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Could Duce Staley be candidate for Lions offensive coordinator job? | Duce Staley isnt going to be a running back for the rest of his life and Doug Pederson could have a few decisions to make. Staley an Eagles legend who spent seven seasons carrying the rock for the franchise has aspirations of one day coaching his own NFL team. Likely sensing Staleys frustration, Pederson upgraded Duces role from running backs coach to running backs coach and assistant head coach. Staley is rising up the coaching ranks, and reports suggest he could land an offensive coordinator or head coaching job during this cycle. Now according to The Athletics Chris Burke, Staley could have the opportunity to take his talents to Motown. Duce Staley (current role: Eagles assistant head coach and running backs coach): The NFL Networks Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport mentioned Staley as a potential head-coaching candidate. If thats too massive a leap from his current role, Staley could settle in as a play-caller somewhere, and Detroit might not mind landing a fresh voice with NFL playing experience. Staley, who interviewed for the Eagles head coaching job after Chip Kelly was fired in December 2015, has gotten his chair of credit for the development of young players like Josh Adams, Corey Clement, Wendell Smallwood, and others. | https://theeagleswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/02/duce-staley-candidate-for-lions-offensive-coordinator-job/ |
Is a victory over Adrien Broner enough to warrant a Floyd Mayweather rematch for Manny Pacquiao? | Chris lives in U.S.A. He loves attending shows and chatting to boxing stars and sharing his opinion. He likes to write about UK and USA boxing news and you can read various news storys ranging from interviews to opinion pieces. We are less than a month away from the first big pay per views of 2019, as Cincinnatis own Adrien Broner will be facing off with eight-division champion Manny Pacquiao on January 19th. The fight between Pacquiao (60-7-2, 39 KOs) and Broner (33-3-1, 24 KOs) is set to take place inside of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and will be distributed on SHOWTIME pay per view, as was this months Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury heavyweight title showdown. There are a lot of dynamics heading into this fight. Some question how much both fighters have left. At 40 years old , Pacquiao insists he still feels as good as ever and he is coming off of a dominant display vs. Former champion Lucas Matthysse this past July in which he stopped the Argentinean fighter in the 7th round. Broner has been criticized by some in recent years for a lack of focus, yet he appears to be fully locked and loaded, as he trains with this trainer Kevin Cunningham down in West Palm Beach, Florida. See Also This fight is real important, Broner recently told the press. This is a hell of a fight not only for me but for the sport. This is a fight that needed to happen for the sport and we are going to put on a hell of a show. The Pacquiao fight is likely the biggest of his career yet Broner knows a moment like this was always waiting for him. I always knew that one day I would be having fights like this, said Broner, who has won titles in four weight divisions himself. For one, you can expect an exciting fight for sure. Pacquiao will likely be somewhat of the aggressor, as he showed himself to still be able to carry a heavy work rate vs. Matthysse, while Broner has played the role of a counter puncher in recent bouts. If anything, it has been Broners unwillingness to let his hands go that has seemed to hinder him in certain bouts. Each man has shown themselves to have a great chin yet the edge in power seems to lie with Pacquiao. This fight very well could come down to who had the better training camp and who will come in better shape physically for a long, grueling fight. One of the interesting subplots is that Pacquiao is still hungry for a rematch with his longtime rival Floyd Mayweather, who defeated him in May of 2015. Pacquiao wants to avenge that loss and now that he is aligned with adviser Al Haymon and the Premier Boxing Champions brand, that very well could be in store if he is to defeat Broner. It may come down to financial numbers. Mayweather is slated for a December 31st exhibition vs. MMA and kickboxing star Tenshin Nasukawa, but thats simply going to be somewhat of a sparring match with the result not affected his professional record. We will have to wait as see how Pacquiaio vs. Broner plays out first, and then wait for a response from Mayweather afterwards to see if he is interested. | https://www.ringnews24.com/2019/01/02/is-a-victory-over-adrien-broner-enough-to-warrant-a-floyd-mayweather-rematch-for-manny-pacquiao/ |
Why do film people care so much about frame rates? | It was once only necessary for movies to be presented in their correct aspect ratios meaning compressed into an narrow rectangle in the middle of a TV screen or monitor, with black bars at the top and bottom. Otherwise, the annoying movie guys would say, it would be wrong, and they were so confident about this that no one bothered to ask why. In the ensuing decades, the black bar fixation didnt go anywhere in fact, it metastasized into an ever-expanding set of instructions for how to orient your phone when taking or viewing images. But now you can expect an additional earful from the annoying movie guy in your life if the playback on what youre watching is overly smooth. And its not just excessive smoothness. Soon youll be getting in trouble because playback on your device is smooth, when youre meant to be watching deliberately choppy footage. Its already happening, and its only going to get worse. Im taking a quick break from filming to tell you the best way to watch Mission: Impossible Fallout (or any movie you love) at home. pic.twitter.com/oW2eTm1IUA Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 4, 2018 Your TV, according to annoying movie guys such as Tom Cruise and the director and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, is trying to mess up your cinematic experience. In the video above, Cruise and McQuarrie helpfully explain the whole problem: the default settings on your TV take video content thats supposed to appear as 24 distinct images, and add mushy, in-between frames that make motion look eerily smooth. This is sometimes referred to as The Soap Opera Effect, Cruise gravely informs the viewer, invoking a type of television program intended for women the opposite, in other words, of Top Gun: Maverick (coming to a theater near you this June). This motion smoothing problem has been happening for years already, and weve all seen a million variations on what this does. For the most part, the effect is pleasantly psychedelic. Other times, the smoothness triggers childhood memories of cheap daytime TV, which, thanks to something called interlacing, appeared at roughly 60 silky-smooth frames per second in the U.S. Unless you turn off your VIZIO XVT3D554SVs 480Hz SPS Smooth Motion technology, youre seeing everything at 80 scenes per second, for clarity of fast action scenes and blur-free images. As a side-effect, when you see the iconic plane taxiing at the end of Casablanca, your brain will incongruously dredge up childhood memories of Jay Jay the Jet Plane. Its precisely for this reason that many of us have decided that when Peter Jackson made his 543-minute adaptation of The Hobbit, the biggest problem with the film wasnt that Peter Jackson openly admitted he was winging it on set and basically didnt shoot off any storyboards, but that he gave us the option to watch the finished movies at 48 frames per second, triggering the dreaded Soap Opera Effect. In a Gizmodo article titled The Hobbit: An Unexpected Masterclass in Why 48 FPS Fails, Vincent Laforet claimed, claimed that Jacksons decision killed a lot of the magic of what makes a film entrance an audience. Eventually, Laforet did throw Jackson a backhanded compliment, adding, I did find myself becom[ing] more immersed in the three-dimensional environment and all of these details but to the detriment of the film and the narrative itself. But according to YouTuber John Hess, a guru of movie frame rates, 24 frames-per-second is the end-all-be-all of frame rates, and thats never going to change: Maybe I'm just an old fogey clinging onto my nostalgia goggles. Maybe Im just not hip to whats it. I used to be, but then they changed what it was, and now whats it seems weird and scary to me. Itll happen to you too . But on the topic of frame rate, Im not going to be diplomatic. Im not going to say Itll be interesting to see! or some meaningless cop-out. No, 24 is going to be with us for as long as there exists a cinematic medium. In his video about this, Hess explains why he feels this way. He notes that adding more frames to the filmmaking process adds some expense by enlarging file-sizes, and that cinematographers shooting for increased frame rates have to use more light, but he acknowledges that those are just hurdles that can be surmounted. The real reason is essentially inertia. Filmmakers are nostalgic, and, Hess claims, When you have that love for films, you want your film to have that look, the look of the movies that you fell in love with. Indeed, I made movies with my friends in the late 90s and early 2000s with a camcorder and my friends illegally obtained editing software. Several steps toward the end of the process back then involved making it look more like a movie. For instance, we used our pirated version of Adobe After Effects to add huge black bars to the top and bottom of the finished movie to match the George Lucas-approved visual geometry of the Star Wars films. Movies marketed to consumers as widescreen on VHS existed because the movies really were intended to be shown on screens wider than TVs, but when we made our films, we were just cutting off the top and bottom arbitrarily. We justified this by claiming that we always intended the finished product to be cropped in this way, even when we were shooting it, so this step was mandatory, we would have argued, if anyone had ever called us on it (they didnt). But my much smarter friend did more to our footage than reverse engineer the 2.35:1 aspect ratio we fetishized; he also ran it through software filters that deinterlaced it, and reduced the apparent number of frames from 29.97 frames per second down to the cinematic standard of 24 fps. I didnt understand what any of this wizardry was supposed to accomplish when he was explaining it to me. But like magic, once I was seeing fewer frames per second, our movies looked subtly but noticeably more movie-like. Not because we were masters of cinema, but because frame rates have an automatic Pavlovian effect on moviegoers. Something similar was happening around that time in the world of legitimate film: Mike Figgis was filming the first actual movie on digital video, which at the time meant a certain kind of video tape. Figgis film, Timecode (the less about which is said the better), was shot with four camcorders at 29.97 FPS, which was then transferred onto old-fashioned film in order to be shown in theaters, where film projectors max out at 24 FPS, meaning that Figgis had to do a (probably) more expensive version of what we did. Another thing that was happening around this time was the rise of the strobing shutter. Saving Private Ryan came out in 1999, and cinematographer Janusz Kamiski who won an Oscar for his work on the film shot the film at the normal 24 frames per second (more on this in a moment), but with a 45-degree shutter, meaning he wasnt opening the camera shutter very far when shooting, which gave the film its now-iconic choppy feel onscreen. By way of an explanation, just know that narrowing the shutter lets less time elapse as each frame is recorded, and that can make the action look kinda cool in a gritty way. When theres a lot of motion on screen at once in Saving Private Ryan, the fast shutter effect doesnt give the image time to blur when you might otherwise expect it to look blurry, so when you string 24 non-blurry images together, and the images are far apart, they kinda strobe like a moth flying in front of your venetian blinds. This effect is more noticeable in the less shaky scenes toward the end (because keep in mind, the choppiness Im referring to has nothing to do with camera shakiness), so dont watch this clip if, for whatever reason, you havent seen Saving Private Ryan and you dont want it spoiled: Over the next few years, this strobing shutter effect became a fad. It imbued movies like Traffic and The Bourne Identity with documentary realism, and in the case of period films like A Knights Tale and Gladiator, it showed up sporadically to make the fight scenes look trendy and cool. Its now part of the visual vocabulary of movies, symbolizing grittiness. According to Steven Spielberg, Often, when you see an explosion with a 180-degree shutter it can be a thing of beauty, but a 45-degree shutter looks very frightening. In other words: this brand of choppiness tells the audience this isnt all just fun and games. In animation, it doesnt work this way. Animation sometimes looks a little choppy for whatever reason. As someone who has worked as an animator, Id say its because the people behind the film/show dont feel like adding any motion blur to the crisp still images they poured blood, sweat, and tears into, and in the end, like Kamiskis explosions, you end up with a finished product that strobes a bit. This was particularly true when I was doing stop-motion animation, or claymation a.k.a., the one where you pose 3D characters in fully-rendered diorama sets to create your scene. Choppy animation doesnt convey grit in this context on the contrary, it seems to convey whimsy. For instance, the stop-motion special effects used to create the animals in 2004s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou make those scenes feel more artsy and fun than if those animals had been computer-generated, which would have made them feel like smooth, fake images trying to be real instead of fake images that knew they were fake (and were therefore cool). It was important for animation to not look cheap and generic around this time, and the cheapest-looking animated property out there back then was ReBoot, a Canadian animated TV show about eerily smooth pseudo-Navi people living in a computer world. ReBoots nauseatingly smooth characters, and their smooth, TV-optimized bodily movements seemed related, even though they werent not in any process-related way. To animation fans, a little bit of strobing subtly implies that more than the usual amount of artistry went into a given product. Speaking for myself as an animator, I was proud of how hard every frame was, and I was glad the jittery finished product reflected that. No matter what you might think of the content itself, the effort was on display for example, heres a music video my friend and I made in 2007: Cavil at Rest - Who's There from Nathaniel Miller on Vimeo. As with many stop-motion productions, that video was output at the standard, cinematic 24 frames per second, but each frame was taken twice. To use the industry term, we took our 24 frames per second on twos so the 24 FPS only applies in terms of formatting and display compatibility. (Explaining this stuff gets pretty tedious pretty fast, but heres a link to a good video by John Hess about frame rates, which also explains that 29.97 number I mentioned earlier) But in effect, the frame rate for the whole thing is 12 fps, because thats the number of distinct images you see per second. But more to the point, shooting on twos disrupts Hesss nostalgic definition of cinema that passes by at 24 frames per second. In his defense of the magic number 24, he claims that when you tally up a list of favorite movies, Every movie on your list was shot at 24 frames per second, though he adds a small note on the screen pointing out that if youre a fan of silent films, that might not be true, because they were shot in less than 24 frames per second. Hes also leaving out almost all anime films, which are mostly but far from always shot on twos. Low frame rates arent all that rare, even in non-animated movies. For instance, the apparent frame rate in a movie sometimes drops down to 12 FPS to allow a shot that was taken at the normal 24 FPS to play in slow motion, or 12 FPS can be used just to give a scene a different look. The effect is much more tragic, or ominous, or feels otherwise seen through a glass, darkly. And its down around the minimum number of frames it takes to convince your eyes that youre seeing objects in continuous motion rather than a slide show. In animation, shooting on twos or doubles is faster and cheaper I can tell you from experience but its also visually distinctive. The 2012 introductory textbook Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance features several quotations from Dug Calder, an animator who worked at the UK-based stop-motion studio Aardman. At Aardman, Calder says, the style is doubles, but we use singles if the character is moving fast or the camera is moving. Sometimes we move the camera or the puppet while the camera takes a frame to produce a blurred effect [] There is definitely a place for doubles, and it wins Oscars! ! But Calder also works on computer animated films. Hes a credited animator on 2014s The Lego Movie, which clearly went out of its way to look choppy. Its no secret that The Lego Movie profited from nostalgic appeal for people (myself included) who used to make stop-motion films out of Legos, even though the film itself wasnt stop-motion. But the lengths the filmmakers were willing to go to in service of that somewhat janky, homemade look were extraordinary. In one scene, Lego waves upon the Lego ocean move at six frames per second by my count. That means the film is mimicking stop-motion shot not on twos, but on threes. Animating on threes is by no means rare, particularly in anime, but its not usually so obvious. But until Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I dont think theres ever been a movie that was choppy throughout, and had no practical reason for being that way. Even in stylized anime and stop-motion, shooting on twos conserves some of the money and effort involved in making some of the most labor-intensive art in the world. But with Spider-Verse, animating on twos was a stylistic choice, and it caught the animation department at Sony off guard. Bob Persichetti, an Aardman veteran, was one of the directors of the film, and he told an interviewer at the website Cartoon Brew, The idea of animating on twos for a lot of our animation crew was completely foreign to them. Theyre younger kids who have not ever done hand-drawn animation so the concept of every other frame and key pose and all that stuff was a little bit soft for them. The patent-pending visual vocabulary of the film also included visible lines, simulated printing flaws, and 2-D elements mixed with the 3-D all combined, according to Persichettis interview with Cartoon Brew, to find a visual language that feels like its derivative of a comic book. Most of this checks out intuitively theyre lifting visual elements directly from comics, and applying them to a movie but the images in comic books are stationary, so its hard to conceive of why 12 as opposed to 24 frames per second would be more evocative of comic books, other than, perhaps, a subconscious attraction to subtle strobing effects, encouraged by their presence in prestige cinema for a couple of decades running. Maybe Im being too harsh. It helps to compare the Spider-Verse look to the grossly smooth and, once again, Canadian computer animation that went into a Spider-Man TV show from 2003. For my part, I still dont quite understand why its perfectly acceptable in the Cinephile World to enjoy a choppy frame rate, but 48 or 60 or the rumored 120 frames per second that James Cameron might be attempting for the Avatar sequels are becoming a taboo. I have a hunch though. In 2016, Ang Lee released a movie called Billy Lynns Long Halftime Walk using a 120 FPS 3-D process, and despite being an interesting and somewhat satirical take on American heroism it was pretty much panned. Ive seen Billy Lynn and all three of Peter Jacksons Hobbit epics, and the problem is that these are are all (unreleased Avatar sequels included) sentimental stories in the classic cinematic mold, and their uses of high frame rates foster immersion, when whats called for might not be immersion at all, but a visual style that evokes the fog of nostalgia. Less realism, in other words, not more. And it strikes me that this is exactly the emotional shortcut a filmmaker is taking when they dial down the number of frames rather than dial them up. Peter Jacksons Hobbit left Justin Caffier of VICE feeling as if I was watching the local news. But plenty of movies certain thrillers and horror movies in particular already look like the news. Thats part of what makes them so immersive. Cloverfield is fascinating with the frame rate cranked up. So is Gravity. They didnt look like soap operas at all. The high frame rate made them even scarier, and I liked it. | https://theoutline.com/post/6886/why-do-film-people-care-so-much-about-frame-rates?zd=1&zi=cq4j6wzc |
Is 2019 the Year Dallas Stops Hating Pedestrians? | For almost a year now, we have been chronicling in this space the various maladiesmany of them construction-relatedimpeding pedestrian life in Dallas. There have been several egregious middle fingers pointed by developers toward walkers. There have been sidewalks that inexplicably turn into parking spots or run you smack-dab into a utility. There has been scaffolding constructedonly to be closed off. There have been crosswalk buttons set in cacti minefields. Its all right here. Wednesday, praise be, we got closer to bringing these problems into containment, as the City Council was briefed on tweaks to the citys handling of Right of Way (which we will abbreviate to ROW from here on) issues. One of those tweaks, a simple increase in oversight, is in place already: city staff says that from August through November, Public Works issued 137 citations for ROW violations. Those were given out by just four public works employees, but in 2019, the city will have a total of 11 staffers with the ability to write tickets. The recommendation from staff moving forward is to amend city code to require temporary walkways or scaffolding when there is not active work occurring on the actual sidewalk, such as concrete being poured or work on utilities. If its unavoidable, the city will require a pedestrian detour. Interim Public Works Director Robert Perez pointed to another instance in which developers would be allowed to put up a detour rather than scaffolding or an alternative walkwaythat is, if theyre working dozens of floors up and concerned about things falling onto the sidewalk. Its an odd exception considering the scaffolding options that exist to protect against such debris. Heres hoping that the city doesnt get too liberal with these exceptions, because although requiring a detour may sound nice, a recent example near us boiled down to an arrow telling walkers to cross the middle of the street to the other side. Not exactly the solutions walkers crave. There are other ROW-related proposals here outside the scope of pedestrian access. The city wants to be better about publicity, notifying citizens and businesses located near upcoming construction not just two days before it starts via door hangersas the policy currently dictatesbut an additional 10 days prior to the start date. On that point, Southern Dallas Council member Tennell Atkins called for better oversight of contractors tasked with that notification. Other pieces of the staff proposal include instituting a 24-hour deadline for removing traffic barricades following the completion of a project; establishing work hours for building construction as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. so as to cut down on noise complaints; and using a scoring matrix to evaluate the success of public projects with regard to, among other things, the contractors concern for and protection of the public. The evaluations, then, could help determine how work is awarded going forward. All in all, the changes were met without much pushback from council. Sandy Greyson, Council member for North Dallas, pointed out that handing someone a citation for causing a nuisance after the fact, particularly with regard to something that caused traffic to back up, might not be much of a real-time answer to the problem. But Perez assured her that staff has people frequently crawling downtown and uptown, as well as responding to complaints within an average of 10 to 15 minutes. North Dallas Council member Lee Kleinman, the chair of the councils Mobility Solutions, Infrastructure, and Sustainability Committee, pushed for city staff to make changes to the citys ROW policy. (He also invited our Matt Goodman to make a committee presentation about our Dallas Hates Pedestrians series, to which Matt declined for ethical reasons.) He suggested that the scoring matrices be fed into Dallas open data portal, for transparency sake. That would be nice. He also called the staffs proposal a proactive and forward-thinking approach, and he suggested that contractors who keep citizens in mind should be rewarded with extra points in their evaluations. The goal is to be able to accommodate development without constant daily disruption. Weve got to be very conscientiousness of the impact it has on our citizens, he said. | https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2019/01/is-2019-the-year-dallas-stops-hating-pedestrians/ |
Where is Martha heading? | If your mind dwells much as mine does on the natural world, its easy to give in to despair. Every day brings new insults: Another invasive species on a rampage, another native species gone extinct, another instance of society choosing short-term profit over long-term health. Even just at the Vineyard scale, gloom marches on: A large parcel of Edgartown pine-oak barrens proposed for development; an unpronounceable toxin tainting groundwater and seeping inexorably toward the great ponds. And yet, at the same time, to step outside on the Vineyard is to be amazed by what the Island still offers. Bald eagles, back from a brush with extinction, turn up regularly along the south shore. Oysters abound in the Edgartown Great Pond. A successful hunting season reminds us that our woodlands are so productive of white-tailed deer that reducing their numbers, not increasing them, is our concern. Our annual Christmas Bird Count will tally something like 120 species of birds in the dead of winter. Shes battered, maybe, but Martha is tough. Much of my time spent in nature is work (though it feels like play): searching for insects, identifying and documenting them, compiling lists of what is here. Inherent in the process is the idea that the future will be different; my work, I like to think, sets a baseline against which future naturalists can assess their own version of the Vineyard. Even across the scant two decades Ive lived here, Ive seen species wink out, while others (but never quite as many) newly arrive. I often wonder how this will play out across decades or centuries. Two basic versions of the future come to mind. In one, we drift along a course of degradation, losing our unique qualities, growing more like everyplace else as habitat is turned to lawn and specialized native wildlife succumbs to invading generalists. In the other, a critical mass of Islanders pushes back against encroaching dullness, finding ways to preserve the natural diversity and productivity on which past generations depended. As the planet starts another swing around the sun, I cant say I feel optimistic. Ive seen too many local wildlife populations go from large and connected to small and isolated, to gone. I hear too much clamor some of it civic-minded, but much of it based on the prioritization of business above all things for more buildings, more pavement, more people, more room for cars. I see too many trucks laden with rolls of sod or exotic shrubs rolling off the boat, destined to replace native vegetation. I simply cant believe that the future of nature on the Vineyard isnt one of loss and diminution. But Ive also seen too many acts of generosity, too many expressions of joy in our natural environment and our unique identity, too many people caring about the Islands ecological health for me to see the future as all dark. On my outings to Vineyard conservation properties even, sometimes, just walking around town I keep finding things Ive never seen before: overlooked species, unexpected species, sometimes even rare ones, assuring me that nature is resilient, creative, and resourceful. Surely some of this will prevail. The work to help the Vineyard maintain its natural character is not without support. For one thing, our geologic history guarantees some measure of distinction. Our beloved sand pile is part of what geologists call a terminal moraine: the hilly band of debris left behind as a glacier retreats from its maximum extent. Moraines are long, thin features, occupying a very small percentage of the earths surface. And their loose, granular soils basically crushed rock are distinctively permeable to water and unusual in chemical composition. Not everything will grow here (even some notorious invasive plants wither in our sandplain soils). And the plants that flourish best are the natives that evolved specifically for these conditions. Moreover, our particular piece of moraine happens to intersect another thin, linear feature: an oceanic coastline. On top of our unusual geologic history, we experience the storms, salt spray, and marine climate characterizing the narrow band where land meets ocean. Perched at the intersection of two narrow strips of special conditions, the Vineyard is inherently unusual. Few other places on earth offer the same combination of coastline and glacial origin, and that convergence helps make the Vineyard special. Finally, the barrier of water around us helps maintain the Islands character. You can think of the sounds and ocean as a selective filter. Some species many birds, for example (though not all) cross it readily, so we experience many of the same avian phenomena that the adjacent mainland does. Other species cross the water only with difficulty, or maybe not at all. Katydids, for example, seem slow to colonize the Vineyard even as some populations march steadily into New England in response to climate change. In some ways, this effect limits our biodiversity. (Islands, being small and isolated, are invariably less diverse than adjacent mainland.) In other ways, the moat surrounding us buffers our ecosystem from harmful invasion. In either case, to the naturalists eye, the Vineyards uniqueness resides as much in what isnt here as in what is. As important as our physical environment, the Vineyards human community often works to keep Martha healthy. Thousands of us support the work of conservation organizations financially or as volunteers, and hundreds of Vineyarders have donated land, or the right to develop land, to conservation. The Marthas Vineyard Land Bank, though a veritable piata for Island skeptics, continues a program of intelligent land acquisition and skillful ecological management. The Marthas Vineyard Commission, also a frequent dartboard for critics, serves in my view as a crucial if sometimes cumbersome brake on exploitation. Above all, were a community of hunters, fishers, shellfishers, birders, hikers, nature photographers, even dog-walkers and if you spend time engaging with nature, you cant help but learn about it, and learn to value it. I think of our Islands ecological future as a statistical process, the result of a multitude of individual decisions. Many of us, regrettably, dont even notice that there are choices. The press of making a living in a difficult economy, plus the inescapable rain of messaging telling us what normal looks like, can make destructive action a seemingly safe default. But each car trip taken or not taken affects the probability of more pavement being poured, and each exotic shrub planted or foregone has implications for the survival of wildlife. Large or small, tending toward exploitation or sustainability, those decisions shape our future. Seen this way, there are grounds for optimism, though not euphoria. The natural Vineyard is so unique and so compelling that there will always be resistance, among people and within nature itself, to its obliteration. Enough of us care, as I do, about the loss of a moth or a grasshopper, and are willing to incur a cost to prevent it, so that sometimes we succeed. Some things not everything, maybe not even most things will be preserved. But just possibly, enough of our natural wealth will endure so that Islanders of the future can say, as we can, that they live in a place like noplace else on Earth. Matt Pelikan is The Times Wild Side columnist. | https://www.mvtimes.com/2019/01/02/where-is-martha-heading/ |
Which Movies Will Win at the Golden Globes? | The Golden Globes provide the highest-profile pit stop on the way to the Academy Awards, and this years ceremony is perhaps the most advantageously timed edition yet: The day after NBC airs the Globes on Sunday, voting begins for the Oscar nominations. A win, then, will help contenders remain front of mind for academy members filling out their ballots on Monday, and there will be plenty of those winners to go around, since the Globes spread the wealth by splitting their biggest races into separate categories for dramas and comedy/musicals. Still, for as often as the Globes add their imprimatur to an already presumed Oscar front-runner, this show can still have upsets. The Globes are voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a quirky group of around 90 journalists with only one academy member in its ranks. These individuals have their own tastes, and below, your Carpetbagger tries to think like an H.F.P.A. voter to guess the outcome of the 14 film races. Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama Glenn Close, The Wife Lady Gaga, A Star Is Born Nicole Kidman, Destroyer Melissa McCarthy, Can You Ever Forgive Me? Rosamund Pike, A Private War Though the eventual Oscar race for best actress will probably include Olivia Colman for The Favourite, the Globes have her competing in the comedy category, so this particular contest will come down to the veteran Close and the pop star Gaga. Close is a 15-time Globe nominee whos won twice for television performances, while Gaga won the only Globe she was nominated for before, thanks to her performance in the 2015 TV show American Horror Story: Hotel. Globes voters know that Gaga would deliver a capital-M moment if she wins, and that will probably tip the scales in her favor. | https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/movies/golden-globes-predictions.html |
Is the free food offer at Walt Disney World really worth it? | On Wednesday, Disney released the details of its much-hyped free dining promotion for Summer 2019. The deal gives travelers booking a stay at select Walt Disney World in Florida hotels free access to the Disney Dining Plan, which pays for meals at the theme parks and resorts around the complex. Under the deal, guests who pay full price for a room essentially eat for free (although the deal doesnt include gratuities.) Disney unveiling the free dining promotion in January represents a break from previous years, when the details of the offer were rolled out in April. Some perceive that as a sign that fewer people are booking trips to the Most Magical Place on Earth this summer. Most people are guessing that they released it early to incentivize travel to Disney World, said Sue Pisaturo, owner of Small World Vacations, a Disney-authorized vacation planning company. It seems that people are holding off making plans until Disney announces when Star Wars Land will open later this year. The free dining promotion first came about in the wake of the financial crisis and has developed a massive following among Disney vacationers, said Don Munsil, co-owner of the vacation planning website MouseSavers.com. People love free food, Munsil said. It triggers some primitive impulse inside us. Also see: Walt Disney World to eliminate free overnight parking for hotel guests When Jennifer Mascitti, a stay-at-home mom from Atlanta, booked a trip to Disney World last September she opted against doing the free dining promotion as her family had done in the past. According to her calculations, the free dining promotion would have actually cost her family an additional $1,200 over what she had paid when she had initially booked her trip with a room-only discount. Thats a lot of money to come out of pocket, she said. And those considering the deal this year might want to follow Mascittis lead. Factoring in the other costs, the food is not exactly free. Rather, the deal is an enticement on Disneys part to get families to stay at its hotels and to visit its theme parks. A family of four staying at Disneys low-cost value resorts will generally pay at least $97 a night for their room. Under the free dining promotion, they must pay the full cost for their room and are also required to purchase the upgraded Park Hopper or Park Hopper Plus tickets for Disneys theme and water parks (these tickets let guests visit different parks in a single day.) The offer may not be combined with any other discounts or promotions. So for a five-night, six-day stay at Disneys All Star Music Resort, a family of four with two kids over the age of 10 (at Disney anyone 10 years of age or older counts as an adult) would essentially need to spend upwards of $500 for their lodging and more than $2,000 for their theme park tickets to qualify for the free dining promotion. (Disney did not immediately return request for comment.) Meanwhile, the quick-service dining plan that people staying at this hotel can get during the promotion costs $52.50 per adult per night. This dining plan entitles guests to two meals at counter-service restaurants and two snacks per night of their stay, plus a refillable mug for drinks. For a five-night stay for a family of four, that would normally cost roughly $1,050. (The dining plan does not cover gratuity.) As such for travelers staying at Disneys lower-cost hotels, the value of the free dining promotion can exceed the cost of lodging, making it a good source of savings. Dont miss: Walt Disney World will finally welcome dogs at (some) hotels But the math changes for people staying at the more expensive moderate- and deluxe-tier hotels because of the higher cost of lodging. Those staying at the deluxe hotels will get complimentary access to the standard dining plan through the free-dining promotion, which includes a sit-down meal, a counter-service meal and two snacks per night, plus the refillable mug for drinks. The standard dining plan typically costs $75 per night for an adult. They need to compare available discounts to see where the dollar and cents savings are the best, Pisaturo said. Its not always free dining. The free dining promotion has some significant limitations. The promotion is only available for certain dates and hotels in July, August and September, and guests must stay at least five nights to qualify. And because travelers with free dining must also pay full price for their rooms and Park Hopper tickets, they could actually lose out on possibly better savings through getting a separate discount on their hotel room from Disney, buying their park tickets through an authorized re-seller or staying at a non-Disney hotel, said Tom Bricker, who owns DisneyTouristBlog.com. You can do a number of things that can save you money, Bricker said. For instance, Disney is also offering up to 30% off hotel stays at certain resorts from April 28 through September 30. Those savings could potentially outweigh the value of the free dining plan, depending on the room. Also, in the past, guests had access to the standard dining plan during the free-dining promotion if they stayed at moderately priced resorts, where room rates start at $200 per night. But starting last year, guests at these hotels now get the quick-service plan during the free-dining offer, which has less value. Now its not quite as easy a decision to make, Bricker said. Theyre not doing this out of some corporate benevolence they want to increase their occupancy rate. Read more: How to hurricane-proof a Caribbean or Florida vacation A big change Disney made last year that could benefit guests considering the free-dining offer is that alcoholic beverages are now covered by Disneys dining plans. But this too is a situation where visitors mileage may vary. For instance, families who plan to spend the bulk of their time at the Magic Kingdom wont see much benefit from the change if they get the quick-service dining plan, because none of the theme parks counter-service restaurants serves alcohol. Moreover, travelers who dont typically have big appetites wont get their moneys worth if they find themselves skipping meals to take in the attractions. The added value can be illusory, Bricker said. Looking to the future though, it seems likely that, if anything, Disney will reduce the value of the free-dining offer rather than increase it, Bricker said. Though higher prices did prompt attendance to drop at Walt Disney World back in 2017, Disney opened a new area at its Hollywood Studios theme park based on the Toy Story franchise last summer and is set to unveil a new area inspired by the Star Wars films this fall. With the record numbers of visitors expected to flock to Florida for those attractions, Disney wont have as much need for the free-dining incentive in the coming years. Potential budget-busters aside, the free dining plan can be a good option, particularly for first-time travelers, as it removes a lot of the guesswork in planning for food, Bricker said. I would definitely consider it, he said. This article was updated on Jan. 2, 2019. | https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-the-free-food-offer-at-walt-disney-world-really-worth-it-2017-04-25 |
Is Apple at Risk of Becoming the Next BlackBerry? | BlackBerry (NYSE: BB) once ruled the smartphone world. The Canadian company then known as Research In Motion launched an entirely new smartphone experience with its secure, keyboard-equipped phones that became the choice of business users across the globe. In fact, the company was not only dominating the U.S. smartphone market with a 55% share nearly a decade ago, but was also successfully defending its position from upstart Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). The iPhone's U.S. smartphone market share had dropped from 30% in the third quarter of 2008 to 19.5% in the first quarter of 2009, according to market research firm IDC. Consumers were still leaning toward BlackBerry smartphones because of their cachet, aggressive pricing, and focus on cutting-edge security. Continue Reading Below But it didn't take long for things to go south. A massive shift in user preference toward flashier devices from Apple, as well as Google-powered Android phones, dealt BlackBerry a major blow. The Canadian company was at fault for not moving quickly enough to capitalize on the market's move toward touchscreen phones. In short, BlackBerry thought that its loyal customer base would keep buying what it offered, so it didn't feel a pressing need to innovate. That proved to be its undoing, and in an ironic twist, Apple now seems to be going down the same path. The problem at Apple Apple has built a huge user base. Nearly a year ago, Apple announced 1.3 billion active devices around the world, including iPhones, Macs, and other Apple devices. Some estimates put the number of iPhones at 1 billion. That might look like a solid catalyst for iPhone growth as those users look to upgrade their devices, but but that might not be the case. One estimate says the installed base of new iPhones increased just 6% annually over the past two year years. For comparison, the installed base of used iPhones has increased at a 61% compound annual growth rate over the past two years, according to that estimate. So consumers are clearly looking for value in Apple's smartphone ecosystem and have been willing to forgo new devices. Advertisement Apple has kept increasing prices of its new devices in a bid to keep up top-line momentum, but this strategy might backfire as users will continue holding their iPhones for longer periods. Moreover, premium iPhone pricing will turn off some people who might have jumped to Apple if the price were less. If someone wants to buy a premium device and seeks value at the same time, there are many options besides Apple. Huawei, for instance, is looking to push the envelope in the premium smartphone space by packing its devices with advanced features that aren't yet available from Apple. The Chinese smartphone giant's strategy of pricing its devices aggressively versus the latest iPhones has reaped rich rewards, leading to solid growth in unit sales and market share. On the other hand, Apple's strategy of adding incremental features and selling its iPhones at a premium price has led to stagnant unit sales. iPhone unit sales were roughly 47 million in the fourth quarter; flat with the previous year. The company has decided to stop releasing unit sales info in its quarterly reports. BlackBerry was facing the same stagnation years ago. It focused only on incremental evolution in hardware and software, so users eventually moved on. That was despite the company's long-established brand equity in the corporate world and a global base of over 75 million users over a decade ago, just as the smartphone revolution was beginning. BlackBerry's strategy eventually cost it the smartphone kingdom despite its early domination, and some may worry that Apple is now slipping down the smartphone ranks with a similar strategy. The difference In spite of the ominous signs, Apple's still a long way from becoming the next BlackBerry for a couple of reasons. First, the company has built a solid services business. It got nearly $10 billion in revenue from its services business in the last reported quarter, an increase of 17% over the prior-year period. The services business now accounts for nearly 16% of the company's total revenue, and it should keep growing quickly thanks to Apple's massive installed base. Second, it isn't just a one-product company like Research In Motion was. Cupertino's product portfolio includes tablets, computers, and fast-growing consumer devices like smartwatches and smart speakers. BlackBerry, by contrast, was highly dependent on its smartphones; its failure to diversify into the tablet market ended a potential turnaround. This doesn't mean that Apple cannot go the way of BlackBerry -- it still depends on smartphones for most of its revenue. The iPhone produced almost 59% of company revenue last quarter and the iPhone will be the key to growth in the rest of the ecosystem. For instance, a customer buying a new iPhone is more likely to buy an Apple Watch instead of some other smartwatch. Similarly, an iPhone user will be more likely to buy into Apple's smart-home systems versus those from Amazon.com or Google. So, the iPhone will remain a key to Apple's long-term growth, and a breakdown here could be bad news for other areas. Things aren't looking great right now The latest reports suggest that iPhone growth momentum is waning. Popular Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has slashed his iPhone production forecast for the first quarter of 2019 to a range of 38 million to 42 million units. That's nearly 20% below the prior-year period's production. Additionally, Apple's 2019 shipments are expected to decline from 5% to 10%, with Kuo predicting that new devices later in the year won't do much to boost sales because of a lack of any "major upgrades." It's a long shot that Apple will implode anytime soon. But signs of trouble have started emerging, and Cupertino must act in time if it wants to avoid being the next BlackBerry. Find out why Apple is one of the 10 best stocks to buy now Motley Fool co-founders Tom and David Gardner have spent more than a decade beating the market. (In fact, the newsletter they run, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market! *) Tom and David just revealed their ten top stock picks for investors to buy right now. Apple is on the list -- but there are nine others you may be overlooking. Click here to get access to the full list! *Stock Advisor returns as of November 14, 2018 John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Apple. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool recommends BlackBerry. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/is-apple-at-risk-of-becoming-the-next-blackberry |
Is Jordan Peeles Us A Secret Disney Remake? | Arguably the greatest gift the world received last Christmas was the first trailer for Us, writer-director Jordan Peeles mysterious follow-up to the 2017 Black horror masterpiece Get Out. The film is due on March 15 and although this trailer finally let us know what this movie looks like, much of its actual plot is still under wraps aside from the core idea of home invasion by doppelgangers. So of course these past few days the internet has working overtime trying to figure out what exactly is going on here. And now heres our favorite new theory. YouTube user yeek posted this mashup of the Us trailer and snake person Disney classic The Proud Family, specifically the 2005 Proud Family made-for-TV movie. And the similarities are pretty striking as both feature African-American families being terrorized by their own clones. We are our own worst enemies. We should also say The Proud Family Movie co-starred Aries Spears who, like Peele, is an alum of Mad TV sketch comedy. Probably not, but Jordan Peele found the mash-up amusing enough to share on Twitter himself. For more on Jordan Peele, watch him warn us about the upcoming dystopia with a fake Obama video, read more about animal analogies in films like Get Out and Sorry To Bother You, and check out our list of most wanted remakes for Peeles upcoming Twilight Zone reboot. | https://www.geek.com/movies/is-jordan-peeles-us-a-secret-disney-remake-1767978/ |
Will Christian Pulisic be a good signing for Chelsea ? | Aayush Kataria FOLLOW ANALYST Feature 1.06K // 03 Jan 2019, 00:22 IST SHARE Share Options Facebook Twitter Flipboard Reddit Google+ Email Borussia Dortmund v Club Brugge - UEFA Champions League Group A The first major signing of the winter transfer window is here. Borussia Dortmund's Christian Pulisic will join Chelsea for a 64 million deal. The transfer will see the 20-year-old return to Dortmund on loan for the rest of the season and join Chelsea in the summer. Here is a look at whether or not, it will be a good signing for Chelsea. The Negatives The Pulisic signing is one that has naturally divided opinions in Chelsea fans. Firstly, here is look at why this deal is not one universally appreciated across the Stamford Bridge faithful Price Borussia Dortmund v Benfica - International Champions Cup 2018 The biggest concern for anyone around the deal has two be the price. The 64 million that Chelsea have agreed to pay is an enormous valuation for a player as young as Pulisic. Moreover, with Pulisic only having 18 months left on his contract, one wonders whether Chelsea paid more than they should have for the player. Above that, Pulisic being a rather unproven quantity is sure to make people anxious and doubtful about the money Chelsea are splashing on him. Only time will tell whether Chelsea's valuation of him was correct or not. End Product The biggest problem in the Chelsea team at the moment is definitely the lack of goals. The Blues at the moment are a team of devoid of natural goalscorers. Very few players in the Chelsea team at the moment have a natural instinct for goal. One thing fans will hope is for the club is to sign proven goalscorers. Pulisic does not inspire hope in that department. In over 81 appearances for Borussia Dortmund over four years, Pulisic has only 15 goals and 24 assists to his name. If Chelsea are to improve as a team, this is an aspect of the game, Pulisic will have to desperately improve on. Positives While there are obvious downsides to the deal, it does mean that it is a poor signing by the club. There is obviously a reason Roman Abramovic has decided to splash the cash on the Dortmund star. Here is what Chelsea look to gain from the deal Commercial jackpot England v United States - International Friendly Without a doubt, the biggest benefits of the deal come in the commercial sector. It's an undeniable fact that Pulisic is a marketing goldmine. The 20-year-old is probably USA's first footballing superstar and having him in their roaster is something that will definitely excite people in the Chelsea boardroom. It's potentially a transfer that will help make massive inroads in capturing and building a brand in the American market. Trying to build a base is any country is an opportunity any club will jump on. The potential to benefit from it multi folds in a country like the United States. For a club like Chelsea who has recently become self-sufficient, this is an extremely important factor. One can argue that Chelsea's approach to signing the player would have been completely different if he was not from America. Advertisement Italy v USA - International Friendly Pressing A major competent of Chelsea's new coach Maurizio Sarri's system is the high pressing. Without the ball, the Italian wants his players to win the ball as high up the pitch as possible. This is one of the strongest traits in Pulisic game. Since the start 2017-18 season, Pulisic won possession in the final third 26 times, the fourth-highest return of any player. This could be a major reason behind Maurizio Sarri giving the signing a green light. Still very young Borussia Dortmund v Los Angeles FC While Pulisic is far from a finished product at the moment, the talent is there for everyone to see. It was only a couple of season's ago when Pulisic caught everyone's attention in similar dazzling fashion to how Jadon Sancho is doing now playing under Thomas Tuchel. His ability on the ball including his crossing, dribbling, and passing are aspects that left fans in awe of him. While over the last year or so, Pulisic has not lived up to the hype, it's worth remembering that he is still only a 20-year-old. His debut at the tender age of 16 does mean he has been around for long but the fact that he is an extremely young player should not be forgotten. There is still a lot of time for him to develop and improve every aspect of his game. Being the captain and star of the United States national team means he is someone who knows how to handle the pressure of expectation. The consequences Crystal Palace v Chelsea FC - Premier League Every new signing a club makes comes with a consequence and how the Pulisic one impacts the club will be interesting to see. With the future of the mercurial Eden Hazard and young sensation Callum Hudson-Odoi under threat, there is a fear in the Chelsea fan base that Pulisic is a replacement for one of the two. However, in the ideal world, there is space for all three to co-exist at Chelsea. The need to Chelsea to reinforce in wide areas is one of the most pressing concerns with both Willian and Pedro aging and over 30. While the future of both Hazard and Hudson-Odoi could go either way, by no means this signing means the end for either of those. Chelsea needs more than one quality player per position and even if Hazard and Odoi stay, there is enough space for Pulisic to co-exist and succeed with them. Advertisement | https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/will-christian-pulisic-be-a-good-signing-for-chelsea |
