, a Palestinian official said. “The Americans have made it clear that they don’t want other parties meddling in the Israel-Arab conflict,” the official said.Another official added: “I don’t see how this is going to work when the US administration has endorsed the Israeli stance, which basically rejects the idea of convening an international conference.”“Besides, Israel does not want the international community to play any role in the conflict,” he added.In Brussels, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault presented his initiative to the foreign ministers of the European Union’s 28 member states.EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said all the member states welcomed Ayrault’s efforts to coordinate his country’s work with theirs and that of the Quartet.The United States has carefully made positive public statements about the initiative, but has yet to endorse it, preferring instead to see Israelis and Palestinians relaunch direct talks. The last bilateral Israeli Palestinian peace process ended without results in April 2014.In speaking to his faction in Jerusalem, Netanyahu praised past peace deals, such as the one Begin made with Egypt, but said it was time for the international community to realize that the paradigm for peacemaking had changed.Israel’s relations with Arab countries have improved due to threats from Iran and Islamic State, he said.“More and more Arab countries are realizing that Israel is not the enemy of the Arab world, but rather their partner in a joint struggle against Islamic extremists,” Netanyahu said.“We are both fighting the Shiite Islamic extremists led by Iran and the Sunni extremists led by ISIS.”Netanyahu said he hoped such partnerships would lead to the Palestinians adopting views that are more realistic and responsible regarding a future agreement with Israel.The New York Times on Monday weighed in on the frozen peace process with an editorial that suggested a non-binding UN Security Council resolution on the two-state solution may be the next best step to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.“There are several options, but the best may be a resolution that puts the United Nations Security Council on record supporting the basic principles of a deal covering borders, the future of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, security and land swaps, but not imposing anything on the two parties,” the editorial stated.It spoke disparagingly of the possibility that Netanyahu, Abbas and US President Barack Obama could make peace in the near future.The paper stated that Netanyahu had “never shown a serious willingness” to progress toward a peace deal, “as is made clear by his expansion of Israeli settlements, which reduce the land available for a Palestinian state.”Also, it described Abbas as “a weak and aging leader who has given up on peace.”Despite Obama’s efforts, the paper said, he “may be presiding over the death of the two-state solution.”Should the US push for a UNSC resolution, even one such as proposed by the New York Times, it would mark a break from the Obama administration’s position that direct talks between the two parties is the best way to resolve the conflict and arrive at a two-state solution.Last fall, however, US officials in Washington said the president did not expect to arrive at a two-state solution by the time he leaves office in January. Since then, the US has pushed for a plan that would move the process forward so the next administration could best arrive at a two-state solution.Haaretz reported on Monday that as part of effort to stabilize the situation in the West Bank, Israelis and Palestinians had held talks on stopping IDF incursions into Area A of the West Bank in pursuit of Palestinians it believed posed a security threat. The PA has full civilian control of Area A, but the IDF has the right to enter for security reasons.The Prime Minister’s Office had no comment on the Haaretz report.An Israeli official, however, explained that the IDF went into those areas because the PA’s security forces had failed to combat Palestinian terrorism.“Israel would prefer not to have to conduct military operations inside Area A. From our perspective, it would be preferable that the Palestinian security services do what they are supposed to do and prevent terrorist operations against Israel from Area A,” the official said.“Unfortunately, they are not doing that. If the Palestinian side was to fulfill its obligations and there was no need to go into Area A, no one would be happier than Israel,” he continued.Early Monday morning, three IDF soldiers were injured in two separate terrorist attacks in the area of the Kiryat Arba settlement and the city of Hebron. Soldiers shot and killed the three Palestinian assailants.As a result of their deaths, the PA renewed its call seeking international protection and for ending Israeli “aggression” on Palestinians, accusing Israel of “executing” the attackers.The PA government also strongly denounced the deaths of two Palestinian children who were killed in an Israeli military raid in Gaza following the firing of rockets at Israel last weekend.“The continued bloody escalation by the occupation requires urgent international intervention and protection for the Palestinians,” the PA government said in a statement.It also expressed deep concern over “continued incitement” by Israeli government officials against the Palestinians, and held the Israeli government fully responsible for rising tensions. | {
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DUBAI // Tight rules on where and how dogs can be walked in the emirate have left few options for people who wish to let their pets run free.
