Prompt: Bloomberg endorses Obama (Updated) New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, whose city is still partially submerged, without power and facing a rising death toll from Hurricane Sandy, endorses President Obama, via the Twitters: And if anyone is wondering what message Bloomberg, who had for months signaled he would stay out of the presidential race, is sending with this endorsement, click here. The endorsement moves climate change front and center in a way that the mayor, who endorses based on specific issues, clearly wants it to be. Bloomberg has been critical of Obama in the past and declined to have Obama

come visit New York — the president went to New Jersey, instead. But as the endorsement makes clear, that was not a diss. And the endorsement of the mayor, a business leader, is one that Obama and Mitt Romney had both sought. UPDATE: Bloomberg lays out his case here on his political website, in which he argues that Sandy exemplifies the climate change issue: But we can't do it alone. We need leadership from the White House — and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year. Mitt Romney, too, has a history of tackling climate change. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed on to a regional cap-and-trade plan designed to reduce carbon emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels. "The benefits (of that plan) will be long-lasting and enormous — benefits to our health, our economy, our quality of life, our very landscape. These are actions we can and must take now, if we are to have `no regrets' when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this Earth to the next generation," he wrote at the time. He couldn't have been more right. But since then, he has reversed course, abandoning the very cap-and-trade program he once supported. This issue is too important. We need determined leadership at the national level to move the nation and the world forward. I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. He understands that America was


Prompt: Sega Is Moving Away From Console Games By William Usher Random Article Blend According to Sega... “Voluntary retirement will be solicited in the aforementioned businesses to be withdrawn or consolidated and downsized, while at the same time personnel will be repositioned in digital games and growth areas of Group mainly as development personnel, in order to establish a structure which can constantly generate profits,” The move comes after the publisher consulted with the Group Structure Reform Division who advised Sega to reduce redundancies and offer early retirement for various employees. It was also the purpose of the division to help

restructure Sega for profitability and management efficiency. “We are under consultation with a limited number of staff in the European publishing business and will be able to confirm decisions regarding any potential redundancies in the coming weeks," Sega had long been making a good deal of their revenue from their Japanese arcades or pachinko business. The company staying away from home consoles after the Saturn and Sega has suffered a string of unfortunate disasters in the home console space on the software front. There have been the numerous Sonic games released that were questionable when it came to content, as well as controversial releases like Recently, there was Sonic Boom and Sonic: Lost World for the Wii U, both of which scored rather low on the critical front and did just as poorly on the sales front. However, the company did have the recent success of Football Manager series that have done well for the company. Speaking of As for the future of the company... there are several new Total War: Arena and Total War Battles: Kingdoms, along with a new Football Manager. More sad news today. Following up on the announcement that Joystiq and its related sites are shutting down, Sega also announced that they, too, are closing an office in San Francisco and downsizing their force as they move to Northern California. Sega is also moving away from major console releases and focusing on portable, mobile and online PC games. MCV UK is reporting that Sega has announced that 300 jobs have been on the chopping block and the company offered early retirement for those about to be unemployed.According to Sega...The move comes after the publisher consulted with the Group Structure Reform Division who advised Sega to reduce redundancies and offer early retirement for various employees. It was


Prompt: Leninism is the political theory for the organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party and the achievement of a dictatorship of the proletariat as political prelude to the establishment of socialism.[1] Developed by and named for the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, Leninism comprises socialist political and economic theories, developed from Marxism and Lenin's interpretations of Marxist theories, for practical application to the socio-political conditions of the Russian Empire of the early 20th century. Functionally, the Leninist vanguard party was to provide the working class with the political consciousness (education and organisation) and revolutionary leadership necessary to depose capitalism in Imperial Russia.[1]

After the October Revolution of 1917, Leninism became the dominant hegemonic force within the Russian revolutionary current, and in establishing further Bolshevik supremacy, the Bolsheviks had defeated the socialist opposition such as the Mensheviks and factions of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and also suppressed soviet democracy.[2] The Russian Civil War (1917–1922) thus included left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks (1918–1924) that were suppressed in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) before incorporation to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922. Leninism was composed for revolutionary praxis and originally was neither a rigorously proper philosophy nor a discrete political theory. After the Russian Revolution and in History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (1923), György Lukács developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices and ideology into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution (Leninism). As a political-science term, "Leninism" entered common usage in 1922 after infirmity ended Lenin's participation in governing the Russian Communist Party. At the Fifth Congress of the Communist International in July 1924, Grigory Zinoviev popularized the term "Leninism" to denote "vanguard-party revolution". From 1917 to 1922, Leninism was the Russian application of Marxist economics and political philosophy, effected and realised by the Bolsheviks, the vanguard party who led the fight for the political independence of the working class. In the 1925–1929 period, Joseph Stalin established his interpretation of Leninism as the official and only legitimate form of Marxism in Russia by amalgamating the political philosophies as Marxism–Leninism, which then became the state ideology of the Soviet Union. Historical background [ edit ] In the 19th century, The Communist Manifesto (1848), by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, called for the international political unification of the European working classes in order to achieve a communist revolution and proposed that because the socio-economic organization of communism was of


Prompt: School district official charged with torching truck on San Antonio highway resigns Emilio Flores, 22, faces a charge of arson, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Emilio Flores, 22, faces a charge of arson, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Photo: Bexar County Sheriff's Office Photo: Bexar County Sheriff's Office Image 1 of / 39 Caption Close School district official charged with torching truck on San Antonio highway resigns 1 / 39 Back to Gallery SAN ANTONIO — A member of the Natalia Independent School District’s Board of Trustees resigned Thursday following an arrest for allegedly torching his truck because

payments were too high, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Emilio Flores, 22, was arrested Wednesday and charged with arson. According to the affidavit, the burnt remains of Flores’ 2014 Chevrolet Silverado was found in a flaming heap in the 600 block on Highway 90 on June 28. In the past, Flores had complained about the price of his payments and joked that he was going to burn the vehicle, the report said. Police were able to track Flores down to a Red Roof Inn at W.W. White Road and Interstate 10 after the incident, where he said he had left the truck at a bar from which he was picked up after drinking with a friend. “He stated he left the bar at approximately 1:15 a.m.,” the affidavit said. “He stated he was not able to drive home because he was drunk and that a friend drove him to the Red Roof Inn.” A couple of weeks later, Flores went to the San Antonio Police Department’s downtown headquarters to give a statement on the incident, the document said. The statement he gave at the second interview conflicted with what he said the night of the fire. “The defendant changed his original statement that he was picked up at 1 a.m. and said that he was picked up around midnight,” the affidavit said, adding he attributed the disagreement to his being drunk. Other witnesses came forward with differing accounts of the story in the following days, saying Flores was not picked up from a bar, but instead from the Nelson W. Wolff Municipal Stadium parking lot, across the street from where his burning truck was found. About a month after the fire, a man identified in the document as Mark Othon came forward to tell police that Flores had enlisted


Prompt: Since his election in 2008, many on the right have believed that the news media — with the exceptions of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal — are President Barack Obama’s sycophants. Since his election in 2008, many on the right have believed that the news media — with the exceptions of Fox News and The Wall Street Journal — are President Barack Obama’s sycophants. Yet the casual observer might have missed that Obama’s relationship with the supposed liberal media often has been rocky. That’s chiefly because Obama and his national security advisers have reiterated the disdain for reporters

that for White House occupants stretches back to Richard Nixon. In The Atlantic in August 2014, Jon Marshall, a journalism professor at Northwestern University, noted, “Nixon’s way of handling the press has prevailed in American politics. Intimidating journalists, avoiding White House reporters, staging events for television — now common presidential practices — were all originally Nixonian tactics.” We can cite three recent examples of such behavior exhibited by Obama and his staff. In May 2013, The Associated Press announced that then-Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department had subpoenaed from telecommunications companies the home and cellphone records of 20 AP reporters. The purpose was to learn who leaked information to the AP. That same month The Washington Post reported that Holder had declared Fox News reporter James Rosen a “criminal co-conspirator” in endorsing search warrants to obtain Rosen’s emails. Holder wanted those, and had ordered the FBI to monitor Rosen’s visits to the State Department, in suspecting a government contractor of having leaked to Rosen classified information. Finally, in January, the Justice Department announced that it would abandon a six-year crusade, which included threats of prison time, to force James Risen of The New York Times to reveal who conveyed confidential information about a Clinton administration CIA operation targeting Iran that Risen had included in a book he authored in 2006. Last month it came to light that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently issued guidelines that said journalists in war zones, who generally are civilians, also may be “members of the armed forces, persons authorized to accompany the armed forces, or unprivileged belligerents” — which is the term the Obama administration has substituted for what the Bush administration called “unlawful enemy combatants” — that is, terrorists. Journalism outlets complained that reporters were too easily being lumped in with terrorists. The Pentagon