Could rigors of minor leagues influence Kyler Murrays decision to pursue baseball career? | Much has been made about Athletics 2018 first-round draft pick Kyler Murray, who won the 2018 Heisman Trophy as a quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners, and his decision whether or not to pursue a baseball career. Last month, it appeared the outfielder was still on track to join the Athletics minor league system. Pundits have had ongoing debates about which decision makes more sense for Murray. Baseball causes less trauma to the body, especially the head, and the contracts are guaranteed. Football would ostensibly provide more up-front money and a better shot at stardom. The calculus could go beyond that, as former two-sport athlete Drew Henson pointed out in an interview with MLB Network Radio on Wednesday. Henson said: Baseball, it really is a grind. Its a mental challenge every day and every week. Things that carry over physically from a baseball/football standpoint, playing quarterback, the daily grind and the daily routine couldnt be much different from the hours youre at the yard or the park or the facility to, like you said, your mid-level hotels, taking buses around whatever part of the country youre playing in, minimal fanfare, small groups of fans. You really have to be self-motivated. Whereas on the football side, youre just stepping into a primetime game every week and hes coming off of this rollercoaster of emotion playing this year at Oklahoma. Those are real things when youre in your 20s and youre ready to jump on every challenge to overcome on your developmental path if its the major leagues. He knows to be prepared in Binghamton watching Monday Night Football with his teammates and former teammates in terms of playing in the NFL. Thats also something to consider. The prospect of slumming it in the minor leagues could certainly influence Murrays choice of baseball or football. Minor league life, as we have mentioned here ad nauseam, is anything but glamorous. Henson hits a lot of the key points: travel by bus (as opposed to first-class on a plane), smaller crowds (and in some cases, mostly-empty stadiums), and the path to stardom is not nearly as short nor as guaranteed. Murray did get a $5 million signing bonus from the Athletics, which would help make minor league life much more tolerable. But he would still have to ride the same buses, sleep in the same motels (unless he decides to shell out his own money for a hotel and sleep separately from his teammates), eat from the same post-game spreads, and play in the same stadiums with 5,000 or so fans per game if that. Murray might be asked or even expected to cover some of his teammates luxuries throughout the years, similar to how veterans who get sent to the minors on rehab assignments typically upgrade the spread or otherwise treat everyone to dinner. Baseball players also tend to be asked to put in a lot of unpaid overtime as Henson alludes something which was codified into law last March when minor leaguers were classified as seasonal workers and therefore exempted from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. This made them ineligible for a minimum wage and overtime pay. Many minor leaguers make less than $10,000 per year. While Murray could presumably get by with his signing bonus, he would still be asked to come early to the ballpark and stay late for no immediate reward. Its one thing to stay late and study film as a professional in a major city; its an entirely different thing to do it in Beloit, Wisconsin, home of the Athletics Single-A affiliate. Murray is a human being, after all. If the sad circumstances of minor league life help steer Murray towards an NFL career, Major League Baseball should be embarrassed. MLB should already be embarrassed that its even a consideration. If nothing else, this should serve as a wake-up call for the league to improve minor league standards across the board, starting with pay but also including all facets of healthcare and nutrition, as well as travel and housing arrangements. From a strictly business standpoint, MLB should want to attract and maintain the best athletes. Given the state of the minor leagues right now, the league isnt doing a great job of that. No one would blame Murray if he decides to pursue a career in the NFL instead. Follow @Baer_Bill | https://mlb.nbcsports.com/2019/01/02/could-rigors-of-minor-leagues-influence-kyler-murrays-decision-to-pursue-baseball-career/ |
What will C.J. Anderson's role with Rams be when Todd Gurley returns? | Todd Gurley is one of the most important players on the Los Angeles Rams roster. Hes the reigning Offensive Player of the Year and was an MVP candidate before the teams Week 12 bye hit and he suffered a knee injury against the Eagles. He was forced to miss the last two games of the season as the Rams preferred to play it safe with their star running back, allowing him to rest before the postseason. They were able to do that comfortably thanks to C.J. Anderson and his quick transition from free agent to RB1 in Los Angeles. He rushed for 299 yards and two touchdowns on just 43 carries in Gurleys place as the starter the last two games, helping lift the Rams to the No. 2 seed with back-to-back wins. The question now becomes whether Anderson will have a role in the playoffs. If you look at the way the Rams used Gurleys backups the past two years, itd be easy to say Anderson will barely touch the ball in the postseason. Excluding the games in which Gurley didnt play Week 17 last year and the last two games this season the Rams gave the ball to backup running backs just 55 times in 2017 and 47 times in 2018. However, if you watched Anderson play the last two weeks, you probably know how hard itll be to keep him off the field even with Gurley back in the mix. Hes averaging 7 yards per carry with 11 of his 43 attempts going for at least 10 yards. Granted, he did face a terrible Cardinals run defense, but the 49ers finished the season seventh in the NFL in yards per carry allowed. That sort of effectiveness is hard to ignore, which makes this a somewhat difficult situation for Sean McVay. Both are good in pass protection and can catch the ball out of the backfield, though Gurley has the advantage in both areas. Their well-rounded skill sets make them almost interchangeable, which is a good thing. Rotating backs on a series-by-series basis is difficult because Gurley is such a good player, and that can sometimes take players out of a rhythm. Perhaps the Rams can use Anderson in some early-down situations, coming in as a change-of-pace player. After all, hes shown explosiveness not often associated with him, ripping off a 46-yard run longer than any of Gurleys this year as well as carries of 27 and 22 yards. No matter how the Rams use Anderson and Gurley, this is a good problem to have. Its never a bad thing to have two very capable backs available, especially given the physical nature of the position. If McVay wants to, he can change things up and go more run-heavy than he has in the past, keeping both running backs fresh and pounding the ball 25-30 times. Ultimately, you can probably expect to see Gurley get around 15-20 carries in the divisional round with Anderson chipping in five or so touches throughout the game, though McVay may shed some light on the backfield timeshare at some point before the game. | https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/02/nfl-rams-todd-gurley-cj-anderson-playoffs/ |
Is Trump's record enough to carry Pennsylvania in 2020? | HARRISBURG, Pa. Democratic energy in the perennial battleground state of Pennsylvania is raising questions about President Donald Trump's ability to replicate his stunning 2016 win in a state Republicans hadn't carried for nearly two decades. Democrats animated by an anti-Trump fervor scored big victories in county and municipal races across Philadelphia's suburbs in 2017, reminding them of post-Watergate Republican losses. Four months later, Democrat Conor Lamb embarrassed Republicans in a nationally watched special election in a Pittsburgh-area congressional district that Trump had won by 20 percentage points. Then, in November's midterm election, the GOP's Trump-hugging candidates for governor and U.S. Senate got pounded by double digits, while the party lost three more congressional seats and, for the first time in modern history, a majority of state legislative seats in Philadelphia's suburbs. Now, Republicans are picking up the pieces and, in some quarters, calculating that those performances mean nothing good for Trump's chances at carrying Pennsylvania in the 2020 presidential election. Those farther away from the biggest metropolitan areas seem untroubled by it. With 20 electoral votes, Pennsylvania is a huge prize in the race for the White House, and Trump carried it by driving up his support with white, working-class voters far from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But many Republican Party figures in Pennsylvania's largest metro areas question whether Trump can raise another wave among rural voters and conservative Democrats, who are credited with carrying him past Democrat Hillary Clinton by less than 1 percentage point. They are particularly wary of a supercharged anti-Trump coalition of liberal voters and moderate suburbanites that powered Democratic victories in 2017 and 2018 and inflicted losses on Republicans unlike anything seen 2016, when a similar coalition formed. Alan Novak is among them. The former four-term state party chairman from Chester County wonders whether Trump "fatigue" in 2020 will diminish the huge margins elsewhere that helped Trump overcome heavy losses in Philadelphia and its suburbs in 2016. "I'm sure his base is still solid," Novak said. "But is that base enough?" Predicting the future with Trump is, of course, particularly fraught. There's the constant turmoil of Trump's administration and the prospect that more bad news could emerge from the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into whether Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia. "He's certainly got an excellent chance, especially because we have no clue who the Democrats will put up," said Richard Stewart, who co-chairs the state Republican Party's central committee caucus. "If they put up a real left-wing type, which seems like all they have anymore, I think it'll be much easier." Trump became the first Republican presidential nominee to win Pennsylvania since 1988, but didn't necessarily need to win Pennsylvania to capture the White House. Rather, Pennsylvania the nation's fifth-most populous state was part of a bloc of four industrial-belt "blue wall" states that handed victory to Trump after Democrat Barack Obama won them twice. If anything, Democrats need Pennsylvania in a worse way: Harry Truman in 1948 was the last Democrat to lose Pennsylvania and win the White House. Democrats viewed 2016 as a wake-up call and say they will be more prepared to fight for Pennsylvania. As soon as Trump won in 2016, the party began planning on a comeback in 2020. Pennsylvania's Republican Party chairman, Val DiGiorgio of Chester County, said cities and suburbs are not irrevocably hardened against Trump. But, he suggests, the president needs to hedge his bets and bring a message to those voters. One Trump voter, Tony Sciullo of suburban Pittsburgh, has continued to sour on Trump, sometimes disagreeing on policy and almost always disliking Trump's behavior. Sciullo, a registered Republican, calls Trump the "most un-Republican Republican ever," one whose credibility is marred by a self-serving attitude and personal attacks on others. Republicans in Pennsylvania's exurbs and rural areas, however, question any change in strategy. Trump's base is solid and the economy is just fine, they say. In Armstrong County, where 2016 turnout was among the state's highest and Trump beat Clinton by 3 to 1, voters are as enthused about Trump as they were two years ago, said Mike Baker, the county's GOP chairman. Trump can win again without the cities and suburbs, Baker said. "He did last time," Baker said. In Westmoreland County, where Trump's vote margin was the second-biggest of any Pennsylvania county, GOP Chairman Kerry Jobe said the party's November's losses weren't a referendum on Trump, partly because some loyal Trump voters didn't make the effort to vote. It'll be different when Trump is on the ballot and showcases a four-year record, Jobe said. Is the country better off?" Jobe said. "That's the question." | http://www.timesonline.com/news/20190102/is-trumps-record-enough-to-carry-pennsylvania-in-2020 |
Will Sara Ali Khan star opposite Varun Dhawan in ABCD 3? | Varun Dhawan starrer ABCD 3 has been making headlines ever since its announcement. The film which earlier had to star Katrina Kaif as the female lead may now have a different actress. If youre not living under a rock, you would know that Katrina recently walked out of the film due to her commitments to Salman Khan starrer Bharat. Soon after her leaving the project, rumours of Shraddha Kapoor replacing Kat in the film started doing rounds on the internet. Shraddha and Varun had earlier starred together in ABCD 2 so it could have been a reunion for the stars. But guess what, we have a more exciting update for you on the project. According to latest reports, Sara Ali Khan may be considered for this interesting role considering she has proved her acting chops with Kedarnath and Simmba. Confirming the same, a source close to the project informed a tabloid, With Shraddha on board, it would be a reunion of the ABCD 2 trio, along with Varun and Remo. They have an equation and that would help in their collaborating on another dance flick. The other strong contender for the role is Sara Ali Khan. She has proved her acting chops in Kedarnath and has been appreciated in Simmba too. Signing her would also mean a fresh new onscreen pair. And Varun and Sara together are bound to generate tremendous buzz for this dance movie. So yes, the makers are definitely looking at the advantage of casting Sara for the film. It was on Koffee With Karan 6 when Sara revealed that she wishes to work opposite Varun in future and now it looks like her wish is coming true already. Do tell us how excited are you to watch Varun and Sara together in the film. | https://www.filmfare.com/news/bollywood/will-sara-ali-khan-star-opposite-varun-dhawan-in-abcd-3_-31945.html |
How Much Does Apple Stand To Lose As Netflix Stops In-App Subscriptions? | Last week, Netflix indicated that it would be stopping in-app subscriptions on Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices, as it looks to bypass the commission that Apple charges on subscriptions made via iOS apps. Apple typically takes a 30% commission from subscriptions initiated on its platform over the first year, with the number dropping to 15% from the second year onward. Going forward, Netflix will require new subscribers on iOS to sign up via its website, rather than within the Netflix App, thereby allowing it to bypass Apples iTunes-based billing system. In this note, we try to size up the potential impact of Netflixs move on Apples subscription business, which counts as one of the iPhone makers fastest growing services segments. We have created an interactive dashboard analysis on Breaking Down Apples Services Revenue. You can modify the various drivers to arrive at your own estimates for services revenue. Netflix Likely The Biggest Subscription Based App On iOS Apple had a total of about 330 million paid subscriptions on its platform as of the last quarter, and we estimate that the company made a total of over $2 billion in subscription revenues over 2018 from third-party apps. While Apple will continue to garner a cut from existing Netflix subscribers who signed up on an iOS device, it will have to forgo revenues from new sign-ups and this could be meaningful, as Netflix is likely one of the biggest contributors to Apples third-party subscription revenue. The companys subscriber base is likely approaching 150 million globally and it counts as one of the most popular apps on the AppStore. That said, we dont believe there is a meaningful risk that other digital subscription providers will follow suit and discourage app based sign-ups as the in-app subscription model allows developers (particularly smaller players with less visibility) to offer convenient payment process and a more streamlined experience. If we assume that Netflix adds a total of 21 million users globally in 2019, with 20% of the subscriptions coming from iOS, it could imply that about 4 million users sign up on iOS devices next year. Although iOS accounted for just about 13% of the global smartphone market last quarter, iOS users could be more likely to sign up for Netflix, considering higher purchasing power and spending on apps and services. Assuming an average monthly subscription fee of $11 per user, revenues from new subscribers on iOS for the year would come in at about $550 million. Apples share of revenues on these users would have come in at about $160 million for the year, assuming a 30% take rate. The potential loss of incremental revenue could increase to $200 million in 2020 and $250 million by 2021, as the loss of recurring revenue (15% cut for users who signed up in the previous year) is factored in. While this would barely have an impact on Apples revenues, which stood at about $265 billion last year, its likely that these commissions are almost pure profit for Apple, meaning that the impact on the companys bottom line could be slightly more pronounced. See our full calculations in the table below. See How its Powering New Collaboration and What-Ifs | https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2019/01/02/how-much-does-apple-stand-to-lose-as-netflix-stops-in-app-subscriptions/ |
Wholl deliver Pastor Tunde Bakare from spirit of lying? | I ceased taking Pastor Tunde Bakare seriously ever since he lied against the Holy Ghost by prophesying (wrongly) that Let me tell you the truth by the spirit of God, neither OBJ, Atiku, IBB and this tall one, Buhari are part of the new. They are part of the old that is decaying. That old one is passing away. The new is emerging and these ones are not part of that new. The sad case of Metele Reno For those who do not know, Pastor Tunde Bakare made the above statement in an on October 2, 2006 interview he granted to the Punch Newspapers. It is now a historical record that after claiming that Gods Holy Spirit told him Muhammadu Buhari was part of Nigerias decaying past, the same Pastor Tunde Bakare went ahead to accept to be the running mate of the same Muhammadu Buhari in 2011. Perhaps only in Nigeria would such a charlatan continue to parade himself as a pastor, but as Karl Marx said, religion is the opium of the people and Bakare sure knows how to feed that addiction. The Bible clearly tells us two things about the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 12:32, Jesus the Son of God said Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Bakare clearly lied against the Holy Spirit of God because his so called word by the spirit of God, DID NOT come to pass. 1 Corinthians 14:33 further tells us that God is not the author of confusion. Noe let us flash back to the present time, Pastor Tunde Bakare was recently in Canada where he granted an interview and said, amongst other things, that President Buhari could not appoint a cabinet for six months because he met an empty treasury. His exact words were as follows: Development under President Buhari Buhari has been slow because as he said, he inherited an empty treasury. For six months, he could not appoint ministers because there was no money to pay them, and little by little, thank God, oil picked up. The above words are nothing but a lie and a figment of both the imaginations of President Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare and I will prove this assertion using facts, not opinions. The Jonathan administration left $2.07 billion in the Excess Crude Account when it handed over to the Buhari administration on May 29, 2015. This is an easily verifiable fact from both the Central Bank of Nigeria and is also available from other open sources. In addition to that, the Jonathan government left a Foreign reserve of $29. 6 billion for the incoming government and $5.2 billion was left for the Buhari administration by way of dividend payments from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company. Now, there is no way these huge amounts can be described as empty treasury. I challenge pastor Tunde Bakare to disprove these figures I have given here or take me to court and I will embarrass him there and show him to be the liar that he is. I wonder why Nigerians continue to take charlatans like Bakare and Mbaka seriously! Speaking further in that interview, Pastor Tunde Bakare claimed that Buhari had achieved the great feat of ending Nigerias rice imports. His actual words were as follows: We are no longer importing rice for three years that is an incredible achievement, seventeen local government occupied by Boko Haram no longer an issue. Both of these assertions are easily dismissible lies that even a cursory Google search can debunk. First of all, even the Buhari administration has not claimed that Nigeria is no longer importing rice. What they said, which is also a lie, is that rice imports have reduced. But the truth is that Nigerias rice imports have actually increased by 60% as revealed by no less an institution than the United States Department of Agriculture. In fact, according to the USDA, not only has Nigerias rice imports increased by 60%, but Nigeria is projected to be the second largest rice importing nation. These are the exact words of the USDA China and Nigeria are projected to remain the largest rice importing countries in 2019, followed by the EU, Cote dIvoire, and Iran. You do not have to take my word for this. Google it by yourself. The last time Nigerias rice imports went down, according to the USDA, was in 2015 under former President Jonathan. As he was granting that interview, Baga, Doron-Baga, Kross Kawwa, Bunduran, Kekeno and Kukawa towns are all under Boko Haram/ISWAP control. In fact, the Governor of Borno State, a notorious political enemy of former President Jonathan, was forced to hold a press conference on New Years eve where he confessed that the situation has deteriorated and was worse than before. For emphasis, the following was the front page headline in the Punch on New Years eve Residents flee as Boko Haram takes over Borno communities. The report went on to say as follows: There has been mass movement of people out of communities in Borno State through Damaturu the Yobe State capital to Bauchi, Gombe, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kebbi and Jigawa states. But unlike the Jonathan era, this time around, the insecurity in Nigeria is almost total. As I write this today (January 2, 2019, Aminu Bello Masari, the Governor of Katsina, President Buharis own state, raised an alarm on the insecurity and breakdown of law and order in his state. We are not talking of Zamfara or the Northeast. We are talking Katsina. And then there is Zamfara State, which is becoming as bad, if not worse, than the Northeast. So with these unimpeachable facts I have marshalled, I am hard pressed to understand why Pastor Tunde Bakare cannot respect himself and the calling he claims to have, by using his mouth to speak truth instead of lying like a heathen! Let me end by giving a Biblical admonition to my readers. In Deuteronomy 18:22 The Bible says: If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed. Reno Omokri Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years, and other books. Avid traveller. Tormentor of Muhammadu Buhari and the APC. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/01/wholl-deliver-pastor-tunde-bakare-from-spirit-of-lying-reno/ |
What is the Mid-America Business Conditions Index? | Packages of filled orders roll off a conveyer belt at Digi-Key toward a shipment bay at the company's Thief River Falls headquarters. The Creighton University Mid-America Business Conditions Index is a regional version of the national Purchasing Manager Index the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) publishes monthly. Both come out on the first business day of the month and are focused on the manufacturing sector. The ISM publishes a similar survey of purchasing managers in the services sector. Both are based on surveys of purchasing managers, about 300 in the case of the national PMI. In Minnesota, Creighton economist Ernie Goss, who oversees the index, said approximately 80 purchasing managers contributed to the November 2018 survey. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis routinely cites the Creighton survey, though not by name, in the bank's contribution to the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, a summary of economic conditions compiled from "anecdotal information." Federal research found the PMI closely parallels growth in Gross Domestic Product. "It can explain about 60 percent of the annual variation in GDP, with a margin of error that averaged p .48 percent during the last ten years," the ISM's website said. The Creighton survey targets executives in nine states: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. They are queried about new orders, production, inventories, employment, and delivery lead time. The survey responses are crunched into an index ranging between 0 and 100. An index above 50 indicates expansion over the next three to six months, while an index below 50 points to contraction over that time frame. | https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/01/02/what-is-the-mid-america-business-conditions-index?refid=0 |
What does January 26 mean to Indigenous peoples? | Indigenous actor and national treasure Uncle Jack Charles will lead us into 2019 with stories of strength, survival and celebration as part of a special week of viewing on NITV this month. Uncle Jack will present #AlwaysWillBe, which will run on the broadcaster from January 20 to 26. The week will feature stories of Australias history from an Indigenous perspective and explore what January 26 means to Indigenous peoples, whether you call it Invasion Day or Australia Day. It will kick off on January 20 at 7pm with the Songlines documentary Yarripiris Journey and continue through the week with documentaries Wik vs Queensland, We Dont Need a Map and After Mabo. Films will include Radiance and Samson and Delilah, SBS documentary series First Contact, television series Black Comedy and the film adaptation of Jasper Jones. On January 26, a sunrise ceremony will be broadcast live from Sydneys North Head hosted by John Paul Janke with panellists Richard Frankland, Aunty Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Teela Reid and Bianca Hunt. The ceremony will also feature cultural performances and live entertainment by Shellie Morris, Dhapanbal Yunupingu and Arian Pearson and others. It will be followed by the second Songlines on Screen series with documentaries Ningla-A-Na, 88, Connection to Country, Occupation: Native, Westwind: Djalus Legacy and Rabbit Proof Fence. Australias First Nations peoples are diverse with different perspectives and views, and NITVs programming surrounding 26 January will reflect this, station manager Tanya Orman said. The day provides an opportunity for all Australians, no matter what their cultural background, to come together to recognise Indigenous history which is Australias history. By Wendy Caccetta | https://nit.com.au/what-does-january-26-means-to-indigenous-peoples/ |
How are trustees managing the precious resources of native title groups? | Opinion, Phillip Williams Phillip Williams is a senior professional with nearly 20 years in the management Native Title Trusts. Hes worked with TrustWest, Plan B Trustees, Australian Executor Trustees, Macquarie Bank and Australian Unity before joining the Supply Nation accredited business Bulhari Holdings. Recently I asked a good friend of mine (Mike) to look after my car. I told him I would pay him $2000 for his trouble and I would also cover all his out of pocket expenses. Mike thought this was fair and agreed to look after my car. He happens to be a mechanic and owns a number of automotive repair and supply shops. While Im away, Mike takes good care of the vehicle. It undergoes a major service, has 4 new tyres and is stored in a high spec garage. I pay Mike $8000 for out of pocket expenses. But when I look at the invoices, I note all the services were provided by the businesses owned by Mike. I suspect Mike has made more money from maintaining my car then he did for being my trustee. At no point has Mike considered weather a competitor may provide a comparable service at a better price. 2018 has been a big year for trustees managing the precious resources of native title groups. There is a correlation between my story and the significant findings of the Banking Royal Commission in relation to the trustees of superannuation funds. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) raised what it thought were legitimate concerns about the duel structure that sees a single entity act as trustee and investment manager (Financial Review 17/12/2018). If we refer back to my story, Mike is the trustee, and the automotive repair and supply shops are the investment manager. The argument is that there needs to be independence between the trustee and service providers. This concept should be addressed by native title groups to ensure it is not having a detrimental effect on their own assets. In what can be perceived as a complex world of asset management, it appears traditional land owners are not involved in these discussions and are unaware of the potential consequences. If we were to treat the capital accumulation for native title groups, often referred to as Future Funds, as superannuation we could have a problem. The Future Funds are designed to future proof groups who might have limited commercial prospects, as well as help to create industry and opportunities for people who might otherwise have none. If these Future Funds / native title super funds are not protected in the same way as superannuation, Aboriginal people who might otherwise be self-sufficient could end up repeating the cycle of intergenerational welfare. The regulators and professional stakeholders are aware of the problem. By Phillip Williams | https://nit.com.au/how-are-trustees-managing-the-precious-resources-of-native-title-groups/ |
When did Christmas become such a formal affair? | OPINION: BEHOLD the season of the hard luck story and the transformation to inspirational life coach/elder statesman or woman is upon us. Deadset. As the first rays of Christmas Day dawn pierced windows, social media began to be inundated with the regal season's greetings. Friends, family, random strangers. They've all caught the bug. 'From my family to yours' or 'From me and mine to you and yours' appeared everywhere. Half of these people carried on like borderline degenerates for the past 12 months, in some cases, years. Suddenly they transitioned into a high-ranking diplomat or world leader, with a Santa hat on. Or better yet, nothing at all. We get it. You've got a family. But you haven't been elected to the White House. The formality of it just kills me. Christmas is a commercial beat-up that happens every year. It doesn't require us to pump out airy fairy messages of goodwill that read like they've come from the Prime Minister. About 2am Christmas Day my daughter dropped the mother of all poos in her nappy. The screams woke me, and then my screams woke the neighbourhood, walking in to the room to be nearly knocked out by the smell. The satisfied smile on her face after terminating the turd was the image I shared with the social media world for Christmas. The greatest gift of all. And then, like that, the messages of goodwill vanish and everyone moves on with their lives again. Until New Year's Eve/Day. The masses cast off the mask of gracious, upper middle class citizen and make the transition to gritty, working-class hero who overcame a year of woe and hardship. The inner life coach blooms, as messages of hope and good will are shared. Never give up. You can conquer anything. Congratulations, you survived a break-up or successfully replaced your credit cards because you lost your wallet. Amazing courage. The year itself even takes on a personality. '2018 you didn't break me, but 2019, I'm ready to do you'. Etc, etc. Seriously. I don't reckon '2019' gives a flying f**k about what you're planning to do to it. It's a number on a calendar. And then, again, the messages disappear, everyone gets on with their lives again. We go back to caring little about each other for another 12 months. But hey, the Insta feeds are boosted, the likes are rolling in and the online personas maintained. If you're using social media for anything other than trying to annoy people when you can't physically do so in person you're using it wrong. Happy new year. | https://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/when-did-christmas-become-such-a-formal-affair/3613393/ |
Does The Good Guy With A Gun Tagline Work If That Guy Is Black? | Youve heard the tagline before. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But that hasnt always been the case especially when the good guy with a gun is black. Take the case of a recent shooting by police in a mall south of Birmingham, Alabama. After shots broke out and police arrived at the scene, they shot and killed Emantic EJ Fitzgerald Bradford Jr. He was a 21-year-old black man, who the police initially said was responsible for the shooting that drew the police to the mall. But the police department later retracted the statement that blamed Bradford Jr. for the original shooting, and instead said he was brandishing a gun instead. The narrative of who was responsible and why they were killed by the police keeps changing. Cedric Alexander, the deputy mayor of Rochester, N.Y. and the former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, wrote about Bradford Jr.s case in a recent op-ed for CNN. Heres part of what he wrote: African-Americans are more likely than white people to be killed by the police. According to an analysis in The Washington Post, 51% of those killed by police in 2014 and 2015 were white, while 28.1% were black. But white people made up 62% of entire countrys population at the time, while black people accounted for 17.9%. Active shooter situations are inherently urgent and confusing. While officers are trained to make split-second life-or-death decisions about the use of lethal force, the natural impulse is nevertheless to treat any armed person as a threat. And that impulse is difficult to overcome. | https://the1a.org/shows/2019-01-02/does-the-good-guy-with-a-gun-tagline-work-if-that-guy-is-black?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=health |
Can Growth Endeavors Aid Wolverine's (WWW) Revival in 2019? | Shares of Wolverine World Wide, Inc. WWW have not only declined but also underperformed the industry in the past six months. This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company has lost 7.8% in the said time frame compared with the industrys decline of 5.1%. This can be attributable to the companys sluggish sales trend for the past few quarters. Notably, Wolverine has been witnessing dismal sales trends over the last five quarters, mainly due to change in quarterly calendars, negative impacts of store closures and portfolio changes made in early 2017. Some of these factors also led to a drop in revenues during the third quarter of 2018. The top line declined 3.9% to $558.6 million in the quarter, owing to decline in all three segments. Moreover, sales at the companys Boston Group and Heritage Group have declined in all the three quarters of 2018. Further, the company is exposed to significant currency headwinds. Additionally, stiff competition is a concern. Efforts to Revive the Stock Wolverine boasts a wide portfolio of owned and licensed brands of casual as well as athletic footwear and apparel. We note that two of the companys biggest brands, namely Merrell and Wolverine, have been gaining traction lately. Further, the company plans to strengthen its brand portfolio through innovation and expansion of its brands to newer geographies and platforms. Moreover, the company is riding well on its strong international presence. Going ahead, the company plans to add strategic resources to strengthen its regional teams, especially in the emerging regions of Asia-Pacific such as China. These efforts are likely to help achieve high-single-digit growth in revenues from its international business in 2018. Apart from these, Wolverine has been progressing well with its Way Forward transformation initiative, a strategic platform aimed at driving growth and profitability amid a competitive market scenario. In fact, a significant portion of gross margin growth during the first, second and third quarters of 2018 was driven by this initiative. We note that during the first quarter, the company stepped into the next phase of the Way Forward initiative Global Growth Agenda. The agenda encompasses three key strategies, namely Powerful Product Creation Engine, Digital-Direct Offense and International Expansion. Incremental investments toward such growth initiatives are expected to be $40-$45 million for 2018. Out of this, approximately 45% will be directed toward the creation of powerful product development. Moreover, the company focuses on its fast growing e-commerce space. Efforts in this respect include enhancing social presence, better digital advertisement manoeuvres, and better implementation and management of consumer database. Further, the company has allocated approximately $15 million of incremental investments from the Global Growth Agenda toward digital advancements. In fact, Wolverine is witnessing solid e-commerce growth, with 25% improvement in this business in the third quarter. All said, we expect these above-mentioned strategies to offset the challenges faced by the company and get it back on track in the near future. 3 Retail Stocks to Bank On Boot Barn Holdings, Inc. BOOT has long-term earnings growth rate of 23% and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. | https://news.yahoo.com/growth-endeavors-aid-wolverines-revival-194907256.html |
Could micro robots help put an end to roadworks? | Ellen is a Verdict staff writer and reporter. You can reach her at [email protected] The UK government is investing 26.6m in micro robots to help repair the countrys vast underground pipe network, which could greatly reduce disruptive roadworks. At the moment, repairs on the UKs huge underground pipe network can cause significant disruption, with 1.5 million road excavations taking place every year. The traffic closures and disruption to businesses is estimated to cost more than 5bn, meaning a technological solution could reduce disturbance and costs. Scientists from 4 British universities will use 7m government investment to develop 1cm-long micro robots that use sensors and navigation systems to find and mend cracks in pipes. This means that underground pipes and tunnels can be repaired without the road being dug up. A further 19.6m government investment will fund projects to send these robots to hazardous or hard-to-reach environments such as offshore windfarms and nuclear decommissioning facilities to carry out inspections and maintenance. Researchers will also test new technologies, such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) software on satellites in orbit to detect when repairs are needed, and drones for oil pipeline monitoring. Science Minister Chris Skidmore believes that these micro robots could help improve safety and convenience: While for now we can only dream of a world without roadworks disrupting our lives, these pipe-repairing robots herald the start of technology that could make that dream a reality in the future. From deploying robots in our pipe network so cutting down traffic delays, to using robots in workplaces to keep people safer, this new technology could change the world we live in for the better. Experts in our top UK universities across the country are well-equipped to develop this innovative new technology. This project is part of the modern Industrial Strategy, a government initiative in which money has been invested in developing cutting-edge technology and create high-skilled jobs. The UK is already a world-leader in robotics technologies, and these projects will help support the future growth of this sector, as well as further integrating robotics into various areas of business. UK Research and Innovation Chief Executive, Professor Sir Mark Walport believes that the technology could be especially useful in remote locations: | https://www.verdict.co.uk/micro-robots-pipes-roadworks/ |
Is Parrish the New "Center of the Universe? | Old Parrish still exists at this antique store. Image: Chris Lake Parrish is an old, old, tiny town northeast of Bradenton across the Manatee River, way out in the country. Cattle and agriculture rule. I was skeptical about finding it on a list of real estate hotspots, but it turns out to be the hottest spot of all. As for whats happening in Parrish, you can look at it two ways. Its either charming little town about to be swallowed up by Big Development or beautiful gated communities will blend seamlessly into the authentic Old Florida atmosphere. The various developers here envision a massive new residential communityover 23,000 new homes will be built in the near futurewhere the gimmick is great value. For around $300,000 you can buy a brand-new, well-equipped three-bedroom home. I looked at quite a few and there wasnt one I couldnt see myself living in. Silverleaf, a Neal Community, offers homes starting at $222,990. Image: Chris Lake The reason everyone thinks this will work so well is Parrishs freakishly convenient locationits a bearable commute from a remarkable number of places. Downtown Bradenton is 11 miles away, downtown St. Pete is 21. Downtown Sarasota is 26. Even Tampa, at 34 miles, is doable. Among other things, this means the husband can work in Tampa and the wife in Englewood. As Pat Neal, who runs Neal Communities, said recently, I believe Parrish in the next five years will become the new center of the universe. And while the parents are busy commuting, the kids can ride their bikes to the mammoth new North River High School, right in the middle of town and set to open later this year. The high school has the distinction of being named after a Neal development, North River Ranch, which, with 6,000 homes will be the largest of the new places and is expected to set the tone for the new Parrish. The high school name has annoyed some old-timers, who wanted it named Parrish High in honor of the towns founding family, whove been there since the Civil War. But Neal quashed this with a series of robocalls telling people that the Parrishes once owned slaves and thus probably shouldnt have the local high school named after them. Right now, it still has an authentic country feel, with two-lane roads running through pastures full of grazing cattle, interspersed with beautiful old trees. The town itself is more like a country crossroads, with a couple of small groceries, a feed store, a farm stand and a Mexican nightclub. In the blocks just off the highway there are still many old Cracker homes, picturesque and pleasantly weathered. As for the future, Parrish is keeping its fingers crossed. But visit soon. Check Out Florida Railroad Museum: Exhibits and train rides. 12210 83rd St. E. Fort Hamer Park: Boat ramp, picnic tables, rowing facility. 1605 Fort Hamer Road Parrish Farm Market (Browns Grove): Citrus, local produce, goats and chickens. 12255 Highway 301 N. Quick Facts Settled in 1867 Population: 19,589 Median age: 43.6 Median home price: $283,300 | https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/articles/2019/1/2/is-parrish-the-new-center-of-the-universe |
What is the best case scenario for the Vikings offensive line this offseason? | While the Minnesota Vikings have plenty of positions to address this offseason, the spotlight will be on the offensive line in both free agency and the NFL draft. Pro Football Focus ranked the Vikings offensive line 27th in pass blocking and 25th in run blocking. Without improvement in 2019, it would be difficult to see the Vikings gaining much traction offensively. Lets have a look Tackle What happened The Vikings went into the season with veteran Riley Reiff and swing tackle Rashod Hill starting on the right side, which proved to be problematic. Hill gave up five sacks and 28 total QB pressures, per Pro Football Focus, in just 342 pass blocking snaps. Rookie Brian ONeill took over midway through the year and was a significant improvement, allowing 31 pressures in 531 pass snaps. Still there were struggles for the first-year player, who graded as PFFs 47th of 62 qualifying tackles. While Reiff notably struggled in a few games, especially against Buffalo while he was battling a foot injury and Chicago against Khalil Mack, he ultimately had a solid season, ranking 22nd by PFF. Best case scenario for 2019 While Reiff isnt going to put on a gold jacket someday, there isnt anywhere close to a better option than him at left tackle for the Vikings next season. There isnt an Andrew Whitworth-caliber free agent tackle on the market this offseason. If they wanted to move on, the Vikings could cut Reiff and save $8.8 million on the cap, but without an obvious upgrade, its hard to make a case for doing so. The Vikings will simply have to bank on ONeill advancing. He has terrific athleticism and showed an ability to recover that gives him a chance to become a very good player. The best free agent options on the right side are Chicago veteran Bobby Massie (34th by PFF), Dolphins starter JaWuan James (31st by PFF) and Washington swing tackle Ty Nsekhe. Neither would be an upgrade over ONeill, assuming he takes another step forward. The biggest question might be whether the Vikings want to keep Mike Remmers as a backup tackle. It is clear that Hill is an in-case-of-emergency type player. If either Reiff or ONeill got hurt, the Vikings O-line could be right back where it started. While Remmers would be an expensive No. 3 at $6.7 million on the cap, he ranked 26th of 56 by PFF last season. He would make for a good insurance policy. Guard What happened The retirement of Joe Berger punched a hole in a solid 2017 offensive line that they tried to fill by moving Mike Remmers to right guard rather than DeForest Buckner and Aaron Donald. It turned out Remmers was a much better tackle. He allowed the third most QB pressures of any guard in the NFL and graded 35th out of 54 guards with at least 550 snaps. Tom Compton took over the starting left guard position following a season-ending injury to starter Nick Easton. Like Remmers, he was in a unique spot having never started a full season before in his career. Compton rated 33rd by PFFs grading system and gave up 35 pressures. Best case scenario for 2019 With Eastons status unclear, its hard to say whether they can count on him coming back to full strength at the left guard spot next season. Cap space may be tight, but the Vikings should be in the running for starting Los Angeles Rams guard Roger Saffold, the eighth ranked guard by PFF. He and veteran Steelers guard Ramon Foster (14th) are the two unrestricted free agents who would be clear-cut upgrades. If Easton is healthy, they should look to bring him back as well. His quickness gave the Vikings a weapon in the screen game last season that they lacked in 2018. Even if the Vikings were able to return Easton and add either Saffold or Foster, they should still draft an offensive lineman with the 18th overall pick. Whichever rookie they selected could compete for a starting job or act as quality depth the way ONeill did in Year 1. Bringing back Compton as a free agent would make sense. As a backup, he has a solid history of filling in when called upon. The Vikings will need to stack up as much depth as possible. Another option with Remmers could be trading him to a team that is desperate for a tackle. Center What happened Pat Elfleins sophomore season started out by missing all of training camp and the first three weeks of the season. When he returned, the former Ohio State start was forced to match up with Aaron Donald and Fletcher Cox in consecutive weeks. He never appeared to get fully back to his 2017 form during the season and finished as the worst graded center by PFF in the NFL. Best case scenario for 2019 Getting him a full offseason to get his strength back will be enormous for the talented young center. It was clear from his rookie year that Elflein has the talent to follow in the footsteps of the great Vikings centers of the past, but not when he started from so far behind. Another aspect of Elfleins struggles was the teams schematic changes. Pat Shurmur used both Elflein and Eastons athleticism to the Vikings advantage, but we rarely saw that in 2018. He wasnt running out to the second level on screens or reach blocking on outside zone runs very often. Both of those things may have impacted his final grade. The Vikings are unlikely to find themselves a better option than playing wait-and-see with Elflein. Odds are that he bounces back. | http://www.1500espn.com/vikings-2/2019/01/best-case-scenario-vikings-offensive-line-offseason/ |
Are Sudan's protests against Bashir regime doomed to fail? | In mid-December, the Sudanese people started to demonstrate in cities around the country. Their displeasure was directed against the government's plan to raise the prices of gasoline and bread as part of an effort to balance a weak exchange rate and high inflation. Wheat products alone would have cost people three times as much as before. The protests quickly targeted President Omar al-Bashir, who has ruled the country in an autocratic fashion for three decades. Some demonstrators set fire to buildings housing Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP), others demanded a change of government. On December 19, the situation turned violent when armed security forces intervened. Amnesty International reported at least 37 people have died in the unrest so far; the Sudanese government reported 19 people killed. Opposition leaders and organizers of the protests were arrested. Read more: Anger over dictatorship, not bread, fueling Sudan uprising Politically and economically isolated, both regionally and internationally, the Bashir regime cannot solve the current crisis, the president's opponents argued at a press conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, justifying calls for his resignation. Only a new government that enjoys the trust of the Sudanese people can end the unrest, they said. The protests continued to ramp up while Bashir remained silent until Tuesday, when he agreed to set up an investigative commission headed by the Sudanese justice minister. No international support for the opposition Mohamed Hassan, a Sudanese lawmaker for the opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP), believes the West's response to the protests has been disappointing thus far. "We expected more support, but we recognize that international politics is guided by its own interests," he told DW. President Bashir continues to evade arrest on charges of war crimes at the ICC The Sudanese government has created a regional network to implement its interests, mainly by declaring its willingness to combat illegal migration, Hassan said. "The government is trying to prevent migrants and asylum seekers from fleeing Africa," he explained, adding that it is also engaged in the fight against terrorism. Sudan under Bashir presents a gloomy picture the president is wanted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and war crimes, the conflicts with rebel groups in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains continue to smolder, and human rights organizations have criticized the government for limiting civil rights and civil liberties. Guarantor of regional interests Bashir is still in power because his rule plays to the interests of a whole host international powers, Amin Qamuriya, a Lebanese political scientist, told DW's "Massaiya" program. Many soldiers in the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen are Sudanese, for example, he said. "Should the political situation deteriorate, the government could recall these soldiers," Amin explained, noting that Saudi Arabia has no interest in such a move. Egypt also wants to see stability in neighboring Sudan. Weapons from crisis-torn Libya find their way to Egypt via Sudan, which the government in Cairo is aming to prevent in cooperation with Bashir. The Egyptian government "prefers not to talk to the political parties of Sudan, but to the president," Amin said. People have been protesting in Sudan since mid-December US, EU back Bashir The United States, meanwhile, has its own reasons to be patient with Bashir, said the PCP's Mohamed Hassan, adding that since the President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from Syria, Americans have been looking for mercenaries they can send there "and no regime sells mercenaries more cheaply than the Sudanese regime." The European Union also has a good working relationship with Bashir. He can help prevent migration from Eastern Africa to Europe and is seen as an important partner in the fight against international terrorism. Border control aims to "make it more difficult for the Darfur rebels hired out as mercenaries in Libya to retreat, as well as cutting off possible jihadist routes between the Sahel and the Horn of Africa and ultimately controlling migration flows between the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean," according to Annette Weber, a Sudan expert at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). In return for its cooperation, Sudan expects financial support from the EU. As a result, the protests in the country have yet to be met with a significant international response. | https://www.dw.com/en/are-sudans-protests-against-bashir-regime-doomed-to-fail/a-46937336 |
Has Meghan Markle Banned Prince Harry from Drinking Tea and Coffee? | ! British-tabloid-originated Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reports. The first such story this year to get traction was initially reported by the Sunday Express: per the outlet, Meghan haswait for itbanned Prince Harry from drinking . . . tea and coffee. A gossip-y butler?) claims that Harry has not only given up drinking alcohol in solidarity with his pregnant wife, but that he has now ditched caffeine, as well, at her urging. The Express claims that Meghan has also encouraged Harry to pursue yoga and other healthier lifestyle habits. This Harry 2.0, if you will, has been getting rave reviews from his friends and family, apparently. The Expresss source says, Considering hes been a pretty brutal drinker since he was a young teenager, its quite an achievement. His friends have noticed that the royal is more chilled and relaxed, and have credited Meghan with the shift. All she did was show him theres another way to live and hes become a huge fan, the source says. And in a quote that should perhaps motivate those of us attempting to stick to some 2019 resolutions, the source adds, He eats well, doesnt poison his body, exercises, does a bit of yoga and is a lot happier. So far, the Palace has not commented on the record, and it is basically impossible for us to know if Harry has actually given up tea and coffee. (The Daily Mail notes that the prince was seen sticking to water at a state dinner in October.) This feels almost like the platonic ideal of a royal-related story that makes for a great headline but also is tough to fully buy. In any event, we have little doubt our own lives would be way happier and healthier if we stuck to a Markle-endorsed Tig-esque lifestyle. Get Vanity Fairs Royal Watch A weekly overview of the chatter from Kensington Palace and beyond. E-mail Address Subscribe | https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/01/meghan-markle-prince-harry-tea-coffee-report |
