Prompt: 1 When you say apocalypse’, you immediately conjure visions of an end to the world as we know it. It’s a part of our culture, our media and of course, it is in large part, a product of both science ﬁction AND fact. As in business, one must be prepared: you speculate to accumulate. And so in science, the best way to be prepar ed for such eventualities is to speculate. What are the ‘global killers’ Apocalypse in 20 ways going to be? How, if at all, can we prepare for those? And can we safely make some assumptions about

their possibility, without in actual fact inducing a premature panic for their probability? The danger is clear: don’t speculate and get caught one day, unaware! Speculate too much and one risks inducing the very panic that said speculation is designed to curtail. But Fear Not! The t eam at What is Universe is here to help. Have some FUN with us as we begin this two part overview of scientiﬁc apocalypses that might just be the end of all things. Welcome t o the end of the world... 2 We don’t exactly know what happens to matter when falling into a black hole though we can be sure that only due to the enormous gravitational force our civilisation ends right there. And so it is that Earth too could be vulnerable. Whyever not? We are, at our ‘cor e’ (!) simply a part of ‘space’. A planet; a starry spec ‘out there’. And if any other star can be swallowed then it would be both complacent and indeed illogical to assume that the A black hole visiting and swallowing Earth Earth is beyond such a fate. Imagine CERN, the particle accelerator, simulating the origins of the Earth: the ‘big bang’. Well, it has been legitimately speculated that a strong gravitational force could thereby be generated and in turn, tear apart the very fabric of the Earth’s stability. In short: we could create our own ‘black hole’ and that would swallow us up. Discovery has a price and that price could be an apocalypse! The str ong gravitational force would tear apart the planet for sure, so even without knowing what happens to matter beyond the Event Horiz on of the black hole, we can be sure that’s the end of our world as we know it. 1 3 A gamma


Prompt: The most popular article in the leading economics Web archive doesn’t concern tax policy, international trade, or the theory of the firm. It’s about an online fantasy game. During the past year, nearly 16,000 people have downloaded a 40-page economic analysis of EverQuest, Sony’s popular online fantasy world of Norrath. “Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier,” by California State Fullerton economics professor Edward Castronova, is the No. 1 article in the history of the Economics Research Network, an Internet library of tens of thousands of professional journals and research papers in economics. The

article, which you can download here, not only outpaces the online works of every Nobel laureate, it is also the fourth-most popular article on the entire Social Science Research Network, which contains more than 75,000 professional articles and abstracts in range of social sciences. For cybergaming naifs—most males over age 30 (me included) and almost all women—virtual worlds are elaborate, multiplayer, role-playing online environments in which each player’s actions can affect many others. At any given moment, 50,000 or more people from more than 120 countries are online at EverQuest, moving their personal “avatars”—wizards, trolls, amazonlike women, and a dozen other types—through the fanciful landscapes of Norrath. These dramas unfold on more than 40 dedicated Sony servers, each accommodating up to 2,000 players interacting with the program and each other. (EverQuest is only one of several popular MMORPGs—”massively multiplayer online role-playing games.” The oldest, Ultima Online, has 225,000 players; and the largest, Lineage, has more than 4 million subscribers, mostly in Korea.) What intrigues Castronova and other economists about EverQuest—beyond the fact that more than 500,000 people pay Sony $13 a month to participate—is that something resembling a nascent economy has emerged in Norrath. Inadvertently, EverQuest has become a virtual experiment in some of the fundamental questions in economics: What are the necessary conditions for markets; how much government does capitalism require; and how do equality and inequality affect economic development? According to Castronova’s account of it, EverQuest has something to gratify economists of all political stripes. For natural-law types, Norrath suggests that the conditions for vibrant markets to develop are pretty minimal. Libertarians can delight that “government,” in the form of rules restricting a player’s activity, is also limited in Norrath. And liberals can take heart that Norrath’s market and society rest on initial conditions of radical equality. The


Prompt: NINTENDO Australia fears it could be swamped by requests for freebies after a cute story of goodwill went viral on the internet. 11-year-old Victorian schoolgirl Helen last month wrote to the company as part of her Year 6 class project. "The reason I'm writting (sic) to your company is because at school we are learning how to write letters to companies," Helen wrote. "We have 25 students in our class and we have 25 companies. I chose your company because I'm a big fan of yours." In fact Helen was such a big fan of Nintendo she couldn't resist asking

for a DS gaming console after her parents "refused" to buy her one. "I also have a request to make. My request is quite big. I would like a DS please for those many reasons," Helen wrote. Nintendo obliged and sent a new DS to Helen's school along with a letter of reply to the young girl. "Thank you for your letter — we were very impressed. I really hope you and your classmates enjoy playing the DS," wrote a Nintendo staff member. Now the exchange — including Helen's letter and Nintendo's reply — has gone viral on the internet. Just two days after being posted online, the exchange has been viewed more than 330,000 times on image-sharing site imgur. It has also attracted thousands of votes on link-sharing websites like Reddit and Digg. But for every reader that responded with a "daaaaw", there's another who has joked about trying it out for themselves. "So I can just send any company a letter and they will give me a product?" asked one reader on Digg. "I'm going to send a letter to Steve for a certain pad," said another. However if you're thinking about writing to Nintendo under the pretence of a school project, be warned — they verify all requests. "Nintendo always calls the school, hospital, retirement home, or whatever it may be to ensure the letter is legitimate," said Nintendo Australia's Heather Murphy. "In this particular case, Nintendo called the school and spoke to the school principal." After talking to the principal to make sure the gaming console would be well used, Nintendo sent a DS and a "game suitable for children to play" to the school. Ms Murphy said it wasn't common practice to give away free consoles — or even reply — to everyone who wrote