Prompt: The Senate health care bill, being drafted by Republicans behind closed doors, finally came to light. The Washington Post got a draft of the legislation Wednesday afternoon, which was being passed among lobbyists and aides. The bill would repeal most of the taxes that pay for Obamacare, roll back expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, reshape its subsidies, give states wider latitude to opt out of its regulations and eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Scroll down for video Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., can only lose two members of his Republican caucus, as no Democrats are

expected to vote in favor of the GOP-led health care bill President Trump, in a meeting with tech titans, reportedly told them he wanted to see a Senate GOP health care bill with 'more heart' The Senate legislation would link federal insurance subsidies to income, a change from a House-passed bill that tied them to age, the Post reported. The Senate bill also cuts off Obamacare's Medicaid expansion more gradually than the House legislation, which passed on May 4. It removes language restricting federally subsidized health plans from covering abortions. Before this draft came to light, President Trump said in a private meeting with tech CEOs that he wanted to see a Senate health care bill with with 'more heart,' according to CNBC, after complaining behind closed doors that the House GOP Obamacare repeal bill was 'mean.' The discussion on Capitol Hill, however, was focused on meeting a Fourth of July deadline. 'I expect to have a discussion draft on Thursday,' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., confirmed Tuesday afternoon, according to the Washington Examiner. 'And we'll go to the bill obviously once we get a CBO score. Likely next week.' A publicly-released draft is still expected Thursday, with McConnell presenting it to senators at a morning meeting, the Post reported. The bill has been crafted in private – much to the chagrin of the Democrats who have been complaining about it for weeks. Trump's comments suggest he'd like to see a more moderate bill coming out of the Senate, as the Congressional Budget Office forecasted that the House-passed American Health Care Act would cause 23 million more Americans to be uninsured than if the government stuck with Obamacare. Press Secretary Sean Spicer agreed that the president wanted a bill with 'more heart,' though wouldn't talk specifically about what President


Prompt: Ramzan Kadyrov, the governor of Chechnya, inspecting his 'personal army' assembled at the Grozny stadium, 2015 (Image: versia.ru) In the 1990s, Chechnya sought independence from Moscow, and Vladimir Putin has made the suppression of that regional insurgency a centerpiece of his claims for public support. But now, in 2017, Nezavisimaya gazeta suggests, that North Caucasus republic may be on its way to becoming a greater threat than it was to Russia as a whole. To put it more succinctly than the Moscow paper does, Chechnya’s drive for independence in the 1990s and 2000s threatened the territorial integrity of the country

in one small part of it. Chechnya’s independent actions now call into question the arrangements within and among all of Russia’s component parts as well as its centralized political system. In a lead article today entitled “Will Our Federation Withstand Chechen Customs?” the editors say that Grozny’s decision to permit pupils to wear the hijab “poses serious questions about the federal arrangement of Russia” because the Chechens have essentially gone their own way without regard to Moscow. The Kremlin has played down these implications, the editors say, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggesting that Putin has not taken a position on this conflict between the actions of a republic government and the decisions of the all-Russian Duma and federal courts – despite the fact that Putin earlier had declared that the hijab was a religious and not a national custom. Grozny’s position is exactly the opposite, the paper continues. “Formally, the decision of the Chechen parliamentarians corresponds to the constitutional principle of federalism. In this, the Chechen elite is right,” and in many countries decisions on such matters are made below the federal level. But if one goes “beyond this limit,” Nezavisimaya gazeta says, “there is a threat to the unity of the state.” This is not the first time the Chechen Republic “has demonstrated a special attitude toward the norms of public morality.” In December 2016, for example, Grozny closed all alcohol stores, and over the last three years, Ramzan Kadyrov has unilaterally banned fortune tellers and the like. “All this allows one to speak about the special status of Chechnya, when the principle of federalism is realized only toward selected subjects,” the editors continue. If other federal subjects were to try to assert the same right, Moscow would clearly have a different response – and that difference in itself


Prompt: This post is about Teemo Counter and Counter tips and tricks to beat Teemo in the league of legends game. League of Legends is the most popular multiplayer battle game and most popular in almost all part of the country especially in North America and Asia. Teemo is one of the champions in the League of Legends game who loves to play and doing fun in the game. If you want to beat Teemo, then you need a Teemo Counter who plays well against Teemo and has the ability to beat him down. Important Topic: Darius Counter: Killer Tricks To

Counter Darius Here comes our champion – Teemo. League of Legends is the most popular multiplayer PC game developed and produced by the famous ‘Riot Games’. If you’re a LOL player, you have to manage the champions in the battle to defeat your enemy. Each champion in the game has some special ability as well as strength and weakness. So, as a ‘Summoner’ who has the main job to control all the champs, you should know all the details of your picked up champion. Teemo Counter are the counter specialist champs which you need to pick in the battle. Check this: Garen Counter: How to Counter Garen in League of Legends Here, are all the details of Teemo that you need to know before counter him in the battle arena and becoming a Teemo Counter. Teemo – A swift Scout | League of Legends Teemo is the fast and furious champion in the League of Legends and most popular too. He plays as a counter champion to many other champs like Teemo is a Darius counter, Garen counter etc. He is a fun loving champ and just loves to play. Teemo’s passive ability makes him a perfect ninja champion. Teemo is a mobile attacker. Because of his long range and fast in attack he can easily build his attack to the enemy and give a lot of damage to them. So, as a Teemo counter, whoever champion you pick, you need to be careful about his strength, weakness and abilities. Strength of Teemo: In the levels 1-5, Teemo is a lane mobster. So, particularly in that time, Teemo is the one with a great power. Because of his Move Quick ability, he is incredibly fast. Teemo’s mushroom acts as a defensive wall and it’s not an easy task to gank


Prompt: Tantra (Redirected from Tantric) Tantra (Sanskrit: loom), tantric yoga or tantrism is any of several esoteric traditions rooted in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Tantra can be concisely described as the black sheep of Hindu yoga. Extolled as a short-cut to self-realization and spiritual enlightenment by some, left-hand tantric rites are often rejected as dangerous by most orthodox Hindus. In some respectable and influential schools of Buddhism, however, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, Tantra (also known as Vajrayana, and also Yoga, though in a different sense than that term is used in Hinduism) plays a central role. In the Tibetan case, esoteric tantric

practice is tightly integrated with the exoteric (non-esoteric) tradition so that the two work together as a unified system. Also, Tibetan Tantra is equipped with extensive safeguards and ethical constraints that greatly mitigate the danger to practitioners inherent in many esoteric spiritual practices. There are two "paths" in Hindu Tantra: dakshinachara (also known as samayachara), the "Right-Hand Path", and vamachara, the "Left-Hand Path". The terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path have been adopted by Western occultists. According to another popular view, Hindu Tantra is classified as either red (rajas or heat, fire, restlessness, anger), black (tamas or darkness, ignorance, stagnation) or white (sattwa pure, moderate, divine). These correspond to three Hindu conceptions of the qualities of existence first posited in Samkhya. Some tantric aspirants simply feel the union is accomplished internally and with spiritual entities of various kinds. For this reason, almost all Tantrik writing has a gross, higher and subtle meaning. This tripartite system of understanding readily obscures the true purport of many passages for those without the necessary background or deeper understandings so crucial to Tantra. Thus, a 'union' could mean the actual act of sexual intercourse, ritual uniting of concepts through chanting and sacrifice, or realisation of one's true self in the cosmic joining of the divine principles of Shiva and Shakti in Para Shiva. The Tantra Tradition According to John Woodroffe, one of the foremost Western scholars on Tantra, and translator of its greatest works (including the Mahanirvana Tantra): "The Indian Tantras, which are numerous, constitute the Scripture (Shastra) of the Kaliyuga, and as such are the voluminous source of present and practical orthodox "Hinduism." The Tantra Shastra is, in fact, and whatever be its historical origin, a development of the Vaidika Karmakanda, promulgated to meet the needs of that age. Shiva says: "For the benefit


Prompt: Update: Oct. 12: Python script to query the API We are very excited to announce that JEB 2.3.6 integrates with a new project we called the Malware Sharing Network. It allows reverse engineers to share samples anonymously, in a give-and-take fashion. The more and the better you give, the more and the better you will receive. Files are shared with PNF Software (they are not shared directly with other users); Contributions and users are algorithmically ranked and scored; In exchange for their contributions, users receive more files, based on their score. The goal is to offer a platform for reversers

that can (and wish to) share malware files to easily do it, with the added incentive of receiving samples in return — including relatively high-value files that may not be accessible to most users, such as files that are not publicly downloadable on most malware trackers; or files that are not present on malware databases at all, including VirusTotal. Obviously, the service is entirely optional. Any user, including users of the demo version, may use it whenever they please. Getting started The latest JEB update will let you know about the Malware Sharing Network right after you upgrade. You may also click the Share button in the toolbar at any time to get started. First time users should create an account. You will only need an email address and a password. Click the “Create an Account” button to sign up. Once you’ve successfully logged in, you will be able to view your profile. Things like your sharing score and other stats are displayed. Sharing a File Any time you are working in JEB, you can decide to share the primary file being worked on by clicking the Share button or the Share entry in the File menu: Before sharing a file, you may: redact the sample name; add a text comment; select a Determination, among four choices (“Unknown”, “Clean”, “Unsure” and “Malicious”). By hitting the Share button, you will submit the file to PNF Software. It will be added to our file portal, get scored, and eventually, be shared with other users who are participating in this sample exchange program. When your score gets high enough, you will receive samples. They will be accessible from our website, and also, using the Malware Sharing Network back-end API. API for Scripting After successfully logging in, you may have noticed that the API