That is changing, thanks to a joint project by a Saluki breeder and two pet lovers who have opened Dubai’s first outdoor park designed for dogs.
The site in Al Awir, backed by Dubai Municipality, is the only outdoor space where dogs can run without their leads in a safe environment.
Jan Al Mheiri, a Scot who has been in the UAE for more than 25 years, encouraged her Emirati husband to donate farmland near their home in Al Awir.
The Bark Park has been developed with irrigation and electricity and opened as an official dog-walking facility.
Mrs Al Mheiri, who owns two Salukis and a Golden Retriever, said it would encourage responsible dog ownership.
“We are a work in progress but we have very big plans for the future,” she said. “It is a traditional place but it has all the things that dogs need.
“The municipality has a thankless task with regards to animal welfare issues, but they have been very helpful and supportive. It would not have happened otherwise.”
In Dubai, dogs are banned from all beaches and public parks, and in most newer developments.
The Bark Park encourages owners to socialise and can be used for a fee that funds the project.
“We needed to have permission to have the dogs running free on the land and that took time,” Mrs Al Mheiri said.
“I had to provide compelling reasons why this was a good idea and helped with animal welfare issues. Attitudes towards dogs are changing here but it is a very slow process.”
Saturdays are reserved for Salukis, the traditional Bedouin dogs, which can run as fast as 70 kilometres per hour.
Hamad Al Ghanem, founder of the Salukis of Arabia Club, helped to develop the park project.
“We approached the landowner with the idea, as we were looking for somewhere to run the Salukis,” he said. “It was important that it was somewhere away from camel farms and safe for the dogs.
“We had to have the area checked to ensure that they can’t escape if they are running free. It needs more trees and shade to make it more like a park, but it has great potential.
“I have helped with ideas, as I know Salukis so well. This park is perfect for all dog lovers.”
Other plans include a barbecue area and a site office. Dogs which use the park must be vaccinated and microchipped, and nervous dogs should be muzzled as a precaution.
Children younger than 12 are not allowed in the park. There is an area reserved for smaller dogs.
Entry fees are Dh50 for the first dog, and Dh25 for a second and third.
A maximum of 20 dogs are allowed in the park at any time.
Anna Bensalah has been volunteering for the park project and promotes events such as the Saluki Fun Run, which she has been organising with Rooster Tail Sports and Entertainment.
“The Saluki Fun Run was popular, so we realised there was a demand for a more permanent outdoor park for dogs to enjoy,” she said.
“All dogs need to run free but Salukis in particular are bred to run free. They can run long distances, up to six kilometres. So for them to be healthy and happy, they have to run but they also need to be safe.”
[email protected] | {
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So House Republicans have unveiled their debt limit offer, and despite earlier reports that they were serious about avoiding default, their proposal suggests the exact opposite.
At a press conference following a meeting of all House Republicans, the House GOP leadership team proposed raising the debt limit for six weeks in exchange for President Obama negotiating with them over their list of demands for ending the government shutdown.
According to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Republicans would follow through on their plan "in exchange for a real commitment by this president and the Senate Majority leader to sit down." House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said "we're looking for as structure that puts us on a path to get a budget and take care of this debt."
The GOP plan is pretty much dead on arrival. Even before they unveiled it, the White House made it clear that negotiations would only be possible once Republicans agreed to remove the threat not just of default but also government shutdown:
@mpoindc WH: "Once Republicans...act to remove the threat of default and end this harmful government shutdown, [Obama] will be willing" to negotiate
President Obama would almost certainly sign legislation suspending the debt limit for six weeks if it didn't have strings attached, but that's not what Republicans are proposing. Their central demand—that President Obama negotiate while they have a gun pointed at the country's head—is the same as it was yesterday.
That's not acceptable, but even if it were, it's worth remembering that we've heard proposals like this from Republicans before, and time after time, Boehner hasn't even been able to find the votes to get his proposals through the House.
If Boehner wants to avoid default, there's an easy way to do it: Raise the debt limit. But as long as he continues to demand a ransom, he's not trying to avoid default: He's threatening it.
This really is important:
@JakeSherman IMPT: the GOP plan also forbids extraordinary measures on the debt ceiling.