Prompt: "Duku" redirects here. For the malware, see Duqu Lansium parasiticum Lanzones in the Philippines Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Clade: Angiosperms Clade: Eudicots Clade: Rosids Order: Sapindales Family: Meliaceae Genus: Lansium Species: L. parasiticum Binomial name Lansium parasiticum Osbeck) Sahni & Bennet Synonyms[1] List Aglaia aquea (Jacq.) Kosterm. Aglaia domestica (Corrêa) Pellegr. Aglaia dookoo Griff. Aglaia intricatoreticulata Kosterm. Aglaia merrillii Elmer nom. inval. Aglaia sepalina (Kosterm.) Kosterm. Aglaia steenisii Kosterm. Amoora racemosa Ridl. Lachanodendron domesticum (Corrêa) Nees Lansium domesticum Corrêa Melia parasitica Osbeck Lansium parasiticum, also known as langsat () or lanzones, is a species of tree in the Mahogany family.

The plant originates from western Peninsular Malaysia. Description [ edit ] The tree is average sized, reaching 30 metres (98 ft) in height and 75 centimetres (30 in) in diameter. Seedling trees 30 years old planted at 8 x 8 meter spacing can have a height of 10 meters and diameter of 25 cm. The trunk grows in an irregular manner, with its buttress roots showing above ground. The tree's bark is a greyish colour, with light and dark spots. Its resin is thick and milk coloured.[2] The pinnately compound leaves are odd numbered, with thin hair, and 6 to 9 buds at intervals. The buds are long and elliptical, approximately 9 to 21 centimetres (3.5 to 8.3 in) by 5 to 10 centimetres (2.0 to 3.9 in) in size. The upper edge shines, and the leaves themselves have pointed bases and tips. The stems of the buds measure 5 to 12 millimetres (0.20 to 0.47 in).[2] The flowers are located in inflorescences that grow and hang from large branches or the trunk; the bunches may number up to 5 in one place. They are often branched at their base, measure 10 to 30 centimetres (3.9 to 11.8 in) in size, and have short fur.[3] The flowers are small, with short stems, and have two genders. The sheathe is shaped like a five lobed cup and is coloured a greenish-yellow. The corona is egg-shaped and hard, measuring 2 to 3 millimetres (0.079 to 0.118 in) by 4 to 5 millimetres (0.16 to 0.20 in). There is one stamen, measuring 2 millimetres (0.079 in) in length. The top of the stamen is round. The pistil is short and thick.[2] The fruit can be elliptical, ovoid or round, measuring 2 to 7 centimetres (0.79 to 2.76 in) by 1.5 to 5 centimetres


Prompt: Tottenham Hotspur have been transformed in the last 5 years from a struggling mid-table team with a successful history into a top-four superpower. 1) The Manager Back in October 2008, Harry Redknapp took over from Juande Ramos at Tottenham Hotspur who were stuck in a relegation fight at the bottom of the Premier League. Under Redknapp, Spurs finished out that season inside the bottom half of the table in 11th place. After marching up the table (via 8th place in 2008/09) they have now become a top-four regular fixture and this season is currently following suit as they sit 4

points clear of North London rivals Arsenal in four position, just one point behind Chelsea in 3rd. Since sacking Redknapp, new manager Andre Villas-Boas has proven himself arguably the most ‘progressive’ manager in the league. His style of management, as much as his mode and style of play, are every bit as continental as he is. Unlike Redknapp who deserves credit for Spurs’ progression every bit as much as his replacement, Villas-Boas is a cultured and composed figure – he handles himself with diplomacy and decorum that surpasses that of many of his seniors at other Premier League clubs. Redknapp got Spurs playing very good football and they were effective but they lacked the verve and versatility they now have under the Portuguese boss. They adapt their shape so fluently and their formation so confidently that oftentimes one would, from watching them, assume they were playing in La Liga or Ligue 1. 2) Speed of ascendance Their ascendance to the top has been done so masterfully (again Redknapp deserves the credit, here) that it hasn’t felt even remotely surprising – it’s been an organic process by which, unlike their super-rich counterparts Chelsea and Manchester City, has felt like consistent growth and development, rather than instant impact from overnight overhauls. They’ve made a gradual ascent from 11th to 8th to 4th to 5th to 4th – other than the 2010/11 season, they’ve made continual progress and their team improvements have followed suit. 3) Transfer business Which brings me to their dealings in the transfer market. Although Redknapp earned himself a reputation as a wheeler-dealer he actually made very reasonable and sensible purchases whilst in charge at White Hart Lane. If you look at the ‘silly money’ spent by City and the Blues, not to mention the catastrophic purchases made by Liverpool