Prompt: Lars is the Real Deal? by Brian Bannan August 20, 2015, 10:36 PM ET [1150 Comments] Habs Talk Montreal Canadiens Blogger • Archive • CONTACT Montreal Canadiens Blogger • RSS In part 2 of our series Andrew and I will look at Lars Eller. Specifically, is Eller a top 2 centre on this team? Lars Eller has all the tools to be a prototypical top 2 centre in the NHL. He is big (6’2 215 pounds), he can skate, he can play at both ends of the ice and he has shown some high end skill. Eller’s 4 goal and

1 assist night in January 2012 was a glimpse into his potential; an effort capped by a beautiful spin-o-rama finish on a penalty shot. Eller also had a stellar run in the ’14 playoffs and was probably the Habs best forward heading into the 2013 playoff series against Ottawa. Unfortunately a crushing hit by player #62 ended his season and the Habs limped out shortly after. Last season Eller ranked 97th in points among centres and was tied for 60th in goals scored. His snipes put him right in the range of what we would expect a top 2 centre to produce in 2015. His point total however, leaves him 30 points shy of being part of this elite group. Now Eller’s usage is certainly a factor. Eller starts close to 40% of his shifts in the Habs zone. His line mates have included Dale Weise, Brandon Prust, Jacob De la Rose and Devante Smith-Pelly. This is not exactly a who’s who of NHL snipers and set up men. In fact, when playing with players with higher skill sets, Eller has produced nicely. His 5 point night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0kOxHEq2V0 came with Andrei Kostitsyn on his flank. Say what you will about AK46, but he made some sublime plays on this night and was a major reason Eller was able to take a 7 minute bow as first star. Take a look at Lars here: http://video.canadiens.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=147725 No one has commanded the stage at a hockey game like this since Ned Braden of the old Charlestown Chiefs. Thankfully Lars stopped short of the striptease. Eller has shown flashes of brilliance and put up points in bunches when paired with Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk as well. Eller does get see a ton of powerplay time to pad his stats. He does not often


Prompt: in October 2014 after videos of the acts were found She will also serve time for stabbing someone with a fork and biting a child She was let off with The young woman who had sex with a dog three times to 'arouse' her partner has been let off on probation after the court heard she told a psychologist: 'This has ruined my life'. Jenna Louise Driscoll, a 27-year-old Brisbane waitress, choked back tears as a District Court judge handed down a probation order for charges including bestiality. The frizzy-haired waitress breathed a huge sigh of relief upon learning she

would walk free. Jenna Louise Driscoll, 27, was let off with a suspended sentence for bestiality at the Brisbane District Court in Queensland on Monday (pictured at hearing last Friday) 'Your conduct in the bestiality offences was repugnant,' Judge Terry Martin said. She had sex with the pitbull terrier on three occasions - in January, March and April of 2014. Videos of the appalling acts were found on her phone by police while she was being investigated for drug trafficking. In his sentencing, the judge said it seemed the bestiality occurred 'in the context of your partner wanting to be aroused by watching such appalling conduct'. 'You were clearly a willing participant in acts of sexual intercourse with the dog,' he said. Driscoll was formally charged in 2014 after police found videos of her having sex with a dog Driscoll was, however, convicted of stabbing a woman with a fork and biting a child, causing minor injuries. She was also handed a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence for drug trafficking, which she 'used to pay the rent and other living expenses'. Her lawyers had argued she had suffered from the publicity of her crimes - providing the court with news articles and a list of Google links. The defence also referred to the case of Harriet Wran - the daughter of a former New South Wales premier - where a judge considered the effect of huge media attention. The Brisbane woman spent the weekend behind bars after pleading guilty to three bestiality charges and other matters But Judge Martin had little sympathy, telling the fidgety redhead: 'The adverse publicity is a result of your conduct'. The judge said Driscoll had a dysfunctional childhood and was subjected to physical and emotional abuse growing up. The court heard she was studying the Year


Prompt: An artist’s rendering of the planned Purple Line trains in Maryland. (Purple Line Transit Partners) Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn on Wednesday ordered the companies contracted to design and build the light-rail Purple Line to immediately scale back pre-construction work, saying the state needs to cut costs while it appeals a legal ruling blocking the project. Rahn said he told the contractor, Purple Line Transit Partners, to stop executing new construction contracts and procuring any nonessential materials and equipment. The contractor was also directed to freeze all hiring of construction staff. The state will stop hiring people to oversee

the project and hold off on buying more land for the 16-mile right-of way between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, Rahn said. “All parties are directed to limit the obligation of further costs for the Purple Line project to those of agreed necessity,” he said in a statement. The slowdown — the Maryland Department of Transportation described it as a “suspension of key elements” — comes during a time of uncertainty for the light-rail project, which has been planned in some form since the late 1980s. [Trump administration is still considering Purple Line for $900 million in federal aid] Rahn made the announcement one day after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office said it would appeal a May 22 ruling in a 2014 lawsuit opposing the project. The court order requires the state to redo the line’s ridership forecasts to reflect Metro’s decline. The Purple Line would be operated separately from Metro, but about 27 percent of the light-rail line’s passengers are expected to be people transferring to and from the subway. In a mid-May filing seeking a speedy decision in the lawsuit, Rahn warned that the state would have to suspend Purple Line work starting Thursday unless it had a “foreseeable path” to $900 million in federal grant money. The state won’t be eligible for that money until the project’s environmental approval is restored as part of the lawsuit appeal. As of Thursday, he wrote, Maryland would “no longer have sufficient cash flow” to keep the project moving in anticipation of being reimbursed with federal aid. The entire project could be canceled about 60 days after a suspension of “ongoing project activities,” Rahn told the court. It was unclear whether this suspension was enough to start a 60-day clock or what money the state will use to continue ongoing Purple


Prompt: It's actually the second time O'Sullivan has helped prepare the Americans to play Ireland in a World Cup - back in 1999 he was an assistant coach with the Eagles, concentrating mainly on conditioning and the backs before the offer came to join Ireland under Warren Gatland. It will be a strange day for O'Sullivan on an already emotional evening as the American squad look to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. "I wouldn't say I have mixed emotions, playing against Ireland is not an emtoional thing for me," insists O'Sullivan. "It feels

a bit strange all right because I know many of those lads pretty well. But Saturday's not about me, it's about the American team. These lads have put in huge effort to make it here to the World Cup . "In particular, the guys who are not professional have made huge sacrifices to come to the World Cup. It's about them.The fact we're playing Ireland in the group stage is just the way it panned out. I have a job to do. It's a bit of help knowing what I do about the Irish players and I've been passing that on but we can't get hung up on Ireland, we need to focus on our own performance. "We are realistic, winning the Russia game next week is the big one for us. We feel like it's within our ability to beat them. Historically for us to win a pool match is pretty is very good. We've only had two group victories in the World Cup up to now. "We won't roll over dead in the other games though, especially in the first one because it is a special day for all our American team and we want to give of our best on that day. When you play a tier-one nation, you try to stay in the game as long as you can. That's the realistic approach." As O'Sullivan casts his eye over the Ireland team that he did so much to help build although the name Conor Murray might take him by surprise, the young Munster scrum-half having been selected to make his first start at this level. "Elsewhere, Gordon D'Arcy has been declared fit to take his place alongside Brian O'Driscoll at centre but coach Declan Kidney has decided to give first choice full-back Rob Kearney and flanker


Prompt: One of the best features of Apple Watch is how customizable it is. There are millions of watch faces variations to play with, and of course, you can use a multitude of watch bands to make your device stand out or blend in, depending on your mood. If customizing your watch faces doesn’t cost anything, buying bands from Apple can turn out to be expensive, with each band selling for hefty prices, especially if you don’t want to settle for the fluoroelastomer bands. An alternative Apple Watch users might want to look into is the knockoff bands available online. They

appear to be exact replicas of Apple’s official bands, and sell for a fraction of the price. I was curious about the price/quality ratio of these bands so I decided to purchase seven of them (two of which are still on back order) and see for myself if they are worth the money. In this post, I will give a brief overview of each band that I received, as well as personal thoughts regarding the quality and whether or not it’s a smart buy. Note that my comments about these bands are related to these specific bands only. My views about each item is not a generalization of knockoff products in general. I am aware that there may be better or worse knockoff alternatives. Milanese Loop My wife owns the official Milanese Loop band so I’ve had plenty of hands on time with it. I know how it feels and look, and for the most part, the replica is very close to the official band. To the untrained eye, it could easily pass for the real deal, but for the nitpicker like me, it just won’t do it. The pattern of the woven stainless steel appears to be exactly the same as the official band, except this one is not as tight, with fraction of millimeters making a small difference in the appearance of the band. It’s not bad, but it is noticeably different when you hold both the real and knockoff bands in your hands. Besides this, the magnetic closure works perfectly and I haven’t had any problem with it loosening up through the day, as my wife has experienced on her own Milanese Loop. It must be noted that the lugs don’t fit quite perfectly. It works good, but it is not perfect. Knockoff on the left, real


