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These are roles which require extensive web searching. OneNote can greatly simplify this effort – in three ways. Take a look and transform the way you work.
The process
Usually, we go to various web sites – potential suppliers, recruitment sites, publications and academic papers, and take notes about what we find there.
Usually, we do it in two steps – a quick tour of various sites and note down few things. Later, shortlist from the list you created and then do a deeper study of those sites.
Exactly How?
Find potential sites Repeat the following for each site Go to the site Copy paste the URL Type some details about it Sort, filter, shortlist Go back to the important sites Do detailed work
OneNote helps you in this situation in three different ways
Copy paste
If you copy something from a site and paste it into OneNote, it automatically pastes the URL. Very convenient.
Store a web page in OneNote
If you like a web page, use the OneNote Clipper to store it in your OneNote (OneDrive Personal notebook).
The third method – Linked Notes
In both the above methods, you have to take explicit action to get the web page or its context into OneNote. Linked Notes is even more simple and sophisticated at the same time. Let us explore it in detail.
Linked Notes – Web Pages
Please note: This requires Internet Explorer. This works only in the full desktop version of OneNote.
Open a OneNote notebook and add a new page. You can use an existing page. But right now you are learning. So better to work on a new page.
Now look at the top left corner – Quick Access Toolbar – where you normally see Save Undo and Redo buttons. In case of OneNote you get one more button there – called Dock to Desktop.
Now OneNote realizes that you want to take notes from some other source. Therefore, it shrinks in size – typically 1/3 rd of your screen. Remaining part of the screen is available for all other applications.
A dialog explaining to you that Linked Notes is now active will appear (for the first time). Click ok to close it (read it first). On the top left corner of the OneNote page you will see a link – indicating that linked notes mode is active.
Now open the Internet Explorer and maximize it. It will fit into the remaining 2/3 rd of the screen.
You are all set. Now browse and search as usual. When you find a page of interest, just click inside the OneNote window and type something about that page. You can just type some brief text.
If you are doing some kind of comparison, like pricing or features, I suggest that you use a table.
In either case, when you write something in OneNote, an IE icon will appear automatically. Do not worry about it.
Continue browsing to various pages and taking notes. No Copy Paste or Paste Link action is required. Just browse and take notes.
When you finish, click on that Dock to Desktop button again to stop the Linked Notes mode. This also makes OneNote occupy full screen as before. Alternatively, you can also click on the Normal View button (2013).
You can close the browser now – because you have already finished your search.
How to use the links?
While you were typing notes, OneNote was busy remembering each web page address. You will not see the web address anywhere. But if you go to the IE icon next to each page and hover the mouse there, you will see a thumbnail of the page.
Click on it and miraculously – OneNote will open that page for you.
Is that not brilliant?
What next?
Linked Notes work with Word and PowerPoint as well. We will see how that happens in the next article. Also read this article about managing linked notes.
Technical notes
This is only for programmers and architects. Imagine the data structure required to support this brilliant feature – just a two column table – Object ID and URL.
But see how thoughtfully it is implemented to solve a simple but significant problem users face. This is a brilliant example of user focus while creating the feature set.
*** |
The hacktivist group, Anonymous released a video in which they claimed that NASA is going to announce the discovery of alien oExtrara Terrestrial life in our Galaxy. This video which contains statements and treats from specialist and experts like Thomas Zurbuchen, science mission directorate at NASA.
In YouTube, video got viral highlighting that NASA has found Alien life. The channel by which this video is released is linked with Anonymous hackers group. If you don’t know who they are you can check this link.
The statement released by the associate administrator for the science mission directorate at NASA, Thomas Zurbuchen is “we are on the verge of making one of the most profound, unprecedented, discoveries in history.”
NASA’s Kepler space observatory also discovered 219 new worlds or planets which seem to be like earth in our Galaxy. 10 of planets are “Rocky” like the earth and fall in the systems “Goldilocks zone”. It means these planets aren’t too hot or too cold for the life to be exist on it.
But after the video released by Anonymous, Thomas Zurbuchen said that the report of alien Discovery is not true and many websites which say that Anonymous group releasing news of alien Discovery is false.
But according to us the news of Alien Discovery might be true because Anonymous Group defaces all the news secrets that can’t we reach to the common peoples. Because there is no profit from releasing false news to the common people by anonymous.
Maybe the associate administrator of NASA are hiding this news from the world that they found alien or extra Terrestrial life on other planets because they want to make it a secret from common man. |
It’s almost that time of year again; the days are longer, birds are chirping, and a skate event awaits at the end of every week. To kick it off right, the Ithaca Skate Jam is coming back again for its third straight year and is guaranteed to bring the heat back to the east coast. It’s going down on April 26th from 9AM-6PM, so mark your calendars now.
I think it’s safe to say that after the last two years, Ithaca has become the premiere non-race downhill skateboard event on the east coast. The guys at Comet Skateboards know their way around ramp building and have selected one of the most suitable roads for the event you could hope for, a perfect combo to see some gnarly tricks and skaters pushing each other to make every run better than the last. The event also brings some pretty heavy hitters out to show their stuff, with most of Comet’s team in attendance. While it’s changed a bit this year with the loss of Liam Morgan, we can still hope to see some of the crew like former east coaster Brian Peck, Jared Henry, Eric Jensen, “Big Dave” Tannaci, Nick Ronzani and others. Of course, you’ll also see familiar faces from up and down the east coast tearing it up and showing everyone how to mix it up from just the usual “go fast, big slide” style you see so often and make full use of the ramps and hills.
The Hill
This year the venue for the hill is changing from Buffalo Street to Lake Street, adding a little right hand corner into the mix. It’s partially located in the Ithaca Falls Natural Area and is sure to make for a bit more spectator space as well as a beautiful setting to skate in. The hill is 0.29 miles long with an average grade of 10.79%; this means you’ll be able to pick up speed quickly and recover from slides fast, so you can link together a nice run.
As in years past, expect the run to be full of some great ramps, wall-rides, and pole jams to make things super interesting. If you haven’t had the chance to ride a course like this before, we suggest putting a few hours in at your local skatepark.
Here’s what the guys from Comet had to say about it:
The hill is steep and we’re filling it with shred-worthy goodness. We look at this hill every day and wish there were no cars on it. On April 26th that will come true and we are stoked to skate it with you and all of the features we’re going to build.
Registration/Schedule
Registration is open now over in the Comet Webstore for $40. This gets you 9 hours of skating on the hill, a gift bag with free swag, 33% off discount code for gear after the event, prizes and give-aways throughout the day, and a chance to skate and chill with the Comet pros. If you’re under 18 you’re going to need a waiver signed by a parent or guardian, if you’re over 18 you can sign it yourself.
Check-in will run at the hill from 9AM-11AM, with the hill open to skating as soon as you’re checked-in.
Lodging
There are a few options for lodging in the area, with the most popular one being camping at Robert H. Treman State Park. It’s the closest camping site, being just a few miles outside of town, and will be full of other skaters headed to the event. We’ll list the options, as outlined on the Facebook event, below.
Robert H. Treman State Park – Camping
Located just a few miles outside of town this is the best camping option. Each site can have 6 adults and spaces cost about $25-$30/night, with a discount for people who live in-state. Reservations can be made here.
Hillside Inn
Closest lodging option to the hill.
607-272-9507
http:// www.hillsideinnithaca.com/ index.php
Econo Lodge
Just what you’d expect from an Econo Lodge. Amenities close-by and some cheap rooms.
“Close to the Ithaca Mall and a lot of food options and a few miles from the hill. Let them know you’re with the Comet Ithaca Skate Jam to get the discounted rates.
60 rooms available at $124 per night
Shuttle available to airport only
Complimentary Breakfast, WIFI, & Parking
Group name: Ithaca Skate Jam rates
Deal Expires:March 25th”
(607) 257-1400
http://www.econolodge.com/ hotel-ithaca-new_york-NY127
La Tourelle
La Tourelle is a hotel/spa that sounds like a great option if mom is bringing a whole gang with her but doesn’t want to hang out at the hill all day. The organizers posted the below, note that these may have been deal prices for the event (the promotion was only good through the 25th of March – but you could still ask).
“La Tourelle is an awesome spa and the choice for you if you want to make the weekend a nice vacation for you while your kids skate all weekend. Accommodations and deals:
‘We offer the following room categories and rates available for your group:
Traditional King Rooms Up to 12 available $180.00 + 13% tax
Deluxe Fireplace King Rooms Up to 8 available $ 220.00 + 13% tax
Double King or Double Queen Rooms Up to 2 available $ 220.00 + 13% tax
Specialty Rooms and Suites TBA'”
(607) 273-2734
http://www.latourelle.com/
Argos Inn
According to the organizers the Argos Inn is “Located right in downtown Ithaca a short walk from the best coffee and food in town. This is another option if you’re looking for a nice weekend vacation in Ithaca.”
(607) 319-4437
http://argosinn.com/
So – are we going to see you there? Where are you staying? Sound off in the comments and let us know! We’ll keep this post updated with information as we learn more. |
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Morton County Sheriff’s Department officers together with the National Guard began firing less-than-lethal projectiles, pepper spray, and, reportedly, mace on a group of water protectors at Standing Rock during what was supposed to be a prayerful, peaceful walk to the drill pad where work is rumored to continue on the Dakota Access Pipeline.
And all of this, of course, happens on the holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — who dedicated his life to non-violence to spark drastic change on the issue of civil rights.
Around 200 water protectors eventually grouped at the site of the drill pad, and three were arrested — accused of trespassing after cutting a razor wire fence and then allegedly tampering with industrial lighting.
As the crowd verbally taunted militarized police sporting riot shields and military gear, the situation Monday quickly tensed, and police began spraying people with mace. Soon after, as some water protectors sang and prayed, police fired rubber bullets at a few individuals, who then had to be transported away from the scene for medical assistance.
Reports from people at the camps indicated police brought in vehicles with water cannons just beyond the scene. In the video below, we can also see police open fire on water protectors with rubber bullets in their backs as they are running away from the tear gas.
Water protectors also gathered at Highway 1806’s Backwater Bridge, where a blockade of cement barriers, burned out vehicles, and razor wire remains in place after a confrontation in the autumn.
In fact, that site has seen several confrontations between water protectors and police from multiple states led by the Morton County Sheriff’s Department over several months — the worst occurring on the night of November 20 when less-than-lethal rounds, tear gas, and water cannons were employed to allegedly control the crowd.
Hundreds were injured and dozens had to be treated for hypothermia when law enforcement sprayed protectors with pressurized water in sub-freezing temperatures. Police claimed protectors acted violently against them and set several fires which blazed out of control — but video showed the pipeline opposition group defending against the onslaught of force, mainly hurling tear gas canisters back at police.
Monday night’s showdown between National Guard-reinforced law enforcement and completely peaceful water protectors at first seemed it would devolved into a similarly unjustified use of force, but — though many were maced and a few shot with projectiles — the situation did not spiral completely out of control.
Before night fell on the camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, activists filmed and photographed a surface-to-air missile system brought by law enforcement to the area near pipeline opposition camps — allegedly in place to shoot down any drones flown above the scene.
Despite evacuation and emergency orders in place in the area, water protectors remain encamped near the banks of the Missouri River in protest against completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. A fracture also occurred after Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II asked those unprepared to endure the harsh winter on the open plains to vacate the camps.
Additionally, Oceti Sakowin — now the primary and largest camp — lies in the river’s floodplain and, as snow thaws, will eventually be submerged.
Water protectors have vowed to remain at the location until construction of Dakota Access is permanently halted — but considering the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump has openly courted Big Oil, it appears unlikely the effort will see its dream of protecting the drinking water source of some 18 million people and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe will come to fruition.
Law enforcement did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the events of Monday night. |
Broward officials are investigating who leaked video footage of alleged gunman Esteban Santiago firing his first shots at the Fort Lauderdale airport, the Sun Sentinel has learned.
A video obtained by TMZ.com shows Santiago pulling a gun out of his waistband and shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where five people were killed and six wounded on Friday.
Airport officials, along with federal and local authorities, are investigating who had access to the footage and who allowed it to be taped without authorization, Broward Mayor Barbara Sharief told the Sun Sentinel.
Complete coverage of the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting
Sharief said the video does not appear to be the actual security footage but a cellphone video of that footage.
The "footage was being played in a secure room for only people with certain security clearance," Sharief said. She said she is concerned that whoever released the video did it to make money.
TMZ.com / Sun Sentinel A frame from a video obtained by TMZ.com that appears to show alleged gunman Esteban Santiago opening fire at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport -- and Broward officials want to know who leaked it. Photo via TMZ.com A frame from a video obtained by TMZ.com that appears to show alleged gunman Esteban Santiago opening fire at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport -- and Broward officials want to know who leaked it. Photo via TMZ.com (TMZ.com / Sun Sentinel)
"Nobody gives TMZ a video for free. You ever heard of that?" Sharief said.
A February expose by the New Yorker magazine revealed how TMZ pays thousands of dollars to land exclusives, going as high as $80,000 for footage of a 15-year-old Justin Bieber using the N-word while singing “One Less Lonely Girl" a cappella.
The Sun Sentinel and other traditional journalism sites do not pay sources for video or information.
Sharief said it's a crime to copy the airport video without authorization and she expects the investigation to wrap up in the near future.
"What we were trying to prevent by not releasing that video was copycats," Sharief said. Baggage claim areas are not "the most heavily guarded areas" and officials don't want to give ideas to anyone else who might want to do harm, she said.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel told the Sun Sentinel on Sunday that he had no comment on the TMZ video.
Israel said the FBI is leading the investigation. "Anything that’s released or not released will be up to the FBI," Israel said.
FBI officials said they were aware of the video but were not prepared to confirm or deny its authenticity.
TMZ posted the video but did not respond to an email from the Sun Sentinel about how it obtained it.
[email protected] or 954-356-4556 |
Over the weekend, nearly 100 people were killed in protests organized in different parts of Ethiopia.
According to Amnesty International, 67 people died when "security forces fired live bullets at peaceful protesters" in different towns and cities in the Oromo region over the weekend.”
The demonstrators were protesting a government attempt (now aborted) to commandeer farmlands in the region surrounding the capital for development. The government proposed the expansion of the territorial limits of the capital, Addis Ababa, into the neighboring Oromo lands.
The widespread dissatisfaction with the Ethiopian government can be found predominantly within the Oromo ethnic group, the country’s largest ethnic group, which has been marginalized and oppressed by the Amharas, the second largest ethnic group, who make up the country’s elite.
Amnesty International stated that the deadliest incident took place on Sunday, in Bahir Dar, where 30 people were killed and that security forces were reacting to violence from protestors.
According to the government-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC), The Ethiopian government blamed “nearby and distant foreign enemies and social media activists" for defying warnings about holding unauthorized protests.
The authorities said that the demonstrators were destroying government and private property and "inflicting deaths on innocent citizens" and arrests were made as people were trying to spread the violence, FBC adds.
A diplomat confirmed that 49 people were killed with Nekemte, a town in western Ethiopia and Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara region.
The diplomat disguised the protests as “low level,” “quite disorganized” and “scattered all around”
He stated, "The brutal response of the government risks provoking more anger and making it worse."
The threat of displacement was what triggered this wave of protests, but protests have been going on in the country in recent months.
Protesters in Ethiopia |
Sonia Gandhi Sonia Gandhi
After books by a former media adviser to the Prime Minister and a top bureaucrat, a member of the outgoing Planning Commission has added grist to the mill saying it was Sonia Gandhi who called the shots on all appointments and policies of UPA governments.
"Sonia Gandhi chose not to become Prime Minister when she led the party to a stunning victory in the national elections in 2004. Instead, she anointed a loyal technocrat, Dr Manmohan Singh, as prime minister, while she has called the shots on all important appointments and policies," Planning Commission Member Arun Maira has written in his book titled 'Redesigning the Aeroplane While Flying-Reforming Institutions'.
He further elaborated in the book: "Now her son Rahul Gandhi is being called upon to do his dynastic duty and lead the Congress party.
"Unfortunately, many other Indian political parties have also adopted similar autocratic and dynastic structures."
Maira regretted that sixty years after independence India's governance structures retain elements of the British Government of India like civil services and "monarchical political parties in place of the British monarchy".
Talking to the reporters after releasing his book at function, Maira admitted that there was policy paralysis in the country and the the situation has been bothering the investors, industrialists and citizens.
Earlier, Sanjaya Baru, a former media adviser to the Prime Minister, in his book 'The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh' said that Singh was "defanged" by the Congress party in UPA-II with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi deciding on key appointments to the Cabinet and to the Prime Minister's Office.
Similarly, former coal secretary PC Parakh in his book 'Crusader or Conspirator? Coalgate and other Truths' said Singh was heading a government in which he had "little" political authority.
Maira said he was "unexpectedly" invited by the Prime Minister to serve as a member of the Planning Commission in 2009.
Singh had asked him to consider how the organisation could be reformed to become a "system reforms commission" and "an essay in persuasion" as it should be, rather than the "budget-allocating, plan-formulating and target-setting organisation it has become".
"In these four years, I have looked into India's progress through the lens of 'system reforms' as the Prime Minister asked me to do, and I have also struggled mightily to change the ways in which Planning Commission itself functions," he wrote in the Preface of the book.
Maira said when institutions in their present forms can not provide the satisfactions, they must be reformed. The inability of Indian institutions of governance to change adequately has resulted in the growing decline of citizens' trust in them. Reform of institutions has become imperative, he added.
"However when these institutions begin to change, we fear the loss of stability in their existing order has provided. So we resist the change, even though we want change," he said. |
At the Godzilla Final Wars premiere Above: Godzilla Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura Godzilla Stomps into Los Angeles
Mark Schaefer Copyright 2004 “Excuse me sir, is that the monster?” asked the overweight, middle-aged, guy standing next to me. “What do you mean? Don’t you even recognize Godzilla?” I asked him. It was Monday, November 29th, and I was waiting outside of the world-famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater, in Hollywood, California for the premiere of Godzilla Final Wars. The man-in-the-rubber-suit had just made an appearance and was stomping up and down the red carpet, hamming it up for the crowd.
“I thought he was as tall as a building” the tourist responded. The fan seemed somewhat disappointed to discover that in reality Godzilla was only about 5ft tall. The guy had flown in all the way from Italy to participate in the event, and didn’t seem amused. (I’m not kidding, folks. This really happened.) He had come to the ceremony truly expecting to see the ‘King of Monsters’ step over the building and smash his extra-large footprints down into the cement outside the famous theater, alongside the likes of those made by Groucho Marx and Shirley Temple. "There's a lot of passionate Godzilla fans," I thought to myself.
Only a few hours earlier, the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors had proclaimed November to be the “Month of Godzilla,” during a star unveiling for the monster at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The crowd cheered wildly, and nobody seemed to notice that there was only one more day left in “Godzilla month.” Everyone had a great time and Godzilla soon found himself riding in the city’s holiday parade, and the star attraction at the premiere later that night. Godzilla walked up and down the red carpet, steam blasting out of his mouth, showing off for the international group of reporters and fans that had gathered for what was being promoted as “his final film appearance” -- for at least the next ten years (wink, wink).
The perpetually angry godzillasaurus had been in 28 movies, fought 25 times and won 18 bouts. Not such a bad record. Unfortunately, poor theatrical returns had finally knocked the radioactive wind out of our favorite giant. The premiere of this new film would mark the 50th Anniversary of the monster. The year-long celebration was finally coming to an end. Toho Pictures biggest and most highly anticipated Godzilla film ever, Godzilla Final Wars, was about to open.
Penny Blood sat down with two of the filmmakers involved with this latest production to see what they had to say about ‘Gojira’ and Godzilla Final Wars: Shogo Tomiyama is the legendary producer of several Godzilla films. Following the death of Godzilla’s original creator, Ishirô Honda, the responsibility of developing the series fell to Tomiyama. His films include Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003), Godzilla X Mechagodzilla (2002), GMK (2001), Godzilla 2000 (2000), and Mothra (1996). Ryuhei Kitamura is the director of Godzilla Final Wars. He has become somewhat of a world-wide cult figure after the success of his zombie-samurai flick Versus (2000). Kitamura’s films include the horror movie Down to Hell (2003), Verses (2000), and the action-fantasy film, Azumi (2003).
The selection of Kitamura to direct this huge project was somewhat unusual for the studio. Toho Pictures is a tight knit family and they almost always use directors that have come up through the ranks of the studio, but this time Tomiyama decided to bring in an outsider to reshape the franchise. There are a lot of expectations riding on Kitamura’s shoulders.
PENNY BLOOD: Welcome to the USA. RYUHEI KITAMURA: Thank you. PENNY BLOOD: Why don’t we ever see Godzilla eating people? [Ryuhei Kitamura laughs.] PENNY BLOOD: I mean, in the original Godzilla movie, the monster’s natural supply of food has been diminished by nuclear testing in the Pacific. He leaves the depths of the ocean to head towards Japan in search of livestock to eat, right? Yet, we never see him eating anything! Did you ever consider letting Godzilla eat people? RYUHEI KITAMURA: When I first met the producers they were gathering all kinds of ideas and hadn’t yet decided what kind of Godzilla movie they wanted to make. I gave them three or four ideas of my own, and in one of them my Godzilla was eating people. I had a scene where he grabs a train, tips it up, and empties the passengers out into his mouth. Shogo didn’t respond to my suggestions. (LAUGHS) I don’t think he liked that idea very much. SHOGO TOMIYAMA: Godzilla doesn’t want to destroy human bodies. He wants to destroy human civilization. It’s true that originally Godzilla did come to Japan to eat livestock, but Toho Pictures soon realized that they’d have to reconsider how Godzilla existed if they were going to expand the film into a series. The company needed to decide whether Godzilla was a living breathing creature, or something else. The decision was made to make Godzilla something else. He was much more than just a large creature that went around eating livestock. PENNY BLOOD: So you’re saying he’s God-like? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: Closer to that, yes. Godzilla is closer to being a God. He’s not just a living animal or a monster. PENNY BLOOD: That’s why the Japanese refer to Godzilla as a “kaiju” instead of a monster? He’s more of a mystical creature. Then would you consider Godzilla to be a good or bad God? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: The fact is that humans cannot control or judge the Gods. They have their own will. They have their own way. In Japan there are many Gods. There is a God of Destruction. He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin. Godzilla is closer to being that kind of God. PENNY BLOOD: You were quoted as saying, “that you renamed Hollywood’s 1998 version of the monster ‘Zilla’ because they took the God out of Godzilla.” When I read that quote, I interpreted it to be a slam against Hollywood’s Godzilla (1998.) I’m getting the impression now that your statement was referring to the “spiritual interpretation” of Godzilla in Japan verses Hollywood’s “monster interpretation.” It really wasn’t meant as a putdown. Is that correct? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: Yes, because Hollywood’s Godzilla is just a normal monster He’s not a God. Hollywood treated Godzilla as a live monster or live animal. They shot him down with missiles and all that. PENNY BLOOD: Quite a few fans hate that version of Godzilla. What did you think of the Hollywood movie? Were you disappointed with Hollywood’s interpretation of your star performer in Godzilla’98? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: No. There was always very good communication between Tokyo and Hollywood. We knew exactly how they were going to do it, and we knew what Godzilla was going to look like. So, as a movie there’s no complaining. RYUHEI KITAMURA: I liked the film. I like most of that director’s films. [Roland Emmerich was the director of Godzilla (1998.)] PENNY BLOOD: This new film is part of the ‘Millennium Series,’ but you made the decision not to continue the storyline of the last movie, Tokyo SOS. Godzilla Final Wars has a totally drop that story in favor of a different storyline. RYUHEI KITAMURA: That’s because I didn’t like the more recent Godzilla movies. I think Toho understood where I was coming from, too. The audiences for Godzilla movies were decreasing every year. Last year’s Tokyo SOS was the worst. So, Shogo knew he was missing something, and decided to bring me in. We had a first meeting and I just spoke my mind. I was really honest and told him what I thought about the Godzilla movies. I hadn’t been to the theaters in ten years. I’d seen the more recent Godzilla films on TV and didn’t like them. I mean, the last three or four Godzilla movies have been shown in the theaters together with kid’s animation. Why would anyone want to go see a Godzilla movie if it’s being shown alongside a little mouse cartoon? It seemed like the company was only making Godzilla movies for kids and the diehard Godzilla fans, not for the general audience. PENNY BLOOD: The first Godzilla was kind of scary. RYUHEI KITAMURA: Yeah, but they weren’t making films like that anymore. PENNY BLOOD: So what was your new approach to Godzilla? RYUHEI KITAMURA: I told the producers, “I don’t like the way Godzilla movies look. They’re too bright. There’s too much light on Godzilla. He looks like a man-in-a-suit. The set looks like miniatures. If you’re going to film miniatures, they have to look real. PENNY BLOOD: So, how did you shoot it? RYUHEI KITAMURA: More power and more speed. This film is going to be like an Ultimate Championship Fight. I wanted to make the monsters fight like that. Punching, weaving, and using the elbows. SHOGO TOMIYAMA: Ryuhei had a point. He wanted Godzilla to move faster but remain big and intimidating at the same time. PENNY BLOOD: (To RYUHEI KITAMURA) I know that the Godzilla fans are very particular about every minor detail concerning the look and character of Godzilla. Did the studio present you with a list of character traits that you had to stick with, or were you able to pretty much do what you wanted in this film? RYUHEI KITAMURA: Pretty much whatever I wanted. The only thing they said was, “Please, not too much blood. Please don’t have Godzilla eating people.” It’s true that a lot of children watch these movies, but I kept asking the producers, “What about the Lord of the Rings? There’s lots of violence and blood in that movie, and kids love it!” I asked them that everyday but they just kept saying, “Lots of children are going to see the film, so you can’t be too violent.” PENNY BLOOD: A lot of the filmmakers involved with Godzilla worked their way up through the ranks at Toho Pictures. Here you are, a new guy coming in from the outside, and you end up directing the biggest Godzilla film the studio had ever done. Did you feel any resentment from the older filmmakers? RYUHEI KITAMURA: No, not at all. The Special Effects Director, Eiichi Asada, knows everything about Godzilla. My favorite Godzilla is 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Eiichi Asada was the Assistant Director on that film. He knows everything and has more experience with Godzilla then me. He was an excellent guy to work with and we got along fine. PENNY BLOOD: How do you direct a man-in-a-rubber-suit? RYUHEI KITAMURA: That’s the Special Effects Director’s job. We do it with a second unit. We’re in the same studio. He’s shooting the man-in-a-rubber-suit and the miniature stuff. I’m directing the actors and live action stuff. Eiichi Asada was such a great guy. We were talking about the movie from the beginning. He’s seen my films and knows my tastes. I made storyboards for the shooting and just gave them to him. So, everything I wanted to do is in the storyboards. He just looks at it from the technical side. He has lots of experience in special effects, so sometimes he’ll also suggest new ideas. PENNY BLOOD: How did you build the film? Did you start with the story, the monsters, or the action sequences? RYUHEI KITAMURA: The producers gave me an eight-page synopsis. Basically, the storyline was already there. It said, “Aliens attack earth using eight monsters.” So I asked “Why eight? What’s the record?” They told me, eleven. “Then we should go for a new record instead of eight!” So we decided to go with more than eleven monsters. PENNY BLOOD: What’s the final count, then? RYUHEI KITAMURA: That’s a secret. [AUTHOR NOTE: We’ll keep it a secret too. It’s more fun that way.] PENNY BLOOD: How did you decide which kaiju would be in the film? Why didn’t you put Mechagodzilla in the film, for instance? RYUHEI KITAMURA: It depends on what kind of story you want. Mechagodzilla just didn’t fit into the story I wanted to tell. PENNY BLOOD: Did you consider a rematch between Godzilla and King Kong? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: The rights for Kong weren’t available. PENNY BLOOD: Did you increase the size of the kaiju to fight Godzilla? RYUHEI KITAMURA: All the kaiju are about 100 meters. PENNY BLOOD: So you kept all the creatures about the same size? RYUHEI KITAMURA: Yes. PENNY BLOOD: Did you play with that scale during production? How seriously did you calculate the scale of the monsters when you’re filming and building the miniatures? RYUHEI KITAMURA: No, we filmed whatever looked good. That kind of exacting detail makes a movie boring. That’s the type of thing only Godzilla freaks think about. PENNY BLOOD: (To RYUHEI KITAMURA) I heard there’s a rumor circulating that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez will be producing your new movie. Is there any truth to that rumor? RYUHEI KITAMURA: No. I don’t know where that rumor started from. PENNY BLOOD: (To RYUHEI KITAMURA) Will we ever see a sequel to your cult zombie flick, Verses? RYUHEI KITAMURA: They’re keeping me busy, but yes, I want to do it eventually. I’m sure I’ll do it in the near future, but I don’t know when. PENNY BLOOD: (To RYUHEI KITAMURA) Do you plan on staying with monster movies and fantasy films? RYUHEI KITAMURA: No. PENNY BLOOD: I heard that there were some famous non-Japanese directors that wanted to do a Godzilla film. Is there any truth to those rumors? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: There have never been any direct talks with any of these directors. We are aware that some well-known filmmakers have expressed interests in directing a film. These young filmmakers grew up with Godzilla movies. I’m sure there are many directors that would like to do a kaiju movie. PENNY BLOOD: You’ve said Toho is going to retire Godzilla after this film for ten years. What would happen if another studio came along and they wanted to produce their own version of Godzilla? Could that still be an option? SHOGO TOMIYAMA: If a better story comes along that tops Godzilla Final Wars, and some other studio besides Toho wanted to consider producing the film? Then we might consider it. PENNY BLOOD: Hey, I’ve got a great idea for a Godzilla movie! SHOGO TOMIYAMA: (LAUGHS) There are as many ideas for Godzilla movies as there are fans! PENNY BLOOD: One last question, who would you consider Godzilla’s most dangerous adversary? [Shogo Tomiyama thinks for a moment…] SHOGO TOMIYAMA: Right now? I’d say, Pikachu. Hopefully, Godzilla’s new film will finally win the hearts of children back from his most dangerous advisory ever: Pokémon. Photos from the Godzilla Final Wars premiere Photos: Naomi Anderson, Copyright 2004 (Click on photos to enlarge) |
NEW YORK —Santa has kicked the habit in time for Christmas. No, not the sugar plum habit, or his fur-wearing habit, or his penchant for romping recklessly around open flame.
No, gentlepeople, this is the year the man in red gave up pipe tobacco, at least in a new book version of ” ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” that has received attention from some lofty corners, including the American Library Association.
The self-published Pamela McColl of Vancouver, Canada, has a mission for her story, to protect children and their parents from the ravages of smoking. She mortgaged her house and sunk $200,000 into her telling of the 189-year-old holiday poem, touring the states to promote it ahead of its September release.
What, particularly, did the 54-year-old entrepreneur and mother of adult twins do? She excised these lines: “The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.” And she added to the cover: “Edited by Santa Claus for the benefit of children of the 21st century.”
And she included a letter from Santa on the back jacket flap announcing that “all of that old tired business of smoking” is behind him, claiming (by the way) that the reindeer can confirm his fur outerwear is faux out of respect for animals, including the polar bears of his beloved North Pole.
Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the ALA’s deputy director for intellectual freedom, doesn’t have a hard heart. But she doesn’t see tobacco addiction when she considers what McColl has done.
“This wasn’t a retelling. This wasn’t a parody. This wasn’t an adaptation. This wasn’t a modernization. This wasn’t fanfic. This was presenting the original but censoring the content. That kind of expurgation that seeks to prevent others from knowing the original work because of a disapproval of the ideas, the content, is a kind of censorship that we’ve always disapproved of.”
Comedian Stephen Colbert had some thoughts on the matter, only he was louder and funnier.
“Santa can’t quit smoking,” he bellowed on his Comedy Central show, holding back a laugh. “He needs that vice. You try dealing with the stress of delivering the world’s toys in a single night.” |
One of the greatest mysteries of life is facing the enigma and mystery of death. Ever wonder what your last moments will be like? No one can be sure what they’ll meet in the afterlife, but those final moments are usually filled with somber thoughts and honesty. While not all of us have the luxury or the chance to prepare for death, our final words may be extremely revealing and give a truthful glimpse into our last thoughts and feelings that often reflect on the experience we’ve had throughout life. Last words and quotes from loved ones are always treasured, as it is the last memory that will ever be created by the dying person. Here is a list of the most epic and famous last words (in no particular order).
George Harrison (1943 – 2001) ”Love one another”
Lead guitarist of The Beatles has made many strides in history and revolutionizing rock ‘n’ roll music. His musical inspirations have been credited to Hinduism and traces of Indian culture during the mid-1960s. Many Beatles hit singles like “Here Comes the Sun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” have exposed the style of sitar melodies and rhythms to mainstream Western music. Always known for his quiet and somber demeanor, Harrison’s last words, “Love one another” reflect many messages from Beatles songs and also reflect how he lived and his philosophies as a person. Battling throat cancer he finally passed away on Nov. 29, 2001 and his last words were recorded by his beloved wife.
Bob Marley (1945 – 1981) ”Money can’t buy life”
Bob Marley was undoubtedly one of the leading songwriters, singers, and guitarists of our time. Who can forget his peaceful philosophy and carefree lyrics that spread Jamaican culture and music to a worldwide audience? He sustained a form of malignant melanoma called acral lentiginous and died at the age of 36. After declining amputation of his toe, the melanoma eventually spread to his lungs and brain, leading to his unfortunate death. The world mourned the loss of a musical genius. Marley’s last words to his son Ziggy were “Money can’t buy life.”
Steve Irwin (1962 – 2006) ”Don’t worry, they usually don’t swim backwards”
This was the last recorded statement from an iconic Australian television personality, wildlife expert, and conservationist known as the Crocodile Hunter. Steve was filming in shallow waters for his daughter’s new show, Bindi the Jungle Girl, when a sting Ray pierced his chest, causing fatal internal damage to his arteries. Steve’s last moments were recorded on tape, and confirm that the stingray was swimming backwards, which adds to the sad irony in his death.
Malcolm X (1925 – 1965) ”Brothers! Brothers, please! This is a house of peace!”
Malcolm X, one of our greatest human rights activists, has been described as one of the most influential public speakers in history. He was assassinated while giving a speech about unity and equal rights at Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom. Before he was shot, a disturbance broke out among the crowd of 400 people. Malcolm’s bodyguards moved from his side to tend to the fight that broke out, and a man rushed forward and shot Malcolm directly in the chest with a sawed off shotgun. As if that was not enough, two other men had handguns, and altogether, Malcolm was hit 17 times before his body struck the floor. In his last moments, he was still trying to subdue the crowd and keep peace in his heart. Other sources describe his finals words as “Now, now, brothers, break it up, be cool, be calm.”
Jack Daniel (1846 – 1911) ”One last drink, please”
We’ve seen his bottles of Tennessee whiskey in liquor stores. Fittingly, Jack Daniel’s last words continue to inspire merry spirits and world famous whiskey to be poured. In 1907, due to his failing health, Daniel gave his distillery to his favorite nephew, Lem Motlow, who then passed it down to his children. Jack died from blood poisoning that he sustained from an infection that started in his big toe, a result of kicking a safe in. His last words, “one last drink please,” have inspired a marketing frenzy used primarily on the London Underground transit system in January 2006. His legacy will indeed live on, as Jack Daniels Whiskey is one of the world’s best selling liquors today. |
College Park, Md. voted to allow non-citizens to vote in local elections Tuesday night.
After several votes, the council eventually voted 4-3 to allow legal permanent residents and undocumented immigrants to take part in upcoming municipal elections. One council member did not vote.
Initially, the city council of the Washington, D.C., suburb voted 4-4 on the first measure, a nonbinding referendum, sending the deciding vote to Mayor Patrick Wojahn, who voted against it.
BREAKING: College Park City Council votes 4-3 to allow non-citizens to vote in city elections even if they are illegally in the country. — Tom Roussey (@tomrousseyABC7) September 13, 2017
The council then took up the idea of voting for permanent residents, which would have excluded undocumented immigrants. The amendment also received a 4-4 vote and a tie-breaking "no" vote from the mayor.
The council then voted on allowing all non-citizens to vote, which passed.
The measure was supposed to be voted on in August, but was delayed after threats were made to members.
Wojahn said he hoped delaying the vote would bring less attention to the matter.
About two dozen people spoke at the meeting.
Those in favor of the proposal who spoke at the meeting said it would make the city, which is home to the University of Maryland, more inclusive. Others called it a violation of the Constitution.
The meeting had three possible outcomes: The council could say yea or nay to the measure, it could convene a commission to study and make a recommendation, or it could call for a nonbinding referendum.
A majority of the comments posted to the city's website were overwhelmingly opposed to the measure.
Takoma Park became the first city in Maryland to allow the practice after voters narrowly approved the measure in 1991.
Officials in the District of Columbia have repeatedly considered allowing non-citizens to vote but have decided against it. New York City extended voting privileges to non-citizens in school board elections until 2002. |
BBC Sport football expert Mark Lawrenson is predicting the outcome of every game at the 2016 European Championship.
Lawro correctly forecast that France, his pre-tournament pick to win the tournament, would beat Germany in their semi-final, but wrongly thought Wales would beat Portugal and make Sunday's final.
He picked the winner in two of the four quarter-finals, six of the eight last-16 ties and enjoyed a 42% success rate in the group stage, correctly guessing the outcome of 15 of the 36 games.
The only group he failed to get a single result in was Group F, which saw Hungary and Iceland spring a surprise by finishing first and second.
Before the tournament Lawro chose 11 of the 16 teams that went through to the first knockout stage.
Along with more than 375,000 of you, Lawro is taking part in the new BBC Sport Predictor game. He is going head-to-head with pundits, presenters and commentators from across BBC Sport.
He's doing well, but he is only in the running for a podium place - with a maximum of 40 points still to be won, commentator Alistair Bruce-Ball is certain of victory with one game to go.
BBC Sport Predictor: The pundits league - how it stands at the top Position Name Score 1 Alistair Bruce-Ball 570 = 2 Dan Walker 520 = 2 Ian Dennis 520 4 Phil McNulty 510 5 Mark Lawrenson 490
You can make your own prediction for the final and take on your friends and other fans using the BBC's Euros Predictor.
Lawro's final prediction - and selected others
Portugal v France Lawro 0-3 Ian Dennis 0-2 Kevin Kilbane 1-2 Phil McNulty 1-2 Danny Mills 1-3 Alan Shearer 1-3 Dan Walker 0-2 Steve Wilson 1-0
Sunday, 10 July
Portugal v France (20:00 BST, Stade de France)
Portugal have got to the final without playing well in any of their six matches in the tournament so far.
Other than putting a lot of crosses into the area for Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani, I am not sure what they offer going forward other than sitting back and waiting and waiting for the the opposition to make a mistake.
Their problem with doing that in this game is that they have not played a team as dangerous as France before. They have got so many players who will hurt Portugal if they give them time and space on the ball.
When you look at how France have got their goals, and who has got them, then they have got a lot of options on the field and on the bench in terms of who can do the damage.
I know it has been said that France are vulnerable at the back but they dealt pretty well with Germany in their semi-final.
Samuel Umtiti has come in and been outstanding in defence and, behind them, they have one of the best goalkeepers in the world in Hugo Lloris.
France will be fine even if they fall behind
Media playback is not supported on this device Highlights: Germany 0-2 France
Euro 2016 has not been a great tournament in terms of brilliant matches, but in terms of a spectacle, I just hope that France score early in the final.
Even if they go behind, I do not think they will be in trouble in the same way Wales were in their semi-final.
France have got more attacking weapons than any other team in the tournament and on top of that they have got momentum and home advantage.
Many of the best players over the past month have been French and in Antoine Griezmann they have the player of the tournament. He is an outstanding number 10 but what I love about him is that he is perfectly happy to track back and work when he is asked to as well.
I am convinced France will win but it is difficult to say whether this will be the start of a period of dominance for Les Bleus. Most of their talented attacking players are young, but it is hard to know how they will shape up as a team by the time the next World Cup comes round in 2018.
Lawro's prediction: 0-3
Lawro was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.
Lawro's semi-final predictions
Games Score Lawro's prediction Wednesday, 6 July Portugal v Wales 2-0 1-1 (Wales to win on penalties) Thursday, 7 July Germany v France 0-2 0-2
Lawro's quarter-final predictions
Games Score Lawro's prediction Thursday, 30 June Poland v Portugal 1-1 (3-5 pens) 2-0 Friday, 1 July Wales v Belgium 3-1 0-2 Saturday, 2 July Germany v Italy 1-1 (6-5 pens) 2-0 Sunday, 3 July France v Iceland 5-2 2-0
Lawro's last-16 predictions |
ANN ARBOR, MI—Boasting that an incredible unplanned shot perfectly captured the true nature of the Michigan football head coach, a documentary crew filming the team’s 2017 season revealed Wednesday that its static night vision camera positioned on the field had caught an inquisitive Jim Harbaugh poking its lens. “The camera first captured him coming onto the field at 2:30 a.m., but he was just rapidly pacing and dropping down for push-ups,” said director Felicia Comerford, who revealed that Harbaugh then froze, narrowed his eyes, and intently studied the camouflaged camera that he had spotted in pitch-black darkness 120 yards away from him. “Then he suddenly burst toward the camera in a full sprint. He was on it in seconds. He apprehensively circled around it several times and then disappeared off camera, popping up two seconds later inches in front of the lens, sniffing it, poking it with his finger, and then licking it.” Comerford added that the magnificent shot even tops the stunning and unexpected footage they captured the previous day of a pacing Harbaugh suddenly tearing into a freshman linebacker.
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Bishop Bernard Fellay (Edward Pentin)
SSPX’s Bishop Fellay: Little by Little Rome Is Giving Us All We Need for Reconciliation
In a wide-ranging interview with the Register, the leader of the traditionalist priestly society details how Pope Francis has opened the door to the SSPX’s full integration with the Church.
EDWARD PENTIN
MENZINGEN, Switzerland — Reconciliation between the Society of St. Pius X and Rome looks to be imminent, as a key obstacle — opposition to certain aspects of the Second Vatican Council — may no longer be a cause for continued separation from the Church.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the SSPX, told the Register May 13 that he is “persuaded, at least in part, by a different approach,” in which, he believes, Pope Francis is placing less weight on the Council and more emphasis on “saving souls and finding a way to do it.”
That message was reinforced this week when Pope Francis himself hinted reconciliation could be close, telling the French Catholic daily La Croix May 16 that the SSPX are “Catholics on the way to full communion” and that “good dialogue and good work are taking place.”
According to Bishop Fellay, the Vatican is telling the society, through nuanced words, that it is now possible to question the Council’s teachings on religious liberty, ecumenism and liturgical reform “and remain Catholic.”
“That means, also, the criteria they would impose on us, to have us prove to them that we are Catholic, will no longer be these points,” he said. “That, to us, would be very important.”
In 1970, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a French Holy Ghost Father, founded the international society to form and support priests in spreading the Catholic faith throughout the world.
But its opposition to some teachings of the Second Vatican Council regarding ecumenism, freedom of religion and aspects of liturgical reform came to a head in 1988, when Archbishop Lefebvre ordained four bishops in 1988 against the express wish of Pope St. John Paul II. All five incurred automatic excommunication, and the society has been in a canonically irregular situation ever since.
Archbishop Lefebvre died in 1991, and the Vatican and SSPX have been earnestly working towards reconciliation since 2000.
Benedict XVI sought to improve relations, first in 2007, by confirming that priests may celebrate the Mass in Latin according to the 1962 Roman Missal (officially called the extraordinary form of the liturgy) and stressing that it had never been abrogated, and then lifting the excommunications on four surviving SSPX bishops in 2009.
He also opened formal reconciliation talks with the SSPX in 2011, but those subsequently faltered because the Vatican, apparently in contrast to Benedict’s own wishes, raised the stakes on the central issue: that the society accept the validity of all of the Council’s teachings, including the texts on religious freedom and human rights that the SSPX rejects as theological “errors.”
The latest groundbreaking and surprising concession on this issue has, therefore, brought the SSPX to the brink of regularization that, sources say, could happen in a matter of weeks or months.
Pope Francis received Bishop Fellay for the first time in a private audience last month, signaling a clear intent on the Holy Father’s part that he wishes the society to be regularized. “Bishop Fellay is a man with whom one can dialogue,” he told La Croix.
The Pope also announced that SSPX confessions would be valid and licit during and after the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Until then, Rome considered them as invalid because they lacked necessary jurisdiction.
The SSPX is now understood to have the Vatican’s draft of an agreement to sign to formalize regularization, but wants to make sure it has secure guarantees. “The ball is in their court,” a Vatican source told the Register May 12. “We want them to go ahead with it.”
The Message From Menzingen
Bishop Fellay sat down for a lengthy interview with the Register on a wet and blustery Friday in May, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, at the SSPX’s motherhouse in Menzingen, near Zurich, Switzerland.
The modest building, a former Swiss guesthouse, surrounded by rolling Alpine foothills and farmland, is undergoing some renovation. About 25 priests and nuns live there; and due to the SSPX’s expansion because of abundant vocations, they are contemplating finding larger premises soon. On a table sits a unique pewter jug surrounded by several small mugs, each engraved with a key moment in Archbishop Lefebvre’s life.
Despite a punishing schedule with extensive travel, Bishop Fellay arrived in good spirits and spoke freely and openly in English. He is well aware how surprising and strange it appears that reconciliation seems so close, under a pope regarded as being far more concerned with other matters.
“[The situation] is really paradoxical, because we haven’t changed anything, and we continue to denounce what is happening,” he said. “Nevertheless, you see this movement in our favor, inside Rome.” He said he has noticed that the longer the talks continue, “the more lenient Rome becomes.”
But he also noted two different approaches in Rome to the SSPX question. “We have to distinguish the position of the Pope, which is one thing, and then the position of the CDF,” he explained, referencing the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Gerhard Müller, which is offering major concessions for regularization. “They don’t have the same approach, but have the same conclusion, which is: Let’s finish the problem by giving recognition to the society.”
According to the SSPX leader, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has a “new perspective” on the society, and, contrary to comments made by Cardinal Müller in 2014, it no longer sees the group as schismatic.
“That means that the points we defend do not touch the points that would separate the society from the Church, either at the level of schism or worse, the level of heresy, against the faith,” said Bishop Fellay. “They [in the CDF] still estimate that something should be clarified on the question of the perception of what is the magisterium. But we claim they make it confusing.”