Prompt: Why the court will uphold Obamacare For its reputation, mainly Predictions are always hazardous when it comes to the economy, the weather and the Supreme Court. I won’t get near the first two right now, but I’ll hazard a guess on what the court is likely to decide tomorrow: It will uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) by a vote of 6 to 3. Three reasons for my confidence: Advertisement: First, Chief Justice John Roberts is — or should be — concerned about the steadily declining standing of the court in the public’s mind, along with the

growing perception that the justices decide according to partisan politics rather than according to legal principle. The 5-4 decision in Citizen’s United, for example, looked to all the world like a political rather than a legal outcome, with all five Republican appointees finding that restrictions on independent corporate expenditures violate the First Amendment, and all four Democratic appointees finding that such restrictions are reasonably necessary to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption. Or consider the court’s notorious decision in Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court can’t afford to lose public trust. It has no ability to impose its will on the other two branches of government: As Alexander Hamilton once noted, the court has neither the purse (it can’t threaten to withhold funding from the other branches) or the sword (it can’t threaten police or military action). It has only the public’s trust in the court’s own integrity and the logic of its decisions — both of which the public is now doubting, according to polls. As chief justice, Roberts has a particular responsibility to regain the public’s trust. Another 5-4 decision overturning a piece of legislation as important as Obamacare would further erode that trust. It doesn’t matter that a significant portion of the public may not like Obamacare. The issue here is the role and institutional integrity of the Supreme Court, not the popularity of a particular piece of legislation. Indeed, what better way to show the court’s impartiality than to affirm the constitutionality of legislation that may be unpopular but is within the authority of the other two branches to enact? Second, Roberts can draw on a decision by a Republican-appointed and highly respected conservative jurist, Judge Laurence Silberman, who found Obamacare to be constitutional when the issue came to the U.S. Court of Appeals for


Prompt: news A senior IT professional specialising in regional telecommunications in Victoria yesterday afternoon delivered an extraordinarily erudite and pointed education to a 3AW radio host who had gone on an extended and inaccurate rant live on air, rebutting claims that the National Broadband Network project would cost $233 billion but deliver speeds no different to ADSL broadband. Yesterday afternoon, the host of 3AW’s Drive program, Tom Elliott, broadcast a segment which contained a large number of factual errors regarding the National Broadband Network project initiated by Labor, which has been continued as the Coalition’s Broadband Network project. Elliott highlighted an

article in The Australian newspaper which had reported that Labor’s NBN project had passed just three percent of Australian premises, but had cost $7 billion to date. “If I got out my trusty calculator, if it cost the same amount of money to cover 100 percent of homes, which the NBN is supposed to do, and businesses, it would cost $233 billion,” Elliott claimed. In fact, NBN Co’s recent Strategic Review (PDF) showed Labor’s version of the NBN would cost as little as $63 billion if funded by the Government completely, or $54 billion if the rollout was reworked. The Coalition’s version will cost even less. In addition, under all scenarios, the NBN project is slated to make a long-term modest return on its capital; effectively rendering its initial expenses meaningless. In addition, with major capital projects such as the NBN, it is common for a substantial amount of the overall capital cost to be lodged up-front; these costs do not reflect the remaining cost of such projects. The host went on to interview a series of listeners live on air, who sequentially claimed that the NBN was delivering only equivalent or even worse service than prior ADSL broadband connections possible on Telstra’s copper network. “Broadband via the old copper network and ADSL is getting pretty quick. Unless it’s a huge leap forward, I just don’t know whether we should be spending anywhere between $70 billion and $233 billion on it,” said Elliott, who appeared to grow increasingly hostile towards the NBN project as the segment went on and anti-NBN caller after anti-NBN caller lined up to agree with him. However, one of the later callers in the segment was able to substantially educate Elliott on the specific advantages of the NBN rollout. Elliott introduced the caller as George Fong,


Prompt: Porto or Oporto is known as the second city of Portugal, after Lisbon. It has a much different culture and pace than the capital. Lisbon is probably the most relaxed capital of Europe I've been to, but Porto sort of has a more business type atmosphere. Indeed people joke often that in Portugal, Porto works, Braga, a religious centre, prays, Coimbra, home of the University of Coimbra studies, and Lisbon takes all the money! Porto is still in Portugal however, so people are still as friendly and relaxed as can be, just with a tiny bit more bruskness than Lisbon.

The port area of Porto along the Douro river is magnificent. Beyond magnificent even-- transcendent, awesome, awe-inspiring, all of these. I was really blown away by how wonderful it was just to walk around the historic part of town. My wife says the one she took with her iPhone is better... What do you think? One of the great things you can see in Porto, is the Cathedral, a Romanesque building built in the 1100s, with a later, beautiful Gothic cloister added. Check it out on my post, live on April 21st 2015! Around the port area is the older neighborhoods, which are great to walk through! Porto is right on the mouth of the Douro river, and is an important shipping hub. Near the river is the St. Francis Monument church and the Bolsa Palace. Also, you could fall into the water and suffer an acute form of wet-lung. You can travel back up Porto's steep hill on the Funicular dos Guindais and see a quite beautiful view of the Ponte Dom Luis: It get's a little dizzying after so much Port though! We were in Porto over Christmas, when the Porto-guese like to do marathons. They seem quite health conscious in Porto. The city centre is extremely beautiful looking down from by the Clerigo's tower. The Sao Bento train station in Porto is famous for having the fewest number of Azulejos, or Portuguese tiles, of all the train stations in Portugal. This tile depicts Queen Angela Merkel coming to Portugal to demand more austerity measures. Still there are some anti-Merkel austerity politics going on: There are some beautiful city parks in Porto, this one near the town hall: Here is the Jardin do Palacio de Cristal- I'm not sure what they are for... The only reason we were