Remember the last time around, GOP suspended debt limit until mid-May, but extraordinary measures allowed us to avoid default for about 5 months. By legally baring Treasury from avoiding default, GOP is actually proposing to weaponize the debt limit such that it is even more dangerous than it is now. It's reckless and would make things worse than they are now. Even without any other strings attached, accepting a debt limit increase that bars extraordinary measures should be a nonstarter. | {
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CALGARY - The Calgary Flames announced today that they have signed defenceman Alexander Yelesin to a two-year entry-level contract.
Yelesin, a native of Yaroslavl, Russia, completed his second season as a member of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the KHL in 2018-19. The 23-year-old scored four goals and added six assists for 10 points and 47 penalty minutes in 55 games this season. In Yelesin's KHL career he has totaled eight goals and 11 assists for 19 points in 109 games. The right-shot defenceman was chosen for the 2019 KHL All-Star Game this past January and represented the Tarosov Division.
BORN: Yaroslavl, Russia DATE: February 7, 1996
HEIGHT: 6'0" WEIGHT: 195 lbs.
SHOOTS: Right | {
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Style No. 25748542; Color Code:
Artist Cyprien Chabert is haunted by the idea of lost paradise - forgotten and fantasized about. He recreates these worlds through his work, like this show- stopping table, carved from an erstwhile ping pong table. Chabert was inspired by the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, and its "birdman" ritual, an annual event in which competitors would swim through shark-infested waters to a nearby islet to collect the season's first eggs of the Sooty Tern and return it to their sponsor on the island. The winner was crowned birdman for one year; the ritual died out in the late 19th century. Chabert uses the exotic symbolism of Easter Island to represent the complex nature of man's relationship with nature and the ecological challenges faced by modern societies and cultures. | {
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I’ve been familiar with Terence McKenna and the whole psychedelic movement ever since I started my research on altered states of consciousness and the so called “spiritual” path. In fact, one of the earliest sites on the Internet that I frequently visited before the explosion of the World Wide Web is deoxy.org. But even though I was aware of the potential of psychedelics to *transform* consciousness, I never tried *any* mind-altering substance, not even pot.
Looking back I think I could’ve tried it but I’ve chosen not to. I’ve seen how *street* drugs ruined the lives of some of my childhood friends. My priorities at that time was to finish my college education and help out with my parents. So I promised myself to live a “clean” life without any vices — no drugs, alcohol, and smoking. I continue to stick to that conviction today. That’s why when it comes to psychedelics, I’m as pure as an 18-year old virgin.
Another reason that added to my conviction of not attempting to try psychedelics is that I believe that the altered states of consciousness disclosed through psychedelics can also be accessed through good ole hardcore meditation techniques. I’ve always believed that psychedelics are like crutches or training wheels along the path to Gnosis, albeit with the potential danger of frying one’s neurons, not to mention the risk of being incarcerated. So why risk it? If meditation works then it’s the more logical choice because it has less risk and it’s *legal*.
However, lately I’ve been digging deeper into McKenna’s body of work. And the more I listen to McKenna, the more I’m convinced that the psychedelic path discloses another *facet* of Gnosis which is not accessible (or not easily accessible) through meditation practice. As a diehard empiricist myself, I believe that the only way to find out is to suspend my conviction, try damn thing, and see for myself!
Having said that, I don’t plan on going in some dark alley to score a bong hit. I’m just merely opening up to the possibility of trying psychedelics provided that the conditions are *right*. For me the right conditions are: 1) it should be legal, i.e. as part of a scientific research; 2) should be administered by someone who knows the exact *dosage* and chemical composition and knows the psychedelic territory very well; 3) must be in a safe environment so even in the event of a “bad trip” I won’t end up running around naked and cannibalizing other people’s faces. Until these conditions are met, I will continue with my zero tolerance policy on psychedelics.
In the meantime, I’ll stick with my meditation and lucid dreaming practice and keep studying McKenna, so that if and when the conditions are right, I will at least have a healthier and more *integral* interpretation of whatever hyper-dimensional Gnosis that psychedelics will disclose to this curious bodymind.
P.S. For those who are on Facebook, this post was inspired by the EPIC Terence McKenna THREAD. Check out the thread for some great discussions and more uber-geeky McKenna videos.