In an interview with Zenit in February, Archbishop Guido Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which is charged with regularizing the SSPX, said the Holy See wants “clarification” on the society’s criticisms of the Council, but these can also take place “even after full reconciliation.” He said the SSPX must also move away from “polemical and antagonistic confrontation.” A Vatican source said the society has already “toned down some of their literature, interviews and publications.”
Confirming what Rome sources have told the Register, Bishop Fellay implicitly made it clear that it is the Vatican that has reached out to the SSPX, rather than the other way around, even though the society sees reconciliation as their right and an “injustice not to give it to us.” According to the group’s leader, Archbishop Lefebvre never wanted a break with Rome, and the society has always insisted they have never been in schism.
Bishop Fellay said some in the Vatican see the SSPX as coming to the “rescue” of the Church and by others as coming to the Church’s “help” and revealed that this is mentioned in the conciliation document that they have been offered to sign. One informed source said Rome is giving the society “everything” they need for full reconciliation.
But some associated with the SSPX — including former SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson, who was expelled from the society in 2012, reportedly because he sowed dissent within the SSPX and counseled against reconciliation with the Vatican — believe Bishop Fellay is seeking reconciliation at any cost and that the society risks coming under the influence of what Bishop Williamson called ”modernist cuckoos” occupying the Vatican.
Bishop Fellay rejects such a position as “totally wrong,” insisting, “We’re not going to compromise, to hurt the faith, the discipline of the Church.” Instead, he said, “we’re asking Rome for guarantees that we can continue the way we do.”
“Rome is, little by little, granting what we see as a necessity and what they start to see as a necessity, given the situation of the Church,” he said.
A personal prelature similar to that of Opus Dei is the most likely canonical structure, and, already, with regards to the sensitive issue of episcopal appointments, the SSPX has agreed to the Pope's choosing a candidate from a list of three proposed by the society.
Bishop Fellay finds Pope Francis perplexing but said that he is someone he can ultimately deal with on a personal level. “The normal way of judging someone is deriving from his actions and concluding he’s acting like this because he thinks like that,” he explained. “With the present Pope, you are totally puzzled, because one day he does something and the following day he does, or says, almost the contrary.”
Dialogue With Pope Francis
But the French-Swiss SSPX leader has learned how to communicate with this Pope, by acknowledging that Francis often seems to view doctrine as an obstacle to leading people to Jesus. For the Pope, Bishop Fellay said, “what is important is life, it’s the person, and so he tries to look at the person, and there, if I may say, he’s very human.”
As for the Pope’s motives, Fellay believes Francis is someone who wants to see everyone saved so, “like a rescuer, he unties the rope, which is his security, to put himself in a risky situation to try to get to other people,” and “that is probably what he’s doing with us.”
Asked if he thought the Pope’s frequent condemnations of “doctors of the law” and “fundamentalists” were partly directed at him and the society, he laughed, saying people in Rome have told him they don’t know who the Pope is referring to. “The answer I got most was ‘conservative Americans!’” he laughed. “So really, frankly, I don’t know.”
As to the Pope’s view of the SSPX in general, Bishop Fellay said his familiarity with the SSPX in Buenos Aires helps. In fact, in his interview with La Croix, Francis said that he “often spoke” with members of the SSPX in Buenos Aires. “They greeted me, asked me on their knees for a blessing,” he said.
The Pope sees that “we care about people,” Bishop Fellay said.
“Certainly he doesn’t agree with us on these points on the Council which we are attacking. Definitely he doesn’t. But for him, as the doctrine is not so important — it is man, the people, who are important — there we have given enough proof that we are Catholics.”
“He sees that we are genuine — period,” said Bishop Fellay. “He certainly sees things he would disagree with in us, things he would like to see us change, but for him, that’s not what’s important. What’s important is to love Jesus, and that’s it.”
Internal Concerns
Bishop Fellay has spoken before of his concern that the society might “disintegrate,” rather than “integrate,” if regularized. Does he, therefore, fear the Pope might be courting them back into “full communion” in order to neutralize them?
“That’s not his perspective,” he said. “I would say the contrary. He would be someone who would see the advantage of having controversy. … So I would rather see him wanting us to be controversial to provoke and to create a new situation, which maybe, in an Hegelian way, would bring a better situation. Of course, we’re against such a dialectical approach, but it could be the one.”
Still, the SSPX is seeking to insert safeguards of its identity into any agreement with Rome. And they feel confident they can continue criticizing the post-conciliar Church and the Council if necessary, largely because many other voices are now doing the same. “We will maintain the urgency to make corrections, and I would say that, in part, they [Rome] are starting to recognize that urgency,” Bishop Fellay said.
And if these “corrections” don’t come? “Well, we’ll be patient,” he said, before breaking into a wide grin. “They will come.”
But given the concerns expressed about aspects of today’s post-conciliar Church, highlighted by the recent controversy over the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, can the SSPX be confident of the support of SSPX churchgoers for reconciliation?
This appears to be one of the most significant unknowns and challenges for the society. “It will be quite a work, and it will take time to be able to bring the faithful to realize this new face in the history of the Church, this new reality,” Bishop Fellay conceded. But, he added, not moving ahead “because things are bad is by no way what God, Our Lord, is requesting from his apostles.”
‘I See It as a Step’
Bishop Fellay is more sure about the situation in the Church, which he sees as inevitably worsening.
“The situation of the Church, when we look at it now, will grow into a really messy situation,” he said, adding that “every Catholic” must do his or her part to strengthen the Church. Canonical regularization of the society won’t be a solution, he said, because the problem “is in the Church” and what is happening now, “which is confusion at all levels, moral and doctrinal.”
So does he see the Vatican’s outreach as a vindication of what the SSPX has stood for over the past decades?
“I see it as a step,” Bishop Fellay said, “which proves how right we were, which is not yet the end by any means.”
Edward Pentin is the Register’s Rome correspondent.
See video of the complete interview with Bishop Fellay here. |
Democracy is broken, but when leaders like Frans Timmermans blame people who do not participate in a system they view as outdated and obsolete, they only help create a generation of disillusioned young people, writes Joahnna Nyman on International Youth Day.
Johanna Nyman is president of the European Youth Forum.
International Youth Day should be a day of celebration and a day to mark the progress that has been made for young people. It should also be a day for us to stand up for ourselves and have our voices heard!
Listening recently, however, to some people who should be showing global leadership, you could be forgiven for thinking that we, young people, do not care, that we do not want to raise our voices. Our leaders seem to think we are more interested in watching TV or playing Pokémon Go than in changing the world we live in for the better.
Acting as patroniser-in-chief, European First Vice President Mr. Frans Timmermans has been leading the rhetoric that blames young people for their laziness when it comes to getting involved and mobilising. “If you think that you can change the world from behind your PC or smartphone”, he recently declared, “I’ve got news for you; it won’t happen. You’ve got to be organised, active and physically present to make your voice heard, win the argument and steer the future”.
This assertion unfortunately seems more more aligned with populist prejudice against young people than with reality.
Another recent misinterpretation of the current situation facing young people came from the pope, during a speech he gave in front of young Catholics in Krakow.
While calling for young people to get involved in social movements, Pope Francis came close to guilt tripping instead of encouraging them. He referred to our generation as “lazy” and said we need to get off our sofas. This “guilt” narrative is unhelpful, as it actively discourages people who need encouragement the most, but it is also absolutely false.
For one thing, as president of an organisation representing over 100 large European youth groups, I find the allegations hurled at us particularly frustrating since I see young people every day who come up with ideas for a better future, take action and mobilise others.
The European Youth Forum has conducted in-depth research showing that young people do in fact participate and care about politics. The research shows that they volunteer with youth organisations, join social movements, boycott and protest! Young people also take part in more formal institutional policy making through representative youth organisations.
Yes, young people do not vote in large numbers and they have – to some degree – turned their backs on the traditional political system, including mainstream political parties.
Young people’s withdrawal from traditional politics has unfortunately become a self-fulfilling prophecy, a vicious cycle of political marginalisation: because 72% of 16-24 years olds do not vote, but over half of people over age 65 do, politicians largely ignore – or at least don’t prioritise – the issues that matter to us. And young people, therefore, continue to turn away from the political system. Since we often don’t feel represented by politicians, this leads to even greater levels of distrust, and even lower voter turnouts in the future.
Yes, our democracy is broken, but if our leaders blame people who do not participate in a system that they view as outdated and obsolete, they will not help bring them in, but instead only help create a generation of disillusioned young people.
Southern Europeans flock to UK for jobs Increasing numbers of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese people are moving to Britain to work, likely reflecting weak labour market conditions in the southern eurozone, a new study revealed on Wednesday (13 April).
Why not let young people in instead? Why not co-create politics with them? Surely there isn’t anything to be afraid of. Alongside measures such as lowering the voting age to 16 across Europe and a reformed education system that nurtures active citizenship, a changed attitude could help reinvent politics to harness young people’s political innovation and energy.
On International Youth Day, which this year is focused on eradicating poverty, I ask First Vice President Mr. Timmermans and other EU leaders: with young people currently the most at risk age group to go into poverty and social exclusion in Europe, is it any wonder that some are not voting? When you worry about your next meal, about basic rights such as a roof over your head, healthcare and education and do not know when or where the next pay cheque will come from, is it any wonder that young people are not banging down the doors to join political parties?
Mr Timmermans and many others would be wise to stop patronising and take a look at the reality around them, and try to identify any link between apathy towards formal politics and the political system they represent.
Tragically, our societal systems are rigged against and routinely discriminate against us. One example that older generations might contemplate is the youth pay gap: in at least eight EU countries there is a different, lower, minimum wage for young people. This means that, in the Netherlands for example, at the age of 18 a young person earns half the adult wage for the same job. They are effectively working half of the year for free!
Meanwhile, if you are one of the millions of young people across Europe who cannot find a job, with little support from systems that are meant to protect us, you have no means to live. Along with poverty, homelessness among young people is on the rise in Denmark, where the number of young homeless people increased by 80% between 2009 and 2013.
Pope Francis’s positive comments on social justice and recent warnings on youth unemployment are welcome. But perhaps the link between poverty and lack of housing are more connected to political disengagement than to the video games he was so worried about recently in Krakow?
The precarious situation in which young people find themselves is having an impact not only on young people’s lives, but also – through their inability to contribute to the economy – on wider society. If we do not tackle this now, we risk sacrificing a generation and we surely cannot afford that. We must give young people hope for their future if we want to even begin to engage them in formal politics! I call out these leaders, busy with their patronising rhetoric, to get on with tackling the big issues that our society faces. |
Don Maloney admits he considered not making the Jarred Tinordi trade until after the All-Star Game, but says there’s “no way” he would intentionally bury John Scott in AHL so he couldn’t go.
“We have (the maximum) 23 players on our roster,” the Coyotes’ general manager said Saturday. “Someone had to go. When you look at our lineup, he made the most sense. To suggest that this was part of us not wanting him in All-Star, or to be working in the NHL…I’m dumbfounded by that.
“We wanted Tinordi, we think our coaching staff can work with him.”
Scott, voted an All-Star captain by the fans, was dealt to Montreal with Victor Bartley in the Tinordi transaction, a trade that also involved Nashville, Stefan Elliott and Stefan Fournier. He’s signed to a one-way contract, so he’s paid his full $575,000 in the AHL. No doubt budget-conscious Arizona wanted to avoid that. Fournier’s AHL salary is in the neighbourhood of $50,000.
What’s interesting is Maloney admitted the Coyotes thought about waiting.
“We did. But, things can change. What if someone else is interested? What if he gets hurt? You can’t take the chance.”
After I spoke to Maloney, two sources indicated there were a couple other teams looking at Tinordi. Montreal GM Marc Bergevin clearly decided it was time to end this standoff.
Whatever you think of Scott’s selection, the nastiness emanating from this trade really is something. Scott, who apparently has not yet decided whether or not to step away from the game, is angry he’s been sent so far away from his wife, who is expecting twins in the next few weeks. Who knows, maybe the Canadiens let him stay home.
Maloney also admitted he met with Scott a couple of times about participating.
“I wanted to ask him if he was sure,” the GM said. “If it was five-on-five, there’d be no problem. But it’s three-on-three, which is much different. He really wanted to play. It became important to him, something he wanted to do.”
According to a couple of sources, the NHL offered Scott’s family a free trip to the game — the ability to participate in the weekend without play. It was rejected. What’s uncertain is if that offer still exists. (The league has not commented.) It’s also uncertain if the league added other incentives, such as a winner’s share of the All-Star money or another family vacation at another time.
The other unknown is how the conversations with the league went. We know the NHL was not successful in getting him to step away, but there have been rumours those talks did not go well at all. Scott, suspended three times, losing almost $80,000 in salary, may not have been too inclined to listen.
It’s ugly, and everyone’s emotional right now, which makes it a harder fix. But, a solution, if I may:
Invite him to the weekend, heck make it a secret, so it’s a surprise. Enjoy the awesome city of NashVegas and take selfies with anyone who wants. Let him (and his family) come out on the ice wearing a Pacific Division captain’s jersey. Get an ovation.
Then, pull out another jersey and say, “Thank you very much for your support. Now, I’m going to enjoy the weekend while watching captain Drew Doughty/Mark Giordano/Corey Perry/Daniel Sedin lead the Pacific Division to three-on-three glory.”
Let’s end a needlessly ugly situation with a lighter touch. |
At the moment this is the most detailed picture I've ever made. Also it's the first time that I draw a well done warhammer ork. Yes obviously the commissar is always the handsome ones. In the original sketch there was the sister of battle instead the assault space marines, but I needed something more bulky on the right side. Their color pattern was a problem,with steel armours they seem Grey knights;I tried a cement grey scheme, but at the end I preferred doing something more medieval style...so the bright steel armour. They are theThe orks are the savage ones, so no trucks and engines; I preferred they use dinosaurs and winch rifles. For the Imperial Guard Regiment I was inspired by "norse-viking medieval centuries" and Rohirrim; I designed for them a laser-crossbow rifles. For the background a peacefully sunset with the arriving stars of the night...From the composition I preferred above all the commissar's pose; the first space marine with the revolver-bolter; and in particular the ork on the left, with a chain mail glove, the leg is covered by the dust and smoke but he has a wooden leg, in the photoshop file he is called "The Angry Ork". |
The Trump administration has escalated its feud with the Obama administration, creating a virtually unprecedented situation in which the current and former U.S. executive branches are openly fighting.
President Trump on Wednesday said Obama-era national security adviser Susan Rice might have committed a crime by requesting the identities of Trump associates who were incidentally swept up in surveillance, though he cited no evidence to back up his claim.
“I think it’s going to be the biggest story,” Trump told The New York Times. “It’s such an important story for our country and the world. It is one of the big stories of our time.”
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser under former President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaWith low birth rate, America needs future migrants 4 ways Hillary looms over the 2020 race Obama goes viral after sporting black bomber jacket with '44' on sleeve at basketball game MORE and Rice, quickly fired back, stating that attacking Rice “for doing what countless officials of both parties have done is authoritarianism.”
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“Media shouldn’t enable this garbage,” he added.
The attack on Rice, a lightning rod on the right who was a trusted confidante for the former president, is just the latest flashpoint between the administrations.
Trump and his staff have made it clear that they think Obama administration officials have been complicit in widespread leaks of damaging intelligence about Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible links between Moscow and Trump’s associates.
The president in early March accused Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked and that the White House has since walked back.
It’s a striking shift from November, when Obama and Trump met at the White House and Obama pledged that he and his aides would ensure a smooth transition. Trump also offered kind words for Obama, suggesting the two might confer from time to time.
That hasn’t happened. In March, The Hill reported that Obama and Trump haven’t exchanged words since Inauguration Day.
And the fighting goes far beyond Rice and Russia.
Trump and the White House on Tuesday blamed a deadly gas attack in Syria’s civil war on Obama’s policies, statements that appeared to put more blame on the previous administration than on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.
The new administration’s focus in office has been revoking Obama-era regulations, and its main legislative goal has been to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature legislative achievement.
Obama aides have been all over Twitter attacking Trump, augmenting the sense that the two administrations are now at war.
Tommy Vietor, a former spokesman for the National Security Council under Obama, tweeted Wednesday that Trump is a “serial liar” who has “changed his story on wiretapping 3 times.”
Some tension between administrations is hardly unusual.
Obama often blamed the poor economy he inherited on President George W. Bush and repeatedly criticized that administration’s foreign policy.
Bush administration officials believed that President Clinton failed to confront al Qaeda in the lead-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, while Bush himself spoke about how Clinton left him a recession.
President Reagan frequently criticized President Carter’s handling of the economy, prompting Carter to respond in 1982 that his administration “did not spend four years blaming our mistakes on our predecessors.”
But a confluence of events makes today’s tensions feel like nothing the country has seen before: Russia’s meddling in the election, the nature of Trump’s accusations, his penchant for combat, the rise of social media and the fact that much of Trump’s agenda involves rolling back Obama-era laws and regulations.
Obama so far has not attacked Trump despite pleas from some Democrats for him to jump into the fight.
But the unusual circumstances of Obama’s post-presidency might lead him to speak out. He put out a statement two weeks ago defending his healthcare law against Republican efforts to repeal it.
His spokesman also published a statement one week after he left office cheering protests against Trump’s travel ban.
A source close to Obama says the president is reluctant to join the fray.
“It’s not in anyone’s interest ... for [Obama] to become the face of the resistance or narrate the Trump presidency,” the source said. “He’s acutely aware that when he speaks, he sucks up all the oxygen, and that suppresses the next generation of leaders from rising.”
As the GOP attacks intensify on specific members of Obama’s administration, however, it could be more difficult for the former president to disengage.
Trump’s attacks on Rice in particular risk drawing Obama in, since they step up the debate over whether the previous administration sought to harm its successor through intelligence leaks.
Trump’s tendency to point the finger at Obama might energize the GOP base, which still has a low opinion of the former president.
But there are also risks.
Republicans often scolded Obama for blaming the recession and sluggish economy on Bush.
So it was notable on Wednesday when Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 MORE (R-Fla.), a rival of Trump’s in the GOP presidential primaries, warned Trump about blaming Obama.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that I disagreed with many of the decisions made by the Obama administration on foreign policy, but that presidency’s over; we have a new presidency,” Rubio told reporters.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a presidential historian at the University of Houston, said the president’s willingness to cast blame on Obama could backfire and make Trump look weak.
“If you’re still blaming the old administration, it means you don’t have better ideas. You just have the microphone,” he said.
Still, Obama’s “red line” threat against the Syrian government is among the most widely criticized comments of his eight years in office.
Trump at a Wednesday press conference acknowledged he is responsible for how the government reacts to the chemical weapons attack in Syria.
He again faulted Obama for not taking military action in Syria even though he previously urged him not to do so.
“I inherited a mess,” Trump said, returning to a familiar refrain. “Whether it’s the Middle East, whether it’s North Korea, whether it’s so many other things, whether it’s in our country horrible, trade deals. I inherited a mess. We’re going to fix it.” |
ARLINGTON, VA--(Marketwired - Mar 17, 2016) - BTCS Inc. ( OTCQB : BTCS) ("BTCS" or the "Company"), a blockchain technology focused company which secures the blockchain through its transaction verification services business, is launching a pilot program to begin securing Ethereum's blockchain.
Ethereum is a digital currency and blockchain platform focused on smart contract applications. Like bitcoin-based blockchain technologies, the decentralized network of Ethereum enables transactions without downtime, censorship, fraud, or third-party interference. Since early February, the value of Ether, the digital token or fuel that powers the Ethereum network, in USD terms, has grown at a 500% annual growth rate with the total value of all Ether, or market cap of Ether, surpassing $1 billion.
"As the first U.S. publicly-traded blockchain-focused company we want to provide our investors diversified exposure to digital currencies and blockchain technologies," stated Charles Allen, CEO of BTCS. "Given the recent success of Ethereum and the growing interest from major players in tech and finance, we believe it's an ideal time to launch a pilot program. With the capacity expansion we completed at our North Carolina facility in 2015, we're well-positioned to scale operations when necessary, even as we continue to ramp our current bitcoin-focused transaction verification operations."
Ethereum has garnered growing support since its launch in 2014, including projects with Microsoft and IBM. The recent launch of the first production release, Homestead, is set to make Ethereum a blockchain technology that will be integral to future smart contract based products.
Commenting on the launch of Ehereum's first production release, Andrew Keys, co-founder of decentralized application development firm ConsenSys Enterprise, told CoinDesk, "Homestead's arrival will begin to demonstrate the next generation of blockchain technology, whereby anything we can dream of, can be accomplished in a decentralized manner using Ethereum."
"Like many others, we're excited for the prospects of Ethereum," continued Allen. "While Ethereum is focused on smart contracts, it's important to note that there are currently numerous companies working on solutions to build smart contracts on bitcoin's blockchain, leveraging the deep security provided by its more established and secure blockchain."
In addition to the pilot program, BTCS has secured a Ethereum-mining hosting contract. The contract uses approximately 50 kilowatts of the Company's 3 megawatt capacity.
To see the BTCS facility, take a virtual reality tour that includes drone footage of the operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkjhyUAO73w
To see a recent interview with our CEO Charles Allen, please click below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppOpZbDoDNw
About BTCS:
BTCS secures the blockchain through its rapidly growing transaction verification services business and plans to build a broader ecosystem to capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing industry. The blockchain is a decentralized public ledger and has the ability to fundamentally impact all industries on a global basis that rely on or utilize record keeping and require trust. BTCS continues to evaluate and build additional blockchain technology consumer solutions. BTCS also actively partners and integrates with strategic digital currency and blockchain technology companies who provide products or services that are complementary to its business strategy. For more information visit: www.btcs.com
Forward-Looking Statements:
Certain statements in this press release, including those related to an anticipated merger, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "continue," "predict," "forecast," "project," "plan," "intend" or similar expressions, or statements regarding intent, belief, or current expectations, are forward-looking statements. While the Company believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on any such forward-looking statements, which are based on information available to us on the date of this release. These forward-looking statements are based upon current estimates and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including without limitation those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, not limited to Risk Factors relating to its digital currency business contained therein. Thus, actual results could be materially different. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or alter statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. |
Earlier this year, Ryan Murphy had a really cool idea about combining comedy and horror, a “whole new genre” he came up with on his own. “I’m going to call it—check this out—Scream Queens,” he probably said as Fox executives nodded vigorously. “Man, where do I come up with this stuff?”
Anyway, Fox immediately ordered 15 episodes, and now Jamie Lee Curtis and Emma Roberts have been cast as the female leads for Murphy’s third anthology series so far. Neither of these names should be terribly surprising, considering Roberts co-starred in the third and fourth seasons of American Horror Story and Curtis played archetypal “final girl” Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s Halloween. Their roles on the new Scream Queen series are still undefined, but based on the title at least one of them (the smart money’s on Roberts) will trip and fall for absolutely no reason while being chased by a masked killer. Scream Queens will debut on Fox in the fall of 2015. |
The UBC Free Speech Club set up a booth in front of the Nest today to protest what they feel was an unfair rejection of a men's rights club aligned with the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFÉ).
According to a letter from Student Administrative Commission Vice-Chair Rob Willoughby, the would-be club was rejected due to an overlapping mandate with the Sexual Assault Support Centre's (SASC) Healthier Masculinities Program, whose guiding principles include:
Working from an anti-oppressive and intersectional lens
Acknowledging privilege and positionality
Promot[ing] open, safer spaces to discuss and express various forms of masculinity
CAFÉ's stated purposes are not concerned with feminism and intersectionality, but rather focus on advocacy for men and “chang[ing] public policy,” through “positive activism to advance a healthier society.”
AMS VP Admin Chris Scott said that the decision to reject the men's rights club was a result of administrative strain on the student union. Management feels that with the pressure of 400 clubs competing for space and attention, there is little room for new clubs with even a slight overlap with existing ones.
“We're kind of at our maximum of clubs that we can support. We're strictly enforcing that there has to be very little overlap to accept new clubs. That was a plan across the board in the fall when we went through those applications,” he said.
Since June 30, the AMS has accepted 20 new clubs, and 16 Recognized Student Organizations (basically, clubs without office space provided by the union), and have denied 33 applications.
The Free Speech Club maintains that the two are different enough to warrant separate clubs.
“I think it's completely bullshit,” said club president Louis Jung. “If you look at the mandates we have here, they're completely different. I think [they were rejected] because CAFÉ isn't a feminist masculinity club, so I think they're just trying to shut it down,” he said.
“We sent them the link for volunteering with healthier masculinities ... and I'm guessing they didn't take that,” said Scott. “We really want to help them get involved in advocating for what they want.”
Phillip Johnston, branch director of CAFÉ Vancouver, believes the campus is in need of a men's advocacy club separate from the SASC.
“It's great that there are programs like the Healthier Masculinities program. I think there's some great work being done relating to men's health here on campus. However, I think there's a number of issues that those programs don't cover,” he said. “Things like the effects of fatherlessness and ... legal biases in the law courts that end up separating men from their children.”
“It seems fairly clear to me that the Healthier Masculinities program comes more from an ideological basis,” he said, whereas CAFÉ's is “evidence-based.”
“I don't reject [patriarchy] theory ... it's good to have discussions about different ideas on campus. I would just like to see a club on campus that presents another theory so that people get exposed to another way of looking at gender.”
After the protest, the male symbol on which the Free Speech Club collected thank-you notes to influential men in the lives of passersby was seen on top of the engineering cairn. The move sparked backlash on social media due to the upcoming anniversary of the 1989 massacre at École Polytechnique on December 6. The Engineering Undergraduate Society and Women in Engineering UBC are hosting a memorial ceremony for the massacre tomorrow.
This article has been updated to include statistics regarding how many clubs the AMS has accepted this school year. |
CTV Saskatoon
A cyclist who sustained life-threatening injuries Friday after a crash atop the Broadway Bridge went through the back windshield of a sedan as his bike went over the car, according to a Saskatoon police officer on scene.
The crash occurred Friday morning on the 400 block of Broadway Avenue, shortly after another collision that left a silver minivan hung up on a curb.
The van was blocking part of the roadway at the time of the crash between the cyclist and the sedan, the officer said.
The cyclist, a 33-year-old man, hit the back of the sedan, according to a police spokesperson. He was rushed to Royal University Hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver of the sedan, a 34-year-old woman, was unharmed.
A witness told CTV a significant amount of blood was left on the ground in the road’s bike lane following the crash.
Traffic restrictions were lifted in the area shortly before 1 p.m. |
(CNN) South Africa's worst drought in recorded history has left eight of the country's nine provinces in a state of disaster, with thousands of communities and millions of households facing water shortages.
The agricultural union Agri SA has requested over $1 billion in government subsidies to help farmers through the crisis, but a cut-price solution could soon be available -- from an unlikely source.
Johannesburg schoolgirl Kiara Nirghin, 16, recently won the Google Science Fair's Community Impact Award for the Middle East and Africa with her submission "No More Thirsty Crops."
Using orange peel and avocado skins, the precocious student created a super absorbent polymer (SAP) capable of storing reserves of water hundreds of times its own weight, forming reservoirs that would allow farmers to maintain their crops at minimal cost. The polymer has the added benefit of sustainability as it uses recycled and biodegradable waste products.
"Kiara found an ideal material that won't hurt the budget in simple orange peel, and through her research, she created a way to turn it into soil-ready water storage with help from the avocado," said Andrea Cohan, program leader of the Google Science Fair.
The drought in South Africa is the worst on record.
Trial and error
The inventor says she wanted to tackle the most urgent aspect of the national crisis.
"I wanted to minimize the effect that drought has on the community and the main thing it affects is the crops," says Nirghin, of St. Martin's School. "That was the springboard for the idea."
She describes the process as "trial and error," with a lot of experimentation before alighting on the perfect formula.
"I started researching what an SAP was, and what they all had in common was a chain molecule polysaccharide," Nirghin recalls. "I found that orange peel has 64% polysaccharide and also the gelling agent pectin, so I saw it as a good (option). I used avocado skin due to the oil."
The teenager combined the skin and peel and left the mixture in the sun, where they reacted together to form the powerfully absorbent polymer.
Next steps
As a regional winner, Nirghin has been assigned a mentor from Google to work with her on developing the polymer, and hopes it could be tested in the field. She will soon discover if she is one of the tech giant's sixteen global finalists.
"If the idea was commercialized and applied to real farms and real crops I definitely think the impact that drought has on crops would be reduced," she says.
"I think it works," says Dr. Jinwen Zhang, a professor of materials engineering at Washington State University, who is developing absorbent hydrogels to address drought. "Using waste products for low-cost feedstock for large volume is definitely worth further investigation."
The teenager, whose hero is the Indian agricultural scientist M. S. Swaminathan, has many more ideas, including a proposal to dye the skins of endangered animals to discourage poaching.
"I might look into health sciences or engineering," she says of her future plans. "Something so I can improve the world." |
John Saunders, the sports anchor whose baritone voice was a fixture on ESPN programming for 30 years, has died, the network announced Wednesday. He was 61.
The cause of death was not immediately known.
ESPN president John Skipper saluted Saunders for his "extraordinary talent" and "friendly, informative style."
"He was one of the most significant and influential members of the ESPN family, as a colleague and mentor, and he will be sorely missed," Skipper said. "Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this extremely difficult time."
Reporting live from Rio de Janeiro, where she is covering the Olympics, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm announced Saunders' death on-air Wednesday.
Fighting back tears, Storm shared the "shocking and sad news" with viewers.
"Our generous and talented and beloved colleague John Saunders has died," Storm said. "John is one of the most familiar on-air faces at ESPN."
"Our sympathy, love and support goes out to all of those who loved and respected our colleague, John Saunders," she added.
More tributes from Saunders' colleagues came pouring in on social media.
"I cannot exaggerate how good a guy John Saunders was, nor how talented," tweeted longtime Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan, a regular on ESPN. "This is a huge personal loss for us and a blow to ESPN's viewers."
ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler called Saunders "one of the best men I've known."
"This is gutting news," tweeted "SportsCenter" anchor Scott Van Pelt.
I cannot exaggerate how good a guy John Saunders was, nor how talented. This is a huge personal loss for us and a blow to ESPN's viewers. — Bob Ryan (@GlobeBobRyan) August 10, 2016
Immense sadness over the passing of John Saunders. One of the best men I've known. A colleague, friend and loving father and husband. RIP — Timothy Legler (@LegsESPN) August 10, 2016
Prayers and condolences to the John Saunders family. We lost a great teammate. Great example and mentor to aspiring broadcasters. — Rece Davis (@ESPN_ReceDavis) August 10, 2016
John Saunders & his beautiful family / Heart goes out to wife Wanda / & his Pride & Joy girls Jenna & Aleah Pls RIP pic.twitter.com/BqnGNCpVld — Dick Vitale (@DickieV) August 10, 2016
Just last night we had a Vault feature including John Saunders. I smiled at the sight of John, Bob & Boom together. This is gutting news. — Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) August 10, 2016
John Saunders was an amazing man, friend & colleague.
Rip my friend. Miss u already. — Ron Jaworski (@jawsespn) August 10, 2016
John Saunders was a better person than a host, which is saying something. Classy. Professional. I can't even describe his impact on me. — Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) August 10, 2016
Born and raised in Canada, Saunders joined ESPN in 1986 as an anchor of the network's flagship program, "SportsCenter."
Saunders filled a variety of roles over his three decades at the network, contributing to ESPN's coverage of both college football and basketball, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball.
Since 2001, Saunders served as the host of "The Sports Reporters," ESPN's Sunday morning roundtable with some of the nation's best-known sportswriters.
He is survived by his wife and two daughters. |
See which referees and assistants are officiating the 12th round of matches in the 2016/17 Premier League
The match officials who have been appointed for the Premier League's Matchweek 12 fixtures are as below.
Kick-off 3pm unless stated.
Saturday 19 November
12.30pm Manchester United v Arsenal (Sky Sports)
Referee: Andre Marriner
Assistants: S Beck, A Garratt
Fourth official: M Oliver
Crystal Palace v Manchester City
Referee: Bobby Madley
Assistants: M McDonough, M Perry
Fourth official: A Davies
Everton v Swansea City
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: S Child, S Burt
Fourth official: A Taylor
Southampton v Liverpool
Referee: Mark Clattenburg
Assistants: S Bennett, R West
Fourth official: S Martin
Stoke City v AFC Bournemouth
Referee: Roger East
Assistants: D Cann, D Eaton
Fourth official: G Scott
Sunderland v Hull City
Referee: Lee Mason
Assistants: A Nunn, S Ledger
Fourth official: C Pawson
Watford v Leicester City
Referee: Neil Swarbrick
Assistants: J Collin, M Wilkes
Fourth official: D Coote
5.30pm Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United (BT Sport)
Referee: Mike Dean
Assistants: S Long, I Hussin
Fourth official: K Friend
Sunday 20 November
4pm Middlesbrough v Chelsea (Sky Sports)
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Assistants: A Halliday, E Smart
Fourth official: C Pawson
Monday 21 November
8pm West Bromwich Albion v Burnley (Sky Sports)
Referee: Mike Jones
Assistants: A Holmes, M Scholes
Fourth official: S Attwell |
Just moments after President Donald Trump's surreal, whirlwind press conference came to a close Thursday, the Trump campaign sent out a very strange email.
The email posits that the media is an enemy that must be deflected, inviting recipients to take a survey about how much they hate CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and all mainstream media.
"Instead, you — the American people — are our last line of defense against the media’s hit jobs," the email read. But there's more. As if to drive the point home with the hammer of Thor, the 25 questions are branded "the Mainstream Media Accountability Survey."
Most of the questions lead the reader to confirm an assertion about how unfairly Trump has been treated by the media, or the "opposition party" as his top strategist Steve Bannon calls it. But, give them credit for knowing their audience. The whole thing is just one giant example of confirmation bias, aimed at people already on Trump's campaign mailing list. The survey basically says: The media is terrible. You agree, right?
One question shows a lack of historical context, asking about the Democrats' alleged obstruction of Trump's cabinet nominees. Let us not forget how Republicans obstructed then-President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.
Still, the details pale in comparison to the survey taken as a whole, a document sent under the name of a rabble-rousing, sitting president to stir up in his supporters' animosity toward the free press.
Just read it for yourself: |
Against the backdrop of the insufferable, and ever apoplectic, DC political gamesmanship, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are enjoying a nice evening dinner tonight at Trump International Hotel in DC. A fitting, and contrasting optic considering current events.
NBC propagandist, Kelly O’Donnell, dons her ghillie suit and hides amid the hotel plants to capture the possible culinary scandal.
Meanwhile President Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb tells the New York Times the MAGA president has no worries.
WASHINGTON – […] Ty Cobb told the New York Times Trump is confident neither Manafort nor Flynn has incriminating information about the president. “The president has no concerns in terms of any impact, as to what happens to them, on his campaign or on the White House,” Cobb said.
“[Trump] likes and respects Mr. Manafort and appreciates the work he did for him during the three months he was with the campaign. He likes General Flynn personally, but understands that they have their own path with the special counsel,” Cobb said. “I think he would be sad for them, as a friend and a former colleague, if the process results in punishment or indictments. But to the extent that that happens, that’s beyond his control.” (link) (Interview Audio Here)
Anyone who followed the spring and summer primary race leading up to the GOP convention will well remember the specific reason candidate Donald Trump hired Paul Manafort to control the assembly of delegate votes.
Paul Manafort was a ‘fixer’, a ‘heavy’; a well manicured and connected political boss who understood the various horse trading machinations within the dynamic of the delegate assembly and byzantine compliance process. Mr. Manafort did his job well, and everyone appreciated his Soprano-esque characteristics that seemed necessary for the smoke-filled rooms.
In hindsight we now know Mr. Manafort flowed through the network of the Podesta brothers, Russian oligarchs, and worked on behalf of the Podesta Group DC connections. Sketchy business means sketchy associates.
So it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise to consider that Pauli Knuckles might find himself on the opposite side Mueller’s lawful compliance equation.
As to General Mike Flynn, well, good people do stupid things. Taking the lobbying contract with the government of Turkey was stupid. Not disclosing it to the campaign was even more stupid… Not reporting the lobbying income correctly, buckets of stupid… but hey, that’s hindsight.
Again, in the system of DC compliance, just because everyone else does it doesn’t make a solid defense when the other side of politics starts looking for scalps and leverage.
“President Trump likes and respects Mr. Manafort and appreciates the work he did for him during the three months he was with the campaign. He likes General Flynn personally, but understands that they have their own path with the special counsel,” Cobb said. “I think he would be sad for them, as a friend and a former colleague, if the process results in punishment or indictments. But to the extent that that happens, that’s beyond his control.”
President Trump and the First Lady leaving the White House for dinner at the Trump International Hotel in DC tonight. pic.twitter.com/AdDhymuVr2 — TRUMP News 24/7 (@MichaelDelauzon) October 29, 2017
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Story highlights Police identify the victims
The small private aircraft was attempting to land at the time
It caught fire when it struck trees, Virginia state police say
(CNN) Six people died Friday when a small private aircraft crashed at Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, Virginia, according to state police.
The plane was attempting to land, but pulled back up at the end of the runway.
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"It attempted to abort the landing and take off again," Sgt. F.L. Tyler of the Virginia State Police told reporters. "It then went off the south end of the runway and then landed in the tree line."
When the plane struck the trees, it immediately caught fire, officials said.
Rescue workers recovered all six bodies from the burned wreckage.
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A giant planet lurks in the dust and debris surrounding a young, nearby star – and astronomers have finally seen it in action.
Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, astronomers took infrared images of the planet in two different positions around its star in 2003 and late 2009.
"It's so exciting that we can see it," said astronomer Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the new work. "We've been looking a long time."
The discovery, announced June 10 in Science, proves that giant planets can form quickly around young stars and suggests that dust disks are signposts for stars hosting giant planets.
Beta Pictoris, a star almost twice the mass of the sun and located 63 light-years away, has been a celebrity among planet hunters since the 1984 discovery of a wide halo of dust and rocky debris that could eventually coalesce into planets. Later observations showed that the disk was oddly warped, and that it had a big hole near the center.
Theoretical models predicted that a planet around five to 10 times the mass of Jupiter could make both the warp and the hole. But when Anne-Marie Lagrange of the Grenoble Observatory in France, first author of the new paper, and her colleagues observed the star in 2003, they saw nothing.
"The tools we had in 2003 were not precise enough," she said.
After Kalas's group and another team released images of planets around the stars Fomalhaut and HR 8799 in November 2008, Lagrange and colleagues tried again. They used newer techniques to cancel out the light from the star, allowing the planet to shine through.
The image showed a bright object next to Beta Pictoris, but whether it was a planet or another star in the background was unclear.
"Frankly, if I had a bet on whether or not they'd actually seen a planet back in 2003 ... I would definitely bet it was not a planet," said astronomer Ben Zuckerman of the University of California, Los Angeles, who was involved in imaging the planets around HR 8799.
Follow-up observations in late 2008 and early 2009 also came up empty. Finally, in October 2009, the planet re-emerged on the other side of the star. Lagrange and colleagues kept taking images until March 2010 to confirm that the object was a planet.
"We spent a really long time, nights and days, to check it," she said. "It really shows that when we see disks, we have to look at every detail, because they can indicate the presence of a planet."
Because Beta Pictoris is such a young star – about 10 million years old, or two thousandths the age of the solar system – studying its planetary system can help astronomers decide between competing models of planet formation. For instance, earlier theoretical work showed that debris disks around stars broke up fairly quickly, within a few million years. Some theorists worried that massive planets wouldn't be able to form fast enough, but the planet around Beta Pictoris is proof that they can.
"It's taking a snapshot of another solar system right after it's born," Kalas said. "The other alternative is to invent a time machine and go back 4.5 billion years and look at our own Jupiter when it just formed. But obviously we can't do that."
The planet weighs in between six and 12 times the mass of Jupiter, similar to the models' predictions. It orbits its star at about the orbit of Saturn, between eight and 13 times the distance from the Earth to the sun, making it the closest planet to a star ever imaged. It also means the planet makes a complete circuit around its star every 17 to 30 Earth years, well within human lifetimes.
"Eventually, we'll have a movie of this planet going around Beta Pic," Kalas said. By contrast, the planets around HR 8799 and Fomalhaut take between 100 and 870 years to complete an orbit.
The next step is to observe the planet in more wavelengths to get an idea of what its atmosphere is made of, Lagrange said. And with new instruments like the Gemini Planet Imager coming online, the next few years should see even more direct images of extrasolar planets.
"The future is really bright," said astronomer Christian Marois of the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. "It'll be a really interesting field in the next two or three years."
Image: ESO/A.-M. Lagrange. This image shows the dust disk around the star (blue light at edges), and the observed position of beta Pictoris b in 2003 and autumn 2009. The light from the star has been blocked out to make the planet visible.
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Delta’s chief executive Richard H. Anderson would run the new airline and Delta’s chairman Daniel A. Carp would retain that role, with Roy J. Bostock, a Northwest director who also sits on the board at Morgan Stanley, as vice chairman. Northwest’s chief executive, Douglas M. Steenland, would have a seat on the board but would not have a role in day-to-day operations.
The two companies persevered because of the rising cost of fuel, which has destroyed the bright financial prospects of the carriers since they emerged from bankruptcy a year ago.
Delta and Northwest filed for Chapter 11 on Sept. 14, 2005. Both ran into cash shortages that were worsened when oil prices spiked in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Many people in the airline industry expected that the two airlines, which already had a marketing arrangement, would join forces once they emerged from bankruptcy protection.
Mr. Anderson became Delta’s chief executive in September, succeeding Gerald Grinstein, who led the airline through its restructuring. He was a surprise choice: Delta had been expected to name one of two younger executives to the post, but directors pushed for Mr. Anderson. He ran Northwest before being succeeded by Mr. Steenland in 2004.
Delta and Northwest are betting that cost cuts and the benefits of a bigger route network will outweigh the potential operating chaos and labor unrest that can result from airline mergers.
The long-expected Northwest-Delta deal could be quickly followed by another merger, airline executives and industry analysts said.
The leading candidates are United and Continental Airlines, which have explored the idea. The airlines may now try to get the deal wrapped up within the next 30 days, a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations said Monday night. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.
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One reason for the urgency is that airlines want to get their deals approved by the Justice Department under the Bush administration, rather than risk seeing them stall until a new president takes office.
United’s chief executive, Glenn F. Tilton, has been eager for a merger, but Continental had resisted, saying it wanted to wait to see if the combination between Delta and Northwest came about. The chief executive of Continental, Lawrence W. Kellner, called it “good news” last month when it appeared that the Delta-Northwest talks had cooled. But Mr. Kellner could end up running the combined Continental-United, should an agreement take place, this person said.
Such deals would put pressure on others to explore combinations or consider restructuring, analysts said. American Airlines, which avoided Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier in the decade, may be forced to explore that possibility so that it can rid itself of aging aircraft leases, and reduce its labor costs. Or, American could seek a deal with a smaller airline such as JetBlue Airways, in order to gain access to JetBlue’s younger fleet.
Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines, which has been the healthiest of the American carriers, may be forced to explore a deal with a low-fare carrier like AirTran, so that it can maintain its hold on the market for bargain minded travelers.
At the end of 2007, Delta and Northwest employed a combined 89,000 workers. American Airlines, currently the largest carrier, had 85,500. Delta said the combined airline would employ 75,000.
But the 6,300 Delta pilots and the 4,500 Northwest pilots were the two groups that executives worked so assiduously to win support from in recent months.
That effort was not successful. The two pilot groups could not agree on a merger of their seniority lists, which are important in determining pay, schedules and the type of plane they fly.
Delta’s Mr. Anderson faced the choice of either abandoning the deal or pushing ahead and risking fallout from pilots that could cripple his efforts to quickly combine the two carriers’ operations and make them run more smoothly.
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The chairman of the Northwest chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association, Dave Stevens, said in a statement Sunday that any deal not in the best interest of his members would meet “vigorous opposition.” Beyond enlisting members of Congress and the Justice Department to oppose the deal, pilots have little opportunity to prevent a merger.
But they can go a long way toward keeping a completed merger from being successful. At US Airways, the product of a 2005 merger with America West Airlines, pilots are still litigating over a combined seniority list and executives have been forced to continue operating the two carriers with separate squads of pilots. That makes the airline less efficient.
Pilots can also engage in legal work slowdowns, sometimes known as flying to the contract, which can cause late and canceled flights to swell and costs to rise. United suffered that fate in the summer of 2000, when its operations melted down.
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It is clear that the airline industry is headed into a steep downturn. Analysts now expect losses for the year. And the industry is highly vulnerable to further increases in the price of jet fuel — incurring $200 million in annual costs for every penny a gallon that fuel rises.
Michael Linenberg, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, noted Monday in a report that jet fuel in some markets had surged to as high as $3.50 a gallon, reflecting both higher oil prices and a steeper premium charged by refiners. Mr. Linenberg had expected fuel costs of $3.00 a gallon this year to produce an industry loss of $2 billion.
But if fuel prices moved industry-wide to $3.50 and stayed there, he said losses could soar to $12 billion this year. Before that happened, airlines would probably ground huge parts of their fleets, lay off workers and otherwise retrench.
Either way, without a remarkable increase in fares, the handful of smaller airline bankruptcies in recent weeks could grow to include some bigger carriers.
The deal comes nearly 30 years after the domestic airline industry was deregulated. But deregulation did not bring forth a flood of new and innovative airlines pushing aside the old guard, as some had envisioned. Instead, the industry since 1978 has been dominated by familiar names — Delta and Northwest among them.
Through bankruptcies, strikes and a broad decline in service, the old-line carriers have hung onto most of the market. And the merger, the largest ever among domestic carriers, is but the latest effort by old-line airlines to protect their businesses from low-cost rivals like Southwest, JetBlue and AirTran.
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“The staying power of the legacy carriers is a source of continual amazement,” said Steve Morrison, chairman of the economics department at Northeastern University and author of a book on airline deregulation.
Indeed, since deregulation, the old-line airlines built what are known as fortress hubs — such as Delta’s in Cincinnati and Northwest’s in Minneapolis and Detroit — with such overwhelming market share that there is relatively little competition and fares in those markets are high.