Prompt: On a third-down in 11-on-11 scrimmage, he zoomed past starting left tackle Jake Matthews and sacked quarterback Matt Ryan. Well, he tagged him down, since they don’t tackle to the ground anymore in NFL practices. But that’s a practice sack and the Falcons are hoping their first-round pick, who has recovered from offseason shoulder surgery, has plenty of real sacks in his 6-foot, 2-inch and 250-pound frame. “It feels great,” McKinley said after the morning practice. “I’m back to football, back to what I love doing.” McKinley was selected 26th overall in the 2017 draft. He had surgery to repair

a torn labrum and glenoid socket in his right shoulder on March 6. He was cleared before training camp, but Falcons coach Dan Quinn wanted to ease him back into practice by letting McKinley participate in individual drills. “It was our first chance getting some reps for Takk Mckinley,” Quinn said. “He was on the plan that (Adrian) Clayborn did last week. He did the individual and then some team. He worked some team today.” McKinley won over the fans with a passionate speech on draft night about how he wanted to honor his grand mother who helped to raise him. He was so emotional that he let loose with a few expletives. McKinley was much more composed after his first practice, i in which he was able to showcase his skills in team and one-on-one drills. “Just being back on the field,” Quinn said. “For him, it was good to be back with the guys, his teammates and getting in the huddle and playing. He hasn’t done that for awhile.” After practice, McKinley had a long session with defensive line coach Bryant Young. “We are just getting started with him,” Quinn said. “We are anxious to put the work in over the next month.” While out and not allowed to attend OTAs or minicamp because of the NFL academic rules for schools on the quarter system, McKinley picked up the defensive scheme during his Facetime sessions with Young. “Between him and Bryant Young, they did a good job together,” Quinn said. “They had to put the work in. That was his way to show I’m committed and I’m in….. although there was some frustration about (not) playing , (he) could still do (his) part from a scheme standpoint…I have to commend him for putting in the work over the


Prompt: UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The Taliban’s reliance on extortion and kidnappings, along with narcotics and illegal mining operations, is transforming it from a group driven by religious ideology into a criminal enterprise hungry for profit, U.N. sanctions monitors said in a new report. Taliban fighters pose with weapons at an undisclosed location in southern Afghanistan in this May 5, 2011 picture. REUTERS/Stringer/Files The latest annual report by the U.N. Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team on the Taliban was distributed to reporters on Friday, a day before Afghans vote in a run-off presidential election. “In addition to voluntary or forced

donations from Afghan businesses outside the country as well as voluntary donations motivated by religious or ideological convictions, the Taliban have established a fairly sophisticated system to generate resources inside the country,” the report said. “Increasingly Taliban finances also rely on abductions of wealthy businessmen for ransom.” The report said executing civilians and aid workers helps the Taliban reassert their power, block security improvements and prevent economic development 13 years after it was ousted from power by a U.S. invasion. It also creates new funding sources for the Taliban, hardline Islamists bent on toppling the Afghan government. “However, these activities increasingly change the character of parts of the movement from a group based on religiously couched ideology to a coalition of increasingly criminalized networks, guided by the profit motive,” the monitors said. Taliban revenue generation is uneven. In provinces such as Nimroz and Kandahar, the Taliban are financially self-sustaining, while others depend on payments from the central leadership. In Kandahar, the Taliban raise $7 million to $8 million a month from narcotics, extortion and mining, the report said. 20 PERCENT GOES TO FIGHTING GOVERNMENT The report includes details on Helmand, which it said is the Taliban’s main province for generating funds. Helmand is the top opium-producing region in Afghanistan, with some 100,000 hectares of land cultivated with poppy in 2013. In the worst case, it said, Afghan officials expect $50 million yield from this year’s Helmand poppy harvest. Most of Helmand’s poppy farmers can expect to pay 10 percent of their opium production as tax for the Taliban. Another lucrative Taliban business is illegal marble mining, which the monitors said is the second major revenue source in Helmand. “The illegal and unlicensed mining sector in the province appears to be several times larger than the legal mining sector,” the report


Prompt: Prime Minister Tony Abbott issues the warning on Wednesday morning. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Mr Abbott said on Wednesday the issue should be put to the public through a plebiscite following the next election, warning people not to "underestimate the magnitude" of legalising same-sex marriage. Queensland Liberal National Party backbencher Warren Entsch has said he still plans to introduce a private member's bill to legalise same-sex marriage next week. Mr Abbott said on Wednesday that it is "the standard position of our party that if a frontbencher cannot support the party's policy, that person has to leave the frontbench". "That has always