Here’s a video of my favorite McKenna lecture.
And here’s a video of my favorite McKenna interview. Very uber-geeky! Love it. | {
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SEC Network Takeover Schedule
Photo: SEC Network
For the third consecutive year, SEC Network is handing the reins over to the 14 Southeastern Conference schools for a two-week stretch. Beginning Monday, July 17, each school will exclusively program 24-hours of the network with classic games, films, ESPN original content and school-produced content.
During the SEC Network Takeover, the schools have the opportunity to create an entire day of its greatest moments. Each school's appointed date and a preview of the original content or events that will be shown that day can be found below:
Monday, July 17 - Kentucky
Kentucky's upset against highly ranked Louisville in 2016
Tuesday, July 18 - Tennessee
Tennessee breaks its 12-year losing streak against the Gators during their 2016 meeting
Wednesday, July 19 - South Carolina
South Carolina's men's and women's basketball teams remarkable run in the 2017 NCAA Championships
Thursday, July 20 - Auburn
Auburn vs. Alabama (2013)-the "Kick Six"
Friday, July 21 - Georgia
Vamos Perros Costa Rica (Georgia)
Saturday, July 22 - Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt's win over Virginia to claim their first NCAA Baseball championship (2014)
Sunday, July 23 - Texas A&M
Aggies defeat their biggest rivals, Texas, in an emotional game after losing 12 students in a tragic bonfire accident (1999)
Monday, July 24 - Arkansas
Arkansas's 2012 win over Baylor to advance to the College World Series
Tuesday, July 25 - Mississippi State
Mississippi State's rise to the women's basketball national championship title game, led by Morgan William's buzzer beater shot to end UConn's 100+ winning streak (2017)
Wednesday, July 26 - Ole Miss
Ole Miss softball's first-ever SEC Championship victory over LSU (2017)
Thursday, July 27 - Florida
Florida Gators claim their first-ever baseball national championship (2017)
Friday, July 28 - Alabama
Alabama reaches the College Football Playoff for the third year in a row and dominates Cinderella story Washington in the last ever college football game played in the Georgia Dome (2016)
Saturday, July 29 - Missouri
Missouri defeats Syracuse in an overtime game to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in over 20 years (2007)
Sunday, July 30 - LSU
LSU gymnastics claims another SEC Championship (2017) | {
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The CEO of Reddit recently admitted he “abused” his power to alter comments in a pro-Donald Trump subreddit.
CEO Steve Huffman told The Washington Post on Nov. 25 he violated the company’s policies and altered posts critical of him in the subreddit r/The_Donald.
According to Gizmodo, r/The_Donald users constantly attacked Huffman in posts. Huffman responded by swapping his name with the names of the group’s leaders.
Huffman repented and complained about the attacks’ effect on his relationship with users.
<<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>>
“As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly,” Huffman wrote.
Ahead of Huffman’s apology, several business leaders directly attacked Trump or his supporters. Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney made it clear employees who disagreed with his anti-Trump views were not welcome with the company. Another CEO threatened tweeted about assassinating the president-elect. Despite those offensive remarks, ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows ignored the stories. | {
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CHISINAU (Reuters) - Moldovan lawmakers on Friday called on Russia to pull troops out of the pro-Moscow breakaway region of Transdniestria, speaking out in a stormy parliament session that underlined the split in the nation’s loyalties between the West and Russia.
Sixty-one MPs in the 101-member assembly approved a symbolic statement that called for Russia to withdraw troops, weapons and other military equipment from Transdniestria, which seceded from the ex-Soviet republic in 1990.
The main opposition Socialists left the chamber in protest, calling it a provocation that would worsen relations with Russia and damage efforts to achieve a lasting settlement of Transdniestria’s status.
Parliament “calls upon the Russian Federation to recommence and finalize the process of withdrawing its troops..., its munitions, weapons and military equipment from the territory of the Republic of Moldova,” the statement said.
Moldovan politics is divided between a pro-Western government that has forged closer trade and diplomatic links with the European Union and Washington, and a pro-Russian president who wants to move Moldova back within Russia’s orbit.
The Russian-speakers of Transdniestria seceded from Moldova one year before the dissolution of the Soviet Union amid fears that Moldova would shortly merge with neighboring Romania, whose language and culture it broadly shares.