Prompt: On April 18th the Arizona Coyotes received disappointing news as they received the third overall pick in this year’s draft from the results of the 2015 NHL Draft Lottery. Finishing 29th in the entire league behind the Buffalo Sabres, the Coyotes had a good chance at landing a first or second overall selection. Unfortunately the Edmonton Oilers came out on top, pushing Buffalo to second and Arizona to third. The Arizona Coyotes will miss out on Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel this year but all is not lost. This team will receive a young skilled player with their pick but

the question on everyone’s mind is who that is going to be. After McDavid and Eichel are selected there will be a handful of players that could easily fill that number three slot. Do the Coyotes fill the defensive hole left after the departure of Keith Yandle? Do they tackle their lackluster scoring problem that haunted them this season? Do they trade their pick? There are many questions that can be answered with their pick on June 26th so we will have to wait and see. The three main names left on the draft board will be Noah Hanifin, Dylan Strome, and Mitch Marner after Edmonton and Buffalo make their selections. Each of these players have a different skill set that could benefit the Arizona Coyotes in many different ways and will help in the overall goal of bringing the Stanley Cup to the desert. With that being said, Howlin’ Hockey wants to hear from YOU! With the third overall selection in the 2015 NHL Draft, who would YOU select to join the Arizona Coyotes? Here’s the rundown: Position: Defenseman Games Played: 37 Goals: 5 Assists: 18 Points: 23 Noah Hanifin is regarded as the number one defensive player coming into the 2015 NHL Draft and projected to be taken third overall. Hanifin is a unique combination of physicality and mentality as he puts his body and mind to the test with each shift. He has a natural skating ability that compliments both his offensive and defensive style of play. Not only can his 6’3″ and 203 pound body eliminate players from the puck, he can also set his teammates up in a position to score. As a freshman at Boston College, Noah Hanifin was a prominent member on the Eagles’ power-play and penalty kill. Scouts praise his ability to


Prompt: TYPES AND USES OF MANURE Let’s talk manure, an important part of any compost pile. First, where do you find it? You can buy composted manure at any garden center in the spring. The problem with already composted manure is that it will contain the wormers and other medications and god-knows-whats that are given to animals raised in commercial factory farms. As it has already been composted, it is ready to apply to your garden right out of the bag with no need to be composted by you. The drawback to this is that it will not heat up your

compost pile and help with the microbial action needed to compost the other materials in your compost pile. Your compost will remain cold. Then there are the fresh manures that you can get from your local farmer. These will usually be advertized in small local papers. It will either be sold delivered, or not..in which case you need a pick up truck and a strong set of arms. It is best to get the manure when it has not been sitting out in the rain as it is lot easier to move around. Shoveling wet compost is a chore. (Well, shoveling dry compost is also a chore.) If you can get your manure in the late summer and let it compost all fall and winter, that is ideal. There are as many types of manure as there are animals. Don’t try any manures from carnivores or human vegetarians. They contain too many pathogens and just smell awful (as I’m sure you know by now). These are a few of the most common manures with a rundown on my personal experiences with them after years running test plots on all of them. 1st Rabbit Manure. I love this stuff. It is absolutely the best manure out there. It is a cold manure, which means it will not burn your plants even if you apply it directly out of the rabbit. However, as with all manures that have not been composted, it may contain pathogens that you will not want on your veggies, so compost it first, or just use it uncomposted on flowers. I have never seen anything grow the way a plant grows on rabbit manure. I buy it from a local farmer for 10 dollars for a 50 lb sack. 2nd Chicken Manure. This is a very hot nitrogen


Prompt: Detroit students walkout against school closures and deteriorating conditions By Lawrence Porter 27 April 2012 Students protesting in Clark Park, across the street from Western International High School Over 200 students at two high schools in Detroit’s southwestern neighborhood, Southwestern High and Western International, walked out of class on Wednesday to protest the closure of Southwestern, the poor conditions at Western, and the growth of charter schools. Students from Western said they walked out of school just before 11 a.m. in sympathy with the students at Southwestern High School, which is among nine schools slated for closure next year in

the Detroit Public Schools district. “Our walkout at Western was inspired by the walkout at Southwestern and it was in solidarity with it, but it was also against the conditions in our school system,” stated Freddie Burse, one of the leaders of the walkout. Freddie said the students organized the event themselves via Facebook after a student heard that there was going to be a walkout at Southwestern. “The purpose of the demonstration was to make our voices heard and to speak up on our education system because we feel there are a lot problems there,” continued Burse. “We are also opposed to the growth of charter schools. The main one here is Caesar Chavez. The privatization of schools is the death of the school system.” Several students said they were especially upset with the announcement that Southwestern High School would be closed next year. Natalie Rivera “It’s about trying to save Southwestern High School,” stated Natalie Rivera, a junior at Western, as she and several hundred students gathered in Clark Park with students from her school and Southwestern. “We are tired of the closing of the schools. We want them to stop. “Southwestern students walked out so we felt we should walk out in solidarity. We want all of the schools to join together,” continued Rivera. “We don’t even have proper books in the school. We have to learn with old stuff that is not updated. The teachers take their own money to pay for the stuff we need.” The walkouts at Western International and Southwestern are the third student walkouts in the last month in Detroit. Last month students at Denby High school walked out after the announcement that the school will be placed in the new statewide district for what are being billed as low-performing schools—the Education


Prompt: (Reuters) - China’s barriers to imports of some U.S. genetically modified crops are disrupting seed companies’ plans for new product launches and keeping at least one variety out of the U.S. market altogether. Agrochemicals maker Syngenta's logo is seen in front of the company's headquarters in Basel February 6, 2013. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann Two of the world’s biggest seed makers, Syngenta AG and Dow AgroSciences, are responding with tightly controlled U.S. launches of new GMO seeds, telling farmers where they can plant new corn and soybean varieties and how can the use them. Bayer CropScience told Reuters it has decided to

keep a new soybean variety on hold until it receives Chinese import approval. Beijing is taking longer than in the past to approve new GMO crops, and Chinese ports in November 2013 began rejecting U.S. imports saying they were tainted with a GMO Syngenta corn variety, called Agrisure Viptera, approved in the United States, but not in China. The developments constrain launches of new GMO seeds by raising concerns that harvests of unapproved varieties could be accidentally shipped to the world’s fastest-growing corn market and denied entry there. It also casts doubt over the future of companies’ heavy investments in research of crop technology. The stakes are high. Grain traders Cargill Inc [CARG.UL] and Archer Daniels Midland Co, along with dozens of farmers, sued Syngenta for damages after Beijing rejected Viptera shipments, saying the seed maker misrepresented how long it would take to win Chinese approval. In the weeks since Cargill first sued on Sept. 12, Syngenta’s stock has touched a three-year low. ADM in its lawsuit last week alleged the company did not follow through on plans for a controlled launch of Viptera corn. Syngenta says the complaints are unfounded. Bayer, told by Beijing in September that the new soybean seed, LL55, had not been approved for imports, says it will keep on trying, seven years after the company first filed its request. In the meantime, it will withhold the new seed. China granted its last import approval for any GMO grain in June 2013. TEN YEAR EFFORT “Our objective is to get the approval and the clearance from the Chinese authorities so that we can go into a full commercial launch as soon as possible,” said Frank Terhorst, global head of seeds for the company. It can take up to 10 years and $150 million to develop new


Prompt: Pot Brownie Incident Shines Spotlight On Legitimacy Debate Legitimacy. It’s the big looming cookie jar stashed high above ultimate’s reach. Just about every player and group related to ultimate wants it on some level. Who hasn’t imagined the day when you’ll no longer have to defend the act of simply referring to ultimate as a “sport”? Especially considering that, if we’re honest about it, there’s a pretty good chance that day will never come. If you’ve stayed with it long enough to learn how to throw a flick, though, chances are you’ve at least somewhat come to terms with playing

a sport where mass media exposure is much less common than SPF 45 and spirit circles. But even if you’re someone who’s just as happy playing in the national title game broadcasted on a livestream to the rest of the country as you are playing an impromptu pickup game in a city park, you’re probably still intrigued by the great effort the ultimate community has been making over the past few years in an attempt to pull that cookie jar of legitimacy down off that high shelf. Which is why Saturday evening at Club Nationals this year must have been especially frustrating for those who subscribe to certain ideas of how the sport might best be taken “seriously.” Long story short: Two Seattle Mixed players took some pot brownies after their semis upset over Boston Wild Card, experience adverse reactions, and have to be taken to the hospital. Seattle Mixed would then go on to be crushed by Minneapolis Drag’n Thrust in the final the next day 15-9, leaving many to wonder, especially with the myriad of rumors swirling around, what might be the cause of the blowout and what implications could be drawn from it. That’s pretty understandable and pretty fair. What’s questionable, however, is when those discussions about what happened that evening were contorted to the point of using the occurrence to act as some sort of reflection or symbolic representation of Seattle Mixed, the mixed division, or ultimate as a whole. Walking around the fields Saturday night and Sunday and listening to the conversations, or taking a look around various online discussions shortly after, one might get the impression that this was just another piece thrown onto the mountain of evidence that the mixed division is a joke, or that ultimate will never be taken seriously. Sure,


Prompt: Statues of children with Ronald McDonald stand at the entrance to the Oak Brook Public Library. Telling her mother that she wanted to come to the aid of a library under attack, 11-year-old Sydney Sabbagha stood at the podium before the Oak Brook village board. "I used to go to the library knowing there were people there to help me find a book. Now there is no one to help me," Sydney said solemnly. "It will never be the same without the people you fired." Sydney nestled back into her seat, but that didn't stop 69-year-old criminal attorney Constantine "Connie"