been our position," he told ABC radio. Prime Minister Tony Abbott during his late night press conference on Tuesday. Credit:Andrew Meares "As I said, if it does come before the Parliament, obviously our backbenchers are entitled to vote in the end, wherever way they want. "I would be disappointed if they went against the party position but nevertheless we have always accepted that in the end all votes in our party room for backbenchers at least are conscience votes." Illustration: Ron Tandberg Mr Abbott acknowledged he had rejected the idea of a popular vote less than three months ago by saying "questions of marriage are the preserve of the Commonwealth Parliament". Mr Abbott said this was his instinct at the time but he had now changed his mind. "Given the nature of this issue and the strength of feeling on the issue in the party room and the community, the disposition of the party room was to go into the next election with a commitment to put this issue to the people in the next term of Parliament," he told reporters. Mr Abbott said a popular vote on the issue was justified because it was such a "personal" and "contentious" issue that has only recently gained widespread support. "Please, let's not underestimate the magnitude of this as a cultural shift," he said. "Never before in this country or anywhere until very recently has this been regarded as an appropriate cultural norm." Speaking after the Irish referendum supporting same-sex marriage in May, Mr Abbott said: "Referendums are held in this country where there's a proposal to change the constitution. "I don't think anyone is suggesting the constitution needs to be changed in this respect." Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said that a national plebiscite or referendum would waste millions of dollars and


Prompt: Amazon’s first attempt at its own mobile wallet application, designed for use at the point-of-sale, has made a quiet debut on the Amazon Appstore and on Google Play. However, the current implementation of the new “Amazon Wallet” application is fairly barebones – it doesn’t yet support mobile payments or the ability to store credit cards or debit cards. Instead, the wallet only offers the ability to store and organize your gift cards and other store and loyalty cards. According to the app’s description, Amazon Wallet lets you either scan or type in your gift card, loyalty card and membership card’s

information to “reduce the clutter in your leather wallet or purse.” The cards are then available in a digital format as a barcode, QR code, text or image. For dozens of supported merchants, consumers are also able to check the balance of their stored gift cards. In addition to the mobile application, Amazon has also has a website for its Amazon Wallet service at www.amazon.com/wallet where you can log in and then add other gift cards to your account to have them appear in the mobile app. Here, you can manage your other payment methods – including credit cards, debit cards, and checking accounts – which can be used while shopping on Amazon.com, though not at point-of-sale. Though these additional payment methods aren’t available in the current implementation of the Amazon Wallet application, the company is known to have broader ambitions aimed at establishing itself as a payments competitor to the likes of PayPal or Google Wallet – especially in terms of peer-to-peer (person-to-person) payments, as well as an alternative to Square and others, where the Kindle tablet would serve as a merchant’s point-of-sale. Amazon Wallet, as a consumer-facing piece to this larger puzzle, is only in its early stages. It is a hint of what’s to come, if not the finalized product. The new Amazon Wallet app is currently listed as being in “beta,” and is also one of the apps that ships pre-installed on Amazon’s new Fire Phone devices. The wallet actually appeared on both app stores on July 17th, but has only recently been spotted by a number of Android fan blogs, including Android Police, Android Central, and TalkAndroid, to name a few. Those who have added commentary alongside the news of the app’s existence say it’s a pale competitor to the current wallet alternatives on the


Prompt: Here’s an offer for you: $38,004 per year, tax free.No work required.Apply at your local welfare office. The federal government funds 126 separate programs targeted towards low-income people, 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind benefits to individuals. (The rest fund community-wide programs for low-income neighborhoods, with no direct benefits to individuals.) State and local governments operate more welfare programs.Of course, no individual or family gets benefits from all 72 programs, but many do get aid from a number of them at any point in time. Today, the Cato institute is releasing a new study looking at the state-by-state

value of welfare for a mother with two children. In the Empire State, a family receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, public housing, utility assistance and free commodities (like milk and cheese) would have a package of benefits worth $38,004, the seventh-highest in the nation. While that might not sound overly generous, remember that welfare benefits aren’t taxed, while wages are. So someone in New York would have to earn more than $21 per hour to be better off than they would be on welfare.That’s more than the average statewide entry-level salary for a teacher. Plus, going to work means added costs such as paying for child care, transportation and clothing.Not to mention that, even if it’s not a money-loser, a person moving from welfare to work will see some form of loss — namely, less time for leisure as opposed to work. Is it any wonder, then, that, despite the work requirements included in the 1996 welfare reform, only 27.6 percent of adult welfare recipients in New York are working in unsubsidized jobs?(Another 13 percent are involved in the more broadly defined “work participation,” which includes job search, training and other things.) Welfare is slightly more generous in Connecticut, where benefits are worth $38,761; a person leaving welfare for work would have to earn $21.33 per hour to be better off.And in New Jersey, a worker would have to make $20.89 to beat welfare. Nationwide, our study found that the wage-equivalent value of benefits for a mother and two children ranged from a high of $60,590 in Hawaii to a low of $11,150 in Idaho. In 33 states and the District of Columbia, welfare pays more than an $8-an-hour job. In 12 states and DC, the welfare package is more generous than a $15-an-hour job.