Then they introduced frequent flier programs — a boon, to be sure, with free travel — that made it harder for regular travelers to stray from the dominant airline in their region.
Having pulled those two competitive rabbits out of their hat, will old-line carriers produce a third miracle with mergers?
“No,” Mr. Morrison said, combinations will not affect the industry as dramatically. He and some other experts said the Delta-Northwest combination — and a possible merger between Continental and United — could bolster profits at old-line carriers in the near term through cost cutting. But that will not stop the steady advance of low-cost airlines, which now account for about a third of domestic air travel.
The growth of low-cost airlines and the ability of consumers to shop for cheaper fares on the Internet have kept old-line carriers on the defensive. Then, beginning last fall, oil prices shot past $100 a barrel. That effectively snuffed out an industry recovery that had barely begun, with Delta and Northwest having emerged from bankruptcy only months earlier.
Their survival again threatened, Delta, Northwest and others began merger discussions.
For consumers, one or more mergers could result in more crowded planes. Jets are already flying fuller than ever before because the domestic fleet shrank after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. And airlines merging are now expected to ground more planes and cancel more flights.
But even the companies’ admirers expect over time that costs will be cut deeply. It is just not politic to say so. “Note that while it’s O.K. to downsize in other industries,” Daniel McKenzie, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said in a report in Feb, in airlines “a merger announcement accompanied by 1-2 hub closings and the layoff of thousands won’t get far, in our view.”
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Pardus Capital Management, an investment firm, estimated in November that a combination of Delta and Northwest could reduce costs by about $1.5 billion a year, in large part by combining hubs. Delta’s hub in Cincinnati is close to Northwest’s in Detroit. And Northwest’s hub in Memphis is close to Delta’s in Atlanta.
In announcing the merger, the two airlines said that they had no plans to close any hubs, and that the transaction would generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue and cost savings. The two airlines also expect to incur one-time cash costs to not exceed $1 billion to integrate.
The headquarters of the combined airline will be in Atlanta, with executive offices in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
“I would call this a defensive act,” said Fred Reid, who was the first chief executive of Virgin America, the start-up low-cost airline backed by British entrepreneur Richard Branson. Mr. Reid watched old-line carriers file protests with the Transportation Department, seeking, ultimately unsuccessfully, to stop Virgin.
And though he is a former chief operating officer at Delta, Mr. Reid believes that within six-to-eight years low-cost carriers will have captured more than half the domestic market in the United States and will then go after the international business.
“The legacy airlines tend to have high levels of dissatisfaction” among customers, he said.
Despite the agreement, it is not certain that the merger will ultimately be completed. Previous combinations — notably United and US Airways in 2000 — were abandoned in the face of antitrust scrutiny and opposition from unions.
James L. Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, opposed that 2000 merger and “is generally opposed to any further consolidation,” said a spokesman, James Berard. The House cannot technically block a merger, but it can hold hearings and encourage the Justice Department to scrutinize deals. |
The heat goes on: After a blitz by climate change skeptics, hard science vindicates their targets
Of late U.S. public opinion has turned very chilly for the vast majority of the world's climate scientists whose data demonstrates that human-generated emissions are heating the globe with potentially catastrophic results. Thanks to a confluence of events, some significant and others bogus, polls show Americans are increasingly confused about the reality of global warming.
After the election of President Barack Obama, the expectation was that the U.S. government would end the foot dragging of the George W. Bush administration and aggressively move to reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. While the Environmental Protection Agency did classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant and the House of Representatives passed an ambitious energy bill with cap-and-trade measures to reduce emissions, the bipartisan version in the Senate sponsored by John Kerry, D-Mass, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., faces tough sledding.
The Copenhagen climate summit that was supposed to design a global climate treaty to succeed Kyoto instead produced little more than platitudes about future action. The worldwide economic recession made the costs of combating global warming less acceptable to both industrialized nations and their developing counterparts.
In the midst of that gloomy outlook came a pair of highly publicized incidents that were used to cast doubt on the validity of climate change theory.
First, hackers raided the computer system at the climate research unit of Britain's East Anglia University and published thousands of scientists' private e-mails. Global warming skeptics portrayed the communications as proof that devious researchers were cooking data to support a global warming hoax. That charge was decisively rejected by a British government commission that examined the e-mails. Although it faulted the scientists for petty and sometimes vindictive comments about their detractors, the commission found no grounds to challenge the scientific consensus that global warming is happening and is caused by human activity.
In a second flap, global warming disbelievers seized on a single misstated claim in a 900-page report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that Himalayan glaciers will melt by the year 2035 as proof the massive body of science authenticating global warming was suspect. Although the evidence of retreating glaciers around the world is incontrovertible, a single error on a timeline was used to cast doubt on the U.N. panel's work. is cooling rather than heating up. Brushed aside was the fact that globally 2009 was the second warmest ever recorded, and the past decade was the warmest ever measured by man. An analysis compiled by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies projects that this year may be the hottest yet.
As writer Elizabeth Kolbert points out in the current issue of the New Yorker, “The message from scientists at this point couldn't be clearer: the world's emissions trajectory is extremely dangerous. Goofball weathermen, Climategate, conspiracy theories — these are all a distraction from what's really happening.”
For those of us living in hurricane-vulnerable areas, keep in mind this ominous measurement: Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic main development area for tropical storms last month were the warmest ever recorded for March, already reaching levels typical of late June. The conjunction of several climate patterns combined with ongoing overall warming of the world's oceans is thought to be the cause.
Despite all the spinning and hot air, the science is solid and global warming is a real, deadly serious concern. It's time to deal with it. |
The research is young and the tech has only been used experimentally on three patients, but neurologists at Stanford say they are officially able to eavesdrop on the human brain in real-life (not just clinical) situations. What's more, they say their new method of recording brain activity opens the door to devices that can not only read but also manipulate the mind.
Stanford University
"This is exciting, and a little scary," Henry Greely, steering committee chair of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics who observed but did not work on the study, said in a school news release. "It demonstrates, first, that we can see when someone's dealing with numbers and, second, that we may conceivably someday be able to manipulate the brain to affect how someone deals with numbers."
The researchers call their novel method intracranial recording, and they tested it on three patients who experience recurring, drug-resistant epileptic seizures and were being evaluated for possible surgical treatment. Unfortunately, the method requires temporarily removing a chunk of a patient's skull to position packets of electrodes against the exposed surface of the brain to measure the brain's electrical activity. They did this for as long as a week, capturing the patients' seizures to learn the exact spot where the seizures were originating.
The researchers were particularly interested in a region of the brain called the intraparietal sulcus, which is currently understood as playing a role in attention and eye and hand motion. Because previous studies have suggested that some nerve-cell clusters in this region are also involved in numerosity (i.e. math literacy) the researchers asked the patients to perform mathematical calculations and monitored the region when the patients were both performing those calculations and when they were engaging in quantitative thought in the course of daily life (concepts such as something being "more than" something else).
The volunteers were asked some questions that required calculation (i.e. is it true or false that 2+4=5?) and other questions that required episodic memory (i.e. is it true or false that you had coffee this morning?). They were also asked to stare at the center of a blank screen to capture the brain's baseline resting state.
Their novel brain-monitoring technique did involve volunteers being tethered to a monitoring apparatus and mostly confined to their beds, but had benefits over the other standard monitoring approach called fMRI -- where patients are stuck in a dark and intermittently noisy tubular chamber. In the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday, the researchers unveiled the first solid evidence that the pattern of brain activity is very similar when someone is performing a mathematical calculation and when they are engaging in more general quantitative thought.
"We're now able to eavesdrop on the brain in real life," Josef Parvizi, senior author of the study and associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences, said in the release. With fMRI, he added, "You're not in your room, having a cup of tea and experiencing life's events spontaneously." What they wanted to know, he said, is "how does a population of nerve cells that has been shown experimentally to be important in a particular function work in real life?"
While the findings may not seem like a giant step, it allowed the researchers to observe that electrical activity in a specific bundle of nerve cells spikes when a patient is engaged in a range of quantitative exercises, from actual math work to using terms such as "many" and "bigger than the other one" -- what Parvizi describes as both direct calculating and more oblique references to quantities.
"These nerve cells are not firing chaotically," he said. "They're very specialized, active only when the subject starts thinking about numbers. When the subject is reminiscing, laughing or talking, they're not activated." So by listening in on the brain's electrical chatter, the scientists were able to know whether a patient was engaged in quantitative thought.
While the researchers say these findings could ultimately lead to mind-reading applications -- be they of the therapeutic variety, such as helping a stroke victim communicate through passive thought, or of a more dystopian bent, such as chip implants that control one's thoughts -- they acknowledge that the research is incredibly young.
"If this is a baseball game, we're not even in the first inning," Parvizi said. "We just got a ticket to enter the stadium." |
Story highlights "The Speaker does not agree with this decision," Paul Ryan's spokesman says
Since the health care bill repealing Obamacare failed in the Senate, Trump has been blaming Ryan and McConnell for lack of action
Washington (CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan disagrees with President Donald Trump's decision Friday to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his spokesman said Saturday.
"The Speaker does not agree with this decision," spokesman Doug Andres said in a statement. "Law enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon."
Trump pardoned the former Arizona sheriff Friday night of his conviction last month on charges of criminal contempt for violating a court order in a racial-profiling case. Arpaio was scheduled to be sentenced in October.
Arpaio's lawyer, Jack Wilenchik, told CNN that Ryan was wrong about the pardon, "and this is why when politics tries to mix with the courts, it's very tough. But at the end of the day here, the President did the right thing, because there should have been a jury in this case. We should have had one from day one, and at this point the appeal — in fact the sheriff is an old man, can't forget that, he's 85 years old. And this would be a lot more money and wasted time all around. So I would have rather seen this go to jury in the first place, and get the right verdict. But at this point, we're dealing with a wrongful verdict."
Arpaio, a longtime Trump supporter, was sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona , until last year, when he lost his reelection bid to Democrat Paul Penzone. He thanked Trump in an interview with CNN affiliate KTVK and KPHO in Phoenix on Saturday.
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On May 24th PBS aired a Frontline documentary about alleged Wikileaker Bradley Manning called “WikiSecrets.” Billed as “The inside story of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and the largest intelligence breach in U.S. history” it focused exclusively on Manning’s struggles in the military as a data analyst and closeted homosexual who’d gained access and subsequently released tens of thousands of classified government documents. Omitting Manning’s stated motives or the content of the leaks, it put forth the “angry gay man” narrative that Bradley leaked the information primarily because he was frustrated by bullying and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military policy in place until September 20, 2011 that prohibited military personnel from disclosing or discussing homosexual relationships. As PBS told it, Manning was angry and wanted to exact vengeance on the establishment before going bonkers.
From the transcript:
Martin Smith, reporter: It was a vicious circle. Manning started getting into fights. At Fort Drum, he was reprimanded for tossing chairs and yelling at fellow soldiers. He was referred for counseling. But because of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Manning was unable to confide in his Army therapist. He sought counseling off base.
Jason Edwards, Manning’s friend: He called me from Fort Drum after some clashes between him and officers or other enlisted men. And mostly, it was just him crying over the phone to me.
MS: [on camera] Crying? Sobbing?
JE: Yeah. Very violently.
M S: And what would he be saying?
JE: A lot of it was intelligible. Mostly, it was, “Why?” He claimed that his superiors were stupid. And, “I can’t stay in this situation. I’m never going to get out.”
M S: [voice-over] His Army supervisor was concerned about sending Manning to Iraq, worried that he was a risk both to himself and others. But there was a shortage of qualified analysts. He was sent anyway.
This had been the dominant media narrative on Manning since his arrest the year before. The supporters he had were made up primarily of civil libertarians and the very liberal, people like Glenn Greenwald who already suspected the government and the military were committing atrocities overseas.
But in March, news reports came out about conditions at Quantico, the Marine base where he was being held. He was allegedly kept in isolation and made to stay awake 23 hours a day. Hillary Clinton’s spokesman P.J. Crowley, United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, condemned the treatment, and Barack Obama was forced to confront the issue by a growing body of Manning sympathizers.
In early July New York magazine published a profile of Manning to mixed reviews. While some panned author Steve Fishman for focusing too much on Manning’s private life and personal problems, Fishman also became the first mainstream journalist to shed light on the fact that Manning has continuously claimed to have leaked the information as an act of conscience. And even if he wasn’t entirely supportive of the massive risk Manning took to shed light on the activities of the US government, Fishman treated him like a whistleblower – albeit a non-traditional one. As he wrote:
Manning isn’t a classic whistle-blower. Disturbing information didn’t cross his desk, prodding him to act. Manning snooped…He’d started leaking as a way to protest the conduct of the war…. But soon he embraced a broader principle: Open the drawers. “information should be free,” he [told friends].
Manning profile was a breath of fresh air into the public discourse on Bradley Manning and Wikileaks. New information brought to the court of public opinion will help shed light on the circumstances that led to Manning’s actions.
Fishman, to be sure, did discuss Manning’s personal issues. He even reported that Manning had been consulting counselors about a sex change; hitherto unknown information Fishman discovered. But Fishman didn’t insinuate that personal demons and homophobic bullies drove Manning mad to the point of leaking the documents. In addition to alluding to an incident that Manning said led him to reach out to WikiLeaks – when U.S. forces handed peaceful political dissidents over to Iraqi security forces who were known to torture detainees – Fishman mentioned that Manning was troubled by an incident in which his data analysis led to the death of people in Basra. Fishman pointed out that Manning was motivated, at least in part, by an ethical imperative. In doing so, he succeeded where CNN, PBS and even The Guardian have largely failed. As Fishman wrote:
[Manning] told the counselor about a targeting mission gone bad in Basra. “Two groups of locals were converging in this one area. Manning was trying to figure out why they were meeting,” the counselor told me. On Manning’s information, the Army moved swiftly, dispatching a unit to hunt them down. Manning had thought all went well, until a superior explained the outcome. “Ultimately, some guy loosely connected to the group got killed,” the counselor said. To the counselor, it was clear: Manning felt that there was blood on his hands. “He was very, very distressed.”
Fishman also noted that it wasn’t just that Manning felt like he was a part of something detrimental. Manning decided to do things his own way because complaints he made about possible war crimes were ignored. When Manning complained to his superiors, they ignored the solider and told him to get back to work. And although Fishman failed to elaborate on the issue, in a chat log with Adrian Lamo (the man who turned Manning in) Manning said that a superior ordered him to find more detainees – peaceful dissidents or otherwise – to round up on behalf of Iraqi Security forces, when he lodged a protest over the aforementioned incident.
According to Manning, not only have soldiers in Iraq been systematically ordered to commit crimes, but traditional avenues of dissent have been systematically stifled; an issue described by Fishman in his Manning profile. For example, Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers on the scene of the “Collateral Murder” incident leaked by Manning, claimed he was told by superiors “to get the sand out of my vagina” after he showed signs of distress and hinted that he wanted to complain about criminal atrocities he was ordered to commit.
Manning’s sexuality isn’t entirely irrelevant to the story – being a gay man in a homophobic environment probably heightened Manning’s sensitivity to injustice. As Fishman wrote:
In Iraq, the torments Manning suffered at the hands of his fellow soldiers, his loneliness and concern over his gender, and the hours and hours he would spend in the airless intel office watching the brutal inner workings of the war bore down on him. He was unmoored in a way he hadn’t been before: angrier, less afraid, more certain of what was good and what was evil, and more compelled to act on this dawning righteousness.
Thus, Fishman did pay mind to Manning’s political motives.
And he noted that it wasn’t just evidence of probable war crimes that moved Manning to act. Fishman, quoting Manning at length from the transcript of his online chat with Lamo, revealed to New York’s readers that Manning was perturbed by Uncle Sam’s pernicious activities beyond Iraq.
“[I]f you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time,” Manning, as quoted from his chat with Lamo, said, “say, 8-9 months … and you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … what would you do?”
While Fishman’s piece itself is unlikely to lead to any sudden change of heart on the government’s behalf, his article has revitalized the discussion. In its wake, Chase Madar released a widely published op-ed entitled “4 Reasons Bradley Manning Deserves the Medal of Freedom”. Politico, too, recently released an article – albeit one that involved a FOIA and was in the works for months – about an internal investigation by the Marines that revealed the decision to place Manning on suicide watch was politically motivated. And shortly after Fishman’s piece, Wired released an almost entirely unredacted version of the Manning-Lamo chat logs, which affords the public even more insight into Manning’s mindset, and reveals how he approached Wikileaks with the material.
But even if new information in the volley of articles that succeeded the Fishman piece haven’t influenced Manning’s case- it was clearly intended to foster a more mature discussion of the matter. This could end the harsh punitive treatment of Manning; punishment designed to frighten whistleblowers and strengthen the government’s cloak of secrecy.
That seemed, in any case, to be what happened to Thomas Drake. Drake, a former NSA official was charged with espionage for blowing the whistle on an inefficient, ineffective and borderline totalitarian data collection scheme. While his case had been highlighted by civil libertarians, transparency advocates and news sources of lesser prominence for years, charges against him were drastically scaled down only after The New Yorker and “60 Minutes” ran sympathetic pieces hailing his revelations as a service to the country. There were other factors that led the government to drop the charges to be sure but high profile reportage helped draw attention to Drake’s heroism, as Jesselyn Raddack of Government Accountability Project (an NGO that represented Drake) told reporters after Drake’s victory:
“This is awkward because it involves you guys,” she was quoted by Politico as saying. “The almost universally favorable media attention … has played a role.”
And while Manning might lack the years of service and the Patriotic pedigree of Drake, everyone – lowly army privates withstanding – might benefit from such a discussion. If the public learns more about Manning – why he (allegedly) leaked the info, and how he is being treated – it is more likely that fair treatment for the former solider will be forthcoming. And not only will those interested in preserving a murky framework for the government to do as it pleases be less capable of denying Manning his rights by painting him as a bomb-throwing Benedict Arnold, but it will be less able to act recklessly with impunity. |
China Pakistan Economic Corridor +
critics, particularly in Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan +
NEW DELHI: China’s longterm plans for Pakistan would do the East India Company proud. Proposals for therevealed in Pakistani newspaper Dawn envisage thousands of acres of agricultural land being leased to Chinese enterprises to set up demonstration projects and a fibre-optic system that will facilitate the dissemination of Chinese culture.The proposals seem to confirm that Pakistan will become an economic colony of China as CPEC will help Beijing tighten its strategic embrace of its ally and provide it connectivity from Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea at Gwadar in Balochistan The range and scope of the plan is breathtaking, showing a deep penetration into Pakistan’s economic life. This could have several implications for India – Pakistan’s sovereignty could be forfeited to Chinese interests and China would be uncomfortably close to India’s borders in the east and west.It would be a virtual ring-fence of India.Thousands of acres of Pakistani agricultural land will be leased to Chinese enterprises, according to proposals for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).The land will be leased for projects ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology. A full system of monitoring and surveillance will be built from Peshawar to Karachi, with 24-hour video recordings on roads and busy marketplaces for law and order.A national fibre optic backbone will be used not only for internet traffic but also terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in popularising China’s culture.The Pakistani government has argued that CPEC will spur the economy and its linkages with agriculture and power will benefit citizens. Its, feel it is an infringement on their land and culture.Others have pointed to strings attached to Chinese aid. It was noted that the “CM” of Gilgit Baltistan was not involved in the One Belt, One Road discussions in Beijing attended by PM Nawaz Sharif.The Dawn report said, “The plan envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistan’s economy as well as its society by Chinese enterprises and culture. Its scope has no precedent in Pakistan’s history in terms of how far it opens up the domestic economy to participation by foreign enterprises.”The report concluded, “In the areas of interest contained in the plan, it appears access to the full supply chain of the agrarian economy is a top priority for the Chinese.After that, the capacity of the textile spinning sector to serve the raw material needs of Xinjiang, and the garment and value added sector to absorb Chinese technology is another priority.Next is the growing domestic market, particularly in cement and household appliances, which receive detailed treatment in the plan.And lastly, through greater financial integration, the plan seeks to advance the internationalisation of the renminbi, as well as diversify the risks faced by Chinese enterprises entering Pakistan.”Laying out the risks, it said the topmost problem was politics and security. The next big risk was inflation, which the plan said had averaged 11.6% over the past six years. |
Only during New York Fashion Week do five-ten models appear to grow on trees. They’re from all over the world, but they’re in Manhattan to show off their grace and precision in hopes of becoming the next great Supermodel.
Dan Nguyen A model walks during a go see at Andrew Weir's casting call session for Fashion Week, on Sept. 1, 2012 in New York City.
“Take a walk, babe.”
On casting director Andrew Weir’s command, an impossibly tall, incredibly thin, beautiful blonde woman does an about face and begins striding to the other end of the room. When she reaches a stool placed about half way she pauses, turns around and struts back. The look on her face is all business, like she’s never found anything funny in her life.
When she reaches the table where Weir is sitting, she pauses again, holding the steely-eyed look for half a second, then suddenly her expression melts into a genuine smile. “Where are you from?” Weir asks her. Germany, she replies, and for 30 seconds they chat about cities they love in Deutschland. “Thank you so much,” Weir says kindly, and as she walks away, he jots some notes on a card just as the next model strolls up to the table.
(VIDEO: Top 10 Models Falling Down)
It’s five days before New York Fashion Week, and Weir is spending one of his precious preparation days, in its entirety, holding a giant casting session. Over more than six hours, Weir sees roughly 400 models, some of whom will be cast in the upcoming shows by Thakoon Panichgul and Jen Kao. Weir’s team has transformed Mister H, a swanky bar attached to the Mondrian Soho hotel in New York City, into a studio. There is a backdrop for headshots and two photographers working simultaneously to document the action.
Dan Nguyen
At the far end of the room, Weir sits at a long table with three of his assistants. He’s dressed in black jeans, boots and a Batman hoodie, which is necessary because the air conditioner is on full blast. The A/C itself is a necessity, not only because it’s nearly 90 degrees outside, but because Weir’s team has set up blinding lights that illuminate the space in front of the bar, which today serves as a makeshift runway.
For most of the models it’s a quick process. After getting a headshot taken behind the bar, they line up on couches, waiting their turn to be seen. For most of the afternoon, no one comes to tell them they’re next; they wait patiently and hop up one by one like they’ve been through this process a million times.
(MORE: Michelle Obama’s Fashion: On Message)
One by one they approach the table; one by one they walk to the end of the room; and one by one, sometimes after a few quick questions, Weir thanks them for coming. He asks each model where she is from: California, Florida, Georgia and Michigan; the Netherlands, Russia, Jamaica and more than a couple from Brazil. Some are dressed in skinny jeans, others in cut off jean shorts that make Daisy Dukes look like pantaloons. So many models are wearing leather shorts that Weir predicts that they’ll be a fashion trend in the coming year. He watches intently, and he seems to know exactly what he is looking for. After jotting a few notes on one of his cards, he either circles the names of the designers whose shows the model might fit, or he circles the word “No.” But regardless of what he writes on the page, Weir is unfailingly polite, complimenting each of the models and thanking them for coming in. “We try to be aware of the power of our words,” he says. “These girls are so young.”
Indeed, the veterans among the models are about 18. When Weir asks them which shows they’ve done, some rattle off a list of designers and cities that could fill an entire page. Others seem to have genuinely forgotten. When one of the models explains that in high school none of the boys wanted to date her because she was so tall, Weir asks how old she is. Sixteen, she replies, but the way she describes high school in Colorado, it sounds like a distant memory. Before thanking her for coming in, Weir asks if her mother or a chaperone is here. Even though we’re in one of the chicest neighborhoods in Manhattan, he doesn’t want a 16-year-old wandering the streets by herself.
While most of the models get the standard treatment, Weir asks every tenth one or so to walk again, only this time faster and with longer strides. When I ask if that’s to correct something in their walk, he shakes his head. “To really get a sense of what they’re capable of, I have them walk faster and take bigger steps,” he explains. “It changes their energy. When they’re walking faster and turn around, they give a more intense look.”
(MORE: Marissa Mayer’s Executive Style)
Second to that look, it seems, the walk is the model’s most important skill. For the ones who do it well, it’s a combination of precision and grace, placing each foot forward, swinging the arms back and forth to create a gentle swaying of the hips. The turn around, like an about face in a military parade, appears to be the most challenging part. Each model has her own technique: some shift their heels to the side and step around where they stood a micro second before; others move the left foot slightly behind the right and complete the turn before the watcher has time to realize what she’s done.
That back step technique appears to have the highest degree of difficulty and the biggest payoff, because each of the three times I saw it, Weir leaned over to me excitedly and said, “Watch this. This is a Supermodel.” He told me to concentrate on the walk, the glide, pause, turn, glide, pause. At first it was hard to see exactly what separated these few gorgeous women from the room full of other gorgeous women until it hit me: they were executing movements with a precision usually seen in military parades. They did all of this under blinding, blazing lights wearing four-inch stiletto heels. But the great ones made it look effortless, appearing to expend no more energy than sitting on a couch. “That in the human race doesn’t happen very often,” Weir tells me after one of the supermodels exits the stage.
Out of the 400 or so models Weir will see that day, there are three he will proclaim to embody that perfection, destined for stardom. And while he’s noticing the subtle, nearly invisible differences between those women and the dozens of others, he’s sorting them into who will work best for the aesthetics of each show. I ask him how his time behind the camera prepared him for this job. “It sharpens my view,” he says. “Twenty years looking through the lens and 15 years in casting” allows him to see the details while keeping the bigger picture in mind.
When I ask why he’s taking an entire day to see hundreds of models when he might only recommend a few dozen for the week’s shows, he says it’s necessary because there are new, talented faces all the time. “Now that the world’s wide open, there’s more girls to see than ever before,” he says. “Scouts are looking for girls from every part of the planet.”
After the stroll under the hot lights, the models change out of their astronomical heels and into sneakers or flip flops, gather their things and head out into the late summer day. Out of their stilettos, they’re still tall and thin and beautiful. But with flat soles beneath their feet, they appear much more normal. It is trait that will benefit them as they traverse the cracked sidewalks and packed streets of New York until they put on the heels yet again at the next of many casting calls—or, if they’re lucky, on the runways of New York Fashion Week.
MORE: A Fashionable Fit |
The PowerColor PCS+ HD7950 has factory overclocked setting at 880MHz core and 1250MHz memory speed, with dual 92mm ultra huge fan and 3 units 8mm large heat pipes design, easily dissipating the heat from pure cooper base which fully covers the GPU, providing 15% lower temperature and 20% quieter noise level.
Enjoy the optimized HD gaming and compute with the world’s first 28nm GPU architecture. The latest PCI Express 3.0 support offers double bandwidth of previous generation. The HD7950 series takes advantage of AMD PowerTune technology, maximizing performance by dynamically increasing GPU engine clock, enabling higher clock speeds when it needed; also, with the latest AMD Eyefinity 2.0 technology and HD3D technology, gamers can get a lifelike gaming experience through the 16k x 16k maximum display group resolution. Furthermore, with the support of AMD APP Acceleration, the latest HD7950 series can offload computing from CPU to GPU, speeding up the daily applications and increasing the efficiency. |
Armored Corps instructor course, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Infantry instructor course, 2000 (Photo: Abir Sultan/IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Armored Corp instructor, 1993 (Photo: Michael Chai/Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters reading a map during training, January 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Hike to receive supplies parachuted from a plane, 1954 (Photo: Assaf Kutin, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Hike to receive supplies parachuted from a plane, 1954 (Photo: Assaf Kutin, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Hike to receive supplies parachuted from a plane, 1954 (Photo: Assaf Kutin, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Hike to receive supplies parachuted from a plane, 1954 (Photo: Assaf Kutin, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Rabin comes for a visit, 1959 (Photo: Assaf Kutin, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Soldier carries a rifle with a sniper scope, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighter hurls a grenade during infantry commanders course, 2000 (Photo: Abir Sultan, IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Infantry commanders course, 2000 (Photo: Abir Sultan, IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters during pushups during training, 2000 Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters training, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters training with an Uzi, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters training, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters training, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters training, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Fighters training, 2000 (Photo: IDF Spokesman, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
An Armored Corps instructor directing an APC, 1993 (Photo: Michael Chai, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive)
Anti-tank instructors practicing the firing of Tau missiles (Photo: Eran-Yofi Cohen, Bamahane, courtesy of the IDF Archive) |
The new Bonsai Book for 2019 by Harry Harrington
Bonsai Books· Bonsai Tools· Bonsai For Sale· Carving Tools· Bonsai Pots· Bonsai T-Shirts
Page 1 of 2:
The final chapter of my second book 'Bonsai Inspirations 2' details the styling of a large San Jose Juniper bonsai that I styled during the Autumn of 2011. Originally a semi-cascade bonsai, the planting position of the tree was altered to an upright position, the deadwood reworked and the foliage wired and laid-out.
As a first styling, it was something of a disappointment not to be able to push the tree further in terms of refinement. However, the health, and indeed the survival, of the tree was of utmost importance and as a result, the foliage was not refined as aggressively as I would have liked and some awkward surface roots were left to be addressed in the future.
After finishing the styling of the Juniper bonsai in late Autumn 2011, the tree was returned to its owner and was eventually sold on to another bonsai enthusiast.
Just a year later, and to my great pleasure, I was contacted by the new owner of the tree who asked me to refine the tree again. The tree had been left to grow freely for the year which as a result had become terribly out of shape. However, all this free growth had also greatly invigorated it and I knew immediately that I would be able to push the development of the bonsai much further.
I feel the image above is a great example of why it is wrong for some enthusiasts to hold the belief that acquiring ready-styled bonsai is an easy route to owning a good-quality bonsai collection. Whatever the pedigree of material an enthusiast collects, be it in the form of 'finished' bonsai or raw material, if a bonsai is not regularly maintained, the bonsai can rapidly become unruly and unrefined. A well-presented bonsai is always the result of skilled and meticulous care, however the tree was acquired.
With the density of the foliage having greatly increased over the previous year, I began the restyling by removing some now-redundant branches that had been used previously to help bulk up the foliage mass. A low branch was removed from behind the trunk as was the foliage from a dropping branch at the top of the trunk (this was partially retained to be turned into jin)
At the same time as working on the foliage mass of the tree, I also worked on some ugly surface roots. During the initial styling of the bonsai I had decided that it is was too risky to remove or jin these roots as the tree might be too reliant on them at that time. However, with a year having passed I was able to firmly establish that the roots were barely supporting the tree, if at all, and I was able to work on them.
(As described in detail in 'Bonsai Inspirations 2') I thinned out the foliage mass prior to wiring the branches by removing all runts and hotheads to create small sprays of foliage which could then be wired.
Partway through the time-consuming process of wiring and laying-out the foliage
The foliage mass of the Juniper bonsai, seen from above, after the styling was completed; each and every bundle of foliage wired and carefully placed.
The deadwood at the base of the tree, including the newly jinned surface roots, freshly whitened with lime-sulphur
>>Page 2 of 2: Restyling A San Jose Juniper Bonsai |
A bitcoin-focused pyramid scheme may have targeted Buddhist meditation practitioners in Thailand, according to a local news outlet.
In a report from English-language media source The Nation, members of a Buddhist temple in the town of Uttaradit were said to have been approached with offers to invest in bitcoin. The temple-goers were allegedly promised handsome profits if they invested “at least 38,000 baht” (an amount worth roughly $1,100 at press time), including a doubling of that return if they attracted other investors.
A representative of the group filed a report with Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI), prompting the first stages of an investigation over concerns it might be a pyramid scheme, in which early investors are paid out with the proceeds from new ones.
As many as 800 practitioners from Uttaradit, Pathum Thani and Chiang Mai have contributed to the fund, the report said. While no one from the group has confirmed any loss so far, the DSI said the promise was “too good to be true” and that it will investigate to “check whether the operation is illegal”.
The case is not the first possible digital currency-based scam to emerge in Thailand. In 2015, police launched an investigation into a scheme called UFUN that also attracted investors with promises of high returns.
Buddha statues image via Shutterstock |
LGBT activists are continuing their demand for immigrant trans rights this week in protest to a lack of governmental response with the hashtag #Breakthecage. The hashtag is a call for reform in detention practices by the United States organized by United We Dream, The Trans Women of Color Collective, Immigration Equality, Casa Ruby, the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
There are currently 11.4 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., with 267,000 of those identified as LGBTQ according to the organization’s Facebook event. Throughout the world, numerous countries still outlaw acts of homosexuality, creating a huge push for immigration to countries that do not. Fleeing one state only to be detained or, even worse, deported from another has the potential for incredibly harmful results. LGBTQIA individuals continue to be 13 times more likely to be targets of sexual assault, are held in solitary confinement, and inaccurately processed with the gender they self identify as.
On July 30, the collective gathered in Washington D.C. to stage a “die-in”, a smart and poignant take on the “sit-in”. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced on June 29 the Transgender Care Memorandum as a response to the initial protests. Shortly after, United We Dream released a press release calling out ICE for failing to effectively and meaningfully take trans immigrant issues into consideration.
The memorandum named three points they would focus on reorganizing, which include updating data take-in to better document gender identity, better training for officers to identify gender earlier on, and the creation of a Transgender Care Classification Committee. These may be steps in the right direct, but they fail to systematically self-asses a program that continues to violate human rights for the LGBTQIA community.
#Breakthecage is also emerging as an example of young activism- United We Dream is an advocacy group for and by immigrant youth, along with the other organizations involved in the movement. Social media, especially Twitter and Facebook, have been their biggest advantages. As the “die-in” progressed, up-to-date information on the protest and alleged arrests were shared through these networks.
If you’d like to support #breakthecage, you can sign their petition here.
Image via Steven Depolo.
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Lazy enumeration isn’t magic;
it’s just a matter of hard work
Ruby 2.0’s new lazy enumerator feature seems like magic. In case you haven’t tried it yet, it allows you to iterate over an infinite series of values and take just the values you want. It brings the functional programming concept of lazy evaluation to Ruby – at least for enumerations.
For example, in Ruby 1.9 and earlier you would run into an endless loop if you tried to iterate over an infinite range:
Here the call to collect starts an endless loop; the call to first never happens. However, if you upgrade to Ruby 2.0 and use the new Enumerable#lazy method, you can avoid the endless loop and get just the values you need:
But how does lazy evaluation actually work? How does Ruby know I only want ten values, in this example? All I have to do is make the simple call to the lazy method and it just works.
It seems like magic, but actually it’s just a matter of hard work. A lot happens inside of Ruby when you call lazy. To give you just the values you need, Ruby automatically creates and uses many different types of internal Ruby objects. Like heavy equipment at a work site, these objects work together to process the input values from my infinite range in just the right way. What are these objects? What do they do? How do they work together? Let’s find out!
The Enumerable module: many different ways of calling “each”
When I call collect on the range above I’m using Ruby’s Enumerable module. As you probably know, this module contains a series of methods, such as select, detect, any? and many more, that process lists of values in different ways. Internally, all of these methods work by calling each on the target object or receiver:
You can think of the Enumerable methods as a series of different types of machines that operate on data in different ways, all via the each method:
Enumerable is eager
Many of the Enumerable methods, including collect, return an array of values. Since the Array class also includes the Enumerable module and responds to each, you can chain different Enumerable methods together easily:
In my code example above, the Enumerable#first method calls each on the result of Enumerable#collect, an array which was generated in turn by another call to each on the input range.
One important detail to notice here is that both Enumerable#collect and Enumerable#first are eager: this means that they process all of the values returned by each before returning the new array value. So in my example, first collect processes all the values from the range and saves the results into the first array. Then in a second step first processes all the values from the first array, placing the results into the second array:
This is what leads to the endless loop for an infinite range; since Range#each will never stop returning values, Enumerable#collect will never finish, and Enumerable#first will never get a chance to stop the iteration.
The Enumerator object: deferred enumeration
One interesting trick you can use with the Enumerable module’s methods is to call them without providing a block. For example, suppose I call collect on my range, but I don’t provide a block:
Here Ruby has prepared an object you can use later to actually enumerate over the range, called an “Enumerator.” As you can see from the inspect string, Ruby has saved a reference to the receiver (1..10) along with the name of the enumerable method I want to use (collect) inside the enumerator object.
Later when I want to actually iterate through the range and collect the values in an array, I can just call each on the enumerator:
There are a few other ways of using enumerators, such as calling next repeatedly, which I don’t have time to discuss today.
Enumerator::Generator – generating new values for enumeration
In my previous examples I used a Range object to produce a series of values. However, the Enumerator class provides another more flexible way of generating a series of values using a block. Here’s an example:
Let’s take a look at what sort of enumerator this is:
As you can see, Ruby has created a new enumerator object that contains a reference to an internal object called Enumerator::Generator, and has setup to call the each method on that generator. Internally, the generator object converts the block I provided above into a Proc object and saves it away:
Now when I use the Enumerator object, Ruby will call the Proc saved inside the generator to get the values for the enumeration:
In other words, the Enumerator::Generator object is a source of data for an enumeration – it “generates” the values and passes them along.
Enumerator::Yielder – allowing one block to yield to another
If you take a close look at the code above, there’s something strange about it. I first created the Enumerator object using a block:
…which yields values to a second block I provide later when I call each:
In other words, the enumerator somehow allows you to yield values directly from one block to another:
But of course this isn’t how Ruby works. Blocks can’t pass values directly to each other like this. The trick to making this work is another internal object called the Enumerator::Yielder object, passed into the block with the y block parameter:
The y parameter is very easy to miss here. But if you re-read the block’s code, you’ll notice I’m not actually yielding values at all, I’m simply calling the yield method on the y object, which is an instance of the built in Enumerator::Yielder class. You can see and use this class for yourself in IRB as follows:
The yielder catches values I want the enumerator to generate, using the yield method, and then later actually yields them to the target block. As a Ruby developer, aside from calling yield I don’t normally ever need to interact with the generator or the yielder; they are used internally by the enumerator. When I call each on the enumerator, it uses these two objects to generate and yield the values I want:
Enumerators generate data; Enumerable methods consume it
Stepping back for a moment, the pattern we’ve seen so far with enumerations in Ruby is:
Enumerator objects produce data.
Enumerable methods consume data.
From right to left, the enumerable method calls each to request data; later from left to right the enumerator object provides the data by yielding it to a block.
Enumerator::Lazy – putting it all together
Ruby 2.0 implements lazy evaluation using an object called Enumerator::Lazy. What makes this special is that it plays both roles! It is an enumerator, and also contains a series of Enumerable methods. It calls each to obtain data from an enumeration source, and it yields data to the rest of an enumeration:
Since Enumerator::Lazy plays both roles, you can chain them up together to produce a single enumeration. This is what happens in my infinite range example:
The call to lazy produces one Enumerator::Lazy object. Then when I call collect on this first object, the Enumerator::Lazy#collect method returns a second one:
You can see here that the second Enumerator::Lazy, created by the call to Enumerator::Lazy#collect, also calls my block, the x*x code.
How does all of this work? How does Enumerator::Lazy do all of this? To serve both as a data producer and consumer, Enumerator::Lazy uses generator and yielder objects in a special way. The generator first calls each to obtain data, and then it passes each value it obtains immediately into a special block:
Let’s take a closer look at the block from the diagram – this block implements the Enumerator::Lazy#collect method. (The other lazy enumeration methods use slightly different blocks.) Ruby implements it internally using C code, but this is the equivalent Ruby code:
Reading the code, we can see the block takes a yielder and a value. Then it yields the value to another block – this is actually the block I provide to Enumerator::Lazy#collect or x*x in my example. Then the Enumerator::Lazy#collect block calls the yielder, passing the result of my block onto the rest of the enumeration.
This is the key to lazy evaluation in Ruby. Each value from the data source is yielded to my block, and then the result is immediately passed along down the enumeration chain. This enumeration is not eager – the Enumerator::Lazy#collect method does not collect the values into an array. Instead, each value is passed one at a time along the chain of Enumerator::Lazy objects, via repeated yields. If I had chained together a series of calls to collect or other Enumerator::Lazy methods, each value would be passed along the chain from one of my blocks to the next, one at a time:
Lazy evaluation: executing code backwards
Why is this chain lazy evaluation? Why does this allow Ruby to avoid an endless loop and provide me with just the values I need? The answer is that the code at the end of the enumeration chain, in my example the first(10) method call, controls how long the enumeration runs:
At the end of the enumeration chain the values are yielded to the Enumerable#first method:
After the Enumerable#first method receives enough values, 10 in my example, it stops the iteration by raising an exception.
In other words, the code at the right side of my enumeration chain, the code at the end, actually controls the execution flow. The Enumerable#first both starts the iteration by calling each on the lazy enumerators, and ends the iteration by raising an exception when it has enough values.
At the end of the day, this is the key idea behind lazy evaluation: the function or method at the end of a calculation chain starts the execution process, and the program’s flow works backwards through the chain of function calls until it obtains just the data inputs it needs. Ruby achieves this using a chain of Enumerator::Lazy objects, as we’ve seen above. However, functional languages such as Haskell implement this in a deeper, more fundamental way, that encompasses all execution and not just enumeration. |
There’s an old saying among lawyers, in many variations, but all are similar to this:
“If you have the facts, pound home the facts. If you have the law, pound home the law. If you have neither, pound on the table.”
For photography, I would assume it would go something like this:
“If you have the technology, pound home the technology. If you have better images, pound home the images. If you have neither, blow smoke up their . . . . “
Because most companies apparently use the third option for most of their marketing, I am left to assume none of them are comfortable that their technology or images are significantly better than the competition’s.
You may wonder why I care. There’s a pretty simple reason: I’m a gear head. I want facts. Marketing drivel makes it even harder to find the little bit of factual information that the manufacturers grudgingly release. It gets lost in all the meaningless marketing noise.
I spent as much time as I could stand wandering through the various advertisements and web pages of a few camera companies, finding some gems to nominate for “awfulness” awards.
I planned on calling them The Innovative, Groundbreaking, World-Class, Next-Generation, State-of-the-Art, Fastest, Revolutionary, Feature-Rich, Bad Photography Marketing Awards, since those seem to be the most overused catch phrases.
Unfortunately that already wouldn’t fit on our blog page. I thought of calling them The Rogers, kind of like the Oscars, but then found out I was nominated for one. If I won, it would seem kind of fixed with Roger winning a Roger. So Bad Marketing Awards it is.
Voting is simple: just go to this Survey Monkey, place your vote for each nominee, and we’ll tally them up after a couple of weeks and announce the winners.
Why just a couple of weeks? Because I’ll bet right now that half these award nominees quietly disappear from those websites pretty soon. If they do, I will rest easy knowing I’ve finally made a real contribution to photography.
This is by no means a complete list. But after a few hours of reading what passes for copy at most photography websites, I felt my IQ dropping, and I was starting to talk in worn-out catch phrases.
When I told my wife her new dress was feature-rich yet had an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, my internet connection got unplugged. So please feel free to add your own nominee as a comment. (If this gets anything like the Hammerforum.com post, the comments will be far more entertaining than the blog post.)
The Category Nominees
1) The Count von Count Award
The nominees are:
Nikon for the D800: “36.3 MP means true 1080p HD cinematic quality video.” Let’s see, HD video is 1920 X 1080 pixels which equals 2.1 megapixels. I’m thinking pretty much everybody has 2.1 megapixels.
Olympus for the OM-D E-M5: “The E-M5 is equipped with the world’s first 5-axis image stabilization system, and can compensate for vertical, horizontal, and rotational camera shake.” OK, vertical is one . . .
Olympus for the M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 75-300mm f4.8-6.7: “[It] is the world’s smallest and lightest 600mm super telephoto lens.” Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m really pretty insulted you thought I needed you to point that out to me. Not to mention it’s always been my dream to handhold 600mm at f/6.7.
2) The Doublespeak Award (AKA the “It’s a Feature” Award)
To qualify as doublespeak, the phrase must “deliberately disguise, distort, or reverse the meaning in order to deceive.”
The number of nominees in this category was simply staggering. This, of course, is the equivalent to “Best Actor” and “Best Director” wrapped up in one for marketing copywriters. I did my best to pick a true winner, but my brain became numb.
First up is Canon for the EF-S 17-85mm: “The EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM is a perfect example of this technology.” I’ve shot extensively with that lens. It’s a perfect example of no technology, unless you consider compromised quality to be a technology.
Second nominee is again Canon for the PowerShot s100: “[…] high-sensitivity 12.1 Megapixel 1/1.7-type CMOS sensor.” It may be highly sensitive to something but obviously not pixels. Unless they wrote this back in 2007 for some other camera and just copy-pasted it.
Third we have Panasonic for the G5:
“The LUMIX G5 offers users simple operation controls with minimal stress, so users can concentrate on shooting. A newly added function lever conveniently located near the shutter release allows for direct adjustment of zoom, exposure or aperture control and can be used to magnify images in playback mode and page flip in menu mode.”
Yes, I want a lever capable of changing exposure and aperture control right under my shutter-button finger. How convenient is that??
3) The “Just Zip It” Award
These aren’t quite doublespeak because they don’t disguise or distort. They don’t make the “Say Whhaaat?” category because you can understand what they’re trying to say–you just can’t believe they tried to say it.
Olympus for the OM-D E-M5: “6:6 [aspect ratio] that emulates the medium format look.” We probably have a clear winner here–because we all get micro 4/3 cameras so we can emulate that medium format look.
Olympus for the M. Zuiko Digital ED 12mm f2.0: “It is great for tracking a moving child or pet.” I’d use a GPS device myself. Even then I’m not sure why 12mm would be particularly good for photographing a moving child or pet.
Nikon for the D800: “DX crop mode to maximize […] angle of view[…]” You forgot “and nuke image quality” or “if you don’t have Photoshop.” Or lots of things like that.
Lensrentals.com for the Nikon 85mm f/1.4 G: “They say the main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. I’m so jolly because I know where all the good lenses live.” What can I say? It’s a gift. And no, I didn’t nominate myself for my own award. The staff insisted via early write-in ballots.
Sigma for the 300-800mm lens: “A perfect lens for surveillance use, its stealth black finish is unobtrusive and easily concealed.” OK, exactly how do I easily conceal this 3-foot long, 13-pound lens? Or is unobtrusive the same as incredibly huge?
4) The Daytime Drama Dialogue Award
To be nominated in this category, the copy had to 1) make me distinctly nauseous and 2) make me think “you have absolutely no facts worth using, do you?”