The separatist region fought a brief war with Moldova in 1992 and declared itself an independent state, but it remains unrecognized by any country, including Russia.
Attempts to resolve the dispute have made little progress. A 2006 referendum in Transdniestria, which borders Ukraine but not Russia, produced a 97.2 percent vote in favor of joining Russia.
Moldova has been governed by pro-Western leaders since 2009 and inked an Association Agreement with the EU in 2014. Russia retaliated by halting the import of Moldovan farm produce.
Relations between Moldova and Russia suffered further this year in a row in March over the treatment of Moldovan officials traveling to or through Russia, and the expulsion of five Russian diplomats in May.
There was further tension in the run-up to Friday’s vote when Moldova barred Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin from flying to Transdniestria in a military plane. | {
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The mayor of the small town of Argos in southern Greece, Dimitris Kambosou, was expelled from the New Democracy party on Friday over anti-Semitic references regarding his counterpart in Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris.
The decision was taken by the conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
In an anti-Semitic rant, Kambosou expressed his dislike of Boutaris over his stance on various national and social issues, adding that “he only gets away with it because he is liked by the Jews.”
“He can say what he wants because he wears the [kippah],” he said.
In a statement, New Democracy expressed its condemnation over Kambosou’s “disgusting” comments, announcing his immediate expulsion from the party.
The mayor of Argos had also disparaged Boutaris in the wake of his near-lynching by far-right thugs almost three weeks ago.
Ruling SYRIZA said Mitsotakis’s condemnation was belated as the party had said nothing about Kambosou’s initial comments last month. | {
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J Balvin lidera las nominaciones al Latin Grammy 2020 El género urbano llegó este 2020 al trono de los premios de la Academia Latina de la Grabación, luego de que el año pasado el colombiano y otras estrellas criticaran la escasa presencia del reguetón y el trap entre los nominados … | {
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Posted on February 14, 2020 at 10:13 pm by Carol Tannenhauser
By Carol Tannenhauser
New York State Supreme Court Justice W. Franc Perry ruled on Thursday that the building permits for 200 Amsterdam Avenue, the nearly completed 668-foot building at 69th Street, “should be revoked, and the building reduced to conform with zoning regulations,” according to Scott Mollen, an attorney for the developers, SJP Properties and Mitsui Fudosan America. The number of floors to be removed was not specified.
“Honestly, it’s epochal,” wrote Chuck Weinstock, who represents the two nonprofits that brought the lawsuit, the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development and the Municipal Art Society of New York, in an email obtained by WSR. “No judge has ever ordered a developer to take down a building like this, based on a lawsuit by a private party, not the city itself.”
The developers had previously won other rulings in the case, but had been told they were building the additional floors at their own risk while challenges proceeded. They have already been marketing units to buyers.
The zoning lot for 200 Amsterdam was cobbled together from a large number of surrounding lots, a tactic that opponents said was an abuse of the process.
Opponents showed the cobbled-together zoning lot at a recent protest.
Mollen said “We believe the ruling is absolutely incorrect in numerous ways, and we intend to promptly appeal.” He said the city may also appeal.
This is a breaking story. We will update as details come in.
Update, 1:50 a.m.: A spokesperson for the Municipal Art Society of New York emailed WSR the following:
Justice Perry ruled in our favor in the Article 78 lawsuit brought by the Municipal Art Society of New York and the Committee for Environmentally Sound Development, invalidating the building’s gerrymandered zoning lot and ordering the owners of 200 Amsterdam to remove approximately 20 floors from the 668-foot tower to bring it into compliance with the Zoning Resolution.
Read about the woman who spearheaded the community opposition to 200 Amsterdam here. | {
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HONG KONG — China is burning through its huge stockpile of foreign exchange reserves at the fastest pace yet as it seeks to prop up its currency and stem a rising tide of money flowing out of the country.
Even after a record monthly decrease of nearly $100 billion, China still has the world’s biggest cache of foreign reserves, standing at $3.56 trillion at the end of last month, government data showed on Monday.
The total has declined steadily from a peak of nearly $4 trillion in June of last year, as slowing economic growth caused investors to move money out of the country in search of better returns elsewhere. As a result, the Chinese central bank has had to sell huge amounts from its foreign reserves to maintain the strength of the nation’s currency, the renminbi.