Did Kim Kardashian Drop a Major Hint About the Sex of Her Fourth Baby on the Way Weeks Ago? | During an October interview on Ashley Grahams podcast Pretty Big Deal, Kardashian West talked about how her 5-year-old daughter North was hoping for another brother. Get push notifications with news, features and more. North acts like an only child at all times. I think shes a little confused, said the Keeping Up with the Kardashians reality star, 38, who is also mom to daughter Chicago, 1 this month, and son Saint, 3. Shes beyond jealousy now. Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Parents newsletter. Saint and Chicago West Kim Kardashian/Twitter Kim Kardashian West David Livingston/Getty RELATED: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Have Always Wanted Two Boys and Two Girls: Source Following news on Wednesday that Kardashian West and the rapper, 41, are expecting their fourth child together, via surrogate, a source told PEOPLE, Theyve always talked about wanting four kids: two boys and two girls. Thats always been the plan, the insider added, noting, They definitely want a boy. Kim Kardashian West and daughter North Michael Simon/startraksphoto.com RELATED VIDEO: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Expecting Fourth Child Via Surrogate While West is famous for his music, Yeezy fashion line and regularly making headlines for his erratic behavior, when hes home, hes content with just being Dad. He loves the innocence of children; theyre not judging him. They dont care what he does for a living, explained the source. They dont read the tabloids. To them, hes just Dad. | https://people.com/parents/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-sex-of-fourth-child-clue/ |
Do these oats take a powder? | -- Marty in Indiana Marty, here's what I found: Oat extract powder is a cereal grain grown primarily for its seeds. In powder form, it's used in beauty products and to lower LDL cholesterol for those with coronary heart disease. While it's fit for human consumption as rolled oats, it is more commonly used to feed livestock. -- Heloise SEND A GREAT HINT TO: Heloise P.O. My husband loves them, but I don't really know how to make them. -- Amber F., Klamath Falls, Ore. Yes, I have a terrific recipe for Buttermilk Pecan Pralines that is found in my book "In the Kitchen With Heloise." I use a 6- to 8-quart pot for this because the mixture foams to great heights while cooking. Buttermilk Pecan Pralines 1 cup buttermilk 2 cups sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon butter or margarine 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups pecan halves Pour the buttermilk into the very large pot, then stir in the sugar and baking soda until dissolved. Cook over medium heat, letting it bubble until it turns brownish in color and reaches the soft ball stage (about 235 F on a candy thermometer). While cooking, you will need to stir constantly so the mixture won't stick. At the soft ball stage, remove the pot from the stove and add the butter (or margarine), vanilla extract and pecans. Return to the stove and heat the mixture until it becomes glossy and starts to crystallize. On wax paper or a well-greased cookie sheet, quickly spoon out little patties. Let them cool, and store in an airtight container. If it's overcooked, it will be too sugary. If it's undercooked, it won't be firm, which is why a candy thermometer is needed. -- Heloise HERB STORAGE Dear Heloise: Just a reminder that you should never store herbs next to your stove or oven. Because the heat will destroy the flavor, or in some cases turn the herb bitter. -- Alisha M., Tacoma, Wash. Alisha, to that I would add to buy herbs in small quantities. Herbs lose much of their flavor and freshness as they get older. -- Heloise CHAMPAGNE Dear Heloise: My husband and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary, and we want to do it up in style with Champagne for our very closest friends. -- Connie K. in Honolulu Connie, here is a list that might be of help to you: Champagne portions per bottle: quart: 1/4 gallon equals 5 glassesmagnum: 2 quarts equals 10 glassesjeroboam: 4 quarts equals 21 glassesrehoboam: 6 quarts equals 31 glassesmethuselah: 8 quarts equals 41 glasses Enjoy! -- Heloise | http://www.hdnews.net/news/20190102/do-these-oats-take-powder |
What makes people click on search ads? | Most surveys find that consumers arent aware of the difference between ads and organic listings in search results. A new survey from agency research firm Clutch set out to answer just that across Google, Bing, YouTube and Amazon. Why you should care In a survey of 506 people who said they have clicked on a paid search ad in the past month, 75% said the ads make it easier to find information theyre looking for. Thats a good indication they think the ads are relevant to their searches. That the ads answered their queries. That may sound obvious, but its a good reminder that ads should be relevant to what the searcher wants to find. If Im searching for snowblowers on sale, Im not looking for ads touting the latest models or fancy features. I want to see words like sale, deal or clearance in the ads. Not surprising, people are also driven to click on ads that mention brands with which they are already familiar. Twenty-six percent said that has been a reason for theyve clicked on search ads, and known brands are the primary reason people click on YouTube and Amazon search ads. This underscores the importance of brand building across channels to maximize your investments in advertising. More from the survey 49 percent said they click on text ads; 31 percent on Shopping ads; and 16 percent on video ads. 77 percent of the respondents said theyre confident they can recognize search advertisements in the results (though that may be more true for Google text ads than other formats and platforms). They are significantly more likely to click on an ad on Google than the other engines Clutch asked about. 63 percent said theyd click on a Google ad, while just 15 percent said theyd click an ad on Amazon, 9 percent on YouTube and 6 percent on Bing. Its worth noting those stats arent a reflection of how click-through rates are likely to compare for individual advertisers. The survey results point to the clear need to connect ad copy to the query. This is nothing new. What is changing, is the role of machine learning in query matching. | https://searchengineland.com/what-makes-people-click-on-search-ads-309959?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed-main |
Why are some cyclists aggressive on the roads? | The jury is still out on the encounter between the cyclist and the lorry driver in Pasir Ris (Lorry driver, cyclist arrested after Pasir Ris road altercation; Dec 25, 2018). Some have decided that the lorry driver was perhaps wrong to have rammed the biker, assuming that he did it on purpose, while others agree that anyone could have been distracted by the wing mirror being wrenched off his vehicle and, hence, the cyclist had it coming. There are many videos online of cyclists demonstrating loutish behaviour, including threatening police officers who were advising them to ride safely. Two months ago, a video of a cyclist, who was stopped by the police for his inconsiderate riding, telling the officers that he knew his rights as a cyclist and intimidating them went viral. Many of these cyclists sound like relatively high-level corporate executives who are drivers themselves, as one can see from the proliferation of cars with bicycle-mounts installed on their rooftops. It is time for the leaders of these cycling groups to remind their members of the rights and the wrongs of riding, as well as reinforce the need for them to be considerate to other road users when on the roads. Chow Hon Meng | https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/why-are-some-cyclists-aggressive-on-the-roads |
What are the new gun laws in 2019? | A wave of gun control activism surged across the U.S. in 2018 and yet it led to little action from the federal government. So as 2019 arrives, it's state governments that are taking aim at the problem with new gun laws. The new year has brought new restrictions and regulations in several states, with some going into effect on New Year's Day and others scheduled to take force midway through 2019. Many of the laws enact versions of policies that were in the 100-plus gun control proposals that have failed in Congress over the past few years. California The most sweeping new gun laws are in California, where a gunman in November killed 12 people and himself in a Thousand Oaks country-western bar. It was the second-deadliest mass shooting of 2018, behind the Parkland school shooting in Florida, which left 17 people dead and led to several changes in that state's gun laws. As of January 1, the Golden State has raised the minimum age to buy rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21 (with exceptions for members of law enforcement, the military, or those who have a hunting license). Anyone convicted of certain domestic violence charges after January 1 will face a lifetime ban on gun ownership, as would anyone committed to a mental institution twice in one year. Californians who want to carry a concealed weapon now must undergo at least eight hours of safety training. And starting July 1, ammunition dealers will have to check with the Justice Department before a sale to make sure the customer is not banned from gun purchases. Illinois A new law called the Firearms Restraining Order Act creates a system to take guns away from people who are deemed dangerous to others or themselves. Relatives or police can request an emergency order of protection against someone who has shown threatening or suicidal behavior, which could include social media posts. The order could lead to that person's guns being seized immediately for two weeks, or up to six months in more extreme cases. The state also amended several of its gun laws. The waiting period for purchasing rifles has jumped from 24 hours to 72 hours. Schools, employers and places of worships are allowed to file orders of protection against individuals. Hospitals are required to report involuntary psychiatric admissions, which could lead to some gun owners losing their concealed carry licenses. Oregon The state has expanded its firearm ban for domestic abusers and stalkers to close a so-called "boyfriend loophole." Under previous law, abusers were banned from buying and owning guns only if they were married to their victim. The new law bans all convicted stalkers, abusers and people under restraining orders from buying or owning guns, regardless of whether they are married or live with children. Washington state The age for buying semi-automatic rifles has been raised from 18 to 21, after voters passed an initiative in November. Starting in July, the state will also have new requirements for safe gun storage and new background checks from law enforcement for purchases. Gun owners could also face criminal charges if one of their weapons gets into the hands of children or someone banned from carrying a firearm, and is used for threats or violence. Federal ban on bump stocks On the federal level, there is at least one major change coming in 2019: A ban on bump stocks, the devices that let semi-automatic rifles fire faster rounds. The gunman responsible for the 2017 rampage in Las Vegas, which is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, used bump stocks to fire more than 1,100 rounds into a country music festival crowd in only 10 minutes. Congress' attempts to ban bump stocks after the massacre went nowhere. But the Trump administration announced in October 2018 that it was amending the legal definition of machine guns to encompass bump stocks, effectively making the devices illegal. The ban is expected to take effect in March. | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-are-the-new-gun-laws-in-2019/ |
Does defence still have what it takes to get to the top? | Open this photo in gallery Cornerback Richard Sherman (25) and San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Elijah Lee (47) tackle Los Angeles Rams running back C.J. Anderson (35) during the first half of a game at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Dec. 30, 2018 in Los Angeles, Calif. Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images From Pittsburghs Steel Curtain in the 1970s to Chicagos Monsters of the Midway in the 80s to Seattles Legion of Boom more recently, dominant defences have often been the story of the NFL postseason. High-powered offences might generate the highlights, the fantasy points and victories in the regular season. But more often than not the top defences have managed to hold those dynamic offences in check when the weather turns colder and the games get more important in the postseason. Story continues below advertisement I have no idea, said San Francisco cornerback Richard Sherman, a key member of Seattles 2013 championship defence. I dont think the league really wants that or cares to have that thing again. They care more about offensive football, so thats what theyll get. To have a special defensive group to play that well for so long would be very difficult to do because of the style of defence and the rules. ... I think its going to be harder and harder to make the Hall of Fame from defence. Playing defence in the NFL perhaps has never been harder, with the intimidating hits on receivers and quarterbacks now outlawed, even the most minor downfield contact resulting in penalties, and quarterbacks more accurate and efficient than ever while running the new spread offences. This year featured the highest passer rating (92.9), most yards a play (5.6) and second-most points a game (46.7) in NFL history. It seems as if playing great defence is almost impossible. You cant use it as an excuse because they still let us hit, okay? said Dallas defensive co-ordinator Rod Marinelli, an assistant on the 2002 Tampa Bay team that won a Super Bowl behind its defence. Ive always believed in the speed of the defence. And thats the hitting. Theyve got holes. Weve got to hit the holes. Weve got to hit them. And weve got to make it a physical game. Weve got be smart, helmet to helmet, got to be smart on the quarterback, some of those things. And you try to teach it, keep our speed and playing fast. Some of the things down the field, push-offs and all that stuff, its tough. The story of this NFL season has been the offences, with the highlight being a 54-51 win for the Los Angeles Rams over the Kansas City Chiefs back in November. Thats been part of a season that had first-year starter Patrick Mahomes throwing for 50 touchdown passes and more than 5,000 yards for Kansas City, Drew Brees setting more records at the age of 39 in New Orleans, Tom Brady maintaining his winning ways in his 40s for New England and Sean McVays offence tormenting opposing teams all year long for the Rams. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement But those teams that feature four of the five most efficient offences in the league, according to Football Outsiders, and defences that have been far less consistent will get the opening weekend of the postseason off. That will provide a bit of a throwback look on wild-card weekend with many of the leagues top defences taking centre stage in hopes that they can get on a run such as the one the Denver Broncos had three years ago to win a Super Bowl. I think its still definitely possible, said Broncos linebacker Todd Davis, a member of that title-winning team. I dont feel like it has to be 51-54. It really doesnt. I feel like you can really stop teams if you play close defence, you play tight on receivers, play great in man coverage and you can really stop people. Many of the teams playing this weekend have shown that ability this season, led by the NFLs top-ranked scoring defence in Chicago. An already-strong unit only got better with the acquisition of elite pass rusher Khalil Mack before the season. With Mack and Akiem Hicks wreaking havoc up front and Eddie Jackson and Kyle Fuller providing big plays from the secondary, the Bears appear to have the defence best equipped for a long postseason run, starting with Sundays home game against defending champion Philadelphia. Dominant, thats it, Hicks said. We are aggressive. We like to hit. All the stuff that I was [saying] before the season started, were everything that we said we were. And hopefully we can get to another level for these playoffs. Story continues below advertisement The Bears arent alone. Six of those 10 most efficient defences are playing this weekend: Baltimore, Houston, the Chargers, Dallas and Indianapolis. Ball-control offence and dominant defence have been a tried-and-true formula for teams such as Baltimore and Seattle, which have combined for three Super Bowl championships and five appearances in the title game this century with that recipe. The Seahawks still have that capability despite the absence of most of the stalwarts from the Legion of Boom such as Sherman, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor, Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril. But Bobby Wagner remains at middle linebacker, Frank Clark has been an elite pass rusher, and coach Pete Carrolls scheme is still effective after all these years. You either believe in something or you dont, Carroll said. I think just staying the course and knowing were on to something. Believing in the history. We know what were capable of doing. Weve shown it over a lot of years. Youre always adapting, but its staying what youre true to. I think thats what is happening. We look like a team that we have seen before, and thats powerful. | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/article-does-defence-still-have-what-it-takes-to-get-to-the-top/ |
Who will be on Oscars' Best Director shortlist? | NEW YORK There are but two guarantees in this year's Oscar race for Best Director: Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born) and Alfonso Cuaron (Roma). Who else makes the final five is anybody's guess. Other directors - including Oscar-nominated veterans and would-be first-timers - all have a legitimate path to those spots. Here are some possible candidates for the nominations to be unveiled on Jan 22. Damien Chazelle, First Man In his favour: Chazelle won the Best Director Oscar for his last film, La La Land (2016), and the man-on-the-moon drama First Man is even more of a technical feat. The directors' category respects a special-effects movie that was difficult to pull off and First Man has that feel. Working against him: The movie has not lived up to its high expectations during this award season. Neither Chazelle nor his star, Ryan Gosling, scored nominations from the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) snubbed it entirely. Ryan Coogler, Black Panther In his favour: Coogler's arc as a director, moving from a Sundance prize-winner (Fruitvale Station, 2013) to a mid-budget studio hit (the first Creed, 2015) to one of the biggest movies of all time (Black Panther), is the stuff a classic career is made of. Working against him: Black Panther seems certain to crack Oscar categories where no superhero movie has gone before, but it is possible this one will remain out of reach. Though Black Panther earned a notable SAG nomination for its ensemble and a best-drama nod from the Golden Globes, Coogler did not score one for the latter's directing prize. Peter Farrelly, Green Book In his favour: This race-relations comedy about a black pianist and his white driver is a favourite for many in the academy. Its stars, Viggo Mortensen and Mahershala Ali, are near-locks to be nominated, and Farrelly's path from co-directing Dumb And Dumber (1994) to helming an Oscar contender will charm voters. Working against him: The Best Director category increasingly favours auteurs who can display technical showmanship, which is not a trait Green Book has in abundance. Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk In his favour: Jenkins directed the 2017 Best Picture winner Moonlight, but the academy still has a few things it could make up to him. In addition to the infamous envelope snafu that briefly gave the top prize to La La Land, Jenkins lost the directing Oscar to Chazelle. As far as this year's race goes, Jenkins is one of the best-liked directors in this category, which can go a long way with voters. Working against him: It is worrisome that the SAG snubbed If Beale Street Could Talk and may suggest that the film is breaking too late. Yorgos Lanthimos, The Favourite In his favour: From his unlikely camera set-ups to the perverse deadpan tone, you can identify a Yorgos Lanthimos film in seconds. The maker of The Lobster (2015) and The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017) has never made as accessible a film as The Favourite, but he did it without sacrificing that personal stamp. Royal period pieces usually go a long way with this group, but Lanthimos pushed The Favourite into some untraditional places. Spike Lee, BlacKkKlansman In his favour: Lee is one of the most influential directors in Hollywood, but he has never been nominated for the Best Director Oscar. The academy has the perfect opportunity to make it up to him for the critically acclaimed BlacKkKlansman. Working against him: At the 1990 Oscars, presenter Kim Basinger used her screen time to criticise the academy for failing to nominate Lee's Do The Right Thing (1989) in other categories besides Original Screenplay. The directors' branch is very different now, thanks to the academy's diversity push. NYTIMES | https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/who-will-be-on-oscars-best-director-shortlist |
Are EXO's Kai and Blackpink's Jennie dating? | SEOUL There might be a new power couple in K-pop on the horizon as reports have revealed EXO's Kai and Blackpink's Jennie are dating. The singers, from two of K-pop's most popular groups, were seen walking while holding hands in a park in Seoul, South Korean entertainment news portal Dispatch reported on Tuesday. Pictures obtained by the media outlet show the two going for a drive around Sangam-dong before strolling at Haneul Park where they were seen layered up in coats and scarves to brace themselves against the cold. The report also said Kai, 24, drove all the way to where Jennie, 22, lives with a gift he bought from Hawaii, where his group EXO visited last month. Following the news on Tuesday, Kai's agency S.M. Entertainment told Yonhap News Agency that the two have "positive feelings" for each other. Jennie's agency YG Entertainment, however, was kept in the dark about the relationship, according to multiple reports. Kai's Instagram post on Nov 25 shows him standing in the dark at what appears to be Haneul Park, which Dispatch says is a photo taken by Jennie. The Instagram post has been showered with comments congratulating the new couple, with some fans showing disappointment. One fan wrote: "If the rumour is true, be happy with each other." Another fan asked in disbelief: "So it was Jennie who took this photo?" Twitter also erupted with hashtags related to the reported relationship, which dominated the Twitter trends list in Seoul on the first day of this year. Jennie was trending even in Canada, with more than 350,000 tweets posted about the Blackpink singer. One Twitter user quipped: "I guess Jennie isn't going solo", seemingly referring to her song Solo. On the same day last year, Dispatch surprised K-pop fans with the news that singer G-dragon was dating fellow singer Lee Joo-yeon, a former member of girl group After School. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK | https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/are-exos-kai-and-blackpinks-jennie-dating |
Can Anyone Succeed As Trumps Chief of Staff? | Its no wonder Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trumps new White House chief of staff, wanted acting in his job title. James A. Baker III, Ronald Reagans quintessential gatekeeper, tells every incoming chief the same thing when asked for his advice: Congratulations, youve got the worst f---ing job in government. The position is so relentless and punishing that Dick Cheney blames his stint as Gerald Fords 34-year-old lieutenant for triggering his first heart attack. For chiefs, those were the best of times. These are the worst, serving a president who makes their lives miserable, and the assignment virtually impossible. Dont ask Reince Priebus or John Kelly, who both failed in the position. In a recent exit interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kelly said he should be judged by all the terrible things he prevented the president from doing. As a metric for a White House chiefs performance, thats unprecedented. But then, so is Trump. Story Continued Below While it will be incredibly tricky, it is still possible for Mulvaney to improve on the performances of his predecessors, and to be an asset to Trump and the country. Mulvaney was chosen in part for his presumed political savvy; the former South Carolina congressman was thought to be a possible help in Trumps expected reelection bid. But the 2020 campaign should be Mulvaneys last priority. What the president desperately needs now is someone who can help him governwhich is in both Trumps and the countrys best interest and, after all, is the reason we elect presidents. To help Trump do that, his new chief should stick to basics. First, Mulvaney should keep a low profile. Kellys credibility never recovered from his creepy, get-off-my-lawn performance in the White House briefing room in the fall of 2017, when he smeared Representative Frederica Wilson with a false story, then refused to apologize. While Mulvaney is more polished on camera, he has so far sounded more like a Trump sycophant than a person who can tell the president hard truths, the most important duty for any chief. This is what having a president who is nontraditional looks like, Mulvaney recently told Chris Wallace on Fox News, right after the president ordered a precipitous troop withdrawal from Syria and shut down the government, sending Wall Street stocks into a dizzying plunge. Actually, this is not what a nontraditional president looks like. This is what a dysfunctional White House looks like. Its Mulvaneys job to help the president fix the machinery of government, even if Trump doesnt know it is broken. Second, Mulvaney must understand the scope of his job. Kelly famously declared that while he would bring order and discipline to the White House, it was not his job to manage the president. Mulvaney has echoed that view, saying that he will be chief of staff (not of the president), and will not try to rein in Trump. That betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the job, a crucial part of which is to protect the president from himself. Its the chiefs responsibility to keep him from acting on impulse; from making half-baked decisions; from demonizing people who disagree with him. Granted, Trump is who he isgiven his personality and character, it may not be possible to manage how he operates as president. But its the chiefs job to try. Third, Mulvaney must act as the presidents honest broker of information. That means not only calling out Trumps lies, as Kelly often failed to do, but also enforcing a well-informed decision-making process. Even more than the national security adviser, the chief must see that only the toughest decisions get into the Oval Office, ensuring that accurate information is teed up on every sidewhether the president heeds it or not. Trump is someone for whom discipline, focus and process are anathema. And yet in the wake of his impulsive, seat-of-the-pants decisions to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan, which triggered Defense Secretary James Mattis extraordinary resignation, a well-informed, fully vetted decision-making process is more critical than evernot only for the president himself, but for the country. Sooner or later, a crisisforeign, domestic, economicwill come. Ten years ago, staring into the abyss of an imminent worldwide depression, President George W. Bush mulled whether to do something contrary to every political bone in his body: give an almost trillion-dollar bailout to the banks that had caused the crisis in the first place. It was the only way, chief of staff Joshua Bolten and his advisers told him, to prevent world economic collapse. Bush listened, and swallowed that bitter pill, averting total disaster. Not without a strong chief of staff. Fourth, Trumps new chief must help him learn the difference between campaigningwhich is dividing and demonizingand governing, which requires building coalitions. Kelly often reinforced Trumps worst, partisan instinctsfrom trashing Wilson to encouraging the administrations zero tolerance border policy. Even when this White House gets something right, it has displayed a genius for squandering the moment. The First Step Act, a genuine breakthrough in criminal justice reform, which passed the House and Senate in December, was a rare opportunity to turn the page from confrontation to bipartisan cooperation. But Trump buried the achievement in an avalanche of petulance and pique over his stymied border wall. At times like that, it will be Mulvaneys job to walk into the Oval Office, close the door and tell the president to cut it out. (Good luck with that.) Finally, with investigators and prosecutors closing in on Trumps malfeasance, Mulvaney must be careful to avoid the fate of Richard Nixons chief H.R. Haldeman, who traded his West Wing office for a prison cell after his conviction for conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal. A more encouraging model for Mulvaney might be Howard Baker, Reagans penultimate chief of staff. At the height of the Iran-Contra scandal, with the threat of impeachment looming, Reagan stubbornly insisted, against all evidence, that he had not traded arms to Iran for hostages. Baker and his deputy, Ken Duberstein, who would later succeed Baker as chief, sat the president down and persuaded him, nonetheless, to deliver an apology on national television. Reagans popularity immediately rebounded; he finished his second term with an approval rating of 68 percent. Mulvaney will have to play the role of wartime consigliere for a White House under siege. When special counsel Robert Muellers hammer finally comes down, Trumps chief must be prepared to present the president with a range of unpleasant optionspossibly including his resignation for the good of the country. In return for his efforts, Mulvaney will almost certainly be fired. But there are worse fates, including complicity in some of this presidents shameful episodes (praising neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, attacking the free press) and misguided policies (separating migrant families, cozying up to Vladimir Putin). Just about everyone who serves this president ends up tarnished. For all of these reasons, Trumps incoming chief of staff should take James Bakers admonition to the bank. If I had Mulvaneys title, I would keep the acting part. Chris Whipple is a filmmaker and author of The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. | https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/01/02/trump-new-chief-of-staff-mick-mulvaney-223615 |
Is ESPN's Big Year-Long Love Letter To College Football Going To Suck? | Photo: Stacy Revere (Getty) ESPN announced today that it will be running a year-long feature on every platform that is meant to act as a celebration of college football. The introductory story, written by ESPN senior writer Ivan Maisel starts like this: Hey there, America, we need to throw college football a yearlong tailgate, so invite everyone you know. For the next 12 months, hang time refers to bunting, not punting. Tell the helmet makers that all we need are party hats. Advertisement From there it goes all the places youd expect, conjuring misty-eyed reflections on what college football means and how Teddy Roosevelt loved the game and how its the sinew that binds America together, or whatever. It all reads like it was written by a sentient Fathers Day card. The word amateurism does not make an appearance in Maisels story, and scandal shows up once, as a castoff: For the next 12 months, leading up to the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship in New Orleans, on every platform that ESPN has television, radio, and digital we will celebrate college football in all its glory, humanity, pathos and scandal. Advertisement Maybe ESPNs series will effectively grapple with college footballs criminally exploitative labor model and issues like programs turning blind eye to gang rape, a celebrated football coach ignoring and then lying about how he handled a domestic violence accusation against his assistant coach, and a football player dying an entirely preventable death during a football practice, but its hard to say for sure because Maisel doesnt get into any of that. Hes busy doing this: College football gave us the phrase All-American, and other words and expressions that have enriched the American lexicon quarterback, fight song, sideline, cheerleader, tailgate, redshirt, Hail Mary (the play, not the prayer) on the field and off. Players, young and talented and fresh and unsullied by wealth or fame, quickly capture our hearts and just as quickly move on. They come and go within five years, the best of them in as few as three. The same goes for coaches, too, except in reverse. Coaches used to get five years to build their programs. Now they are lucky to get three. Advertisement Praising unpaid college football players for being unsullied by wealth or fame is really all you need to know about this guy and ESPNs forthcoming series, which, yes, is probably going to suck. | https://deadspin.com/is-espns-big-year-long-love-letter-to-college-football-1831438232 |
How Is Christian Pulisic Going To Fit In At Chelsea? | Photo: Mike Hewitt (Getty Images) On Wednesday, Premier League giants Chelsea purchased Christian Pulisic from Borussia Dortmund for an astronomical 64 million (nearly $73 million). After finishing out this season in Germany, the winger will officially become a member of one of the biggest clubs in the world, in the best league in the world, this summer. The idea that Pulisic would one day be good enough to get swooped up by a major club had lingered ever since he broke through at Dortmund as a teenager, but now its a reality. Its hard to get past the transfer fee, the biggest ever paid for an American three times over and one that solidly screams superstar potential for the former Wonderteen. It wasnt so long ago that only the very best players in the world could command a price tag similar to Pulisics, but American fans should try to avoid getting too carried away about Pulisics immediate future based solely on how much Chelsea were willing to pay for him. Chelsea are doing what most teams have begun to do in the post-Neymar inflation era: buy early and hope for a winning lottery ticket. A 20-year-old squad player is not worth $73 million, but a 20-year-old squad player that turns into a 22-year-old star definitely is. Chelsea may not believe that Pulisic is a lock to become a true superstar, but given how much true superstars cost these days, they felt $73 million was a fair price to pay for the chance that Pulisic might eventually turn into one. Its a similar bet to what Barcelona did in the summer of 2017 with another Dortmund phenom, Ousmane Dembl. The Catalan club dropped an obscenely large bag (115 million) for the then-20-year-old Frenchman, in hopes that he would eventually slot in next to Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi on the front line as the next big star. It took him some time, but it appears that Dembl has finally started to click with the two South Americans, and most Barcelona fans will likely be pleased with his progress this season. Chelsea has their own talismanic superstar for Pulisic to work off of in Eden Hazard, though there are questions both to how the two would fit and whether Hazard will even remain in London in the near future. The Belgian has been linked to Real Madrid for years, and with the Spanish giants struggling domestically this season, perhaps its finally time for them to pull the trigger on Hazard, especially as he enters the last year of his contract this summer. Advertisement The fit question with Pulisic is more interesting, however, if Hazard does remain a Blue. Despite what can be called a disappointing 2018, Pulisic has plenty of talent and his style of play seems to fit well into Maurizio Sarris philosophy at Chelsea. That style of play involves constant movement and positional awareness from all attackers, and for all his existing flaws, Pulisic has both the pace and the intelligence to adapt his game to provide a fine counterbalance to Hazard in a Sarriball system. Therein lies the problem with the Pulisic transfer, and the way we talk about promising American players as a whole. At the club level, Pulisic has been clearly eclipsed by English winger Jadon Sancho, and at times has even found himself behind fellow 20-year-old Jacob Bruun Larsen in the pecking order. When he has gotten on the field this year, Pulisic has been good, but not great, with a tendency to lose the ball as he tries to over-dribble on the right. His defensive work rate is solid, but he doesnt have the ability to properly cover the flank, as his defensive fundamentals are poor, to be kind. To say hes worth $73 million for just what hes shown at Dortmund is insane, even when taking into account the inflated prices that Premier League sides always seem to pay in the transfer market. Advertisement But we passed the insanity line in soccer transfers long ago, and at least Pulisic is going to a club that has a playing style that should elevate his game. Under Sarri , Chelseas right wingersthe position Pulisic will hope to make his own over Pedro and Willian, both of whom could be departing this summermust provide width and defensive cover, allowing Hazard to go wild on the left. That means Pulisic will have to up his commitment to defending, even if he has NGolo Kant and Csar Azpilicueta on his side of the pitch to help out. It also means he will have to cut down on the ball-hogging dribbles, focusing instead on making smart runs and inter-changes to make himself a target for Hazards magical assists. Chelseas attack generally flows from the left, so there will also be significant periods where Pulisic just will not get the ball, and he will have to remain committed to movement without it for long stretches. Pulisic has the tools, if not the track record, to slot in perfectly as a rotational piece for a team that demands top-four finishes year in and year out. No, probably not, at least not right now. But Chelseas current levelconsistently pushing for Champions League appearances, but clearly on a tier below Liverpool and Manchester Citydoes feel right for Pulisic, particularly if the team sells at least one of the aforementioned wingers before he arrives next season. Advertisement As long as fans dont expect him to be a superstar right away (or ever, for that matter), Pulisic should be a hit in London. Hell have his share of struggles, and the transfer fee will get thrown in his face by the savage English media, but there are few clubs better positioned to let Pulisic succeed than Chelsea. As long as theyre ok with him being a good squad player and nothing more, American fans should be excited about having one of their own at a club of Chelseas ambitions. | https://deadspin.com/how-is-christian-pulisic-going-to-fit-in-at-chelsea-1831430703 |
Are Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth on Their Honeymoon Right Now? | Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth confirmed that they got married this month, and the casual, romantic ceremony pics that the two actors shared broke the Internet. Now, Cyrus is on vacation with the Hemsworth family, and it's raising some questions. The trip is being reported as both, depending on the source, so let's examine the evidence. On New Year's Eve, Miley shared photos of herself on a slope and in front of a fireplace with some festive 2019 decorations behind her. She's in all black with white trim and a fantastic beret, plus a brand new, very pretty accessory: her wedding ring. Chris Hemsworth's wife Elsa Pataky shared a celebratory New Year's photo with those exact decorations behind the couple, so we know they're all together: Plus Liam's brother Luke snapped a photo of him on the slopes: we know it's him because the facial hair's poking out! A) Everyone should stop asking that, and B) the answer for the couple is not anytime soon, per the Daily Mail, which is totally fine. Let the lovebirds live a little! Also, they already have a ton of fur-babies they rescued from the California wildfires. In case anyone is wondering whether married bliss will make Miley less funky and fun, she gave us the answer over New Year's: HAHAHA NOPE. For more celebrity news, beauty and fashion advice, savvy political commentary, and fascinating features, sign up for the Marie Claire newsletter. SUBSCRIBE HERE | https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a25722555/miley-cyrus-liam-hemsworth-honeymoon/ |
How safe are smart dolls? | Security flaws in a doll have sparked concern regarding the safety of smart toys. TechWatchs Emily McDaid spoke to CSITs Dr Ciara Rafferty to find out more. Researchers at Queens University Belfasts Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) have been researching the security of smart toys. The My Princess Cayla Doll is hard to come by now, because its security flaws have been publicised across the globe, says lecturer Dr Ciara Rafferty from CSIT. Rafferty is an expert in fully homomorphic encryption, an important technique to enable computing on encrypted data. As a project in hardware security, Rafferty oversaw the work of an intern who effectively tried to break into the doll. The doll comes with embedded speaker, microphone and Bluetooth connectivity, enabling it to connect to the internet via a tethered smartphone and app. She explains: His project was intended to last for eight weeks, but he did it in three days. Rafferty says: You can access the app and rewrite the stories that the doll tells, so it will recount any text that you type in. The dolls Bluetooth connection can be exploited and, on top of that, the app is insecure. The doll gained so much notoriety, the German government actually classified it as a concealed espionage device, because it can listen to you or your kids, she says. German parents were instructed to destroy the doll, reports the BBC. The real fear here is not that a Cayla doll will infiltrate your home, but that any kids toy with connectivity could be vulnerable. Rafferty says: A report by the Childrens Commissioner in England discussed who sees the data you put online about your children. The amount of data people are posting about their children, through Facebook or Instagram for instance, can be staggering. Teachers also need to be retrained on this topic. You dont want to scare people. I think anything to interest and encourage children to interact is a good thing. Working in technology, you can teach kids from an early age how to use it safely because you cant avoid technology, Rafferty concludes. When shes not hacking smart toys, Raffertys research in homomorphic encryption is breaking other sorts of ground. Its fascinating to see how homomorphic encryption can be used in data analytics fintech, for instance. There are untrusted cloud service providers who store sensitive information in the cloud. This will enable encrypted analysis in the cloud; it will be a killer app, she explains. Raffertys team came up with a hardware solution that was 105 times faster than the software version. I remark that it sounds like a good investment area, and Rafferty notes a use case where this could help. Its not like giving away what your favourite colour is these providers hold your actual DNA, the very information that describes you. But, she notes, there are risks with sharing such personal data. If fully homomorphic encryption could be used in this instance, a user could upload encrypted data to the cloud, take advantage of the cloud computations and download results, without revealing sensitive information to the cloud service provider. However, we still need to further research homomorphic encryption schemes to enable sufficient performance for real-world use cases. Rafferty says there are many solutions, either using homomorphic encryption to compute on data without decrypting it, identity-based encryption, or access control-based methods. Information for parents, and government tips on smart toys can be found here. By Emily McDaid, editor, TechWatch A version of this article originally appeared on TechWatch Doll eyes. Image: shirotie/Depositphotos | https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/smart-dolls-safe-cayla-csit |
Who replaces Dillon Mitchell as Oregons go-to receiver in 2019? | EUGENE Justin Herberts best and most common target is leaving for the NFL so Oregons signal caller will have to aim elsewhere in 2019. Dillon Mitchells early departure leaves a major void atop the Ducks receiver corps. He had 75 catches for a program-record 1,184 yards and 10 touchdowns this season, all team-highs. The Ducks have eight receivers returning and four signees set to join the group as they attempt to replace Mitchells production next season. It will be a tall task, but hardly impossible with Herbert at quarterback, as Mitchells jump in production shows how easily being a reliable target can lead to big results. However, all of Oregons receivers had major issues with drops and theres no easy way to improve that other than constant individual work. Dillon Mitchell enters 2019 NFL Draft Oregons leading returning receiver is Jaylon Redd, who had 48 catches for 433 yards and five touchdowns. Redd didnt play the same role as Mitchell, but his production should increase. Hell also be a candidate to take over as Oregons primary kickoff returner. Tight end Jacob Breeland had 24 catches for 377 yards and two touchdowns. However, the return of Cam McCormick should eat into his playing time and thus, his contributions, while McCormick could be a more significant factor in the passing game. Running back CJ Verdell had 27 receptions for 315 yards and two scores. He was one of only two players with 1,000 rushing yards and 300 receiving yards this season and the other, Utah States Darwin Thompson, is entering the NFL Draft. Verdell will be called upon in the receiving game but perhaps even more on the ground and with durability a question after he dealt with an array of injuries, theres only so many reps he can take. The next true wide out in terms of production is Johnny Johnson III, who had 17 catches for 215 yards and four touchdowns. Johnson only had more than one catch in two Pac-12 games and only topped 20 yards once in Pac-12 play. More targets is not the obvious answer for Johnson, who like all of his peers had issues with drops. Brenden Schooler will be Oregons lone senior receiver in 2019 and is coming off a year in which he had 21 receptions for 203 yards and a touchdown. Schooler was a consistent contributor in the middle of the season, with 14 catches for 142 yards and a score over a four-game span, but ended the season with one four-yard catch during the last three games, including nothing in the last two. That leaves freshmen Bryan Addison, Isaiah Crocker, J.J. Tucker, Demetri Burch and Daewood Davis, with the latter two already having redshirted, vying for roles to contribute along with incoming signees Josh Delgado, Mycah Pittman, JR Waters and Lance Wilhoite. Mario Cristobal spoke highly of Addison late in the season and during bowl practices so he could push for a meaningful role. Burch and Davis took some reps with the second-team offense during the regular season while Crocker and Tucker were with the scout team while redshirting. But Oregon needed to upgrade its receiver corps and did in a big way with Delgado, Pittman, Waters and Wilhoite. How quickly any of them will contribute is anyones guess, but it would be foolish to expect any true freshmen to single-handedly be as big a factor as Mitchell, who had 63 catches on 107 targets in Pac-12 play. | https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2019/01/who-replaces-dillon-mitchell-as-oregons-go-to-receiver-in-2019.html |
What was Peter Molyneux's magic formula for addictive Amiga games? | Amiga Power went down to the pub with Peter Molyneux and his Bullfrog colleagues in 1991 to talk Amiga games including Populous II, Powermonger and 'Bob', which turned out to be the wildly successful Syndicate that was released in 1993. Ask someone to name a programming team and they'll invariably come up with the Bitmaps. Ask them to come up with a second famous team though and the answers will vary a bit some (those with long memories) may mention Jez San's Argonaut mob, others might plump for The Assembly Line or Core. Chances are, though, most will pick out Bullfrog they may not wear shades and stare meaningfully into the middle-distance, but they have developed a distinctive, recognisable style (this 3D isometric for-want-of-a-better-word 'God-sim' stuff), they are consistently interesting in what they do and (most importantly) they did, after all, develop Populous. Ah, Populous. Without doubt one of the most distinctive, original games ever seen on the Amiga (or indeed elsewhere), Populous has become something of an international phenomena. It's sold a good 750,000 (750,000!) units worldwide ("Guess how many different machines you can play it on now?" Peter Molyneux asks, "Fifteen! "), and is still constantly referred to as 'One of the Greatest Games Ever Written'. It's the sort of thing that becomes an obsessive experience with people. (Indeed, ask Peter what games he's been playing recently and he comes over all sheepish "I still play Populous quite a lot," he eventually admits). After a bit of rigmarole ("I'll only answer that if you'll tell me how you'd describe yourself" etc) he eventually comes out with some variation on his 'slow, disorganised, but keen' line. That being said, for a team of only seven or eight people they've got a lot of things on the boil. There's Creation, the genetic engineering-based project, there's the as-yet-not-properly-named 'Bob' ("I think it has the potential to become the best thing Bullfrog has ever produced," he told us last issue), there's the Powermonger data disk, there's another further away and more mysterious secret project and then, of course, there's Populous II. "Of all the programs we've done, this is the one I really wanted to do," says Peter. "It's because I like playing Populous so much, but I keep seeing ways in which we should change it." Certainly, if ever a program was 'long awaited', this is it. In fact, it's the chance to see it at an early(ish) stage that gets me and photographer Stuart into a (painfully slow) Fiesta hire car with a boot-load of lighting equipment and an illegible set of instructions for a day-trip to Guildford. In particular, for a day-trip to a typically programmer-chic (i.e. ratty and run down) series of offices above a hi-fi shop in the centre of town. "It's a stupid place to be," says Peter, "there's no need for us being in the city centre like this. It just sort of happened." Back in business Bullfrog's offices the place is signposted 'Taurus', the name of the old business software company the outfit was born out of occupy a number of floors built around a rickety staircase. The bulk of the programming seems to be done in the one at the top, a room shared with a tankful of baby piranha fish ("we catch them tiddlers from the river to feed them on the thing is, they'll only eat food that's moving") and a thankfully separate tank full of Oscars (another wimpier sort of fish) which'll gladly gum your finger to death. "Well, sort of. The easiest and hardest part of it all is coming up with the Good Idea to start with. That can be done anywhere usually we go down the pub, or for a meal, and just bounce ideas around until one sticks. In fact, I've got tapes of the original conversations we had about Populous if you listen to them there'll be one point where you can say, 'Yes, there's where the idea came from. That was the moment we thought of the game'." Big in Japan We've had some Japanese magazines in the office lately, I tell Peter. LOGiN's the famous one, but there are lots of others and they're all about 400 pages long and totally unintelligible apart from the Populous ad with its little Bullfrog logo on the back cover, that is. When you think that all those people in Japan know who Bullfrog are, or certainly know your games, you get to a state where you're expecting something of a more, well, impressive operation than you've got here. "Yes, I know what you mean," he replies. "We had a few journalists from LOGiN here the other day actually. I don't know what they expected, or what they thought of what they found. They took us outside and made us all climb up a tree to have our pictures taken. Not like you lot at all." He's referring to the fact that Stuart's currently struggling up the narrow stairs with armfuls of lights and rolls of white paper to set up for our photo shoot later. While he's doing that we take a brief look at some games very impressive, the lot of them, though going in all directions that make Flood look like even more of an anomaly ("We did Flood purely to prove we could do something like a platform game," says Peter. "We didn't want to become known just as the 3D isometric God-sim people") before breaking for lunch down the local pub. It's a nice one, with seats going down towards the river, so we sit outside and talk games and magazines. Righting wrongs We try and think of games that would qualify as the 'most overrated of all time,' and ones that 'should have been great, but weren't'. Peter talks about the importance of graphic designers to games ("they have at least as much say in the look and feel of them as the programmers, but they're hardly ever covered in magazines") and we try to come up with new ideas for things that we should try and do in Amiga Power. It's here that the idea for our 'Win a job at Bullfrog' competition came from, for instance. "When we were doing Populous the first journalist to see the game came down he was from Ace magazine, back in the days when it was with you guys at Future and I was really worried. It's so hard to know when you're that close to a project. Thankfully he liked it this real megastar, big name journalist liked it! In fact, when we came back to the office all he'd do was play it some more. I don't think he realised how much that meant to me." It's interesting to know how much outside opinions can mean when you're developing a product, but I can only laugh when I realise this 'big megastar journalist' was in fact cuddly old Bob Wade, currently editor of our sister magazine Amiga Shopper, occupying the office just next to the Amiga Power one. As we leave he tells me he'd taken the guys from LOGiN down here too. "They asked where our ideas came from, so we bought them a pint of Burtons Bitter and told them here, this is where this drink has special creativity-expanding properties. I'm not sure if they swallowed it, ha ha, but they certainly drank up their pints." | https://www.techradar.com/au/news/gaming/what-was-peter-molyneux-s-magic-formula-for-addictive-amiga-games-1288804 |