The first nomination goes to Nikon (or maybe Ashton) for the J1: “Your zest for life is fueled by a desire to communicate all that you experience. Share the very incredible world that is yours with Nikon 1.” I almost hurled again just pasting it in here. I apologize to myself for putting this on my own blog page. I think the complete text should read “share the very incredible world that is yours with both of your Facebook friends.”
The second nomination is Olympus for the OM-D E-M5: “When shooting, the photographer can instantly ‘create’ a truly unique world and preserve it in exceptional quality. The ‘world’ will be transformed from something you see to something you ‘take part’ in.” This one also receives a special nomination for most use of quotation marks in a single sentence.
And back to Nikon for the V1: “Nikon 1 V1 for your pursuit to express every moment of life. Your photography sparks conversations—the Nikon 1 V1 helps you interpret all. Set your creative freedom free with an imaging system designed for today and tomorrow.” You think there’s any chance the same person wrote copy for both the J1 and V1? Just maybe?
Finally, with all due modesty, I must nominate Lensrentals.com for the Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS II: “When the lens mount hits your camera and you raise the two in unison to your face, sparks will fly and the stars will align. You’ll find yourself in the land of Phototopia, full of razor-sharp images.” It may not have the widespread exposure of the other nominees, but like an Indie film nominated for an Oscar, the critics will all love this one.
5) The “Say Whhaaat?” Award
These were, I think, attempts to get into the doublespeak category but were so bizarre I’m not even certain what they meant to say.
Canon for the G12: “[…] 720p HD Video with stereo sound to get crystal clear footage.” The last time I heard footage was . . . well, it was a really long time ago and some magic mushrooms were involved. Thinking back though, maybe I saw music. I’m not sure. Looks like some Canon copywriters are expanding their consciousness.
Sigma for the 150-500mm: “[…] allows photographers to freely explore the flexibility of a telephoto zoom lens.” This almost made the Daytime Drama awards and probably would have if they’d gone on just a bit longer. But I remain rather puzzled about the concept of freely exploring lenses. If I want to explore a lens, I take it apart. Otherwise I take pictures with it.
Panasonic for the G5:
“Touch screen operation on the LCD screen allows for simple shooting or playback of images and the new Touch Pad function enables the use of both LVF and LCD simultaneously, which encourages more intuitive shooting.”
I’m truly, truly trying to understand what this means. Especially how using both LVF and LCD simultaneously can encourage me to be intuitive. This was a near nominee in the Grammar Checker category also.
6) The “You’re Letting the Intern Write Copy, Aren’t You?” Award
The first nominee is Panasonic for this doozy of a sentence:
“When used with the LUMIX G5, the full line of high-grade lens combines with its precision AF (Auto Focus) to achieve high resolutions, with an optimal balance of resolution and noise reduction to produce lifelike image rendering and high precision auto exposure and white balance for faithful color reproduction.”
By the way, Panasonic, does that mean that the full line of high-grade lenses doesn’t do any of that stuff on my GH-2? And also, by the way, where do we divide the high-grade lenses from the low-grade lenses? I mean, if you’ve got some high-grade ones, you must have some low-grade ones, right?
The second nominee is Fuji for the X100: “23mm F2 Single Focal Lens (Equivalent to 35mm/135 Format).” I’m not familiar with the 35mm/135 format.
Author’s note: Obviously I screwed up on this one. Having begun photography with digital (Apple Quick Take in 1994 and digital microscopy processed through NIH Image) to an EOS D30 I don’t know my film terms, obviously. So on this one you can laugh at me rather than Fuji.
Third, and nearly sweeping the nominations, is Panasonic for the G5:
“Featuring a compact, lightweight body with built-in flash, the LUMIX G5 boasts ultra-high mobility while offering users a powerful camera performance which achieves spectacular image quality, realizing true-to-life photo details through excellent resolution, image rendering and color production.”
7) Worst Graphic or Chart
For this category, we have Canon for the indecipherable icon feature charts. Decide which of these, for example, is the $6,000 camera and which is the $800 camera.
Canon for their “Creativity in Motion” graph.
I guess the units for the X-axis are numbers. Maybe you count up the number of icons each camera gets from the nominee above. But what are the units for creativity? Minutes of footage?
Assuming it’s a linear graph, then is it accurate to say the EOS C300 is 2.85 times as creative as a Powershot S100? Or is it logarithmic and the C300 is actually 2,850 times as creative as the S100? I’m confused.
Sony for the NEX Lens Roadmap graphic. Could it possibly be any more vague?
Compare it to the Fuji X roadmap or the micro 4/3 roadmap. No, really it’s better if you don’t. They actually have radical things like telling you the focal length and aperture of the upcoming lenses.
And Finally, A Winner by Default
Worst Website Makeover Award
This one is not even close: Nikon wins by a landslide.
I just don’t see how anyone can compete in this category. This could be a Lifetime Achievement Award kind of thing. Never have so few web designers done so much, in so short a time, to ruin a good website.
It’s sad, really. Nikon for years has had perhaps the easiest-to-navigate, cleanly-information-packed website of all the camera makers. I guess they thought cleanly presented factual information just went out of style.
It starts on the main page where the head banner rotates through various products, including your usual tattooed girl with bizarre hair and a snake.
Below that, of course, things get really bizarre. We get introduced to the current Holy Trinity of Nikon: the V1/J1 camera, the 18-300 lens, and . . . Ashton. If I’m going to Nikon’s page, those are the three things I want to see first. (Not!!)
“Small is now Huge.” What does that mean, really? Are we talking about cameras still, or are we talking about Ashton? Now we can go directly from the front page of Nikon USA to the “Ashton Website” and see such photographically important things as Ashton getting covered with aluminum tinsel and shot out of a cannon.
I guess Nikon missed that cannon-Canon reference. It is sort of a good start, though, because they need to blow this stuff up quickly.
Can we please, please go back to the Nikon USA website pre-Ashton?
Not to Mention Nikon Starts a New Lens Grouping Standard
I still expected that once I got past the front-page fluff I’d be back in logical Nikon land.
Not so much. If you click on the lenses section, you enter a reality distortion field. I expected an overview page where I could select wide-angle, standard or telephoto. Maybe they would also be separated into zooms and primes. We all know the drill.
But Nnnnoooooo! I get to choose from the following categories:
Travel and Landscape Lenses
People and Event Lenses
Sports and Action Lenses
Macro Lenses
OK, I know what’s behind curtain No. 4. But what the hell are those other things? I want to look into some wide aperture lenses. Where do I go? Travel and Landscape maybe. I’ll try that.
Travel and Landscape does, indeed, have the Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 and the 16-35mm f/4 VR. But it doesn’t have the 14-24mm f/2.8 or 12-24mm f/4 DX. So I guess I shouldn’t use those two for landscape work. Or maybe I’m not supposed to travel with them.
I’m really, really trying to figure out why the landscape and travel category contains those first two but not the second two. I’m also wondering where the 14-24mm f/2.8 could be.
Ah! I found the 14-24mm f/2.8. It’s a Sports and Action lens! Of course! You see it on the sidelines at all those sporting events, right?
But wait! The Nikon 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 is also a sports and action lens. So it’s twice as useful. Uh-oh. Wait. I got that wrong. It’s three times as useful. Because it appears the 10-24mm is also a People and Events lens.
I knew that. Well, actually, no I didn’t.
The 300mm f/4 is also a People and Events lens. But it’s not a Sports and Action Lens. The 80-400 is a Sports and Action Lens, though. (It says “freeze the excitement” at the top of the Sports and Action page– that’s what I reach for to freeze the action: an f/5.6 zoom with nearly adequate image quality.)
I did find one way to navigate Nikon’s lens pages without going insane. Use the Wayback Machine to look at versions a few months old. Things actually made sense then.
I will give an honorable mention award to Panasonic for their camera informational pages that run 10 to 12 screens long. I thought I was going to get carpal tunnel from spinning the scroll wheel while reading about a camera.
Hyperlinks, Panasonic. It’s a new concept but I think it’s going to catch on.
I know this isn’t nearly all of them.
So leave a comment with your own nominee if you like. Otherwise, you can place your votes at this Survey Monkey.
Just for voting you can download this macro shot of a shorted-out PCB to use as a screen saver or background.
(This image is particularly useful when your computer-illiterate friend asks you to look at his laptop because it’s running slow: you just download it, make it the background, tell him you’ve programmed the webcam to reverse itself and take a picture of the circuit board of the computer, showing him the problem. Then tell him it’s not fixable so he should just give you the laptop before that burn spreads further.)
We’ll tally things up and see if we can’t send the winners something appropriate–like maybe a Thesaurus or something.
Roger Cicala
Lensrentals.com
August 2012 |
Mac Properties plans four-corner food startup village at Armour and Troost
Mac Properties’ Kansas City arm wants to turn a “sleepy intersection” on Troost into a four-corner incubator for thriving residential and restaurant activity.
The vision is to create a “food startup village” as the foundation of the development, which would bring 400 new market rate apartments to Armour Boulevard and Troost, said Peter Cassel, director of community development at Mac Properties.
“For us, the most critical, transformative component is the opportunity to build approximately 20,000 to 30,000 square feet of retail at the ground floor, which is really about creating a new place where Kansas City could come to eat and play,” he said.
Set to open in summer 2019, the project is still in the schematic design phase, but Mac Properties is planning for a series of small-shop retail sites where the developer could build out the spaces to lower the costs of entry for food, beverage and other startups, Cassel said. The idea is to get new businesses started by reducing upfront costs, he said.
“This could be an area where people from east and west of Troost come to gather together,” he said. “Troost has been such a dividing line that we’d like to see it as a gathering place — not only getting local neighborhood people to come, but also thinking of it as a citywide destination, like some of the bars and restaurants in the Crossroads or Martini Corner have been.”
Ideally, the development would feature eight to 10 startup restaurants that could use the space to test and prove out their concepts before potentially growing large enough to move to full-sized restaurant spaces elsewhere, Cassel said.
“As young people come to the city, we think this node at Armour and Troost could be a really important starting place for many of them,” he said.
The project is an extension of Mac Properties’ existing efforts along Armour, which already have seen the development 2,000 apartments in about 30 buildings between Broadway and Troost, Cassel said.
Knowing the intersection of Armour and Troost is a vital node for development along the corridor, members of the Troost Coalition — which crafted a zoning overlay for the area and has some regulatory oversight for development — were thrilled when they learned Mac Properties planned to develop all four corners, said founding member Cathryn Simmons.
“You could’ve knocked most of us over with a feather,” Simmons said. “But we had to say, ‘Because we love it doesn’t mean we’re going to give them an inch of ground.'”
Simmons is proud to see a developer with an established Kansas City footprint punching through Troost with an ongoing push east toward the Paseo, she said.
“If you look at what Mac Properties has already done on Armour, they’re on top of it,” she said. “They don’t let anything go to chance, so that makes us feel good.”
Check out the rest of Startland’s six-part series on new development on Troost Avenue, a historic racial and economic barrier in Kansas City.
Part I: Transforming Troost
Part II: Troost Coalition
Part III: Wonder lofts
Part IV: Back to Troost
Part VI: Troost Collective
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The Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves, in the not to distant future, will be playing in a new stadium on new turf. This has many fans, players, and coaches quite nervous, and excited. The turf played on at Turner Field was always one of the Braves advantages. Other teams would visit Turner field and not be able to handle how the ball would play off the turf. The Braves knew how to play it and this is why so many great fielders played on the Braves ball-club.
Many companies are most likely bidding on this project. the question comes back to the best turf to use. Do they join the likes of many other ball fields and use artificial turf, or do they use a grass like they have been using in Turner Field. For your information, the sod they have used at Turner Field is a Bermuda Grass that is drought resistant. This is a good grass to use on Southern stadiums, where in Northern stadiums, Kentucky Bluegrass is usually the choice.
A wise choice would be to seek advice from a turf provider in Richmond. Commonwealth Sports Turf Surfaces is the leading authority on the best playing surfaces for stadiums. They can not only advise on turf choices, but they can provide a comprehensive maintenance plan that would make the players and owners proud of their turf.
New Turf Considerations
When installing turf on baseball, football, and other sport’s fields, there are many factors that need to be considered. Commonwealth Sports Turf would consider:
Player Safety. This must be the first and foremost factor. No team can afford to have injuries because of the turf used on the field.
Durability. The turf gets a lot of abuse from cleats and other actions. It needs to be able to withstand all of it.
Irrigation. Real grass needs water. Consideration needs to be given on how the grass will be watered and fed.
Drainage. Too much water can kill grass. There needs to be a good drainage system.
A plan needs to be put into place for the best turf to install in the Braves new play area. The best way to do this is to first study the soil that exists there now. From that study, choices will be narrowed down. Will the soil handle a Bermuda grass? Does added soil need to be hauled in? What sort of maintenance plan needs to be instituted for the best results depending on the climate?
All eyes are upon the owners and managers of the Atlanta Braves to see what the plan will be. Will the new playing field be fast like Turner Field was in the days that Chipper Jones played? Will they slow it down with a longer and thicker grass that could also cause injuries?
Yes, it is true: the Braves’ new turf is under very close scrutiny. Commonwealth Sports Turf Surfaces.
Image Credit:
Turner Field: Home of the Atlanta Braves by Geoff Livingston |
A new clash over retirement benefits has come to a head following President Obama’s decision to unilaterally protect up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.
The White House now acknowledges that many of the illegal immigrants spared from deportation under Obama’s sweeping executive action will become eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits once they reach retirement age.
RELATED: Obama edict raises questions about illegal immigrants' benefits
COMMENTARY: How Obama's executive action makes life harder for legal immigrants
The conservative backlash has been swift and will certainly extend into a GOP Congress’ deliberations in 2015 over how to limit the reach of the president’s immigration blueprint.
A central argument in Obama’s defense of the most extensive overhaul to the immigration system in decades was that those given reprieves from deportation would not qualify for Obamacare benefits. The president reminded critics that Dream Act-eligible immigrants previously granted deportation deferrals could not enroll in federal health exchanges.
However, Obama was less eager to wade into the debate about what to do with newly protected immigrants now paying into Social Security. He didn’t address the matter while outlining his immigration plan in a prime-time address to the nation, but White House aides later confirmed GOP suspicions about how Obama’s unilateral move would affect retirement benefits.
MORE: Obama's final reset
Analysts said that Republicans would use the admission to argue the president is misleading the public about the details of his immigration action.
“It is a bit of surprise,” said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who focuses on entitlement programs. “For a long time, there was an argument made by the administration that [undocumented immigrants] would not be eligible for such benefits. It does seem to be a contradiction.”
REPORT: Republicans can block Obama's immigration mandate
For Republicans, this debate is about far more than just Social Security. It fits into the broader narrative of painting the president as unwilling to spotlight an unpopular provision of his agenda until after it has been enacted.
“It’s Obamacare all over again, ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” one House GOP leadership aide told the Washington Examiner. “Obama was very clear on this issue. He said no benefits. What the president says just isn’t credible. That couldn’t be any more obvious by now.”
The administration says Obama’s move is sound fiscal policy, that it makes sense to grow the tax base. They also argue that it would be unfair to force people to pay into Social Security and not reap the same benefits as everybody else.
Immigrants would have to work at least 10 years to qualify for Social Security and Medicare benefits, administration officials said, and Obama’s executive action could always be reversed by any of his successors.
MORE FROM BRIAN HUGHES: No Chicago homecoming for Obama on immigration
Though quiet about the Social Security implications of the president’s latest executive action, the White House has long argued that comprehensive immigration reform would strengthen the long-term outlook of entitlement programs.
“Over 500 days ago, the United States Senate passed legislation with bipartisan support to improve border security, streamline the immigration process and establish a firm but fair path to citizenship,” Vice President Joe Biden wrote in an op-ed this week in Irish Central. “It would be an absolute game-changer for our economy, adding $1.4 trillion to our economy and reducing the deficit by nearly $850 billion over 20 years, and extending the solvency of Social Security by another two years.”
However, some fiscal hawks say that any short-term benefit of having more people paying into Social Security would be eclipsed by the burden of paying out benefits to potentially millions of additional people.
Republicans also point to the illegal immigrants not yet covered by Obama's unilateral action.
“It is also important to keep in mind that while 5 million [illegal immigrants] benefit affirmatively from executive amnesty with work permits, photo ID’s and social security numbers, almost all of the other 7 million illegal immigrants continue to remain functionally immune from enforcement,” said Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. “The problem for American workers will be compounded even more when the amnesty produces the ensuing wave of new illegal and chain migration.”
FURTHER READING: GOP still split over "anti-amnesty" strategy |
Therapeutic day school relocating to Arlington Heights
hello
A private therapeutic day school for students in grades 6-12 is relocating from Niles to Arlington Heights.
New Hope Academy plans to move into an office building at 3250 N. Arlington Heights Road, just south of Dundee Road, before the start of the 2017-18 school year in August, according to Brandy Larrance, the school's executive director.
The school, founded in 2000, educates students with special needs from 35 suburban school districts, including Northwest Suburban High School District 214, Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211, and school districts as far as Gurnee, Naperville and Yorkville.
There's 65 students enrolled at the school's location at 6289 Howard St. in Niles, but the school plans to increase enrollment to 80 with the move to Arlington Heights, Larrance said.
New Hope will occupy 18,000 square feet of the 73,000-square-foot, multi-tenant office building, which is now about two-thirds vacant. The school would include 12 classrooms, an art studio, gym, cafeteria, staff lounge and offices.
The village board this week approved a land use variation that allows the school to move in.
New Hope plans to install new landscaping before occupancy. |
Justise Winslow didn't need to be told Thursday how much of a difference a year can make.
"It's kind of surreal to think that it was exactly a year to the day," Winslow said Thursday as he addressed the Heat's youth basketball camp at South Broward High School.
Last June, Winslow was a leading NBA draft prospect out of Duke who would take an unexpected dip to the Miami Heat at No. 10. A year later, he was back in South Florida after yet another flight from the scene of the draft in New York, this time after mentoring this year's leading prospects.
"I just told them to be open to everything and don't be closed-minded -- and be on time," Winslow said with a laugh.
For Winslow, the whirlwind of draft night a year ago involved disappointment, elation and ultimately a path that would set him on course for second-team NBA All-Rookie, the Heat's first such selection since 2009.
Thursday afternoon, in addition to confirming he would participate in summer league with the Heat and revealing he already has begun work on adjusting the mechanics on his jump shot, he reflected on his draft-day fall and rise a year ago.
"It was an exciting day, probably the most nervous I've ever been in my life," he said. "But it was fun. I had my whole family there, sitting there. But I really didn't know where I was going to go. I thought I was going to go higher. But it ended getting to the eighth pick. I knew I wasn't going to Detroit [which selected Arizona forward Stanley Johnson]. Then the ninth pick was Charlotte and they passed on me [in favor of Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky].
"And so then I remember my agent and my whole agency team jumping up and telling me I'm a lucky guy because I'm going to Miami. So I kind of knew before they actually announced it on the stage. But just walking across the stage and knowing that I was living a dream going to the NBA was very exciting. I just couldn't stop shaking. I was smiling so hard."
Heat forward Justise Winslow named one of 15 players on U.S. National Select Team, to train in Las Vegas in July with Olympic team. Heat forward Justise Winslow named one of 15 players on U.S. National Select Team, to train in Las Vegas in July with Olympic team. SEE MORE VIDEOS
And then Wednesday, amid a promotional appearance in advance of Thursday's draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Winslow, at 20, found himself cast in the role of adviser.
"It's all just surreal, being in New York yesterday, talking to some of the draftees and them asking me questions, them just being so interested and so anxious and nervous for the life that awaits them," he said. "It's just kind of full circle."
As it is, Winslow is one of just four Heat players under fully guaranteed contract for next season, along with Chris Bosh, Goran Dragic and Josh McRoberts. That had him noting one of the biggest adjustments in reaching this next level.
"I was talking to Buddy Hield about it yesterday," he said of the prized scoring guard out of Oklahoma, "just the fact that in college he was surrounded by the same group of guys pretty much all four years. He may have added three guys, lost three guys every season. But, for us, I've probably lost eight guys, gained seven guys this season. And next season might be completely different."
Among Winslow's offseason goals is to train in his Houston hometown with Rockets guard James Harden and also in Miami with Dwyane Wade and other members of the Heat, having resumed workouts two weeks ago.
"Hopefully we can get Dwyane and those guys in the gym," he said. "Hopefully we re-sign Dwyane, first of all."
As for his somewhat-wayward shooting stroke, Winslow said, "I'm really focusing on my shooting mechanics. I'm changing a couple of things."
Then there is another familiar face for Winslow, who shares representation with Oklahoma City Thunder free-agent forward Kevin Durant.
"I mean, I mess with his agent, joking with him," Winslow said. "But, no, he's a good guy. Rich Kleiman and K.D., they're going to make the best decisions for K.D. And so I haven't started publicly recruiting anybody yet, but I might in the next couple of days."
Eventually, Winslow will work with Durant in mid-July in Las Vegas, with Durant on the U.S. Olympic team and Winslow part of a group of young prospects to train against them as the U.S. Select Team.
"It's just kind of like a farm system in a sense," he said. "Whatever I can do to help the country, that's kind of how I see it."
[email protected]. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ira.winderman |
Oct 9, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals relief pitcher Mark Melancon (43) celebrates after their win against the Los Angeles Dodgers during game two of the 2016 NLDS playoff baseball series at Nationals Park. The Washington Nationals won 5-2.Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
The San Francisco Giants and closer Mark Melancon met last week to talk about possibly working out a deal this off-season. Melancon spoke with MLB Network Radio today to discuss the meeting.
Melancon spoke highly of the San francisco Giants organization, and the meeting. He also mentioned that this will be a hard decision. San Francisco certainly has a pitcher friendly ballpark and the Giants also have the commitment to winning that any pitcher would appreciate.
One thing that gets lost with fans, however, is how hard it is for families to uproot and move from city to city. Deciding where to spend the next few years of your life is never an easy choice.
Melancon on #SFGiants meeting: “It was an opportunity to meet & get to know people a little bit in 24 hours, organization speaks for itself” — MLB Network Radio (@MLBNetworkRadio) November 16, 2016
Melancon on choosing a team: “Ultimately I will weigh out by options and figure out what’s best for my family. It’s a tough decision.” #MLB — Casey Stern (@CaseyStern) November 16, 2016
Melancon also spoke about the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he had spent his entire MLB career before being traded in July to Washington. As Melancon and others explore their options in free agency, it is clear that a team that can spend to keep a roster together will play a key role. Pittsburgh’s lack of financial commitment to building on what they had started was clearly frustrating for the former Pirate.
Mark Melancon on #Pirates : “You look back and know we were doing something right. If we just could’ve added one or two more pieces” #MLB — Casey Stern (@CaseyStern) November 16, 2016
Earlier in the off-season, the Giants were clear that they planned on signing one of the big three closers available. Jon Morosi of MLB Network reported earlier in the week that the Giants have already spoken to representatives for Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Melancon. One factor that makes Chapman and Melancon more attractive on the free agent market than Jansen is there is no draft pick compensation attached to his signing.
Because both were traded during the season, their previous teams will not receive a first round pick in the June draft if they lose them. Jansen, however, would cost the Giants a first round pick. All of these factors are being weighed right now by general manager Bobby Evans and the front office. The one thing that has become clear is that Mark Melancon was impressed with San Francisco and will be in consideration for his services.
Be sure to check back every day for the latest Hot Stove news about the San Francisco Giants from Around the Foghorn. |
In the first half, former Wall St. executive, Nomi Prins, now a journalist and commentator, discussed the interdependence between America's past 19 presidents to key bankers, and the shocking ways in which the same people, through blood, mentorship and other symbiotic collaborations impact American domestic and foreign policy. There is a definite imbalance of power, when it comes to the cozy relationship between the President's executive branch and bankers, relative to ordinary citizens who are at the bottom rung of power, she noted. Banks take the funds we've deposited, and use them to influence policy, and economies, as well as make an exorbitant amount of money, she continued.
She traced the current imbalance back to the financial Panic of 1907, when Pres. Teddy Roosevelt gave millions to J.P. Morgan, who ended up bailing out his friends' banks, and then in 1913, a group of powerful bankers formed the Federal Reserve. In 1971, bankers such as David Rockefeller and Walter Wriston of Citibank successfully lobbyed Pres. Nixon to get rid of the gold standard. This enabled them to leverage the deposits they had, and speculate more because they didn't have to hold gold behind them, creating a new era of unaccountability, she outlined. Now, for the past couple of decades, thing have been accelerating in the direction of bankers having more and more power, and the Presidents at this point, "don't even pretend to put any accountability on these bankers," Prins lamented.
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In the latter half, researcher Jason Martell, talked about ancient advanced technologies, and megalithic monuments aligned with astronomical markers. He was joined for part of the conversation by fellow researcher Amish Shah to share their recent adventures in Dwarka, where an ancient underwater city has been discovered off the coast of India. Through sonar scanning done in the 1980s and 90s, the city was revealed to be twice the size of Manhattan, but it 's never been excavated, said Shah, who added that evidence of stone pieces worn around the neck during ancient wars was found at the location. It's possible that the submerged city could be part of the great lost culture of Atlantis, Martell suggested. More here.
There are hundreds of detailed ancient texts that include astronomical reference points, and geological information, and we can use star charts to pinpoint when the ancient events they wrote about took place, said Martell. Interestingly, in Egypt the Dendera Zodiac shows the skies above Giza at 8,000 BC-- thousands of years before the Egyptian culture should have existed, he marveled. Some of the best evidence for advanced ancient technology comes from samples of vitrification at megalithic sites, he continued. The huge structures were built without mortar, and the only way they could have done that was to have super heated the stones into a magma-like state, which implies the use of a sophisticated technology not associated with the ancients, he explained.
News segment guests: James Sanders, Jerome Corsi, Ian Punnett, Steve Kates |
Having lived in Rome for a few years, I can safely say that I’ve done all the main tourist attractions – some of them several times.
But the one thing on my Rome bucket list that I had yet to check off was the Domus Aurea. It was mostly a matter of practicality. For the past ten years, the Domus Aurea – Nero’s palace - has mostly been off-limits to the general public, as a result of ongoing restoration work.
At last, the Domus Aurea is open to the public. Keen to see the famous remains of Nero’s sprawling pleasure palace, I put on a yellow safety helmet and joined a tour of the Domus Aurea with Roma Experience.
Here’s why you should do the same:
1. You’ve never seen anything like it before
I’ve explored Roman ruins across Italy, but nothing like the Domus Aurea. As I descended into the dark tunnels of these labyrinthine ruins, I felt like I was on a genuine adventure – one of the privileged few who was getting to explore the ruins for the first time in centuries.
After Nero’s death, Trajan built over the remains of the palace, and over the centuries the vast complex was buried underground. It was rediscovered during the Renaissance, when a young man tripped, fell down a hole, and found himself in the cavernous, subterranean rooms of Nero’s palace. Other curious young men soon followed; they brought flaming torches and were amazed to discover beautiful, intricate frescoes. The painted figures of the Domus Aurea were a revelation to the artists of the Renaissance – a window into the world of antiquity. The frescoes had an immense influence on painters such as Raphael, and you can even see traces of the Domus Aurea in 18th century Neoclassical art.
As much as I’ve enjoyed my visits to other Ancient Roman sites, nothing compares to the thrill of discovery when you enter the Domus Aurea. Unlike the Colosseum, which you’ll have seen in countless paintings and photos before you visit for the first time, there’s nothing to prepare you for the Domus Aurea.
Wikipedia
2. Amazing art (and atmosphere)
Although the marble and gilding has long since disappeared some other traces of decoration remain, in the form of delicate frescoes. These are the paintings that captured the imaginations of the Renaissance artists – faded figures of beautiful women, floral frescoes, and mythological scenes.
The art in the Domus Aurea has been damaged by water and the roots of the trees that grow above the roof, and it will take a significant amount of time – and money – to complete the necessary restoration work. However, while the paintings here are not the best examples of well-preserved ancient art, there’s something undeniably beautiful about their faded glory.
Wikipedia
3. Discover the luxurious lifestyle of Nero
Nero has always been my favourite of the “bad emperors”. He was such an extreme character – an emperor who “fiddled while Rome burned”, who supposedly committed incest with his mother, kicked his pregnant wife to death, and then castrated and married a young boy.
While the worst stories about Nero are probably just gossip, there’s no doubt that Nero indulged in an extravagantly luxurious lifestyle. My Domus Aurea tour gave me deeper insight into his life of leisure. I learned how this enormous complex was built in just four years, using an expert team of architects and engineers, and how it was intended to be a “pleasure palace” rather than a place to live.
Suetonius gives us some idea of the extent of the Domus Aurea’s opulence:
There were dining-rooms with fretted ceils of ivory, whose panels could turn and shower down flowers and were fitted with pipes for sprinkling the guests with perfumes. The main banquet hall was circular and constantly revolved day and night, like the heavens.
Although the perfume and petals disappeared long ago, the explanations of the guide help to bring the past to life, giving you a real sense of what the Domus Aurea must have been like.
Roma Experience
4. See Ancient Rome recreated right before your eyes
Before I went on my Domus Aurea tour I’d read something about the “3D reality experience”. I have to admit, I was slightly sceptical. I thought it sounded a bit gimmicky, and that it wouldn’t really add anything to the tour.
But I was wrong. For a start, these weren’t just glasses – there was a whole headset. Sitting in “the golden vault”, we put on our 3D headsets, and watched the bare walls and rubble transform into a luxurious, richly decorated chamber with a gilded ceiling and a view of a lush garden. All of a sudden, I was in a Rome where the Colosseum did not yet exist – where the site was still occupied by the vast artificial lake of the Domus Aurea – and where a 100 foot golden statue of Nero towered above the city.
A combination of the amazing graphics and the explanatory voice-over helped me to understand the geography of the ancient city. It’s not every day you get to stand in the gardens of an imperial palace and admire the views of Ancient Rome…
5. Help to preserve one of the most important archaeological sites in Rome
The remains of the Domus Aurea have been protected by the garden above it. But paradoxically, this garden is also contributing to its slow destruction. The weight of the earth is crushing the ceiling, the tree roots cracking through the walls, the water staining the frescoes. Before work can begin on the restoration of the artwork, the garden must be replaced with a lighter layer of earth, as well as a new drainage system.
How will this multi-million euro project be funded? Our guide explained that the survival of the Domus Aurea depends on its visitors. When you book a Domus Aurea tour, you’re directly contributing to the restoration of the archaeological site, preserving it for future generations. |
You must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
Yesterday, the North American Soccer League (NASL) announced it has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The chain of events spawning this immediate legal action began on September 3 when the USSF Board of Directors voted to deny the NASL’s request for second-division professional league sanctioning in 2018. Last January, the USSF granted provisional second-division sanctioning to the NASL for the 2017 season.
North Carolina FC is a member of the NASL. The club declined official comment when contacted. However, sources close to NCFC tell WRALSportsFan that the club does not support the NASL's lawsuit.
In a statement, the NASL said that, “the USSF has violated federal antitrust laws through its anticompetitive 'Division' structure that divides men’s professional soccer for U.S.-based leagues based on arbitrary criteria that the USSF has manipulated to favor Major League Soccer (MLS), which is the commercial business partner of the USSF.” The league also alleges that “the USSF has selectively applied and waived its divisional criteria to suppress competition from the NASL, both against MLS and against United Soccer League (USL).”
U.S. Soccer has codified standards for men's and women's professional leagues at the first, second, and third division levels. Although the USSF has not spoken publicly regarding their denial of the NASL’s second-division sanctioning for next year, the NASL currently fails to meet at least two second-division requirements: a minimum of 12 teams in the league, and fielding teams in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones (the NASL does not presently have a club based in the Central time zone). According to the NASL’s complaint, the USSF denied the league’s request for waivers from these two requirements for 2018.
The NASL was the lone second-division U.S. men’s pro league from 2011-2016, after a group of USL team owners—including the then-owners of the Carolina RailHawks—split off to form the new NASL. Over that same time span, the USL remained the lone third-division men’s pro league. This year, the USSF granted provisional second-division sanctioning to both the NASL and USL.
While the USSF has denied the NASL second-division sanctioning for next year, it has yet to finally act on the USL’s second-division application for 2018. According to multiple sources, as well as the NASL’s lawsuit, the USSF board will consider and act upon USL’s application in early October.
The NASL’s 71-page antitrust lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, seeks injunctive relief permitting the league to retain its second-division status pending the resolution of this action. Moreover, the complaint seeks a permanent injunction enjoining the USSF from promulgating or implementing professional league standards, declaring such actions a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Among its myriad of factual allegations, the NASL claims that the USSF has selectively adopted, amended, and implemented its professional league standards for the purpose of, in part, suppressing the NASL’s application for first-division sanctioning in 2015, and then denying the league full second-division sanctioning in 2017 and 2018. Meanwhile, the complaint alleges that the USSF has overlooked or granted waivers from various divisional guidelines to MLS and the USL in an effort to preserve MLS’ longstanding first-division status and, more recently, position the USL as the lone second-division professional soccer league.
United States professional soccer does not incorporate a system of club promotion and relegation between divisions, as is the case in most national soccer federations worldwide. The NASL complaint alleges that the divisional construct erected and administered by U.S. Soccer acts as an unlawful restraint on trade and competition.
This lawsuit by the NASL appears to place Malik in an peculiar position. Malik, as owner of the North Carolina FC, is a member of the NASL, LLC, the named plaintiff in this action. However, Malik is a member of the U.S. Soccer Board of Directors and owns the North Carolina Courage, a team in the National Women’s Soccer League, a league administered and largely funded by the USSF. Malik also has a pending application to bring a MLS expansion team in the Raleigh area. MLS is expected to announce their initial two expansion selections in early December, although those teams likely won’t begin play in MLS until 2020.
Moreover, after the USSF denied the NASL’s second-division sanctioning application earlier this month, North Carolina FC released a statement reinforcing not only its MLS bid, but also its aim of “playing at the highest level possible in 2018 and beyond,” language many observers interpreted as Malik’s desire to remain part of a second-division league next year, even if that means leaving the NASL to join the USL. |
Two sons of former chief rabbis were chosen to be chief rabbis of Israel on Wednesday night, ending months of speculation.
Yitzhak Yosef, the son of Shas spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef, was chosen as the next Sephardi chief rabbi, and Rabbi David Lau, the son of former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, was picked as the head of the Ashkenazi rabbinate.
Both candidates are seen as mainstream figures unlikely to rock the boat of the rabbinate or the Knesset. Lau beat out Rabbi David Stav, a professed free thinker with goals of pushing Israel’s rabbinate straight into the 21st century and Yosef won against Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a hardliner supported by the national religious.
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The chief rabbi was selected in a complex and opaque process by a committee made up of 150 rabbis, mayors, religious functionaries, and government appointees.
Lau’s black hat and legacy connections to ultra-Orthodox rabbis made him a more traditional choice than the knitted-kipa wearing Stav.
His father, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, was known for his ability to connect with both Haredi Jews and the Modern Orthodox.
Lau thanked his father, who stood beside him during a Channel 10 interview, for the educational upbringing that contributed to his victory. He vowed to make the chief rabbinate a more “welcoming” institution, but refrained from specifying what reforms he would enact. When asked whether he would take steps to ease the conversion or marriage processes in Israel, he responded that under his leadership the religious authority would be “appropriate” and “continue tradition.”
The junior Lau, who is currently the chief rabbi of the religiously diverse city of Modiin, pledged the same sort of inclusiveness as his father. Stav, meanwhile, the current chief rabbi of Shoham, had been touted as a modern thinker who could bring about desperately needed change in the rabbinate.
“I represent all kinds of groups, and he represents only a group of the national-religious, this is the difference,” Lau told The New York Times on Sunday in a rare interview. “You need to think about a rabbi who can speak with the other rabbis, not fight with them. To speak is better than to fight, I think.”
On the Sephardi side, the win by Yosef will be seen as a boost for the Shas party. Yosef also beat rabbis Ratzon Arusi, considered a long shot, and Tzion Shalom Boaron, who had the support of current Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
He scraped onto the official list thanks only to an eleventh-hour ruling by the Council of the Chief Rabbinate that extended his authorization to serve as a municipal rabbi, a shingle which all candidates must carry.
Yosef will replace Amar, who did his best, but failed, to finagle a new law that would have allowed him to stay on beyond his term’s 10-year limit.
Yosef’s challenger, Eliyahu, had his candidacy okayed Monday by the Supreme Court following a challenge by Meretz MK Isawi Frej, who submitted a petition claiming the rabbi had incited violence against Arabs and made racist comments in the past. The court said there was not enough time to consider the allegations.
Yosef won with 68 votes, Eliyahu got 49 votes and Boaron got 28.
On the Ashkenazi side, Lau garnered 68 votes, while Stav got 54 and Rabbi Yaakov Shapira 25.
Shapira was the dark horse to fill the Ashkenazi seat unceremoniously vacated by former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, who stepped down last month in the wake of a massive fraud investigation.
Metzger, who has been accused of pocketing unspecified amounts of donor cash earmarked for NGOs, denies the allegations but nevertheless chose to take his exit early.
A fourth candidate, Rabbi Eliezer Igra, bowed out of the race after realizing his chances of winning were too slim.
Stav is the co-founder and chairman of Tzohar, an organization committed to helping couples maneuver the ultra-Orthodox rabbinate’s complicated maze of requirements on the path to religious marriage. He serves as the spiritual leader of Ma’aleh, a Jerusalem film school with a religious bent, and his contemporary, moderate take on Jewish life has led to a vicious backlash from more conservative sectors of society. A group of youths attacked him at a wedding in June, and that same month Shas spiritual leader Yosef labeled him “wicked” and “dangerous to Judaism.”
While Stav had been embraced by many Israelis weary of the ultra-Orthodox’s strict, iron-clad grip on Judaism, Lau said that his opponent’s platform of change was not something that should be supported. |
Many people across the technology and financial industries are dubbing blockchains as the greatest innovation since the Internet. However, a blockchain is comprised of a bunch of technologies that are actually pretty old. The biggest surprise when it comes to Bitcoin may be that it wasn’t invented a decade earlier using dial-up internet!
Most blockchains use the six major technologies below. In this post, we will examine each technology and explain the role they play in a blockchain.
Asymmetric Encryption
The magic of asymmetric encryption is that signatures accomplish the following:
Prove that the signer had access to the private key
Do not reveal the private key
Are trivial to verify, yet impossible to forge/alter
Bitcoin uses the secp256k1 parameters of the Elliptical Curve Digital Signing Algorithm (ECDSA). ECDSA was invented in 1985 and became an ISO, ANSI, IEEE and FIPS standard in 1998-2000. The major advantage ECDSA has over RSA is that ECDSA uses much smaller keys and signatures to achieve the same level of security. In other words, Bitcoin would have been possible with RSA... which was invented in 1977!
One of the main use cases for asymmetric encryption is public-key encryption. For example, Alice can encrypt a message using Bob’s known public key and send it to Bob over an untrusted network so that Bob can then decrypt the message using his private key. This feature of public/private key cryptosystems is not really used in Bitcoin.
Hash Functions
Hash functions take input data of arbitrary size and deterministically map it to an output of fixed size (typically smaller than the input size) that resembles random data. A key property of a hash function is collision resistance.
You may have noticed that each transaction and block in Bitcoin is represented by 64 hexadecimal characters. That’s because these “IDs” are calculated deterministically by serializing the transaction/block contents into bytes and then hashing those bytes (twice) using SHA-256. The result is the transaction/block hash.
This provides a convenient integrity check on transactions/blocks. Just as an asymmetric signature cannot be altered by a dishonest actor, the contents of a transaction/block cannot be tampered with due to collision resistance. This provides a very useful guarantee to all participants that their version of history is the same as all other participants on the blockchain. If two sources share the same current block hash, then they know they share every single input/output in every previous transaction/block.
Another use of hash functions in Bitcoin is that public keys are hashed in order to determine a Bitcoin address. This is a defensive protection against the future invention of a quantum computer that could break ECDSA (learn more here).
Bitcoin transaction/block hashes and merkle trees use two rounds of SHA-256, while address derivation uses two rounds of SHA-256 and one round of RIPEMD-160. SHA-256 was first published in 2001 and RIPEMD-160 was first published in 1994. Hash functions have been around a lot longer.
Merkle Trees
In order to package transactions into blocks, Bitcoin uses a Merkle Tree. This data structure takes a list of transactions and combines them using a binary tree structure, where the root node is called the Merkle Root. The killer feature of the Merkle Tree is that proof a leaf was included in the Merkle Root takes O(log(n)) space. Using this technique makes it possible to run a very secure Simple Payment Verification (SPV) bitcoin wallet on your phone without storing 100+ GBs of blockchain data.
The Merkle Tree was patented in 1979 and is used in distributed file systems like IPFS, file-sharing systems like BitTorrent and NoSQL databases like Cassandra.
Key-Value Database
In order to prevent double-spends (a key feature of a blockchain), you have to be able to quickly perform the following two database operations:
Lookup if a transaction has already been spent Insert a new valid transaction
While NoSQL databases have taken off in popularity in recent years (due primarily to their ability to handle extreme scale), it is important to remember that NoSQL databases actually pre-date relational databases.
Bitcoin originally launched with BerkeleyDB, which was released in 1994. dbm, the key-value store that inspired BerkeleyDB, was released in 1979.
P2P Communication Protocol
Having nodes communicate directly with one another (as opposed to using a trusted third-party) is unlike most applications we use on a daily basis. However, it isn’t new.
Napster’s 1999 release is probably the most commonly known P2P network, but USENET predates it by two decades.
The internet provides an excellent network for P2P protocols. Gossip Network Protocols have been used in many NoSQL Databases including Amazon Dynamo, Cassandra and Riak.
Proof of Work
Proof of work (PoW) is a clever application of hash functions. It works by calculating the hash of a message, along with many different nonces, until you find a resulting digest that meets a rare criteria. Since each hash is equally unlikely to meet that criteria, specifying a hard-to-meet criteria (perhaps a hash that starts with several leading 0s) is a way to prove that someone spent their CPU cycles. Also, a correct solution will be trivial to verify.
By using proof of work to achieve consensus, it becomes unfeasibly expensive to attack the Bitcoin blockchain. This is a cornerstone feature for a permissionless network built on anonymity and strong distrust of other participants.
Some people find PoW to be inefficient, since the Bitcoin network spends enormous computing resources doing work that has no other value.
PoW was first invented in 1993, but was made famous in 1997 by Adam Back’s Hashcash.
Evolution of Blockchain Technology
The fact that blockchains use old technologies should not be taken to mean that they represent solved problems or are easy to deploy. After all, it isn’t the technologies in a blockchain that make it useful, it’s the clever way in which they interact. Scale, privacy, security and fault tolerance are all hard problems in computer science. To make things more complicated, blockchains are typically used to handle mission-critical operations (such as settling financial transactions like we are doing at Paxos), where serious bugs may not be acceptable to end-users.
A modern blockchain must optimize tradeoffs while making as few sacrifices as possible, a difficult and delicate balancing act.
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EGM Media, LLC is looking for editorial interns to join the team in Agoura Hills, CA. Have you ever dreamed of seeing your work in the pages of EGM? Are you a passionate, detail-oriented game enthusiast looking for an opportunity to strut your stuff? This could be your big break.
Job Responsibilities:
· Produce entertaining, authoritative editorial in a timely fashion.
· Transcription of audio and video interviews as needed.
· Help facilitate the production of video content, podcasts, and other collaborative multimedia.
· Proactively engage readers via social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.).
Required Qualifications:
· Detail-oriented, efficient, proactive worker with a strong desire to learn.
· A shameless addiction to all things gaming.
· Thorough knowledge of the game industry.
· Ability to work out of EGM?s Agoura Hills, CA offices.
Pluses:
· Experience in game-related editorial as an intern, editor, or blogger.
· Lightning-fast typist (60-plus words per minute).
· Experience with video editing/production.
· Experience with podcast editing/production.
This internship is available immediately at up to 40 hours/week at $8/hr.
To apply, send a cover letter, resume, and at least three published or unpublished work samples that best represent your knowledge, voice, and passion for games to [email protected]. |
With Zapad 2013, Russia's answer to NATO's Steadfast Jazz military exercise, continuing in parts east, ERR News profiles a piece that originally ran on February 13.
One year ago, Russia unveiled a new doctrine: then presidential candidate Vladimir Putin openly avowed an intention to radically expand and upgrade the Russian military. As of February 2013, the country continues to pursue the biggest military buildup in years in its western military district, which is flush up against Baltic borders and already easily the country's most powerful in conventional military terms.
These developments mark the culmination of a process going back to 2009, a crucial period in the year after the Russia-Georgia war. While the US pursued a "reset" in relations, Russia made changes in its laws on protecting its diaspora, and generals once known for eccentric pronouncements (General Nikolai Makarov's comment about Finland from last summer being a good recent example) moved into the inner circle of the Putin administration, where their language is increasingly indistinguishable from the official line, say experts.
Daily life in this part of the EU remains the same, of course, with relations on the external border said to be improving and the main concerns being issues like visa freedom, not the first batch of Iskander missiles that Russia installed in 2011. But government circles in Estonia have taken notice of the movements, such as Russia's improving capabilities for operations in places with developed road infrastructure, such as the Baltics. And there's the big geopolitical fact that Russia chooses to contain much bigger and more militaristic China using traditional nuclear deterrents while arming itself to the hilt against a bloc of democratic nation-states.
It's unclear how much NATO's own actions are driving the escalation, but only one side (Russia) has mentioned a "pre-war state," which has drawn a response. You can't miss the stories in the Estonian media about 10-year defense plans being revised, the emphasis on terms like "total defense" and "primary response" - both of these related to the crucial two days before NATO ground forces can arrive - and plans to increase the number of rapid response Defense Forces personnel to 21,000 and the number of reservists to 90,000 by 2022. The Ministry of Defense has ramped up its public relations efforts, sending out press releases about base renovations and such, all of which presumably is meant to have an added deterrent effect - it's not hard to imagine scenes from the Winter War and a deadly efficient, mobile and responsive Estonian army patrolling the forests and fields.
With a bit of a lag time, even the Latvians, who have been considered much more passive on national defense, are sitting up. Uudised.err.ee reported last week on concerns in their defense ministry over an increase in Russian air force activity. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, in delivering a national defense report to the country's parliament last week, said, no doubt speaking for many in the region: "We've noticed that in the last year, Russian military activity has increased in the Baltic Sea region - both at sea and from the air. It is important that the objectives of Russia's higher military power be transparent."