Xinos from boldly putting her in her place. "Those who come up here with tears in their eyes talking about the library, put your money where your mouth is," Xinos shot back. He told Sydney and others who spoke against the layoffs of the three full-time staffers (including the head librarian and children's librarian) and two part-timers to stop "whining" and raise the money themselves. "I don't care that you guys miss the librarian, and she was nice, and she helped you find books," Xinos told them. "Don't cry crocodile tears about people who are making $100,000 a year wiping tables and putting the books back on the shelves," Xinos smirked, apparently referencing the fired head librarian, who has advanced degrees and made $98,676 a year. He said Oak Brook had to "stop indulging people in their hobbies" and "their little, personal, private wants." Sydney was upset and "her little friend was in tears" after Xinos spoke at the meeting last week, says mom Hope Sabbagha. "I wanted that kid to lose sleep that night," a grinning Xinos says Wednesday, as he invites me for a nearly two-hour interview in his Mercedes-Benz in the gated Oak Brook community where he lives. "This is the real world and the lesson, you folks who brought your kids here, is if you want something, pay for it." Xinos, who unsuccessfully sued to stop the building of the new library, which opened in 2002, sits on one side of the issue. He lost his election bid to be a village board member, but has been president of his home association since 1983 and worked to elect board members who agree with him about the library. On the other side sits Barbara Benezra, the longtime president of the Friends of the Oak Brook Public Library,


Prompt: Gov. Sam Brownback signed a bill Thursday that will establish stricter requirements for welfare eligibility, set shorter time limits for how long a person can receive benefits and place new restrictions on where a beneficiary can spend money. Brownback touted the bill as a way to promote self reliance and lift people out of poverty by pushing them back into the workforce at a signing ceremony held at the Department for Children and Families’ service center in Topeka. The governor and DCF Secretary Phyllis Gilmore pushed back against national criticism that has been levied against HB 2258 in recent weeks.

Gilmore called the bill the most comprehensive welfare reform passed by any state in the country. “We encourage other states to look to Kansas on how to help end government dependency,” Gilmore said. She said the policies are aimed at helping low-income people achieve self-sufficiency and called government dependency a “disservice to the individual, a disservice to our culture and certainly a disservice to the taxpayer.” Sign Up and Save Get six months of free digital access to The Kansas City Star The bill enshrines in law several policies adopted during Brownback’s first term, including a requirement that able-bodied adults work a minimum of 20 hours a week or go through a job training program in order to qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. DCF credits this policy with putting more than 6,000 people back into the workforce last year. By signing the law, Brownback ensures that the policies will continue after he leaves office. But the features of the bill that have gained national attention are the policies that were tacked on by the Legislature – to the noticeable frustration of Brownback and Gilmore – including a prohibition against spending TANF money at a wide variety of businesses including movie theaters, massage parlors, cruise ships and swimming pools. “The primary focus of the bill is to get people back to work,” Brownback said. “Because that’s where the real benefit is getting people off public assistance and back into the marketplace with the dignity and far more income there than the pittance that government gives them. “And I hope we don’t lose track of the primary focus of what we’re after here.” Brownback said that employment is one of the main factors in lifting a person gets out of poverty. He added that family structure was the most important


Prompt: This article is inspired by Dmitry Ledentsov’s blog post: C++ version of ruby’s Integer::times via user-defined literals. In this post Dmitry (aka DLed) is inspired to replicate Ruby’s syntax for repeating actions. In Ruby we can write: 42.times do ... Where … is some bit of code to be repeated, in this case, forty-two times. Dmitry’s blog shows off the Modern C++ feature of user-defined literals. But I’m a bit old school on this and I don’t care for that syntax. But the post did inspire me to play around with how I’d implement this with a more traditional syntax.

Along the way we’ll touch on decltype, template function overloading, SFINAE, variadic template parameters, assert(), type functions, perfect forwarding, and, of course, trying to write our code as generally as possible. First cut So the first cut is pretty straight forward. We want to write this: int main() { times(3, []{std::cout << "bla/n";}); } So we need this: #include <iostream> template <class Callable> void times(int n, Callable f) { for (int i{0}; i != n; ++i) { f(); } } We could avoid the template by writing the function like this: void times(int n, void(*f)()) { for (int i{0}; i != n; ++i) { f(); } } Or, more clearly: using Callable = void(*)(); void times(int n, Callable f) { for (int i{0}; i != n; ++i) { f(); } } But this would only work for functions and function pointers that are a perfect match for this signature. A function that returns a non-void return type, couldn’t be passed, even though it would work for our purposes. But more importantly, this approach would only work for functions and function pointers. It would not work for function objects and, most importantly of all, it wouldn’t work or lambdas. Of course we want to be as general as possible, so we’ll do this: #include <iostream> template<class Count, class Callable> void times(Count n, Callable f) { for (Count i{0}; i != n; ++i) { f(); } } But just as Dmitry does, we want to be able to also support a version where the Callable takes a parameter that is the loop iteration. This is one thing that I miss when using the Modern range based for syntax–sometimes I want to know what iteration we are on. Iteration count So we want to be able to write this: int main() { times(3,


Prompt: Maps embody a constellation of ideas – voting patterns, boundaries and space, the allocation of natural resources or population densities – but all make visual, and perhaps make more accessible, sets of accumulated data. However, when wielded for purposes of policy, cartography can embed power and sometimes inequality. In 1939, the government-sponsored Home Owners Loan Corporation produced a map of Los Angeles that would crystalize discriminatory lending practices and reinforce racial and class bias in home ownership. S2 E5: Coded Geographies Few facets of American citizenship embody the national ideal more than homeownership. When Ta-Nehisi Coates penned his now-classic essay

arguing for reparations in 2014, he focused on the role of homeownership – or rather its denial – in black American life. Likewise, the innovative Mapping Inequality project – a collaboration of scholars at Virginia Tech, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Maryland and directed by Robert K. Nelson and Brent Cebul of the University of Richmond – illustrates better than ever before the highly structured nature of housing discrimination in 20th-century America. Forbes recently named it one of five GIS projects changing the way Americans understand racism, demonstrating that the project is well on its way to achieving this goal. “To the extent that you have a business publication engaging with the less-than-stellar history of business,” Cebul noted in a recent interview, “it really is amazing how putting something on a map makes it so much more accessible for people to see.”[1] With this in mind, the 1939 Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) map of Los Angeles serves as a window into the complexities of federal housing policy and a burgeoning multiracial metropolis about to emerge from the Great Depression. As with cities across the nation, federal housing policy played a critical role in shaping Los Angeles communities in the 20th and 21st centuries. HOLC "redlining" map of central Los Angeles, courtesy of LaDale Winling and 1939"redlining" map of central Los Angeles, courtesy ofand urbanoasis.org First, the HOLC – a creature of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal – invented self-amortizing home loans, an innovation that made it easier for working citizens to buy homes without having to make large down payments. Between 1933 and 1936, the HOLC also issued new low-interest mortgages to one million homeowners who had defaulted or already lost their homes. Under the National Housing Act of 1934, the government also created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA),


Prompt: They say 'new 'do, new you' and that certainly seems to be the case with Taylor Swift. The Shake It Off singer has been flashing a lot more flesh since chopping off her flowy locks into a shaggy bob. From the plunging Alexandre Vauthier gown she slipped into for the Vanity Fair Oscar party to the bandeau top and matching mini skirt she sported out in LA with DJ boyfriend Calvin Harris, the songbird has been revealing a sexier side of herself from head-to-toe. While the style icon always manages to wow us on the red carpet, FEMAIL shines a

spotlight on her current smoldering ensembles (pictured right) as compared to her more modest pre haircut looks (pictured left). Enjoy! LONG BLACK DRESS: THEN AND NOW In a long sleeve, black Julien Macdonald dress, T-Swift (left) was covered from head-to-toe at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar party. Post haircut (right), she slayed the red carpet in a thigh-skimming Alexandre Vauthier gown and plunging neckline In a long sleeve, black Julien Macdonald dress, T-Swift (above) was covered from head-to-toe at the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar party. Without showing a hint of skin, the star still managed to sparkle. After chopping her tresses, the blonde bombshell slayed the red carpet at the same event in a thigh-skimming Alexandre Vauthier gown and plunging neck, complete with Giuseppe Zanotti sandals. At the Giver premiere in 2014 Swifty (below) looked sugary sweet in a modest crimson and cream color-blocked gown by Monique Lhuillier and nude Casadei pumps. She donned another two-tone ensemble this past February, but this time with her tummy and undies on display in Atelier Versace. Strappy Stuart Weitzman stilettos finished her sexy crop top look. COLOR-BLOCKING: THEN AND NOW At the Giver premiere in 2014 Swifty (left) looked sugary sweet in a crimson and cream color-blocked gown by Monique Lhuillier and nude Casadei pumps. She donned another two-tone look this past February, but this time with her tummy and undies on display in Atelier Versace. Stuart Weitzman stilettos finished her sexy ensemble Taylor (below) posed for photographers at Macy's Herald Square in 2011 wearing a striped Tracy Reese A-line frock. She completed her retro look with an updo and House of Lavande jewels. With her shorter 'do she sizzled in stripes at Hyde night club last month in a Balmain tube top and matching mini skirt, complete with a swipe of her