Will The Supreme Court Fast-Track Cases Involving Trump? | This is the Trump Docket, where we track some of the most important legal cases of the Trump presidency and how their results could shape presidential power. Email us here. If the Supreme Court justices have been trying to signal that they want a quiet term perhaps some time to recover after Justice Brett Kavanaughs hyper-partisan confirmation hearings last fall, which may have shaken public faith in the court as an impartial institution the Trump administration hasnt gotten the hint. Over the past few months, the solicitor generals office has blanketed the court with requests to bypass the normal legal process and rule swiftly in high-profile cases. Even after the court rebuffed attempts to halt the first Census trial and a climate-change lawsuit, the Trump administration kept trying, asking the justices to cancel an injunction against Trumps asylum ban. In an even more unusual move, the White House also asked the court to leapfrog lower courts and intervene in cases involving Trumps decision to revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the administrations policy against transgender military servicemembers. The justices rejected the Trump administrations request to block the injunction against the asylum ban in December, but only by a narrow 5-4 margin and several other requests are still pending. How the court responds will tell us a lot about what Trump might be able to expect from the courts newly minted conservative majority. The high court does have the power to short-circuit the appeals process, but requests to do so are rare and it typically happens only in extreme situations, such as when President Richard Nixon refused to turn over tapes of conversations recorded in the White House during the Watergate investigation. But the Trump administration appears to be betting that, given enough pressure, the courts conservative majority will step in to save signature parts of the presidents agenda. At the same time, these tactics could put justices like John Roberts who is known for his concern about the courts reputation in a pickle, if they want to avoid the perception that the court is simply bending to Trumps will. Taking these cases would suggest that the court is willing to treat the Trump administration as if the normal rules dont apply to it, Joshua Matz, a constitutional lawyer and publisher of the Take Care blog, which covers Trump-related legal issues, said. And it would also have the effect of essentially putting the legality of the Trump administrations entire domestic agenda on the Supreme Courts docket this year. At least one case involving the administration is already on the courts schedule. In November, the justices agreed to rule on whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other high-ranking officials could be required to testify about their reasons for adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census. Those oral arguments are slated for February. Why the court agreed to hear this part of the case is still a bit of a mystery, since Ross never testified and the justices didnt halt the trial, which means the lower court judge might, in the meantime, issue a ruling that has nothing to do with the administrations rationale for adding the question potentially making the dispute over whether they can be compelled to testify irrelevant. (Meanwhile, the trial in a separate lawsuit over the citizenship question is scheduled to begin on January 7, despite the Trump administrations attempts to slow it down, and another set of cases related to the question seem likely to go to trial later this month.) But the courts decision to take the case shows, at the very least, that the justices arent unwilling to entertain out-of-the-ordinary requests from Trump. And that might explain why Trump administration lawyers are deluging the court with petitions, hoping that at least a few more will rise to the top. In some of those cases, though, the Trump administration has a tall order they have to convince the justices not just that the issues in the case are important, but that theres a genuine need to rule on them early, before other courts have had their say. This was less of an issue for the Census case; since forms for the 2020 Census are due to be printed in June, the court had to act quickly. But the Trump administration is arguing that several other cases are pressing enough to make the cut for this years docket too, rather than waiting until the next term, which doesnt start until October. Thats in part because according to the administration lower court judges have been too aggressive in blocking Trumps policies from going into effect while theyre being challenged. If the administration succeeds in convincing the court, the ongoing litigation over DACA could end up on the justices agenda. Theyre helped by the fact that one appeals court has already ruled that Trump couldnt immediately revoke deportation protections. But the lower courts still havent ruled on the substance of Trumps DACA decision they have simply said the people challenging it have enough of a chance at success that the program shouldnt be revoked in the meantime. Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell Law School and immigration law expert, said it would be somewhat unusual for the high court to intervene at this stage. He added that the DACA case lacks the immediacy of the travel ban case, where thousands of people were being prevented from entering the country, so theres not the same sense of urgency for the Supreme Court to act. But Matz and other legal experts told me that the 9th Circuits ruling could still provide enough of a reason for the Supreme Court to take up the issue this term. The Trump administrations recent plea for the Supreme Court to hear the transgender military ban cases or, barring that, to at least allow the ban to go into effect seems likelier to prompt a response of Whats the hurry? Several district court judges have blocked the administration from implementing the latest version of the policy, but an appeals court has yet to rule on whether those injunctions are valid. The plaintiffs are arguing that its not as urgent as the governments lawyers claim, since they have already missed several opportunities to expedite it. Were still very early in the process, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. And there just isnt much evidence that this is a dire emergency. The Trump administrations disregard for protocol could also backfire, if the justices decide that they simply dont want to be rushed. The justices decision to reject Trumps request to lift the injunction against the asylum ban could be a sign that theyre growing impatient with the administrations tactics. Whatever happens, their responses to the Trump administration this month will be an important indicator of how the courts conservative wing and in particular, Chief Justice Roberts sees their relationship with the president. Other Cases Pre-presidency Trump Michael Cohen, the presidents former lawyer and fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for financial crimes, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. He was also told to pay nearly $2 million in financial penalties. The judge lowered his sentence from a maximum of more than five years because of his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller. Sentencing for former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last year, was postponed until Flynn has completed his own cooperation agreement with Mueller. Actress Stormy Daniels was ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in attorneys fees to Trump, after a judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit she and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, filed against Trump last year. Avenatti has indicated that hell appeal the ruling. The Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve under court supervision, amid a broader legal dispute about whether the foundation was used to make illegal payments to the Trump campaign. The rest of the lawsuit, which was filed by the New York attorney general last summer, will continue to move forward. A judge ruled that a group of plaintiffs who are suing the Trump family for allegedly using their brand to lure vulnerable investors into making sham investments can remain anonymous. Allowing plaintiffs to use pseudonyms is unusual, but the judge wrote that their fear of retaliation from the president or his followers is real and significant. President Trump The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear a case involving Trumps alleged violation of the Constitutions foreign and domestic emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments. A lower court judge had recently issued a set of rulings allowing the plaintiffs in the case, the District of Columbia and Maryland, to subpoena Trump businesses. But Trumps lawyers are arguing that producing these documents would be a distraction to the Presidents performance of his constitutional duties. This means that the lower court proceedings are frozen until the appeals court rules. The appeal has also been temporarily halted by the court, however, after Trumps attorneys told the court that the government shutdown was preventing them from being able to do their work. The Trump Administration | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-supreme-court-fast-track-cases-involving-trump/ |
Will Mt Kenya vote for Ruto or Mudavadi? | Patrick Mwangi @PeopleDailyKe The recent announcement by Jubilee Party vice-chairman David Murathe that Deputy President William Ruto should retire with President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2022 and that Mt Kenya region owes nobody a political debt has stirred up the hornets nest. No other pronouncements on the same matter, some of which have been even more inflammatory, have managed to raise the same level of indignation. A probable reason could be that Murathe is not just another politician he is the Presidents confidante and longtime associate. Murathe asked the people of the Western region to give Mt Kenya region somebody we can work with. This, being said in the presence of ANC leader Musalia Mudavadi, was taken as an indicator that Murathe was tacitly indicating Mt Kenya regions preferred candidate for the presidency come 2022. Kibaki allies This is not the first time Mudavadi is being fronted by Mt Kenya region elite. In 2013, he was the preferred successor of President Mwai Kibakis close associates, a plot that collapsed spectacularly. If Mudavadi becomes the candidate of the Mt Kenya elite, he will come up against the election juggernaut that is being assembled by Ruto, the self-proclaimed hustler. What the people of Mt Kenya will then be asked to do is to weigh the two candidatures and decide which of them carries more weight. Consequently, a look at the political balance sheets of the two aspiring presidents, in terms of where they stood in support of the presidential candidate fronted by the Mt Kenya region in the last two elections would provide a good platform on which each will be assessed. Joint ticket Lets take a look at Mudavadis balance sheet. In 2013, Uhuru, Mudavadi and Ruto were discussing the possibility of a joint ticket. It had gone to the point where Uhuru was said to have ceded the candidature to Mudavadi, then backed by Mt Kenya elite. However, the two were to fall out, and Mudavadi decided to abandon Uhuru and form his own coalition the Amani coalition, which was buttressed by his party the UDF. He proceeded to run against Uhuru in 2013 and lost, polling a measly 400,000 odd votes against the winners six million plus. Clearly, that political account went into deficit. Come 2017, Mudavadi joined forces with a perennial presidential contestant, Raila Odinga, to face off with Uhuru in the August 2017 election. Indeed, Mudavadi was Railas chief campaigner. This was after Uhuru had expended considerable political capital in wooing Mudavadi over the course of the intervening five years to no avail. Kenyans will recall the declaration by Mudavadi that Raila had been elected president, yet the vote counting was still in progress after the August 8, 2017, election. Indeed, he went ahead to demand that the Independent Boundaries and Electoral Commission (IEBC) declare Raila president. Of course, Raila was eventually beaten by Uhuru. Mudavadi stuck with Railas decision to boycott the poll called after the Supreme Court nullified Uhurus August 8 win, a decision that raised political temperatures in Kenya to boiling point, and sparked chaos in opposition strongholds that resulted in the deaths of several of their supporters. Uhuru again triumphed in the repeat election and was declared president and subsequently sworn in. By this time, Mudavadis political account in Mt Kenya was completely broke. Further, Mudavadi has yet to demonstrate his capacity to mobilise the entire Luhya nation into one voting bloc that he can bring to the table. There, he also starts with a serious deficit. ICC indictment Turning to Ruto, he and Uhuru joined hands to contest the 2013 election as president and deputy president following their indictment, and that of their associates, by the International Criminal Court (ICC). In that election, Ruto would mobilise the entire Kalenjin community to vote for Uhuru who went ahead to whitewash Raila by polling 6.1 million votes to the latters 5.3 million, taking him past the threshold needed for a run-off. The same scenario played itself out in 2017, where Ruto once again successfully mobilised the Kalenjin vote. This enabled Uhuru to post 8.2 million votes, swamping Railas 6.7 million and avoiding a run-off. That can only be said to have been a huge deposit in Rutos political account in the Mt Kenya region. This poll was annulled by the Supreme Court, citing massive irregularities. A repeat poll was ordered, but the opposition, sensing defeat, decided to boycott. Uhuru contested the repeat poll and won with 7.4 million votes. Again, Ruto was in the middle of drumming up the numbers. Another huge deposit. After this performance, he has eradicated all doubts about his capacity to mobilise the Kalenjin vote and sway it to his political direction. That is a cheque waiting to be cashed. As the clock ticks towards 2022, the political balance sheet will become a critical dynamic as Mudavadi and Ruto seek to sway voters in the Mt Kenya region. You be the judge. | http://www.mediamaxnetwork.co.ke/495062/will-mt-kenya-vote-for-ruto-or-mudavadi/ |
Are Millennials Just Young Baby Boomers? | Alright, I admit it, I never really understood the whole fight involving Baby Boomers and Millennials. Why is it that Millennials always seem to be the attack of every argument, and end up being blamed for every crisis that occurs in the world. Boomers somehow believe that Millennials are lazy and entitled. But to be completely honest, were not. Yes, I said were because I am a Millennial, and a hard-working one if I must add. I have two degrees under my name, worked hard for my career, pay my own bills, and try to give back to my community as much as I can. Millennials have entered a world where realities are different from the ones Boomers knew. In a way, we prioritize things that dont make sense to Boomers because, well, their environment back then had different demands. For example, nowadays, Millennials work hard for their career and prioritize their time to work with what is directly in line with their own career equity. Our time is limited, so we dont waste it by trying to invest in something that is outside our path. Because we know what skills and experiences can help us improve in our career prospects. Unlike Boomers, (not saying they arent hard workers), but they are used to working hard for a company in exchange for long-term investments in skills development and security such as a pension or a retirement fund. Well, some might argue that Boomers have a certain expectation of Millennials based on their own experiences. They expect Millennials to work for a bargain, and think we want to progress too fast without paying our due. Yes, this is where the perception of laziness comes in. They assume Millennials are flaky, and cant commit to their work, let alone their future. But at the end of the day, what Boomers need to understand is that honestly, Millennials are just trying to live and make a name for themselves like they did at some point. The Millennial generation isnt lazy, impatient, or just simply plagued by a social media addiction. I mean, sure, we have our moments such as scrolling and hour through Facebook on a daily basis, but the truth is that we are extremely self-aware of our surroundings and what we bring to the world. We carea lot, way too much even. We want to be a part of something that is meaningful and want to make a difference. Still, its a never-ending cycle of blaming who is right, who is wrong, and what is wrong. Baby Boomers claim Millennials arent working hard enough while Millennials claim Boomers cant balance work and enjoy life along the way. Baby Boomers blame Millennials of being patient and naive for wanting to get a job where they have the liberty to have enough free time, while Millenials make it a point to remind Boomers of their own happiness as the climb up the corporate ladder. Seeits a never-ending game of tug of war! But honestly, both sides are saying the exact same thing to one another! Its dumb, it really, really is. Its as if neither side is trying to work together and understand where the other is coming from. Boomers dont react well to a 25-year-old coming in and changing the way things have always been, while Millennials dont react well after being told to shoot for the stars, and do big things, but stick to the way it used to be method. Banter, its all banter! I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, I want to believe that both sides have good intentions. The only way both parties can understand each other is if the perspective of both is pulled back. No, Millennials arent entitled to anything, and sure, Baby Boomers sometimes dont get it (especially when it comes to technology), but thats why we should work together to understand each other. Sure, Ill help you upload a video to Facebook if you help me understand what and how a mortgage works. There is so much we can all do together, so much Millennials can learn from Baby Boomers and vice versa. There is no right and no wrong in this scenario. Apples and oranges. Bridging a communication path between both generation can end up in a compromise on both sides and lead to a great outcome on both all sides of the spectrum. Think about it. | https://rare.us/rare-life/millennials-and-babyboomers/ |
Is Kurnool Sona rice losing its sheen? | By Express News Service KURNOOL: Kurnool Sona rice, which is one of the most popular varieties in the country, is slowly losing its glory. This is because of decline in cultivation every year for the last 10 years. The rice variety (Kurnool Sona BPT 5204) was cultivated in an extent of 1.70 lakh acres under Kurnool-Cuddapah (KC) Canal during both Kharif and Rabi seasons. But, for the last 10 years, the extent of cultivation has been restricted to below 60,000 acres due to water scarcity. The most preferred variety of rice in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other states is likely to to become scarce soon. The farmers have been cultivating Kurnool Sona especially in Nandyal, Allagadda, Srisailam and Nandikotkur Assembly constituencies in Kurnool district. A Venkata Subbaiah at Nossam village in Uyyalawada mandal, said that BPT 5204 variety of rice was facing a threat of survival if not water was not made available to KC Canal and Srisailam Reservoir Back Canal (SRBC) ayacut at the right time. Normally, the operations would catch up in the first week of July and transplantation of saplings would be completed before July-end so that the farmers can harvest the crop in November. But, due to insufficient and lack of timely rains, it is being affected severely by Neck Blast Disease every season. Accordingly, the yields are dropping by 60 to 70 per cent over normal yields, Venkata Subbaiah said. He said that it is impacting the harvest of paddy and prices every season. As per sources, the entire Sona fine rice crop production has reduced to 1.50 lakh metric tonne out of 2.54 lakh metric tonne due to lack of water sources every year. We may forget the Kurnool Sona Masoori if the situation continues, Saguneeti Sadhana Samithi president Bojja Dasaratharami Reddy said. He also agreed that delay in water supplies to the Rayalaseema Region exposes the paddy crop to Neck Blast Disease. The paddy yields are drastically reduced due to the neck blast disease, which is resulting to production loss of `1,000 crore per annum, the agribusiness experts said.Agriculture scientist Dr M Nagaraju Rao said that Kurnool Sona Masoori rice was a popular fine rice variety being produced in Rayalaseema region especially Kurnool district due to conducive atmosphere. The rice being produced here is well-accepted all over India and abroad due to its slenderness, cooking quality and taste. The International Research Centre also certified Kurnool Sona Massori Rice (BPT 5204) as a wonderful variety in the world having all qualities, the scientist said.He added that this kind of rice was being produced in other states also like Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Produced in TS, TN too This variety of rice is being produced in other States such as Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, but if the local and non-local varieties are compared, one can find the difference | http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra-pradesh/2019/jan/02/is-kurnool-sona-rice-losing-its-sheen-1919583.html |
Have We Seen the Last of the Booger Mobile? | Throughout the course of human history, there are countless examples of ideas and innovations that, though brilliant, werent quite ready for public consumption. True visionaries are rarely appreciated in their own time. So perhaps we should have seen the handwriting on the wall for The Booger Mobile, which roamed the sidelines of Monday Night Football broadcasts this year. Public backlash had already caused some downsizing. Now, ESPN is scrapping the contraption for Saturdays Colts-Texans broadcast. Booger McFarland will be in the booth with the rest of the bipedal broadcast team. The mechanical unit will remain unused, presumably commiserating with Chappie, the Brave Little Toaster, and Wall-E in the section of storage reserved for inanimate objects with hearts of gold. McFarlands ride will also not be making an appearance at the Pro Bowl or Super Bowl. At this point, its tough to imagine it will get signed for next year. Like I said, people just werent ready to have a cumbersome roaming unit blocking the view from expensive seats. Plus, the chemistry between Booger, Joe Tessitore, and Jason Witten would figure to be better if they could all see each other. If that happens, its important to keep perspective. Dont cry because the Booger Mobile era is over. Smile because it happened. | https://thebiglead.com/2019/01/02/have-we-seen-the-last-of-the-booger-mobile/ |
What Time Is The Masked Singer On? | ! The Masked Singer has all the makings of a cultural phenomenon. Premiering later tonight, Foxs newest reality competition centers on a group of intricately disguised celebrities squaring off in a singing contest. With their identities shrouded in mystery, the panelists and audiences are left to wonder whos singing behind the mask. Based on the South Korean competition King of Mask Singer, which famously featured Ryan Reynolds as one of the masked singers, Foxs iteration will reportedly feature an array of household names that have a combined 65 Grammy nominations, 16 multi-Platinum albums, 16 Emmy nominations, nine Broadway shows, and four Super Bowl titles. Wow. Heres everything you need to know. The Masked Singer airs on Fox. The Masked Singer airs tonight (January 2) from 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET on Fox. In NYC, Fox is channel 5 on Spectrum and channel 22 on DirecTV. Channel lineup varies by location, so you can find your channel by entering your address on the Spectrum or DirecTV website. The Masked Singer wont be available to stream on Netflix, but Episode 1 is scheduled to be released on Hulu on Thursday, January 3. Future episodes will arrive on Hulu a day after they air on Fox. HOW TO WATCH THE MASKED SINGER ONLINE: The Masked Singer airs on Fox, which means if you have a proper cable login, you may be able to live stream the show via Fox.com or the FOX NOW app (available on iTunes, Amazon Fire Stick, Android, and more). Depending on your location, you may be also be able to find a Fox Masked Singer live stream if youre a DIRECTV NOW, fuboTV, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV, or PlayStation Vue subscriber. If you look around the internet theres a ton of speculation, but its difficult to find concrete spoilers. During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, EP Craig Plestis revealed the extraordinary lengths production went through to keep the show spoiler free. All the stars, before they even left their house, they had to meet at another location, he said. They dressed in cloaks and masks. We had drivers who had no idea who they were. Everyone was under a different alias, and when they pulled up on the lots, everyone had to wear these cloaks and wear these masks. They were sequestered into a private area that was guarded by security guards. When they came on the set, they had to either wear their complete outfit, or they had to wear, again, these cloaks that had gloves. Okay, so we at least know its a her. The Masked Singer airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET on Fox. Where to stream The Masked Singer | https://decider.com/2019/01/02/what-time-is-the-masked-singer-on/ |
Will taxing tech giants work? | Companies like Google and Facebook generate huge revenues, and now they are being made to pay big taxes. Technology giants face paying bigger tax bills in Europe worth billions of dollars. Austria is the latest country to announce plans to impose levies on large internet companies. It follows the French governments so-called 'GAFA' tax named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon. This digital tax targets mainly revenues collected from advertising and market-related fees. France and Germany wanted a European Union law introduced to ensure companies making huge profits online pay their fair share of taxes. But so far, the European Commission has failed to get unaminous support. Presenter: Laura Kyle Guests: Nino Kader - CEO of Spark Digital and digital marketing lecturer at Georgetown University Glen Goodman - financial trader and former business journalist Aral Balkan - coder and cyborg rights activist Source: Al Jazeera News | https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2019/01/taxing-tech-giants-work-190102203308944.html |
Is it OK to toss an apple core or banana peel outside? | We have a strip of woods behind our house where deer often wander. They've been forced into this relatively small swath of trees due to an overwhelming amount of construction. Occasionally, we'll toss an apple core into the brush for them, hoping they'll find it. If not, we figure the myriad squirrels or birds will be happy with the fruity treat. But I'm not so sure our jettisoned apple remains are such a good idea. You've no doubt been walking in the park or on a trail and have seen a banana peel or orange rind lying on the ground. The outdoorsy person who tossed them no doubt thought the fruit remains would biodegrade eventually. Sure they will. But it won't happen overnight. A long wait Search online and estimates vary, but an apple core can take two months to decompose and a banana peel can take up to two years, by some reports. Although that's a mere blip compared to the estimated decomposition time for plastics 20 years for a plastic bag, 200 years for a straw or 450 years for a plastic bottle it's not like these food items will disintegrate quickly. After watching hikers toss a sandwich on a trail, Marjorie "Slim" Woodruff, who hikes and works in the Grand Canyon, set up a small experiment. She put an apple core, a banana peel, orange peels, chewing gum and tissue paper in a cage of chicken wire, wide enough to allow small animals to go in and out. After six months, the orange peels had dried out, the banana peel had turned black, the chewing gum was the same and the tissue had become a blob. Nothing had been eaten or had rotted. She buried the same items in sand and soil and six months later everything was still recognizable. We do not. An apple core is edible, certainly, but if it is not part of the animal's daily diet," Woodruff writes in High Country News. "The bottom line is, before we got here, the faunae did just fine on nuts, berries and occasionally each other. They do not need us." A danger to animals There's another element of this to think about, too. When animals start to get their food from people, they may stop foraging for their own food in nature. This is very dangerous, points out the Leave No Trace organization, because animals need a varied diet to get all the nutrients they need. "When going to the campground or trail is an easy meal of fruit or human processed foods, they eat and get full on single food items instead of a range of food items that all provide different nutrients. So when that squirrel or deer or bird, who looks so hungry, comes up to eat trail mix out of your hand, know that you're putting the animal at risk of a healthy life, a prolonged existence, and the opportunity for healthy offspring." Food waste also attracts animals to areas where there are a lot of people, says Leave No Trace. "Food thrown alongside roads draws wildlife nearer to roadways and increases the likelihood they will end up as road kill. Scraps tossed on the trail bring wildlife closer to the trail corridor as they seek out food," the group says on its website. Suddenly, my apple core doesn't seem so innocent anymore. (Apologies to the deer, but I swear it was with the best of intentions.) Breaking the law A tossed apple core could cost you thousands of dollars. All 50 states have some sort of litter laws on the books and few actually define litter. Whether you're tossing banana peels or fast food containers, litter is litter in most states. In Florida, for example, Fort Myers Police Lieutenant Jay Rodriguez told NBC2 that it doesn't matter what the trash is, especially if it's tossed from a car. "A banana could sit there for two or three days and look ugly to someone and be considered litter," he said. Fines vary by state. Some might only charge $100, but a few states fine people more than $6,000 for a first offense. That's a hefty price to pay for a banana peel or an apple core. Better to keep it with you and throw it away or better yet, compost it when you get home. Biodegradable items like apple cores or banana peels can be litter too. Here's an array of reasons why you shouldn't toss them outside. | https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/stories/it-ok-toss-apple-core-or-banana-peel-outside |
Who Is Mitt Romney Kidding? | Thats a fair reading of Romneys op-ed. It is not that all of the presidents policies have been misguided, he wrote. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on Chinas unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency. Whats most striking about the op-ed is what it doesnt mention. There are no complaints about Trumps draconian approach to immigration, perhaps because Romney himself helped pave the way for his hardline policies. During the 2012 primaries, he outflanked the rest of the field from the right by calling for policies that would pressure immigrants to self-deport as an alternative to mass deportations. The years have not tempered his views: Im also more of a hawk on immigration than even the president, Romney told a Utah crowd in March. Romneys op-ed reveals a selective memory at play. His version of events begins with his own decision not to endorse Trump in 2016. But during the 2012 campaign, Romney appeared alongside Trump to accept his endorsement, a decision that helped pave the way for Trumps subsequent rise to power: It validated his racist campaign to pressure President Obama into releasing his birth certificate, and signaled that he had power and influence within the Republican Party. Romneys pointed non-endorsement in 2016 was too late to wash away the imprimatur of legitimacy. The narrative also, conveniently for Romney, focuses on what happened in the last month of 2018. The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December, his op-ed began, as he lamented the departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and other figures whom establishment Republicans saw as stabilizing figures within the administration. Criticizing Trumps actions prior to the midterm elections would have been slightly awkward for Romney: He welcomed the presidents endorsement in his own Senate campaign. Some observers rushed to praise Romney for his perceived declaration of independence. For better or worse, Mitt Romney has joined the resistance, The Weeks Joel Mathis wrote on Wednesday. Rick Wilson, a prominent #NeverTrump conservative consultant, was euphoric. Yes, weve seen a handful of truth-tellers in the Senate, he wrote in The Daily Beast, but they rarely hit so keenly as todays Romney nuke strike. If complaining that Trump has not risen to the mantle of his office is a nuclear detonation, even the most conservative of Democrats should be sent to the Hague. | https://newrepublic.com/article/152839/mitt-romney-antitrump-washington-post-oped |
Will Maines New $11-Per-Hour Minimum Wage Attract Workers To Rural Areas? | Maines minimum wage gets another bump in 2019. This years minimum is $11 per hour. The challenge is going to be, can the businesses afford to keep up with these wage increases? says Maine state economist Amanda Rector, speaking on Maine Calling Wednesday. Rector says it remains to be seen how the higher wages will play out, especially in rural areas, which also have the challenge of attracting a workforce. Will they be enough to attract workers to those regions? she says. If you know that you can make 11 dollars an hour working in a more rural part of the area, where cost of living is less. Is that enough to entice you there? Rector predicts that the new wage, at $11 per hour, may cross a threshold where businesses are required by law to pay workers more than they might voluntarily as part of their business plan; she says many businesses were already prepared to pay $9 and $10 per hour in a bid to attract and retain workers. Maines minimum wage law, approved by voters in 2017, calls for a state minimum of $12 per hour by 2020. | http://www.mainepublic.org/post/will-maine-s-new-11-hour-minimum-wage-attract-workers-rural-areas |
Is Pete Davidson returning to stand-up comedy in 2019? | STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- On New Years Day, Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson made his first stand-up appearance since posting an alarming Instagram note that led the NYPD to conduct a wellness check. The Great Kills native rang in 2019 on a Massachusetts stage, talking about his breakup with Ariana Grande and what has happened since, according to The New York Times. While he was reportedly greeted by thunderous applause, not all of it was welcomed. When the crowd started to clap in response to talking about his breakup, the comedian said, Ill stop if youre going to be stupid, according to the report. Davidson went on to talk about how students at a school where his mother teaches taunted her by singing thank u, next as she walked through the halls, the report said. As a result, Davidson said the students were summoned to the principals office to sing it in front of four administrators, according to the Times. Davidson also spilled some details on how he really reacted to Grandes song, which singled out all her past relationships, including their short engagement. Heres the thing about the breakup song," Davidson said, according to the report. "Usually [with] breakup songs you know who its about, but you dont really know. That G named all of us. Bam. She named all of us. | https://www.silive.com/entertainment/2019/01/is-pete-davidson-returning-to-stand-up-comedy-in-2019.html |
Is it time for the Arizona Coyotes to ride rookie goaltender Adin Hill? | Coyotes goaltender Adin Hill is 7-3-0 since he was called up from the AHL. (Photo: Icon Sportswire, Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Its safe to say that Adin Hill didnt envision he'd be a starting goaltender in the NHL at the conclusion of Coyotes training camp in September. Hill, regarded as the top goaltending prospect in the Coyotes organization, has been thrust into duty as one of the most trusted netminders on a club that seems to be plagued more and more by injuries as the season drones on. With No. 1 goaltender Antti Raanta sidelined for what could end up being a season-ending injury, the Coyotes goaltending situation has turned into a tandem between Hill and regular backup Darcy Kuemper. The Coyotes also added Calvin Pickard off waivers from Philadelphia and assigned him to their AHL affiliate in Tucson for purposes of conditioning, which suggests Pickard could see some NHL game action once he shakes off the cobwebs with the Roadrunners. Im fine with it, Hill said of the current goaltending situation. Its what Ive done in the AHL the past few years with the rotating back and forth Darcys a great guy and its healthy competition. Still, the Coyotes goaltending situation has been in flux since Raanta went down with an injury on Nov. 27. Rangers center Mika Zibanejad lines up a shot against Coyotes goalie Adin Hill during overtime of a game Dec. 14 at Madison Square Garden. (Photo: Catalina Fragoso / USA TODAY Sports) Since then, the Coyotes have posted an 8-9 record and have allowed an average of 2.94 goals per game. Their 50 goals allowed since Nov. 27 are tied for eighth most in the NHL over that span. Prior to Raantas injury, the Coyotes had allowed just 62 goals in 22 games (2.82 per game), which was tied for the fourth fewest in the NHL over that span. Although the Coyotes individual goals-against average didnt increase by much, they are clearly trending against league trajectory. Of course, not all of that can be pinned on the goalie. The Coyotes defensive unit has suffered with Jason Demers out indefinitely with a knee injury and effective two-way forwards Michael Grabner and Brad Richardson also missing some games as of late. Over the course of the entire season, the Coyotes have still been an above-average team in terms of goal prevention, but theyll need excellent goaltending and air-tight defense down the stretch in order to get themselves back in the race for a playoff spot. Their best chance at achieving the first part of that could lie with Hill, who has been the best-performing of the Coyotes current goaltenders since his recall from Tucson. Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet pointed out Hills presence in games where his club has shown the most resiliency. From last year to this year, obviously hes gotten better, Tocchet said of Hill. His style of play is a lot quieter. Last year, he was a little busy, scrambly. I think hes tempered that and still needs to temper some of that, but hes come in for some pressure situations and has done a nice job for us. The one thing I like is even in the games where theyve scored three or four goals on him, hes stayed strong and let us get back in the game. If you look at the games weve been in, hes been there. The Rangers game, the Anaheim game. Even though they scored 3-4 goals on him, he stayed strong and let us come back. Thats the sign of a mentally strong goalie. Although the rookie certainly hasnt been perfect this season, Hill has performed admirably with a 7-3-0 record to go along with a 2.39 goals-against average and a .916 save percentage. Simple math will tell you hes been in net for seven of the Coyotes eight wins and been involved with just three of their nine losses since Raanta went down with injury. The 22-year-old Hill said hes felt more and more comfortable with each start between the pipes at the NHL level. When you first come up here youre a little nervous off the ice but I feel like Im finding my game and I feel good, Hill said. Im just working one day at a time in practice and trying to get better every day. The guys here have been super welcoming. Tocchet said hes seen Hill continue to adjust to his new NHL setting on and off the ice. I think he watches himself a little bit because hes a young goalie and stuff, Tocchet said. But I think hes outgoing in the sense where hes talking out on the ice. I think sometimes as a young goalie youre afraid to say those things, but Ive heard him out there and thats a step in the right direction. With Kuemper struggling since his own return from injury (5-11-2, 2.90 GAA) and Pickard still an unknown commodity with the Coyotes, Hill might represent Arizonas best option in goal. The more you play, I feel like thats the more comfortable you get in the league, Hill said. Getting in a rhythm is nice but Im just going to take what I get. Its nice to play as many games as you want because you want to be in the net every game, right?If I get one start in the next month or 10, Im going to take it and do the best I can with them. MORE COYOTES Richard Morin covers the Coyotes and Diamondbacks for azcentral sports. He can be reached at [email protected] and by phone at 480-316-2493. Follow him on Twitter @ramorin_azc. | https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nhl/coyotes/2019/01/02/time-arizona-coyotes-ride-rookie-goaltender-adin-hill-net/2465694002/ |
Does Antonio Brown want to be a 49er? | The Pittsburgh Steelers missed out on a postseason berth after the Cleveland Browns failed to upset the Baltimore Ravens in Week 17. With the Ravens now AFC North champs, the Steelers head into an uncertain offseason where several looming questions need to be answered, the main one being what to do about disgruntled wide receiver Antonio Brown. The All-Pro was a scratch from Sundays lineup due to what was listed as a knee injury, but it has become clear in the days since that drama between Brown and the organization last week led to his absence against the Bengals. The team will have to decide whether the drama is worth it to keep Brown around and make another Super Bowl run with the current roster, or whether they should seek a trade partner and anoint second-year receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who had a breakout year with 111 receptions for 1,426 yards and seven touchdowns, as the teams new number one receiver. Brown seems willing to get out of Steel City, at least if you want to read between the lines in this Twitter exchange between the Steelers receiver and San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle. Take a look. Sure, the Niners finished 4-12 this year, but with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo expected to return healthy next season from a torn ACL, coupled with the fact that San Francisco holds the second pick in Aprils NFL Draft and could add to their already stacked defense, the Niners may be one of the more appealing options for AB. Whether the Steelers decide to part ways with him, however, remains to be seen. | https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2019/01/02/does-antonio-brown-want-to-be-a-49er/ |
What's Driving Camping World Holdings 12% Higher Today? | Shares of Camping World Holdings (NYSE: CWH), a leading outdoor and camping retailer with products that include recreational vehicles, camping gear, and services such as RV maintenance and repair, are up 12% as of 3:22 p.m. EST after the company announced a management shakeup. So what After all was said and done, 2018 turned out to be a rough year for shareholders, who witnessed the stock shed much of its value. CWH Chart More CWH data by YCharts. Camping World decided to start the new year with a realignment and new assignments for the executive leadership team with the hope that it would foster a positive turnaround in performance and operations. Roger Nuttall resigned as president of the company's dealership group in late December 2018, and that position's responsibilities were divided between CEO Marcus Lemonis, and four tenured divisional RV presidents to make the decision-making process more efficient. Thomas Wolfe was also appointed to president of Good Sam, the company's comprehensive portfolio of recurring products and services, and Melvin Flanigan to chief financial officer. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Marcus Lemonis had this to say in a press release: Our 2019 focus will be to better serve our customers, associates and shareholders while continuing to expand our RV market share with opportunistic RV acquisitions and completing the rollout of RV dealerships into newly opened retail locations. Recreational vehicle parked in the woods. More Image source: Getty Images. Now what The hope is that these executive moves will enable the team to better focus on improving inventory management, reducing costs and expenses, and increasing margins and cash flow. Management also reiterated it will close underperforming locations, as it had already closed four unprofitable RV dealership locations and eight retail stores. While today's 12% pop might be a breath of fresh air for investors who have endured a rough past 12 months holding the stock, remember that it merely offsets the initial plunge when news came out that Roger Nuttall had resigned from his position. Executive management might have a new look, but it has many problems to turn around before long-term investors buy back in. More From The Motley Fool Daniel Miller has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Camping World Holdings. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. | https://news.yahoo.com/apos-driving-camping-world-holdings-212500199.html |
Is it cruel to consider a Dementia divorce? | A chilly weekday morning. Yet despite the plummeting temperature, Elaine is taking an age to get dressed. Once a super-organised mother of three, a woman whod throw on her clothes in a flash before diving into her burgeoning schedule, Elaine is fumbling with the buttons of her shirt. After several minutes, her husband, Stephen, steps in to assist, completing the job in seconds. His frustration is palpable yet, for him and countless others, this is just one of many micro-moments which reflect the challenging reality of living with a spouse who has been diagnosed with dementia. Recent figures show that the number of people in the UK suffering from the disease will double over the next 40 years: currently, the degenerative brain disorder affects about 700,000 Britons. As the population ages, the figure will rise to a catastrophic 1.5 million. Family lawyer Nicola Mcinnes spoke to married individuals who've struggled with their spouse's degenerative brain disorder (file image) But aside from negotiating the practicalities of living with a partner whose once crystal- clear mind has brutally unravelled, theres an often unspoken heartache to this terrible disease. Its one which, as a divorce lawyer with Gorvins Solicitors, Im seeing with increasing regularity. And that is the number of spousal carers desperate to escape their marriage and file for divorce. They come to see me in a state of absolute despair. Torn between the guilt of wanting to walk away from a lengthy marriage and the desperation of being yoked (as one client put it) to someone who is at best helplessly vacant and at worst angry, violent or over-sexed. Even after working as a family lawyer for more than 30 years, I find it utterly heartbreaking. In cases of spousal Alzheimers, plans for the future are supplanted by wistful memories of past intimacy, friendship and companionship. The physical presence is there but the loneliness is crushing. With the number of over-60s divorces increasing by over a third in the past ten years, its quite likely that spousal ill health is partly responsible. As Stephen said when speaking to the Mail this week: There isnt a day goes by when I dont think about being free from my marriage and having a normal relationship. About having a normal life busy, romantic and intimate. Not just the sex life. Thats such a small part of it all. But just having that full, rounded existence of being with someone you can talk to, make plans with, just, well, be with. My wife is so vulnerable. Its too cruel to leave her. Whats more, if I did that, it would be left to our children to have to look after her, maybe to move back home (one is at university and two are working down South). How could I do that to them when their lives are just beginning? So I have no choice but to face up to the fact that there is no escape from this. Ive been with my wife for over 30 years. She needs me and even though the life we once had together has gone I have to stay. Former EastEnders star Dame Barbara Windsor, 81, has been campaigning to raise money and change attitudes towards Alzheimers (file image) But there are so many times when I have just wanted to bolt out of that door and not come back. Its a lonely, miserable existence. What compounds the tragedy of Stephens story is that his wife is suffering with early-onset Alzheimers (when the disease occurs in someone under 65). Elaine was formally diagnosed two years ago aged 56. Though, as Stephen points out, in retrospect the signs were there long before, triggering a pattern of behaviour which pushed their relationship to the limit. Our daily life was imploding because of the way she was behaving. Not only was Elaine short tempered and irritable all the time, she was making such a big deal out of the smallest things, such as making dinner or planning to go out. She also became a habitual spender Id look at the credit card statement and be able to track her purchases all over town, one quickly made after another. She bought clothes she never wore, or plants which she never potted in the garden. Thered be photo frames, nick-nacks. Around 6 per cent of marriages affected by serious illness ended in divorce, a study found I asked her what she wanted all this stuff for and she would just argue that she did. The rows were terrible. The bubbly, go-getting woman Id married all those years ago had turned into a terrible, irrational shrew. And in the end, after a few months I left. Although the couple separated, they never divorced. And ironically, it was when Elaine was diagnosed with Alzheimers two years later, that Stephen returned home. What choice did I have? he asks with teary resignation. I couldnt load that on my children. But inside I yearn for that freedom. Such a brutally candid description of life on the dementia front line couldnt be more different from the public vows of love and devotion made by sufferer Dame Barbara Windsor and her husband, Scott Mitchell recently. The 81-year-old former EastEnders and Carry On star has been living with Alzheimers for four years. Dame Barbara's husband Scott Mitchell (pictured right with Barbara), says despite all the changes in her, she still has her humour, wit and care for others (file image) In a pre-recorded video, she called on people to run this years London Marathon in aid of a campaign to raise money and change attitudes towards the condition. Filmed in her home, those blue eyes fringed by long lashes still twinkly, it was hard to square the familiar face of a national treasure with the ravages of Alzheimers. If anything she presented a calm and almost comforting side to the illness. Meanwhile, her devoted husband, offered soothing words. Despite all the changes in Barbara, there is still so much of her there. Her humour, wit and care for others, for example. It is her humour I love the most we have always laughed a lot, he said. Such a situation is gladdening and offers hope to those entering the dark and deeply frightening world of spousal dementia. But the reality is so different for many clients who come to my door. Like the lady who sat in my office recently and said she was now scared of her once loving and softly spoken husband. Knuckles white from twisting a tissue in her hands, she told me how he was the kind of man who once embodied the clich about never hurting a fly. If anything, she said, he had always been her protector something very much reflected in their respective roles. She was the homemaker whod given up work to look after the family while he was the business executive who provided for their needs and cushioned his wife and children from the financial realities of the outside world. Nicola says she has seen clients whose children are horrified by their parent's consideration of separating due to illness (file image) I just cant take his mood swings and his aggression, she told me. He hasnt hit me if he did Id go. But he gets so frustrated when he cant remember things. He smashes plates and throws cutlery on the floor. I just cant live with it. Im at breaking point. Yet despite reaching such a desperate stage, she admitted how terrible she felt even sitting in my office. The very idea of seeing a divorce lawyer seemed to her the very ultimate betrayal of a man she had known all her adult life (she had met him as a teenager and was now in her late 60s) Of course, divorce is a huge step sweeping with it feelings of enormous guilt and loss. Then there are the children. I have seen clients whose children, already suffering their own emotional turmoil, have been horrified that the parent carer would even consider abandoning their mother or father. Parental responsibilities and sensitivities add another tangent to an already impossibly tense situation. Little wonder that some of the people who see me never come back. They soldier on. Divorce is a huge step for anyone. Consider all sides of the emotional fall-out. If possible, dont just present it as a fait accompli to children, but talk about it. Take advice from friends or speak to the Alzheimers Society about what lies ahead. Workout the finances. Make sure you know what income and savings you have and take advice. . Be realistic about the future. It doesnt mean you do not care or wont visit. It doesn't have to be divorce it could be a judicial separation where the court can make orders about the division of money and property but does not actually end the marriage. If you do go for divorce, dont feel you are being unfair because of the inequity of your respective positions. If your husband or wife lacks mental capacity and cannot agree to a divorce or take part in the divorce case a person (such as a family friend, or relative) can act on their behalf as whats known as a litigation friend. Perhaps they have spoken to friends or family. Or perhaps they couldnt silence their conscience. What happened, they tell themselves, to that vow: In sickness and in health? As a divorce lawyer, it is not for me to make a judgment call Im there to explain the options. But never to encourage a course of action. One distraught client told me she literally had to get out. Her life, she said, was and Ive never forgotten this phrase a living death. Her husband, who was in his late 60s and who had been diagnosed about a year before, had become very sexual. He would walk around naked all the time and see sexual suggestion and invitation in routine actions, such as getting into the shower, or simply wearing a bath robe. The situation was clearly intolerable she could, in theory have been in danger of rape though there was no suggestion he had forced himself upon her and he had accepted her rebuttals. But she couldnt take the chance and, at her behest, we had to apply for an injunction based on his unreasonable behaviour. As for the finances, all she wanted was a fair split enough so her husband could be looked after and enough so that she could have somewhere to live. Rosemary Westwell, a former music teacher, who lives in Cambridgeshire, said she lost her husband John when he was diagnosed with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia which affects the parts of the brain responsible for social behaviour at the age of 46. There were so many times when I wanted to leave. He was always angry, or doing difficult things. Like the time he made a fire in the middle of the sitting room. I remember thinking: Im living with a mad man. I have to get out of here. There were many occasions when I was at breaking point and wanted to see a divorce lawyer. I no longer had a husband, so why should I stay with him he needed care, of course. But he didnt need a wife. Rosemary, who has written about her experiences in John, Dementia And Me, is still with her husband. Researchers believe the number of people suffering from dementia in the UK will rise to 1.5 million (file image) Now 72, he can no longer walk or talk, and has spent more than a quarter of his life living away from his family in care facilities. She says: Im not his wife any more yet there is still something that holds me to him, when Im with him. Its not selfish for spouses to leave to make sure they and their children are healthy, well and have the chance of a life. But equally, John cant help it. Im from a generation where we didnt see divorce as a simple option. So Ive adapted. I keep busy, meeting friends, I run a choir and a support group, I have platonic male friends. Perhaps it might have been different if Id have met someone I wanted to be with. But I never have. Though maybe subliminally I feel that would have been a betrayal. So my relationship marriage with John endures. Though I would never criticise anyone who did leave. Meanwhile, Stephen knows he has sacrificed his chance of personal happiness. After years in a senior local government position it was where he met Elaine he has taken early retirement to be his wifes full-time carer. In recent months Elaines condition has worsened. She is now so confused that the other week she didnt recognise one of her own children on a family photo. She has stopped reading and cant remember things her husband tells her, such as where they are heading when they go out. Occasionally, says Stephen, they hold hands, but thats as far as it goes. The romance and intimacy is buried, steamrollered by the marks of the disease. Abandoning Elaine is not an option even if I could arrange for her to have full-time care. I have to stay with this now. But in committing myself to her life, it is consuming part of mine with her. alzheimers.org.uk Now share your views on the controversy at [email protected] | https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6548519/Is-cruel-consider-Dementia-divorce.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490 |