Gliding in for a landing
As candid as Putin's programmatic articles are, there may be more to transparency than a straight reading of speeches.
Vladimir Juškin of the Baltic Center for Russian Studies in Estonia is probably the local researcher who has shed the most light on - and through - what Estonia's big, not-technically-an-enemy but gruff bear of a neighbor really wants.
If there's one unit in the Russian military that you should be aware of, according to Juškin it's the VDV - the Airborne Troops - which has proud traditions. At its head is Lt. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov. Since Shamanov was appointed in 2009, a long-running theme in the Kremlin was Shamanov vs Serdyukov - the former pushing for restoring the VDV to its Soviet glory days while Defense Minister Anatoli Serdyukov argued for cutbacks.
Serdyukov resigned in November. In an interview with ERR News, Juškin relates the reaction, quoting a retired colonel: "On the floors and in the offices of the Ministry of Defense, the news of the resignation Serdyukov was accepted just as our fathers at the time accepted the news of the victory over Nazi Germany."
Remember Putin's flight of the cranes a bit earlier that year? It was widely lampooned as yet another macho feat by Putin, and took on a life of its own on Facebook. But it wasn't about taming the wild, says Juškin - it was really signals about military funding.
"When Vladimir Putin flew a motorized ultralight glider ahead of a small flock of cranes, it was called a presidential PR stunt," he says. "But for more insight, one should presumably refer to an interview given by Gen. Shamanov on February 24, 2012 where he complained that the VDV had a major shortage of motorized ultralights. I am sure the situation will now change."
Gliders are a focus of Russian military innovation.
In 2010, at a tactical exercise, a massive landing of spetsnaz units on controllable parachutes was staged. The units succeeded in traveling about 20-30 km after jumping out of the aircraft.
"Shamanov was not very happy - Israeli special forces can travel a distance of 40 km under similar conditions," says Juškin.
"It is 35 kilometers from Pskov to the Estonian border," Juškin adds.
Preparing for 'war with the West'
For a year now, the main theme in the Russian military doctrine has been a "prewar situation."
"It took just three years for the 'prewar state' meme to make it from a retired colonel’s interview to a speech delivered by the President to the Federal Assembly. There is a huge distance separating a retired colonel [Pavel Popovskikh] and the president of the country. But the mentality of two professional Soviet officers, if it is different at all, is only 25 millimeters," quips Juškin, referring to the distance between the little stars on the uniforms of high-ranking officers.
In a piece written for the magazine Maailma Vaade late last year, Juškin identified the key events in the development of the "prewar" theme during the 2009-2012 period. The following are excerpts:
May 2009 - the "prewar meme" is first articulated by Pavel Popovskikh, a head of intelligence for the VDV in the 1990s: "The situation is a prewar state. The NATO bloc is on Russia’s borders in the Baltics, Poland and the Czech Republic and has only become stronger in the last few decades. They are making active preparations for war with Russia. [...] The war, for which the army must be prepared, will start with special operations by special forces, and it is not ruled out that such operations will become its main activities.”
27 May 2009 - Lt. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov is appointed commander in chief of the VDV. Famously, in accepting his appointment he demands that Anatoli Serdyukov’s programme for reductions in the VDV be changed. Furthermore, the airborne forces are increased by one attack squad in the Moscow military district and the a third airborne regiment is formed in the Pskov 76th division of the VDV.
September 2009 - Operational and strategic exercises “Zapad 2009” are held. The premise was that the Polish army (though pseudonyms were actually used in the exercise) had invaded Belarus in a territorial dispute; altruistically the Russian army rushes to the victim’s assistance. The scope of the exercise was 1,500 kilometers, from Belarus to the Barents Sea, and it ranged over 300 kilometers from east to west.
30 October 2009 - President Dmitri Medvedev introduces amendments to Section 10 of the federal Defense Act. It allows the formations of the armed forces to be used for operations outside Russian territory in four cases.
1. Repelling an attack on Russian Federation armed forces abroad.
2. Repelling or pre-empting aggression against another country (if requested by that country).
3. Protection of Russian Federation citizens abroad.
4. Fighting piracy.
Under the legislation, use of the army is decided by the president, but the Federation Council must within two days (i.e. ex post facto) approve the decision.
A “Baltic support area” is legally specified as a place where the army can be introduced (for protecting Russian Federation citizens).
18 December 2009 - Shamanov says in an interview: “By 2015, there will be 21 tactical groups in NATO’s rapid response forces, each one with up to 1,500 men. The NATO tactical group is roughly analogous to a Russian airborne regiment. Considering the size of the VDV and units and the squads under the command of the military region, the Russian armed forces have total parity with the NATO - 1:1. Thus our current concern is not sheer numbers, but the equipping the units with modern weapons and vehicles. [...] To significantly increase the army’s mobility, 15-20 percent of the airborne’s armored vehicles are on wheels. In places where there is developed road infrastructure, wheels are to be preferred over caterpillar treads.”
3 May 2012 - General Staff commander Nikolai Makarov says at a missile defense conference in Moscow: “Russia can pre-emptively attack NATO’s European missile defense systems.” Thereafter experts started talking about GRU spetznaz that was said to have been formed for this purpose. But the discussion was quickly hushed up.
Two days later, in Helsinki, Makarov says that cooperation between Finland and NATO is a threat to Russian security. He shows a map where the boundary between the zones of interest of Russia and NATO passes through the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. That would mean Finland and the Baltics would be in Russia’s strategic interest zone.
Mid-July 2012 - Col. Gen. Vladimir Tchirkin, commander in chief of the army, announced that the Defense Ministry had decided to put a large part of the armored vehicles on wheels instead of caterpillar treads. This meant that artillery, zenithal missile batteries and zenithal equipment as well as light tanks would be transitioned to wheeled systems.
August and September 2012 - Joint exercises of units from the Western Military District and the VDV were held. "Estonia would be wise to pay attention to two particularities of these exercises," wrote Juškin. "First of all, tactical helicopter paratroop landings. From this year on, such landings are practiced at all military exercises. Second of all, for the first time, Western Military District intelligence and reconnaissance staff began to be trained using a new methodology. Officers and instructors who have combat experience in the previous decades in local armed conflicts are now teaching the military to operate in behind enemy lines and to make independent decisions if they are not in contact with the CinC staff."
8 August - Vladimir Putin announced that long before the conflict in South Ossetia, Russia had prepared a special plan that was used as the blueprint in August 2008. He said the plan was put in place in late 2006 or early 2007 by the General Staff and approved by himself.
The logical future
Could a similar plan already be in place for the Baltics?
In a way, Juškin says, it is. "Does the Russian General Staff have a special plan for protecting Russian citizens abroad if needed? Certainly," he wrote. "Not for nothing did Dmitri Medvedev organize an expanded meeting on security issues on May 11, 2011, where he assigned the task of developing an algorithm for protecting Russian citizens in case of an extraordinary situation."
"Still, the current situation is unfolding along the lines of the main (peaceful) scenario, which has an historical analogue" in 1930s Finland. "The best scenario for the Kremlin would be the rise to power in Estonia of a political party loyal to Moscow."
There is also a worst-case scenario, says Juškin, though he is quick to caution no "fuse" has been found. There would be four acts to this play, as he sees it. And the last act stars the VDV.
1. An operation is launched to destabilize the socioeconomic or international situation in a region with a compact Russian-speaking population, with many Russian citizens. Such a region might be Narva, Estonia or Crimea, Ukraine.
2. Widespread demonstrations among the Russian speaking community would take place, led by professional provocateurs.
3. In response, the government uses force against the demonstrators.
4. A landing of paratroopers would be mounted under the guise of a peacekeeping operation.
In the interview with ERR News, Juškin seemed less alarmist, and balanced his comments by noting that Russia is cash-strapped and facing the same obstacles to military funding as other European countries. Still, the emphasis on limited special forces operations is a "danger," he said.
"Serdyukov's resignation suggests that dissatisfaction of the generals with the current military reform had come to a dangerous point," he said. |
A new Chrome extension finally brings native Samba share support to Chromebooks and other Chrome OS devices.
The free add-on allows SMB and CIFS file systems to be mounted and accessed directly through the Chrome OS File Manager app.
Remote files and folders can be opened, edited and deleted through the file manager as both read and write support is fully baked in.
LM, LMv2, NTLM and NTLMv2 authentication protocols are supported. Authentication by domain is not supported, neither are encrypted network shares, NetBIOS over TCP and anything that isn’t using a unicode character set.
Accessing network file shares and third-party cloud storage services is increasingly easy in Chrome OS. Dropbox, One Drive and Box are supported, as are SFTP and WebDav shares.
The Chrome File System Provider API is to thank. This API allows pretty much any network file system to be integrated into the Chrome OS file manager.
Install SMB/CIFS File System Provider from Chrome Web Store |
Image caption Visa says it is to carry out a review of Wikileaks
Visa Europe has begun suspending payments to whistle-blowing website Wikileaks ahead of carrying out an investigation into the organisation.
It follows a similar move by rival payments processor Mastercard on Tuesday.
Visa's announcement comes after Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange was arrested by police in London.
Mr Assange, whose website has published secret documents, is wanted in Sweden on sexual assault allegations.
Wikileaks relies on online donations to fund its operations, which will now not be possible using both Visa and Mastercard debit and credit cards.
A spokeswoman for Visa Europe said its investigation would determine the nature of Wikileaks' business, and "whether it contravenes Visa operating rules".
She added that Visa Europe could not suspend payments to Wikileaks immediately, and that the process took a certain amount of time.
Mastercard said in its statement that it was "in the process of working to suspend the acceptance of Mastercard cards on Wikileaks until the situation is resolved".
Online payment firm PayPal and internet giant Amazon have also cut their links with Wikileaks in recent days. |
Aside from the efforts of security researchers and antivirus companies, malware victims can sometimes also benefit from the fighting between rival cybercriminal groups.
That happened this week when the creators of the Petya and Mischa ransomware programs leaked about 3,500 RSA private keys allegedly corresponding to systems infected with Chimera, another ransomware application.
In a post Tuesday on Pastebin, Mischa's developers claimed that earlier this year they got access to big parts of the development system used by Chimera's creators.
As a result of that hack, they obtained the source code for Chimera and integrated some of it into their own ransomware project, according to the Pastebin message.
This had already been confirmed by researchers from Malwarebytes, who reported last month that Mischa shares some components with Chimera.
There's no confirmation yet that the newly leaked RSA keys actually work to decrypt files affected by Chimera, but there's a big chance that they're legitimate.
"Checking if the keys are authentic and writing a decryptor will take some time – but if you are a victim of Chimera, please don’t delete your encrypted files, because there is a hope that soon you can get your data back," the Malwarebytes researchers said Tuesday in a blog post.
The Chimera ransomware program appeared in November and stood out because it threatened to leak users files on the internet in addition to encrypting them if they didn't pay up. There's no evidence its creators actually delivered on this threat and it was most likely intended as an intimidation tactic to increase the chance that victims will pay.
Mischa, on the other hand, is a newer threat. It first appeared in May and is typically bundled with another ransomware program, called Petya, that encrypts the master file table (MFT) of hard disk drives.
Since Petya's form of encryption requires admin access, Mischa is used as a backup when the needed privileges cannot be obtained. Mischa acts like most other ransomware programs, encrypting the victim's files directly.
Also on Tuesday, Petya and Mischa's creators launched an affiliate system, essentially turning their malware combo into ransomware as a service. This means other cybercriminals can now sign up to distribute these malicious programs for a portion of the profits.
"Unfortunately, this will most likely lead to a greater amount of distribution campaigns for this ransomware," said Lawrence Abrams, the founder of tech support forum BleepingComputer.com, in a blog post. |
Joe Hart: On the bench for City's past four games
Hart was dropped for Costel Pantilimon after a defeat at Chelsea last month and has sat out City's past four games.
The goalkeeper started for England against Germany in midweek and kept the score down to 1-0 with several eye-catching saves.
Pellegrini was impressed but, pressed for answers ahead of Sunday's Sky live game against Spurs at the Etihad Stadium, suggested that Hart would remain among the City substitutes.
He said: "I can't continue to always answer about Hart and Pantilimon.
"Both are very good goalkeepers. Now we are playing Pantilimon, so Hart must wait.
"We'll see what happens in the future. With all the players in the squad - not only the keepers - I have to choose the final starting 11 each week.
"We'll see - it depends on the performance of him and the performance of Pantilimon also."
Continuing to discuss Hart, he added: "It was very important for him to play with England. It was an important game for England against Germany, it is a good test. I think he did very well."
Pellegrini was asked to explain his suggestion earlier this week Hart would benefit from a run out of the side.
He said: "He played the last two and a half years all the games in the Premier League. All the players are human and can have a bad moment."
The Chilean also stressed that he has confidence in Pantilimon, adding: "If I was worried about him, he would not be here. We'd have changed him at the beginning of the year.
"He remains here because he is a good keeper as well."
City go into the weekend with an injury list still including David Silva and captain Vincent Kompany, who has lost his fight to be fit for the Spurs game.
"Vincent is still working," continued Pellegrini, "recovering from his last injury. Maybe the next week he will work with the whole team."
Given the amount of time Kompany has spent out with muscle problems in the past two years, Pellegrini was repeatedly asked whether the matter was a serious concern.
"Of course," he said. "He is a very important player for the team but when we started the season we had a squad which would help us if this happened.
"We have other centre-backs who are playing at the moment but Vincent is always an important player.
"We are doing all the things we need to understand why he has so many injuries. I'm not a doctor. I talk with him but I can't tell you the opinion."
Watch Manchester City v Tottenham on Sky Sports 1 this Sunday. Coverage begins at 12.30pm. |
Some guys might like this too, but for some (totally not PC) reason I thought that most of these things would generally be more appealing for females, rather than males.
11 Unique gifts that some girls may find interesting.
11 Unique gift ideas for girls – s'il vous plait.
Kitty nail stickers
Price: $0.47
A mere $0.54 get you 2 sheets, 20 stickers on each sheet.
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/5_sQsm
Pacman earrings
Price: $1.13
These Pacman earrings come in either gold or silver color. Waka-waka-waka!
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/bXKFZg
Unicorn ring
Price: $0.82
There are 5 different color options.
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/OIysV3
Kitty coin purses
Price: $1.39
There are 5 different designs to pick from.
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/0l-Cp
Totoro / etc. hand warmers
Price: $7.99
8 Different critter designs.
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/v6kDzP
Tweezers with an LED light
Price: $0.99
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/aqZEcq
LED USB nail polish dryer
Price: $18.99 – 24.99
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/hqr7s
Peeling assistant for nails
Price: $3.19
Apply to the edge of fingers sparingly, let it dry, peel it off when it is fully dried. Helps to avoid painting outside of the nails.
Check it out here: http://ali.ski/RiF7P
Sheer tights that don’t run
Price: $3.32
Sheer tights that don't run – quite magical! They come in 4 different color options.
Check them out here: http://ali.ski/fSibY
Ice cream clutch
Price: $13.20
Purchase link: http://ali.ski/b0VBt
P.S.: If you need more gift ideas, check out this collection from AliExpress.
If you are interested in more clothing, check out our Fashion section.
Also, our /r/AliexpressFashion subreddit has daily updates.
Subscribe in the form below, or via RSS.
Cheers! |
It’s been there for millions of years, and we never even noticed it.
Back in 1991, a farmer came across a cave in Phon Nha-Ke Bang National Park that was previously left unexplored. When the sound of water roaring inside the cave was audible, the farmer decided not to proceed further as he was scared. The locales named this cave as Son Doong. However, no one had the guts to go and explore the cave until 2009, when a group of scientists from Britain led by Howard Limbert came across the cave once again and he decided to explore it. He realized that it is a world that is contained in itself and is 5km long and 150 meters wide. Also, it was discovered that Son Doong was the largest cave on Earth.
It has its own vegetation, animals, lakes and clouds. Check out more pictures of the cave.
Entering the cave involves an 80 meters descent using rope.
A fast flowing river inside the cave.
There are small, emerald-coloured lakes, and even beaches.
It has abundance of stalactites and fossils.
Stalagmites of up to 70 meters have been found here.
A thick jungle inside the cave that also is home to animals.
The climate inside the cave is also different, all thanks to the clouds inside it.
Photo credit: flickr |
Police have arrested a Franklin man for allegedly groping and fondling women when he was supposed to be giving them massages.
Ryan Farmer, 24, is facing three counts of misdemeanor battery.
Investigators say the allegations involve three women who have never met, but shared similar stories of what they say happened at CMG Family Wellness.
According to the charging documents, the first allegation came from an 18-year-old woman this past March. That woman told investigators her massage with Farmer started out fine, but in the last 15 minutes "things became uncomfortable."
That's when she says Farmer fondled her breast for several minutes. The woman told police she didn't stop Farmer because it was her first massage and she didn't know if this was something normally done.
When the massage was over, the woman says Farmer told her, "This stays between you and I."
The second alleged victim came forward in May, saying she had had other massages with Farmer in the past that went fine.
This time, though, at the end of the session, the woman says Farmer groped her breasts and that "the touching of her breasts seemed sexual, not at all like he touched her back, neck, shoulder, etc."
That woman says she didn't speak up fearing Farmer would "do something to hurt her."
The third woman, according to court documents, had an appointment right after the second alleged victim. She told investigators Farmer groped her breasts. Court documents show the woman told investigators "that what Ryan was doing seemed like foreplay."
CMG Family Wellness issued the following statement to Eyewitness News Wednesday afternoon:
Farmer had worked at our center as a massage therapist for approximately a year. He is no longer employed at CMG Family Wellness Center and we have fully cooperated with the police investigation. CMG Family Wellness is dedicated to the health and well being of our patients and clients. We diligently check references of our employees. We make certain they have the required training and licensing. We also hold them to the highest professional standards. We are devastated to learn of these allegations but remain committed to serving the healthcare needs of our community, patients and clients. We will not have any further comment on the matter.
Farmer has denied the allegations and is out of jail on $750 bond. |
The Liberal government has been expanding the number of public servants subject to lifetime gag orders, placing them under threat of hefty prison sentences should they spill any secrets before they die.
Since December, the Privy Council Office has designated at least 94 individuals, some of whom no longer work for the federal government, as "persons permanently bound to secrecy" or PPBS — a binding legal order intended to enforce their silence.
The group all had access to confidential, security-related information while working at the Privy Council Office or the Prime Minister's Office, and some were served with official notice of the gag order after they had left their jobs.
Each of them was individually identified by their boss or former boss as knowing secrets about national security, and therefore requiring a gag order that is retroactive — preventing them from talking about their work before the gag order was issued.
Each was also presented with a three-page notice to sign and return, many using a pre-paid, pre-addressed envelope that was enclosed.
CBC News learned about the latest round of lifetime gag orders through a request under the Access to Information Act, and some details have been confirmed by a government spokesperson.
Gagged for life
A heavily redacted memorandum for the clerk of the Privy Council dated Dec. 19, 2016, also shows another 145 Privy Council Office staffers have been subject to blanket gag orders under the Security of Information Act since 2014 because of the nature of their roles.
These individuals were automatically gagged for life because they work in units that are designated as sensitive and are routinely exposed to secrets, unlike the 94 who were selectively added to the gag list because they are only sometimes given secret information.
The Privy Council Office declined to provide more information about the 94, including how many may have worked in former prime minister Stephen Harper's office.
"Further disclosure of information could lead to security risks, potentially placing Canadians at risk," spokesperson Paul Duchesne said in an email.
The briefing note for the clerk indicates the Privy Council Office expects to add about 30 individuals each year to the ranks of "persons permanently bound to secrecy."
A separate group of more than 200 Canadian military personnel and federal workers have also been hit with lifetime gag orders since early last year. These individuals all work in the controversial program to replace Canada's fighter jets.
After a formal question submitted in the House of Commons by Conservative MP James Bezan, the government acknowledged more than 200 public servants have been gagged for life regarding their work in procuring new fighter jets. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
The number was elicited by Conservative defence critic James Bezan through a formal House of Commons procedure that requires a minister to answer an MP's question. Insiders called the gag orders an extraordinary and unnecessary measure.
Of the 235 staffers disclosed to Bezan, 121 work for National Defence and 13 work for the Privy Council Office. It's not clear whether any of the 13 at Privy Council are also counted in the clerk's memo.
Myth of the 'eternal secret'
In total, these most recent reports add at least another 361 public servants who risk up to 14 years in prison if they ever discuss the secrets of their time in government, whether in memoirs or at family reunions.
Security and intelligence historian Wesley Wark says the gagging system under the Security of Information Act of 2001 is unworkable and poorly conceived.
It "rests on an idea that there is such a thing as a permanent or eternal secret," the University of Ottawa professor said. "This is clearly a myth and an unhelpful one."
Wesley Wark, a security and intelligence historian at the University of Ottawa, says the gag provisions of the Security of Information Act are outdated and rob Canadians of their history.
He says the concept "robs Canada of an ability to learn from the experience of officials with a deep knowledge of security and intelligence issues" and "creates a chill around the publication of memoirs and other forms of organized memory and commentary."
"It is a very old-fashioned system, rooted in long-ago British practice and has not been updated."
Wark says the law needs to be rewritten to ensure the gag provisions apply only to select categories of highly sensitive intelligence, among other reforms.
But Duchesne of the PCO says there are no plans to change the system.
"Designation of PMO and PCO employees will continue, as required in the interests of security," he said. "Both PCO and PMO take the protection of information very seriously, which is why both ensure that those who have access to special operational information are permanently bound to secrecy."
On May 11, historians and their supporters launched a petition to the federal government, calling for millions of documents that have spent decades in departmental filing cabinets to be turned over to Library and Archives Canada.
The petition's initiator, Dennis Molinaro of Trent University, told CBC News "the government seems to be, in essence, running some kind of secret or shadow archive."
Follow @DeanBeeby on Twitter |
At 3 wins and 3 losses it may be too premature to hit the panic button on this season, but I would certainly keep it within arm’s reach. If the Ravens cannot dispatch the struggling Bears in a home game then it is very difficult to imagine that that they can take their anemic offense on the road against a good defensive team and come back victorious. But this is the NFL and each week always shows some surprises. By the numbers the Ravens look pretty bad through the first six games, and six games is a decent sample size for trending a 16 game season. Let’s take a closer look at the rankings and see where the Ravens stand – here you go:
Offensive Stats
Total yards per game (YPG) 289 – Ranked 29th
YPG Passing 160 – Ranked 31st
YPG Rushing 130 – Ranked 7th
Points per game 19 – Ranked 24th
Defensive Stats
Total yards per game 330 – Ranked 16th
YPG passing 190 – Ranked 5th
YPG rushing 141 – Ranked 30th
Points per game 20.7 – Ranked 11th
Straight up the Ravens offensive strength is in their running game and if they are going to win on Sunday they will have to move the ball on the ground. The challenge for the Ravens this week is the Vikings are stout against the run (ranked 3rd) and they give up a paltry 79 yards a game. Don’t expect the Ravens passing game to show much improvement this week although I do hope that the receivers will do a better job catching the ball. For reasons unknown to me, Joe Flacco has regressed in his play and even to the untrained eye it is easy to see that he is not playing like a 10 year veteran. Given his play these past few seasons and in light of the injuries to his knee and back – you have to come to grips that this is what you now have with Flacco. And as bad as the passing game looks right now – let me be very clear in stating that the answer is not Ryan Mallet – he is awful. For good or for bad Flacco is our guy and the coaching staff is going to have to scheme things in such a way that he can be successful. To be clear now, I am not putting this all on Flacco, the coaches, receivers and O line have all contributed to this lackluster offense.
I suggest you watch Sunday’s game with low expectations for the Ravens. The Vikings have played most of this season without their starting quarterback and yet they have somehow managed to win 4 games. They are winning because they have a stout defense and they are going to be a handful for the Ravens this week. It also doesn’t help that the following receivers are not practicing this week – Williams, Watson, Wallace, and Perriman. The Odds makers have the Vikings by 5 ½ and I think that they will cover. Ravens will struggle to get points on the road and the Vikings will win this one in a low scoring affair. If you are keeping track of my game predictions this year you will know that I am only 2 and 4 so far, so take my picks with a grain of salt. Enjoy the game and stay thirsty my friends.
Minnesota Vikings hosting the Baltimore Ravens – Sunday, October 22nd @ 1:00 PM Odds – Vikings by 5 ½
Game Predictions Score Ravens 9 Vikings 20 Turnovers Minus 1 Net Rushing Yardage Ravens 76 Vikings 110 Net Passing Yardage Ravens 155 Vikings 184
Miscellaneous Predictions
Everson Griffen gets 2 sacks a forced fumble on Flacco
Ravens commit 8 penalties for 80
Justin Tucker accounts for all 9 points
Refs make terrible calls
Possible Monday morning headlines
Flacco’s woes continue in loss to Vikings
Ravens continue to struggle to score in road loss
Keys to the Game |
Huge piles of fishing buoys and nets, old footballs and volleyballs, a postal service box with rubber slippers in it, cracked construction helmets, big black tires, broken laundry baskets and even a plastic pink flamingo were stacked up Thursday morning along a federal pier at Ford Island.
In all, roughly 100,000 pounds of marine debris were collected on the reefs and shorelines of Midway and Kure atolls over the past six years before it was finally hauled more than 1,000 miles to Honolulu, where much of it will be incinerated and turned into energy.
State and federal officials came together at the pier by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Inouye Regional Center to draw attention to the toll of marine debris at the two atolls and other places in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat
Kevin O’Brien, who led the marine debris removal project with NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, said since 1996 federal teams have removed nearly 2 million pounds of marine debris from in and around islands within the monument’s boundaries, which President Obama expanded last year to now encompass 582,000 square miles.
O’Brien underscored how the fishing nets and plastics harm endangered turtles, seals, corals and seabirds, and that removing the marine debris is one of the most immediate and tangible things his agency and others can do to help.
Courtesy: NOAA
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said the story of marine conservation is one of good news and bad news. The good news comes in accounts of government agencies and private entities partnering to clean up the ocean. The bad news is the problem is getting worse.
By 2050, he said, scientists expect there to be more plastic in the ocean than fish (by weight). So the solution must also involve reducing the amount of trash people create in the first place, he said.
Schatz said the issue of marine debris — unlike more complex problems like climate change — is solvable.
“This is a matter of too much trash in the ocean,” he said. “We know what the solution is, which is to remove the trash from the ocean.”
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources provided funding to help the feds haul 12 shipping containers of marine debris that had been collected at Midway and Kure and stored on the tarmac at Midway.
Courtesy: Dan Clark/USFWS
It will be processed by Schnitzer Steel Corporation and transported to Honolulu’s H-POWER plant to be incinerated to produce electricity.
“Marine debris are not something you can clean up just once; it takes a sustained effort over time,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Superintendent Matt Brown said. “By working with the state of Hawaii, Office of Hawaiian Affairs and NOAA, we can accomplish more than any one agency on its own to clean up marine debris and educate the public to prevent it from entering the ecosystem.”
Given how fast it is accumulating, NOAA Marine Debris Program Pacific Islands Regional Coordinator Mark Manuel said it is “imperative” to remove the debris from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to “ensure the health of this valuable habitat and the species that call it home.”
Jason Misaki, DLNR’s Oahu wildlife manager, estimated the cost to load, ship and unload the marine debris at $225,000.
Watch a video from the press conference below. |
Imagine that pesky tabby cat has been pooing in your backyard again. Unbeknown to you, it has transferred some of the parasite spores it was carrying onto your herb garden. Unintentionally, while preparing a tasty salad, you forget to wash your hands and infect yourself with the Toxoplasma gondii spores. For months you display no symptoms, then after six months you are driving your car more aggressively, taking chances in road junctions and generally filled with more road rage as you angrily gesticulate with fellow drivers. Could all this be linked to that tasty salad?
T. gondii is a fascinating protozoan parasite which, like many similar organisms, needs to move between several different host species in order to fully develop and reproduce. As such, it appears to have evolved clever methods to make transmission between hosts more likely. For example, studies have found that once rats – intermediate hosts – are infected they display less caution towards cats – the final stage hosts – and so the parasite is more likely to be passed on.
An increasing number of studies suggest humans known to be infected with these parasites could be more susceptible to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, aggression and even increased suicide. Studies have even suggested you are two to three times more likely to have a car crash if your blood tests positive for the parasite. This is particularly striking when it has been predicted that 30%-50% of the worldwide population may carry the parasite.
Not so cute when you know what they’re carrying. Shutterstock
Chicken or egg?
Very often criticisms of these studies come down to a chicken and egg question. Correlation doesn’t necessary mean causality. Are those aggressive, fast-driving people or those with behavioural conditions more likely to catch the parasites, or does the parasite cause these behavioural traits? Many of the studies were done retrospectively rather than looking at someone’s behaviour before and after they became infected with the parasites. So for now, we can’t say for sure whether your road rage really was linked to your salad.
What we do know is that there are plenty of examples in wildlife where parasites can manipulate the sex, growth, maturation, habitat and behaviour of their hosts. Hair worms, for instance, complete their lifecycle in a river or stream and appear to make their hosts – crickets – attracted to water.
The effects of the parasite don’t stop there, either. The hapless crickets can provide fish with an alternative food source to their usual diet of aquatic invertebrates and, for parts of the year, can form a substantial part of their diet. So manipulating parasites can be important to maintaining healthy ecosystems.
Some ant species infected by trematode flukes are manipulated in a way that makes them cling to the tops of blades of grass, which means they’re more likely to be eaten by sheep. This enables the fluke to complete its life cycle in the sheep.
Chestburster. mardeltaxa/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA
A type of barnacle parasite known as a rhizocephalan, which eats its crab host from the inside out, is known to feminise its male hosts by castrating them. Scientists have suggested they are then more likely to look after the parasite sac that bursts through their abdomens, much like a female would tend to her eggs.
Switching on genes
Through advances in molecular biology, we are increasingly working out how these parasites can change behaviour by altering gene expression – the way genes can be turned on or off. For example, work in our labs at the University of Portsmouth is trying to uncover the mechanism that enables a newly discovered species of trematode parasite make their shrimp-like (amphipods) hosts more attracted to the light.
Trematodes: little blighters. Josef Reischig/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
These amphipods would prefer to be hiding under seaweed on our shores, escaping their bird predators as the tide recedes. By chemically mapping the brains of infected shrimp, scientists have discovered that parasites somehow altered the shrimps' serotonin, a mood neurotransmitter found throughout the animal kingdom. Our recent studies have indicated that infected shrimp have subtle alterations to their serotonin receptors and the enzymes that produce serotonin.
Other studies have shown amphipods hosting similar parasites are over 20 times more likely to be eaten compared to non-infected specimens. Again, this highlights the often-overlooked importance of brain-bending parasites in the natural order of food webs.
We often think we must have discovered all the species possible in well-studied locations such as the UK, but many fascinating new manipulating parasites are yet to be discovered on our doorsteps. Our knowledge of how these brain-bending parasites interact with human species will no doubt develop more strongly over the next decade.
Alex Ford, Reader in Biology, University of Portsmouth
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. |
Words and photography by Andrew Jones (AKA Pamberjack)
To open, I have a frank and shocking admission to make. I don’t like Harleys. Never have. I’ve always seen them as way too bourbon, bandanas and bald eagles, if you see what I mean. Sure, on the odd occasion I’ve seen a custom HD that I’d not mind being seen on – but for the vast majority of this Milwaukee metal I’d rather set my pubes on fire than have them parked in my garage.
Then I met Jed DePyper at the recent Deus ex Machina Parallel Universe day. I shot the faeces with him for a while and he eventually told me he rode a “Rat Bobber”. Being none-the-wiser, I asked to see it. And Christ on a bike, what a bike; I was pretty much smitten from the get go. It wasn’t until later that day that I put two and two together and realised that I had just had my socks shocked and awed by a Hardly Ableson. God bless America.
Here’s Jed:
PB: Tell us a little about yourself.
JDP: Just another petrol-head. Finally started riding about 6 years ago. Love it.
PB: Amazing bike. What sort of Harley was it originally?
JDP: It’s a 69 Ironhead Sporty.
PB: Can you take us through what it was like when you got it?
JDP: Yeah, I found it on Ebay, it was a tacky, chromed 70s chop with sparkly paint and the wrong kinda vibe (for me). But it was cheap and it ran.
PB: You obviously had help from Evolution Motorsports. How was it working with them?
JDP: Had help? I’m useless. It’s entirely Paul’s handiwork. Dude’s awesome. I just told him exactly how I wanted it and he brought it to life. I’m sure he would have liked to do it a bit classier, but I wouldn’t have a bar of that. I sourced a lot of the parts and he made it all come together. I’d like to say I had more hands on, but I’m too busy being a poseur to get any grease on my girly fingers.
PB: What was your inspiration?
JDP: I like rat-bikes. They’re the antithesis of showroom-fresh modern bikes and precious, polished princesses. Plus, I can’t afford said modern bikes and princesses. Plus, this way it’s no sweat when the bike eats tarmac. Pick it up, bit of duck-tape and off you go.
PB: The brass lamp headlight is amazing. How’d you source that?
JDP: Ebay again. Old T-model Ford I think, can’t remember. Paul found it and knew I’d dig it.
PB: How’d you do the artwork on it?
JDP: White paint pen, then scraped it off with a pocket knife.
PB: What reactions does it get from strangers?
JDP: Junkies seem to like it.
PB: How do the cops treat you?
JDP: Haven’t had any probs yet. Despite appearances, it’s all fairly legit. They’d probably like a front fender and chain-guard, but no hassles thus far. Plus, I just skulk about in the back-streets like a cretin.
PB: What’s it like to ride?
JDP: Loud, slow, doesn’t handle, doesn’t stop. Fun as fuck.
PB: Does Satan mind you borrowing his bike?
JDP: I sold my soul and all I got was this shitty, two-wheeled tractor? Besides, Satan rides a Vincent Black Prince.
PS. Jed had met me exactly ONCE before he LOANED ME THE BIKE FOR THE WEEKEND so I could take some time to get the photos just right. If that’s not being helpful and trusting, then I don’t know what is. Think I’ll try for his credit card and his mum next time… |
Updates:
25 May - Info added Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities, Number of breakups/divorces, Number of possible fatalities, Number of characters leaving town, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of time warps/jump, Number of nuclear disasters
25th May - Number of couples reuniting increased from 9 to 10, Number of fatalities increased from 51 to 53, Number of breakups/divorces increased from 8 to 9, Number of possible fatalities increased from 27 to 42, Number of characters leaving town increased from 17 to 19, Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 31 to 34, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes decreased from 36 to 35, Number of time warps/jump increased from 7 to 8, Number of nuclear disasters increased from 1 to 2
24th May - Number of characters leaving town increased from 13 to 17, Number of time warps/jump increased from 6 to 7
24th May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of new pregnancies, Number of fatalities, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of time warps/jump
23rd May - Info added Number of breakups/divorces, Number of characters leaving town,Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of new pregnancies, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of weddings and Number of fatalities
22nd May - Info added Number of possible fatalities
21st May - Number of fatalities increased from 44 to 46
21st May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities
19th May - Number of fatalities increased from 34 to 44, Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 26 to 30, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 34 to 38
19th May - Info added Number of characters giving birth, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of new pregnancies, Number of fatalities, Number of breakups/divorces, Number of characters leaving town, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes
18th May - Number of possible fatalities increased from 23 to 27, Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 24 to 26, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 29 to 34, Number of time warps/jump increased from 5 to 6
18th May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of possible fatalities, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of time warps/jump
17th May - Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from , 22 to 29, Number of couples reuniting increased from 9 to 11, Number of fatalities increased from 30 to 34
17th May - Info added Number of possible fatalities, Number of characters leaving town, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of couples reuniting
16th May - Info added Number of weddings, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities, Number of characters leaving town,Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of engagements/question poppings
16th May - Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 22 to 29, Number of weddings increased from 7 to 8, Number of characters leaving town increased from 10 to 13, Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 17 to 24, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 24 to 25, Number of engagements/question poppings increased from 5 to 6
14th May - Number of engagements/question poppings increased from 3 to 5
14th May - Info added Number of fatalities, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of engagements/question poppings, Number of time warps/jump
13th May - Info added Number of characters leaving town, Number of resurrections and/or big returns
12th May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of weddings, Number of Fatalities, Number of breakups/divorces, Number of possible fatalities, Number of characters leaving town, Number of resurrections, Number of engagements/question poppings and/or big returns and Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes
12th May - Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 22 to 27, Number of Fatalities increased from 27 to 30, Number of breakups/divorces increased from 7 to 9, Number of characters leaving town increased from 8 to 10, Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 14 to 17
11th May - Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 12 to 14, Number of new pregnancies increased from 3 to 4, Number of fatalities increased from 26 to 28, Number of characters giving birth increased from 2 to 3
11th May - Info added Number of possible fatalities, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of characters giving birth, Number of new pregnancies, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities
10th May - Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 21 to 24, Number of new pregnancies increased from 2 to 3, Number of weddings increased from 6 to 7, Number of fatalities increased from 24 to 26
10th May - Info added Number of breakups/divorces, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of weddings, Number of fatalities
9th May - Info added Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of time warps/jump, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time
9th May - Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 9 to 12, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 19 to 21, Number of time warps/jump increased from 4 to 5, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 19 to 22
8th May - Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 16 to 19, Number of new pregnancies increased from 1 to 2, Number of weddings increased from 5 to 6, Number of fatalities increased from 23 to 24
8th May - Info added Number of characters giving birth, Number of fatalities, Number of weddings, Number of new pregnancies, Number of resurrections and/or big returns and Number of nuclear disasters
6th May - Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 14 to 19
6th May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time
5th May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of fatalities, Number of characters leaving town, Number of resurrections and/or big returns and Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time and Number of possible fatalities
5th May - Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 13 to 14, Number of fatalities increased from 19 to 23, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased for 14 to 16
4th May - Number of couples reuniting increased from 7 to 9, Number of time warps/jump increased from 3 to 4, Number of fatalities increased from 16 to 19, Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 8 to 9
4th May - Info added Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities, Number of breakups/divorces and Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes
2nd May - Number of resurrections and/or big returns increased from 6 to 8, Number of engagements/question poppings increased from 2 to 3
2nd May - Info added for Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of weddings, Number of fatalities, Number of resurrections and/or big returns, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes
1st May - Info added for Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of weddings, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes, Number of time warps/jump
1st May - Number of characters giving birth increased from 1 to 2, Number of weddings increased from 4 to 5
30th April - Info added for Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time, Number of characters leaving town and Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes
30th April - Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 11 to 13, Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes increased from 11 to 14
28th April - Info Added for Number of weddings, Number of couples reuniting, Number of fatalities and Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes.
28th April - Number of breakups/divorces increased from 6 to 7.
22nd April - Number of possible fatalities increased from 20 to 23
19th April - Number of weddings increased from 2 to 4, Number of breakups/divorces increased from 5 to 6, Number of possible fatalities increased from 11 to 20, Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time increased from 6 to 11, Number of fatalities increased from 14 to 16
14th April - Number of weddings increased from 1 to 2, Number of fatalities increased from 13 to 14
13th April - Number of time warps/jump increased from 2 to 3, Number of possible fatalities increased from 5 to 11, Number of fatalities increased from 11 to 13
Number of characters giving birth: 3
1. AIRED May 7: Erica gave birth to daughter Dawn/The Last Man on Earth
2. AIRED May 10: Bow gave birth to son DeVonte/black-ish
3. AIRED May 18: Kelly gave birth to Lucifer’s son/Supernatural
Number of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time: 32
1. AIRED April 27: Sandra and Jerry kissed/Superstore
2. AIRED April 28: Greer and James kissed/Reign
3. AIRED April 28: Narcisse and Nicole had sex/Reign
4. AIRED April 29: Holly and Frank said “I love you” (in their own way)/Training Day
5. AIRED April 30: Gail and Erica’s relationship revealed/Last Man on Earth
6. AIRED May 1: Paige and Walter said “I love you”/Scorpion
7. AIRED May 1: Alex and Maggie said “I love you”/Supergirl
8. AIRED May 2: Joe and Cecile said “I love you”/The Flash
9. AIRED May 2: Severide and Anne said “I love you”/Chicago Fire
10. AIRED May 3: Adam and Jackie kissed/The Goldbergs
11. AIRED May 4: Arizona and Eliza had sex/Grey’s Anatomy
12. AIRED May 4: Jonah and Amy kissed/Superstore
13. AIRED May 5: Freya and Keelin kissed/The Originals
14. AIRED May 7: Jay and Sofia had sex/Madam Secretary
15. AIRED May 8: Jane and Fabian had sex/Jane the Virgin
16. AIRED May 8: Alba and Jorge said “I love you”/Jane the Virgin
17. AIRED May 8: Chuck told Petra “I love you”/Jane the Virgin
18. AIRED May 8: Clark and Emma kissed/The Great Indoors
19. AIRED May 9: H.R. and Tracy kissed/The Flash
20. AIRED May 9: Julian said “I love you” to Caitlin/The Flash
21. AIRED May 11: Betty and Jughead said “I love you”/Riverdale
22. AIRED May 11: Archie and Veronica had sex/Riverdale
23. AIRED May 11: Ethan and April/Chicago Med
24. AIRED May 11: Connor said “I love you” to Robin/Chicago Med
25. AIRED May 17: Ray has first kiss/Speechless
26. AIRED May 17: Jane and Weller said “I love you” and had sex/Blindspot
27. AIRED May 18: Aram and Samar kissed/The Blacklist
28. AIRED May 19: Elizabeth has sex with the Archduke/Reign
29. AIRED May 22: Kara told Mon-El she loves him/Supergirl
30. AIRED May 23: Liv and Justin shared first kiss/iZombie
31. AIRED May 23: Lincoln and Sheba shared first kiss/Prison Break
32. AIRED May 23: H.R. said “I love you” to Tracy/The Flash
Number of new pregnancies: 6
1. AIRED May 7: Daisy/Madam Secretary
2. AIRED May 9: Delilah/NCIS
3. AIRED May 10: Cat/Criminal Minds
4. AIRED May 18: Quinn/Scandal
5. AIRED May 22: Darci/Jane the Virgin
6. AIRED May 23: Gina/Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Number of weddings: 9
1. AIRED April 27: Cheyenne and Bo/Superstore
2. AIRED April 30: Todd and Melissa/Last Man on Earth
3. AIRED May 1: Toby and Happy/Scorpion
4. AIRED May 7: Emma and Hook/Once Upon a Time
5. AIRED May 9: McGee and Delilah/NCIS
6. AIRED May 11: Matt and Colleen/Life in Pieces
7. AIRED May 15: Clay and Maxine/Quantico
8. AIRED May 22: Rogelio and Xiomara/Jane the Virgin
Number of couples reuniting: 10
1. AIRED April 27: Catherine and Richard/Grey’s Anatomy
2. AIRED April 30: Jeanette and Carson/American Crime
3. AIRED May 10: Jane and Weller/Blindspot
4. AIRED May 15: Rafael and Petra/Jane the Virgin
5. AIRED May 15: Alex and Ryan/Quantico
6. AIRED May 16: Mack and Elena/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
7. AIRED May 16: Michael and Sara/Prison Break
8. AIRED May 17: Oliver and Felicity/Arrow
9. AIRED May 19: Catherine and Narcisse/Reign
10. AIRED May 24: Cookie and Lucious/Empire
Number of fatalities: 53
1. AIRED April 27: Joshua/Supernatural
2. AIRED April 27: Dagon/Supernatural
3. AIRED April 30: Roy/Elementary
4. AIRED May 1: Gabe/Gotham
5. AIRED May 1: Frank/Gotham
6. AIRED May 2: Sid/Prison Break
7. AIRED May 2: Anna/Chicago Fire
8. AIRED May 3: Ilian/The 100
9. AIRED May 3: Roan/The 100
10. AIRED May 3: Luna/The 100
11. AIRED May 3: Cassie/Criminal Minds
12. AIRED May 3: Jason/Designated Survivor
13. AIRED May 4: Peus/Scandal
14. AIRED May 4: Ruland/Scandal
15. AIRED May 4: Cliff/Riverdale
16. AIRED May 7: Pat/The Last Man on Earth
17. AIRED May 7: Shinwell/Elementary
18. AIRED May 7: Michelle/NCIS:LA
19. AIRED May 9: Omar/Prison Break
20. AIRED May 9: Cyclops/Prison Break
21. AIRED May 10: Jasper/The 100
22. AIRED May 10: Pellington/Blindspot
23. AIRED May 11: Eileen/Supernatural
24. AIRED May 14: The Black Fairy/Once Upon a Time
25. AIRED May 15: President Roarke/Quantico
26. AIRED May 16: Aida/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
27. AIRED May 16: Kishida/Prison Break
28. AIRED May 16: Stone/NCIS: New Orleans
29. AIRED May 17: Tariq/Empire
30. AIRED May 17: Lozano/Designated Survivor
31. AIRED May 18: Luna/Scandal
32. AIRED May 18: Mr. Kaplan/The Blacklist
33. AIRED May 18: Laurel/The Blacklist
34. AIRED May 18: Castiel/Supernatural
35. AIRED May 18: Crowley/Supernatural
36. AIRED May 18: Ketch/Supernatural
37. AIRED May 18: Toni/Supernatural
38. AIRED May 18: Dr. Hess/Supernatural
39. AIRED May 18: Rowena/Supernatural
40. AIRED May 18: Kelly/Supernatural
41. AIRED May 19: Elijah/The Originals
42. AIRED May 19: Rizzio/Reign
43. AIRED May 20: Wallace/Training Day
44. AIRED May 21: Julia/Shades of Blue
45. AIRED May 22: Rhea/Supergirl
46. AIRED May 22: Kathryn/Gotham
47. AIRED May 23: Vivian Still/iZombie
48. AIRED May 23: Savitar/The Flash
49. AIRED May 23: H.R./The Flash
50. AIRED May 24: Malcolm/Arrow
51. AIRED May 24: Adrian Chase/Arrow
52. AIRED May 24: Kovar/Arrow
53. AIRED May 24: Captain Boomerang/Arrow
Number of breakups/divorces: 9
1. AIRED April 27: Jonah and Kristen/Superstore
2. AIRED May 3: Lucious and Anika/Empire
3. AIRED May 4; Sarah and Joey/Chicago Med
4. AIRED May 9: Fitz and Ophelia/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
5. AIRED May 9: Blaine and Peyton/iZombie
6. AIRED May 11: Will and Nina/Chicago Med
7. AIRED May 18: Aram and Janet broke up/The Blacklist
8. AIRED May 22: Rafael and Petra/Jane the Virgin
9. AIRED May 24: Lucious and Giuliana/Empire
Number of possible fatalities*: 42
1. AIRED May 4: Brett/Superstore
2. AIRED May 10: Prentiss/Criminal Minds
3. AIRED May 10: JJ/Criminal Minds
4. AIRED May 10: Rossi/Criminal Minds
5. AIRED May 10: Walker/Criminal Minds
6. AIRED May 10: Tara/Criminal Minds
7. AIRED May 10: Alvez/Criminal Minds
8. AIRED May 11: Colleen/Life in Pieces
9. AIRED May 11: Fred/Riverdale
10. AIRED May 11: Dr. Charles/Chicago Med
11. AIRED May 16: Gibbs/NCIS
12. AIRED May 16: McGee/NCIS
13. AIRED May 16: Mouch/Chicago Fire
14. AIRED May 16: Casey/Chicago Fire
15. AIRED May 16: Severide/Chicago Fire
16. AIRED May 16: Stella/Chicago Fire
17. AIRED May 16: Otis/Chicago Fire
18. AIRED May 16: Herrmann/Chicago Fire
19. AIRED May 16: Kannell/Chicago Fire
20. AIRED May 17: Reade/Blindspot
21. AIRED May 17: Patterson/Blindspot
22. AIRED May 17: Zapata/Blindspot
23. AIRED May 21: Woz/Shades of Blue
24. AIRED May 21: Harlee/Shades of Blue
25. AIRED May 24: Felicity/Arrow
26. AIRED May 24: Diggle/Arrow
27. AIRED May 24: Thea/Arrow
28. AIRED May 24: Curtis/Arrow
29. AIRED May 24: Dinah/Arrow
30. AIRED May 24: Slade/Arrow
31. AIRED May 24: Rene/Arrow
32. AIRED May 24: Quentin/Arrow
33. AIRED May 24: Nyssa/Arrow
34. AIRED May 24: Samantha/Arrow
35. AIRED May 24: Talia/Arrow
36. AIRED May 24: Black Siren/Arrow
37. AIRED May 24: Evelyn/Arrow
38. AIRED May 24: Abby/The 100
39. AIRED May 24: Octavia/The 100
40. AIRED May 24: Indra/The 100
41. AIRED May 24: Jaha/The 100
42. AIRED May 24: Kane/The 100
* Applies to characters whose fate is left up in the air at the end of the season finale