The exodus of investors’ money accelerated last month after China made the surprise decision on Aug. 11 to devalue the renminbi by the most in over two decades. China’s foreign reserves fell $94 billion in the month, according to Monday’s report, as the central bank mounted an aggressive defense of the renminbi. | {
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Conservative James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas is teasing their biggest investigation yet. In a video posted to Twitter, O’Keefe promises that their new series will go after the “holy grail” of the mainstream media, and that some figures will probably lose their jobs. He said the organization has tripled the number of journalists in the field. He also warned that the lawsuits filed against him, one of which he holds in his hand, would not stop his work. He also says that they will be exposed for what they are, as lawsuits are used as a tool of intimidation.
There will be more #AmericanPravda videos coming soon.
To get more hard-hitting investigations, please donate:https://t.co/hYun70OejV pic.twitter.com/USpE5eQA4p — Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) September 18, 2017
“Stay tuned, ladies and gentleman. Fireworks are coming,” he says.
Project Veritas peered through the Clinton campaign and recently exposed the appalling bias within the newsrooms of CNN. We all knew this, but now there’s hard evidence that the network pushes the Russia collusion story for ratings, despite one producer admitting that it’s “mostly bulls**t.” Another producer is caught saying disparaging remarks about voters, calling them “stupid as s**t.” Even a CNN commentator and former Obama staffer is caught saying the whole Russia story is a “nothing burger.” Again, it’s par for the course with regards to liberal media bias, but evidence of vindication over what everyone on the right felt about the news network.
Stay tuned for more.
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Președintele Traian Băsescu a declarat, vineri, că l-a felicitat pe premierul Victor Ponta de ziua lui de naștere și că i-a trimis un buchet de flori, iar întrebat ce flori i-a trimis, șeful statului a spus: "Ei, nu știu, întrebați-l. Crini".
De pe șantierul gazoductului Iași-Ungheni unde a pus la îndoială termenele asumate de Guvern pentru finalizarea conductei spre Republica Moldova, președintele Traian Băsescu a anunțat că l-a felicitat pe premierul Victor Ponta de ziua sa de naștere și că i-a trimis un buchet de flori. „Sigur că da, l-am felicitat încă de ieri (joi – n.r.). I-am trimis un buchet de flori și o felicitare”, a spus Băsescu.
Întrebat despre ce flori este vorba, Traian Băsescu a răspuns râzând: „Ei, nu știu, întrebați-l. Crini”.
Ironiei lui Băsescu, Executivul i-a răspus pe „surse guvernamentale”. Nu erau criini, ci trandafiri, a simțit Guvernul nevoia să clarifice printr-o precizare pentru Mediafax neasumată public. Mai exact, un coș cu 11 trandafiri albi, împreună cu un carton pe care era trecut numele președintelui alături de semnătură, dar fără urări de „La Mulți Ani”, spun sursele guvernamentale.
Mai mult, oficialii guvernamentali au menționat lunga listă de demnitari sau lideri de partid care l-au felicitat protocolar pe primul ministru. Printre nume se regăsesc președintele PDL, Vasile Blaga, președintele UDMR, Kelemen Hunor, dar și Patriarhul Daniel. Lipsește însă cel al prețedintelui Senatului, Crin Antonescu.
Liderul PNL a spus la rândul său că nu-i va trimite flori lui Ponta. „Nu (trimit, n.r.). Am sunat, am vorbit. Eu ce aș putea să-i trimit? 41 de ce?”, a răspuns Antonescu, râzând, el precizând că l-a sunat pe premier pentru a-i ura „La mulți ani!”.
Cât despre opțiunea lui Traian Băsescu de a-i fi trimis lui Ponta crini de ziua sa, Antonescu a găsit o explicație „Frumos. Probabil ca să-i intre în voie, ca să se împace și cu domnul Băsescu”.
Întrebat pe de altă parte dacă sâmbătă se așteaptă să primească, prin contrast, trandafiri roșii, Antonescu răspuns invocând un epitaf: „Nu mă aștept, nu mă tem de nimic, nu sper nimic, sunt liber. Kazantzakis!”.
Victor Ponta împlinește astăzi 41 de ani. | {
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