Will the gaming industry clutch up in 2019? | 2019 promises to be a great year in games. Innovation and competition will elevate the industrys offerings and drive more inclusivity among a broader range of audiences. Cloud gaming emerges as the new frontier and brings about unlikely partnerships. Collectively, gamers will serve as the canary in the coal mine as large tech companies look to introduce new technologies to mainstream consumer audiences. Companies like Amazon, Tencent, Google and Microsoft already own and operate massive data centers that virtually run enterprise applications. In 2019, we will see continued investment in infrastructure and content acquisition as these billion-dollar companies seek to claim the consumer market. Cloud gaming is a massive market opportunity that extends beyond just interactive entertainment. Microsoft already generates significant revenues from cloud-based services, and doubling down on gaming will open the door to broader adoption by consumers and a bigger piece of the market. It also comes with significant competition, each player with their own motivations. Tencent, for one, got hit hard with a slowdown in mobile game approvals by the Chinese government, causing its share price to drop. Since then, things have started to improve somewhat, but it has incentivized Tencent to reduce its exposure in gaming and look for other non-content business segments that generate steady revenue and require less government regulation. For the first three quarters of 2018, Tencents cloud operations generated $864 million (RMB 6 billion) in revenues and more than doubled year-over-year. Google has also been trying to wiggle its way into the cloud gaming business. Its cloud operations make about $10 billion annually, and recently appointed a new CEO likely to expand Google Clouds vertical product capabilities in non-tech categories. And there is, of course, Amazon. With currently more than 50 percent market share in cloud computing and a strong user acquisition and engagement channel with Twitch, Amazon is uniquely positioned. But its previous efforts around interactive entertainment have so far not produced any real tangible results despite it ramping up expenditure. This makes it more likely that Amazon will become a third-party infrastructure provider for companies like Sony and Nintendo instead. As these titans double down on cloud gaming initiatives, we can expect to see some surprising partnerships. For instance, Tencent and Google are currently working together in China. This gives the latter an entry point into a market that has long been out of reach. Meanwhile, incumbents like Sony, Nintendo and legacy game publishers will have to decide on going at it alone, as is the case of Electronic Arts, or buddying up and surrendering a piece of revenue. Gamers win as the PC games market breaks into pieces. Its not a bad thing. But after more than a decade of a virtual monopoly held by Valve, new contenders have emerged. We already saw how Valve tried to get in front of Epics announcement that it was lowering its platform fees. And not long after, Discord popped up with an even better rate. Breaking with the standard 30 percent cut, which is what most platforms (Apple, Facebook) claim in exchange for their services, Valve announced a few major changes. Two key sentences from the announcement. First, Valves new revenue distribution: when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M. Succinctly, make more and keep more. Part of what is driving this is consolidation at the top. In the PC market the top-line firms have been growing at an incredible rate. Between 2013 and 2017, Activision grew its PC operations at +10 percent compound annual growth rate. EAs was +30 percent, and Bethesdas +36 percent. Meanwhile, the share of the top four public companies, based on PC gaming revenue, grew from 44 percent to 60 percent in that same period. Its getting less crowded at the top and digital stores will have to compete. The big publishers like Activision, Ubisoft and EA already have their digital storefronts and distribution platforms. Different from the brick-and-mortar space, publishers managed to build their own rather than rely on third-parties. For years, the big guys have had no interest in putting their content side-by-side with a growing number of small and medium-sized game companies. Epics wild success with Fortnite has afforded it a much broader range of strategic options. So far it has lowered its store fees and retroactively paid developers on its platform. And now it is budding into the digital PC market by using its vast financial resources to compete head-on with Valve. Finally, Discords entry should be noted, too. Adding a content offering to an existing community, rather than the other way around, Discord is the new hot thing. Certainly, it has yet to lay claim to a hit title of its own. But it has both the expertise and critical mass to become an important next store front. It raised an additional $150 million right before the holidays. All this takes place against the backdrop of a declining physical games market. Its been a tough few months in meat space. In its recent earnings, GameStop came in at $2.08 billion and +4.8 percent in global sales, but Wall Street was not impressed. GameStop blamed Call of Duty and sports titles. With the recent sell-off of Spring Mobile to lower its debt, the specialty retailer continues on the hunt for new leadership, either in the form of a new CEO (unlikely) or new owner (likely). Whoever is going to scoop up GameStop is probably waiting for 19Q1 when sales dip and its valuation will be lower. The breaking up of Valves dominance is good for players and companies that make games. Consumers will get better prices and more choice, and the various digital stores will compete over functionality and improved user experience. This is a win-win for all. Walled gardens will be broken down, enabling cross-platform play with anyone, anywhere. Despite digitization, the bulk of interactive entertainment has remained within one of the various walled gardens. That is going to change. Like telecom networks that allow people to speak to each other irrespective of their phone provider, so, too, will online gaming break down silos. In 2019, cross-platform play will become ubiquitous. The end of 2018 has already shown the potential of this as Fortnites success resulted in each of the platforms agreeing to play nicely with one another. Legacy publishers like Activision Blizzard have also tasted what cross-platform play can do for their franchises: Hearthstone has continued to dominate the collective card game category, because it works seamlessly across PC and mobile, and offers a smooth integration with live-streaming platforms like Twitch. Cross-platform play should be at the top of every studios design agenda in 2019. Subscriptions and bundled content will drive sales in 2019. After seeing the initial success with subscriptions enjoyed by Twitch and Microsofts GamePass, more companies will adopt this monetization model. Large platform holders like Sony and Apple are looking to grow their revenues by offering content subscriptions. Both of these companies have indicated they have plans to increase services revenue as a direct response to reaching the limit of how much hardware they can sell. Game publishers have been experimenting with micro-transactions to great success. Tentpole franchises like FIFA, Hearthstone and GTA V Online have made a mint from what they call recurrent revenues. Beyond up-selling their audiences on a regular schedule with content updates, they will explore subscription models that will provide massive discounts and unique content to players in exchange for a more predictable revenue flows. Video games will face more and new regulation with a focus on kids. Now that gaming has emerged as a mainstream form of entertainment, the industry can expect more scrutiny. In addition, there will be sharper focus on kids and technology in 2019. Data companies will be increasingly under the microscope. Similar to the loot box scandal that resulted in various governments speaking out, we will see an effort focused on protecting children. This means that game companies will be held to a higher standard with regards to how they handle data on minors. Against the background of a festering trade war between eastern and western economies, data ownership, in particular around children, will emerge as a political topic and strategic business challenge. It also means that titles like Fortnite will be fingered as culprits in narratives around an erosion of culture and well-being (although this is largely driven by misinformed industry critics). The titles appeal to younger audiences will make it a likely scapegoat as the usual choir sings its disdain for video games. This years congressional hearing in the U.S. more than satisfied our need for examples of how disconnected government representatives are from technology used by literally everyone else. Different from previous generations, however, I expect the companies currently at the top of the food chain to know exactly how to respond. They will push titles that offer a safe, pleasant space for kids to play, uninterrupted by broader challenges found everywhere else. Next year will, however, not be a continuation of exuberance as weve seen previously. Trends in related industries suggest that gaming, too, will move toward a more concentrated competitive landscape and closer government monitoring. Further consolidation is imminent for the games industry. In response to the slowdown in consumer spending, some game companies will go out of business and others will gobble up the failing ones to strengthen their market positions. Nothing new here, but it does leave room for speculation as to who will buy whom. I previously speculated that Amazon would buy GameStop and still think they might. Only it will happen when GameStop reaches its wits end, probably at the end of Q1 2019. Across Europe there have been a series of smaller acquisitions throughout the year, some of which are now turning sour. Starbreeze had its offices raided (which Im told sounded worse than it was). Even so, this year the ambitious portfolio approach of buying up smaller studios and leveraging their IP against efficient distribution networks became, perhaps, too popular. Finally, I expect companies like Tencent to continue satisfying their appetites for foreign assets. If nothing else, this year has cemented Tencents need to diversify as they look to mitigate some of its recent stresses by lowering its exposure to games revenue and further investing in western companies and platforms. Over the past two years its success with this strategy has greatly lowered competition across PC and mobile, the two most innovative categories. This does not mean that innovation itself is at risk. It just means that the stakes will be higher for any firm that does not make a billion or more in revenues. The coming winter brings a slowdown in growth, and possibly in revenue and innovation. Ive been writing about this for a while now. But dont misunderstand: I want to be wrong about this. While I would like to predict that 2019 will bring even more growth and more money for everyone, the supporting evidence simply isnt there. For one, mobile gaming is showing saturation across different markets, including in China. It has evolved from insignificance to become the biggest games market worldwide and is now starting to slow. We are also at the end of the current console cycle. This simply means that the platforms are going to discount their hardware and the bulk of consumers looking to spend are disproportionately price conscious. Overall economic indicators suggest that consumer spending, especially in the U.S., is headed to a slowdown. Following the tax breaks earlier in the year, overall spending surprised even the retailers. But that party is going to end soon. Finally, as gaming has become mainstream, its underlying economics have shifted. In broad terms this means that where previously the games industry may have seemed counter-cyclical it is going to follow suit with whatever happens to consumer spending at large. In addition, investors have become savvier and are starting to trade aggressively against game stocks. This means game companies are less inclined to take risks on content innovation (as in the case of EA). The long-term silver lining here is that this imminent stagnation is the precursor of the industrys overall transition. But before spring comes winter. Live-streamers and influencers embark on a drama binge. Yes, newfound fame will get the better of them and stupid things will be said. This is still the very first generation that suddenly finds itself thrust into the mainstream spotlight they dont have the benefit of the intense vetting that other industries have subjected their rising stars to before sending them on the main stage. With many still amateurs and competing against one another to win the favor of audiences and aggregators alike, the stakes are substantially higher. In their hunger for attention, aspiring streamers will sacrifice their authenticity and some will undoubtedly ruin their careers before it even starts. Mounting pressures from growing competition will drive this new generation of tastemakers to keep it real and remain authentic. Twitch and YouTube will do what they can, Im sure. But for many, this authenticity will be too much. EA takes a hit in 2019. Among the Big Three, Electronic Arts will have the toughest year. Despite its aggressive expansion effort illustrated by the acquisition of GameFlys streaming division, EA is going to face the music with investors. This is somewhat undeserved, because financial investors insist on continual growth and generally cant see past the next quarter. And, to be fair, EA has a few weaknesses: its revenue and its margin are highly dependent on the continuing success of FIFA Ultimate Team. In addition, it has relatively little new IP in the pipe, which makes it even more difficult for investors to care about the longer-term future. Simply put, EA cant free itself from Wall Streets needs as several analysts have already started to lower their expectations for the year ahead. GameStop sells, but its not a party. I already predicted this last year and was almost right: GameStop has been trying to get acquired for the past six months. Its C-suite has seen better days, most recently resulting in a letter from one of its largest shareholders, Tiger Management, to get its sh!t together (aka perform a strategic review). The company has been unable to find a buyer and now finds itself forced to essentially abandon the diversification strategy it initiated in 2014 by acquiring retail chain in parallel market segments. Just recently GameStop sold off Spring Mobile and is likely to use the money to pay off its debts and improve the likelihood of some private equity firm or a company like Amazon to buy it. No one expected it to be a great year for games retail, but its getting sadder. | https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/02/will-the-gaming-industry-clutch-up-in-2019/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TechCrunch%2FGaming+%28TechCrunch+%C2%BB+Gaming%29 |
Can dairy producers afford to raise replacement animals in view of today's livestock prices? | The value of genetics in the home dairy herd and other factors need to be considered in making a decision on if or when to cull calves born on the farm. That Cull or Not Cull? question was posed by Fond du Lac County Extension Service dairy and livestock agent Tina Kohlman at the Manitowoc County Forage Council's annual dairy feeding and management day at Zutz Farms. If the mid-December numbers were the only consideration, an easy decision would be to cull/sell calves or dairy heifers at one of three growth stages and buy other animals as needed, Kohlman hinted. She listed weaning (8 to 9 weeks), pre-breeding phase (about 10 to 11 months), and breeding (13 to 15 months) as those critical junctures. Comparative calculations Citing recent costs of raising and market prices, Kohlman noted an average cost of $374 per calf at the time of weaning compared to a replacement purchase cost of $135 at the same stage. Similarly, the most recent numbers were $1,140 and $450 at the pre-breeding age and $1,260 for raising with a purchase price range of $300 to $800 at the breeding stage the possibility of two or even three replacements for the cost of the on-farm raising of one heifer, she observed. Based on the latest Wisconsin farm surveys, the total cost for raising a dairy replacement from birth to calving averages $2,104. Kohlman reported. That's a scary number compared to the recent prices of $600 to $850 for springer heifers (5 to 9 months pregnant) at the Equity Livestock auction markets in Reedsville and Stratford, she commented. Related considerations But the value of genetics in the home dairy herd and other factors need to be considered in making a decision on if or when to cull calves born on the farm, Kohlman acknowledged. What's most important is to cull with the information for making a good decision, she advised. For those engaged in genomic testing, are you using the data? Kohlman asked. If the data is used, it can lead to decisions on whether to flush certain animals, breed them with conventional or sexed semen or a beef sire, or use them as a donor or embryo recipient animal, she pointed out. With heifer raising being the second highest cost center on most dairy farms, there ought to be considerations on health concerns, nutrition quality, and the milking herd's culling rate in determining how many and which calves to raise to maturity, Kohlman remarked. Due in part to new technologies such as the use of sexed semen and synchronized breeding, there's quite a change from the traditional practice of raising all or nearly all of the heifer calves, she observed. Health factors The health factor is a crucial one because of how it affects mortality among calves and heifers, their growth rate, and their performance (milk and reproduction) at maturity, Kohlman stated. For that reason, those which have suffered a respiratory disease or had diarrhea are primary candidates for culling, she suggested. Citing statistics which document those concerns, Kohlman said we need to have her for multiple lactations. Put her in a position to succeed. With tighter margins on dairy farms, a key management focus is the replacement program and how many heifers are being raised. (Photo: Colleen Kottke/Wisconsin State Farmer) Growth parameters Also regarding the first 120 days for a calf, nutrition is the name of the game. It's going to make or break you, Kohlman warned. She called for the feeding of colostrum, deep straw bedding in cold weather, a doubling of birth weight in 56 days, and a height increase of 4 to 5 inches during that time along with eyeball metrics by a second or third party to verify if those ideals are being met. At 2 to 10 months of age, the sweet spot for average daily weight gain is 1.75 pounds, Kohlman stated. Anything outside of 1.6 to 1.8 pounds per day is a sign of a problem such as nutrition, health, or housing conditions, she indicated. When calves and heifers are being raised in groups, identity those which are lagging and realize it would probably be better to cull them rather than to move them back to the next group, Kohlman advised. After breeding, realize that she eats a lot of groceries at this stage and needs lots of space too, she pointed out. Tina Kohlman (Photo: Sevie Kenyon/ UW-Madison CALS) Bottom line questions A couple of bottom line questions to ask are Am I keeping those I shouldn't? and Can I sell replacement heifers? Kohlman stated. Based on the intention for future herd size and guided by the mortality history of calves and heifers on the farm, check the table (available on the http://dairymgt.uwex.edu website) on how many replacements to raise, she suggested. Except for today's economics, Kohlman acknowledged that it is not an easy transition for many dairy farmers to sell their young animals and then obtain replacements. That's why they ought to evaluate the results of their current practices, such as the average and range in age at first calving, in order to make a good decision for the future, she advised. For her presentation, Kohlman credited input from Zoetis senior veterinarian Dick Wallace (formerly with the University of Illinois), UW Extension dairy heifer management specialist Matt Akins, Oconto County agriculture agent Sarah Mills-Lloyd, and Eau Claire County agriculture educator Mark Hagedorn. Read or Share this story: https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2019/01/02/economics-factor-calf-heifer-culling-decisions/2447996002/ | https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2019/01/02/economics-factor-calf-heifer-culling-decisions/2447996002/?from=new-cookie |
Why is CRTC chair repeating Big Telecom's talking points against net neutrality? | If Canada is to remain at the forefront of innovation and freedom, we need a robust net neutrality framework that doesn't benefit those with deep pockets and vested interests. Thank you for reading this story... More people are reading rabble.ca than ever and unlike many news organizations, we have never put up a paywall at rabble weve always believed in making our reporting and analysis free to all. But media isnt free to produce. rabbles total budget is likely less than what big corporate media spend on photocopying (we kid you not!) and we do not have any major foundation, sponsor or angel investor. Our only supporters are people and organizations -- like you. This is why we need your help. If everyone who visits rabble and likes it chipped in a couple of dollars per month, our future would be much more secure and we could do much more: like the things our readers tell us they want to see more of: more staff reporters and more work to complete the upgrade of our website. Were asking if you could make a donation, right now, to set rabble on solid footing. Make a donation.Become a monthly supporter. | http://rabble.ca/multimedia/2019/01/why-crtc-chair-repeating-big-telecoms-talking-points-against-net-neutrality?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rabble-news+%28rabble.ca+-+News+for+the+rest+of+us%29 |
Is 3D technology here to stay? | The third dimension is taking over your local cinema. It's assimilating your HDTV. It might even be popping out of your next smartphone. And yes, it's creeping into PC gaming, too. It's the next big thing and it's 3D. Of course, if we're talking PC gaming, then the term 3D is a little confusing. On PC Format, we've been soaking up the 3D gaming groove for nearly two decades, but that's 3D graphics painted onto a 2D screen. When manufacturers hit the hype button regarding 3D today, what they are really referring to is stereoscopic 3D imaging. What this means is pictures popping out of the screen and poking you in the peepers, not the relentless quest for ever more photorealistic computer graphics courtesy of a games console or highend gaming rigs. However, whatever you think about 3D (from now on, let's assume 3D means stereopscopic 3D), one thing it definitely isn't is new. 3D images have been knocking around for nearly 200 years and the technology involved in 3D movies dates back over 100 years. That's right like so many things the Victorians got there first. It all started probably - with a device known as the stereoscope, invented in 1838. It was the first gadget that keyed into the mechanics of human stereoscopic vision. Humans, of course, have two eyes. The consequence is that each eye views the world from a slightly different angle and receives a slightly different image. The brain takes these offset images and composites them into a single mental picture with depth and perspective. You, therefore, see the world in glorious 3D. So, that's exactly what the stereoscope does show each eye a still image from a slightly different angle and allow the brain to work its magic. Cue endless fairground fun and a roaring trade in early 3D pornography. Like many technologies, good old porn helped with the early cash flow. Of course, the stereoscope had some very serious applications, too. It was used by the military to view aerial photographs, for instance. Ongoing 3D Fast forward to the 1890s and British inventor, William Friese-Greene patented a system for capturing and displaying motion stereoscopic pictures and 3D movies were born. Friese-Greene's technology turned out to be too unwieldy for commercial use, but the seeds were sown. Several variations on the stereoscopic 3D movie riff were tried with the first known paying audience recorded in 1922. Further dabbling followed in the next few decades. Even the Nazis made a few propaganda flicks in 3D, but the golden age of 3D cinema was probably the 1950s. A number of revivals have since rebooted the 3D revolution only to fade into obscurity. All of which brings us to the present day. Indeed, after that potted history you might be tempted to disregard the latest 3D resurgence as another blip on the graph before an inevitable return to the historical flatline. This time, however, things are different. This time, 3D is about much more than cheap cinema thrills. It's spreading into a wide range of platforms courtesy of many different technologies. That includes the promise of less unwieldy, more comfortable 3D viewing. Combine that with the interactivity of games and the result might just be the most immersive leisure experience yet. This time, 3D might be for real. In one sense, they're all the same. Generally, it's all about exposing each eye to a different image. Exactly how that is achieved, however, is where things get interesting. The heyday of 3D cinema was based on so-called red-green analglyph technology. This involves a single picture containing a pair of merged, colour-shifted and spatially offset images. The viewer is required to wear colour-filtered lenses which effectively allow each eye to view a different offset image. This works pretty well in terms of creating the illusion of depth perception. It's a little more problematic when it comes to colours, however. Inevitably, each eye is viewing the scene with radically different colours. While the brain is capable of compositing the image to generate the correct colours, it's a lot of work and perhaps contributes to the eye strain many viewers of 3D movies experience. If coloured filters tend to be less than ideal, the most obvious alternative is polarised light. Again, the viewer is presented with a single picture frame within which two images are interleaved. The most common method is to use a pair of projectors, each with an orthogonally opposed light polarising filter. The viewer then wears glasses with similarly opposed polarising filters and Bob's your spear-poking, eye-popping uncle. | https://www.techradar.com/au/news/gaming/is-3d-technology-here-to-stay-1058601 |
When does college baseball season start? | The 2018 college baseball season ended in thrilling fashion in Omaha. Pat Casey and his Oregon State Beavers took the College World Series in high drama, surviving six elimination games in the tournament before one of the more memorable CWS finals in recent memory. Down to their last out, trailing one game to none, the Beavers rallied in the ninth forcing a Game 3 and winning their third national title in a dominant 5-0 performance. MORE: 2019 College World Series schedule Freshman pitcher Kevin Abel became a star while his battery mate Adley Rutschman turned into the early favorite for 2019 player of the year with an outstanding run through Omaha. But that was the past. Fall ball is behind us, and now all eyes are on opening weekend. Perfect Game has Adley Rutschman as No. 1 in the college ranks for the 2019 MLB Draft.#GoBeavs pic.twitter.com/fCpgV8wZgP Oregon State Baseball (@BeaverBaseball) December 3, 2018 The reigning champs open at Surprise Stadium in Sunrise, Arizona for the Sanderson Ford College Baseball Classic facing New Mexico at 3 p.m. ET on Feb. 15, 2019, for first pitch. Theyll face off against Gonzaga and Minnesota also that weekend. MORE: 13 best places to watch baseball according to the fans The bulk of the college baseball season begins that opening weekend starting Feb. 15. Here are some more matchups that we are excited to watch during the rest of opening weekend. Feb. 15-17 The non-conference schedule has arrived! Vanderbilt is set to host 19 games, take part in the MLB Collegiate Baseball Tournament among other highlights. https://t.co/C9rGeTH7wJ#VandyBoys | #AnchorDown pic.twitter.com/O2pIaBhEoZ Vanderbilt Baseball (@VandyBaseball) October 8, 2018 The national runners-up Arkansas host Eastern Illinois. Florid a hosts Long Beach State in a three-game opening series. Vanderbilt, Cal State Fullerton, Virginia and TCU square off in the MLB Collegiate Baseball Tournament in Talking Stick, Arizona. Stanford opens in Tempe, Arizona at the Angels College Classic against Ball State, Wichita State, and Pepperdine. Ole Miss hosts Wright State in a battle of 2018 tournament teams. Southern Miss and Purdue is also an opening weekend matchup of two tourney teams. UCLA and St. Johns go to war at Jackie Robinson Stadium. Coastal Carolina opens at home with the Brittain Resorts Invitational against Campbell, VCU, and Maryland. UConn and Louisville open at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, Florida for three. LSU opens at "The Box" for Military Appreciation Weekend, facing an Army team on Saturday, Feb. 16 that made the tournament last season. Illinois-Chicago opens at the Atlanta Challenge, playing three different Georgia teams in three days including an interesting Georgia Tech team on Opening Day. MORE: 2018 championship bracket | History | https://www.ncaa.com/news/baseball/article/2019-01-02/when-does-college-baseball-season-start |
Who is performing at the Super Bowl halftime show 2019? | Super Bowl LIII will take place on Sunday, Feb. 3 and Maroon 5 will headline the performance during 2019's halftime show. The pop band will perform at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. Rapper Travis Scott will reportedly join the group onstage. The NFL has not yet confirmed either performer for the show. Other acts could join Scott and Maroon 5 on stage. Justin Timberlake performed at Super Bowl LII last year in Minneapolis, Minn. with the University of Minnesota marching band. Lady Gaga headlined Super Bowl LI in Houston, Texas. Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars were the stars of the Super Bowl 50 show in Santa Clara, Calif. This post will be updated when more information becomes available about the halftime show. | https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/super-bowl-2019-halftime-show-performers-maroon-five-travis-scott |
Is Outlander on Netflix? | Fans of history, fantasy, adventure and romance will all find something to enjoy in the drama series Outlander. Advertisement Based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, the series follows the adventures of an English nurse called Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) in World War 2, who mysteriously finds herself having travelled back in time to 1743. Scenes flash back and forth in time, showing her husband Frank (in 1945) trying to find her, and (in 1743) Claire meeting a young highlander called Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) and becoming entangled in the Jacobite risings that occurred at the time. Audiences can catch up on the drama by streaming it on Amazon Prime Video, where the first series is uploaded. It is not currently available to stream on Netflix in the UK, but the series will also be shown on More4 shortly. Advertisement Three series have been filmed and the fourth, which adapt the fourth novel in the Outlander series, Drums of Autumn, will be released later this year. And as there are eight books in total, and a ninth forthcoming, it seems that Outlander could be set to play out on our screens for many more years. | https://www.radiotimes.com/news/on-demand/2019-01-02/is-outlander-on-netflix/ |
Is True Detective on Netflix? | In 2014, Nic Pizzolatto had people hooked on his popular detective series True Detective. To date, it has received seven Emmy Award nominations and won four. Advertisement The anthology crime drama follows different mysteries in each series, which are unravelled over the course of eight episodes. It features big names such as Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in the first series, and Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn and Rachel McAdams in the second. NOW TV subscribers and Sky Box set users can currently enjoy the show in the UK, as can those with HBO subscriptions in the US. However, avid fans will have to wait a long time to get their next hit of the drama. In August 2017, HBO greenlit a third series, which will be set in Arkansas but it will not be aired until 2019. And in what may seem criminal to the detective dramas fans, it is not currently available on Netflix in the UK. Advertisement This article was originally published in January 2018 | https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-01-02/is-true-detective-on-netflix/ |
Did Trump endorse Soviet intervention in Afghanistan or disavow US backing of jihad there? | Offering an explanation of why US should withdraw from Afghanistan, President Donald Trump appeared to endorse the Soviet intervention there in the 1980s and by extension, disavow US support for jihadist insurgents. Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan, Trump told reporters on Wednesday, following a cabinet meeting at the White House. Arguing that Russia, India and Pakistan were all in Afghanistans neighborhood and should fight terrorism there rather than expecting the US to, Trump offered an impromptu history lesson. The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there, he said. The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally, they went bankrupt. Trump: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Russia." Trump then goes on to endorse the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Via Fox. pic.twitter.com/oE0fuDLXyz Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 2, 2019 Trumps apparent endorsement of the Soviet intervention did not sit well with his critics, who exploded in outrage and called it an abandonment of Ronald Reagans values and policies. https://t.co/vRMfr3hQ8W David Frum (@davidfrum) January 2, 2019 In his rambling WH discourse, @POTUS just said regarding #Afghanistan that "the Russians were right to be there" -suggesting they were going after terrorists not, in fact, advancing their #EvilEmpire. This contradicts the assumptions of not only Reagan & Bush, but even of Carter. Michael Medved (@MedvedSHOW) January 2, 2019 "The reason Russia was in Afghanistan" was because of terrorism. "They were right to be there." (So, POTUS overlooks the USSR's communist invasion of Russia as part of Moscow's Iron Curtain foreign policy & offers the, presumably, Putin line on it was about terrorism.) David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) January 2, 2019 In criticizing Trumps comments, one NBC journalist even brought up the end credits of Rambo III, a 1988 American action movie dedicated to the brave mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan. That line of criticism seems ironic, however, given that the US sponsored the mujahideen Islamic holy warriors, literally against Afghanistans secular government prior to the Soviet intervention in December 1979. It was President Jimmy Carter who signed the directive to start aiding the mujahideen in July that year, on advice of his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. The aid was going to induce a Soviet intervention, Brzezinski told the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998. When Soviet troops crossed the border, Brzezinski said he wrote to Carter that the US had the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire, he said in the interview. It's crazy how Zbigniew Brzezinski took credit for creating the groups that later did 9/11 3 years before 9/11 in an interview for Le Nouvel Observateur. pic.twitter.com/i2hZrqfrls Grimace for Secretary of Defense (@JonEHecht) September 12, 2018 Careful observers will note that Trumps version of history actually overlaps with this statement of Brzezinskis, which has since become the conventional wisdom in Washington. The policy of aiding the mujahideen continued under Ronald Reagan, who sent money and weapons to Afghanistan, including anti-aircraft missiles. One of the recipients of this aid was Osama bin Laden, who led a contingent of Arab volunteers. Aspiring holy warriors from many Muslim-majority countries went to Afghanistan to fight. They shifted the focus of their zeal to the West in the mid-1990s, after the government of president Najibullah was killed and Afghanistan plunged into chaos of civil war. In 1996, Bin Laden declared a holy war on the US. About time a US president denounced the Brzezinski policy of supporting jihadis in Afghanistan. A truly catastrophic policy, not only for the USSR but for everyone else. George Szamuely (@GeorgeSzamuely) January 2, 2019 Asked about this in January 1998, Brzezinski was unapologetic. That secret operation was an excellent idea, he told Le Nouvel Observateur. Some agitated Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War? By August that year, Bin Ladens operatives would bomb the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In October 2000, they would attack the destroyer USS Cole off the coast of Yemen. And in September 2001, they would destroy the World Trade Center and damage the Pentagon using three hijacked passenger airplanes. None of it led to Brzezinski disavowing his comments from the 1998 interview, or expressing regret about getting the US to back Bin Laden and Afghan holy warriors in his personal jihad against the Soviet Union. Share this story! | https://www.rt.com/news/447968-trump-afghanistan-soviet-jihad/ |
What to do with Olivier Vernon?? | He only played in 11 games due to injury (12 in 2017). When he did play this year he had 30 total tackles and 7 sacks. He did have 1 pass defended and No Ints. He is has 2 years 39 mil left on his contract (19.5 mil each year)if we keep him both years and do not renegotiate. If we cut him this year we save 11.5 mil in cap room raising our 2019 cap to around 43.517 mil. I'd let OV go. section125 : 1/1/2019 11:40 am : link He plays hard, but is always just short of the sack. Even with 3 on Sunday, he let Prescott run right past him on the 4th and 15 TD. If he was $8-10 mill per, keep him but not at $19 mill. Trade him WillVAB : 1/1/2019 11:42 am : link If no takers then cut him. He is not a difference maker and at 19.5 mil he needs to play like one. His replacement will be selected 6th overall. Use the savings to bring in a stud LB. Cya! trueblueinpw : 1/1/2019 11:43 am : link Hes just too expensive for the production. Plus, he doesnt seem like a guy who makes big plays in big spots. Im sure there were some, but, too far and few between for the price point. Seems like what Carl Banks used to refer to as being a scholarship player; can be a good guy but a high priced FA or top draft pick that doesnt match production but kept around b/c it would be damning to cut. Id like someone younger and hungrier even it means some dead cap money and a few less garbage time sacks. edavisiii : 1/1/2019 11:45 am : link I know a lot has been said about cutting jackrabbit and OV. I know jackrabbit restructured once and some players will do it more than once. Both guys compete. Jenkins gets turnovers. OV has not gotten a ton of sacks but he gets pressure. Some was against back ups but that scenario re-appears every year. This is why DG gets paid big $$$$. He got let go in Carolina because of his reluctance to sign aging stars so this could be an interesting read on how he will do business in the future. I am far from a 3-4 Def Coord but seems to me Jimmy Googs : 1/1/2019 11:48 am : link that Vernon crashed in way too often on his side. Often taking himself out of the play and allowing way too many runners around the edge. If he thought there was some other support behind him because of the scheme then so be it, but he would have been much more effective with some patience/holding his ground type of play on his side. Piling up 3 sacks against backup Cowboy Olineman doesn't endear him to anybody... I might be in the minority CMicks3110 : 1/1/2019 11:49 am : link But I think we should keep him with a pay cut if hes open to it. Hes a good pass rusher and we really dont have other edge rushers, so wed be really subtracting. But I guess it would depend on what they do. In free agency. We cant have our OLB next year be Kareem Martin and Lorenzo Carter. Cut him or trade him RobCarpenter : 1/1/2019 11:51 am : link Id take a 7th rounder at this point. His lack of production as an ER is one of the main reasons the Giants gave up more points than any other team in the 4th quarter. The TD pass on 4th & 15 is a perfect example of why he needs to go. He loses contain, lets Dak scramble to his side and throw a game winning TD. RE: I am far from a 3-4 Def Coord but seems to me section125 : 1/1/2019 11:51 am : link Quote: that Vernon crashed in way too often on his side. Often taking himself out of the play and allowing way too many runners around the edge. If he thought there was some other support behind him because of the scheme then so be it, but he would have been much more effective with some patience/holding his ground type of play on his side. Piling up 3 sacks against backup Cowboy Olineman doesn't endear him to anybody... In all honesty, the Giants OLBs did a lot of that this year. Mauro, Martin, OV, Carter seemed to crash down the line and get beat on the edge. Osi did that a lot, but he also got a lot more crucial sacks. In comment 14242676 Jimmy Googs said:In all honesty, the Giants OLBs did a lot of that this year. Mauro, Martin, OV, Carter seemed to crash down the line and get beat on the edge.Osi did that a lot, but he also got a lot more crucial sacks. overthecap fkap : 1/1/2019 11:56 am : link has him at 15.5 salary/workout bonus. 4 mil of prorated signing bonus. dead money of 8 if cut. 11.5 cap savings. Let him go Sammo85 : 1/1/2019 11:58 am : link He did try to adapt to the 3-4 but hes not a clean fit and I believe we can get similar play at a much much cheaper price. He cashed in when we were desperate for a 4-3 pass rusher and we paid a premium. He hasnt stayed in the field and most of his production has come in garbage games or garbage time. RE: overthecap WillVAB : 1/1/2019 12:10 pm : link Quote: has him at 15.5 salary/workout bonus. 4 mil of prorated signing bonus. dead money of 8 if cut. 11.5 cap savings. I would use the 11.5 savings and go after Anthony Barr. It looks like the Vikings are up against the cap. In comment 14242692 fkap said:I would use the 11.5 savings and go after Anthony Barr. It looks like the Vikings are up against the cap. He has to go since1925 : 1/1/2019 12:11 pm : link His production is way out of line with his salary. $11.5MM really understates the cap savings. Big Blue Blogger : 1/1/2019 12:15 pm : link That's the net savings in 2019, after bonus acceleration. The total savings over two years is $31MM. With the liberalized carryover rules, the split of the savings between the two years ($11.5MM in 2019, $19.5MM in 2020) doesn't matter much, unless the Giants end up very tight against the cap in 2019. Olivier Vernon is a very good player who has most likely played his best ball already. He'll turn 29 in October, and his body may be wearing down. Of course, he might bounce back to his 2013-2016 form, in which case the Giants may wind up kicking themselves for cutting him. But it still seems like the right move, assuming they can't work out an incentive-laden deal that protects both parties. Hes the only viable pass rusher we have. Hes the only viable pass rusher we have. Thats Gettleman and Bettchers problem to figure out. In comment 14242720 BigBlueDownTheShore said:Thats Gettleman and Bettchers problem to figure out. Diver_Down : 1/1/2019 12:20 pm : link Quote: . As I detailed above in the linked post, I would attempt to restructure with an incentive based contract (details in the link). If he does not want to restructure, then attempt to trade for April's draft. JPP yielded a 3rd. If we can't unload him for picks and he doesn't want to restructure, then you release him in May. In comment 14242712 Ben in Tampa said:As I detailed above in the linked post, I would attempt to restructure with an incentive based contract (details in the link). If he does not want to restructure, then attempt to trade for April's draft. JPP yielded a 3rd. If we can't unload him for picks and he doesn't want to restructure, then you release him in May. Reminiscent of Snacks. I doubt he'll agree to the pay cut. Cant stay healthy, Section331 : 1/1/2019 12:28 pm : link and hes a bad fit for a 3-4, doesnt play well in space. Cut him and move on. Sammo fkap : 1/1/2019 12:32 pm : link replacing him is part of the equation of cutting him. can't address one part, then bail on the other part. No one is trading for him blueblood : 1/1/2019 12:36 pm : link You option are 1) Cut him. Which means now you have NO ONE that an rush the passer. And you need at least 3 people that can generate a pass rush 2) Ask him to take a pay cut. Doubt he takes a pay cut. 3) Restructure him to lower his cap number 4) Keep him at his current number and look to make that move next year to release him if he under performs. I think they will keep him. Cutting him looks good because yay we get 11 million cap savings.. now go and try and find a quality pass rusher for 11 million.. good luck.. . Danny Kanell : 1/1/2019 12:38 pm : link Cut him and I think this may be Gettlemans easiest decision this offseason. I am for cutting him superspynyg : 1/1/2019 12:40 pm : link He is not worth that money for 7 sacks. Time to give Carter the job full time and see what we really have in him. Get a pass rusher in the draft either at 6 overall or in rd 2 or sign one in FA. If they could convert half of his 2019 salary to incentives for playing time, production and team success, I'd seriously consider it. Just spit-balling, obviously. The basic idea is to only pay him like an All-Pro if he plays like one and the team wins. A lot of posters have asked how the team would replace Vernon if he were cut. If that's the case, and you regard Carter as as an ascending player, he might be the answer. Also, as others have said, there's a strong possibility that the top tier of prospects available at #6 will include an edge rusher. bc4life said:If they could convert half of his 2019 salary to incentives for playing time, production and team success, I'd seriously consider it. Just spit-balling, obviously. The basic idea is to only pay him like an All-Pro if he plays like one and the team wins.A lot of posters have asked how the team would replace Vernon if he were cut. If that's the case, and you regard Carter as as an ascending player, he might be the answer. Also, as others have said, there's a strong possibility that the top tier of prospects available at #6 will include an edge rusher. Pay Cut PaulN : 1/1/2019 12:41 pm : link He is a good player, at a reasonable rate he is well worth keeping, I would offer in the 5-7 mil range. That would be the smart move if they can pull it off. You don't get rid of pass rushers, you add them. They got 30 sacks, they need to add a premier guy and can inside guy that can play the run. You add that pass rusher, keep Collins and Ogletree, keep Vernon at the pay cut rate, and go get a fucking free safety that can cover the middle of the field and the tight end. They do that alone and keep Jenkins too, and this defense can turn this around. Hill, Edwards, McIntosh, Tomlinson, Vernon, Carter, Ogletree, Goodson, Barwin, Martin, Jenkins, Haley, Thomas, Beal, and Collins is a good base to build around. This is something we have not had in a while, you add talent on all levels to this group and they can become a good defense next season. Im surprised so many people are torn on this one j_rud : 1/1/2019 12:43 pm : link One of the top paid guys on the defensive side of the ball. Im not blaming the guy for the injuries, but even when on the field the production doesn't come close to matching the cap number. These are the kind of contracts you cant have when rebuilding a roster. RE: Pay Cut section125 : 1/1/2019 12:44 pm : link Quote: He is a good player, at a reasonable rate he is well worth keeping, I would offer in the 5-7 mil range. Big Blue Blogger : 1/1/2019 12:47 pm : link Quote: ...Barwin, Martin, Jenkins, Haley, Thomas, Beal, and Collins is a good base to build around. Connor Barwin needs off-season surgery to remove the fork protruding from his back. PaulN said:Connor Barwin needs off-season surgery to remove the fork protruding from his back. RE: Im surprised so many people are torn on this one OBJRoyal : 1/1/2019 12:49 pm : link Quote: One of the top paid guys on the defensive side of the ball. Im not blaming the guy for the injuries, but even when on the field the production doesn't come close to matching the cap number. These are the kind of contracts you cant have when rebuilding a roster. trueblueinpw : 1/1/2019 12:53 pm : link It might sound funny, but I dont think you keep someone because theyre the best person at that position on the roster. Its debatable, but even if we say he is, the fact remains that hes not good enough to make an impact and hes paid a lot of money. The money isnt the issue so much as the money and the level of performance. I think Gettleman and Shurmur set an attitude expectation when they traded Apple and Snacks mid season. This off season they can continue to set high performance expectations by letting go a guy like OV. Hes just not good enough for that money. While it's optimistic to project Carter as Vernon's replacement... Big Blue Blogger : 1/1/2019 12:53 pm : link ...he was actually drafted a few slots earlier and had a slightly more productive rookie year. Carter also has better physical traits for the position, including much more speed and height. RE: Sammo Sammo85 : 1/1/2019 12:54 pm : link Quote: replacing him is part of the equation of cutting him. can't address one part, then bail on the other part. No it isnt and I dont see where I suggested the latter part of your comment. That is Gettleman and Shurmurs job, not mine. Im more than content with giving Carter much more playing time, drafting another edge rusher, and signing a mid level FA speed rusher at OLB. This is how todays NFL works. And its not a impediment or stop/hold consideration when you are assessing a player who hasnt stayed healthy and hasnt played well. After assessing performance, Its all about the age, dollars, and cap. Plenty if not all of the teams clear out guys they no longer want or that dont meet their expectations and cap impact and worry about the talent replacement. You dont let a replacement factor remove what is the sensible, logical, and quantitatively necessary decision. It makes no sense to keep and lose a chunk of cap that can be redirected appropriately towards a better player or players in this case given the amount of cap. Keeping Vernon is wasting two years of cap space and flexibility and development of roster talent. Gettleman made a good trade in essence of dealing off JPP for BJ Hill. Even if you cant get a pick for Vernon jettisoning him is not only the sensible decision, its really the only one that helps the team going forward. In comment 14242752 fkap said:No it isnt and I dont see where I suggested the latter part of your comment. That is Gettleman and Shurmurs job, not mine. Im more than content with giving Carter much more playing time, drafting another edge rusher, and signing a mid level FA speed rusher at OLB.This is how todays NFL works. And its not a impediment or stop/hold consideration when you are assessing a player who hasnt stayed healthy and hasnt played well. After assessing performance, Its all about the age, dollars, and cap. Plenty if not all of the teams clear out guys they no longer want or that dont meet their expectations and cap impact and worry about the talent replacement. You dont let a replacement factor remove what is the sensible, logical, and quantitatively necessary decision.It makes no sense to keep and lose a chunk of cap that can be redirected appropriately towards a better player or players in this case given the amount of cap. Keeping Vernon is wasting two years of cap space and flexibility and development of roster talent.Gettleman made a good trade in essence of dealing off JPP for BJ Hill. Even if you cant get a pick for Vernon jettisoning him