Prompt: The American coal industry is terminally ill — and that should serve as a warning to investors who might be tempted to put their money into other fossil fuels. That’s the gist of a new report from the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which warns that oil and natural gas could also wind up becoming stranded assets — property that under other scenarios could be worth a lot of money, but not in the real situation we face as the climate warms and the market shifts in response. Coal use has been decoupled from America’s economic growth for a number of reasons,

the report finds. The biggest is the availability of other cheap sources of energy — since 2008, the abundance of shale gas from America’s fracking boom has played a big role in driving that trend, but so have renewable energies like solar and wind. Increasingly strict regulations on air pollution and the energy sector from the Obama administration’s EPA have also played a role. “Cheap gas has knocked coal off its feet, and the need to improve air quality and ever-lower renewables costs has kept coal down for the count,” said Luke Sussams, co-author of the report and a Carbon Tracker senior researcher. He and his colleagues posit that investors in oil, and eventually even natural gas, could see a similar trend. The Carbon Tracker Initiative was one of the first groups to promote the idea of a “carbon bubble,” in which, as the world confronts global warming, fossil fuel investors would see the value of their assets collapse. Companies stand to lose billions, the think tank said. This week’s Carbon Tracker report comes on the heels of a separate report from CoalSwarm and the Sierra Club that looks at international coal use. That picture, too, does not look good for fossil fuel investors. From “Boom and Bust: Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline”: In India, projects shelved or cancelled since 2012 outnumber project completions by six to one, and new construction initiations are at a near-standstill. In both Europe and the U.S., the coal fleet is shrinking, with retirements outnumbering new plants. China faces a looming glut in coal-fired generating capacity, with plant utilization rates at a 35-year low. The report also finds that more than two dozen U.S. coal companies have gone bankrupt in the past three years, and those that haven’t lost more than 80 percent of


Prompt: Police dashcam video showing the arrest of a former Miami-Dade teacher suspected of driving drunk with her child in the backseat last month was exclusively obtained by NBC 6 Friday. In the video, which is nearly two and a half hours long, Saryna Parker, a former 8th grade science teacher at South Dade Middle School, appears to be stumbling during a field sobriety test and slurring her words as she speaks, telling a Florida Highway Patrol trooper she wanted to kiss him. "I want to kiss you. If you don't stop looking at me like that, I'm going to kiss

you," Parker tells the trooper. According to the arrest report from the incident, during the test, Parker was unsteady, swayed, failed to follow directions, stumbled, and at one point touched the trooper on the back and said "I feel like I want to kiss you." 'I Want to Kiss You': Video Shows Teacher During DUI Arrest Police dashcam video showing the night a former Miami-Dade teacher suspected of driving drunk with her child in the backseat was arrested was exclusively obtained by NBC 6 Friday. (Published Friday, April 21, 2017) Parker was placed under arrest, and as she sat in back of the patrol car, she "violently kicked me in the groin with her right leg then continued to kick my right rear passenger side door," the officer wrote in the report. In the dashcam video, Parker can be heard admitting she kicked the trooper but says she was kicking the door. She can also be heard complaining about the students she taught. "I’m so f---ing tired of dealing with these p---- a-- teenagers...let me go home for a while," Parker says in the video. FHP officers responded to a report about a suspect crashing into a car on South Dixie Highway near Southwest 182nd Avenue in Homestead on March 19. School board officials said Parker was a probationary teacher and has been fired. She will never be allowed to apply to Miami-Dade Schools again, officials said. Parker was driving her Cadillac when she slammed into the back of a van, according to the arrest report. During the traffic investigation, the responding officer observed Parker slurring her speech and noticed the smell of alcohol on her breath, and saw a 10-year-old child in her backseat, the report said. Want to Spend a Night in Jail? It Just Takes $40 Want


Prompt: Three people you may have heard of—writer John Gruber, developer Brent Simmons, and designer Dave Wiskus—have joined forces to create Q Branch, an app development company whose first product is a $5 iPhone app called Vesper. The app, released Thursday, aims to help “collect your thoughts.” Yes, it’s Yet Another iPhone Notes App. But it’s one that’s meticulously and tastefully designed—not surprising, coming from the principals of Q Branch. I’ve spent the past few weeks beta-testing the app, and in advance of the release I also talked to Gruber, Simmons, and Wiskus (all of whom have written for Macworld in

the past) about what went into building it. A notebook in your iPhone There’s no shortage of notebook and reminder apps on iOS. I’ve used many of them, including Apple’s own Notes, Evernote, and a vast collection of text editors. And yet none of them has stuck for any length of time. The Q Branch group has had the same experience. Vesper's full list view. “I’d been waiting for [a note-taking app] I liked and wanted to use,” Simmons said. “That one just hadn’t appeared. There are good ones, for sure—but none that fit how I think and none that feel the way Vesper feels.” I certainly can’t guarantee that I’ll stick with Vesper for the long haul, but I’ve been using it quite a lot for the past few weeks. The app’s core is a simple list of notes. Each note has a title, displayed in bold, with the first couple of lines displayed below it. Tap and hold to “pick up” a note and re-order the list in any way you like. Tapping on a note enters the note editor. You can enter in as much text as you’d like, as well as attach a single image, which you can take directly from within Vesper or insert from your Camera Roll. Notes can be mailed, sent via message, or copied to the clipboard—there’s no syncing with other devices or any cloud-based sync services. Notes are organized via tags. Tap on the gray Tag button at the bottom of the note to add a tag, and a pretty orange pop-up will appear as you type, suggesting tags you’ve already entered. Autocompletion of tags. From the list view, you can tap the “hamburger” icon in the top left of the screen or just swipe from the left edge in order