Prompt: Horseman Passing By I encountered the Horseman in Laguna Beach riding along the Pacific Coast Highway. He was ahead of me moving at horse speed. The traffic, hurried as always, slowed to a pause and then pulled around him. As I pulled past him, I could hear the clip-clop of the hooves of his mount and his pack horse. I glanced into the rear view mirror after I got ahead of him and saw the blinking red and blue lights and heard the short bleep of a siren tapped once. He had been pulled over by the Laguna Beach police

for an interview. I pulled in around the corner, walked back, and joined a group of citizens already watching this encounter. The Horseman was riding to Texas. He said he'd started at the Canadian border. The cop asked him why he wasn't driving. He said he didn't have a truck and a horse trailer, just a horse, a pack horse and a dog. His plan was simply to ride the coast to San Diego and turn left. He had what he called a "shoulder pass" which he drew from his pocket and presented to the officer. The officer, being confused, was not even sure such a document existed and examined its molecular structure. Then the Laguna Animal Control officer showed up. That officer informed the cowpoke that he did not have his dog on a leash. Something all good little citizens of California do as willingly as they carry bags of the dog's feces around in their hands. The Horseman replied sensibly that his dog (named, I swear, "Dog") knew how to follow along, and that if he put a leash on him from the saddle he risked strangling the dog. "Horse goes one way, Dog goes another. Tough on Dog, officer." At this point, having been alerted to the Horseman, another police car showed up with another, but more senior, officer. He stood to the side a bit taking in what the situation actually was. The animal control officer, failing to see the sense of not strangling a dog on a leash tired to a horse, began a hectoring lecture on the very special ordinances of the very special town of Laguna Beach, California. The Horseman stood motionless as the scolding went on. Finally the litany of banal cop-talk was interrupted by the senior officer who evidently had less


Prompt: Mixing protein powders, fish oils, vitamins and minerals into a blender and drinking the results is seen in Silicon Valley as the new way to consume a healthy diet without the burden of eating real food It is late evening and biochemist George Bonaci, 27, is standing in the kitchen of the San Francisco technology hub where he works, casually making the next day’s breakfast and, quite possibly, lunch and dinner too. He puts various protein powders, fish oil, vitamins and minerals into a blender and gives it a whizz. He’ll down it tomorrow as a replacement for at least

one meal. It has the texture of raw pancake batter, only Bonaci’s is chocolate flavoured. He says he likes it because he can get so absorbed in his work that he sometimes forgets to eat. “I will have my mind on something and the next thing I know it is eight hours later,” he says. This way he gets exactly what his body needs with minimal fuss and disruption. Bonaci’s tipple is a DIY version of Soylent, a powdered meal replacement invented in 2013 by Rob Rhinehart, a San Francisco programmer who decided it cost too much time and money to eat. But after about nine months on a largely Soylent diet, Bonaci came to the weighty realisation that he needed a low-carb, high-protein alternative. But Soylent only comes in one formulation. “I began mixing up my own carb-free version,” says Bonaci. My week on Soylent: 'I was irritable, grumpy and a general pain in the arse' Read more He may not need to be going to quite so much trouble. Since Soylent first appeared in May 2014, others have developed their own DIY versions and begun selling them, providing options they say are cheaper, tastier or better optimised to individual lifestyles. They have names such as Keto Chow, Powder Chow and Joylent. Alex Snyder, 27, is the software engineer behind Super Body Fuel (formerly Custom Body Fuel) whose products include Schmoylent and Schmilk. I meet him in the company’s new premises: a cement-floored food production facility shared with a jam company in an industrial area of San Francisco. The equipment isn’t set up yet and the shelves are empty except for an enormous bag of tapioca flour but, Snyder assures me, that will soon change. He went into business in early 2014: people were clamouring for Soylent and the


Prompt: Sporting News put together a fun list of the top 40 most hated players in the NFL. The list included players from today along with guys from the past. Surprisingly enough, five players with Tennessee ties made the cut. Take a look at their rankings. #25: Cortland Finnegan Finnegan remains one of my favorite all time Titans to this day, but I can certainly see why an outsider would hate him. The guy ran his mouth non-stop, but typically backed it up. The former seventh round pick earned time as a rookie, carving out a role as a nickel corner

and eventually becoming a starter on the outside. The defense took on his personality, playing with a chip on their shoulder and even a little dirty at times. Unfortunately his career will always be overshadowed for catching Andre Johnson's fist with his skull in the now infamous scuffle in Houston. You had to admire how the guy never backed down from anyone, though. #24: Chuck Cecil Cecil's playing days were before my time, but I had the pleasure of watching him as an assistant coach and defensive coordinator. He didn't last long running the Titans' defense, but he did give us this gem of a video. Cecil led the defense for two years in Nashville before getting fired. In hindsight, the guy was probably too much of a loose cannon to be given responsibility over an entire defense. Now he works for Jeff Fisher as a defensive assistant in Los Angeles, because of course he does. #18: Randy Moss Randy Moss had nothing more than a cup of coffee with Tennessee, but he's the third former Titan on this list. Moss will go down as one of the most fascinating guys to ever play in the league. The tantalizing God-given talents were undeniable, but there seems to always be a cloud that lingered over Moss. He knew how to punch people's buttons and stay in the spotlight, even in the twilight of his career. #13: Albert Haynesworth The Haynesworth hate mostly stems from his head stop on Cowboy's center Andre Gurode. Albert was still finding his way in the NFL when that happened, which would cloud the rest of his career. Haynesworth may have been the best defender in the league in 2008, anchoring a defense that led to a 13-3 record. He then bolted for money that off-season, becoming


Prompt: Posted May 20th at 12:00am. Welcome to the latest and greatest career mode in Madden NFL 25, Connected Franchise. There are a lot of cool upgrades and new features this year, so let’s quickly hit the highlights. BUILD YOUR EMPIRE The biggest and most notable change in Connected Franchise is the introduction of Owner mode. Take control of your franchise and manage all aspects of the day-to-day operation of your team. Create yourself as an owner or take on the persona of one of the NFL’s 32 current head honchos. Hire and fire personnel, set prices on everything from parking

to concessions, manage stadium upgrades or even build a new one if your current facility just isn’t cutting it. Or, if you’d prefer a truly fresh start for your team, you can relocate your franchise to a new city and try to build a new fanbase from scratch. This is the perfect mode for those who want ultimate control. Owning a team and managing it well is going to be challenging, so check out Owner mode’s features in more detail. Learn more about managing your people, marketing your team, improving your cash flow and more, all in the name of creating a true juggernaut organization. EXPEDITING THE PATH TO STARDOM Last year in Connected Careers, Madden NFL 13 introduced the idea of XP and skill progression for players and coaches. This year, the logic has been tuned to help you upgrade faster and get on the field sooner. You’ll see a substantial boost in the amount of XP earned in both practice and during games, allowing you to upgrade your player or coach faster than ever. This year, if you enter a practice session but don’t achieve the set goal, you’ll still get a good chunk of XP just for completing the drill. The XP enhancements don’t apply to just your player, however. CPU players will also show bigger changes in progression or regression. Another significant upgrade this year is that whenever you create a player or coach you’ll be able to see your overall rating and where you’ll factor into the depth chart (player only) before you commit to a team. This lets you put your created character in the ideal situation, either starting right off the bat or patiently sitting behind an established starter while you build up your ratings and try to earn your roster spot through


Prompt: New York City firefighters have reportedly been banned from hanging photos of President-elect Donald Trump in firehouses, on fire trucks and on the T-shirts they wear to work. Following Trump's surprising election victory, FDNY commanders sent out a directive this week urging firefighters to 'remain out of the political scene,' officials told the New York Post. It was reportedly triggered by complaints the department received after a fire truck from Engine 276 in Brooklyn was driving around with a Trump mask on its grille. New York City firefighters have been banned from hanging photos of President-elect Donald Trump in firehouses,

on fire trucks and on the T-shirts they wear to work. File photo of a fire truck leaving a fire house in New York above The department had also received a complaint about material posted in a firehouse, a source said. 'Posting of these materials is not in compliance with Regs,' the message read. 'Please make sure apparatus and quarters are clear of this material.' The department maintains the directive was not aimed at any particular candidate and was just restating longstanding FDNY policy of keeping politics out of the workplace. 'The message, specifically to its time, was to remain out of the political scene and out of the political field,' FDNY spokesman Jim Long told the New York Post. However, fighters who spoke off camera to NY1 told the station the message they received was that photos of Trump are not permitted. The move has angered some members of the department who noted that photos of past presidents hang in firehouses. Trump was elected America's 45th president in an astonishing victory last week FDNY TELLS FIREFIGHTERS TO STAY OUT OF POLITICS To: All Units. Today I received a call from Boro and Division in regards to material posted about the election. One Unit was driving around with mask of Trump on front of rig and they had another complaint about material posted in Firehouse. Posting of these materials is not in compliance with Regs. Please make sure apparatus and quarters are clear of this material. We do not want to see anyone get in trouble for this. 'They have pictures of George Bush standing on the World Trade Center pile with a megaphone,' an FDNY source told the post. The source added that the department posts pictures all the time, including when President Barack Obama visits firehouses. 'The firehouse