is not only the sensible decision, its really the only one that helps the team going forward. OV gets a ton of money but does not give star performance. i think it plato : 1/1/2019 1:03 pm : link hard to argue with that. this requires re balancing in some way. true after he came back the d played a bit better, but not enough. hes no lber in true giant mode of instilling fear in opponent game planning. At his age and continued season by season injury its unlikely his performance improves. therefore the only logical thing is to decrease his salary and cap hit, either by restructuring, or cutting. I think it relatively simple even giving that his return led to a somewhat improved lber performance No good options here jcn56 : 1/1/2019 1:10 pm : link as B3 points out - combination of age and health doesn't bode well for predicting his future performance. I think you approach him with the paycut (restructuring to an incentive based contract), and if he's not amenable, you cut him loose. Cutting him loose is almost implicit acceptance that 2019 is another down year. With either no or only one (assuming you sign one in FA or draft) viable pass rusher, that defense is guaranteed to go nowhere fast in 2019. RE: No good options here j_rud : 1/1/2019 1:29 pm : link Quote: as B3 points out - combination of age and health doesn't bode well for predicting his future performance. I think you approach him with the paycut (restructuring to an incentive based contract), and if he's not amenable, you cut him loose. Cutting him loose is almost implicit acceptance that 2019 is another down year. With either no or only one (assuming you sign one in FA or draft) viable pass rusher, that defense is guaranteed to go nowhere fast in 2019. I dont agree with the last part of the post. Moving on isnt waiving a white flag for 2019. And keeping him wouldnt be some indication that they are "all in" either. Just bc we, as fans with limited knowledge (especially of the scouting process, both rookies and FAs), cant necessarily suss out the obvious improvement that doesnt mean its an impossibility. They can cut/trade Vernon and improve the pass rush. In all honesty it shouldn't be too hard. It was anemic all year regardless of whether or not he was on the field. In comment 14242800 jcn56 said:I dont agree with the last part of the post. Moving on isnt waiving a white flag for 2019. And keeping him wouldnt be some indication that they are "all in" either. Just bc we, as fans with limited knowledge (especially of the scouting process, both rookies and FAs), cant necessarily suss out the obvious improvement that doesnt mean its an impossibility. They can cut/trade Vernon and improve the pass rush. In all honesty it shouldn't be too hard. It was anemic all year regardless of whether or not he was on the field. Hes the only viable pass rusher we have. You replace him with the 6th overall pick. A quality ER will be there. In comment 14242720 BigBlueDownTheShore said:You replace him with the 6th overall pick. A quality ER will be there. You could add one in FA - and that would offset the loss of Vernon. You could draft one - but you'd have managed expectations for a rookie pass rusher. Pass rush is hard to come by. The Giants have close to none right now, and they'd be moving backwards. They could improve it, maybe even to the point of being competitive, but the odds aren't in favor of it. Wow..... Doomster : 1/1/2019 1:51 pm : link He is a good player, at a reasonable rate he is well worth keeping, I would offer in the 5-7 mil range. Hill, Edwards, McIntosh, Tomlinson, Vernon, Carter, Ogletree, Goodson, Barwin, Martin, Jenkins, Haley, Thomas, Beal, and Collins is a good base to build around. This is something we have not had in a while, you add talent on all levels to this group and they can become a good defense next season. Seen nothing from him yet.....Martin, Barwin, Haley, Thomas, Edwards, Goodson are jags.....Beal has not played a down in the NFL, and has not taken another shot to that shoulder yet.....Ogletree has had int's, but did not play at the level expected.... I agree with Googs' assessment of him: Quote: Jimmy Googs : 11:48 am : link : reply that Vernon crashed in way too often on his side. Often taking himself out of the play and allowing way too many runners around the edge. If he thought there was some other support behind him because of the scheme then so be it, but he would have been much more effective with some patience/holding his ground type of play on his side. Piling up 3 sacks against backup Cowboy Olineman doesn't endear him to anybody... This defense has no true leader.....you have to hope that guys like Carter, Hill, Tomlinson can elevate their games, because if they can't this defense is in real trouble.... It will be interesting to see which way DG goes, he can't fix both lines in one season.....I hope he goes whole hog on the OL, and gets a C, RG, and RT.....and hope that Eli has one more year left in him......An OL will make Eli AND Barkley better......and this offense will have to score more points to compensate for the defense... PaulN : 12:41 pm : link : replyHe is a good player, at a reasonable rate he is well worth keeping, I would offer in the 5-7 mil range.Yeah, like that is going to happen.....an 8.5-10.5 pay cut?Hill, Edwards, McIntosh, Tomlinson, Vernon, Carter, Ogletree, Goodson, Barwin, Martin, Jenkins, Haley, Thomas, Beal, and Collins is a good base to build around. If you trade him, you end up with the same numbers, but you will definitely be trading from a position of weakness.....best bet is a conditional pick, based on his playing output for his new team...Jenkins, is probably the only true playmaker on defense....but he is too inconsistent, and does not seem to care when things go wrong on defense....he too, has made a lot of business decisions on defense.....unless you have a replacement, it's hard to cut/trade him.....And then there is Collins.....second straight year he has been injured....and the last two seasons looked nothing like the 2016 Collins....do you pay big bucks for a safety that can't cover?This defense has no true leader.....you have to hope that guys like Carter, Hill, Tomlinson can elevate their games, because if they can't this defense is in real trouble....It will be interesting to see which way DG goes, he can't fix both lines in one season.....I hope he goes whole hog on the OL, and gets a C, RG, and RT.....and hope that Eli has one more year left in him......An OL will make EliBarkley better......and this offense will have to score more points to compensate for the defense... He did well playing against a backup Tackle on Sunday ZogZerg : 1/1/2019 2:03 pm : link He was able to pad his sack total. Hes the only viable pass rusher we have. You replace him with the 6th overall pick. A quality ER will be there. You hope. No guarantee he will be a solid NFL player. In comment 14242813 WillVAB said:You hope. No guarantee he will be a solid NFL player. It's a real conundrum. Red Dog : 1/1/2019 2:06 pm : link I'd like to see the over-paid, under-producing OV out of here. He's NOT a difference maker, is hurt a lot, and never anywhere near justified that big contract that Reese gave him. (OK, hindsight is 20-20.) With all the other needs, it's hard to justify using a draft choice to replace him instead of supplement him, at least in 2019. Explore a pay cut. If that doesn't work out, explore a trade. I'd take a 2020 3rd for him if anybody is willing to do that. The pick would go into the ammunition pile for trading up for a QB in 2020. I would only cut him as a last resort, but I would cut him before cutting Jenkins as I think he will be easier to replace than Jackrabbit, who I also think is a better player when motivated. Vernon WillVAB : 1/1/2019 2:06 pm : link Cutting him isnt a one for one deal like the QB position. Hes not an elite ER. Hes not even a good ER. Vernon has been a non-factor for two years and hes one of the highest paid defensive players in the league. Bum hunting a few sacks against backups doesnt change that. The Giants need a guy that can close out games off the edge. The Giants can go a couple of ways with this. They can cut Vernon, use the savings to add a quality LB or two capable of blitzing/applying pressure, and then go Williams/Ferrell at 6 overall. They could also cut Vernon, add a cheaper run stopping 3-4 end, and add more of a traditional 3-4 OLB/ER in Josh Allen. Hes the only viable pass rusher we have. You replace him with the 6th overall pick. A quality ER will be there. You hope. No guarantee he will be a solid NFL player. Vernon isnt a solid NFL player and he has a 19.5 mil cap hit. Id take my chances at 6 overall. The Giants would still be gaining the cap relief to add other quality players. Id rather have one or two quality players at other positions than standing pat w Vernon. In comment 14242855 superspynyg said:Vernon isnt a solid NFL player and he has a 19.5 mil cap hit. Id take my chances at 6 overall. The Giants would still be gaining the cap relief to add other quality players. Id rather have one or two quality players at other positions than standing pat w Vernon. Vernon makes too much $ Rjanyg : 1/1/2019 2:24 pm : link I would like to see NYG add 2 edge rushers this year, one with our 1st pick: either Allen or Ferrell. Carter is a starter going forward and Kareem Martin is a guy that needs to play better but is more of a depth/veteran guy. Barwin will be gone and I am thinking OV was injured this year. Hard to comeback from a high ankle sprain especially at the OLB/ DE position. So he takes a restructured contract or is gone. RE: RE: overthecap BlueLou'sBack : 1/1/2019 2:37 pm : link Quote: In comment 14242692 fkap said: Quote: has him at 15.5 salary/workout bonus. 4 mil of prorated signing bonus. dead money of 8 if cut. 11.5 cap savings. I would use the 11.5 savings and go after Anthony Barr. It looks like the Vikings are up against the cap. Barr would be a big upgrade above OV. If possible, do it DG! In comment 14242707 WillVAB said:Barr would be a big upgrade above OV. If possible, do it DG! I don't think they need to rush this decision. Big Blue Blogger : 1/1/2019 2:49 pm : link Vernon doesn't have any money due in March, and Giants appear to have sufficient cap space for a sparse 2019 free agent pool. They have time to negotiate, and can even wait to see how the draft plays out. They might lose some leverage if the pick at #6 isn't Vernon's replacement, but we don't know for sure that Carter isn't that guy. RE: I don't think they need to rush this decision. Diver_Down : 1/1/2019 3:00 pm : link Quote: Vernon doesn't have any money due in March, and Giants appear to have sufficient cap space for a sparse 2019 free agent pool. They have time to negotiate, and can even wait to see how the draft plays out. They might lose some leverage if the pick at #6 isn't Vernon's replacement, but we don't know for sure that Carter isn't that guy. I stated the exact same thing in my linked response re: the detail of a incentive restructure. There is no hurry. We still have cap space for free agency. And releasing him sooner will give him the ability to participate in FA when the big money is flowing. Sitting on his rights while trying to come to terms of a restructure is our best bet in the short term. If a deal can't be worked out and we wait till the first round is over, then we can deal him hopefully for a 3rd. If no one wants to trade for him, then we can just release him in May and wish him well. With the big money gone, he might be more amenable to a restructure knowing that he won't get a similar deal on the open market. In comment 14242907 Big Blue Blogger said:I stated the exact same thing in my linked response re: the detail of a incentive restructure. There is no hurry. We still have cap space for free agency. And releasing him sooner will give him the ability to participate in FA when the big money is flowing. Sitting on his rights while trying to come to terms of a restructure is our best bet in the short term. If a deal can't be worked out and we wait till the first round is over, then we can deal him hopefully for a 3rd. If no one wants to trade for him, then we can just release him in May and wish him well. With the big money gone, he might be more amenable to a restructure knowing that he won't get a similar deal on the open market. Cut or trade him, so he can SHO'NUFF : 1/1/2019 3:11 pm : link ball out for another team. What this season showed me is that you cant take a player who has Ivan15 : 1/1/2019 3:31 pm : link been productive in one scheme and assume he can be more productive in a different scheme, even when it seems to better fit his skill set. Some guys can do it, but most cant. And I really wanted to see the Giants play this hybrid D. I'd keep Vernon adamg : 1/1/2019 3:35 pm : link We need more pass rushers not less. He will be cut. larryflower37 : 1/1/2019 3:37 pm : link The ROI is not there for him anymore. They will go younger through the draft and FA's You can find a outside LB/edge rush in this draft and Carter is a solid prospect going into year 2. Gettleman is fast to cut players on the downside and Vernon is on the backside of his career. Too many injuries and age are catching up. Cut bait. its easy Chip : 1/1/2019 3:44 pm : link step one try to restructure or pay cut if yes keep him. If no release him. I would expect the pay cut would be 3 or 4 mil or it doesn't make sense for OV RE: Vernon jcn56 : 1/1/2019 3:51 pm : link Quote: Cutting him isnt a one for one deal like the QB position. Hes not an elite ER. Hes not even a good ER. Vernon has been a non-factor for two years and hes one of the highest paid defensive players in the league. Bum hunting a few sacks against backups doesnt change that. The Giants need a guy that can close out games off the edge. The Giants can go a couple of ways with this. They can cut Vernon, use the savings to add a quality LB or two capable of blitzing/applying pressure, and then go Williams/Ferrell at 6 overall. They could also cut Vernon, add a cheaper run stopping 3-4 end, and add more of a traditional 3-4 OLB/ER in Josh Allen. That's absolutely wrong. Vernon is a good player. The problem is he's being paid like a great player, and he's been oft injured since he arrived in NY. His injury history doesn't bode well moving forward, but if he could stay healthy and his pay were closer in line to his production, he'd be a very useful part of this defense. Those are two big ifs, though. - ( In comment 14242858 WillVAB said:That's absolutely wrong. Vernon is a good player. The problem is he's being paid like a great player, and he's been oft injured since he arrived in NY.His injury history doesn't bode well moving forward, but if he could stay healthy and his pay were closer in line to his production, he'd be a very useful part of this defense. Those are two big ifs, though. PFF's ranking of Vernon - ( New Window We could use the OV money... bw in dc : 1/1/2019 3:54 pm : link if we cut him to sew up the contract to keep Eli. ; ) Seriously, Vernon has a highly sought after NFL skill. He has the ability to average double digit sacks if used correctly and, of course, if healthy. And hes only 28. My instinct says cut him because of the price tag and inability to stay on the field. But I would take my time here because its actually not so cut and dry based on the mobile QBs in our division. RE: RE: Vernon WillVAB : 1/1/2019 4:24 pm : link Quote: In comment 14242858 WillVAB said: Quote: Cutting him isnt a one for one deal like the QB position. Hes not an elite ER. Hes not even a good ER. Vernon has been a non-factor for two years and hes one of the highest paid defensive players in the league. Bum hunting a few sacks against backups doesnt change that. The Giants need a guy that can close out games off the edge. The Giants can go a couple of ways with this. They can cut Vernon, use the savings to add a quality LB or two capable of blitzing/applying pressure, and then go Williams/Ferrell at 6 overall. They could also cut Vernon, add a cheaper run stopping 3-4 end, and add more of a traditional 3-4 OLB/ER in Josh Allen. That's absolutely wrong. Vernon is a good player. The problem is he's being paid like a great player, and he's been oft injured since he arrived in NY. His injury history doesn't bode well moving forward, but if he could stay healthy and his pay were closer in line to his production, he'd be a very useful part of this defense. Those are two big ifs, though. PFF's ranking of Vernon - ( New Window ) Here we go w the PFF bullshit and pressure stats. Vernon is not a playmaker, period. Hes had long stretches of games where hes invisible. His last snap where he whiffed on Dak was a microcosm of his career. Hopefully someone is dumb enough to trade a pick for him. In comment 14242961 jcn56 said:Here we go w the PFF bullshit and pressure stats.Vernon is not a playmaker, period. Hes had long stretches of games where hes invisible.His last snap where he whiffed on Dak was a microcosm of his career. Hopefully someone is dumb enough to trade a pick for him. uh - he didn't whiff bc4life : 1/1/2019 4:31 pm : link tackle grabbed inside of shoulder pads and held him just long e ough to allow Dak to escape. I think you let him go...... Reb8thVA : 1/1/2019 4:42 pm : link When Reese signed him, it seemed like a smart acquisition. He was an ascending 25 year old who had no real history of being injured. The money was a lot, but that was what the market was demanding. The last two years hes missed a lot of games and he is no longer that ascending young player. Id take the savings and maybe invest it in a FS or a #2 WR. They are going to have to use the draft to fix the pass rush. Pass rushers in FA are too expensive and when you miss it hurts a lot more. RE: uh - he didn't whiff WillVAB : 1/1/2019 4:51 pm : link Quote: tackle grabbed inside of shoulder pads and held him just long e ough to allow Dak to escape. False. He beat the backup tackle and whiffed. In comment 14243018 bc4life said:False. He beat the backup tackle and whiffed. Tough Call Rong5611 : 1/1/2019 5:11 pm : link But, we have holes to fill. Spend the money on OL and DB. Carter and the 1st Rd pick will be our edge guys. Time to move on from OV. Get him out of here. mittenedman : 1/1/2019 5:14 pm : link I think the Giants will go Edge Rusher (ROLB) in the draft and play Carter at LOLB. Vernon isn't the guy we signed 3 years ago. Move him out micky : 1/1/2019 5:28 pm : link Too oft injured RE: RE: RE: Vernon jcn56 : 1/1/2019 5:28 pm : link Quote: Here we go w the PFF bullshit and pressure stats. Vernon is not a playmaker, period. Hes had long stretches of games where hes invisible. His last snap where he whiffed on Dak was a microcosm of his career. Hopefully someone is dumb enough to trade a pick for him. I'll take PFF over your analysis any day. At least they're occasionally right. In comment 14243003 WillVAB said:I'll take PFF over your analysis any day. At least they're occasionally right. I think cut him or renegotiate to a significantly less salary Giant John : 1/1/2019 6:41 pm : link If i am the Giants Id be looking at 2 years for something in the 15mm range. Otherwise its thank you for your services And best of luck. Vernon stretch234 : 1/1/2019 9:08 pm : link The issue is that we can say all we want about getting 2 pass rushers. They are difficult to find in the draft and they are harder to get in FA. One of the reasons why they signed him was he was a 25 yr old DE that showed that ability Anthony Barr is a good LB, but he has 3 less career sacks than Devon Kennard Look at the FA list and who is under 30 D. Lawrence - already making 17m D. Fowler - he has already been a big disappointment J. Clowney - he is going to break the bank D. Ford is 28 and will get a ton of money A. Barr A. Lynch, S. Barrett, S. Ray, S. Anthony, D. Buchanan, A. Chickillo Kennard got 3-17 I restructure and guarantee him 2-20 This get him guaranteed money, and lowers the number for savings of 5m per year It's time to move on JonC : 8:13 am : link A rebuilding team can find better use of all the cap dollars it would save. He's just not a difference maker, and we need hungry ascending players that earn their paycheck in real time. I'm glad you guys aren't general managers WillieYoung : 9:14 am : link The cap savings in 7.5. Increasing this years savings by reducing next years savings is a fools errand and is irrelevant to the 2019 decision (unless you are desperate for cap savings which we are not). Using the 6th pick to "replace" OV means you are not going to be better in 2019. Signing high price free agents to replace him only puts us in this same position in a few years. A couple thoughts imv JonC : 9:22 am : link Anthony Barr is reportedly a knucklehead, buyer beware. Wouldn't rest laurels on Carter, not remotely. Ferrell looks like a 4-3 DE to me, not a 3-4 ER. RE: I'm glad you guys aren't general managers WillVAB : 9:55 am : link Quote: The cap savings in 7.5. Increasing this years savings by reducing next years savings is a fools errand and is irrelevant to the 2019 decision (unless you are desperate for cap savings which we are not). Using the 6th pick to "replace" OV means you are not going to be better in 2019. Signing high price free agents to replace him only puts us in this same position in a few years. If the Giants cut Vernon they save 11.5 million in 19 and 19.5 million beyond. Again, this isnt a one for one deal. The Giants dont need to replace him in FA. Its a net positive for the Giants if they are able to add one or two quality FAs on the OL and/or front 7 with the savings. Vernon had 7 sacks this year. Hes not worth a 19.5 mil cap hit. Use the money on a player or players who can actually be difference makers. If the Giants cut Vernon they save 11.5 million in 19 and 19.5 million beyond.Again, this isnt a one for one deal. The Giants dont need to replace him in FA. Its a net positive for the Giants if they are able to add one or two quality FAs on the OL and/or front 7 with the savings.Vernon had 7 sacks this year. Hes not worth a 19.5 mil cap hit. Use the money on a player or players who can actually be difference makers. Guy had almost zero impact the last two years LauderdaleMatty : 12:33 pm : link Always hurt and didnt help the D. He was good Year one and useless the last two. Keeping him at that salary would be insane. If they think he can be of any use the they have to have him to do a realistic incentive laden restructure. He should be one of the first guys asked not to bother coming back if he doesnt take a huge cut | https://corner.bigblueinteractive.com/index.php?mode=2&thread=577731&show_all=1 |
How Predictable Is Donald Trump? | Donald Trump will begin the third year of his Presidency amid a level of chaos that appears unprecedented, even for him. After hasty announcements (and partial walk-backs) of troop withdrawals, with markets jittery and cabinet members departing, and with the government shut down over his request for border-wall funding, the President is reported to be especially isolated and volatile. To discuss these questions, I spoke by phone with Michael Kranish, an investigative reporter at the Washington Post, and the co-author (with Marc Fisher) of Trump Revealed, which was published in August of 2016 and features hours of interviews with Trump. An edited and condensed version of our conversation follows. We are entering 2019 with this narrative that we are now seeing Trump unleashed. If you understand Trumps life before he became President, its all of a piece. People who know him and have known him for many years arent surprised by the way he has acted. I am reminded that he wrote, before he became President, that his aim as a kid was to be the toughest kid in the neighborhood . . . mouthing off to everybody while backing down to no one. So that has been his personality from the beginning. He was a catcher in Little League and liked to taunt people from that position. In many ways, Twitter is being a catcher all over again. He has crouched into the same position that he was as a Little League ballplayer in Queens. So, I do see a continuum with Trump. Well, the issues and the job are different, of course. But when you look at earlier decades of his lifehis business life and even his childhoodthe personality that he has displayed as President is in many ways what he displayed earlier. He said that it was hard to have many friends, and he often relied on family and often fired people. Many of the things we see today are what he has done throughout his life. One of the observations I made in writing about him was where he got his animus toward government. And where that came from, to a degree, was when he and his father were sued, in 1973, by the federal government for alleged racial bias at their housing projects. He thought that was unfair at the time, and he told us when we were writing the biography that he still thought that was unfair. He found when he was a developer in New York that he had to work with government in certain ways. So, he says, he developed various techniques that meant using influence to get things done. You see how he has carried some of that technique over to today. One thing you hear from people who dislike the President is that he is getting worse, by which, I think, they mean that he is angrier or losing his grip in some way. I think that this is comforting for some people because it makes them think that the Presidency is on the verge of falling apart, and he might resign or something. Well, certainly, during the campaign he would use Twitter just as he does now. You can certainly see in some of the tweets that there is a frenetic early-morning nature to them. Sometimes they are filled with anger. Clearly, he is very angry about the Mueller investigation. I did a story about nine months into the Trump Presidency where I interviewed one of Trumps very closest friends, Tom Barrack. And the headline on the story was Hes better than this. Barrack was concernedstunned, he told meat some of the things Trump has done. So, yes, a lot of the way he has acted has been surprising and sometimes disappointing to his friends and supporters. Trump said his friend, the boxer Mike Tyson, had told him that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Trump believes that when you are hit, you hit back a hundred times harder. That is one lesson taught to him by his former attorney Roy Cohn. Now what we are seeing is that Trump has been hit harder than he had expected. Republicans lost the House. We will have the report by Robert Mueller. Starting with the Democratic takeover of the House this week, he is going to have a new set of circumstances where he is going to have to invoke his deal-making abilities that he talked about during the campaign to a much higher degree. He is capable of doing this on occasion. He did sign the judicial reform bill. Thats perhaps an example of, if he puts his mind to it, what could happen. The question is whether he spends the next two years trying to make deals and get things accomplished, or does he use this as two years to run against the Democrats and set himself up for relection. The way you phrased that implies that there are options open to him and he can decide which he wants, rather than that his character is pretty firmly set as one thingthat, perhaps, we know what he is going to be and there is no alternative to that. Well, heres the thing: as he was developing his political ideology, he changed his party registration seven times. So, the idea that he is so set in his ways that he will only do one predictable thing is not really borne out by his history prior to becoming President. He was a Democrat, he was a Republican, he was Reform Party, he was an Independent. His ideology is that he wanted to win. So now he is faced with a new set of circumstances, and what I am asking hereI dont know what will happenis whether he will revert to form and try to find some way to come up with a winning piece of legislation. He has, in the past, changed his points of view. He was pro-abortion rights and was anti-abortion rights. The list goes on and on. Its very unusual to see someone elected President who doesnt come from a pretty strong political-ideological place. Maybe what I am saying is not that he is too ideological to change, and not that he wouldnt like to make deals. But rather that there are aspects of his character the way that he talks about immigrants and minority groups and women, or the way that he angrily tweets and personally insults peoplethat are pretty set. And, because they are set, that makes bipartisan compromise impossible, because of the heightened polarized atmosphere with him as the leader of the country. Thats what we are going to find out in the next two years. He has Democrats controlling the House, so its a very different circumstance. That is not a question I can answer. I can just say that, in the past, when the political landscape has changed, he has basically walked away from one party and into the arms of the other. I am not suggesting he is suddenly going to be liberal. But if there is a changed set of circumstances, there is a question about whether he might try to make deals. So far, he has punched back at Democrats, and you usually dont insult the people you are trying to compromise with. There was some sense, early on, that Trump might be the type of guy who would listen to the last person who whispered in his ear. It seems like that is not really true, and that he has some stable, long-standing beliefs, like on trade, and is hard to deter. Early on in his career, in the mid-eighties, he basically said the world is laughing at us and started complaining about trade deals. He has been consistent on that. He is still saying the same thing. Early on, he was surrounded by people he viewed as more moderate, and they were able to dissuade him from initiating a trade war with China. And he is deeply influenced by certain advisers. He is now surrounded by people who are more conservative and in favor of a trade war and so forth. When he was surrounded by more moderate figures, I know that there were some things that he was dissuaded from, but it still seems like, fundamentally, his Presidency has been pretty unleashed. I am not surprised that he has a point of view that can be, on the one hand, subject to the last person he talked to, and, on the other hand, so set in stone that he might not listen to advice even from highly respected business leaders and so forth. In his business career, he would often use his leverage to get his way when things seemed to be totally turned against him. He is often in this position, including when he filed six corporate bankruptcies, where he seemed at a point of no return. People know he wrote a book called The Art of the Deal. They may not remember his next book was called The Art of the Comeback because he had gone down so far. Its like The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. You have to look at them together rather than at just one of them. I am not as familiar with Godfather and Godfather II, so I will leave that comparison to you. But in this instance, he had not previously worked in government. His experience was in business, where he could use his leverage and power to convince banks to take a haircut or lessen the amount that he owed them. On the one hand, as President, he has great leverage. On the other hand, he has lost some leverage, and Republicans no longer control the House. I was surprised he didnt try to use his initial leverage to get an infrastructure deal. That is something that all the aides I knew talked about, that could be done right out of the box, and would be visible all across the country. Why that didnt happen is still a mystery to a number of people very supportive of that. | https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/how-predictable-is-donald-trump |
Where Have All the Insects Gone? | I'm not a pessimist, at least I try not to be one. But... Early last summer, I noticed something that really bothered me. While driving between Riley and Sisters on a warm, early summer day, I noticed I didn't have as many smashed insects on the windshield of my 4Runner as I did earlier that spring. The weather and road conditions were right, but the insects just were not there... click to enlarge Caleb Anderson The first time I made that trip was in September 1951, astraddle my 1947 Harley-Davidson. I mounted a sport shield on the forks of the Harley because beetles and larger insects really hurt when they hit my bare cheek at 70 mph, and back in those days there were more than enough insects to notice. In my younger years I could even hear bees plainly when they smacked on the windshield of my car. But last summer, something was out of whack. "I'm not killing as many butterflies with the 4Runner as I once did," I said offhand to my pal, fellow butterfly enthusiast and wife, Sue. And she remarked, "Yes, I was noticing that, too. "I think all the insects we do see nowadays are wearing gas masks and carrying red flags that say, 'HELP!'" Sue mused. "And when I mention declining insects to some people, their response is, 'Good Riddance!' What they haven't stopped to consider is that the soil-grown food we eat is wholly dependent on insects for pollination, and insects in turn are the only food for a myriad of animals. E. O. Wilson has said it many times, 'Insects are the little things that run the world.' We need to celebrate, not desecrate, them." Local retired family doctor Stu Garrett has been concerned about the declining population of our sage-grouse. He's looked into habitat loss and the possibility of West Nile virus impacting the grouse, but now he's exploring a possible link between insect loss and bird survival. "The sage-grouse chicks between 0 and 8 weeks need lots of insects and caterpillars or they die," he notes. When I got home, I drove myself down to two local stores to look over their chemical supplies. In both stores, shelf after shelf, hundreds of gallon cans that contained chemical after chemical, all advertised to kill, kill and kill! It appeared to me there was enough stuff in those stores to kill insects and weeds from Sisters to Prineville. That very afternoon, we received an e-mail from a pal in France telling us how alarmed French entomologists were becoming because of the disappearance of insect pollinators in eastern France and western Germany. A recent article in The Washington Post by Ben Guarino, '''Hyperalarming' study shows massive insect loss," states, "In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees has decreased by 45%. ...A study last year showed a 76% decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves." That sounds like mass extinction... The best man I know who would have an answer is Robert Michael Pyle: writer, author, butterfly expert, insect researcher and founder of the Xerces Society, a Northwest research organization that champions invertebrates. In our last e-mail, this is what he had to say in response to my concerns: "And yesI agree with you that biocides are definitely one of the major factors leading to insect losses. There are many others, which Xerces has been working to identify and counteract for 47 years as of December 9th! "Habitat alteration, warming and drying with climate change, and intensification of agriculture are high among themthe latter has directly brought about most butterfly declines in the U.K. (see the excellent recent book, The Moth Snowstorm, which details this history). "But the huge chemical load in the environment is surely one of the leading causes of insect populations collapsing. In particular, the neonicotinoid pesticides are to bees and butterflies what organophosphates were to eagles, ospreys, and Rachel Carson's songbirds. Here is one place to read about this, on the Xerces website: http://xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees. Europe, apparently, is making some progress on banning neonics, but they are everywhere over here. "The recent articles about widespread insect decline have indeed been sobering, and even worse than we anticipated at the outset of Xerces. Several long-term butterfly monitoring programs are suggesting the same, though not everywhere, yetwe're still pretty well off in the Cascades. We can only hope it won't spread and get worse!" When that man stops and listens and watches, believe me, we ALL better listen, watch and DO SOMETHING! My gut feeling is we have saturated our world with chemicals, and insects are setting off the first alarm. No, I'll take that back. Perhaps the first alarm has been ringing for a long time all the cancer that's plaguing our society. Please take all that chemical goop in your garage and shop to the county chemical disposal site and keep it out of circulation. Please don't use any more for a convenient dose here and there. There are more than enough people growing gardens and flower beds with chemicals to saturate our soils with stuff that kills, kills and kills. Another suggestion: plant a pollinator-attracting garden. Not only will it improve the health of your landscaping, but will also bring a colorful array of butterflies to your yard to delight you and the hungry baby birds. And after you're through here, open the Xerces Society website, The Xerces Society's Bee City USA Initiative and follow the links to the Mason Bee. You'll have a beautiful trip into the world of one of our amazing insects. Maybe you'll fall in love with them! | https://www.bendsource.com/bend/where-have-all-the-insects-gone/Content?oid=9020150 |
What If We Could? | Volunteering or giving back to the community can feel goodbut involves enough barriers that for a lot of people, it doesn't happen very often. submitted After a career in marketing, Rys Fairbrother started What If We Could to help nonprofits get more support. Rys Fairbrother is trying to make the process easier for people Central Oregon through his organization, What If We Could. His one-man operation partners with nonprofits in Central Oregon to help them be more successful. "I thought 'what if we could' not just raise money but give people a better idea of who these nonprofits are?" he explains. "Executive Directors are pulled in so many different directions, so if they have to choose between a 20-person volunteer event or applying for a $50,000 grant, they typically feel like they need to apply for the grant." To make volunteer and donation opportunities easier for both the people planning them and the people trying to help, What If We Could selects 28 nonprofits and provides three opportunities for each nonprofit throughout the year, in which community members can participate. Each option is different so people can choose to give in the way that works best for them. Fairbrother plans to announce the projects on the 7th of each month. Fairbrother and What If We Could is already working with Central Oregon Veterans Outreach. Here's what the three campaigns look like: In-Kind giving: "There are five products people can pick up at the store for this," Fairbrother said. "Propane tanks, handwarmers, brown tarps, sleeping pads and backpacks." These are items COVO is in short supply of and will be donated to people seeking the nonprofit's assistance. If community members want to donate, they can buy the items and bring them to COVO. Volunteering: In late spring What If We Could will be doing landscape work at a property managed by COVO. This will be a one-day opportunity allowing people to donate time and hard work instead of a product. Monetary donations: Each organization identifies a project costing $2,500 or less, and money donated through What If We Could goes directly to the project. Donations are not capped if the project reaches its target, but any money donated beyond the specified amount could be used for other projects. The donation drive for COVO will go toward new tires and brakes for the vans the nonprofit uses to transport veterans. The model helps break down giving back to the community into more bite-sized pieces. "I've noticed that people, millennials especially, are skeptical about where their money is going when they donate," Fairbrother said. What If We Could acts as a facilitator or a platformwhich means that all money donated through them will go directly to the nonprofit they are working with. Fairbrother meets with each nonprofit to help them decide what they need to be successful in serving their recipients and how each campaign will do that. "My goal for 2019 is to see every campaign fully funded," Fairbrother said. "The more long-term goal is to bring What If We Could to other cities outside of Central Oregon. I want to activate citizens toward projects all year, not just end-of-year giving." What If We Could will also work with businesses to provide more exposure to specific nonprofits by posting a flyer for one week a month about what they do and how people can help. Businesses can also choose to help out a specific nonprofit by sponsoring them. Fairbrother worked in marketing for years, and realized organizations, nonprofits especially, just need to figure out what their story is and break it into shareable bites. While he'll be doing a lot of marketing for What If We Could, another way people can get involved is to become social ambassadors so they can share information about nonprofits and their projects. "I'm just really excited to see what happens," Fairbrother said. "I don't think the vision is fully funded yetit takes the community getting involved to reach our full potential. To get involved, check out whatifwecould.com to sign up for a role or to nominate your nonprofit. What If We Could whatifwecould.com | https://www.bendsource.com/bend/what-if-we-could/Content?oid=9020167 |
What Will 2019 Bring for CRM? | Technology entrepreneur and billionaire investor Elon Musk sounded the alarm again, telling Axios in late November that humans must merge with machines or risk becoming an endangered species. Luckily, most other peoples predictions about businesses and technology for the year ahead arent quite so ominous. What follows is just a sample of what some of your peers are thinking. As account-based marketing becomes more mainstream and more tools become available, larger marketing automation software vendors will roll ABM features into their platforms. Adoption of ABM will increase overall as more companies will turn to the tailored, personalized approach to their messaging due to the General Data Protection Regulation and other privacy regulations, which dampen the effectiveness of spray-and-pray demand-generation activities. Umberto Milletti, founder and CEO of InsideView The questions customer service representatives will receive in 2019 will be much more technical and difficult, since bots and self-service technologies can answer the simple questions. As a result, the role of the customer service representative will require a higher skill set. There will be a need for a universal customer service representative who has the whole package, with a willingness for development and lifelong learning. Fara Haron, CEO of Global BPS at Arvato In 2019, society will push for the demystification of AI and demand a better understanding of what technology is being built and greater transparency into how it is being used. Technology creators will have to embrace full transparency and responsibility to ensure privacy rights are respected and that the technology is being used in a valuable and ethical way. Joshua Feast, CEO and founder of Cogito In the year ahead, well see more brands commit to creating experiences that engage and excite people, understanding their target customers values and how their brand promise aligns to those values. Armed with that deep understanding of customer expectations, brands will be able to design integrated experiences that entertain, educate, and empower shoppers in a way that will keep them coming back. Dave Bruno, director of order management at Aptos Contextual awareness will redefine the customer experience. As companies show no slowdown in collecting data from consumers, customers are increasingly expecting brands to use this data to create a more personalized, streamlined experience, demanding timely, proactive responses and suggestions. Providing insights based on a customer context and previous activity will become the new normal, and brands are only starting to scratch the surface of what is possible. Philip Say, vice president of innovation product management at Sutherland Labs Within the next five years, we expect over half of back-end processes to be fully automated, and user analytics will be a key ingredient for intelligent automation. In the CRM space, [machine learning/artificial intelligence] algorithms will be augmented with real-time user data as a way to make applications more responsive to human interactions. Brian Berns, CEO of Knoa The conversational UX trend will continue, and voice command will play a larger role in how customers engage with enterprises. We will also see a wider adoption of machine learning applied to analytics in real time. This will all be part of an industry trend toward more holistic digital customer management. Audelia Boker, global vice president of marketing at Glassbox 2019 will see companies finally learn the art of listening by developing a strategy that engages customers in the right way, at the right time, and on the right channel. Leveraging analytics, smart companies will monitor the entire customer journey across channels to ensure a consistent experience that drives loyalty. Rebecca Martin, chief marketing officer at Calabrio Companies will begin to treat customer support and communication as an integral part of the product, brand, and service. Companies are beginning to take notice that you can create a cult-like following if you take care of your customers and dont treat customer support as a checkbox or a cost center. Its long overdue. Anand Janefalkar, CEO and founder of UJET | https://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=129217&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DestinationCRMAllArticles+%28destinationCRM+%3A+All+Articles%29 |
How Can We Guard the Purity of Our Children? | More souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason. In the 1980's, an insecure, troubled and depressed 11-year-old girl sat by a fire at a Christian summer Bible camp as a group of other girls her age went forward to accept a promise ring. As they solemnly hummed praise songs about purity and hope, she felt an inner strength arise in her heart. It was a strength that came to her from on high; a strength that would serve as a fortress, guarding her chastity for years to come. It was a telling moment one of profound decisiveness, and in a sense, heroic virtue. She said yes to Our Lord as He called her to put a promise ring on her own finger. As she slipped it on, she promised Jesus that her virginity would always be held sacred, and kept as a prize for her well-deserving future husband. Holy Purity had called her long-lost name, and she held out her heart. Although the next 15 years of her life were turbulent, including years of serious drug and alcohol addiction, dangerous relationships with numerous abusive and manipulative men, suicidal behavior and other life situations that ravaged her poor heart, she still kept her promise to Jesus. The ring lasted only a year or two on her finger, but the promise stayed strong in her soul over time. God's divine grace jealously guarded her promise, and gave her the courage to embrace Holy Purity no matter what life threw at her. Her story is beautiful but sadly, it is very rare. According to recent statistics gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average age Americans lose their virginity is 17.1 for both men and women. The CDC also reports that virgins make up 12.3 percent of females and 14.3 percent of males aged 20 to 24. Their findings also revealed that the U.S. saw a record number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases in 2017, marking the fourth straight year of sharp increases in gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia. These days, for a young person trying to keep their head above water in the murky swamps of the American culture of death, keeping one's chastity can be a form of white martyrdom. As St. Teresa of Calcutta once said, To be pure, to remain pure, can only come at a price, the price of knowing God and loving him enough to do his will. By sharing with them some of the most illuminative and inspiring statements that the Church and her leaders had to share on this topic, we will strengthen their resolve. St. John Paul II once said, Deep within yourself, listen to your conscience which calls you to be pure . . . a home is not warmed by the fire of pleasure which burns quickly like a pile of withered grass. Passing encounters are only a caricature of love; they injure hearts and mock God's plan. He also said, [God] has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman. As loving parents, we must be relentlessly cautious as to what kind of forms of media we allow into our domestic church, our haven of grace, our home. One of the main ways that Satan corrupts the souls of the young is through the media bad music, bad movies, bad internet experiences, and bad screen time. We have a moral obligation to use the best internet filters possible, and to severely limit our child's ability to surf the internet or use a personal cell phone. A saintly priest once said that having the internet in ones home is, on the moral level, equivalent to having an atomic bomb just sitting around, waiting to blow. Although these comments may sound overly dramatic, in light of Our Lady's frequent pleas to her children to safeguard their purity, they are not. Filling their inquisitive minds with sacred and wholesome images, stories and sounds will naturally turn them to love Holy Purity, and befriend the God who created them. Catholic music can be a regular source of inspiration in our homes, and Catholic or Christian movies can be the preferred option. We live during an age where evil abounds, but grace abounds all the more, especially in the way of faith-based resources. Helpful options are online homilies; Catholic books sold by Ignatius Press, St. Augustine Academy Press or Seton Educational Media; Mass on EWTN or LiveMass.org; movies on PureFlix or Formed.org; traditional Catholic favorites offered through Prime Music; and amazing audio books and Saint stories from the Augustine Institute and Regina Martyrum Productions. Helping our children find complimentary but truly modest clothing will help protect their inner person. By keeping a genuine, open friendship with each one of our children, they will learn to turn to us for advice when tempted by the sin of impurity. By God's grace, they will feel free to open their hearts to us and know we will understand their trials. Purity is such a beautiful, beautiful gift to offer to Christ Crucified. How it must console Him in His thirst and anguish to see the sweet souls of our children remaining untarnished, and to listen to their voices resound with chastity and liberty. Mater Castissima, ora pro nobis! | http://www.ncregister.com/blog/evinger/how-can-we-guard-the-purity-of-our-children?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NationalCatholicRegisterBloggers+National+Catholic+Register+Bloggers |
Who Isnt Running for the Democratic Presidential Nomination? | It has begun. The field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination is starting to form, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) announcing Monday that she has launched a campaign exploratory committee the same step that former housing and urban development secretary Julin Castro took earlier in December. Spoiler alert: Exploratory committees always come to the same conclusion. Theyre both running. At this point, by some counts, as many as 30 potential Democratic candidates either have expressed interest in taking the plunge or have significant constituencies urging them to do so. If you thought the 2016 GOP debates were crowded, just wait. This year, Democrats may have to debate in shifts, or perhaps stand on risers like a choir. And, no, they wont all be singing the same tune. Thats a good thing. Even more than it needs new blood, the party needs new ideas. In the wake of President Trumps nihilistic vandalism, the next president will have much to do not just healing the nation, but moving it forward. Democratic hopefuls should have a vigorous argument about Medicare-for-all. They should have fact-based debates about comprehensive immigration reform, renewing our infrastructure, worker-friendly trade policy, the Middle East wars and the best ways to confront climate change. And they should spend zero time worrying about whether the party is being pulled too far to the left or the right. One thing Trumps election has shown is that the left-right axis on which we traditionally situate politicians is irrelevant to many voters. Im old enough to remember when the Republican Party supported a muscular foreign policy, believed in fiscal discipline and wanted to rein in entitlements. Post-Trump, Republicans are ready to pull out of Syria, exchange fist bumps for sky-high deficits and paint themselves as staunch defenders of socialized medicine, though they do not call it that. Labels are not going to sort this field out. Lets see whose ideas catch fire. To those who bemoan coverage of the horse race aspect of the contest: Sorry. Thats what a campaign is, and it is ridiculous to try to assess any race without noting whos ahead and whos behind. It is also ridiculous to give too much weight to polls taken months before the first debate, and more than a year before anyone actually casts a vote. With those caveats, a mid-December poll of Democrats in Iowa, whose caucus is the first primary contest, showed former vice president Joe Biden leading all potential contenders with 32 percent support, followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with 19 percent, rising star Beto ORourke, a congressman from Texas, with 11 percent, Warren with 8 percent, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) with 5 percent, Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) with 4 percent, former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg with 3 percent and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) with 3 percent. Thats good news for all of the above. Biden and Sanders have run national campaigns, and their support is surely boosted by superior name recognition. Still, if they choose to run, they have a head start. ORourke should be especially happy, since he had no national profile at all before his electrifying but unsuccessful 2016 campaign against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who should have waltzed to reelection but, instead, almost got sent home to Houston. Warren should be pleased, too. She has systematically laid the groundwork for her candidacy, traveling widely around the country, establishing connections, displaying her prowess as a fundraiser. Her appeal as a champion of the beleaguered middle class could resonate at a time when the phrase economic populism defines an increasingly powerful, if still fuzzy, strain of thought. Bloomberg can spend billions of his own dollars campaigning, if he chooses, but might encounter a public wary of sending another wealthy Manhattanite to the White House. Harris, Booker and Klobuchar should be delighted to be on the map. And at least two other senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York seem likely to be major players before this is over. And keep this in mind: On New Years Day 2015, no rational person thought Donald Trump would become president. Candidate X may be offstage, waiting to pounce. Buckle up. | https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/01/02/who-isnt-running-democratic-presidential-nomination |