Prompt: According to the Director of Medical Ethics at New York University, Donald Trump is “dangerous”, “a race baiting, evil, proto-Hitlerite”, and is “on the Hitler flightpath.” Dr. Arthur Caplan, a Bioethics professor and the Director of Medical Ethics at New York University, coauthored an article for the Poynter Institute on Monday in which he criticized the media for giving GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump “permission to spew hate.” "[T]hey fuel a race baiting, evil, proto-Hitlerite by treating him as buffoon." As Caplan tells it: “[i]t seems unlikely [that Trump can win]...Of course that is what the media said about a

funny-looking spewer of hate with an odd mustache who was dismissed as an awful public speaker and not a serious candidate in Germany in the 1930s.” According to Caplan, Donald Trump’s recent comments about illegal immigrants, which Caplan characterizes as “racist rhetoric,” “should be viewed in the repugnant tradition of Hitler.” Caplan does not limit his criticism to Trump. The sixteen Republicans vying for the party’s nomination, he says, are laying the groundwork for a Trump victory much like the thirty-seven political parties in the 1932 Reichstag elections enabled Hitler’s rise to power. “In the Reichstag elections of November 1932, held months before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, there were 37 different political parties competing in a melee that bears some resemblance to today’s Republican primary. Given a long time to spread racist drivel to a public nervous about preserving their national identity from ‘non-Germans,’ Adolf Hitler won,” Caplan writes. What’s more, Dr. Caplan—who, according to his faculty page, was named a 2001 USA Today Person of the year—continued his criticism on Twitter after the article went up. Folks Trump is rite on the Hitler flightpath. Blames minorities, racist, won't apologize, attracts disaffected, runs against establishment — Arthur Caplan (@ArthurCaplan) July 21, 2015 All trump is missing are brownshirts. He has all the rest. Dismiss him as a buffoon or a joke at the nation's peril. — Arthur Caplan (@ArthurCaplan) July 21, 2015 Media Is FuelingTrump http://t.co/wvs4FMCf76 via @nbcnews they fuel a race baiting, evil, proto-Hitlerite by treating him as buffoon — Arthur Caplan (@ArthurCaplan) July 21, 2015 To stop the “dangerous” Donald Trump from becoming President, Caplan says the media needs to begin taking Mr. Trump seriously and “hold him and the Republican Party accountable for the damage he does.” In an email to Campus Reform, Caplan explained his


Prompt: Court Dismisses Copyright Lawsuit, Noting IP Address Is Not Enough Evidence For Infringement from the nice-to-see dept Plaintiff’s complaint does not raise a plausible inference that any of the named defendants are liable for direct, contributory, or indirect copyright infringement. In the fact sections of the complaint, plaintiff carefully refrains from alleging that the owners of the IP address – i.e., the named defendants – are the ones who utilized the internet access to download the copyrighted material. Rather, plaintiff alleges that the IP address assigned to each defendant “was observed infringing Plaintiff’s motion picture” ... and that each named

defendant either (a) downloaded the BitTorrent “client” application and used it to download and share the copyrighted material or (b) permitted, facilitated, or promoted the use of their internet connections by others to download and share the copyrighted material .... Pursuant to plaintiff’s allegations, a particular defendant may have directly and intentionally stolen plaintiff’s copyrighted material, or she may simply have “facilitated” unauthorized copying by purchasing an internet connection which an unidentified third party utilized to download “Elf-Man.” Plaintiff provides no factual allegations that make one scenario more likely than the other: both are merely possible given the alternative allegations of the complaint. [....] The critical defect in this case is not the alternative pleading of claims of direct, contributory, and indirect infringement. Rather, the problem arises from the alternative pleading of the facts that are supposed to support those claims. The effect of the two “or” conjunctions means that plaintiff has actually alleged no more than that the named defendants purchased internet access and failed to ensure that others did not use that access to download copyrighted material. A few courts have noted similar things, but Fight Copyright Trolls and TorrentFreak both recently covered an interesting district court ruling out of Seattle, where Judge Robert Lansik noted that the producers of the movie Elf Man failed to state a claim for relief, since the only evidence they had was an IP address -- which wasn't enough to actually implicate any particular person in copyright infringement.Of course, we've seen plenty of copyright holders directly allege that failure of a internet account holder to stop infringement is somehow a violation of the law itself, but that's not what the law says at all. Here, the judge is correctly noting that make a huge inference from just the IP address to having


Prompt: The Partners in the Divorce Episode Summary A couple of homeless men stumble upon a burning corpse. As they try to figure out what it is, the brain explodes through the side of the skull. The Jeffersonian team reports to the scene. With no blow fly eggs or larvae, Hodgins cannot estimate time of death. Brennan guesses the victim was a Caucasian male based on the nasal root and brow ridge . She notices something metallic adhering to the sixth cervical vertebra. In the lab, Abernathy is squicked out by the gooey body. Xrays confirm the metallic object in the