Prompt: THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- Robert Quinn crept toward the line of scrimmage with just over nine minutes remaining in Sunday's second quarter. He burst around Indianapolis Colts left tackle Anthony Castonzo at the snap, then picked himself up off the ground and wrapped his arms around the upper body of quarterback Scott Tolzien for his first sack of the year. Two plays later, with the Los Angeles Rams in a nickel package on third and long, Quinn operated out of a three-point stance and did the very same thing -- he got around Castonzo, went after Tolzien, then quickly shifted

his focus to Robert Turbin after a quick pitch, sending the Colts' running back to the ground almost immediately after he caught the football. In a span of three plays, Quinn was personally responsible for a loss of 11 yards. "That was just the official knock the rust off," Quinn said, smiling. "It's just fun to make a couple plays." In defensive coordinator Wade Phillips' 3-4 base set, Robert Quinn has transitioned from defensive end to outside linebacker, where he will sometimes drop into coverage but mostly rush the passer. Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images If he can remain healthy, Quinn should make a whole lot more plays in Wade Phillips' system. Phillips' 3-4 base set required Quinn to transition from defensive end to outside linebacker, where he will take on a role similar to the one DeMarcus Ware played in Dallas and in Denver, occasionally dropping back in coverage but predominantly going after the quarterback. Ware announced his retirement with an Instagram post that highlighted his accomplishments on his jersey. That post is now laminated and taped to Quinn's locker for motivation, as are the career statistics for some of the other great defensive ends and outside linebackers throughout NFL history. The Rams have been very careful with Quinn, who amassed 40 sacks from 2012-14 but made only 15 starts from 2015-16. He didn't play in any preseason games and was held out of several practices while under what first-year head coach Sean McVay continually referred to as a "maintenance program." But Quinn made most of his adjustment to outside linebacker during the offseason program and said in the days leading up to the regular-season opener that he is "pretty comfortable with where I'm at." The Rams played Quinn in only 50 percent of the defensive snaps in their 46-9


Prompt: HOUSTON (CN) – A Texas judge is facing a call for her suspension by a state ethics commission that claims she habitually bought prescription cough syrup on the black market, took marijuana that her bailiff seized from a defendant and paid female prostitutes for sex. Hilary Green is a justice of the peace in Harris County with jurisdiction over minor misdemeanors punishable by up to a $500 fine, and civil matters with not more than $10,000 at stake. She has presided over the court since June 2007 and retained the position through three elections, winning more than 80 percent of

the vote in November 2016, despite media coverage of her nasty divorce from former Houston Controller Ronald Green that she filed for in April 2014. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct filed a motion to suspend Green without pay with the Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday, a request largely based on the lurid testimony of her ex-lover Claude Barnes. Green had a five-year extramarital affair with Barnes that ended in the autumn of 2015, according to Barnes’ deposition before the executive director of the judicial conduct commission. Barnes admitted in the deposition he filed a complaint about Green with the commission in December 2015 out of spite because she led him to believe she wanted to have an exclusive relationship with him after she finalized her divorce, but caught her “cheating” and said she had “unprotected sex with numerous partners” behind his back. “In January of 2010, I witness [sic] Judge Hilary Green smoke marijuana and illegally purchase Tussionex several times. Between 2011 I also witness her pay for sex from female escorts and consume the street drug ecstasy,” Barnes wrote in his complaint, using the brand name of the cough syrup he says Green became addicted to over the course of their fling. Barnes said in his deposition that he got a bottle of cough syrup for Green six to eight times from 2010 to 2014, from his former coworker, who jacked up the price from $460 to $600 per bottle. Barnes said Green initially told him she took a teaspoon of the syrup to help her sleep, but her usage steadily increased. “At one point in time I just saw her turn the bottle up. There was no longer teaspoons. It was just a swig,” Barnes said in the January 2016 deposition. According to the deposition, Green twice


Prompt: View Photos Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Black Friday is too hectic–who wants to sit in a line, outside in the cold at 3 a.m. for a barely discounted iPad or 50 percent off a bedspread? Bedding is boring, and sitting on the couch drinking a cold one and shaking off the Thanksgiving food coma is so much more satisfying, anyway. To help you pass the time on this lazy day, we’ve compiled these awesome photos of black cars. Enjoy! Charlie Magee, George Lepp,

Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy Ritchie, and the Manufacturer Charlie Magee, George Lepp, Mark Bramley, Marc Urbano, Patrick M. Hoey, Roy


Prompt: Yesterday I received my Ephemera January Subscription Box! This is a brand new indie subscription box from the indie brand Aromaleigh. I have purchased from Aromaleigh in the past and was very pleased with the products I bought, the inspiration behind their themes, and their fast TAT. The Ephemera Subscription has limited slots so I'm very happy I was able to snag one! Here is some addition information about the sub from Aromaleigh's website: Ephemera is a word of Greek origin that signifies something being of a short-lived nature, making it a perfect name for this offering. Each month will

include a range of mini jar sizes of brand new, exclusively curated products, featuring a specific theme. Boxes will also include a sneak peek (or peeks) from upcoming product releases. The themed subscription products are exclusive to your monthly box, meaning that they will not be available at a later date for non-subscription members to purchase. My box shipped on January 2 and arrived on the 5th. The price of the subscription is $17.99 with shipping for domestic subscribers. * Disclaimer: All products purchased with my own money unless otherwise stated. Thoughts and opinions are 100% my own. * This month's theme was Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I happen to love both the books and the films so I was happy with this theme! Not included in this photo is the sample perfume vial from Ten Three Labs, a sample blush from an upcoming Aromaleigh collection, and some candy that didn't survive the wait for swatches :P I think the packaging and labels of the products are cute. When I got it, this box was wrapped in a pretty ice blue bow. The box comes with a shadow guide explaining the products received and monthly theme. From left to right: The White Witch, 100 Years of Winter, Pale as Icing Sugar, Enchanted Turkish Delight (swatched heavily, blended out). From left to right: The White Witch, 100 Years of Winter, Pale as Icing Sugar, Enchanted Turkish Delight (swatched heavily, blended out). The White Witch is a pale aqua shimmer with gold duochrome. I am always drawn to shades like these, they are just so pretty! Reminds me of Notoriously Morbid's Wayward Son. This color would pair well with the new shadow very well. 100 Years of Winter is a smooth greened brown with white


Prompt: Like a recumbent sloth jolted into a panicked flight response, David Brooks has belatedly noticed the rancid politics of right-wing racial confrontation. The New York Times’ most venerable voice of conservative moderation is here to inform you, gentle reader, that the deranged incursion of Trumpinistas into the corridors of conservative power has transformed his beloved GOP into “more of a white party in recent years.” He seeks to nail down the flagrantly bogus argument that the Republicans had, over much of their modern career, been within the bounds of “basic decency on matters of race” via a single cherry-picked statistic:

“A greater percentage of congressional Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats.” Well, sure—except that a “higher percentage” of Republicans meant very little, in absolute numerical terms, at the apogee of Great Society liberalism. Yes, Democrats predominated in the Jim Crow South, but once you controlled for that outsize regional influence, the apparent institutional commitment to civil rights within the GOP promptly vanishes. The significant difference wasn’t partisan—it was geographic. In states that were part of the Union cause, a higher percent of Democrats than Republicans voted for civil rights. And the same was true in states that were part of the Confederacy. Adjusting for this regional variance, “it becomes clear that Democrats in the north and the south were more likely to vote for the bill than Republicans from the north and south, respectively,” writes data journalist Harry J. Enten. “It just so happened southerners made up a larger percentage of the Democratic than Republican caucus, which created the initial impression than Republicans were more in favor of the act.” This point bears close parsing for the simple reason that Brooks’s cavalier reliance upon it permits him to overlook nearly all relevant conservative postwar history on questions of racial equality. The same year the Civil Rights Act passed, after all, this same racially tolerant GOP nominated Barry Goldwater as its presidential standard-bearer—one of the only non-southern senators from either party to vote against the Civil Rights Act. While Lyndon Johnson dispatched Goldwater in one of the great campaign blowouts in modern presidential history, the rock-ribbed Arizona conservative managed to carry six (heavily Democratic) southern states by exploiting white racial ressentiment masquerading as outraged libertarian principle. Thus was born the “Southern Strategy,” which catapulted backlash maestro Richard Nixon into office in 1968, and set up the GOP as


Prompt: It's been almost a week since I posted this CDr to the WFMU blog, and since then I have been ransacked by e-mails and comments crying "hoax" or "bubble boy," from everyone from random passers-by to the higher-ups at WFMU. Rather than address all the theories being espoused by readers from around the globe, I simply want to aver that this is indeed a true story, and is in no way meant to be a self-promotion tactic. Any alterations to the WFMU blog entry post-publication -- or my own personal blog -- were done in an attempt to quell the

uprising of cynics. Had I known that my actions would only add fuel to the fire, I would have simply let things stand as they were. Clearly I've learned a valuable lesson in controversy control. Usually when I find CD-rs out in the world, they've been tossed out of car windows or left on the counters of stupid hipster coffeeshops. The last place I ever expected to find an unlabeled CD-r filled with music would be in the middle of the fucking desert. But nearly two years ago I was hiking in Joshua Tree and I came across a completely surreal sight: an old-school 5 1/4" computer floppy disk. It appeared to have been tossed casually near the side of the trail I was on, housed in a simple plastic baggie. I reached into the bag and pulled out the floppy disc. I noticed that the magnetic tape inside the plastic case had been replaced by a recordable compact disc. The disc had a creepy message scrawled on it which read, . I don't believe in ghosts or extraterrestrials or anything, but standing in the middle of nowhere reading that line was enough to send me into a miniature freak out. What's more, a folded-up piece of paper was also buried inside the plastic cover. A treasure map. Browned edges and everything. It featured a pirate ship (?), a series of footsteps through mountains and palm trees (?), one red X, and ten blue X's. One of of the X's appeard to be floating in the middle of a body of water. Whoa. I listened to the recording on my drive back to LA that night. It was indescribably weird. The dedication to the floppy disk case, chicken scratch message, and treasure map implied that someone with way too much