Number of characters leaving town: 19
1. AIRED April 28: James/Reign
2. AIRED April 28: Adrian/Rosewood
3. AIRED May 4: Jeff/Chicago Med
4. AIRED May 11: Ben/The Catch
5. AIRED May 11: Margot/The Catch
6. AIRED May 11: Tessa/The Catch
7. AIRED May 12: Kono/Hawaii Five-0
8. AIRED May 15: Alex/Quantico
9. AIRED May 15: Ryan/Quantico
10. AIRED May 16: Robbie/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
11. AIRED May 18: Fitz/Scandal
12. AIRED May 22: Mon-El leaves Earth/Supergirl
13. AIRED May 23: Barry/The Flash
14. AIRED May 24: Raven went to space/The 100
15. AIRED May 24: Bellamy went to space/The 100
16. AIRED May 24: Murphy went to space/The 100
17. AIRED May 24: Monty went to space/The 100
18. AIRED May 24: Harper went to space/The 100
19. AIRED May 24: Emori went to space/The 100
Number of resurrections and/or big returns: 34
1. AIRED May 1: Lina/Jane the Virgin
2. AIRED May 1: Anezka/Jane the Virgin
3. AIRED May 3: Cat/Criminal Minds
4. AIRED May 3: William (aka Matthew)/Arrow
5. AIRED May 4: Lady Toni/Supernatural
6. AIRED May 7: Pamela/The Last Man on Earth
7. AIRED May 8: Victor Fries/Gotham
8. AIRED May 8: Bridgit “Firefly” Pike/Gotham
9. AIRED May 9: Ghost Rider/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
10. AIRED May 10: Derek/Criminal Minds
11. AIRED May 10: Bunny/Chicago P.D.
12. AIRED May 10: Sinclair/The 100
13. AIRED May 11: Maya/Scandal
14. AIRED May 12: Davina/The Originals
15. AIRED May 15: Barnes/Gotham
16. AIRED May 15: Strange/Gotham
17. AIRED May 15: Cat/Supergirl
18. AIRED May 15: Superman (Clark)/Supergirl
19. AIRED May 16: Snart/The Flash
20. AIRED May 17: Nyssa/Arrow
21. AIRED May 17: Malcolm/Arrow
22. AIRED May 17: Slade/Arrow
23. AIRED May 18: Megan/Grey’s Anatomy
24. AIRED May 18: Tom/The Blacklist
25. AIRED May 18: Bobby/Supernatural
26. AIRED May 18: Jody/Supernatural
27. AIRED May 18: Alex/Supernatural
28. AIRED May 20: Artemis/Training Day
29. AIRED May 20: Lina/Training Day
30. AIRED May 20: Menjivar/Training Day
31. AIRED May 22: M’gann/Supergirl
32. AIRED May 23: Jay/The Flash
33. AIRED May 24: Captain Boomerang/Arrow
34. AIRED May 24: Samantha/Arrow
Number of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes: 35
1. AIRED April 27: Luna Vargas appointed VP of USA/Scandal
2. AIRED April 28: Lord Darnley is crowned King of Scotland/Reign
3. AIRED April 30: Kimara quits social-worker job to work for Abby/American Crime
4. AIRED May 1: President Haas impeached/Quantico
5. AIRED May 3: Kimble Hookstraten resigns as SOTH, named Sec of Ed/Designated Survivor
6. AIRED May 4: Noah gets matched with emergency medicine/Chicago Med
7. AIRED May 4: Jeff Clarke took a job in Honolulu/Chicago Med
8. AIRED May 4: Amy gets summer gig at Princeton/The Big Bang Theory
9. AIRED May 4: Stephanie suspended/Grey’s Anatomy
10. AIRED May 5: Mayor Poole resigned /Blue Bloods
11. AIRED May 5 Lord Bothwell is Mary’s new bodyguard/Reign
12. AIRED May 5 Rizzio is Mary’s new adviser/Reign
13. AIRED May 8: Donna quits school nurse job/Kevin Can Wait
14. AIRED May 8: Chale loses start-up gig before it even starts/Kevin Can Wait
15. AIRED May 9: Henry promoted/Prison Break
16. AIRED May 9: Cruz suspended/Chicago Fire
17. AIRED May 9: Pride’s team suspended/NCIS: New Orleans
18. AIRED May 11: Quinn named head of OPA/Scandal
19. AIRED May 11: Marcus resigns as press sec, takes job running Fitz’s foundation/Scandal
20. AIRED May 14: Hook appointed deputy sheriff/Once Upon a Time
21. AIRED May 15: Owen took Matthew’s job at the CIA/Quantico
22. AIRED May 15: Shelby is teaching at Quantico/Quantico
23. AIRED May 16: Mouch announces he’s retiring/Chicago Fire
25. AIRED May 16: Casey steps down as alderman/Chicago Fire
24. AIRED May 16: Pride’s team reinstated/NCIS: New Orleans
25. AIRED May 17: Thirsty fired/Empire
26. AIRED May 17: Whitaker (presumably!) fired/Designated Survivor
27. AIRED May 17: Aaron returns to White House/Designated Survivor
28. AIRED May 17: Lindsay gets a job offer from the FBI/Chicago P.D.
29. AIRED May 18: Stephanie quits/Grey’s Anatomy
30. AIRED May 18: Eliza is fired/Grey’s Anatomy
31. AIRED May 18: Mellie sworn in as POTUS/Scandal
32. AIRED May 18: Olivia becomes the new head of B-613/Scandal
33. AIRED May 18: Abby named head of OPA/Scandal
34. AIRED May 20: Kyle promoted from “trainee” to partner/Training Day
35. AIRED May 22: Luisa takes ownership of the Marbella/Jane the Virgin
Number of engagements/question poppings: 6
1. AIRED May 1: Rogelio and Xiomara/Jane the Virgin
2. AIRED May 11: Sheldon proposed to Amy/The Big Bang Theory
3. AIRED May 14: Kensi and Deeks/NCIS: LA
4. AIRED May 14: Robin proposed to the Evil Queen/Once Upon a Time
5. AIRED May 15: Mon-El and Lena/Supergirl
6. AIRED May 22: Alex proposed to Maggie/Supergirl
Number of time warps/jump: 8
1. AIRED April 30: Six-month time jump/Last Man on Earth
2. AIRED May 1: Five-week time jump/Scorpion
3. AIRED May 8: Three-week time jump/Scorpion
4. AIRED May 14: “Some years later”/Once Upon a Time
5. AIRED May 17: Two-year time jump/Blindspot
6. AIRED May 23: Two-month time jump/Brooklyn Nine-Nine
7. AIRED May 24: Three-month time jump/Empire
8. AIRED May 24: Six-year, seven-day time jump/The 100
Number of people trapped in an alternate world: 2
1. AIRED May 18: Mary/Supernatural
2. AIRED May 18: Lucifer/Supernatural
Number of nuclear disasters: 2
1. AIRED May 7: The Last Man on Earth
2. AIRED May 24: The 100
Source: Read More on TVLine • Lastly, keep in mind that, if it’s on the Scorecard, it occurs during May Sweeps, which this year begins Thursday, April 27 and ends Wednesday, May 24.Number of characters giving birth: 31. AIRED May 7: Erica gave birth to daughter Dawn/The Last Man on Earth2. AIRED May 10: Bow gave birth to son DeVonte/black-ish3. AIRED May 18: Kelly gave birth to Lucifer’s son/SupernaturalNumber of couples having sex, kissing or saying “I Love You” for the first time: 321. AIRED April 27: Sandra and Jerry kissed/Superstore2. AIRED April 28: Greer and James kissed/Reign3. AIRED April 28: Narcisse and Nicole had sex/Reign4. AIRED April 29: Holly and Frank said “I love you” (in their own way)/Training Day5. AIRED April 30: Gail and Erica’s relationship revealed/Last Man on Earth6. AIRED May 1: Paige and Walter said “I love you”/Scorpion7. AIRED May 1: Alex and Maggie said “I love you”/Supergirl8. AIRED May 2: Joe and Cecile said “I love you”/The Flash9. AIRED May 2: Severide and Anne said “I love you”/Chicago Fire10. AIRED May 3: Adam and Jackie kissed/The Goldbergs11. AIRED May 4: Arizona and Eliza had sex/Grey’s Anatomy12. AIRED May 4: Jonah and Amy kissed/Superstore13. AIRED May 5: Freya and Keelin kissed/The Originals14. AIRED May 7: Jay and Sofia had sex/Madam Secretary15. AIRED May 8: Jane and Fabian had sex/Jane the Virgin16. AIRED May 8: Alba and Jorge said “I love you”/Jane the Virgin17. AIRED May 8: Chuck told Petra “I love you”/Jane the Virgin18. AIRED May 8: Clark and Emma kissed/The Great Indoors19. AIRED May 9: H.R. and Tracy kissed/The Flash20. AIRED May 9: Julian said “I love you” to Caitlin/The Flash21. AIRED May 11: Betty and Jughead said “I love you”/Riverdale22. AIRED May 11: Archie and Veronica had sex/Riverdale23. AIRED May 11: Ethan and April/Chicago Med24. AIRED May 11: Connor said “I love you” to Robin/Chicago Med25. AIRED May 17: Ray has first kiss/Speechless26. AIRED May 17: Jane and Weller said “I love you” and had sex/Blindspot27. AIRED May 18: Aram and Samar kissed/The Blacklist28. AIRED May 19: Elizabeth has sex with the Archduke/Reign29. AIRED May 22: Kara told Mon-El she loves him/Supergirl30. AIRED May 23: Liv and Justin shared first kiss/iZombie31. AIRED May 23: Lincoln and Sheba shared first kiss/Prison Break32. AIRED May 23: H.R. said “I love you” to Tracy/The FlashNumber of new pregnancies: 61. AIRED May 7: Daisy/Madam Secretary2. AIRED May 9: Delilah/NCIS3. AIRED May 10: Cat/Criminal Minds4. AIRED May 18: Quinn/Scandal5. AIRED May 22: Darci/Jane the Virgin6. AIRED May 23: Gina/Brooklyn Nine-NineNumber of weddings: 91. AIRED April 27: Cheyenne and Bo/Superstore2. AIRED April 30: Todd and Melissa/Last Man on Earth3. AIRED May 1: Toby and Happy/Scorpion4. AIRED May 7: Emma and Hook/Once Upon a Time5. AIRED May 9: McGee and Delilah/NCIS6. AIRED May 11: Matt and Colleen/Life in Pieces7. AIRED May 15: Clay and Maxine/Quantico8. AIRED May 22: Rogelio and Xiomara/Jane the VirginNumber of couples reuniting: 101. AIRED April 27: Catherine and Richard/Grey’s Anatomy2. AIRED April 30: Jeanette and Carson/American Crime3. AIRED May 10: Jane and Weller/Blindspot4. AIRED May 15: Rafael and Petra/Jane the Virgin5. AIRED May 15: Alex and Ryan/Quantico6. AIRED May 16: Mack and Elena/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.7. AIRED May 16: Michael and Sara/Prison Break8. AIRED May 17: Oliver and Felicity/Arrow9. AIRED May 19: Catherine and Narcisse/Reign10. AIRED May 24: Cookie and Lucious/EmpireNumber of fatalities: 531. AIRED April 27: Joshua/Supernatural2. AIRED April 27: Dagon/Supernatural3. AIRED April 30: Roy/Elementary4. AIRED May 1: Gabe/Gotham5. AIRED May 1: Frank/Gotham6. AIRED May 2: Sid/Prison Break7. AIRED May 2: Anna/Chicago Fire8. AIRED May 3: Ilian/The 1009. AIRED May 3: Roan/The 10010. AIRED May 3: Luna/The 10011. AIRED May 3: Cassie/Criminal Minds12. AIRED May 3: Jason/Designated Survivor13. AIRED May 4: Peus/Scandal14. AIRED May 4: Ruland/Scandal15. AIRED May 4: Cliff/Riverdale16. AIRED May 7: Pat/The Last Man on Earth17. AIRED May 7: Shinwell/Elementary18. AIRED May 7: Michelle/NCIS:LA19. AIRED May 9: Omar/Prison Break20. AIRED May 9: Cyclops/Prison Break21. AIRED May 10: Jasper/The 10022. AIRED May 10: Pellington/Blindspot23. AIRED May 11: Eileen/Supernatural24. AIRED May 14: The Black Fairy/Once Upon a Time25. AIRED May 15: President Roarke/Quantico26. AIRED May 16: Aida/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.27. AIRED May 16: Kishida/Prison Break28. AIRED May 16: Stone/NCIS: New Orleans29. AIRED May 17: Tariq/Empire30. AIRED May 17: Lozano/Designated Survivor31. AIRED May 18: Luna/Scandal32. AIRED May 18: Mr. Kaplan/The Blacklist33. AIRED May 18: Laurel/The Blacklist34. AIRED May 18: Castiel/Supernatural35. AIRED May 18: Crowley/Supernatural36. AIRED May 18: Ketch/Supernatural37. AIRED May 18: Toni/Supernatural38. AIRED May 18: Dr. Hess/Supernatural39. AIRED May 18: Rowena/Supernatural40. AIRED May 18: Kelly/Supernatural41. AIRED May 19: Elijah/The Originals42. AIRED May 19: Rizzio/Reign43. AIRED May 20: Wallace/Training Day44. AIRED May 21: Julia/Shades of Blue45. AIRED May 22: Rhea/Supergirl46. AIRED May 22: Kathryn/Gotham47. AIRED May 23: Vivian Still/iZombie48. AIRED May 23: Savitar/The Flash49. AIRED May 23: H.R./The Flash50. AIRED May 24: Malcolm/Arrow51. AIRED May 24: Adrian Chase/Arrow52. AIRED May 24: Kovar/Arrow53. AIRED May 24: Captain Boomerang/ArrowNumber of breakups/divorces: 91. AIRED April 27: Jonah and Kristen/Superstore2. AIRED May 3: Lucious and Anika/Empire3. AIRED May 4; Sarah and Joey/Chicago Med4. AIRED May 9: Fitz and Ophelia/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.5. AIRED May 9: Blaine and Peyton/iZombie6. AIRED May 11: Will and Nina/Chicago Med7. AIRED May 18: Aram and Janet broke up/The Blacklist8. AIRED May 22: Rafael and Petra/Jane the Virgin9. AIRED May 24: Lucious and Giuliana/EmpireNumber of possible fatalities*: 421. AIRED May 4: Brett/Superstore2. AIRED May 10: Prentiss/Criminal Minds3. AIRED May 10: JJ/Criminal Minds4. AIRED May 10: Rossi/Criminal Minds5. AIRED May 10: Walker/Criminal Minds6. AIRED May 10: Tara/Criminal Minds7. AIRED May 10: Alvez/Criminal Minds8. AIRED May 11: Colleen/Life in Pieces9. AIRED May 11: Fred/Riverdale10. AIRED May 11: Dr. Charles/Chicago Med11. AIRED May 16: Gibbs/NCIS12. AIRED May 16: McGee/NCIS13. AIRED May 16: Mouch/Chicago Fire14. AIRED May 16: Casey/Chicago Fire15. AIRED May 16: Severide/Chicago Fire16. AIRED May 16: Stella/Chicago Fire17. AIRED May 16: Otis/Chicago Fire18. AIRED May 16: Herrmann/Chicago Fire19. AIRED May 16: Kannell/Chicago Fire20. AIRED May 17: Reade/Blindspot21. AIRED May 17: Patterson/Blindspot22. AIRED May 17: Zapata/Blindspot23. AIRED May 21: Woz/Shades of Blue24. AIRED May 21: Harlee/Shades of Blue25. AIRED May 24: Felicity/Arrow26. AIRED May 24: Diggle/Arrow27. AIRED May 24: Thea/Arrow28. AIRED May 24: Curtis/Arrow29. AIRED May 24: Dinah/Arrow30. AIRED May 24: Slade/Arrow31. AIRED May 24: Rene/Arrow32. AIRED May 24: Quentin/Arrow33. AIRED May 24: Nyssa/Arrow34. AIRED May 24: Samantha/Arrow35. AIRED May 24: Talia/Arrow36. AIRED May 24: Black Siren/Arrow37. AIRED May 24: Evelyn/Arrow38. AIRED May 24: Abby/The 10039. AIRED May 24: Octavia/The 10040. AIRED May 24: Indra/The 10041. AIRED May 24: Jaha/The 10042. AIRED May 24: Kane/The 100* Applies to characters whose fate is left up in the air at the end of the season finaleNumber of characters leaving town: 191. AIRED April 28: James/Reign2. AIRED April 28: Adrian/Rosewood3. AIRED May 4: Jeff/Chicago Med4. AIRED May 11: Ben/The Catch5. AIRED May 11: Margot/The Catch6. AIRED May 11: Tessa/The Catch7. AIRED May 12: Kono/Hawaii Five-08. AIRED May 15: Alex/Quantico9. AIRED May 15: Ryan/Quantico10. AIRED May 16: Robbie/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.11. AIRED May 18: Fitz/Scandal12. AIRED May 22: Mon-El leaves Earth/Supergirl13. AIRED May 23: Barry/The Flash14. AIRED May 24: Raven went to space/The 10015. AIRED May 24: Bellamy went to space/The 10016. AIRED May 24: Murphy went to space/The 10017. AIRED May 24: Monty went to space/The 10018. AIRED May 24: Harper went to space/The 10019. AIRED May 24: Emori went to space/The 100Number of resurrections and/or big returns: 341. AIRED May 1: Lina/Jane the Virgin2. AIRED May 1: Anezka/Jane the Virgin3. AIRED May 3: Cat/Criminal Minds4. AIRED May 3: William (aka Matthew)/Arrow5. AIRED May 4: Lady Toni/Supernatural6. AIRED May 7: Pamela/The Last Man on Earth7. AIRED May 8: Victor Fries/Gotham8. AIRED May 8: Bridgit “Firefly” Pike/Gotham9. AIRED May 9: Ghost Rider/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.10. AIRED May 10: Derek/Criminal Minds11. AIRED May 10: Bunny/Chicago P.D.12. AIRED May 10: Sinclair/The 10013. AIRED May 11: Maya/Scandal14. AIRED May 12: Davina/The Originals15. AIRED May 15: Barnes/Gotham16. AIRED May 15: Strange/Gotham17. AIRED May 15: Cat/Supergirl18. AIRED May 15: Superman (Clark)/Supergirl19. AIRED May 16: Snart/The Flash20. AIRED May 17: Nyssa/Arrow21. AIRED May 17: Malcolm/Arrow22. AIRED May 17: Slade/Arrow23. AIRED May 18: Megan/Grey’s Anatomy24. AIRED May 18: Tom/The Blacklist25. AIRED May 18: Bobby/Supernatural26. AIRED May 18: Jody/Supernatural27. AIRED May 18: Alex/Supernatural28. AIRED May 20: Artemis/Training Day29. AIRED May 20: Lina/Training Day30. AIRED May 20: Menjivar/Training Day31. AIRED May 22: M’gann/Supergirl32. AIRED May 23: Jay/The Flash33. AIRED May 24: Captain Boomerang/Arrow34. AIRED May 24: Samantha/ArrowNumber of onscreen firings/resignations/major job changes: 351. AIRED April 27: Luna Vargas appointed VP of USA/Scandal2. AIRED April 28: Lord Darnley is crowned King of Scotland/Reign3. AIRED April 30: Kimara quits social-worker job to work for Abby/American Crime4. AIRED May 1: President Haas impeached/Quantico5. AIRED May 3: Kimble Hookstraten resigns as SOTH, named Sec of Ed/Designated Survivor6. AIRED May 4: Noah gets matched with emergency medicine/Chicago Med7. AIRED May 4: Jeff Clarke took a job in Honolulu/Chicago Med8. AIRED May 4: Amy gets summer gig at Princeton/The Big Bang Theory9. AIRED May 4: Stephanie suspended/Grey’s Anatomy10. AIRED May 5: Mayor Poole resigned /Blue Bloods11. AIRED May 5 Lord Bothwell is Mary’s new bodyguard/Reign12. AIRED May 5 Rizzio is Mary’s new adviser/Reign13. AIRED May 8: Donna quits school nurse job/Kevin Can Wait14. AIRED May 8: Chale loses start-up gig before it even starts/Kevin Can Wait15. AIRED May 9: Henry promoted/Prison Break16. AIRED May 9: Cruz suspended/Chicago Fire17. AIRED May 9: Pride’s team suspended/NCIS: New Orleans18. AIRED May 11: Quinn named head of OPA/Scandal19. AIRED May 11: Marcus resigns as press sec, takes job running Fitz’s foundation/Scandal20. AIRED May 14: Hook appointed deputy sheriff/Once Upon a Time21. AIRED May 15: Owen took Matthew’s job at the CIA/Quantico22. AIRED May 15: Shelby is teaching at Quantico/Quantico23. AIRED May 16: Mouch announces he’s retiring/Chicago Fire25. AIRED May 16: Casey steps down as alderman/Chicago Fire24. AIRED May 16: Pride’s team reinstated/NCIS: New Orleans25. AIRED May 17: Thirsty fired/Empire26. AIRED May 17: Whitaker (presumably!) fired/Designated Survivor27. AIRED May 17: Aaron returns to White House/Designated Survivor28. AIRED May 17: Lindsay gets a job offer from the FBI/Chicago P.D.29. AIRED May 18: Stephanie quits/Grey’s Anatomy30. AIRED May 18: Eliza is fired/Grey’s Anatomy31. AIRED May 18: Mellie sworn in as POTUS/Scandal32. AIRED May 18: Olivia becomes the new head of B-613/Scandal33. AIRED May 18: Abby named head of OPA/Scandal34. AIRED May 20: Kyle promoted from “trainee” to partner/Training Day35. AIRED May 22: Luisa takes ownership of the Marbella/Jane the VirginNumber of engagements/question poppings: 61. AIRED May 1: Rogelio and Xiomara/Jane the Virgin2. AIRED May 11: Sheldon proposed to Amy/The Big Bang Theory3. AIRED May 14: Kensi and Deeks/NCIS: LA4. AIRED May 14: Robin proposed to the Evil Queen/Once Upon a Time5. AIRED May 15: Mon-El and Lena/Supergirl6. AIRED May 22: Alex proposed to Maggie/SupergirlNumber of time warps/jump: 81. AIRED April 30: Six-month time jump/Last Man on Earth2. AIRED May 1: Five-week time jump/Scorpion3. AIRED May 8: Three-week time jump/Scorpion4. AIRED May 14: “Some years later”/Once Upon a Time5. AIRED May 17: Two-year time jump/Blindspot6. AIRED May 23: Two-month time jump/Brooklyn Nine-Nine7. AIRED May 24: Three-month time jump/Empire8. AIRED May 24: Six-year, seven-day time jump/The 100Number of people trapped in an alternate world: 21. AIRED May 18: Mary/Supernatural2. AIRED May 18: Lucifer/SupernaturalNumber of nuclear disasters: 21. AIRED May 7: The Last Man on Earth2. AIRED May 24: The 100
Thanks to A for the heads up. |
“Winter Is Coming” shirts are now IN THE STORE!!! [based on this comic]
Cops are tazing our grandmas with pepper spray, and the government is SOPA’ing the Internet into oblivion. Everything is terrible forever. I can’t think about it too much or it gets kind of terribly depressing.
Did you ever want to be in a HijiNKS ENSUE Comic? No? What about you? Oh, good! Desertbus is auctioning off just such an opportunity and the proceeds benefit The Child’s Play Charity. What could be better than that? The answer is nothing. It is the best thing.
COMMENTERS: I would ask what you think about OWS, but I’m scared things would escalate negatively and some of you might start fights with each other. Polotics tends to bring out the piss and vinegar in even the most reasonable geeks. So what about SOPA? Can we all at least agree that a “Great Firewall Of China” for America is probably a pretty terrible idea? [please don’t fight, please don’t fight, please don’t fight…] |
How to speed up your MySQL with replication to in-memory database
Vadim Popov Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 17, 2017
Original article available at https://habrahabr.ru/company/mailru/blog/323870/
I’d like to share with you an article based on my talk at Tarantool Meetup (the video is in Russian, though). It’s a short story of why Mamba, one of the biggest dating websites in the world and the largest one in Russia, started using Tarantool. Why did we decide to busy ourselves with MySQL-to-Tarantool replication?
First, we had to migrate to MySQL 5.7 at some point, but this version didn’t have HandlerSocket that was being actively used on our MySQL 5.6 servers. We even contacted the Percona team — and they confirmed MySQL 5.6 is the last version to have HandlerSocket.
Second, we gave Tarantool a try and were pleased with its performance. We compared it against Memcached as a key-value store and saw the speed double from 0.6 ms to 0.3 ms on the same hardware. In relative terms, Tarantool’s twice as fast as Memcached. In absolute terms, it’s not that cool, but still impressive.
Third, we wanted to keep the whole existing architecture. There’s a MySQL master server and its slaves — we didn’t want to change anything in this structure. Can MySQL 5.6 slaves with HandlerSocket be replaced with something else without having to make significant architectural changes?
We learned that the Mail.Ru Group team has a replicator they created for their own purposes. The idea of replicating data from MySQL to Tarantool belongs to them. We asked the team to share the source code, which they did. We had to rewrite the code, though, since it worked with MySQL 5.1 and Tarantool 1.5, not 1.7. The replicator uses libslave, an open-source solution for reading events from a MySQL master server, and is built statically without any of MySQL’s system libraries. It’s been open-sourced under the BSD license, so anyone can use it for free.
Replication constraints
Firstly, binary logs residing on a master must be row-based (STATEMENT and MIXED options won’t do, only ROW). Secondly, this replicator is not a Tarantool module, but a stand-alone daemon that doesn’t have anything to do with either Tarantool or MySQL. Thirdly, if you want a single master to have, say, ten slaves, you’ll have to run ten separate daemons, because one replicator can replicate data to only one Tarantool instance at a time. Lastly, the replicator won’t work with MariaDB. We tried it with versions 5.6 and 5.7, but they’re either an Oracle or a Percona build (which is what we use). MariaDB’s replication protocol has been changed.
How does replication work?
MySQL and Tarantool know nothing about each other. The replicator reads all the MySQL binary logs and writes the data to Tarantool.
What can the replicator do?
When the replicator is run, it grabs all the data from a master, based on the configuration file that specifies which databases/tables need to be replicated. That said, it takes just a Tarantool instance with empty spaces to launch the replicator — it’s very convenient.
As a system administrator, you need to understand if the replication process is working, which binary log and which position value are being read at the moment. Of course, the replicator provides such functionality: there’s a separate Tarantool space that contains just three values, including the binary log name and the current position value — you may regard it as an analog to good old SHOW SLAVE STATUS.
10.5.2.17:5000> box.space.ReplicationLog:select() [0, ‘db-bin.024218’, 916925355]
After adopting the replicator, we deployed seven Tarantool instances running on only two servers, as a single Tarantool instance can’t use all the CPU cores of a machine at once. As a quick refresher of the Tarantool architecture, one instance is capable of using three cores or more: one core or more for network, strictly one core for transactions and strictly one core for handling write-ahead log (WAL) files.
Workload
After we ran the replicator, the workload on MySQL slaves with HandlerSocket dropped close to zero.
Then we tried to remove seven out of eight MySQL slave servers, and the remaining one was able to withstand all the workload. We didn’t fully give up MySQL slave servers — we kept them for handling those requests that work without HandlerSocket, which means we can complete the migration to MySQL 5.7. In the end, we saved at least seven servers, a number of enterprise SSDs that power them, and some rack space, electricity and money.
What about response time? We at Mamba have our own open-source product called BTP. Below are a couple of charts it generated.
HandlerSocket has a very peculiar API. You need to first call connect, then open_index and, finally, execute. The chart above shows cumulative time for the three methods, which sometimes could be as high as one second.
Compare it to what we got on Tarantool servers running the same database replicated from a MySQL master:
The reason is quite simple: MySQL was running on SSDs, and the buffer pool size was less than that of the database. Tarantool, on the other hand, is an in-memory database, so all the data is RAM-resident. We even disabled WAL files on almost all the instances, so no disk operations are involved. However, there are several non-production instances used for snapshotting, where we kept WAL files enabled.
Isn’t it reinventing the wheel?
If someone else told me about all this, I’d say, “Aren’t you reinventing the wheel? You’re replicating something from MySQL to Tarantool. Sure, you’re thinking of dropping HandlerSocket in order to migrate to MySQL 5.7. But why would you do that in the first place? If your servers without HandlerSocket can’t handle the workload, just add some more servers. If you do need an in-memory database, you can create heap tables or move database files to tmpfs, create symlinks — and all the tables will be in RAM again. Bingo!”
However, that’s not how it is.
Here’s what so special about the replicator. Suppose the database that resides on a master and that we want to replicate contains about a hundred tables, but a slave doesn’t need all these tables — it needs only seven of them. We’d hate to spend extra resources on replicating surplus data. Luckily, MySQL allows specifying the number of tables to replicate. But what if these seven tables have 120 fields in total, whereas only 21 of them are actually used in queries handled by the slave servers? MySQL forces us to entirely replicate all the seven tables, which take up about 80 GB of RAM in our case. The replicator, on the other hand, allows specifying a subset of table fields for replication, bringing the volume down to 20 GB.
What’s also great about the replicator is that all these table fields are put into one space, so you can select them with a single query, without using any joins.
Results
Tarantool is really fast, up to three times faster than MySQL, as attested by the charts above.
The resulting implementation of Tarantool replication works faster than that in MySQL, and here’s why. When we first ran it, we couldn’t help asking ourselves if our replication is consistent. We created a simple PHP script that compares the number of monthly active users as reported by a MySQL master and a Tarantool slave. Sometimes the script grabbed even the users who registered less than a second ago. A MySQL slave didn’t have those users yet, whereas the Tarantool slave did, even though executing SHOW SLAVE STATUS on the MySQL slave always showed a zero delay. That said, the information reaches Tarantool faster, since it’s an in-memory database.
Tarantool’s advantages
What happens if you unplug a MySQL server power cable, then plug it back in and restart the server? At startup, the process of InnoDB recovery is launched, which consequently restores the database. But a couple of times we’ve seen the following situation: the controller starts writing some inadequate information to disk, the server throws a kernel panic due to the controller malfunction and InnoDB recovery following the restart ends with a core dump.
Tarantool boasts a well-thought-out WAL mechanism: even if the controller does write some rubbish to a WAL file, which prevents you from relaunching Tarantool, you can simply delete this file. Or you could open it and delete records one by one until Tarantool is up and running again. As a side note, it’s possible to specify the number of transactions written to a WAL file at a time — it can even be a single transaction. I’d like to stress here that the MySQL example I used above involves a hardware (server) failure; normally, InnoDB recovery works like a charm.
What I also like about Tarantool is that it’s very user-friendly. It’s always clear what to do and how to do it. Suppose a new MySQL version is out. You install it, but it won’t launch. After checking the error log, you discover some parameters in my.cnf are deprecated. Then you open the official documentation and see a bunch of new parameters, so you have to figure out how to create a new my.cnf file to boost the performance. Tarantool doesn’t have any of this. It’s easy to use, with an absolutely necessary minimum of parameters.
Another thing we all enjoyed is the Tarantool community. There’s a Telegram chat (ping Denis Anikin for an invite), where you can ask the developers a question about Tarantool or get a quick bug fix.
Tarantool’s snapshotting implementation is excellent. This mechanism works incredibly fast — 800 MB or, probably, even 1 GB per second. Everything is written consecutively to a single file. You don’t need high-end disks for that, the cheapest SATA drives are more than enough. Starting a snapshot of a 20 GB database takes under five minutes. According to my measurements, MySQL requires much more time for that.
Tarantool’s disadvantages
First and foremost, Tarantool indexes are case-sensitive, which is really inconvenient, especially if you come from the MySQL background.
Second, working in the console isn’t that comfortable. Say, how do you know that MySQL replication is running? You execute SHOW SLAVE STATUS twice and see the numbers change. Moreover, the MySQL console will show you the output of SHOW SLAVE STATUS only once, even if you execute the command a hundred times.
The Tarantool console, on the other hand, displays a separate output each time you hit Enter. As a result, it takes a lot of time to scroll back up to a place you need.
Takeaway
Tarantool is a really good product that you can use in your projects. It does have its drawbacks, but it’s constantly evolving. Now that it has data replication from MySQL, I hope it will grow even faster. Tarantool’s killer feature is, of course, its speed.
Thank you and stay tuned! |
Eric Holder, the head of the Justice Department, was reportedly told in the late summer that FBI agents were investigating the former CIA director's sexual relationship with Paula Broadwell, his biographer.
However, the information was kept inside the Justice Department until the day of the presidential election, when officials informed James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, who immediately urged Gen Petraeus to resign.
The decision not to inform Congress or the White House of the investigation - even though Gen Petraeus had already been interviewed by FBI agents and classified information had been found on Mrs Broadwell's laptop - raises further questions about timing of the abrupt resignation.
Representative Peter King, a Republican who sits on the House intelligence committee, said the FBI had been "derelict in its duty" by not immediately informing the White House that Gen Petraeus was under investigation.
"Once the FBI realized that it was investigating the director of the CIA or the CIA director had come within its focus or its scope, I believe at that time they had an absolute obligation to tell the president," Mr King told MSNBC.
Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has officially commented on the decision not to inform Mr Obama of the investigation into one of the core members of his national security team.
Paula Broadwell, left, allegedly sent Jill Kelley threatening emails about Gen Petraeus, right
However, in private briefings the FBI insisted it was under no obligation to pass on the information because it had already determined that there was no breach of national security and no crime had been committed.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat chair of the powerful Senate intelligence committee, said on Sunday that she would investigate the FBI's decision to sit on the information.
"We will investigate why the committee didn’t know,” Mrs Feinstein said. “We should have been told.”
Mrs Broadwell was interviewed by the FBI at least twice, according to the Wall Street Journal, and during her first interview handed over a laptop containing classified documents. Their content is not known.
Both Mrs Broadwell and Gen Petraeus admitted the affair in interviews with the FBI but both denied that he was the source of the classified information. |
Today I am posting over at Wanda Ann’s blog, Memories By The Mile. You will find me there the 2nd Thursday of every month!
Just a note: This recipe originally appeared as a guest post on Memories by the Mile. I have now posted the recipe here as well for archiving purposes. The recipe is below my original teaser post. Check out Wanda Ann’s site too, she has a ton of great recipes! Enjoy!
Speaking of hot, today I am sharing with you a recipe for Spicy Veggie Quinoa Curry. It is not super-hot, like an August afternoon in southern New Jersey, but it does have a nice little kick to it! Of course, you can dial the spiciness up or down depending on your family’s preferences.
I try to keep it fairly mild for my family, especially for my younger son who seems to be allergic to flavor. Hopefully someday he will outgrow that, but in the meantime I try to not go too crazy with the spices!
Quinoa, of course, is really good for you. If you have not tried it yet, you really should! You can use it like you would use rice, but lots of people also use it in breakfast dishes, like you would oatmeal. It has a slight nutty taste, but the flavor is very mild and so it will take on the flavor of whatever you cook it in.
This recipe is actually vegan, and while not all vegan recipes are good for you, this one really is! You can use this recipe as is and make it a side dish for 4 people or an entree for 2. Or you can double the recipe and serve it as an entree for 4 people.
Spicy Veggie Quinoa Curry Print Recipe Pin Recipe Quick, easy, and healthy quinoa and veggie dish with lots and lots of flavor! Ingredients 1 cup quinoa (rinsed thoroughly)
1 1/4 cups coconut milk
1 cup vegetable broth
3 tablespoons curry paste (more or less, to taste)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce (more or less, to taste)
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup diced bell pepper (use different colored peppers for colorful presentation!)
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced broccoli and/or cauliflower
1 handful fresh spinach Instructions Mix together the quinoa, coconut milk, vegetable broth, curry paste, brown sugar, and Sriracha sauce in a pot over medium high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer about 15 - 20 minutes until all liquid is absorbed and quinoa is tender but not mushy.
Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat, then add the garlic, pepper, onion, and broccoli/cauliflower. Saute until vegetable begin to soften.
When the veggies are almost done, add the spinach and stir until wilted.
Combine the quinoa with the veggies and serve. Notes Recipe adapted from Vegangela.com Nutrition Calories: 370 kcal | Carbohydrates: 42 g | Protein: 9 g | Fat: 19 g | Saturated Fat: 14 g | Sodium: 344 mg | Potassium: 603 mg | Fiber: 5 g | Sugar: 7 g | Vitamin A: 64.6 % | Vitamin C: 91.5 % | Calcium: 7.5 % | Iron: 27.6 %
Click here to head on over to Memories by the Mile get the full post, and while you are there, check out some of the other awesome posts on Wanda Ann’s blog!
Recipe adapted from Vegangela.com.
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I’ve spent all of my life with an over active imagination. I like stories and honestly I think we all do. Whether it be a novel, comic, movie, or my favorite: a video game. . . stories provide much of our entertainment. The elements of a complete story are plot, characters, conflict, theme, and setting. These things are key to good entertainment and as much as I love game play and graphics so good it makes my eyes bleed; a good story will win me over every time. I predict seven storytelling giants and a few runners up will captivate us all and keep us tuned in for year to come. In no particular order, I give you these seven game studios that are champions of storytelling.
[alert type=white ]Spoilers for Halo 4 follow![/alert]
Bioware: This Canadian developer created Knights of the old Republic, the Mass Effect trilogy, as well as Dragon Age. They’ve hit some bumps in the road sure, but who hasn’t? Dragon Age Inquisition, due out sometime this fall, looks to wrap up all the stories that started with the Warden Commander and Hawke in previous installments. Bioware has a tendency to make gamers make choices that pull us in and really make the story feel like our own. A possible return to origin stories for multiple races of our very own inquisitor offers us greater insight into our own character in the world of Thedas. With returning favorite Morrigan driving the plot and Varric tagging along to provide witty commentary, Bioware has rich characters on lock. We experienced so much of the world in the last two games I think we can all appreciate the setting and dark theme the series has always offered. The conflict seems to come from several sources this time around: Fade demons, Darkspawn, and bouncing baby godlings. Who could ask for more? Bioware also saw fit to make sure the last generation of systems as well as next generation can enjoy the end of this epic tale. Bioware also set a trend with MMORPGs. Old Republic gives each class individual side quests furthering the story of the player and still has gamers and creators alike reevaluating how quests in MMORPG’s should work.
Telltale Games: Telltale is a rising star among American developers. The Walking Dead game created with the Telltale Tool is what I think really put them on the map. The episodic game style is mostly unique to them and feels much like a comic book. Comic books are one of my favorite mediums for story. Being able to play a new chapter every month is very exciting and it feels like new comic day with all the new stories I can read. It’s no surprise that its take on Bill Willingham’s long-running Fables comic series in the form of The Wolf Among Us was adapted so well to their style.
They’ve got ambition in spades with Tales from the Borderlands and a story based on Game of Thrones to be released later this year. Telltale games is one of my favorite developers and if they can keep up the pace likely will be a favorite for years to come. I do wish the episodes would come out a little faster, but I suppose nothing stops me from waiting and binging on them all at once. One shouldn’t rush greatness.
Rocksteady: Speaking of comic books; one of the most well known superheroes is Batman. Rocksteady, a British developer, changed the way we look at super hero games. For a long time a game based on a super hero or comic would be mediocre at best. Rocksteady changed that with one game. Putting the control of The Dark Knight and all of his gadgets in our hands was a dream come true to many gamers and comic enthusiasts alike. Each installment since Batman: Arkham Asylum (Yes, I know Batman: Arkham Origins was not made by Rocksteady, but it was done with their blessing and tried it’s best to mimic their style) brought new puzzles, criminals, and gadgets. Each game has been executed in a fashion that makes us feel vulnerable; yet powerful as we step into the cape and cowl of The Batman, by stressing stealth and clever combat over brute force and making us feel like we are all Batman the story feels more our own. Every game feels like the developer team truly read the comics and this is reflected in the rather rich plotting throughout the games.
It appears as though Batman: Arkham Knight will be no different. The larger open world will have even more villains to foil and characters to interact with. Rocksteady is even introducing a brand new character to rival Batman. My spine quivers with anticipation when I am reminded that Harley Quinn didn’t exist prior to Batman: The Animated series in the ’90’s only to become a staple to DC comics. This could create a brand new character for all of us to read about for years to come. Imagine the story that will accompany a brand new character and possibly an origin story as well. Any company that has the potential to do that is huge in my book. If I needed more incentive to get a Next Gen system, Rocksteady provided it.
343 Industries: Microsoft created this company to make Halo games after Bungie sold them the rights to their beloved series in 2007. They even named it after 343 Guilty Spark. Fans of the franchise were skeptical until Halo 4 was released. We all wondered if the new lords and masters could live up to what we had come to love about Halo, yet Halo 4 exceeded most expectations in terms of story. Bungie had created a vast universe and history for that universe and created John 117, the Master Chief, and a popular supporting cast. Bungie, and later 343 Industries, proved a FPS can be more than game play and flashy graphics. Halo has been an epic tale from the beginning. Halo 4 picked up where Halo 3 left off and we were told a heartbreaking tale about Cortana. Chief vowed to save her from literally thinking herself to death. We were all crushed at the end when Chief, for the first time. . . failed. “Don’t make a girl a promise if you can’t keep it.”
Now we look forward to Halo 5. We’ve seen naught but teasers of Chief in a cloak roaming through a wasteland and a massive vessel rising up before him. Will Chief try to save Cortana? Is his wandering a form of penance? What do you do when your long time AI companion is gone? This new chapter will put us in the shoes of Master Chief as never before. This time he isn’t just a soldier, but a man who lost a dear friend and is going to have to make choices rather than just take orders. As a long time fan of the series, I am tempted to buy an X-Box One for this title alone.
CD Projekt Red: Role Playing Games are usually founded in a good story. The Witcher series is no different. Polish publisher and developer, CD Projekt Red, created this game series based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s books. Now, I haven’t read them yet, but I assume the games at the very least loosely follow the plot and use characters from the novels. Authors of novels have nothing but description and words to convey their story. Games have interaction and stunning visuals to help tell the tale. When a game is based on a book, I think one can safely assume the story is going to be phenomenal. The characters will be “three dimensional” and have pasts and motivations all their own. This tends to make a game go from great to awe inspiring.
So far, the Witcher series hasn’t let me down. I adore both games that are currently available and soon I’ll be able to play the Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt! This game promises everything the last games had but more of all of it. The game boasts a world that is 35 times larger than the Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings with 100 hours of content. That tells me there are lots of side plots to the main plot.
What is the main plot about you ask? The title suggests that Geralt will finally be facing off with the Wraiths that hunted him for years and took one of his lovers from him. I love a good revenge tale and a good love story. This seems to be providing both, hopefully with some good old fashioned tragedy thrown in for good measure.
Choice is a big part of modern RPG’s. Witcher games tend to offer plenty of ways to make Geralt of Rivia’s story our own. Next gen systems seem to be offering plenty of RPG’s to eat days of our life and have us come back for more. Sadly CD Projekt Red claims this will be the last of the Witcher games, but I’ve no doubt with quality like this, the future of storytelling is safe in their hands.
Ubisoft: Do you like deep semi-convoluted stories that constantly reveal new threats and delve into the past? I do. Ubisoft likely unintentionally mirrors how comic books reveal past events that effect the future. This is often referred to as a “retcon” — retroactive continuity. This allows things to be added to or taken from fictional existence as is required for a good story. The Assassin’s Creed series is one of the best examples of this in video games today. By using Desmond and later other characters; memories of past assassins can be accessed via a device called the Animus. We are introduced to fictional characters with motivations and interests as varied a our own. Some of these characters have families or deep dark secrets later to be revealed. The game even contains an apocalyptic plot. Each new installment offers new insights into existing characters or awesome new ones to get to know and explore. Many historical figures have further had vast amounts of poetic license taken with them to adapt them to the world Assassin’s Creed takes place in. With over a dozen installments across various gaming devices in one franchise alone, Ubisoft seems to really know it’s storytelling.