Why So Much Anger and Resentment? | 2018The Year of Living Hatefully is the title of a recent post by Roger Simon: Practically no one was happy. Or if they were, they didnt show it. All they wanted to do was vilify the opposition or even their neighbors. Democrats hating Republicans (see the new movie Vice) and vice versa were just the tip of a rancid iceberg. Never Trumpers hate Trumpers and the reverse, Sanders supporters hate Beto supporters, Antifa hate the bourgeoisie, the Proud Boys hate Antifa, FOX hates CNN and MSNBC hates FOXIt goes on and on. Families and friends split from each other. People shut up at work for fear theyll be fired. Thanksgiving is a festival of hostility, Christmas (when were allowed to speak its name) is only slightly better. Roger attributes the toxic atmosphere in large part to the decline in religiousness. Im not convinced by that explanation; there are plenty of examples of religion as a cause of mutual hostility as well as cases where it has served as part of a cure. One factor in the development of the toxic atmosphere, IMO, has been the cult of self-esteem development carried to an excessthis seems to have resulted in a large number of people who simply cannot stand challenge or disagreement. Still, there are plenty are angry and hostile people who are old enough to have missed the era of self-esteem indoctrination. Another factor is social media,which seems to lend itself to the formation of on-line lynch mobs, as I discussed in my post freedom, the village, and social media. Economic fear and uncertainty surely also plays a role. Although Roger remarks that all this (craziness and anger) is happening in a country awash in affluence, also as almost never before, with close to full employment for all ethnic and racial groups, it remains true that many people are highly disappointed in their failure to advance more economically, and many who feel that their children will be less-well-off than themselves. Economic factors aside, there are also many who have been severely disappointed in their relationships and blame this disappointment in large part on society. A friend of mine once remarked that if someone is bitter, then he is publicly announcing that in his own eyes he is a failure. I thought this was a profound comment, and by that measure, there are a lot of people in America today who consider themselves to be failures. But still, there are a lot of people who are doing very well economically, who seem to have excellent relationships/family lives, but who also have a lot of anger at a large number of their fellow Americans. Also, I remember something Ralph Peters wrote many years ago: Man loves, men hate. While individual men and women can sustain feelings of love over a lifetime toward a parent or through decades toward a spouse, no significant group in human history has sustained an emotion that could honestly be characerized as love. Groups hate. And they hate wellLove is an introspective emotion, while hate is easily extrovertedWe refuse to believe that the civilized peoples of the Balkans could slaughter each other over an event that occurred over six hundred years ago. But they do. Hatred does not need a reason, only an excuse. This also is, I think, a profound remark. And todays intense focus on group identities has surely led to much more viewing of people as avatars of a group, rather than individualsmaking it that much easier to despise and attack them. And a significant part of American academia is endlessly busy manufacturing new and revised group identities, and stirring up resentments based thereon. | https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/58764.html |
Which NFL teams should trade for Antonio Brown & what could Steelers get? | Theres a very simple response to the question which NFL teams should trade for Antonio Brown? The answer is all of them. Brown, a five-time All-Pro, is the kind of spotlight-stealing talent who allows everyone on his roster to shine. While his headline stats are ridiculous hes averaged 114 receptions, 1,524 yards, and 11 touchdowns per season since 2013 his ability to command (and beat!) constant double teams allows his teammates extra opportunities across the field. With Brown in tow, the Steelers have fielded a top-four offense in four of the last five years. But Brown may not be in tow much longer. A practice field tirade and a handful of missed team activities led Pittsburgh to deactivate its top wideout in advance of a vital Week 17 showdown against the Bengals. While walking off the field, he reportedly asked aloud why the team hasnt traded him a point hes brought up in the past. The 30-year-old receiver hasnt formally requested a trade, but its clear his frustrations with the only franchise hes ever known reached new heights in 2018, at least publicly. Pittsburgh has already seen one unhappy player burn his bridges in the Steel City recently. LeVeon Bell sat out the season rather than play another year under the franchise tag with the Steelers, and now the club will almost certainly lose him this spring with nothing but a potential compensatory draft pick in return. The Brown situation is different. The wideout is locked in to three more years and slightly more than $60 million due to his current contract with Pittsburgh. The Steelers have the latitude to wait and smooth things over with their frustrated star, knowing hes tied to them through his prime and that the lucrative extension he signed back in 2017 gives him plenty of reasons to return to the fold. But to get there, hes going to have to work through his issues with Mike Tomlin. The Pittsburgh head coach addressed Browns missed practices and absence in Week 17, and appeared will to consider parting ways with his gifted wideout, even if he wasnt willing to get into specifics. Obviously we take his lack of communication, his lack of presence particularly on Saturday prior to the game, to be something that is very significant and it will be handled appropriately so. Im not going to speculate on trades and things of that nature. We havent formally received a request in that regard, so Im not going to speculate in terms of where the discipline might go and things of that nature. Just know that its going to be addressed, and it will be addressed, it needs to be addressed, for obvious reasons. If Tomlin is interested in moving on from Brown, there will be interested suitors. While the three years and $60 million of cap hits remaining on a four-year extension inked in 2017 look like an anchor, Pittsburgh could survive a trade with relative ease from the financial side of things: $14m in cap from 2020 and 2021 would accelerate into 2019. $15m in cash and cap would come off. So no, nothing cap-wise would stop the Steelers from dealing Brown. https://t.co/EByXdCQvAk Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) January 2, 2019 Trading Brown would net Pittsburgh some key assets while elevating JuJu Smith-Schuster to the unquestioned top spot on the Steeler depth chart. And while that would be an early loss on paper, Tomlins comments and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazettes report suggests the Steelers could be in the market for one fewer headache off the field. That doesnt mean the Steelers will trade Brown, but this weeks development have moved the needle from not a chance to mostly unlikely. The drama is building in Pittsburgh and unfolding in a famously no-nonsense franchise. With Tomlin confirming theres a point where a players talent can no longer excuse his actions in the locker room, the All-Pro wideout is more available than ever even if hes not especially available and hasnt requested a trade. The Steelers just came off a season where they were the most talented team to miss the postseason. Weve seen a handful of high-profile wide receivers get traded across the NFL recently. Sammy Watkins went from the Bills to the Rams along with a sixth-round pick in exchange for starting cornerback E.J. Gaines and a second-round pick. Kelvin Benjamin moved from Carolina to Buffalo for third- and seventh-round selections. Brandin Cooks was traded, twice, for first-round picks. Amari Cooper propped up the Cowboys playoff run after being freed from Oakland for a first-rounder. Jarvis Landry was traded for just fourth- and seventh-round picks, but thats because the Browns wanted to snap him up before he could hit free agency and sign him to an expensive extension the Dolphins had no intention of giving him. Brown is on a different level than any of those players, but hes also got a big negative none of those young receivers carried an expensive contract. Watkins, Benjamin, and Cooks were all working through the later stages of their rookie deals and took up relatively small patches of salary cap space when acquired (though the Rams quickly signed Cooks to an $81 million extension not long after trading for him). Brown, on the other hand, will eat up an average of $20 million in cap room in each of the next three seasons. There are plenty of reasons for the #Steelers not to trade Antonio Brown -- namely, he's really, really good at football -- but "cap hit" talk is misinformed. It's basically a wash for 2019 and they'd gain flexibility in 2020-21. How you replace him is the issue. pic.twitter.com/6FucNjhfgP Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 2, 2019 That dulls his luster a bit, but its fair value for a player averaging more than 1,500 receiving yards per season since 2013. Plus, anyone acquiring Brown wouldnt have to worry about turning around and signing him to a big-money extension right away theyd be getting him at a price that matches his talent, but theyd also have him locked in through 2021. The leagues most recent superstar trade saw Khalil Mack (and a Raiders second-round pick) escape Oakland for a pair of first-round picks and a third-rounder. But Mack is two-and-a-half years younger than Brown and plays a more valuable position (pass rusher vs. wide receiver). While the Steelers will begin negotiations with a Mack-like ransom, theres a good chance a combination of picks or picks and a young player will get the job done and take the All Pro off Pittsburghs hands. A 2019 first- and a 2020 second-rounder would likely fit the bill. Same with something along the lines up 2019 first- and fourth-round picks along with a budding starter someone like Gaines or Kendall Fuller, who was traded from Washington to Kansas City in the Alex Smith deal. Given the Steelers uneven defense, netting a potential starter would be a boon for a club struggling to reconcile its talent with its on-field results. While every team in the league could use Antonio Brown, few teams have the combination of need and expendable assets to make acquiring him a reality. Pittsburgh wont be in any rush to trade a player who hasnt formally requested a new home, and while hes due a $2.5 million roster bonus if hes on the Steeler roster on March 18, thats not enough of an incentive to force the franchise into a real deadline. So who could make Pittsburgh the kind of deal that entices the franchise to sell off the player who ranks No. Here are some ideas; keep in mind these are just hypotheticals that reflect the value a player like Brown would likely receive given his production, age, and current contract. Oakland Raiders Jon Gruden has a wealth of draft assets after shipping out Mack and Cooper in an effort to tear down the Raiders and rebuild them in his blond, slightly sunburned image. Adding Brown would give the franchise a marketable superstar whose banner can be hung outside the teams new stadium in Las Vegas come 2020. And hes a Gruden guy, if the coachs comments before his Week 14 win over the Steelers are any indication. Honestly, its tough to really know with the mercurial head coach, but a deal that uses only acquired picks while trading away the oft-shopped Karl Joseph could hit a sweet spot for both sides. The offer: The Cowboys 2019 first-round pick (acquired in the Cooper trade), the Bears 2020 third-round pick (acquired in the Mack trade), and safety Karl Joseph The Lions were toothless in Matt Patricias first season as a head coach, effectively raising a white flag at the trade deadline by trading free-agent-to-be Golden Tate to the Eagles. That left Detroits offense devoid of weapons beyond Kenny Golladay and an injured Kerryon Johnson, forcing Matthew Stafford to suffer through a major slump in a 6-10 season. Detroit needs to make a splash to punch up its offense, and luring Brown to the NFC would certainly qualify. A Brown-Golladay-Marvin Jones trio would give Stafford plenty of field-stretching options and create some extra breathing room for Johnson, who looked every bit a true RB1 in his first season with the Lions. But acquiring Brown would also keep Detroit from acquiring the young defensive talent Patricia is looking for to build his new team from the bottom up. The Lions have plenty of holes to fill and dont have the kind of draft capital the Raiders have to burn. Still, pairing Antonio Brown with Matthew Stafford would give the Lions the kind of elite pitch-and-catch passing game theyve lacked since Calvin Johnsons retirement. The offer: Detroits 2019 first-round pick, Philadelphias 2019 third-round pick (acquired in the Tate trade), linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin Andrew Lucks return has put the Colts back on the playoff path and pushed T.Y. Hilton and Eric Ebron to the peak of their potential. After those two, however, Lucks targets drop off significantly. Adding Brown would give Indianapolis the leagues most dynamic deep game, keep opposing safeties deep in the defensive backfield, and allow Marlon Mack to build from a solid 2018 campaign. A trade for Brown would be a major splash for general manager Chris Ballard, whose steady leadership has helped pull his team out of their spiral. He pointedly told the world the Colts-Patriots rivalry was back on after Josh McDaniels reneged on his agreement to coach Indianapolis last winter. Hed be able to use some of the bounty the Jets paid to move up from No. 6 to No. 3 in last years draft to make it happen, too. The offer: Indianapolis 2019 first-round pick, the Jets 2019 second-round pick (acquired in 2018 draft swap), Indianapolis 2020 fifth-round pick Brown has been flirting with the Niners online, and theres no doubt general manager John Lynch would be happy to add a star to his budding offense. The Steelers wideout would boost Jimmy Garoppolo, Nick Mullens, or whichever backup San Francisco thrusts into a starring role at quarterback next. Hed also add a veteran presence to the 49ers young roster, for better or worse. Beyond draft considerations, he could offer a former top three selection in Solomon Thomas, a defensive lineman who has underwhelmed in two seasons in the Bay Area but could benefit from a change of scenery. And if Tomlin is looking for a better backup quarterback and succession plan for Ben Roethlisberger, the Niners could offer Mullens once theyre satisfied Garoppolo will be back to full strength for 2019. Mullens would carry more value not just because he was a solid quarterback this fall, but because hes also dirt cheap for the foreseeable future. The offer: San Franciscos 2020 first-round pick, San Franciscos 2019 fourth-round pick, defensive end Solomon Thomas OR San Franciscos 2019 second-round pick, quarterback Nick Mullens | https://www.sbnation.com/2019/1/2/18165357/antonio-brown-steelers-fight-trade-nfl-teams-contract-value |
Is a new roof really needed? | In fact, most people think that if the roof is not really needed, they are reluctant to think about it because replacing new roof requires money. And we all know if a new roof is not a cheap thing and in general, people do not make the roof as a their priority. There are many other things in their house that need to be repaired rather than just a roof. For example, a bathroom, kitchen, window, door, floor, or anything else. Which is considered more important than the roof. Talking about the roof and contractors, there must be a lot of roof contractros who will contact you and say if you need to change your roof to a new roof after a few years. But you should answer no or reject them subtly. They do that because they dont know your financial condition and that is one of the determining factors too. I brought conversation relating to this with mu son. He said if he needed a new truck this year, then I asked him one simple thing, How much money did you spend to repair your truck? And he said he didnt spend any money on itu. Then I replied, You shouldnt need a new truck because you dont spend money to fix it. If you want tou buy new truck, it really doesnt matter, but it enters different discussion content. Just like the conversation that I just said, it also applies if you want to buy a new roof. If the roof is damaged and we cannot afford to pay for the repairs, then we can replace it with a new roof. You have to replace the new roof accroding to your conditions, if the roof its totally damaged then you have to replace it with a new one. From the existing factors, this actually does not depend on the condition of the roof but depends on your financial condition. For roof repairs, a good contractor will repaie the roof properly, the leaks are repaired so the not leaks like before. May the roof leak can appear everywhere, but maxiumum repairs can make the roof last for several years. But there are also people who dont consider a new roof in their house for several years, this depends on the condition of the roof and their financial conditions. The most logical reason is its all about mone. But dont think like that. Actually, the price of a new roof is expensive, but it doesnt really have benefit to their company. Maybe a lot of people dont know it yet, but the fact is that re-roofing business is one of the most competitive businesses in the world of industry and applying a new roof makes a small profit. A large roof company that is able to do re-roofing well in a few weeks. However, the price of re-roofing is very competitive in the roofing industry, and most re-roofing companies only have a few employees that make it difficult for them to do this work. Installing a new roof is something that requires hard work and is a difficult situation. To applied a new roof requires a lot of energy and power from worker, it takes a lot of time and also a lot sacrifices that must be made. The reason why many contractors offer us hard, a lot od risks they bearm production time, and also low sales is because most of them dont know the business they are actually doing. Most contractor think if they can work quickly in a long time and they think they can make money also compete with other companies. So the cost of producing a new roof is lower than usual. At the end of the year I sold 90 roofs at the same price as they sell now, and for material costs about 3 times as long as before. The repairs that you might ask actually considered as disturbance by some contractors. Id there are improvements requested by the customer they will cinsider it a nuisance.Many contractors consider repairs to be a waste of time, so they only send some workers to make repairs and ask them to do quickly and return to the big project the are working on. Thats why we often encounter it even though its fixed the roof is still leaking. Because in fact, there are still very few contractors who pay attention and make improvements correctly. And there are still a few contractors who think correctly if their work requires balance. Those who think if they have to pay attention to big or small project. The success of a contractor is determined by several factors, successful contractors will pay attention to all projects whether small or big. They will also pay attention to the roof repair or installation projects, so that their company can run smoothly. A good contractor will also be happy to repair the roof regardless of the condition. So if you want to hire a roof contractor, there are a number of things that you should consider. Before hiring, we recommend that you ask about the cost of repairing the roof. But if there is a contractor who tells you to replace the new roof and is a little pushy, then we suggest that you look for other contractors. But if indeed the new roof needs to be replaced, ask the cost and ask what the advantages of the contractor are. So all the decision are in your hands! You can make the final decision whether you need to replace the roof or not with the consideration we have shared above. | http://cascadebusnews.com/new-roof-really-needed/ |
What are tattoo removal creams and do they work? | Get Stuff We Love Subscribe to our newsletter. / Source: TODAY By Chrissy Callahan Anyone who's gotten a tattoo they later regret has wished for a magical cream to make it all go away. And although the likelihood of such a cream has always been a distant dream, a string of "tattoo removal creams" have emerged over the past few years, claiming the ability to erase your unwanted ink. Tattoo removal creams seem miraculous at best and suspect at worst, and they haven't exactly gained much traction. TODAY Style consulted the experts to find out! It helps to know exactly what your skin goes through when you get a tattoo in the first place. When you get a tattoo you are basically instilling large globs of pigment in your skin that your little Pac-Man cells called macrophages can not engulf and take away," said Bruce Robinson, MD, FAAD, clinical instructor of dermatology, Northwell Health at Lenox Hill Hospital. When tattoo needles deposit ink into the dermis (a layer of skin below the surface), your epidermis (the surface-level skin) then acts as a barrier to keep it from being removed. Since your tattoo ink is being so thoroughly protected, its naturally hard to remove. The size of the pigment makes it difficult to take the pigment away unless made into smaller sizes by a laser," Robinson said. With the help of a laser, the pigment is then transformed into smaller globs that can be transported away by your macrophages. Tattoos are traditionally considered permanent so the thought of simply rubbing in a cream to remove all that ingrained ink sounds a bit far-fetched. But various tattoo removal creams have popped up, promising to easily make that ink disappear. "Most tattoo removal creams claim to work by bleaching or peeling away the epidermis, or the top layer of skin. However, tattoo ink is generally deposited into the dermis, or deeper layer of the skin, so they are unlikely effective at completely removing the tattoo ink," said cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Sejal Shah, founder of SmarterSkin Dermatology. The tattoo artists and dermatologists TODAY Style spoke to were quick to caution against these miracles creams" that sound too good to be true. Honestly, they're a gimmick from what I've gathered and completely ineffective. I believe they're meant to fade that tattoo over time, maybe by bleaching the skin or causing some form of microdermabrasion. Tattoos fade over time naturally anyway, though, with sun exposure, tanning, burns, cuts, etc., said tattoo artist Dillon Forte. These creams have been around for at least 10 years and haven't gained popularity from tattooers. In order for a tattoo removal cream to truly penetrate the epidermis, it would need to be formulated with a whole crop of potentially dangerous chemicals, and that may not be safe. "I would be suspect in wondering about the effects of absorbing these chemicals into the skin and additionally how the original tattoo scar looks in comparison to the surrounding skin (i.e. the affect of sun exposure to the once tattooed area)," said tattoo expert Lisa Barretta. Since they're so potent, tattoo removal creams could also irritate skin. Using the cream at home is risky. Some side effects could include burning, itching, irritation and even skin discoloration. You might also experience an allergic reaction to the cream. Plus, they are not FDA-approved, said Dr. Debra Jaliman, a board-certified dermatologist in New York City and author of the book Skin Rules: Trade Secrets from a Top New York Dermatologist." Even though tattoo removal creams dont seem legitimate at this point, you do have another, more common option if you regret a tattoo: laser tattoo removal. This method is notorious for being a bit painful, but can be manageable with the help of numbing cream and cold compresses. With Q-Switched and Picosecond lasers, you shatter the ink so that you can remove the ink by making it small enough to go via the lymphatics to the lymph nodes. Smaller ink particles go there with normal tattoo ink placement, but this process just breaks them up enough so that more can be removed. Tattoo ink needs high energy, ultrashort laser pulses in order to break up the ink particles, said Dr. Suzanne L. Kilmer, director of Laser & Skin Surgery Medical Group, Inc. According to Forte, most tattoos require at least six to eight laser sessions to be fully removed, and usually more. And while laser tattoo removal is pretty effective and common, it comes with its own set of risks. My main concern with laser removal is that when tattoo pigment is broken down, it can be passed through the body's natural detox process. The downside of this is that it's going through the liver, kidneys, etc., so if the inks aren't entirely organic, it can raise concerns about carcinogenic compounds being activated by lasers and then processed through your body, Dillon said. When the pigment is in it's original state, the particles are too large for your body to process so they're in a state of stasis and completely safe. A board-certified dermatologist or plastic surgeon can also perform a surgical excision to remove an unwanted tattoo, but one should expect scarring and consider that this procedure like any surgical procedure can be risky. To avoid removal in the first place, tattoo artists advise their clients to think long and hard about a tattoo choice before diving in. "First and foremost, consider your tattoo before getting it and research your artists. Find something personal that resonates with you not something off of Pinterest because it is on you forever," said Minka Sicklinger, a tattoo artist based in New York City. "If you do change your mind either live with it or consider a cover up if possible. Otherwise, laser tattoo removal is the best method, but it will never return your skin to normal. You will still always have remnants of the original tattoo so you will probably need a cover up regardless." | https://www.today.com/style/what-are-tattoo-removal-creams-do-they-work-t145097 |
What will the New England Patriots miss if defensive play-caller Brian Flores leaves? | FOXBOROUGH -- You cant blame Adam Butler for his professional anxiety. Seated in front his locker Wednesday, the Patriots' second-year defensive tackle breaks down his reasons rather succinctly. They boil down to career circumstances. For a guy like me thats undrafted and I dont cost millions, its nerve-wracking to come in here and wonder if your job is on the line and stuff like that," he said. Then Butler takes a happier, calmer turn and continues. But he doesnt even take it to that level. Hes just like, 'Look, this is what (the defense) is. This is what needs to be done. Do it and youll be fine. "And It infects me to just focus on getting it done. He is New Englands de facto defensive coordinator Brian Flores, arguably the hottest coaching candidate on the market. Four franchises -- the Packers, Bengals, Broncos and Browns -- requested to interview Flores for their head-coaching vacancies during the Patriots' playoff bye. His single season calling the defensive shots for New England stoked the smoldering fires that burned a year ago when the Cardinals interviewed him. That fire is now an all-out blaze. His temperament, on the other hand, remains controlled; an approach that He never really lets his emotions get to him," Butler says. "He collects himself. And he just calls it like it is. He focuses on getting the job done rather than any of the extra stuff. Flores is a self-described demanding coach. His players agree. You understand you might not be able to have a perfect game maybe ever, but that focus is one of the things he demands," defensive end Trey Flowers says. "From a players standpoint, its demanding that excellence and the play-calling. The play-calling has been of particular interest this season, with New England expanding its playbook and packages more than it has in years. Flores has been aggressive with his blitzes, creative with the Patriots' disguises. These, of course, are also a credit to Bill Belichick. The defense is still his. Thats all been Flores. And his players have taken note. Once you have success, then youre allowed to trust him and play more freely and go out there and make plays," Flowers says. Because you know your coach is going to put you in the right position. And after this belief and appreciation comes the feeling now shared throughout the locker room, a mix of adoration and admiration. Says cornerback Jason McCourty: I love playing for Coach Flores. | https://www.masslive.com/patriots/2019/01/what-will-the-new-england-patriots-miss-if-defensive-play-caller-brian-flores-leaves.html |
Why did my literary agent stop submitting my manuscript? | Funny You Should Ask is a humorous and handy column by literary agent Barbara Poelle. In this edition, she explains why your literary agent may have stopped submitting your manuscript and is asking about whats next Dear FYSA, After submitting to seven imprints, all of whom passed, my literary agent said she will no longer be actively submitting my manuscript and asked what I am working on next. Some of my friends have had agents submit their manuscripts to as many as 20 imprints. Sincerely, Short End of Stick Dear Shorty, This question, much like a myriad of other author questions, can best be answered by my third-grade teacher, Ms. Gamlin: Keep your eyes on your own paper. Whenever one of my clients tells me about something that an author friend got from his agent or editor, and we get to the Why come not me? portion of the call, I lift up the back-page of the calendar hanging on my wall and add a hash mark to the long-running series there. Every time I slash a diagonal through a group of five, I take a shot. It makes it fun for everyone! Here are just fi ve of the many reasons why you might be getting the Whats next? more quickly than some of your writer friends: 1. THE ISSUE WITH YOUR PROJECT is a unanimous one (meaning that all seven of those editors replied with some variation of the same), and one that isnt easily addressed with further revision. For example: We already have a sci-fi fantasy featuring ninja mermaids in the queue, or, Th e protagonist was unlikable without still being accessible, or, Th e story is just too quiet. 2. THE MARKET IS SATURATED with the themes explored in your work and no new angle is being explored in yours. 3. ONLY A FEW IMPRINTS are looking for your type of story or publish it well, and those few imprints are the ones that have passed. 4. THE MARKET HAS CHANGED and the appeal of your subject or even your whole subgenre has waned. 5. THE AGENT HAS A SHARP EYE for which editors want which projects in your subgenre, and/or only works in your subgenre and always sells to the same six or eight editors because she feels there isnt anyone else with similar taste. Or any combination of the above. Or your agent is spending your submission time browsing designer shoes online. (Holy delicious do I need to get on the waitlist for the Tory Burch Kingsbridge Mule.) I will grant you this: When your agent said she wouldnt be actively submitting further, she should have followed that up with a clear series of supporting reasons whyeven if they are hard for you to hear. Remember, your agent does believe in the manuscriptshe never would have shopped it at all if she didntbut belief alone doesnt sell books, or my butler would be writing this from my private island. Sometimes, too, we agents can believe in the author a little more than the book, and the idea of the first novel needing to get out of the way to get to the real gold is not a unique one. When I signed Rene Ahdieh, I told her that I was going to go ahead and shop her first young adult manuscript, but that I had a feeling we were going to hear no. I also told her, however, that I had faith that whatever she applied her talents to next would sell. And thats exactly what happened: The Wrath and the Dawn was her second eff ort, and a bestselling one at that. But I was very clear with her from the start about my intent. In the end, the takeaway here is that if you keep looking to the left and the right, you may fall off the path. Clarify with your agent why she is looking forward to whats next, and thoughtfully consider doing the same. ASK FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK! Submit your own questions on the writing life, publishing or anything in between to [email protected] with Funny You Should Ask in the subject line. Select questions (which may be edited for space or clarity) will be answered in future columns, and may appear on WritersDigest.com and in Writers Digest magazine. You might also like: | https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/questions-submitted-by-readers/funny-you-should-ask-why-did-my-literary-agent-stop-submitting-my-manuscript |
Are Kanye West And Kim Kardashian Expecting Their Fourth Child Via Surrogate? | The Wests are about to be parents again! The couple is reportedly expecting a fourth child, their second by surrogate and if the rumors are true, Kanye will have another boy in the house something around May. Kardashian West, 38, had her last child, daughter Chicago by surrogate a little over a year ago. In the past shes opened up about wanting a big family and shes already a mother to three, North West, 5, Saint West 3 and baby Chicago. Kanye wants to have more, though. Hes been harassing me, Kim told friend Larsa Pippen on an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians last year. He wants, like, seven. Hes like, stuck on seven. Well have to wait and see if the rumors are true. Given that Kanyes back on Twitter (and pledging allegiance to Trump), people are already suggesting baby names for the newest boy West. was originally published on theboxhouston.com Also On Hot 107.9: | https://hotspotatl.com/3741836/are-kanye-west-and-kim-kardashian-expecting-their-fourth-child-via-surrogate/ |
Is Mitt Romney Donald Trump With Better Hair? | Not this guy again. Mitt Romney: The president shapes the public character of the nation. Trumps character falls short. Romneys getting a lot of praise from the media for this scathing op-ed. But Id just like to highlight one section. It is not that all of the presidents policies have been misguided. He was right to align U.S. corporate taxes with those of global competitors, to strip out excessive regulations, to crack down on Chinas unfair trade practices, to reform criminal justice and to appoint conservative judges. These are policies mainstream Republicans have promoted for years. But policies and appointments are only a part of a presidency. Yes, he just told you he supports Trumps trade wars, his rollback of environmental protections, his installation of right wing judges on the Supreme Court and numerous federal districts, and his massive tax cuts for the rich. And he demonstrated in his last presidential campaign that hes willing to lie shamelessly and exploit conspiracy theories for political benefit. Since I already wrote several tweets immediately after reading Romneys grand statement, Ill just repost them here: Mitt Romney to give first interview to CNNs @jaketapper this afternoon after his scathing op-ed slamming President Trumps character. pic.twitter.com/Y5uRC26S4G Javi Morgado (@javimorgado) January 2, 2019 Mitt Romney ran one of the most dishonest, overtly nativist campaigns in history before Donald Trump, so of course hell get the star treatment from CNN for saying OBVIOUS things about Trump. This is complete bullshit. Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) January 2, 2019 Trump is a disgusting creep in every way, but the real damage to America isnt coming from his character. Its the backward, regressive, racist policies hes instituting and the far right judges hes installing. And Mitt Romney supports ALL of this, right down the line. Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) January 2, 2019 | http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/48718_Is_Mitt_Romney_Donald_Trump_With_Better_Hair |
Will Tyler Lockett be the X-factor for the Seahawks against Dallas? | The Seattle Seahawks will need to pull out every weapon in their arsenal Saturday night when they square off against the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card round. While Seattle has put together a vastly improved run game to lead the league in rushing, it could come down to the passing game in Arlington. Wide receiver Tyler Lockett, who is enjoying a banner season, could be the X-factor for the Seahawks in getting past the Cowboys. USA TODAYs Lorenzo Reyes believes stopping Lockett in his tracks is key for Dallas Saturday night. The players who could make the biggest difference for their teams in the NFL wild-card round. https://t.co/HBwrDH2bcY USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) January 2, 2019 According to NFL operations, no passer since 2002 had ever posted a perfect rating when targeting a single receiver more than 15 times, Reyes notes. Dallas primarily utilizes its cornerbacks in the same positions, with Byron Jones on the right, Anthony Brown in the slot and Chidobe Awuzie out left. Seattle moves Lockett inside and outside, and how the Cowboys defend him could be key to slowing down Seattles big-play ability. Quarterback Russell Wilson has established a perfect passer rating on 70 throws targeting the Seahawks wider receiver, who has posted 57 receptions for 965 yards and 10 touchdowns on the year. If Wilson and Lockett are able to sync up in Dallas, the Seahawks have a real chance to advance past the Cowboys and on to the Divisional Round. | https://seahawkswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/02/will-tyler-lockett-be-the-x-factor-for-the-seahawks-against-dallas/ |
Is 13 too young for my daughter to decide she doesn't want children? | Ive always been open with my 13-year-old about the realities of climate catastrophe. Shes the sort of kid who asks questions and initiates difficult conversations. Since the recent UN released a 33-page report summarising the IPCCs (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) latest assessment, weve begun talking in terms of plans for the future. I dont shield her from the facts. I've asked her whether shes thought about not having children. At her age, I wasnt even aware of the concept of climate change. But she cant afford the luxury of being blissfully ignorant. Time is running out. She performed in a play last year based on Derrick Jensens graphic novel As the World Burns. Shes painfully aware of the possibility that her children and grandchildren will have a harder time being alive. And the band-aid banalities coming from politicians and lobby groups are no solutions at all. I fear my daughter has harder choices than us to make. Credit:Shutterstock The majority of people I speak to argue shes too young to make these decisions, this will damage her, make her depressed, apathetic and pessimistic. They place their faith in technological innovation and the inherent goodness of humanity. Nick, 53, said, "My gut feeling is that kids are not small adults but children and should live a magical childhood full of a sense of wonder and opportunities. Certainly, they shouldnt be shielded from everything." | https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/is-13-too-young-for-my-daughter-to-decide-she-doesn-t-want-children-20181130-p50jhz.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed |
Is it the winter blues or something more? | Thank you for Reading. Please purchase a subscription to continue reading. A subscription is required to continue reading. Thank you for reading PressofAtlanticCity.com. If you are a current subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click Sign Up or Login to activate your digital access. If not, please click Sign Up to subscribe and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information, or you can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles. Thank you for reading PressofAtlanticCity.com. Please click Get Started. If you are a current subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. If not, we ask that you purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information, or you can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 10 free articles. | https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/is-it-the-winter-blues-or-something-more/article_26968a8e-af5c-5d61-a3de-8cb5c81b98f6.html |
What Were The DMVs Favorite Netflix Shows In 2018? | It was a lot of Netflix and Chilling in the DMV in 2018 and it shows, especially in Washington, D.C. HighSpeedInternet.com released the list of the most watched shows from the streaming service in 2018 from each state and you would be surprised what The District was viewing. D.C. hand plenty of shows that were on their TV screen. In fact, a whopping 16 shows tied for the most watched Netflix shows in the commonwealth. They are: American Vandal Arrested Development Black Mirror BoJack Horseman Dear White People GLOW House of Cards Jane the Virgin Jessica Jones Mad Men Maniac Queer Eye Sense8 The Crown The Good Place Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Marvel reigned in Maryland and Virginia. The now-canceled shows Luke Cage and Daredevil was the most watched show in Maryland and Virginia. was originally published on woldcnews.com | https://kysdc.com/3701652/what-were-the-dmvs-favorite-netflix-shows-in-2018/ |
Was the 9 Percent Drop in the S&P 500 Really Just a 'Glitch' Like President Trump Says? | That was some glitch! President Trump called the more than nine percent drop in the S&P 500 index last month a glitch and suggested that stock prices would recover if trade deals -- most notably with China -- are completed. That, of course, is a big if. With the worst December since 1931 behind it, the S&P 500 and Dow Industrials indexes both overcame very weak starts to the day, to post gains of 0.13 percent and 0.08 percent respectively. The Nasdaq Composite index was up 0.46 percent today The Entrepreneur Index was up 0.26 percent, with strength in energy, technology and clothing stocks offset by losses in manufacturing stocks and real estate investment trusts. Bed Bath & Beyond had the biggest gain on the Entrepreneur Index today, rising 5.83 percent. The specialty retailer had a horrible 2018, with the stock dropping nearly 50 percent. It appears to be riding a high from reportedly strong holiday season sales across the retail sector. BBBY Quotes by TradingView Wynn Resorts stock had the second biggest gain on the day, rising 5.55 percent. The casino operator was once again buoyed by Macau gamblers. December gross gambling revenues reported today for the former Portuguese colony, where Wynn operates three casinos, were up a heady 16.6 percent. That blew away estimates that anticipated a slowdown due to slower growth in China. Analysts, however, expect that comparisons could get more difficult this year, particularly with a smoking ban in casinos going into effect this month. Oil and gas producer Hess Corp. rose 4.3 percent as the oil market showed signs of finding a bottom. The price of West Texas crude was up 2.51 percent today as recent production cuts by OPEC members began taking effect. Oil prices have fallen 40 percent since early October, but are up nearly 10 percent since dropping below $43/barrel the day before Christmas. Kinder Morgan was also up sharply, rising 2.73 percent. The manager of oil and gas pipelines is much less dependent on energy prices than producers like Hess Corp, but the stock still fell more than 20 percent over the last three months. Low oil prices may eventually lead to lower production (and pipeline transportation) in the U.S., but the country is currently pumping record volumes and is expected to maintain high levels in 2019. Clothing makers got the year off to a good start. L Brands (2.49 percent) and Ralph Lauren Corp. (1.91 percent) were up nicely and Under Armour Inc. gained 0.79 percent. Technology stocks were mixed with Facebook (3.5 percent) posting the biggest gain and Akamai Technologies (-3.39. the biggest decline. Adobe Systems Inc. (-0.74 percent) and salesforce.com (-1.04 percent) both fell on the day. Tesla shares were down sharply as production numbers for the fourth quarter came in slightly lower than expected. The stock fell 6.81 percent -- the biggest decline on the Entrepreneur Index today. The pioneer in electric cars also announced price cuts on all its models to help offset the cut in federal income tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles this year. Ford, on the other hand, was up 3.27 percent today though it remained below $8 per share. The stock fell 37 percent last year and currently has a price-earnings ratio of just 5.5 times and a dividend yield of over seven percent. The REIT stocks were hammered despite interest rates falling on the day. Residential focused companies like Equity Residential (-3.41 percent) and Apartment Investment and Management Co. (-3.49 percent) fell furthest. Storage REIT Extra Space Storage was also down 3.36 percent. The Entrepreneur Index collects the top 60 publicly traded companies founded and run by entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial spirit is a valuable asset for any business, and this index recognizes its importance, no matter how much a company has grown. These inspirational businesses can be tracked in real time on Entrepreneur.com. | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/9-percent-drop-p-500-222000037.html |
Did Notre Dame deserve a College Football Playoff spot? | Notre Dame was blown out of the College Football Playoffs, and some people are fuming that the committee wasted a valuable playoff spot on a school that didn't deserve it. The team finished undefeated while sporting the ninth-ranked defense in the country and many felt the Fighting Irish deserved to be in the hunt. Others feel the lack of a conference title and weak schedule should've had Notre Dame on the outside looking in, with a more deserving team taking the spot -- and history is on their side. PERSPECTIVES Say what you will about Notre Dame, but the team finished undefeated while playing the top universities in the country. The Fighting Irish's wins against Michigan, Stanford and Syracuse -- all top-15 teams at the time of their respective games -- are proof that Notre Dame belonged in the playoff. People are crying over the lack of a conference championship like it is the end all, be all of determining eligibility. Notre Dame was one of the four top schools in the country. They just had a bad day against Clemson. There is no arguing that. But they deserved that spot. Look no further than the scoreboard. The Fighting Irish managed to play fewer games and still gain a berth in the College Football Playoff. Every other qualified team had one more monumental test just to be considered for the honor, while Notre Dame sat at home enjoying Friday and Saturday like every other schmuck in the country. Just because Notre Dame is Notre Dame, it gets special consideration. Brand equity shouldn't be a requisite for qualification. The Fighting Irish should've been left out of the bracket. The blowout loss against Clemson is further evidence that the Fighting Irish were never serious contenders for a national title. The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, we'd love to hear what you have to say. | https://www.cleveland.com/sports/index.ssf/2019/01/did_notre_dame_deserve_a_colle.html |
Can the UFC make good on a second chance to make Amanda Nunes a superstar? | Amanda Nunes celebrates her KO victory over Cris Cyborg of Brazil in their womens featherweight bout during the UFC 232 event inside The Forum on Dec. 29, 2018 in Inglewood, California. (Getty Images) The fans voices dont lie. A sellout crowd of 15,862 let out a deafening roar Saturday night when Amanda Nunes knocked out Cris Cyborg Justino in just 51 seconds in the co-main event of UFC 232. Scroll to continue with content Ad It was a historic win, as Nunes became the first woman in UFC history to become a double champ. The UFC bantamweight champion added the featherweight belt to her collection by vanquishing the long-invincible Cyborg, the latters first defeat since 2005. The crowds roar was as sustained as it was loud, reminding this observer, who has been cageside for live MMA events since 2006, of legendary moments like Randy Couture coming out of retirement and defeating Tim Sylvia for the heavyweight title in Columbus in 2007; and Georges St-Pierres hometown welterweight title win over Matt Serra in Montreal in 2008. This sort of reaction says the people are ready to embrace Nunes as a breakthrough star. Now its up to the UFC to make good on its second chance to push the greatest womens mixed martial artist in the young sports history. Make no mistake about it: The UFC thoroughly botched making Nunes a star the first time around in 2016. The companys misfire with Nunes, in hindsight, was the first hint that maybe new UFC owner WME/Endeavor didnt quite have a handle on the intricacies of its new product just yet. Nunes won the bantamweight belt with a first-round submission victory over the popular Miesha Tate at UFC 200 in July 2016, the final event before the announcement of the companys sale from Zuffa LLC to WME. Her first title defense was a bout with Ronda Rousey at UFC 207 on Dec. 30, 2016. Rousey is a WME client, and in a rookie move, the company made Nunes all but invisible in the buildup to the fight, focusing all of the hype on the return of the transcendent, pioneering star. Story continues The old regime wouldnt have let this happen. There would have been plenty of hype for Rouseys return, sure, but also with the understanding if Nunes won, which was a very real possibility, theyre going to have to run with Nunes moving forward. So Nunes would have gotten her fair share of publicity in the buildup of the fight. Amanda Nunes connects with Ronda Rousey at UFC 207, Friday, Dec. 30, 2016, in Las Vegas. Nunes won the fight after it was stopped in the first round. (AP) Nunes made Rousey look like a rank amateur that night, chasing her from the sport with a 48-second TKO, and there was no Plan B. WME came across as petulant as its fallen star. WME is a titanic Hollywood agency, but it used none of its promotional muscle to get Nunes publicity following her title win. Things got worse before they got better. Nunes pulled out of her UFC 213 title defense against Valentina Shevchenko the morning of the fight due to a chronic case of sinusitis. UFC president Dana White, as part of his ongoing, self-defeating habit of tearing down the champions who are supposed to drive his business (see: Woodley, Tyron), ripped into Nunes, questioned her heart and said shed never headline another show. Never turned out to be two months. Nunes vs. Shevchenko was rescheduled for UFC 215 in Edmonton, and was bumped up to headliner when the original main event of then-flyweight champ Demetrious Johnson vs. Ray Borg fell out two days prior. UFC 213 was a sellout and a success as a live event, but, surprise surprise, the general public didnt go out of its way to buy Nunes as a headliner on pay-per-view just weeks after the person with the companys biggest megaphone went out of his way to trash her. UFC 215 did an estimated 100,000 PPV buys, one of the lowest numbers in the companys modern history. Its a number some critics whose knowledge of the fight business has all the depth of a desert dry lake have used to discredit Nunes. But those critics utterly lack context: Not only was Nunes hurt by her promoters ill-considered words, but UFC 215 was just two weeks after the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor boxing match. Millions of fight fans had just paid an extra-large sum of $100 a pop to watch the spectacle. No fight card was going to draw big numbers two weeks later, regardless who headlined. But that was then and this is now. A fired-up White obviously senses he has a chance to start fresh with Nunes. Dana White hands Amanda Nunes two UFC championship belts after defeating Cris Cyborg in their womens featherweight bout during the UFC 232 event inside The Forum on Dec. 29, 2018 in Inglewood, California. (Getty Images) This is the type of fight that builds legacies, and you realize, you have to find out who is the best in the world? White said at the UFC 232 post-fight news conference. We are able to do that tonight. It was an incredible fight, and, look at Amanda Nunes. I [expletive] guarantee it. I promise you that. The place went crazy for her. Great. Now, heres Whites chance to back up his words. Lets see WME/Endeavor use a smidgen of their muscle and take advantage of the buzz off Nunes victory. Nunes is a trailblazing, out LGBT athlete. Some fighters take longer to turn into stars than others. Anderson Silva is a beloved legend now. For the first half of his 2,457 days as middleweight champ, though, he was often consigned to two-title-fight double bills due to his lack of drawing power. But Silva kept finishing his opponents in exciting fashion, and his popularity grew. Just like Nunes did with Rousey, Tate and Cyborg. The UFC shows plenty of old fights as shoulder programming in their TV deals. Getting Nunes biggest wins into rotation in their new ESPN deal would be a good first step. And Nunes has a promotional tool all her own, if the UFC wants to go there: Let her defend both of her titles as long as she wants. Conor McGregor was stripped of his featherweight belt soon after winning the lightweight title. Daniel Cormier defended the heavyweight belt while also holding the light heavyweight title, but relinquished the latter ahead of the Jon Jones and Alexander Gustafsson rematch before the UFC could strip him. Thats the stuff from which legends are made. All the ingredients are there for Nunes to finally become a star. She has the rsum. She has the highlight reel of fantastic finishes. The Forum crowd let the UFC know the people are ready to accept her as a star. Now its on the UFC to make good on its second chance. Purdue superfan Tyler Trent dies of cancer at age 20 | https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/can-ufc-make-good-second-chance-make-amanda-nunes-superstar-172421034.html?src=rss |