Prompt: This slideshow requires JavaScript. Portugal is indestructible. I know this because I went there recently with the Floridians, also known as my 79-year-old dad and nearish-there-year-old stepmother. And yes, I know they read this blog. For a week, we revelled in Portugal’s gracious, slightly tarnished grandeur. We marvelled at the relaxed, softened elegance of Lisbon, the hilly charm of Porto and the hushed, rolling beauty of the Douro Valley. We drank a lot of wine. We stayed in hotels, rented an apartment, and took trains, planes and automobiles. I learned to love the hop-on-hop off bus. Portugal has a slight

underdog status versus the tourism heavyweights of France, Spain and Italy. That suits just fine. Let the crowds go there. Portugal’s natural and architectural beauty doesn’t smack you in the face. It beckons you to explore, to climb hills and turn corners. You get to know it slowly, in a process of constant discovery. And the Portuguese are there to help at every turn. Eat Lisbon with a knife, fork, spoon and your fingers. The capital city is stuffed with great restaurants. They’re in all the guides, which is good (you can find them) and bad (so can everyone else). But if you’re after variety and want to avoid some of the crowds, go off-piste. Look for the crowded lunch joints that dot the centre of the old town and follow the hills up toward Principe Real. Look in particular for places with a busy lunch-counter trade, a window display of fresh fish on ice, and a hint of hot oil in the air. Once the lunchtime melee dies down, slip in and explore. Order a daily special, and see what comes a few minutes later. Have wine with lunch. You’re on vacation. When it came to accommodation, we hit the jackpot. Baixa House, part of the i-escape.com network of boutique properties, was home away from home. Actually, it was better, because I don’t get delivery of warm, fresh baked goods every morning, as we did at Baixa House. Note to self – get to know a baker. Most importantly, Baixa House’s large, well appointed apartments come with the friendly and welcoming Sofia, who greeted us with advice, a world of recommendations, a clever cloth map and a small tin box of restaurant cards with tips on what was touristy, and what wasn’t. If you want to feel like you’re


Prompt: Remember July, 2012? The NBA Players’ Union had just won an arbitration case against the league that redefined whether players retained their “Bird” rights through the waiver process. It was a relatively trivial ruling for most of the league, but a coup for the New York Knicks, whose top two free agents, Jeremy Lin and Steve Novak, had both been claimed off waivers to start the season (and both had played their way into significant salary raises). Lin, of course, was coming off his meteoric rise to international fame, and the New York fan-base exhaled in a collective sigh that

they weren’t going to lose their newest folk-hero to the draconian salary cap (since Lin was a restricted free-agent, the team could now match any offer without salary cap restraints). Well, as it turned out, even with the ability to exceed the cap and match any offer, the Knicks opted to only sign one of their two free agents: the sweet-shooting, sour-everything-else Steve Novak. The Knicks never stated an official reason for not matching Lin. The transaction was relayed to the press by a spokesman who stated “I can confirm we are not matching”. And that was that. The unceremonious end of Linsantiy. Of course, though it wasn’t stated publicly, there was obviously a reason the Knicks opted to let Lin walk to Houston, and many sought to understand how Lin, a virtual lock to return to the Knicks in the wake of the arbitration victory, was suddenly gone. Certainly the ultimate decision rested with team owner and MSG chairman James Dolan, through whom all major transactions had to pass. Stories came out that Dolan felt “betrayed” by Lin. Others reported that Carmelo Anthony, Dolan’s most prized-player, had called Lin’s contract “ridiculous”. Statements made by the neoteric JR Smith, a CAA client to whom the Knicks possibly had a silent agreement with to re-sign on the cheap side in exchange for future considerations, indicated that Lin’s contract would create jealousy amongst the other Knicks. But the MSG spin eventually repainted it, not as a personal vendetta, but as a shrewd business move in the changing face of NBA economics. The contract, it was estimated, could cost the Knicks upwards of $28 million in taxes alone it’s final year, due to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement’s escalating luxury tax on high spending teams. Effectively, a line had been drawn in the


Prompt: Donald Trump said he was open to meeting Kim Jong-un in the appropriate circumstances © Thomson Reuters 2017 North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of pushing the Korean peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic U.S. bombers flew training drills with the South Korean and Japanese air forces in another show of strength.The two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers were deployed amid rising tensions over North Korea's dogged pursuit of its nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of United Nations sanctions and pressure from the United States.The flight of the two bombers on Monday

came as U.S. President Donald Trump said he was open to meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the appropriate circumstances, even though Pyongyang suggested it would continue with its nuclear tests.South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a briefing in Seoul that Monday's joint drill was conducted to deter provocations by the North and to test readiness against another potential nuclear test.The U.S. air force said in a statement the bombers had flown from Guam to conduct training exercises with the South Korean and Japanese air forces.North Korea said the bombers conducted "a nuclear bomb dropping drill against major objects" in its territory at a time when Trump and "other U.S. warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike" on the North."The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war," the North's official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of pressure from the United States and Pyongyang's sole major ally, China.China's Global Times, a state-backed tabloid that does not necessarily reflect national policy, said in an editorial late on Monday the United States should not rely on China alone to pressure Pyongyang into giving up its nuclear ambitions.April could prove a "turning point", the paper said, but "Washington ... must also continue to exert its own efforts on the issue".It was widely feared North Korea could conduct its sixth nuclear test on or around April 15 to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the North's founding leader, Kim Il Sung, or on April 25 to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People's Army.The North has conducted


Prompt: Wild boot3 Chris Kesting holds the boot he found at the base of a cliff near Mt. Hood Skibowl, right where Reese Witherspoon threw it while filming the opening scene of "Wild." (Photo by Tim Pate) In the opening scene of "Wild," Reese Witherspoon sits down at the edge of a cliff and takes off her too-small hiking boots. Her toes are black and bloody, and she pulls off her right big toenail and throws it over the cliff, knocking one of her boots over in the process. Exhausted and frustrated, Witherspoon throws the other boot after it while screaming

a profanity. It's a cathartic moment, one that drew strong reactions when the movie was released in December. Some people thought "Wow, Reese Witherspoon is a brave actress who really got inside Cheryl Strayed's head. I loved the book, and I'm going to love this movie!" Others thought "Whoa, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail is difficult enough with a pack that heavy, and now you're throwing away your boots? Uh, oh." Chris Kesting, a mechanical engineer from Camas, Wash., and an avid hiker, said "Hey, I know exactly where that is. One of these days it might be fun to go up there and see if that boot is actually there." So he did. And it was. The scene from "Wild," the movie based on Portland writer Strayed's memoir, was filmed in the fall of 2013 near Mt. Hood Skibowl, on the south side of Mount Hood near Government Camp. Kesting recognized it immediately because he'd been in the area recently and saw Tom Dick and Harry Mountain in the background. Kesting and a friend, Tim Pate, hiked the popular trail on March 8, one of the sunny, snow-free days in early spring, and had no trouble finding the boot-tossing spot. (The film crew used a chairlift and then hiked over.) Kesting scrambled around the cliffs and searched for about 15 minutes until he saw something in the middle of a scree slope. "The thing that stood out was the red laces," he said. "The brown of the leather blended into the soil and I didn't see that at all. I saw the red laces and thought it was weird that there were flowers out already. That's when it came into focus. It was kind of funny." But is that really the "Wild" boot? "Well, first of all you wouldn't


Prompt: In October 2011, the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis received an unusual email. "I'm the president of a videogame company," it began. The message was from the head of Valve Software, the influential video game design firm behind such industry-defining titles as the sci-fi shooter Half-Life and the first-person puzzle adventure Portal. Varoufakis, who teaches economic theory at the University of Athens and also has a post at the University of Texas at Austin, had spent years working on game theory—the strategic and decision making processes that economists study, not the theory behind computer games. He also examined the complexities of

linking multiple distinct economies. During the height of the Euro crisis in Greece, Varoufakis was often seen in the media explaining the meltdown and describing what might happen next in the currency-integrated Eurozone. Now Valve Software chief Gabe Newell was asking him to apply the same insights to the interlinked virtual economies of Valve Software's games. After meeting Newell and other Valve staffers in Seattle, Varoufakis agreed to become the company's first official in-house economist. From early 2012 through the middle of 2013, he studied Valve's games, occasionally sharing his insights on the company blog in lengthy posts with wonky titles. (Sample: "Arbitrage and Equilibrium in the Team Fortress 2 Economy.") His work for Valve led to more media attention, including articles and interviews in The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and National Public Radio. In February, Varoufakis spoke with Senior Editor Peter Suderman about what he learned as a video game economist, the failings of his chosen academic profession, and how computer games and virtual online worlds might be the future of macroeconomics. reason: What does a video game company want with an economist? Yanis Varoufakis: The moment that video game companies shifted from single-player to multiplayer games, without realizing it, they created a social economy. People interacting through the game have the opportunity not only to kill one another, but also to exchange stuff. Stuff that was valuable-or scarce, as an economist would say-within the virtual world. In almost no time that sort of economy started creating, within the game, a lot of value, and also distributing it. If you have a kind of community involving millions of people who trade with one another, who engage with one another, and who can even create value through production processes-for instance, designing some shield or some garden and sending it