That brings me to Watch Dogs available May 27 of this year. Set in an alternate and possibly future Chicago, we have an old city in the United States that has a personality all it’s own. It has special significance to me as a native of Illinois and of it’s suburbs. We play the role of Aiden Pearce; gifted hacker and street thug. Gameplay aside, which sounds amazing by the way, Ubisoft seems to have created a game that looks like Grand Theft Auto had a beautiful baby with Assassin’s Creed. I look forward to the sort of plot a game like that has to offer. What characters and motivations will we have to complete this game? I aim to find out come May.
Runners Up:
Irrational: I have been greatly impressed by the thought process it takes to create a game like Bioshock and the plot twists that franchise brought and Ken Levine deserves a large portion of that credit. With Irrational Games closing and his new vision coming into being I look forward to the sort of games he and his smaller team will create. If his past games are any indication, the story will be something meaty for me to chew on as I play.
Epic Games: Epic Games’ franchise Gears of War has been acquired by Microsoft. This is old news, I know. Rod Fergusson joined Black Tusk to develop more Gears for us to grind. That’s exciting to me. It feels like how 343 Industries started. I have high hopes for that franchise and all the characters and story it still has to offer.
Square Enix: Even a casual glance at this article will leave fans of this company’s games upset. I know Tomb Raider was a smashing success as was Bravely Default. However, the Final Fantasy franchise has left me with a sour taste in my mouth after the XIII trilogy. Hopefully after seeing that JRPG’s are still a thing and quite successful, a return to form can happen. Right now however, I’ve been burned too badly to predict good things. I remain hopeful, however, that Square Enix can climb back onto my list and make any of my fears feel foolish in retrospect.
Tell Me a Story. . .
No prediction could be complete if it left out Microsoft or Sony as storytellers to watch. Industry titans have great opportunities to create great stories simply by the volume of games they help make. What often escapes notice however, is the little guy. No prediction can be complete without giving indy games their due either. Indy games often times have to rely on story. Due to lower budgets the graphics are often, but not always less than stellar. Gameplay can be addicting but is often uncomplicated. This leaves story to be the selling point for many games. I think some great things are going to come from independent game devs coming soon.
What do you say, dear reader? What are some of your favorite video game stories and their storytellers?
Tell us in the comments below! |
PG&E power line may have sparked deadly Sierra foothills blaze
SAN ANDREAS, CA - SEPTEMBER 13: Tall flames rise behind a firefighting inmate hand crew member at the Butte Fire are seen on September 13, 2015 near San Andreas, California. California governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in Amador and Calaveras counties where the 100-square-mile wildfire has burned scores of structures so far and is threatening 6,400 in the historic Gold Country of the Sierra Nevada foothills. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) *** BESTPIX *** less SAN ANDREAS, CA - SEPTEMBER 13: Tall flames rise behind a firefighting inmate hand crew member at the Butte Fire are seen on September 13, 2015 near San Andreas, California. California governor Jerry Brown has ... more Photo: David McNew Photo: David McNew Image 1 of / 34 Caption Close PG&E power line may have sparked deadly Sierra foothills blaze 1 / 34 Back to Gallery
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. power lines coming into contact with a tree may have sparked the Butte Fire, which has killed two people and scorched more than 70,000 acres in the Sierra foothills, a company spokesman said Wednesday.
“While we don’t have all the facts yet, a live tree may have contacted a PG&E line in the vicinity of the ignition point,” Barry Anderson, PG&E vice president of emergency preparedness and operations, said Wednesday. “We are cooperating fully with Cal Fire in an investigation of whether this could have been a source of ignition for the Butte Fire.”
As part of the probe, “we are reviewing our inspection and patrol data for 2014 and 2015 for the area near this tree and we will be sharing the results of those inspections and patrols” with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, Anderson said.
The fire started Sept. 9 east of Jackson (Amador County). It has burned 71,780 acres in Amador and Calaveras counties and is 45 percent contained, Cal Fire said.
Two men have died in the fire, both of whom remained in their homes despite evacuation orders, officials said.
Mark McCloud, 67, was found near his home on Baker Riley Road near Mokelumne Hill (Calaveras County). The other victim died in his home nearby, said county Coroner Kevin Raggio. He identified the victim only as an elderly man.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Raggio said of the fire’s destruction. “In such a small county like this, it just brings a tear to your eye.”
This wouldn’t be the first time a PG&E line sparked a wildfire. In 1997, PG&E was found guilty of 739 counts of negligence for a pattern of tree-trimming violations that led to a devastating 1994 wildfire in the Sierra.
The fire destroyed 12 homes near the Gold Rush town of Rough and Ready. PG&E was fined $1.6 million for the violations.
Anderson said PG&E has been stepping up its efforts this summer to prevent fires.
“Since June, we have been conducting daily air patrols along sections of major electric lines to look for hazards that could spark wildfires,” he said in a statement. “We have provided $2 million in funding to local fire safe councils for fire fuel reduction, emergency access projects and public education. We have provided funding for lookout towers and cameras for early fire detection.”
Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @sfkale |
Image copyright Imperial
Using electricity to stimulate parts of the brain may ease the symptoms of motion sickness, scientists have said.
The team at Imperial College London say early trials on 20 people suggest the method could have a similar effect to drugs, but without the drowsiness.
The mild electrical current interferes with the messages arriving from the part of the ear which controls balance.
Other scientists urged "healthy scepticism" until larger trials backed up the findings, reported in Neurology.
Whether you are travelling by plane, boat or car, motion sickness is thought to be down to mixed messages coming from your ears and your eyes.
It leaves the brain confused about what is going on and culminates in nausea and headaches.
'Chunder chair'
Dr Qadeer Arshad, from the movement and balance group at Imperial, said people no longer had motion sickness if their inner ear was damaged.
So the team used "transcranial direct current stimulation" to try to manipulate the part of the brain that interprets messages coming from those balance organs in the ear while people were made to feel nauseous.
Twenty volunteers were placed in a "chunder chair" which is like a twisted fairground ride that spins someone round at an angle.
Image copyright Imperial
It is guaranteed to make pretty much anyone motion sick within five minutes. Keep going and you will be physically sick, as some of the participants found out.
Everyone had an initial go.
Then one hour later, half of the participants had small electrical currents passed through their scalp to alter their brain activity.
The other half were given a dummy treatment.
With the stimulation, it took an extra 207 seconds, on average, for motion sickness to develop.
Whereas those getting the dummy treatment actually felt nauseous 57s sooner (one bout of motion sickness makes you more vulnerable to another).
The results showed the stimulation improved recovery times.
Augmented reality
Dr Arshad told the BBC News website: "The best comparison is with the best known drug scopolamine - we showed in essence that it's equivalent to scopolamine, but that drug knocks you out, it puts you to sleep."
He said there were no known side-effects to brain stimulation and that it would be easy to develop.
"Within the next couple of years people will be able to use these devices - it's not far away," he said.
"You can envisage on a cross-Channel ferry, having a small area where if you feel sick this could be applied by a trained person."
The group are also investigating brain stimulation for virtual and augmented reality devices, which can also result in headaches in some people, and for nausea after cancer chemotherapy.
Prof Chris Chambers, the head of brain stimulation at Cardiff University, commented: "It would be irresponsible to conclude that this study provides anything more than very early evidence of a potential benefit.
"Until the findings are replicated in a large registered trial, I recommend that the public approach any claims about treatment benefits with a healthy scepticism." |
Next year’s Pirelli World Challenge season will bring some added excitement and an increased grid size thanks to the launch of a new class, GT Cup, which will compete alongside the GT and GT-A categories in the sprint race championship.
Announced last month, the single-make category, exclusively for Porsche 911 Cup cars, will help bridge the gap between its two premier classes, GT and GTS, according to Series President/CEO Scott Bove.
“I asked Jens Walther at Porsche if we could develop a new class of GT Cup cars,” Bove told Sportscar365. “I wanted them to be 2015-spec. I wanted to enhance our relationship with Porsche and wanted to find a way to attract the ‘tweener.’ We’ve got this gap to go from a GTS to a GT car.
“A GT car costs $600,000; GTS is between $100,000 to $150,000. The performance gap is also pretty significant. There’s a market for that sort of $250,000 GT car. That market and those drivers will be our future GT drivers. We wanted to find a way to create that ladder system within GT and GTS.”
Bove and his team appear to have done just that, with numerous teams already committing to the class. He said all ten of the initial entries were confirmed within the first two weeks of the announcement. The class limit has since been expanded to 15 cars due to the early demand.
Only 2015-spec 991 Cup cars will be eligible, although existing 2014 model cars, which currently compete in various championships domestically such as the IMSA GT3 Cup Challenge, can be run with an upgrade kit.
“The purpose of this is to have state-of-the-art technology, state-of-the-art cars running the full season in the championship,” Bove said. “We really don’t want factory involvement in the class. The purpose of the class is to have some driver who is an 18 or 25-year-old funded driver to come in and compete at that level amongst his peers.
“We are having some interest from existing GTS teams that would like to move up from an American-made muscle car and run in this next class. And we may see some migration downward from GT.”
Bove said the talent level will be limited to GT-A standards, which roughly translates into Bronze and the bottom half of Silver-rated drivers on the FIA medallion system.
“If you win a GT Cup championship in a spec class, you’ll have the eyes of Porsche Motorsport,” he said. “We want to see that aspiring first, second, third, fourth place driver have the opportunity to get the next ride with Porsche or Cadillac or whomever.
“It might mean they leave and go to another series but we need to offer that path.”
The influx of Porsches will also see an increased trackside presence from the German manufacturer, with Porsche Motorsport North America’s parts truck to be at every round next year, supporting customers in both GT and GT Cup.
Bove, meanwhile, is bullish for the category’s future. While it will be Porsche-only in 2015, he hasn’t necessarily ruled out expansion in the years to come, depending on the level of interest.
“Since that announcement, I’ve gotten approached by other manufacturers saying that they’ve got a car that is a Cup-type car,” he said.
“You see how you can create this Cup class. The manufacturers see World Challenge as providing a ‘vehicle’ for their customers to race their product.
“It’s only a vision but can you imagine having an Aston Martin GT4 Cup, an ACR-X Cup car and a Porsche Cup car competing in a GT Cup class, all together?” |
The Denver Police Department is looking to equip 800 officers with body cameras in 2015.
In an interview with the Denver Post, Denver Police Chief Robert White said that body-mounted cameras would serve as an impartial record, protecting those who make legitimate complaints, and shielding officers from false claims of excessive force.
"Citizens should know officers are being held accountable," White told the newspaper. "The only officers who would have a problem with body cameras are bad officers."
The $1.5 million program still requires approval of the city council.
Last year, police in Denver began evaluating the cameras -- which are worn on glasses or lapels -- in a trial run focused on downtown Denver. The pilot program is part of a study conducted by Cambridge University, with funding from Taser International.
Patrol officers who wear cameras download video to a cloud storage system after their shift.
A body camera program in Rialto, California, a small city near Los Angeles, coincided with huge declines in both complaints against cops and incidents involving force, according to the Guardian:
After cameras were introduced in February 2012, public complaints against officers plunged 88 percent compared with the previous 12 months. Officers' use of force fell by 60 percent.
The recent violence in Ferguson, Missouri, has led to a renewed call for body cameras on cops. Greg Hallgrimson, police chief in the small town of Greenwood, Missouri, called the cameras "one piece of equipment I would never want to do without."
On Wednesday, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said that body cameras should be mandated by departments as a prerequisite for receiving federal funds.
Regarding the program in Rialto, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California -- a frequent critic of abuse of force -- said that if videos are kept private and deleted regularly (unless used in a trial), the gains for accountability would outweigh privacy concerns. |
Researchers have discovered a code-injection vulnerability in the Windows operating system that cannot, because of the nature of the operating system, be patched. It could be used to bypass current malware protection solutions in place.
"Unfortunately," writes enSilo researcher Tal Liberman in a report published Oct. 27, "this issue cannot be patched since it doesn't rely on broken or flawed code -- rather it's a flaw in how these operating system mechanisms are designed."
The attack technique has been labeled 'AtomBombing'. It manipulates Windows' underlying Atom Tables mechanisms. Atom Tables are used to hold data strings. Applications place the strings into the table and receive back an 'atom' identifier for the string.
Windows has several different Atom Tables for different purposes. The Global Atom Table can be used to share data between different DDE applications. "Rather than passing actual strings, a DDE application passes global atoms to its partner application. The partner uses the atoms to obtain the strings from the atom table," explains Microsoft's own data sheet.
enSilo has discovered that an attacker can write malicious code into an atom table, and force a legitimate program to retrieve that malicious code. Furthermore, wrote Liberman, "We also found that the legitimate program, now containing the malicious code, can be manipulated to execute that code."
The result is that maliciousness has been passed from an unknown malicious application to a known good application or process. While security defenses are on red alert to detect and block malicious applications, they often whitelist known good applications or processes. That is the attraction of 'code injection' as an attack vector: where it can be achieved, it can be used, notes Liberman, "to bypass security products, hide from the user, and extract sensitive information that would otherwise be unattainable."
Liberman gives two examples of how AtomBomb code injection can help the attacker to access context-specific data. The first is taking screenshots. Processes can only do this from within the context of the user's desktop. Malware, however, usually lands in the services desktop, and is unable to execute user screenshots. AtomBombing would allow the attacker to inject code from the services desktop into a process already running within the user desktop, take the screenshot, and pass it back to the malware in the services desktop.
The second example is access to encrypted passwords. Chrome, for example, encrypts users' stored passwords using the Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) together with data derived from the current user. Again, passwords can only be accessed from within the user context -- which AtomBombing can achieve. "If the malware injects code into a process that's already running in the context of the current user," writes Liberman, "the plain-text passwords can be easily accessed."
The problem for users is that AtomBombing cannot be fixed -- it's the way Windows works. With no chance of a patch, the solution is some other form of mitigation. enSilo believes the issue is another argument for a shift of emphasis from attack prevention to consequence mitigation. "Under the assumption that threat actors will always exploit known and unknown techniques, we need to build our defenses in a way that prevents the consequences of the attack once the threat actor has already compromised the environment." |
shire Profile Joined August 2010 United States 405 Posts #1
From the Twitter of IM headcoach, IM headcoach DongHoon Kang announced that There will be GSL finals event at the gsl finals location. And the event will be with IM's sponsor "구김스컴퍼니' (goo-kim's company?) and coca-cola.
here is actual message from IM head coach's twitter:
hirai21DongHoon Kang
IM팀과 함께하는 GSL May 결승전 현장이벤트!!
i guess coca-cola finally realized marketting value of Nestea~! This is official.From the Twitter of IM headcoach, IM headcoach DongHoon Kang announced that There will be GSL finals event at the gsl finals location. And the event will be with IM's sponsor "구김스컴퍼니' (goo-kim's company?) and coca-cola.here is actual message from IM head coach's twitter:hirai21DongHoon KangIM팀과 함께하는 GSL May 결승전 현장이벤트!! http://www.imteam.co.kr/freeboard/4024 IM팀의 후원사인 "구김스컴퍼니"와 " 코카콜라"가 함께합니다~i guess coca-cola finally realized marketting value of Nestea~!
Firesilver Profile Joined December 2010 United Kingdom 1173 Posts #2 Awesome news! Caster at IMBA.tv -- www.twitter.com/IMBAFiresilver -- www.youtube.com/FiresilverTV
marconi Profile Joined March 2010 Croatia 220 Posts #3 if this is true it's absolutely fantastic news for starcraft
Morale Profile Joined August 2010 Sweden 1005 Posts Last Edited: 2011-05-12 22:22:23 #4 Sick! thats one major sponsor, praying for some more international non computer related companies starts to sponsor e-sports!
Antoine Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 7344 Posts #5 the other sponsor is Googims (http://googims.co.kr/), a clothing company
I celebrated a bit when I saw this earlier because IM had no sponsors previous to this Moderator Flash Sea Action Snow Midas | TheStC Ret Tyler MC | RIP 우정호
Tachion Profile Blog Joined May 2010 Canada 8327 Posts #6 So happy for IM. They really deserve it. i was driving down the road this november eve and spotted a hitchhiker walking down the street. i pulled over and saw that it was only a tree. i uprooted it and put it in my trunk. do trees like marshmallow peeps? cause that's all i have and will have.
Kazeyonoma Profile Blog Joined April 2010 United States 2632 Posts #7 so, Nestea is part of cocacola brand, will MVP become Sprite? ;D I now have autographs of both BoxeR and NaDa. I can die happy. Lim Yo Hwan and Lee Yun Yeol FIGHTING forever!
Maliris Profile Blog Joined April 2011 Northern Ireland 2557 Posts Last Edited: 2011-05-12 22:28:23 #8 Grats IM, definitely well earned.
wonder if nestea will have to change his name lol, IMCocaCola gogo WOW, huge sponsorGrats IM, definitely well earned.wonder if nestea will have to change his name lol, IMCocaCola gogo "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
bokchoi Profile Blog Joined March 2010 Korea (South) 7381 Posts Last Edited: 2011-05-12 22:24:59 #9 Niiiiiiiiice, congrats to Team IM! Looks like NesTea has to change his name to CocaCola now or back to Zergbong xD
Senx Profile Blog Joined March 2008 Sweden 5024 Posts #10 COCA COLA? Holy balls that is pretty huge..
Hopefully foreign teams will get those kind of sponsors one day. "trash micro but win - its marine" MC commentary during HSC 4
CoMMoDuS Profile Joined February 2010 Germany 506 Posts #11 Time for zenexcoca and fantaprime to switch clans! There is no unemployment amongst overlords-Artosis
Michaels Profile Joined August 2010 417 Posts #12 finally, im happy for them!
sephius Profile Joined January 2011 United Kingdom 198 Posts #13 Blimey. That's a huge name :o
Kralic Profile Blog Joined March 2010 Canada 2616 Posts #14 I guess IM can now say "Life begins here" from now on.
Great news for them. Brood War forever!
AeonStrife Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 918 Posts #15 No fu**ing way....THATS HUGE! Whats worse...US Poltics or SC2 Balance Talks...
chrissummers Profile Joined March 2011 243 Posts #16 Nestea making sure his team gets delicious drinks. Nice one, boss!
zende Profile Joined February 2011 Sweden 234 Posts #17 wow.. that's huge!! so baller to be sponsored by coca cola - imagine the amounts of free coke
TicketoHELL Profile Joined April 2010 Canada 364 Posts #18 On May 13 2011 07:24 CoMMoDuS wrote:
Time for zenexcoca and fantaprime to switch clans!
fantaprime is julyzerg fantaprime is julyzerg (づ.ㅡ) 부비적 (ㅡ.ど) 부비적 (づ.ど) 부비부비
R0YAL Profile Blog Joined September 2009 United States 1767 Posts #19 Well butter my biscuits! Awesome news! Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Yaotzin Profile Joined August 2010 South Africa 4280 Posts #20 Damn really mainstream, that's nice. Grats IM!
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OTTAWA — It might have seemed like a straightforward proposition at the time: tying the strands of securities regulators across this country into one federal body with a unified set of rules.
[np_storybar title=”Terence Corcoran: 70 thumbs down for new national securities regulator plans” link=”https://business.financialpost.com/2014/12/22/terence-corcoran-70-thumbs-down-for-new-national-securities-regulator-plans/”%5D
On Sept. 8, 2014, Finance Minister Joe Oliver and the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick (together with P.E.I.) issued consultation drafts of a Provincial Capital Markets Act (PCMA) and a federal Capital Markets Stability Act (CMSA) — which, together, create the legislative framework that underpins the proposed Co-operative Capital Markets Regulatory System (CCMRS) and creates the Capital Markets Regulatory Authority (CMRA).
If you think that’s a bummer of a title for a proposed National Securities Regulator, wait till you read the reviews. Not since Ishtar, the Golden Raspberry-winning film of 1987, has a piece of proposed legislation accumulated so much official negative critical reception in such a short period of time.
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But Canada — now a respected member of the Group of 20 industrialized nations — has for decades fallen short of that goal, leaving it out of step with global peers who long ago established national oversight of their respective capital markets.
Despite piling on study after study — some dating back nearly 60 years — along with numerous false starts, Ottawa is still less than halfway to its goal of creating some form of federal watchdog here.
It could be said that the most recent attempt, with the Conservative government pushing in 2013 to create the yet-to-be-launched Cooperative Capital Markets Regulatory System, the concept has finally reached the critical mass of signatories necessary to legitimize its existence and move forward.
Even now, of the country’s 13 provinces and territories, only five — Ontario and British Columbia in 2013, and Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Prince Edwards Island in 2014 — are officially on board, while eight remain outside the framework. And of those, at least three — Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba — have vowed not to join.
The Cooperative System, nevertheless, is scheduled to be launched in mid-2015, although that may be an unrealistic deadline — regardless of how many jurisdictions sign up for it.
“These things take a ridiculous amount of time in Canada,” says Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa-based think-tank focusing on federal policy issues.
The Constitution Act of 1867, he says, “was supposed to tear down the barriers between the provinces, and here we are today with the provinces [only] saying, ‘we think we might make some progress on this’.”
“[But] I’m just delighted that we’ve made more progress in the last year than we probably made in the previous 60.”
For now, Canada’s landscape remains a patchwork of regulators — not the single securities blanket envisioned by Jim Flaherty, who was named finance minister when the Conservatives came to power in 2006 with unifying the capital markets system as one of their goals.
In fact, Ottawa had almost nothing to show for its efforts to create a national body until 2009.
We’ve made more progress in the last year than we probably made in the previous 60
That’s when the federal government — having watched dust collect on previous research documents and taken to heart a more recent set of recommendations by the so-called Expert Panel on Securities Regulation — turned up the heat on the provinces and territories, creating the Canadian Securities Transition Office, tasked with making the single national regulator a reality.
Trouble was, then as now, not all of the country’s 13 jurisdictions were ready or willing to be folded into a federal system. There was also a not-so-insignificant matter of the Constitution, which made it pretty clear the provinces had the overriding authority in these local matters.
Even so, Ottawa struck an advisory committee of the Transition Office to begin building a consensus on the shape and form of an overarching regulator.
But the process stalled again in 2011, after the Supreme Court of Canada, indeed, ruled the federal government lacked the constitutional authority to impose a national regulatory structure on the provinces and territories. Quebec and Alberta had argued in favour of such a ruling.
The high court did, however, acknowledge Ottawa’s role as the legitimate guardian over systemic market risks and also left open the option of pursuing a cooperative regulatory approach between the levels of government.
After allowing for some breathing space, Mr. Flaherty in 2013 unveiled a new version of a national regulator — this one taking the “cooperative” approach suggested by the court. Present for that Ottawa announcement were the finance ministers of Ontario and B.C., representing the first provinces to join the fledgling national regulator. They were followed by Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island the next year, when Joe Oliver replaced Mr. Flaherty as finance minister.
“What has surprised me is that this process hasn’t happened faster,” says Ian Russell, president and CEO of Investment Industry Association of Canada.
“After the agreement between Ontario and B.C. and the federal government, we would have expected Atlantic Canada to come in more quickly. What turned out to be the case, is we saw Saskatchewan come in and then we saw New Brunswick. And then it’s taken some time for other Atlantic provinces to come in . . . and we still don’t have Nova Scotia in yet. And no Newfoundland,” says Mr. Russell.
Saskatchewan and New Brunswick decided to join the Cooperative System after key changes were agreed to by participating parties. These included the creation of two regional deputy chief regulator positions — to be based in those two provinces — along with the previously agreed to regulator offices in Ontario and B.C. As well, two similar positions would be created should Alberta and Quebec decide to join in.
Prince Edward Island’s decision to sign on came after fixes to the cooperative agreement in August 2014 to emphasize “local economic development initiatives and it also emphasized regional representation,” says Steven Dowling, general counsel with PEI’s Consumer, Labour and Financial Services division of the Department of Environment, Labor and Justice.
“Specifically for PEI, that amended agreement outlined that there would be two additional regional deputy chief regulators,” he adds.
“And one of those deputy chief regulators will be representing New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia [should those two join] and PEI. You can expect that for all those participating jurisdictions will there will be regional representation for all the Atlantic Canadian provinces. That was a significant development.”
Mr. Oliver, the federal finance minister, says the Cooperative Regulator “will strengthen investor protection, provide more robust oversight of systemic risk, enhance efficiency, and bolster the reputation of our capital markets,” adding that the national regulator “will accomplish that while respecting regional interests and jurisdictions.”
“The door is open for every provinces and territories to participate. If they choose not to join at this time, they will have a constructive partner in the new Cooperative Regulator,” he adds.
“Discussions with provinces and territories interested in joining the Cooperative System are ongoing.”
So, where will the Cooperative System be a year now? Probably not much farther along than it is now.
The legislation to formally create the Cooperative System won’t be tabled in Parliament until sometime in early 2015 and implementation likely won’t happen until later.
First of all, the new regulator will still be under construction for much of the year — the necessary bureaucratic architecture needs to be formulated, accommodations found, staff hired, and a board of directors named and convened.
Some don’t see all of this completed until the end of 2015, or beyond.
“We have to get down to the brass tacks, which is really hammering this thing together into a viable organization. And you can’t do that without the board of directors and the board will play a very key role, beginning with appointing a CEO,” says Mr. Russell, at the Investment Industry Association of Canada.
“First of all, you’ve got the big job with the legislation and the regulations, but then you’ve got a very heavy task of trying to move out in building this thing,” he says. “The deadline for getting this up and running in the middle of 2015 . . . . It’s hard to believe that will happen. So, we’re obviously going to get slippage in deadlines.”
But, he adds, “hopefully, towards year-end next year, it might be going.”
Who will be next to join the Cooperative System, up and running or not? Five provinces may grow to six or seven in the coming year, with the likely addition of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The three territories still appear hesitant about the idea and determined to give it more study — and that could take them past 2015.
For sure, there will be no Alberta and no Manitoba, at least not in the next two or three years, depending on which way the local political winds blow, and — most certainly — no Quebec.
“We [have] made clear that Quebec, Alberta and Manitoba are not going to join the Cooperative Capital Markets Regulator,” Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said after meeting with his provincial counterparts in Ottawa on Dec. 15.
“Those three provinces together account for almost 50% of capital markets activity in Canada. So, we cannot ignore that either,” he pointed out.
“Whatever happens we have no intention, of course, of putting up obstacles [to the Cooperative System].”
A spokesperson for Alberta Finance Minister Robin Campbell says that, “based on consultations with industry, it is clear that industry representatives in all three provinces do not support the [Cooperative System] initiative, preferring a provincially-led approach instead.”
“It is far better for everyone concerned that we are all on the same page,” says Kevin Zagara. “Our worry is that Ottawa will proceed without the support of two of the country’s largest markets, leaving us with a more fractured system than the one we have today.”
Manitoba’s view is similar to that of Quebec and Alberta.
“We’ve always supported the Passport system and will continue to do that,” says a spokesperson for Finance Minister Greg Dewar.
“This system remains one of the best and most respected in the world. In our consultations with representatives of Manitoba’s financial sector, they have expressed strong support for continuing to have a local securities regulator that is responsive to local needs.”
Meanwhile, other current outliers to Ottawa’s proposed Cooperative System are taking a wait-and-see stance on the debate.
Diana Whalen, Nova Scotia’s finance minister and treasury board head, says “the issue is what kind of influence am I going to have in the [cooperative] model and what kind of compensation am I going to get from the federal government for giving up the revenues . . . of securities regulators for the provinces.”
The securities industry in Nova Scotia is “almost universally in favour of what we’re doing right now,” she says. And that includes continuing with the “passport” system that allows domestic and foreign issuers approved in one jurisdiction to operate in other Canadian capital markets — all except Ontario, which did not sign the one-fits-all agreement but considers applicants on an individual basis.
“Right now, I don’t see a risk in us continuing to be part of the Passport system that has other large provinces — certainly Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta — standing in that group,” says Ms. Whalen.
“But in the bigger picture, we’re looking at keeping the door open.”
As for the three territories, “I think they’ll fall in as soon as the others do,” says Mr. Crowley, at the MacDonald-Laurier Institute.
Perhaps, but governments in northern Canada believe they have ongoing issues with the Cooperative System that need to be resolved before any can join up.
David Ramsay, the Northwest Territories’ Minister of Justice and Industry, Tourism and Investment, says “in particular, there’s no provision for a local office in the Northwest Territories in the MOA (memorandum of agreement), as there is for all the participating provinces.”
“We’ve had assurances in the past that there would continue to be a local office here in the NWT, but this has not been provided for in the MOA,” he argues.
“I have to underscore the willingness of our territory to be at the table, to work together to try to come to an agreement on all of the issues.”
The Macdonald-Laurier’s Mr. Crowley believes that “ultimately, we’ll get all the provinces and territories [in the Cooperative System], with the exception of Quebec and Alberta. I think Alberta one day will come in.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever get Quebec on board. But getting nine provinces — or even eight — and three territories . . . will be a huge advance from where we are now.”
In fact, Heather Zordel, a lawyer with Toronto law firm Cassels Brock who specializes in securities regulation, says “it’s not really necessary to push this down everybody’s throats.”
“It’s necessary to work with some of the people that want to work with it and try to get it up and running . . . . If you sit there and try to make it perfect before you launch, you’ll just never to get anywhere,” says Ms. Zordel, who worked with the earlier ground-setting Expert Panel on Securities Regulation.
“We would all agree that this is a work in progress. The main issue is just to get it launched and then we will go from there. A securities regulator will never be perfect. It’s always evolving and it evolves quickly. And that is why we need to have a body that will be able to move effectively, quickly on a go-forward basis for the next hundred years.”
“I’m very positive. It’s been 60 years in the making.”
Financial Post
[email protected]
Twitter.com/gisfeld
Correction: The Canadian Securities Transition Office continues to assist in the establishment of a national cooperative securities regulator in Canada. Incorrect information appeared in Monday’s edition of the Financial Post. |
In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, violent protests and street demonstrations took over the streets of New York after a police raid of Stonewall Inn, the now-legendary Greenwich Village gay bar. Known as the Stonewall Riots, these protests are commonly considered the tipping point at which the LGBT community coalesced into political cohesion and the birth of the modern gay rights movement. On that June morning, equality for all seemed a distant but necessary dream — a dream that finally became a reality.
In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution (public library), David Carter contextualizes the remarkable delta of progress that the Stonewall Riots precipitated:
It was only a few decades ago — a very short time in historical terms — that the situation of gay men and lesbians was radically different from what it is today. At the end of the 1960s, homosexual sex was illegal in every state but Illinois. Not one law — federal, state, or local — protected gay men or women from being fired or denied housing. There were no openly gay politicians. No television show had any identifiably gay characters. When Hollywood made a film with a major homosexual character, the character was either killed or killed himself. There were no openly gay policemen, public school teachers, doctors, or lawyers. And no political party had a gay caucus.
In 1970, to mark the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprisings, the very first Gay Pride marches took place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.
Digging through the New York Public Library archives, I unearthed some goosebump-inducing photographs from the first-ever Pride parades around the world:
For the complete cultural context on this tidal change, Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution is indispensable in its entirety. |
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer doesn't expect to agree on most things with President Donald Trump over the next four years. But the Senate Democratic leader thinks the two can find common ground when it comes to entertaining at the White House.
Schumer, D-N.Y., sent a letter Wednesday to the White House asking Trump to buy American-made china, flatware and glassware to send a positive message to U.S. manufacturers.
In particular, Schumer used his letter to tout Sherrill Manufacturing in Oneida County, America's only remaining flatware maker.
"There is no better way to display America's greatest workforce and high-quality products than the White House using 'Made in America' products every day, and during special events like state dinners," Schumer said.
"Hopefully, the White House will heed my call so heads of states will sip their soup, cut their steak and bite on forks made right here in America," he said.
Trump, who campaigned on the slogan "Make America Great Again," has often cited the loss of manufacturing jobs in Upstate New York as he traveled across the nation.
Seeing an opportunity, Sherrill Manufacturing last week sent Trump a package with a five-piece sample of its "Betsy Ross" flatware line and a letter suggesting he might want to consider using the brand as the new White House flatware.
Matthew Roberts, the company's co-owner and chief operating officer, told Syracuse.com Wednesday afternoon that he has not yet received a reply from Trump or the White House.
"We are asking him to be true to his word and buy American," Roberts said.
Sherrill Manufacturing took over the former Oneida Ltd. factory in 2005 and now make 22 flatware patterns including the Betsy Ross line.
Since then, Sherrill Manufacturing has become one of the top flatware suppliers to the U.S. military and other federal agencies with a mandate to buy American-made products.
With the help of a complaint filed by Schumer, the company won a dispute in March with the U.S. General Services Administration over companies that falsely claimed their forks, knives and spoons were made in the United States.
That leaves Sherrill Manufacturing's flatware brand, Liberty Tabletop, as the only brand made in the United States.
Sherrill Manufacturing sells directly to the public through its Liberty Tabletop website and through online retailers that specialize in American-made products.
Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751 |
Newswise — The rate of diagnosis for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is the same among all racial groups — one in 110, according to current estimates. However, a study by a Florida State University researcher has found that African-American children tend to be diagnosed later than white children, which results in a longer and more intensive intervention. The reasons for later diagnoses include a lack of access to quality, affordable, culturally competent health care, according to Martell Teasley, an associate professor in Florida State’s College of Social Work who has conducted a comprehensive review of researchliterature on autism and African-American children. In addition, the stigmaattached to mental health conditions within the black community contribute to misdiagnoses of autism, and underuse of available treatment services. “There are no subjective criteria for diagnosing autism. Only brain scans can truly provide appropriate diagnoses, because we are dealing with biological and chemical imbalances in the brain,” Teasley said. “Not every child is going to have access to this kind of medical evaluation, particularly those who are indigent and don’t have health care funding.” Teasley examined ASD diagnosis and treatment strategies, and their effect on African-American families, in “Autism and the African-American Community,” a paper published in a special issue of the journal Social Work in Public Health (Vol. 26, Issue 4, 2011) that dealt with health-care policy issues in the black community related to the human genome. Teasley co-wrote the paper with Ruby Gourdine, a professor of social work at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Tiffany Baffour, an associate professor of social work at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. Because of the social stigma, Teasley says that some African-American families might be resistant to accept a diagnosis and treatment. “Less discussion about autism among African-Americans or between African-Americans and health care providers leads to misdiagnoses, a lack of treatment and a lack of services,” Teasley said. “This will lead to greater challenges for families — more stress and anxiety, and poorer developmental outcomes.” African-Americans also might resist a diagnosis and treatment because of a mistrust of mainstream health care providers over past discrimination. “African-Americans are well versed in going to a doctor who might have biases or discriminatory practices, so they may not readily accept what a doctor says,” Teasley said. In addition, a cultural divide between African-Americans and mainstream health care providers can hinder a timely and correct diagnosis. “There are not enough health care professionals who understand the cultural norms and attributes of the African-American community,” Teasley said. African-Americans live in all types of settings, but the majority live in urban areas, which have seen a decline in the number of mental-health care agencies since the 1980s. “This lack of accessibility causes a problem for some African-Americans,” Teasley said. Once a child is diagnosed with ASD, Teasley says both the child and the members of his or her family needs to receive appropriate training and counseling. “The children need behavioral counseling so they can develop the skills to live as independently as possible,” he said. “The families need to learn how to work with children who are autistic. “Intervention for any autistic child needs to start around age 3, so we can get the child to begin to learn how to eat right and develop normal, healthy routines, which will result in a better developmental outcome,” Teasley said. “Later intervention will result in a poorer developmental outcome that can have a lasting impact on the child’s and family’s quality of life.” |
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The 2010 British student demonstrations awoke the austerity generation. The 2011 Chilean Winter frightened tight-belted administrators the world-round. And now, Quebec’s 2012 Maple Spring is showing neoliberals that if they’re going to hike tuition, it’ll be over striking student bodies. Ad Policy
As the spirit of youth protest winds westward, one wonders: Why don’t American students strike? And more broadly, what can US student activists learn from Montreal about making a movement mass?
As a recent graduate and student organizer, I headed north last month to compare notes with my Canadian counterparts.
Average annual tuition in Quebec stands at $2,500, dwarfed by America’s average tuition of $12,800 at public institutions and $32,000 at private ones. The average Quebec student debt is a mere $13,000 compared with America’s $25,000. And in 2012, 7.2 percent of US college grads were unemployed, beating out Quebec’s 6.3 percent.
According to the Associated Press, 53.6 percent of Americans under 26 with a Bachelor’s are jobless or underemployed. That’s 1.5 million people. That could fill a lot of streets.
So why are they empty?
Some point to uniquely American challenges. Simeon Talley explains in Campus Progress that the transformation to a bottom-line society, which is what students are protesting abroad, “has long taken hold in the US,” and retro-activism is too damn discouraging. In The American Prospect, Courtney Martin points to American class divisions, which make elite do-gooders look to developing countries rather than their own classrooms to score charity points.
Others argue that American student mobilizations do flare up, like Liz Dwyer of Good magazine. Dwyer admires UC Berkeley students’ protests against tuition increases, but notes that maintaining a movement for months “is unheard of in the 21st century United States.”
City University of New York students Biola Jeje and Isabelle Nastasia, who are fighting a five-year $1,500 tuition bump, argue that a mass movement could be sustained if the right infrastructure were in place. Specifically, if students “establish radical, federated student unions,” modeled after Montreal, to replace the “currently weak systems of student participation.”
But American students can’t just mail-order unions from Quebec. No manual can explain the student union culture that’s necessary to make them effective. However, a case study of an Anglophone university in Montreal might help.
“We always say French schools, they are so mobilized. We always look up to them,” said Rushdia Mehreen, a master’s student in Geography Planning and Environment at the primarily English-speaking Concordia University in Montreal.
Francophone schools have a tradition of activism in Quebec, Mehreen explained, but at Anglophone universities like Concordia, the customs are far less understood and practiced.
Although English activists like Mehreen have been vocal since tuition hikes were announced in April 2010, their schools remained largely quiet. In the winter of 2011, Concordia began taking steps to join its French counterparts.
Mehreen, along with other activists from Free Education Montreal and Concordia Mob Squad, initiated an information campaign, which included the seminal “23 Answers for Students,” addressing the history, justifications, and concerns about an unlimited general strike in a step-by-step manner. “We had to cater…to people not coming from Quebec,” Mehreen admitted.
They also engaged students through dialogue, hosting town hall meetings for “everyone to argue their point of view,” and holding debates to discuss common ideological barriers like, “if you want your education to be of high quality, then you have to pay for it.”
The campaign culminated in a massive November 10 march, with two hundred thousand Montreal students striking (including Concordia’s graduate and Arts & Sciences students) and thirty thousand stomping in the streets. This served as an ultimatum before an unlimited general strike.
In preparation for a possible strike, Concordia stepped up its cultural makeover through an intensive immersion experience. Francophone and Anglophone universities formally linked up, which was transformative for many English organizers. “They were ten times ahead of us,” Mehreen said.
Over the winter holidays, Mehreen co-organized a two-day training camp (a Francophone activist tradition) with this inter-cultural group. Her review: It provided the Anglophone activists in the “A to Z of what we needed to know as mobilizers.”
The relationship led to joint actions, including a bilingual demo called “Don’t Fuck with Notre [Our] Éducation.” Mehreen felt that “these encounters helped us immerse more in the movement because before that it was like Anglophone students were not really taking part in it.”
Come springtime at Concordia, “The atmosphere…was totally changed,” said Mehreen. The organizing core grew, and many students were asking how to hold General Assemblies in their own departments. “It was contagious, basically.”
On March 5, Concordia embarked on its first ever unlimited general strike in several departments. Later that month, Concordia struck university-wide for one week.
The neophyte strikers quickly ran into problems. The inexperienced administrators threatened activists or barred them from campus, and called for all faculty, staff, and students to report anyone participating in strike activities. This led some disgruntled students to break through picket lines, while some departments simply didn’t hold a General Assembly to continue the strike.
Still, Mehreen believed that the school gained some activist muscle that’s not going to atrophy. “These departmental associations are politicized now.” Mehreen’s story demonstrates how building infrastructure for each department and faculty to hold assemblies can be instrumental in sustaining a movement.
Concordia’s narrative also identifies culture as a crucial complement to infrastructure — it wasn’t until the organizing core shared Francophone activist culture that Concordia students used the unions to mobilize en masse and join the movement.
What about Francophone organizing culture sparked the mobilization?
At the demonstrations and assemblies I attended, there was a noticeable lack of infighting. In my experience with American college and Occupy organizing, conflict over issues of process (everyone feeling like their voice is heard) and goals (radical or reformist political visions) are often prevalent.
In searching for an explanation to Montreals’ relative harmony and success in building a mass movement, I returned to Mehreen’s description of the culture of L’Université du Québec à Montréal, which she tried to emulate: “combative syndicalism…to fight for our rights.”
Syndicalism is a principle many of my interviewees repeated. It refers to a sort of union-based collectivism. Academically, it’s defined as an alternative to capitalism and state socialism, relying on federations of multiple non-competitive units to manage the economy. In practice in Montreal, it amounted to a strong respect for autonomous decision-making, genuine trust within groups, and an intense sense of solidarity and collective purpose.
Mehreen asserted that this syndicalism was in the DNA of Quebecois organizing. Naturally, it was expressed in the movement’s foundational political body: the General Assembly.
The General Assembly at L’Université du Québec à Montréal was rather mundane. A group of biology students wanted an exception to the strike. They would lose a semester’s worth of lab work if they didn’t complete it by the fall, and only needed two weeks to finish.
A student brought up the implications of making exceptions. Someone raised that summer session wasn’t official. Another slipped “if the strike ever ends” into his statement and got laughs. An amendment was offered: the biology students do the lab work over the summer, but don’t submit them for grades until later so that their transcript doesn’t report classes taken during the strike. The resolution squeaked by with the necessary two-thirds majority. I checked my watch. It’d been forty-five minutes.
Coming from Occupy Philly — which is deciding whether to continue to have General Assemblies at all, and is working on a consensus-based process partially because some consider voting to be violent — the contrast was stark.
Occupy’s “step up, step back” anti-oppression policy and radical horizontalism calls for participants to favor underrepresented voices by taking into account how privilege embedded in their identities affects their language, manner, and ideas. The assembly at L’Université du Québec à Montréal, which was governed by principles similar to Robert’s Rules, simply asked that no one speak twice before everyone got a chance to speak once, that speakers alternate in gender, and that nominated facilitators be approved by a vote.
The structure is designed for efficiency and accountability all the way down. The individual member associations of CLASSE adopt positions in general assemblies. Delegates from these individual associations then attend and vote according to the mandate they’ve been given at CLASSE’s congresses held every weekend. Occupy exerts great effort to ensure that all participants feel like their concerns have been heard, while Montrealers focus more on productivity and yet few seem to feel hurt or excluded.
Quebec’s particular culture of solidarity, or syndicalism, engenders the trust necessary for a union structure to function well. The culture also fosters a sense of inclusivity and understanding that makes the movement more inviting to all students.
“It’s not about tuition for me, and it never was,” said Mehreen. Both Mehreen and Noemi Stern, an activist at McGill University in Montreal, have political visions that extend far beyond a tuition freeze. Stern hopes for small, autonomous, democratic communities, while Mehreen wants an end to privatization of public services.
But the manifencours (a name for the protests meaning “manifestations in the streets”) are not about dismantling the system, and these radical-leaning activists are okay with that. “We went on strike on those demands, so we want a resolution,” Mehreen declared. Even if a tuition freeze feels inadequate or social change based in the political system seems reformist, they remain committed to their classmates.
Mehreen personally convinced students that striking works, and that the 75 percent tuition hike was the reason to strike now. Mehreen’s sense of obligation and respect for the student union’s decisions makes her want to include students with a range of political views, including those counter to her own.
“We just want to go to school,” cried Zupa Semitego, a protester without particularly radical aspirations who has been shocked by police repression. She claimed, “[The police] made this into a bigger thing than it is.” According to Mehreen, once involved, many like Semitego have become radicalized through the experience of participatory democracy or the sting of pepper spray.
On American campuses, most students are not attracted to activist groups, and some feel alienated or even attacked by them. Is such solidarity even possible in America, particularly with its plurality of identities?
According to Wall Street Occupier Daniel Murphy, it’s not. “Shared identity. We don’t have that in America,” said Murphy, who came to Canada for the protests.
“There are so many different cultures in the US that they fractionalize,” Murphy claimed, pointing to splits in Chicago. “Occupy Chicago is now the college students which are mostly white. Occupy El Barrio…is mostly Latin American, and Occupy the Hood…is predominately African American.”
I went to Montreal’s culturally mixed Côte-des-Neiges for a neighborhood assembly, to see how Quebecois solidarity dealt with diversity. Despite a few instances of interruptions and overbearing speeches, the meeting was marked by smiles and excited conversation. This included an international student’s declaration that he identified as “a part of Quebec society until [his] last day in Canada.”
Stateside solidarity and student consciousness may be possible, but the activist culture must address the multitude of distinctly American issues.
“You cannot evict an idea whose time has come.”
This statement, put out on occupywallst.org after the encampments were shut down, is reiterated in activist circles nation-wide.
But a movement forged in the fire of pre-figurative politics, where the means are the ends, cannot just wield an idea.
An idea can be inhabited by an individual. A culture is inherently based on interactions between people. Culture is not convincing, but demonstrative. A culture is a manifencours, a manifestation, of a society that encompasses many ideas and principles, best articulated through practice.
John Dewey, the philosopher who pioneered “learning by doing,” wrote, “Education is a social process…education is not preparation for life but is life itself.” Spreading ideas helps people understand Occupy, but sharing culture helps people become Occupiers. A reorientation toward crafting a culture of accessible activism may allow students to learn by doing.
American students need to create their own organizing culture, perhaps incorporating Quebecois syndicalism but without ignoring the principles of radical horizontalism employed by Occupy to address the uniquely American inequalities engraved into our identities — or else suffer terminal fractures like movements past.