Does the Surprise Album Release Still Work? | Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Global Citizen Ever since Beyoncs self-titled visual album appeared like a Christmas miracle on the iTunes store at midnight on a Thursday in December of 2013, the rules for how to release a record were rewritten literally overnight. Since then, she and Jay-Z have become masters of the form: 2016s Lemonade arrived in beautiful concert with Beyoncs HBO special, while Jays 4:44 from last year landed after a not-so-subtle billboard campaign. Both efforts were commercially successful despite being initially available only for subscribers of the streaming service Tidal. This year, the Carters almost broke Twitter with their unexpected joint LP, Everything Is Love; and yet they lost a No. 1 Billboard chart debut to Australian boy band 5 Seconds of Summers Youngblood, which had a fairly run-of-the-mill promotional campaign and widespread release. I dont think it really mattered if they were number one or not, says Billboard charts manager Keith Caulfield. I think it was about how they wanted to get the music out and they had a very specific way of releasing it. And thats their prerogative. One could say the same for a number of top-tier artists who reinvented the promotional wheel in 2018 some more successfully than others as they tried to reach as many listeners as possible in an increasingly crowded market. Nicki Minajs meltdown about landing Queen at No. 1 vaguely recalled her delaying 2014s The Pinkprint to allegedly achieve a similar effect. Rainbow-haired rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was almost robbed a No. 1 debut due to a processing discrepancy after Dummy Boy was initially postponed due to his incarceration. As always, theres Drake, who continues to break records set by, and seemingly for, himself with opus-cum-slog Scorpion; and Kanye West, whose chaotic delivery of YE topped the promotional antics of 2016s The Life of Pablo. This isnt the first year that high-stakes rollouts have been botched, mangled, or otherwise left for dead, but it is the first in which there were so many, and each one such a spectacle, that they cut through the increasingly escalating music-industry news cycle to coalesce into a trend. According to a study released earlier this year by Discogs.com, a Wikipedia-like, user-maintained database of physical recordings, the amount of music released globally last year is seven times what was released in 1960. The week that Lil Wayne dropped his highly anticipated Tha Carter V, for example, also saw releases from Cher, Logic, Kevin Gates, Loretta Lynn, Rod Stewart, Cypress Hill, and Tom Petty. Youd be forgiven for forgetting anything that happened three days ago, let alone three months. With streaming sort of throwing a wrench into everything, there isnt really one specific rule book to follow anymore about how to release and promote an album, says Caulfield. Weezy made the most of both to his advantage, giving music-news outlets enough updates to sustain headlines for years before dropping Tha Carter V without much fanfare on September 28. Still, all but 1 of its 23 tracks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, tying Drake for the number of debuts in a single week. Eminems surprise album, Kamikaze, as befitting its title, torpedoed the sales of his last LP, Revival, which came with a long lead-in a mere seven months prior and bombed across the board. Though the sneak-attack method has proved effective for artists of Ems caliber, it wasnt necessarily a sure shot in his case. It worked this time, Caulfield says, because of the content of the album, and how that was resonating through social media, a lot of people felt compelled to go listen to it to hear what he was saying about people. John Fleckenstein, co-president of RCA Records, oversaw a diverse suite of albums this year from breakthrough upstarts Brockhampton, indie-leaning talents the Voidz with Julian Casablancas, and Lykke Li, and proven hit-makers Christina Aguilera (who had the misfortune of dropping Liberation the day before the Carters Everything Is Love), A$AP Rocky, and Justin Timberlake. When thinking about RCAs lineup in 2018, he focused on an oft-ignored corner of the listening market: As ways of listening to music have been proliferating since the late 90s from iPods and mp3 players to streaming services and voice-activated players each one occupies a separate share of the shrinking attention economy. Most of the profit attention has been around how its monetized, and how people earn from it or make a living; or as a record company, have a business, he says. A lot of that has been challenging for the industry in the last couple of decades, to figure out a model that works. As streaming has taken hold over the last few years, in particular, its really shown and brought to light the business around this consumption that has exploded over the years. Another alternative but controversial method of monetizing and charting consumption was more rampant in years past but may have gotten the most air time in 2018. Earlier this year, Billboard announced an exhaustive methodology for determining how album-equivalent units (which includes digital and physical sales, along with tiered streams on Spotify and other streaming platforms) are counted going forward. As these rules have become simultaneously more rigorously defined and more opaque, some artists have been gaming the system by bundling merchandise and ticket sales with albums, both of which historically sell more reliably than recorded music. In August of this year, Minaj argued that she lost her No. 1 debut to Travis Scotts Astroworld because the Houston rapper boosted album purchases by bundling his debut LP with tickets and T-shirts even though she did the exact the same thing. For independent artists and record labels, which never participated in prefile sharing and pre-streaming major-label excesses to begin with, this year reaffirmed the importance of playing the long game. Streaming means that were not getting the sales that we used to get the week of release or the first three or six months of release, but that those sales or streams or equivalent units are stretched over the first two, three, four, five years, says Matt Harmon, U.S. president of Beggars Group, which includes Radioheads current label XL. He cites Philadelphia slack-rock torchbearer Kurt Vile as a case study in strategy: Matador rented a house in upstate New York for Vile and some friends to play music, and record video and acoustic and electric sessions for content that will be rolled out beyond the campaign for his 2018 album, Bottle It In. Think of it as a cache for the endless cold winter of the music industry. Earlier this year, the Recording Industry Association of America released a 2017 year-end report that showed physical sales (which, broken down, see CD sales falling 6 percent and vinyl climbing 10 percent) coming out ahead of digital downloads, taking up 17 percent of a market that is nonetheless dominated by streaming at 65 percent. Tethering vinyl to digital releases is essential to maximizing sales on or near release day, especially for independent labels, says Neil Blanket, head of marketing for Mute Records (Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Moby) in the U.K. Obviously, Beyonc doesnt need her vinyl out on the same day as her digital, he adds. We have to allow for how our fans listen. You cant surprise-release an album on vinyl because it takes four months to set it up. If we surprise-released a New Order album on digital, it would be a disaster. There are no complaints or almost any comments at all from some of the parties responsible for preventing this years high-stakes releases from becoming unmitigated disasters. Its unclear how much Def Jam gave financially to the YE listening party, which is estimated to have cost tens of millions of dollars, but it contributed almost all of the heavy lifting and logistical planning. Everyones attitude was just, Here we go, one attendee told me about their experience. The people at Def Jam were running so much on adrenaline, I dont think their opinion was uppermost in their minds. (Representatives from the label declined to comment for this article; representatives from Minajs label, Republic Records, did not reply to a request for comment.) Tidals senior vice-president of artist relations, Jason Kpana, cites Meek Mills triumphant comeback record, Championships, as an example of their adaptability and commitment to realizing artistic intent. We work very closely with artists, labels and distributors to ensure projects are realized as intended, he wrote in an email. Our global team is available 24/7 to accommodate our partners and were simply just ready when they are. This approach can likely be applied to all music-streaming services also known as digital service providers, more commonly abbreviated to DSPs since, as an employee of the company tells me, all DSPs operate essentially the same way. At least theres a tightly knit safety net for 2019s crop of releases, strategies be damned. | https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/does-the-surprise-album-release-still-work.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fvulture+%28Vulture+-+nymag.com%27s+Entertainment+and+Culture+Blog%29 |
Is Windows Holographic too premature a notion for the enterprise? | Microsofts preview of Windows Holographic is clearly a grab for headlines, a way for it to brand itself as a future-facing company. It wants to achieve what the now-paused Google Glass Explorer program could not and what Oculus has not. This announcement, though, came at the end of a presentation where rough build was a term frequently used to refer to the fact that Windows 10 is far from finished. Everybody wants to build hoverboards and jetpacks, but this is a Microsoft that still has the great responsibility of powering the enterprise world, where theres going to be a lot of heavy lifting in the transition away from Windows 7.1 and 8.1. While Microsoft highlighted and promoted their Windows Insider program, which has been working to finesse Windows 10, we now know that this isnt getting 100% of the the companys full attention. The word monumental was frequently used about this day in Windows history. Hopefully itll be for the right reasons. The odds of everything going smoothly - for every single user - on launch day are extremely low. But one headline grabbing glitch could taint this moment. Thats why Im hoping Microsoft is internally prioritizing the enterprise, desktop, and laptop experiences, in that order. This version of Windows may see the most early adopters that Microsoft has ever dealt with, thanks to Microsofts free-for-the-first-year upgrade offer. While the change in strategy nods to the industry-wide devaluation of software, it certainly raises the stakes for the final shipped build of Windows 10. Companies with tons of early adopters love to celebrate that fact, but there is inherent risk provided by a legion of various and diverse installations. There will be a lot of excitement around this launch, we could even see many jumping to download it without question. In the business world, Microsoft is encouraging an even blinder approach to updates. Their Windows Update path, where all of the latest updates get deployed from Microsoft themselves, is akin to loaning the keys to your business. That kind of agreement requires a trust to exist, one that isnt hampered by concerns of a Microsoft spread too thin. Look at Apple: in Tim Cooks push to pump out major yearly updates on desktop and mobile, the quality of said software has dropped. People dont trust over-the-air updates to not brick their phone, and analysts are warning people against installing the major releases, instead advising people to wait for the .1 or .2 update to fix expected bugs. Thats a situation that hasnt been seen in a long time for Apple, and a dangerous spot for the company to be in, when competitors can easily challenge the marketing notion that their products just work. Todays event With a 2+ hour event, featuring two surprising new products, and cloud services positioned to rival Google Apps and conquer iCloud, Microsoft is telling the world that they can walk, chew bubble gum, stream music, and Skype all at the same time. It wants you to think that Windows 10 is the long-promised OS that integrates all of your computers, with apps that look and work the same everywhere. It doesnt take much to look at these historically grand aspirations with suspicion. Early in the event, Terry Myerson (Executive VP of Operating Systems), made a very proud and hopefully not foolish claim that their security software could have stopped recent headline making attacks from happening. He didnt even say it in a modest tone, but as a fact (and almost as a challenge). What success could mean Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be aware of their brand problems. Throughout the event, many nods were made towards rebuilding the trust Microsoft has with the public. That there are 1.5 billion people relying on Windows to do their jobs; to have everything function as advertised. Nadella was humble to admit that many today just see Windows as a platform they need, rather than one they have any want or affection for. For that need to continue, Windows has to be seen as reliable for businesses. Success in these new fields would certainly lift Nadellas Microsoft, which isnt willing to stand still, but the commercial world is fickle and trends can just go poof. The enterprise, one of Microsofts core businesses, the market that has yet to abandon Microsoft, needs to be receiving the most finished product possible. When Microsoft ships their first HoloLens sets to customers, growing pains like bugs and differences arent just inevitable, but allowed. They are going to be defining a market, and it may not look exactly like what customers expect. They dont have that much room for error with businesses, where one crash or bug could lead to a company going through the next Sony-level hack. Sure, Cortana is being positioned as SuperSiri, ready to assist in all levels of Windows 10, but she wont be able to save the company in times of crisis. | https://www.techradar.com/sg/news/software/operating-systems/is-windows-holographic-too-premature-a-notion-for-the-enterprise-1281594 |
Did Cardi B Miss Having Offset By Her Side On NYE After Heartbreaking Split? | It turns out the Bodak yellow rapper was too busy having fun in Australia with a bunch of her girlfriends on the exciting holiday and she didnt feel the need to have her on-again, off-again love by her side. Cardi didnt seem to miss Offset at all as she brought in NYE with her closest girlfriends in tow, a source EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife. It was a total girls night out and trip in whole for her. Her entire trip and night was filled with nothing but good times, good laughs and good company. She danced hard core at Marquee nightclub in Sydney without a care in the world. She was in a great mood the entire time and really enjoyed being with everyone she was with and not focusing on Offset and their relationship. Shes been enjoying her trip with her girls. Cardis attitude over New Years Eve isnt too surprising considering how shes been with Offset, who is the father of her five-month-old daughter Kulture, in the past month. Although she announced that they split in a video she posted to Instagram, the former lovebirds hooked up again after Offset kept trying to win her back. Cardi then later claimed she only did it for the sex so were not too sure whats going on here! No matter what happens between these two, though, we have a feeling Cardi will be just fine! Heres to 2019! | https://hollywoodlife.com/2019/01/02/cardi-b-miss-offset-new-years-eve-after-split/ |
When is Victoria back on TV? | So much has changed for Jenna Colemans Queen Victoria since we first met her in the ITV drama. Advertisement In just a few short years she has inherited the Crown, found herself a brooding husband (Tom Hughes Prince Albert), been through a bunch of Prime Ministers, survived several assassination attempts and popped out quite a few kids. Heres everything we know. Series three of Victoria officially began filming on 21st May 2018, and ended on 26th October 2018. No air date has been confirmed, but the show is expected to return to ITV in early 2019, with eight episodes. In early October, ITV teased turbulent times for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the new season with a new shot from the series. Check it out below. When we catch up with Queen Victoria (Jenna Coleman) and her husband Prince Albert (Tom Hughes), the year is 1848, a turbulent and uncertain time for monarchs and subjects alike. Series three will see Victoria under pressure from the government to leave London for her own safety, amid fears of revolution and unrest in London. But the Queen is also facing pressure within the royal marriage. Creator Daisy Goodwin said: Victoria and Albert are the most famous couple of the nineteenth century, but underneath the united facade, their relationship is at breaking point and it is a struggle for mastery that neither side can win. Speaking after the show was recommissioned, she said: Series three will start in 1848 which was a hugely dramatic and eventful time for both the royal family and Europe, with revolutions on the continent and uncertainty around the monarchy. Viewers can expect more drama than ever before in the third series. Goodwin later told her audience at the TCA (Television Critics Association) summer tour in California: Its the closest Britain got to a revolution in the 19th century. The whole of Europe is falling apart. The drama is also expected to explore tensions in the bedroom between Victoria and Albert, with the Queen increasingly resenting the fact that her husband is constantly making her pregnant. Writer Daisy Goodwin told RadioTimes.com in an interview that she is planning to depict suggestions that the Queen may have withheld sex from her spouse in order to avoid constantly finding herself pregnant. She has six children in eight years which is a lot and there are some gaps, so I wonder whether there may have been some withholding [of sex] on both sides; thats certainly something Im going to explore in series three, she said. Not yet! The Queens consort died young, at the age of 42 almost four decades before Victoria. But that was in 1861 and wont take place in series three. With Prince Alberts Great Exhibition of 1851 approaching, I think we can safely say were not going to lose Albert in this series, Goodwin said. Some VERY nice faces at @VictoriaSeries read through today old and new ! pic.twitter.com/eKwkEb7Ybw Nell Hudson (@nellrosehudson) May 14, 2018 Tony and Olivier Award nominated actress Kate Fleetwood will play the Queens mysterious sister Feodora, who makes an unexpected return into Victorias life. (And yes, she did exist: the real Princess Feodora of Leiningen was Queen Victorias beloved elder half-sister who had married a German prince and escaped the confines of Kensington Palace while Victoria was still young.) In this drama, Feodora is resentful and creates tension in the royal household when she comes to visit. There she is, living in a crumbly, draughty castle in the middle of Germany and shes having a miserable time, Goodwin explained. And theres Victoria being Queen of England. It doesnt go down so well. On this day in 1851, the Rayban folding wayfarer was invented. pic.twitter.com/kAjPChtJBO (@LozzaFox) June 5, 2018 Lewis star Laurence Fox is joining the show as the charismatic and wayward Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston, a major player in the politics of the era. Also joining the cast are Lily Travers as the Duchess of Monmouth, as well as the actor and comedian John Sessions as Prime Minister John Russell, who was in power for much of this period. Nicholas Audsley, David Burnett and Emily Forbes have also been announced for series three though the details of their characters are still under wraps. Victoria had a Christmas special in 2017, a two-hour episode where Buckingham Palace was blanketed in snow and there were candles and Christmas trees galore. Unfortunately there will be no Christmas special in 2018, but look out for series three in the new year. Those wishing for a right royal catch-up can watch the first series on Netflix. Advertisement Series two is trickier, but you can order it on DVD. A few episodes are also available on ITV Hub. | https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-01-03/when-is-victoria-back-on-tv-2/ |
Where Do Digital Twins Fit In? | A digital twin is a virtualized replica of an actual facility or plant, either hosted on premises or in the cloud. It draws data from a number of sources, including real-time control systems, asset management systems, historians, records of employee/customer interactions and other sources. With IoT implementations providing more and more data, high-fidelity digital twins are becoming easier to create and maintain. Companies use these digital twins to understand their world better by modeling different scenarios, with a goal of making proactive instead of reactive decisions.They do this by running simulations and what-if scenarios within the digital twin, and using the results to improve operations and employee skills. Manufacturers tend to use digital twins to improve operations such as plant processes, and to optimize supply chains. Digital twins are most beneficial when employed to improve ongoing operations and train employees, but they can also be used to test new procedures and products in the virtual world before introduction to the real world. This reduces risk because mistakes can be made and corrected offline instead of during actual production or in a working facility with live customers. Improving AI Digital twins can provide the high-quality inputs needed to create models of operations. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and other advanced technologies use these models to suggest improvements to operations. Once operations are improved, the digital twin also improves and provides higher-quality inputs to models, which are then used by advanced technologies to suggest further improvement. One example is a plant producing refined petrochemical products. These plants have many complex processes, most of which can be simulated in a virtual twin. Any improvements must be tested as thoroughly as possible in a simulated environment before real-world implementation because these processes are often dangerous, with errors resulting in reduced production in the best case, extended downtime in other instances, and safety incidents in the worst case. Digital twins allow experts to examine operations either onsite or from afar. Some plants may have the required expertise onsite, while other companies may rely on experts located at headquarters. Because many of these processes involve complex machinery such as reactors, the assistance of suppliers is often required, which can be facilitated by making a cloud-based virtual twin available to these and other resources outside the company. Once a proposed improvement has been analyzed and tested by internal and external experts, a new procedure must often be created for the control room operators running the plant. This procedure can be tested using the virtual twin to train operators before actual implementation. For example, an operation which had previously been run in a manual mode by operators because a measurement was not available is now being transitioned to automatic by using an input created by an AI-based technique called inferred measurement. This inferred measurement is made based on a combination of related actual measurements, and is used as the process variable in a closed-loop controller. This is a significant change for plant operators, and running it on a digital twin can create trust in the inferred measurement and the resulting automatic, closed-loop control. Without this testing and simulation, operators have been known to reject transitions from manual to automatic control, or to implement these improvements incorrectly. One caveat when implementing digital twins is to avoid excess computational and operational complexity. Computational complexity can tax hardware resources, and operational complexity can overwhelm the personnel charged with creating and maintaining the models. As with any advanced software tool, a point of diminishing returns can be reached where adding new tools, enhancements and features results in only marginal improvements while greatly increasing complexity. But when implemented correctly, a digital twin can be a key part of any IoT implementation, as it enables companies to simulate processes and improve operations. Leveraging digital twins also allows companies to train new employees and bring them up to speed faster, while easing the introduction of improvements. Jason Andersen is vice president of business line management and is responsible for setting the product roadmaps and go-to-market strategies for Stratus Products and Services. | https://www.industryweek.com/technology-and-iiot/where-do-digital-twins-fit |
Should Alvaro Morata's strike have stood in Chelsea's draw with Southampton? | 0:41 Alvaro Morata had a goal ruled out in the 71st minute of Chelseas 0-0 draw with Southampton after a tight offside call Alvaro Morata had a goal ruled out in the 71st minute of Chelseas 0-0 draw with Southampton after a tight offside call Chelsea were held to a goalless draw by Southampton at Stamford Bridge but were frustrated by the decision to rule out an Alvaro Morata strike for offside. The Spanish striker, making a rare start for Chelsea, was played in by Cesc Fabregas' through ball in the 71st minute and opened up his body to slip the ball past Angus Gunn and into the Southampton net. Man City vs Liverpool Live on However, the assistant referee raised his flag to cut short the celebrations and, despite Chelsea's protestations, the goal was disallowed. Replays showed just how close it was and while Chelsea will claim that the forward was level with the last man, Southampton could reasonably argue that he was just offside. So fine were the margins that even after a number of slow-motion replays, it was difficult to say for certain which side were in the right. The officials sided with Southampton though and the goal did not stand. | https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/11597463/should-alvaro-moratas-strike-have-stood-in-chelseas-draw-with-southampton |
Can weakened Macron push through reforms in 2019? | This time last year French president Emmanual Macron was riding high. By July the ride was over. After a hellish few months, there are doubts that he will be now be able to push through his proposed reforms for 2019. Macron's big thing was his determination not to back down in the face of opposition - until he did. His decision to find 10 billion euros to try to placate the Yellow Vests might not have neutered them and could well embolden other sections of the population who oppose reforms planned for this year. Among the most tricky for the government is pension reform - a key plank of Macron's presidential platform. The guiding idea is to end the division between the private sector and the public sector so that a euro earned in either is worth the same in pension terms. The legal retirement age of 62 will not be changed. There could be a tough fight with France's trade unions who are embarrassed at being sidelined by the grassroots Yellow Vest movement and are keen to be seen to matter. The government faces a battle. Reforming France's famous public services is not an easy job .. The parliamentary timetable also includes a vote on reform of public services. Anything could happen. Surveys showed there was considerable sympathy in France for some of the Yellow Vests concerns. Most of them had low paid jobs and said they felt crushed under the weight of endless taxes - but they also complained at the lack of public services where they lived. In his speech at the height of the crisis, Macron reminded the French that taxes pay for public services. But he is also now acutely aware that he must trim fat wherever possible in the public sector as the government is reaching the limit of what taxpayers are willing to pay. Yellow Vest protestors, Paris. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Again the goverment will have a fight on its hands as trade unions resist attempts to employ more contract workers or to introduce the idea of merit-related pay in the public sector. The Unions have declared January 15th a day of protest and hospital and retirement home workers are also making noises. Meanwhile, a Facebook page for "angry teachers" (called the Red Pens!) is gaining momentum. Macron hopes to set the tone by announcing cuts in the senior echelons of the public services - but he will have huge difficulty meeting his target of 120,000 job cuts in the wider public sector by 2022. Again this is risky, in a volatile social climate. The government has made clear that if employers and trade unions can't reach some sort of deal, it will step in. Labour Minister Muriel Pnichaud says her aim is to reduce job instability and to encourage the unemployed to find jobs. Trade Unions fear the erosion of unemployed people's rights while employers expect restrictions on their use of short term contracts. Assisted reproduction for gay and single women Franois Hollande was clearly taken by surprise at the strength of opposition to his move to introduce same sex marriage in 2012. After nearly a year of huge protest marches the law was passed in 2013. Macron was an advisor to the Elyses at the time and has criticised the political handling of the national debate. He is hugely aware of the strength of opposition to any further challenges to the idea of the traditional family, amongst a highly-motivated and well-organised section of the population. And he intends to tread very carefully. After some delay, legislation will not be examined anytime before the European elections at the end of May. Amid an angry climate at the height of the Yellow Vest crisis, key social conservatives suggested that now is not the time to create further division among the French. Always a highly sensitive issue - any alterations to the 1905 law on this subject invite intense scrutiny. Under the law the state is not allow to fund any religious activities in France. A document leaked last autumn suggests that the government hopes to persuade associations running some mosques and prayer halls to have the buildings they use re-classified as religious rather than cultural. This would place them in a category which ensures greater financial transparency. The attraction for the places of worship is that under proposed new rules such a classification would include the right to invest in property. Such a change in the law has long been a demand of the French Federation of Protestants, who are very likely to back it. Constitutional reforms reformed Macron has a big majority in parliament and was confident of getting his consititutional reforms through but the debate was postponed when the Benallagate affair erupted in July last year. Now in line with a angry demands from the Yellow Vests, the government feels bound to change its earlier plans and include in any new constitutional reforms, mechanisms for more consultative democracy. Already, following the Yellow Vest protest a huge "national debate" is to be launched in mid January. The plan is that ordinary people write down their concerns and grievances in books in their local town halls and council offices, to be discussed at public meetings up and down the country. Macron also wants to reduce the number of Senators in the French upper house of parliament by 30% and introduce a dose of proportional representation in parliamentary elections. Macron struck a contrite note at times when he addressed the nation on December 10th after several weekends of rioting and violence around the country. He recognised that he had sometimes caused hurt by previous remarks. But for the traditional French presidential New Year's Eve message, he appeared to have recovered some of his determination. Now in a year when his party is expected to do badly in elections to the European Parliament, with the Benalla affair back in the news and amid a social climate which remains extremely volatile, Macron will need a lot more than a determination to succeed. | http://en.rfi.fr/france/20190102-can-weakened-macron-push-through-reforms-2019 |
Whats going wrong with the US economy? | Happy new year and may I be the first to wish you a very prosperous and rewarding 2020. Yes, you read that right. Its been a while since we began a new year shrouded in so much pessimism, and professional prophets and market magi have been so glum that it already seems that 2019 is going to be a year to forget. Certainly, if the final few weeks of 2018 are anything to go by, we are in for fresh calamity. In the US, financial markets got hammered over Christmas (and not in a good way). Donald Trump said goodbye to the old year plumbing new depths of unpredictability, even by his own world-beating standards of quixotic narcissism. In December alone he startled his own | https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/what-s-going-wrong-with-the-us-economy-wqkk658c8 |
Will Abdul Rahman Baba bounce back in 2019? | COMMENT No one could have foreseen, two years ago, just how Abdul Rahman Babas career would unravel. At the time, the left-back was riding high; he was beginning to pick up momentum again in the Bundesliga under Markus Weinzierl, and was fast cementing his status as the continents finest in his position. Indeed, perhaps only Algerias Faouzi Ghoulam could match Baba back in early 2017, and the Ghanaians blend of athleticism and attacking prowess appeared primed to ensure a long career at the top. Admittedly, Babas maiden season at Chelsea hadnt been an overwhelming success, and the full-back was deemed surplus to requirements by incoming Antonio Conte. The Italian coach ultimately sought the balance afforded by Marcos Alonso, whose excellent performances during the 2016-17 title-winning campaign largely vindicated his coachs decision. However, while Chelsea were celebrating that return to form, Baba was left picking up the pieces of his career following a devastating injury in early 2017. His fortunates changed dramatically in the first half of Ghanas Africa Cup of Nations opener against Uganda in Port-Gentil. The left-back was stretchered off in the 39th minute, with Schalke later diagnosing his injury as a complex rupture to his cruciate ligament along with tears to his internal and external cartilage. In the intervening years, Baba has managed just 196 minutes of league action. He remains on Chelseas books, but has gone from being a 22-year-old with a few rough edges of his game to iron out, to a 24-year-old with a chequered injury record and two years of inactivity behind him. Schalke took him back on loan in January 2018, agreeing an 18-month deal with Chelsea as they sought to play their part in the wideman getting his career back on track. While Baba does appear to have put his injury woe behind him, hes struggled for game time at Schalke. [Its] never too late to become the best in the world, he tweeted in September. "It has not been the best of starts to the season, but [Im] working every minute to turn things around quickly. Yet the turnaround has been slow in coming. Of the aforementioned 196 minutes, 163 have come this termacross two appearanceswhile he managed just 33 minutes off the bench last season. The defenders also yet to resume his international career, a decision he explained in June. At this moment, I will say no [to a return], he told local sources. This is because I need to have some gametime at club level before I join. You know Ghanaians, everyone seems to know a little about football, so whenever you play for Ghana and you make a mistake, you go to social media and you see many people talking about it. Baba made his Champions League comeback last month, featuring for 74 minutesand catching the eyein Schalkes 1-0 home victory over Lokomotiv Moscow, although as we enter 2019, his future appears uncertain. Certainly, hes unlikely to even come close to realising his potential at Schalke considering the lack of gametime, while Chelsea are particularly well stocked on the leftwith Emerson Palmieri and Alonso competing for playing time. Fortunately for the defender, there appears to be an opportunity on the horizon in Spain. Goal understand that both Villarreal and Girona have spoken to Chelsea to discuss the prospect of taking Baba on loan if, as anticipated, his Schalke move is curtailed. It would be in the interests both of the Ghana left-back and his parent club to organise a fresh start for Baba, and La Liga would certainly represent that. A move to Spainand to a club where he would be wantedwould allow Baba to pick up momentum over the coming months as he looks to get back to his best. Both clubs could be appealing options. Villarreal, currently battling relegation from the top flight, may well relish the prospect of adding an attacking element to their left side to give them an x-factor ahead of some of their rivals for the drop. Girona, by contrast, are enjoying a fine campaign are are looking like outsiders for a European berth; they would represent a low-pressure environment for Baba to rediscover the panache and proactive wideplay that once made him such a tantalising prospect. With a full Chelsea return for Baba appearing far-fetched, the Pensioners would surely appreciate the chance to put the defender in the shop window ahead of a potential permanent move away from West London this summer. The former Augsburg man certainly isnt improving his value or his transfer prospects in his inactivity at Schalke. Article continues below As we approach the two-year anniversary of Babas career-changing injury, theres reason for optimism that a genuine comeback is upon us. [Its] never too late to become the best in the world, Baba once tweeted, now its up to him to prove it. | https://www.goal.com/en-za/news/will-abdul-rahman-baba-bounce-back-in-2019/17vv08t08zr7i14xvh6op9js5q |
What is big data? | While the origins of the term are elusive, and even debated, big data is one of those concepts that many know about, yet it defies a simple definition. At the heart of big data, as the term directly suggests, is an extremely large volume of data. This is often drawn from diverse sources and even different types of data, which is then crunched through advanced analytic techniques which hopefully pick out patterns that can lead to useful conclusions. Big data also infers the three Vs: Volume, Variety and Velocity. Volume refers to the size of the data, variety indicates that the datasets are non-homogenous, and velocity is the speed at which the analysis takes place, often with the goal of achieving real-time analysis. The datasets involved are indeed seriously large were talking terabytes to zettabytes (1ZB is equivalent to 909,494,701TB, for the curious). In addition to the size of these datasets, the data can be of different types: structured, semi-structured and unstructured, plus it can be drawn from multiple sources. This does beg the question as to where all this data is being generated from. It comes from all types of places, including the web, social media, networks, log files, video files, sensors, and from mobile devices. The latter are particularly important as most of us keep our phones with us and on 24/7, and they have an array of sensors, including GPS, cameras, a microphone, and a motion sensor. Furthermore, the majority of smartphone use is not voice communication, but rather other activities, including emails, games, web browsing, and social apps which ultimately translates to 90% of use being mobile apps. A large driver of big data is this mobile data, which gets generated at a breakneck pace. Data mining But data without any analysis is hardly worth much, and this is the other part of the big data process. This analysis is referred to as data mining, and it endeavors to search for patterns and anomalies within these large datasets. These patterns then generate information that is used for a variety of purposes, such as improving marketing campaigns, increasing sales or cutting costs. The big data and data mining approach not only has the power to transform entire industries, but it has already done so. For example, Trainline is a leading European independent train ticket retailer, selling domestic and cross-border tickets in 173 countries, with approximately 127,000 journeys taken daily by customers. The company utilized big data to modernize its approach to travel, with a focus on improving the customer experience via innovation through its app. The results are that now customers receive enhanced disruption notifications through the app. More than just notifications of delays, these enhanced notifications are specific to each travelers journey, a first for the UK rail industry. The firm has also innovated in terms of predictive pricing, which is able to predict when advance fares will rise from the initial discounted rate, allowing passengers to purchase fares at lower prices. Big data has also been used in restaurants, and in particular the fast food industry. McDonalds is the worlds largest restaurant chain by revenue, and serves over 69 million customers daily at over 36,900 locations in over 100 countries. Due to sheer volume alone, tons of data is generated, and therefore McDonalds has adopted a data-driven culture, with the goal of improving its understanding on the level of each individual location, with the overall goal of a better chain of restaurants. Through big data, McDonalds has optimized its drive-through experience, for example taking note of the size of the cars coming through, and preparing for a spike in demand when larger cars join the queue. Another big data innovation has been those digital menu displays that can flexibly show menu items based on a real-time analysis of the data. The menus shift the highlighted items based on data including the time of day and the weather outside, specifically promoting cold drinks when it is hot outside, and more comfort foods on cooler days. This approach has boosted sales at Canadian locations by a reported 3% to 3.5%. Health matters This big data approach has also been applied to healthcare. An obvious example is the major shift away from pen and paper charting where your physicians data is locked away in a filing cabinet in the office, to Electronic Health Records (EHR), which now have all patient information neatly entered into a computer database, ready to be mined. This approach promises to be disruptive, with a recent publication in the European Heart Journal promising the potential to improve our understanding of disease causation and classification relevant for early translation and to contribute actionable analytics to improve health and healthcare. The benefits of big data in healthcare will go beyond data mining the EHR. A significant challenge for hospitals is staffing, which has to be adequate at all times, with the potential to ramp up during peak periods. At a group of four Paris hospitals that comprise the Assistance Publique-Hpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), they are looking to improve flexibility in staffing. They used a dataset of 10 years of hospital admission records, down to a granular level of the number of admissions by the day, as well as the hour of the day, and combined it with weather data, flu patterns, and public holidays. Using machine learning, they then honed their algorithms for future trends to predict the number of upcoming admissions for different days and times. The result is that they now have an easy to use, browser-based interface for hospital administration, as well as clinical staff who are able to forecast admission rates over the next 15 days, which is used to obtain extra staff at times when a larger number of admissions is anticipated. With data, and in particular mobile data being generated at a ridiculously fast rate, the big data approach is needed to turn this massive heap of information into actionable intelligence. In the examples weve cited above, the challenge has been met, and as even more data is collected, there will be more opportunities to increase quality and efficiency across a number of diverse industries via faster and better analysis of these disparate sprawling datasets. | https://www.techradar.com/news/what-is-big-data |
Did Salinger Go Awry? | The first literary anniversary of 2019 will be one of the biggest: Jan. 1 marks the centenary of J.D. Salinger. (To mark the occasion, his four books are being reissued in a boxed set by Little Brown.) A hundred years seems like it ought to be a long time in literary historySalinger is as distant from a child born in 2019 as he himself was from Herman Melville. Yet somehow he doesnt feel as far removed from us as the other writers of his generationfigures like Saul Bellow, Norman Mailer, or John Updike, who also became famous in the post-World War II years. Our readerly accounts with those famous names are basically settled, but Salingers remains open; his achievement feels unsettled, incomplete. One reason for this, of course, is that he never completed the ordinary life cycle of a writer. His first book, The Catcher in the Rye, appeared in 1951 and was an immediate sensation. It was followed two years later by Nine Stories, a collection of short stories that Salinger had published in magazines, including classics like A Perfect Day for Bananafish and For Esme, With Love and Squalor. But there was no second novel to follow Catcher, and as the years passed Salingers stories grew rarer, longer, and much odder. He produced only two more books, each of which collected two of these long stories: Franny and Zooey in 1961 and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction in 1963. His last published fiction, the story Hapworth 16, 1924, appeared in The New Yorker, his longtime literary home, in 1965. All of these stories dealt with various members of the fictional Glass familyseven siblings whose precocity, wit, and spiritual depth made them beloved by some readers, and seriously annoying to others. Then the great silence began. Already in 1953, Salinger had left New York, the scene of almost all his fiction, and moved to Cornish, New Hampshire, where he did his best to drop off the face of the Earth. By the time he died, in 2010, it had been more than half a century since he had published a story or made a public appearance. What news did emerge about Salinger tended to be unwholesome: Memoirs by his much younger lover, Joyce Maynard, and his daughter Margaret Salinger created the impression of a weird control freak, forever experimenting with fad diets and religions. Yet Salingers withdrawal from the world, whatever its motives, had a remarkable effect on his work. In In Search of Lost Time, Proust theorizes that oblivion is the best form of remembrance. That is because ordinary memories blur and fade as we retell them to ourselves; it is only what we dont know we rememberlike the taste of a madeleinethat retains its ability to conjure up the past, when it suddenly and unpredictably returns to consciousness. Salingers disappearance had a similarly preservative effect. Most famous writersespecially in Salingers generation, when writers were still celebritiesare perpetually in the public eye, as they produce more books, get profiled and interviewed, win awards and start controversies. By the time Norman Mailer died, in 2007, the public had had so much of him it was all too happy to forget about him. Not so with Salinger, who like Peter Pan never grew old, at least not in public. And the same holds true of his fiction. Reading him is like opening a time capsule, richly redolent of the behaviors, idioms, and ideas of midcentury New York. To take just one minor example: Anyone reading Salinger today will be struck by how incessantly his characters smoke. Zooey Glass, in Franny and Zooey, smokes in the bath and rests a lit cigarette on the sink while he shaves. Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, smokes several packs over the course of a couple of days, and complains about how easily winded he gets. The shellshocked narrator of For Esme had been chain-smoking for weeks. His gums bled at the slightest pressure of the tip of his tongue. Clearly, this is not sophisticated Hollywood smoking. It is a neurotic handicap, a way for troubled characters to make literal the obsessive fire always burning in their minds. And Salingers interest in neurosisalong with its philosophical cousins, alienation, and ennuiis another sign of his times. His characters live in an atmosphere of psychoanalysis and existentialism; they are obsessed with the problem of authenticity and how to resist the seductions of mass culture. Another thing that Zooey and Holden have in common is their contempt for the movies, which doesnt preclude fascination with them; Zooey is even a film actor, yet he makes fun of the scripts producers send him. Today, these can feel like period concerns: Who in the 21st century bothers looking down on the movies, or worries about selling out, the way Holden thinks his older brother D.B. Yet the continued popularity of Salingers workabove all, of The Catcher in the Rye, which still sells 250,000 copies a yearsuggests that authenticity matters to us more than we are willing to admit in our virtual and performative age. There is something morally bracing about a character like Holden, who is not afraid to call phonies phonies. His total honesty, even in the midst of deep spiritual confusion, demands a corresponding honesty from us. Young readers, who are just discovering how much of the adult world is based on playacting and compromise, are particularly attuned to this demand, and Salinger has always been known as a writer for the young. He comes across as a confidant, the rare adult who understands. When Holden Caulfield says, What really knocks me out is a book that, when youre all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it, he is of course describing Catcher and Salinger himself. Salinger, like Peter Pan, never grew old, at least not in public. The problem, in Salingers work after Catcher, was precisely his inability to negotiate the transition to an adulthood he continued to see as fallen. It is no coincidence that Salingers Glass stories revolve more and more around Seymour, the oldest brother, whose suicide is narrated in A Perfect Day for Bananafish. By shooting himself at the age of 31, Seymour spares himself the indignities of agehe remains always a wise child, as in the title of the radio show the Glass children all appeared on, Its a Wise Child. Seymour: An Introduction may be Salingers worst story, because it insists on portraying Seymour as so much better than the ordinary run of humanitysmarter, deeper, more innocent, more sincerethat he has nothing in common with other people, and so cannot enter into any kind of plot or situation. He can only be talked about, the way disciples talk about a guru: Surely he was all real things to us: our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, our portable conscience a mukta, a ringding enlightened man, a God-knower. At any rate, his character lends itself to no legitimate sort of narrative compactness that I know of. Its typical of Salingers generation of American Jewish writers that when he looked for a spiritual vocabulary, he turned to the East, to Hinduism and Zen Buddhism, rather than to the resources of Jewish tradition. In general, Salinger was far less interested in writing about Jewishness than contemporaries like Mailer and Bellow. His New York is Manhattan, not Brooklyn or the Bronx; his young people go to Ivy League colleges and prep schools, not City College. Yet the Glass family has a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic motherlike Salinger himselfand its possible that Holden, too, is half-Jewish. At one point in Catcher, he explains that he got his Irish last name from his father, but that his parents are different religions. If so, hes the best-disguised Jewish character in fiction. The Glass stories contain some of Salingers most vivid dialogue and scene-settingparticularly Zooey, which offers a meticulous archaeology of the Glass familys Manhattan apartment. (A list of the contents of the medicine cabinet fills a page all by itself.) But they also suffer from a kind of Manichaeism: The Glasses have a monopoly on the worlds goodness, while the outside world is full of creeps like Lane Coutell, Frannys conceited, careerist boyfriend. Finally, Salingers message seems to be that moral aristocrats, like the Glasses, must be kind to the common folk, no matter how awful they may be. This is the burden of the sermon Zooey delivers to Franny at the end of the book, where he reminds her of Seymours principle that a performer should always try to do his best for the Fat Lady. This terribly, terribly clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer andI dont know. This repellent figure, Zooey goes on to say, is all of usthere isnt anyone anywhere who isnt Seymours Fat Lady. More, she is Christ Himself, a figure of divinity. This is meant to be a message of humility, but somehow it doesnt quite come across that way. There remains a clear division between the Fat Lady out in the audience and the Glasses in the spotlight, and the latter can never do more than condescend to the former. Such spiritual noblesse oblige is not a moral posture from which fiction can be written, as Salingers later silence indicates. Having made up his mind about people at largethat they are all phonies and Fat Ladieshe stopped being curious about them, and stopped wanting to write for or about them. When Salinger died, his obituaries hinted at a trove of manuscripts that were ready for publication; but almost a decade later, nothing has appeared. If Salinger was writing during all those silent years, as he occasionally said he was, its unlikely that he produced anything resembling the cleverly crafted tales of Nine Stories or as instinctively perfect as Catcher. He was already moving, in Seymour: An Introduction, into a discursive kind of anti-fiction, without plot or character, highly self-conscious and fixated on a few religious ideasdetachment, enlightenmentdrawn from Zen Buddhism. If he wrote whole novels in this style, its hard to imagine them being very appealing. Even if there are no more masterpieces by Salinger to come, however, he will remain a writer oriented toward possibility. That is because he wrote so passionately, and compassionately, about youthso much so that he could not bear to put it behind him as a fictional subject. Its impossible to imagine Holden Caulfield, or Seymour Glass, or their creator, as tired and old, with nothing more to say. That Salinger actually did end up that wayas we all must, if we live long enoughseems like just one more Salinger rumor, which can be dispelled by opening up one of his books. *** You can help support Tablets unique brand of Jewish journalism. Click here to donate today. Adam Kirsch is a poet and literary critic, whose books include The People and the Books: 18 Classics of Jewish Literature. | https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/275719/did-salinger-go-awry |
Did Manny Machado give a hint about where he's going to sign? | originally appeared on nbcsportsphiladelphia.com Happy New Year, Phillies fans. We have officially made it to the Instagram-watch portion of free agency. fwiw, Manny Machado has started following YES Network, the Yankees' station, on instagram. could be a sign. or could be nothing. Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 1, 2019 Well, would you look at that. Machado followed YES Network on Instagram. But wait, people found out and he reversed his course. Fwiw (maybe not much), Manny Machado has now unfollowed Yes Network on instagram. Machado has bad taste in Instagram accounts. Manny, I looked over the YES Network's account, and it's fine, they do a nice job posting about all things Yankees, but you should consider getting your news from another source. Story continues The NBC Sports Philadelphia Instagram is chock-full of awesome photos, funny memes and great highlights. So, if you're reading this, here's the link to follow us. As for what it means for free agency, either it's now assured he's going to be a Yankee, or it means absolutely nothing. That's for you to decide. Either way, we should have our answer soon. Click here to download the MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Flyers, Sixers and Phillies games easily on your device. More on the Phillies | https://sports.yahoo.com/did-manny-machado-hint-where-160111627.html?src=rss |
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