As the Occupy Student Debt Campaign takes off, and college dissidents congregate at the Student Power Convergence in August, let the project be creating an accessible activist culture to support a mass movement. |
Nearly a quarter of the turkey eaten in the U.S. is consumed on Thanksgiving. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
There's a reason Thanksgiving has also come to be known as Turkey Day in the United States. The National Turkey Federation , an industry lobbying group, estimates that of the more than 200 million turkeys consumed in the U.S. in 2015, nearly a quarter of them were gobbled up on Thanksgiving.
When it comes to average annual poultry consumption per person, however, Israel is No. 1. Turkey became the nation's meat of choice early on, as it was cheaper than imported beef and required less refrigeration than chicken, an Israeli turkey farmer told the Times of Israel . The nation also credits itself with the invention of turkey pastrami.
Across the world, poultry accounts for about 2 percent of daily diets, according to data compiled by National Geographic . In places such as the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Argentina, the average is more like 5 percent.
Developing countries like Nigeria and Pakistan generally consume less poultry and other meat. But the Association of Poultry Processors and Poultry Trade in the EU predicts that production of poultry will account for half of the growth in meat production over the next decade, driven largely by increased consumption in developing nations and thanks to "various competitive advantages," including its healthy image, affordability, limited emission and absence of religious restrictions.
The cost of an average Thanksgiving-sized 16-pound turkey in the U.S. increased from $21.65 in 2014 to $23.04 in 2015, according to the American Farm Bureau Association, but the cost of a Thanksgiving meal has stayed rather consistent when adjusted for inflation.
Americans may not eat the most turkey, but each person consumed more than six Thanksgiving-sized turkeys in 2015. Here are the 10 countries that consume the most poultry per person, according to the 2016 edition of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' Agricultural Outlook report . |
The minority cell of the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal Sunday confirmed that the airing of a TV serial written by controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was postponed in accordance with the instructions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
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She (Taslima) is a communal force whose work can hurt sentiments of the minority community here and spark a riot, Idris Ali,chairman of All India TMC minority cell said.
He was talking to the reporters on the sidelines of a function organised to announce a team of leaders from the minority communities that would be visiting different parts of the country to woo regional parties and push for Mamata Banerjee as the prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Syed Md Nurur Rahman Barkati,Shahi Imam of Tipu Sultan Masjid,present on the occasion,said,I told the editor of the channel that Taslima had received a lot of flak for her anti-Islam works and the people of Bengal would not take it lightly if her work was aired.
They were referring to the postponement of Dusahobas,a TV serial based on a story written by Taslima.
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Earlier,Ali said that the team,led by Barkati,would visit Delhi,UP Bihar and Jharkhand,among other states and talk to all secular parties and tell them that only Mamata Banerjee was good enough to fight the communal forces like Narendra Modi and the corruption of Congress. |
Image copyright PA
Have you prayed for Fabrice Muamba today? His family are exhorting the country to believe in the power of prayer, and I suspect many millions of Britons, whether they have faith or not, will have felt moved to offer a silent appeal to an invisible power asking that the young footballer pull through.
The front page of today's Sun newspaper is devoted to the headline "God is in Control" below the subheading "Praying for Muamba". "In God's Hands" says the Daily Star. Chelsea defender Gary Cahill pulled off his shirt after scoring yesterday to reveal a vest encouraging supporters to "Pray 4 Muamba", his former team-mate.
Bolton Wanderers and Muamba's friends and relatives have said they have been touched by the out-pouring of goodwill towards the player. His club manager Owen Coyle said: "Everybody is praying for Fabrice, which is very important, and that has been a real source of strength to the family."
The dreadful sight of a young, apparently healthy athlete collapsing in front of tens of thousands of football fans is a sharp reminder of the unpredictability of all our lives. We can never be in total control of our destiny and so, like generations before us, at times of stress or crisis we look to the heavens in the search for meaning and hope.
Image copyright AP Image caption Chelsea defender Gary Cahill asks fans to pray
A BBC survey in 2004 suggested roughly six out of 10 people in the UK believe in some sort of divine being and research concludes that there is a basic human desire for supernatural involvement in matters of health and wellbeing.
In the Christian tradition, the New Testament states that "prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well" (James 5.15). It is a claim that pits medical rationalism against religious conviction and for centuries scientists and preachers have argued over the evidence that prayer works.
In 1872, Sir Francis Galton's classic paper Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer was published in The Fortnightly Review. He reasoned that, if praying was effective, then monarchs should live longer than comparable groups. Galton set about examining the mean age attained by men who had survived beyond the age of 13 between 1758 and 1843. The data excluded deaths by accident or violence.
The group who tended to live longest were the gentry (roughly 70 years) and the lowest mean was among members of royal houses (64 years). From this, Galton concluded that "the sovereigns are literally the shortest-lived of all who have the advantage of influence. The prayer has, therefore, no efficacy."
However, trust in the power of prayer remained. That pioneer of nursing Florence Nightingale was a believer, writing that "often when people seem unconscious, a word of prayer reaches them". A number of scientific experiments have been conducted over the years to try and demonstrate what effect, if any, intercessionary prayer might have.
Whatever you might think about its links to a supernatural being, intercessory prayer is a straightforward way for an individual to focus the mind on their capacity to think nice thoughts
A book entitled The Power of Prayer on Plants published in 1959 detailed the results of research involving 150 people and 27,000 seeds and seedlings. The author Franklin Loehr concluded that plants for which people prayed showed a better rate of survival and growth than plants which did not enjoy the benefit of prayer.
In 1988, the American doctor Randolph Byrd recruited some born-again Christians to pray outside a San Francisco coronary care unit for a randomized group among 400 patients. The remainder were not subject to prayers. His paper in the Southern Medical Journal concluded that patients in the intercessory prayer group had "a significantly lower severity score" than the control group.
"These data suggest that intercessory prayer to the Judeo-Christian God has a beneficial therapeutic effect in patients admitted to a CCU," he concluded.
In 2007, researchers at Arizona State University decided to do a systematic review of all the literature on the efficacy of prayer to see what picture emerged. In setting out its findings, the paper states that "although it is theoretically possible that a transcendent being exists and responds to prayer, it is also possible that prayer taps into presently undiscovered natural mechanisms that produce change".
The study looked at 17 previously published papers and found that "patients who received intercessory prayer demonstrated significant improvement" in seven of those. However, there were questions about the validity of some of the research and the evidence was not sufficient for "prayer" to meet the criteria required for an "empirically supported treatment" in the United States.
"Intercessory prayer offered on behalf of clients in clinical settings is a controversial practice, in spite of its apparent frequent occurrence. The topic is one that engenders both support and opposition, often passionately held," the research concluded.
"Thus, at this junction in time, the results might be considered inconclusive. Indeed, perhaps the most certain result stemming from this study is the following: The findings are unlikely to satisfy either proponents or opponents of intercessory prayer."
The evidence, however, is stronger in terms of the apparent efficacy of prayer on those who are doing the praying. A much-cited American paper from 1983 entitled "Are religious people nice people?" attempted to plot links between people who prayed and pro-social behaviour. The author concluded that "those who pray frequently" tend to be more cooperative and friendly.
A study in Britain of 4,000 12-15-year-olds conducted in 1992 by the academic and Anglican priest Leslie Francis found that "as many as one young person in every three who never has contact with church nonetheless prays at least occasionally". The frequency of personal prayer, he concluded, is "an important predictor of perceived purpose in life".
Whatever you might think about its links to a supernatural being, intercessory prayer is a straightforward way for an individual to focus the mind on their capacity to think nice thoughts. Anyone can close their eyes and make a wish that bad things do not happen. Right now, Britain is praying that Fabrice Muamba makes a speedy and full recovery. |
Two Minneapolis City Council candidates have challenged the outcome of last week’s DFL caucus in the Sixth Ward, a scene of confusion from which Council Member Abdi Warsame appears to have emerged victorious.
Warsame’s opponents, Mohamud Noor and Tiffini Flynn Forslund, filed separate challenges with the Minneapolis DFL Party late Thursday, asking that the party forgo endorsing a candidate in the ward, which includes Cedar-Riverside and parts of the Phillips and Seward neighborhoods. The challenges won’t be fully settled until the ward convention on May 6.
Turnout in the ward was massive, with 800 people at the Cedar-Riverside precinct alone. The Minneapolis DFL enlisted 100 volunteers from the state party to help in the Sixth Ward, said Minneapolis DFL Chairman Dan McConnell, and arranged for off-duty police officers to help direct traffic.
“It still wasn’t enough,” McConnell said. “I don’t know how we do it again.”
In her complaint, Flynn Forslund said she was “not prepared for the disorganization and chaos that erupted in many precincts.” While she was pleased with the participation, she said “rules were not followed in the fight to win between Noor and Warsame.”
A Noor supporter was writing delegate names down before a subcaucus at Elliot Park, and Warsame interpreters told participants to go home before a subcaucus in Ventura Village, Flynn Forslund said. Subcaucuses are the critical moment in a heavily attended caucus, since they determine how delegates are awarded.
Ayanna Yusef, an Abdi Warsame supporter, in the green t-shirt, explained the caucus results to some others after an official announced the results.
A Flynn Forslund staffer said she saw a Noor supporter and a Warsame supporter “literally” fight over an older woman at Stewart Park. Interpreters in at least two cases were provided by the Warsame campaign, which Flynn Forslund’s campaign found troubling.
The police were an “extremely negative force” at the caucuses in the Sixth Ward, said one Flynn Forslund staffer, adding that they “spent the majority of their time walking around sneering at people.” And at Seward Montessori, somebody pulled the fire alarm, causing people to leave before the caucus was over.
“There has to be a better way to regulate this democratic process,” Flynn Forslund wrote, and asked that there be no endorsement in the Sixth Ward.
Noor complained that the gymnasium at the Brian Coyle Community Center was not large enough for the caucus in Cedar-Riverside and that not all caucusgoers were able to register. Firefighters moved the caucus in that precinct from the gymnasium to Currie Field next door.
Noor also alleged that nonresidents participated in caucuses, and blamed Warsame supporters for “trickery and gimmicks” that created “fretfulness” at precinct caucuses, despite a pre-caucus meeting between the three candidates aimed at paving the way for a smooth caucus night.
“We strongly believe that the outcome of the DFL selection of delegates was conducted in an unjust way and has certainly violated our previous agreement and led to an unfair process disadvantaging my campaign,” Noor wrote in a letter to the Minneapolis DFL, asking that either the caucus results be thrown out or the DFL hold another caucus in the Sixth Ward.
Future fixes?
The DFL decided at a meeting Thursday not to hold another caucus, but a committee will look into the allegations and make a recommendation before the ward convention, McConnell said. The delegates selected at the caucus will decide at the convention what to do with the recommendation.
All campaigns were asked to bring translators to all precincts, McConnell said, to make sure translation was handled properly. In future elections, he said, the Somali community will have to work with the DFL on a better way to handle the caucuses, given the high turnout, the language barrier for many caucusgoers and the DFL’s struggles to keep things running smoothly.
“It can’t be people from the outside coming in and running it,” McConnell said. “They need leaders in the community to come together and figure this out.”
Warsame said Friday that his campaign had no reason to tamper with the process, since he was able to turn out more voters than his opponents.
“Why would we say ‘leave’ when we had the most people?” he said. “The challengers don’t have enough delegates, so they want to delegitimize and defranchise the community.”
Warsame also said he and Somali-Americans should be proud of the throngs of caucusgoers, some of whom stayed for five hours, especially given that two elections ago in 2009, very few participated.
“It was a huge turnout, and it was a bit of a mess,” Warsame said. “But people should be applauded for coming out and sticking with the process. These people stayed throughout, because they wanted to be counted.” |
You can keep your measly normal electric cars, Elon Musk — the real future of automotive power will be fully powered by the sun.
That's the vision a new Dutch auto startup, Lightyear, hopes the world is ready to embrace with a fully solar-powered, four-wheel-drive luxury sedan. Lightyear is just the latest challenger to Tesla's top spot in the green automotive space, but its claims about the potentially groundbreaking tech powered the car are bolder — and more suspect — than most.
The startup unveiled its Lightyear One concept earlier this week, touting a battery that can constantly replenish its power using the sun and travel a range of up to 800 km (almost 500 miles) when fully juiced. That's just the start: The company claims that in the right sunny environment (say, Hawaii), the One could potentially drive for months at a time between charges.
That would have big ramifications about electric vehicles; concerns about electric cars being restricted to regions with reliable charging networks would become moot with this type of tech. But as exciting as a solar-powered car is, it's still unproven outside of demos and prototypes.
SEE ALSO: Hummer factory gets second life making electric cars
The Lightyear team claims the car can fuel up with more than just sunshine. The One is equipped with an charging port for charging from an outlet, even a regular ol' household power socket. Lightyear claims that just plugging its car into a standard (3.7 kW) outlet for an hour would give you 40 km (about 25 miles) worth of power.
The solar power collected by the car's panels could be used to power more than just the One itself, allowing owners to transfer the energy into their homes, devices, and even other electric cars. This type of system isn't unlike how utility companies are harnessing nascent solar systems and batteries like Tesla's Powerwall to bolster their grids, but a mobile charger sharing power is a new wrinkle to the practice.
It's not exactly clear how the small company plans on producing its groundbreaking vehicles. The startup's FAQ section includes some vague language about a "fundamentally re-engineered" new architecture that will require a "revolutionary production process." They mention that industry partners have signed on to support the process, but don't offer any specific names.
Lightyear's founders aren't new to the solar car scene, which makes the One slightly more believable than other high-flung concepts with little real world documentation to back them up. The company was started by five former members of Solar Team Eindhoven, the group that created the four-seat Stella solar-powered car, which hit the US streets back in 2014.
The startup won't produce the One on a large scale, shooting for just 10 in 2019, with the next 100 "expected in 2020." You can can pre-order your own now in the EU and US, but, unsurprisingly, it won't come cheap. Reserving a One will run you a refundable €19,000 (around $21,700 at the current exchange rate) down payment, and the final cost is expected to be €119,000, a whopping $135,800.
The limited run won't cause industry giants like Tesla to lose any sleep just yet, and Lightyear still has to prove it can transfer its experimental tech into a fully realized consumer experience. If the company succeeds, however, we could be looking at a new automotive future, directly powered by the sun. |
[From a talk delivered at the Boston Mises Circle, October 1, 2016.]
A journalist from The Chronicle of Higher Education contacted me recently asking about free-market think tanks affiliated with universities. Can the Mises Institute or other organizations produce the scientific foundation for what he sees as an increasing faith among politicians in the power of free markets to solve societal problems and create the best outcomes? What, he asked, is the state of scientific evidence for this? Where’s the proof? How do we really know all this free-market stuff works?
I was tempted to respond with something snarky like “the 20th century.” But I know a hit piece when I see one, and did manage to have a very civil phone conversation with him, and gently explained that no, most politicians advocate a mixed economy, and so forth.
But what’s so striking is the degree to which this journalist, and so many people like him, are deeply suspicious of capitalism and its advocates, and are convinced that some sinister plot is afoot to impose “free-market fundamentalism” on the nation (he actually used that term). And of course he never sees state-funded universities, mainstream media, corporate America, or government officials as enormously well-funded advocates for his point of view.
On the contrary, he imagines himself an underdog!
Now I wish this were true — that the case for political liberalism and laissez-faire, made so plain both by theory and history, had finally overcome the majority of academics. I wish American universities were not “nurseries of socialism,” to use Ludwig von Mises’s phrase.
But, they remain just that, and actually much worse.
In fact, universities have deteriorated rapidly since Mises died in the 1970s. Gone is any pretext of academic freedom, what we used to call free inquiry. If we judge modern universities by one simple criterion — are they committed to seeking and teaching truth above all? — then we must conclude that they are failing in their mission. We must conclude that they are committed to a political, economic, social, and cultural agenda that has little to do with truth-seeking.
In this sense, today’s campuses are a microcosm of what progressives have in store for society in general. And part of that vision requires a degree of collective ignorance and even amnesia about entire fields of knowledge. It relates directly to my message for you today — namely that we, intelligent laypeople, allowed economics to be lost.
A few weeks ago at our event in Asheville, North Carolina, I spoke about how economics has become a broken profession.
My point was that we now have an entire generation of supposedly mainstream economists who fundamentally:
Don’t understand economics as a social science, rather than a physical science that requires testing of hypotheses;
Don’t understand money as a market commodity;
Don’t understand inflation as a monetary phenomenon;
Don’t understand interest rates as prices rather than policy tools;
Don’t understand inflation and interest rates and can’t explain booms and busts;
And perhaps worst of all, they often know nothing about the history of economic thought. They’ve simply accepted, without context, a host of assumptions that make up modern mainstream economics.
Think about that! It’s as though bloodletting had become the consensus mainstream medical approach to treating disease — and 80 years later doctors simply focused on the rate of bloodletting, or the timing of bloodletting, or the least painful approach to bloodletting.
By "broken," I don’t mean that the profession of economics doesn’t provide benefits for those working within it. It provides these benefits in spades. I mean it is broken in the same way universities are broken — that it no longer serves truth or society or humanity, but instead serves an agenda.
It starts with the wrong premises, asks the wrong questions, applies the wrong methods, and not surprisingly arrives at the wrong conclusions.
And we let it happen. We allowed the “academicization” of a field that we once expected high school graduates to reasonably grasp. We can call it formalism, or scientism, or just the intrusion of mathematics — but it represents nearly a century of diversion from classical and Austrian economics.
At some point in the the 20th century, we all became convinced that certain fields were too complicated and too technical to understand. We let a group of technocratic elites capture economics for their own purposes. We were encouraged to throw up our hands and say “I give up,” and leave everything to the experts. Economics is like advanced physics, not something us average people should worry about.
Economists went on to embrace “mathiness” in economics, and many economists believe that any economics question can be posed in mathematical language. And, once posed, it is believed economists can reach definitive conclusions based on these mathematical models.
Mises certainly did not see economics as a mathematical exercise. He understood economics as a subset of praxeology, of human action, and therefore proper for all intelligent people to study. It is the human elements of consciousness and volition that distinguish economics from physics and chemistry and math.
And yet, while we would be alarmed if our children graduated from high school unable to write in complete sentences, or unable to perform basic algebra, balance a checkbook, or unable to make change at a cash register, we don’t mind sending them out into the world without a single economics class — completely vulnerable to politicians and supposed experts.
And we see this in the political debates, where the same falsehoods are repeated year after year.
It helps us understand how we arrived at a time and place where Ben Bernanke, Paul Krugman, Thomas Piketty, and Christine Lagarde are viewed as modern mainstream thinkers rather than the radicals they are when compared to the whole history of economics.
Making Economics Matter
So what do we do to correct this? How do we make economics less dismal and more relevant, so that we’re not a nation of gullible voters who fall for political nonsense? How do we convince young people that economics matters? And most of all, how do we save economics from professional economists?
I think first and foremost we need to accept that academia is captured. The Mises Institute continues to produce Fellows who go on to careers at universities around the world, and establish Austrian-friendly economics departments. We may not like it, but reclaiming academia professor by professor is an enormous task. The return on investment is far greater when we focus on young people and intelligent laypersons.
Second, we need to understand that it’s up to us to create the economics education the world needs. Thanks to the digital revolution, new structures and new platforms can be built far faster and far cheaper than we ever imagined. We can invert the classroom, do away with make-work curricula, and align economics education with the marketplace by teaching people only what they want and need. We can reject the one-way lecture production model that universities still cling to 2,000 years after Aristotle.
Mises Academy, for example, makes a core group of Austrian economics courses available to anyone, anywhere, free of charge.
Finally, we must return to Mises’s more visceral approach and make economics real again. Like progressives, we shouldn’t be afraid to appeal to the heart as well as the head.
When we view economics as the stuff of life, we energize and humanize the subject. When we approach economics more like philosophy, as the study of general and fundamental human problems involving knowledge and reason, we create a whole new perspective. When we introduce logic and metaphysics into the discussion of economics, we make it a more vital subject. Economics is not an equation to be balanced, or a model to be filled with statistics. By restoring its role as a theoretical social science, we can restore its popularity among bright young people who really do want to change the world.
Conclusion
In closing, let me say that we don’t have to abandon intellectual rigor to “sell” Austrian economics. But we do have to make it more relevant and vital to the average person, by reclaiming it from the academics and asking the visceral questions: “why are we so rich?” and, “what if it all went away?”
But we can’t begin to do that — we can’t begin to understand or address what I would say are very serious structural economic problems — when the very science that is tasked with studying them has lost its way. So let’s reclaim economics from academia, from mathematicians, from politicians, and especially from the state and it’s court of intellectuals.
Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute. He previously worked as a longtime advisor and chief of staff to Congressman Ron Paul. Contact: email; twitter. |
A barrister representing Craig Thomson has told a judge the former federal MP lied about using union money to pay for sex because he was "under attack for moral turpitude" at the time.
Thomson, 50, was in March jailed for three months, with nine months suspended for two years, after a magistrate found he used more than $24,500 of Health Services Union funds for personal benefit while he was the union's national secretary from 2002 to 2007.
But the former Labor member for the NSW seat of Dobell has not served any of that jail term because his legal team launched an immediate appeal against the conviction imposed bymagistrate Charlie Rozencwajg.
The appeal before County Court judge Carolyn Douglas finished on Tuesday. She is due to announce her finding on December 15.
Barrister Greg James, QC, representing Thomson, told Judge Douglas on Tuesday that his client lied to Channel Nine's Laurie Oakes in a May 2012 interview at the height of the scandal. |
The first piece of software to show the potential of quantum computing has finally been run on a real machine, 20 years after it was initially dreamed up. Although it doesn’t do anything useful on its own, implementing the algorithm could lead to more practical computers powered by the strange properties of quantum mechanics.
Quantum computers should be much faster than ordinary ones, but only at tasks for which there is a quantum algorithm – software that takes advantage of the computer’s quantum nature. Without these algorithms, quantum computers are just regular computers that are much harder to build.
One of the best-known pieces of quantum software is Shor’s algorithm, which factorises large numbers into their prime components – a notoriously slow and difficult problem to solve classically. Shor’s algorithm has been run in a limited way using photons sent through the air and on silicon chips – but a full-blown quantum computer capable of running it could threaten online encryption, which relies on large primes.
Designing an algorithm that takes advantage of a quantum computer is tricky, so there aren’t many around. In 1994, Daniel Simon, then at the University of Montreal, Canada, came up with one of the earliest examples. Crucially, his was the first that showed a quantum computer could solve a problem exponentially faster than an ordinary computer. Previous algorithms had only shown a slight speed boost, or none at all.
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Sceptical
Simon was a quantum computing sceptic, but in attempting to prove they would never be useful, he stumbled across a problem that showed the exact opposite. Imagine you feed a string of bits, like 0101, into a black box and get another string, like 1100, out in return. There are a finite number of possible outputs, but you don’t know how the black box produces them. Simon’s problem asks: does the black box give a unique output for every possible input, or do some inputs give a common output? The problem doesn’t show up in any real-world applications, but Simon’s algorithm for solving it inspired the more useful Shor’s algorithm and the field of quantum computing as a whole.
“It has a kind of special place in the history of the development of quantum algorithms,” says Mark Tame at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. “However, despite being the first to show that an exponential gap exists, it was surprisingly never experimentally realised in all the years since.”
That’s why Tame and his colleagues have now run Simon’s algorithm for the first time. They used a one-way quantum computer, so-called because it uses up some of the qubits, or quantum bits, during calculation. The computer used six photons as qubits to solve a two-qubit version of Simon’s problem, the simplest possible. The algorithm is probabilistic, meaning you have to run it multiple times to get an answer.
Completed jigsaw
Tame’s quantum computer needed an average of two runs to succeed, while an ordinary computer needed an average of eight-thirds runs – the first step in an exponential speed-up in line with theoretical predictions. “For me it has been like finding the missing piece of a jigsaw and putting it in its place to complete the picture,” he says.
“I don’t think I ever really thought about anyone bothering, since it’s not of practical value in itself,” says Simon, who now works in computer security at Microsoft. But Tame says running the algorithm has helped test the team’s one-way quantum computer, and they now hope to build more advanced versions. “The demonstration was more a proof of principle,” says Tame.
“It’s great that someone finally got around to doing this,” says Scott Aaronson at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though he isn’t convinced the speed-up itself matters. “The right question is not what ‘speed-up’ you’re getting today, but what experimental advances you’ve made that could lead to a real speed-up in the future.”
Reference: arxiv.org/abs/1410.3859, accepted to Physical Review Letters |
A former “Saturday Night Live” star is bashing President Trump, calling him a “moron” who “struggled” to read scripted jokes when he hosted the show as a White House hopeful.
Having Trump guest host the NBC sketch comedy series in December 2015 was “not fun,” former cast member Taran Killam told Brooklyn magazine in an interview published this week. Most of the “cast and writers were not excited to have him there,” the 35-year-old comedian says.
“I didn’t get the feeling that he was excited to be there, and it felt like a move for ratings from both sides,” Killam says.
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Other presidential contenders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE (I-Vt.) and his then-rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE, also made cameos on the show during the 2016 race.
When asked if Trump was “unpleasant,” Killam replies, “He was ... everything you see. What you see is what you get with him, really. I mean, there was no big reveal.”
Killam, who parted ways with “SNL” in 2016 after a six-year run, told the mag that the 70-year-old real estate mogul “struggled to read at the table read, which did not give many of us great confidence. Didn’t get the jokes, really. He’s just a man who seems to be powered by bluster.”
Since appearing on the show, Trump has repeatedly taken aim at “SNL” and Alec Baldwin’s recurring impersonation of him. Trump wrote in a tweet last December that the series was “totally biased,” “not funny,” and “unwatchable.” |
Suniva has the same reasons to flee the U.S. as Evergreen, like higher labor costs at home and unpredictable subsidies (the manufacturing credit for solar was not renewed this year, Ashley said). But it benefits from an intimate relationship with a research university center supported by the Department of Energy. Not every company is so lucky.
"A lot of the work [the center] has done for other companies left our shores from a manufacturing perspective," Ashley acknowledges. "[The U.S.] is great at research and innovation, but we seriously lack the policies in financing to help scale a new industry very quickly."
Suniva exports 80 percent of its production. The White House or Ex-Im Bank would hold this up as thrilling evidence of a globally competitive company. Ashley would add that it also shows a depressing lack of U.S. demand for solar.
"More people would manufacture [solar products] here if demand was here," Ashley says. "We need a renewable energy standard to create a market in the United States. If demand is overseas, then I'll move factories to other parts of the world. That's just good business."
There's more the government can do. First, Ashley asked for an extended manufacturing tax credit for solar ("People talk about support for solar being crony capitalism but 10-times more money goes into fossil fuels"). Second, he called for a national "green bank" to provide quick financing for new companies' proven breakthroughs in clean tech. "We don't have the policies or incentives to help manufacturers scale up," he says. "That's why we've lost manufacturing to the rest of the world." Third, he asked for corporate tax reform to encourage established firms to do business at home.
***
Suniva is a beacon and a warning sign. The company's rapid growth demonstrates that the U.S. can compete in green technology. But not every company can bank on a DOE-funded university research incubator that churns out patents. If this is what it takes to be competitive in solar, then the U.S. government either has to get really serious really fast about ramping up its attention to green energy, or else we need to accept that other countries are going to continue to lead in building the foundation for the clean tech revolution, if and when it comes.
Source: Wikipedia |
Today, on behalf of Maxis, EA filed a lawsuit against Zynga over their game, The Ville. I thought it would be useful to draft a post to explain the substance and background of this decision.
The core legal issue is our belief that Zynga infringed copyrights to our game, The Sims Social. In legal terms, our claim is that Zynga copied the original and distinctive expressive elements of The Sims Social in a clear violation of the U.S. copyright laws.
The legal reasons are solid. But for creative teams who feel that their hard work and imaginations have been ripped off, there’s obviously an emotional element too.
When we launched The Sims Social in August 2011, Maxis brought the distinctive universe of our world-renowned franchise, The Sims, to Facebook. We created a game that allowed players to create Sims that can interact with the Sims of their Facebook friends. It was an instant hit, gaining tens of millions of users, many of whom continue to play the game after nearly a year since launch.
As outlined in our complaint, when The Ville was introduced in June 2012, the infringement of The Sims Social was unmistakable to those of us at Maxis as well as to players and the industry at large. The similarities go well beyond any superficial resemblance. Zynga’s design choices, animations, visual arrangements and character motions and actions have been directly lifted from The Sims Social. The copying was so comprehensive that the two games are, to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable. Scores of media and bloggers commented on the blatant mimicry.
This is a case of principle. Maxis isn’t the first studio to claim that Zynga copied its creative product. But we are the studio that has the financial and corporate resources to stand up and do something about it. Infringing a developer’s copyright is not an acceptable practice in game development. By calling Zynga out on this illegal practice, we hope to have a secondary effect of protecting the rights of other creative studios who don’t have the resources to protect themselves.
I’m certain there will be a response. Some will say The Ville simply iterates; some will tell us to get over it and move on. We are confident in our position, and that we will prevail.
But even if we do not, we will have made a point.
As a longstanding game developer, I know what it feels like to pour your heart and soul into creating something unique and special for your fans to enjoy. Today, we hope to be taking a stand that helps the industry protect the value of original creative works and those that work tirelessly to create them. |
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HANOVER TOWNSHIP -- Should PennDOT be making money by selling our personal information? That's a question some drivers are asking after we discovered that PennDOT is making tens of millions of dollars every year by selling the personal information of drivers. And there's no way for drivers to stop it.
Drivers walking into the DMV in Hanover Township near Wilkes-Barre know they have to follow the rules of the road to keep their licenses.
But what your driver's manual doesn't tell you is the state is cashing in on your driver's license data.
Since 2010, PennDOT earned $157 million selling driver information, like your name, address and up to 10 years of traffic violations.
PennDOT uses the money to fix roads and the information is sold to insurance providers and companies that provide background checks. But there's no way for drivers to opt out of that information sharing.
Now, a new report is raising concern that your personal driver's license information could potentially end up in the wrong hands, like the hands of hackers or identity thieves.
Sterling Infosystems is one company that bought driver data from PennDOT. An audit obtained by Newswatch 16 reveals Sterling was not following the state's required procedures when handling driver's information.
According to the audit, Sterling was, "unable to provide a complete and accurate listing of their customers, "which, "increases the risk that the responsible party would not be identified if there was a security breach."
Experts do not think someone's identity could be stolen with just the information you hand to PennDOT. But they warn hackers could use your name, address, and driving history, to find information about you that could lead to identity theft.
"Any piece about you is just a piece of the puzzle," said Jeff Chopick, Custom Computers. "They could take that and then with other information, steal your identity."
PennDOT admits it relies on drivers to come forward and report any possible abuses of their personal information. But officials also point out there are consequences for any companies that buy the data if PennDOT discovers those companies are not following procedures.
"This particular company, Sterling, was a little sloppy in their procedures, and as a result, are now cut off from the records," said PennDOT official Rich Kirkpatrick.
"PennDOT points out while Sterling ignored some procedures that could lead to data, the audit did not indicate any personal information was compromised.
Click here to read the results of the audit. |
Allies: Christian beliefs cost Texas schools chief his post School board reins yanked from McLeroy
Supporters say his Christian beliefs cost him the post
Don McLeroy, shown in 2000, believes in creationism. Don McLeroy, shown in 2000, believes in creationism. Photo: HARRY CABLUCK, Associated Press File Photo: HARRY CABLUCK, Associated Press File Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Allies: Christian beliefs cost Texas schools chief his post 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
AUSTIN — In a rare rejection of an appointment by the Texas governor, the Senate Thursday ousted Don McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education, with his supporters claiming the Bryan dentist was the victim of his strong religious beliefs. McLeroy is a devout Christian who believes in creationism and the notion that the Earth is about 6,000 years old. He has steadfastly argued that Texas students should be taught the weaknesses of evolution. His opponents portrayed him as “a decent human being” lacking leadership skills to chair the board divided between social conservatives and others. He will remain a member of the board. “It’s not about evolution versus creationism, and it’s not about Democrats versus Republicans,” Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, told his colleagues. “This is not about partisanship. Please forget all the shouting and protests about this nomination from day one. This is about his leadership as chairman.” McLeroy’s hometown senator, Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, defended the chairman, saying “his service has not been incompetent, illegal or out of bounds.” “I think Texas is watching here because I think, whether intentional or not, there will be a perception … that we are applying a religious test for serving in this state,” Ogden said. Earlier this year, the State Board of Education approved new science curriculum standards that changed a long-standing Texas tradition over how schoolchildren learn about evolution. The vote did away with a provision that Texas students be instructed on the strengths and weaknesses of evolution and the theory about the origin of life developed by Charles Darwin 150 years ago. “If this isn’t about evolution, if this isn’t about what the Bible teaches, what is it all about?” asked Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, referring to opposition to McLeroy. Democrats argued that McLeroy’s leadership has polarized the board, and that he has disregarded experts in the shaping of science curriculum standards and English, language arts and reading standards for 4.7 million Texas public school children. “The state board has become increasingly divided and deeply dysfunctional and almost paralyzed to action at certain times,” Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said. Senate confirmation of gubernatorial appointments requires a two-thirds vote. McLeroy won the support of all 19 Senate Republicans, but 11 Democrats voted against him. It takes 11 votes to block an appointment. Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville was present but did not vote. The Senate seldom rejects gubernatorial appointments. The Senate’s blocking of McLeroy will force Gov. Rick Perry to appoint a new board leader.
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After nearly a year of clashes between activists and law enforcement officials, Dakota Access Pipeline protesters were ordered to leave their largest permanent encampment on the banks of the Missouri River on Wednesday afternoon. Though officials said that a few hundred activists remained after the deadline, the majority had evacuated the flood-prone encampment on federal land near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
While the Obama administration, heeding the calls of the protesters, halted the progress of the Dakota Access Pipeline last fall, President Trump cleared the way for the project in the first week of his presidency. Construction resumed earlier this month. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing construction of the pipeline, ordered protesters to leave.
The demonstration was among the largest environmental protests in U.S. history, and united Native American tribes long-divided by cultural tensions, while calling attention to two of the greatest issues facing the country right now: climate change and institutionalized racism. As the last of the protesters are removed, we look back at the five essential stories about the protests and their legacy.
1. "What’s Happening at Standing Rock?" (Outside)
In Late August, Outside’s Mark Sundeen loaded up his station wagon and drove to the demonstration site:
Several thousand Native Americans from around the country had arrived at Standing Rock, the 3,500-square-mile reservation with 8,250 residents. They were joined by a smattering of earthy white folk and a crew of Black Lives Matters activists from Minneapolis. The camp was just outside the boundary on land administered by the Army Corps. State troopers blocked the highway to Bismarck, allowing protesters—or “protectors,” as they insisted on being called—to leave but not return.
Sundeen’s September article details the early stages of the Standing Rock protest, when Tribal Chairman David Archambault II and others were arrested blocking excavating machinery and halting the construction of the $3.7 million project. Not long after, inspired celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio were tweeting about the movement and the hashtag “#NoDAPL” emerged.
This account of the movement’s early days describes the manner in which the camp was formed and the prevailing spirit of unity that brought Native Americans and other activists to Standing Rock from all over the country.
In five days I witnessed no violence, lawlessness, alcohol, or even hostility. A couple speakers even welcomed “European relatives” such as myself. The days were filled with peaceful marches and prayers at the idle construction site, ceremonial welcoming of newly arrived tribes, and as afternoon temps rose to the nineties, flinging ourselves into the cool waters of the once-mighty Cannonball.
2. "Reckoning at Standing Rock" (High Country News)
In October, Paul VanDevelder placed the Standing Rock movement in historical context in a long article for High Country News. This piece traces the United States’ relationship with Native Americans back to the founding fathers and our country’s earliest treaties with indigenous populations. VanDevelder compares and contrasts the way in which Standing Rock relates to previous land wars, treaty negotiations, and conflicts surrounding the protection of Native American rights. The article details how United States policy evolved from George Washington to Andrew Jackson and beyond.
If we could conjure the ghosts of Andrew Jackson and his contemporaries and restore them to flesh and blood in the 21st century, nothing would surprise them more. When Jackson was elected to the White House in 1828, the extinction of the Indian looked as inevitable as tomorrow’s sunrise. But the Indians, who are nothing if not careful students of historical ironies, fooled everybody. Today, they comprise about 1 percent of the nation’s population, but the outback real estate they were forced to accept in the 19th century holds approximately 40 percent of the nation’s coal reserves.
For anyone hoping to better understand the broad and complex history of the United States’ relationship with tribal nations, reading this is a must.
3. "Standing Rock’s Next Big Challenge: Surviving a Brutal Winter" (Outside)
Grayson Schaffer spent his Thanksgiving at Standing Rock in order to see how well equipped the camp was for a brutal North Dakota winter where record lows approach 50 below. The Thanksgiving holiday was one of the last stretches of warm weather, and since then protesters have been battling the elements. This piece details the provisions undertaken by Native Americans and activists in order to prepare for the winter.
“The Sioux method of camping avoids digging into the land. Teepees are set on the ground, not dug in. To prepare for the snow, hay bales are ringed around the edges to function as a skirt. In previous generations, they would have had buffalo hides to drape over their teepees as insulation, but many of the modern iterations are made from canvas or even plastic, in which case it's known as a tarpee.”
Schaffer’s piece offers images and anecdotes regarding the manner in which activists came together to support each other, share resources, and persevere through the dark, cold days that followed.
As we left camp, cold rain was falling. By midnight the rain had turned into sideways snow and North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple was calling for a weather-related evacuation of the camp. But nobody moved. The firewood had all been cut and stacked under canopies. People piled together in tents and teepees and old travel trailers. The North Dakota winter has arrived, but the camp appears to be weathering it.
4. "The View From Sides of the Standing Rock Front Lines" (New York Times)
This New York Times piece from early November is one of the most balanced accounts of the Standing Rock controversy. Jack Healy visited the camp in late October and spent time with two men on opposite sides of the issue—Mekasi Horinek, a leading Native American activist, and Deputy Jon Moll of the Morton County Sheriff’s Office in North Dakota. This article attempts humanize not only the Native American protesters, but also the officers responsible for keeping peace at the protest site and, when necessary, enforcing the law.
For months now, Mekasi Horinek and Deputy Jon Moll have lived these demonstrations, day in and day out. But they fall on opposite sides of the front lines, reflecting a community that is as divided as, well, oil and water.
This article relays the perspectives and personal histories of Horinek and Moll, both of whom deny accusations that they are the “bad guys.” This piece is worth reading if you’re looking for a refreshing bit objective news coverage that offers an empathetic account from both sides of the Standing Rock controversy.
5. "The Last Days in Standing Rock" (Outside)
Mark Sundeen returned to Standing Rock in early December to see how the camp had evolved from what he’d witnessed four months earlier. Protesters had been ordered to leave by December 5, so Sundeen traveled back to the camp for a firsthand glimpse of how things were going. Winter was in full swing, and morale was significantly lower than it had been during his first visit.
The camp, which initially was comprised of about 80 percent Native Americans, was now only about 20 percent natives, Sundeen wrote. He noticed that the indigenous population and influence had been diluted by the influx of white activists from all over the country.
This sacred camp, a beacon for tribal sovereignty, had eroded into a place where Indians were bossed by whites and presumed to be criminals. It had become like the rest of America.
This piece offers another detailed, intimate dive into the daily life of Standing Rock protesters, and traces the evolution of the movement. Ultimately, while some protesters remained at Standing Rock, many left seeking refuge from the weather and following evacuation orders. |
In this article we’re going to quickly explore 7 Angular development tools which can make our everyday life easier. The purpose of the list is to not be opinionated architecture wise. This means that we’re not going to discuss tooling which has impact over our choice of application state management, data layer, etc. For instance, although packages like ngrx/store devtools, universal, and others are amazing once we’ve chosen a specific architectural approach, we’re going to keep them out of this article because they assume we’re using a specific way of state management or application rendering.
The software below can improve our productivity as developers by providing scaffolding, static code analysis, code generation, code visualization and debugging support!
Number one tool for Angular which provides well encapsulated build and scaffolding is Angular CLI.
Angular CLI is a tool developed by Google and allows us to quickly bootstrap projects by automatically providing our build configuration, testing configuration (unit with karma & jasmine and e2e with protractor), and more. The CLI is based on webpack which means that it takes advantage of the different webpack loaders available, and performs tree-shaking for producing small bundles.
The Angular CLI is being developed by the Angular team which means that it provides smooth integration with other projects such as, Angular Core, Angular Material, Angular Mobile Toolkit, etc. For instance, soon Angular CLI will run the development build of our applications with ngc which will unify the production and development builds, reducing the learning curve and allowing developers to have predictable compilation behavior across different environments.
In case you’re just getting started with Angular, you should start your project with Angular CLI. This will dramatically improve your productivity and optimize the learning experience of the entire ecosystem. In case you have very deep understanding of the available tooling and you want to squeeze your production bundles to minimum with a custom solution you can always ng eject your application out of the CLI, or use an Angular starter project.
Big thanks to the guys helping to make the CLI awesome, including (but not limited to) Hans, Mike and Filipe. 👏
Very common mistakes that developers using a dynamic language (such as JavaScript) do is to misspell a method or a property name. TypeScript already can warn us about this thanks to tsc and it’s type system, however, this wasn’t possible within the strings representing our components’ templates. The language service of Angular provides the same type checking and auto completion, that we’re used to from TypeScript, in inline and external templates!
The language service is developed by the Angular core team. At the time of writing, it is ready to use in VSCode, Sublime Text and WebStorm.
Behind the scene the language service uses the Angular compiler for parsing our application and producing diagnostics. It decorates the TypeScript language service in order to reuse its logic. The most awesome thing about the language service is that it is not coupled to a specific Angular version and can be used in any text editor and IDE as soon as there’s an available plugin.
More about the language service can be found in the ng-conf talk by Chuck Jazdzewski (the creator of the language service) “Using the Angular Template Language Service”.
The language service can be found here.
Have you ever worked on an application where you had to automatically generate the API documentation? For JavaScript we have tools like ESDoc which take the JSDoc annotations and automatically generate documentation for us. The end result usually looks something like this.
This is enough for most projects but Angular provides some extra semantics on top that can make our documentation even richer! For instance, it allows us to list all the different UI components just by grabbing all classes decorated with @Component . Well, compodoc already does this for us!
Compodoc has support of JSDoc light, generates search, table of content, has variety of good looking themes and is open source, available on GitHub!
Behind the scene compodoc uses ngd for parsing our Angular applications by using the TypeScript parser.
The guys from the Angular community working on this awesome tool are Vincent and Wassim.
More than a year ago I started codelyzer with the motivation to automatically verify that given project follows the official Angular Style Guide. Initially the project started as a couple of rules on top of tslint which based on the Angular Style Guide were validating the selectors of our components, proper implementation of life-cycle hooks, etc.
Since then, the scope of codelyzer has grown! Now it uses the Angular template and CSS parsers in order to provide more sophisticated analysis of our application. On top of verifying that our project follows the style guide, codelyzer can also detect misspelled variables in our templates, find dead styles and even automatically migrate a project between breaking changes & deprecation across Angular versions!
If you’re using Angular CLI, by running ng lint you’re already getting diagnostics from codelyzer which makes sure your code is following best practices!
Behind the scene, codelyzer performs either flat (per file) or deep (per project) static analysis of our project. The diagnostics that codelyzer will produce includes:
Validity of the directive and component selectors according to the style guide.
Best practices related to the declaration of the metadata of our projects.
Proper implementation of life-cycle hooks.
Proper component and directive naming.
Compatibility with ngc.
Detection of dead CSS.
etc.
You can find instructions of how to use codelyzer here.
Are you tired of all the boilerplates when declaring a new Angular component, directive or a service? The process is manual, slow and with the tooling available nowadays, unnecessary!
John Papa created a package of snippets for VSCode which improves our productivity by reducing the amount of boilerplate work that we need to perform when:
Bootstrapping an Angular application.
Declaring a new component.
Declaring guards.
Declaring directive.
Declaring a route.
Declaring a service.
etc.
You can take advantage of the snippets by installing the VSCode extension available here.
Debugging an Angular application may get tricky. How our UI gets rendered often depends on large amount of mutable state across components, directives, services, stateful pipes. Fortunately, inspecting the state does not have to be always related to setting break point or debugger statements within the bodies of the individual building blocks of our app. In order to explore the dependencies of given component or a service, we don’t have to always dig into our codebase!
Augury is a Chrome extension which will plug into our Chrome DevTools. Once loaded, it will help us explore the relations between the individual components in our application which are visible on the page. We can trace the component state and modify it from provided inputs, we can manually trigger events, directly jump to the source code for a specific symbol and much more!
You can install Augury here.
Augury allows us to efficiently debug our application by performing dynamic code analysis which requires us to run the application. This way we can inspect the structure and the behavior of a project.
Sometimes, we are only interested in the structure of given application. This especially true when we are new to a project and we want to explore it’s individual building blocks as quickly as possible. In such case, we don’t even need to struggle with the deployment of the application, which often may not be trivial. In this scenario the dynamic code analysis is not very convenient because all what we want is to explore the different abstractions level by level, without running the application.
For instance, we can start by seeing the top-level modules of our application and their relations, after that exploring the individual modules’ declarations and exports, understanding the relation between the different providers, components, their templates, etc.
On ng-conf 2017 I announced ngrev. This is a tool for reverse engineering of Angular applications which allows us to visually explore the individual building blocks forming our project.
Under the hood, ngrev uses ngast. ngast is a project which provides a simple interface for parsing Angular projects. By playing around with it, you can build custom tools which statically analyze Angular projects for different purposes (performance, security, etc). Internally, ngast uses the Angular compiler, which automatically allows the most efficient and complete possible metadata collection.
You can find ngrev here and its Windows, Linux & Mac binaries here. More about ngrev here.
Conclusion
In this article we explored a couple of tools which can improve our development experience dramatically! Starting from project scaffolding with the Angular CLI, going through efficient development with the Angular Language Service and Angular Snippets, to dynamic and static code analysis for easy debugging and reverse engineering!
Most of the projects we explored are developed by the Angular community which is a great sign for how convenient for tooling the framework is.
Give these tools a try! I’d love to get your feedback on using them in the comments section below. |
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