neck and reveal multiple fractures to the ribs, both femora, and the tibiae. Based on the serial numbers on the stents in the heart, Saroyan gets a positive ID on the victim: Richard Bartlett, a divorce attorney for wealthy couples. Hodgins and Angela figure out that the metal in the victim was a fountain pen. Abernathy realizes that the concentric microfracturing to the occipital was the result of a fall not of the brain exploding when it was heated. Rattus norvegicus, the common brown rat. But the chef, although he had motive, had served Bartlett the same rat burger every week for two years and was waiting to see the look on his face when he told him. Angela puts Booth on the trail of Margo Sandoval, Bartlett's assistant who was also having an affair with his wife. But she was simply protecting Bartlett's wife by shredding things that documented their affair. Meanwhile, Booth and Sweets are trying to figure out who had motive to kill Bartlett. Former clients Melanie and Gavin were the last ones seen with Bartlett, but when Booth and Brennan visit them, they claim to have reconciled in anticipation of a new baby. Hodgins puts Sweets on the trail of a chef who was a former client after he finds that Bartlett's last meal was a burger made of, the common brown rat. But the chef, although he had motive, had served Bartlett the same rat burger every week for two years and was waiting to see the look on his face when he told him. Angela puts Booth on the trail of Margo Sandoval, Bartlett's assistant who was also having an affair with his wife. But she was simply protecting Bartlett's wife by shredding things that documented their affair. After Abernathy and Angela mock up


Prompt: DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – The U.S. government issued an urgent plea to nearly 8 million people to get the air bags in their cars fixed, amid concern that a defect in the devices can possibly kill or injure the driver or passengers. The inflator mechanisms in the air bags can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are deployed in crashes. Safety advocates say at least four people have died from the problem and there have been multiple injuries. Multiple automakers have recalled vehicles in the U.S. over the past two years to repair air bag inflators made

by Takata Corp., a Tokyo-based supplier of seat belts, air bags, steering wheels and other auto parts. The warning covers 7.8 million cars made by BMW, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota. Passenger or driver air bags or both could have the faulty inflators. In a statement Wednesday, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration warned owners of those cars to act right away. The agency has been investigating the problem since June, and has cited reports of six inflators rupturing, causing three injuries. Consumers who are uncertain whether their vehicle is impacted by the Takata recalls can contact their manufacturer with their vehicle identification number (VIN) to confirm whether their individual vehicle has an open recall that needs to be addressed. Worldwide, automakers have recalled about 12 million vehicles because of the problem. Safety advocates say the problem could affect more than 20 million vehicles in the U.S. Automakers have been recalling the cars to fix the problem for several years, but neither Takata nor NHTSA have identified a firm cause. The agency opened a formal investigation into the problem in June, and agency documents detail a theory that the chemical used to inflate the air bags can be altered by high humidity, making it explode with too much force while deploying. NHTSA Deputy Administrator David Friedman said in a statement that responding to the recalls is essential to keep people safe. “It will aid in our ongoing investigation into Takata air bags and what appears to be a problem related to extended exposure to consistently high humidity and temperatures,” he said. The agency, he said, is tracking down the “full geographic scope” of the issue. The rare warning by regulators comes three weeks after a Sept. 29 crash near Orlando, Florida, that claimed


Prompt: Some senior GOP women are fleeing the House, opting for retirement or deciding that they have better prospects running for higher office in 2018 than a spot in GOP leadership. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, is expected to jump into the race against Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill Claire Conner McCaskillPoll: 33% of Kentucky voters approve of McConnell McCaskill: Lindsey Graham 'has lost his mind' Trey Gowdy joins Fox News as a contributor MORE. GOP Rep. Kristi Noem is the front-runner in the race for South Dakota governor. And Republican Rep. Diane Black Diane

Lynn BlackLamar Alexander's exit marks end of an era in evolving Tennessee Juan Williams: The GOP's worsening problem with women How to reform the federal electric vehicle tax credit MORE, the new Budget Committee chairwoman, is eyeing the Tennessee governor’s mansion, GOP sources said. ADVERTISEMENT Meanwhile, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), a former Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman and the first Latina elected to Congress, and Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), who formerly served in leadership as GOP conference vice chairwoman, both are retiring at the end of this Congress. In interviews with The Hill, some female GOP lawmakers and their aides suggested that subtle sexism in the male-dominated House Republican Conference has blocked talented, experienced women from climbing the leadership ladder. Women comprise just 21 of the 238 Republicans in the House, or less than 10 percent. Of the 193 House Democrats with full voting privileges, there are 62 women — 32 percent of the caucus. “You think it would be helpful to be a female, but it’s sort of a detraction. I can’t believe I would say that, but it shows,” Ros-Lehtinen told The Hill. “Some of these guys, they just see themselves in those [top leadership] positions and they want it for themselves. And they think if it goes to a woman they will never be able to grab it again. “There are better staircases to use which will get you further than being in the House. That’s the reason they are running for other offices.” Democrats can point to Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE, who was


Prompt: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Singapore founder Lee Kuan Yew. File photo / Composite Despite both ruling with an iron fist, the late Singapore founder Lee Kuan Yew is extremely different from Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Singapore's biggest newspaper said Friday. In a strongly-worded opinion piece, the Straits Times scoffed at commentaries that Lee and Duterte had similar administrative styles and nation-building approaches. Lee, under an authoritarian rule, transformed Singapore from a third world to a first world country. He passed away in March 2015. "The analogy would have been interesting except that it is laughably inappropriate," wrote Global Affairs

associate editor Ravi Velloor. The first big difference between them, said the piece, was that Lee "was not a man to have a person's life taken away without absolute attention to due process." "People with no links to the drug trade, either as consumers or suppliers, have been assassinated in the process, perhaps to settle private vendettas. Criticism is met with abuse. An army of online warriors, some of whom are perhaps employed in the booming outsourcing industry, seem to be readily on hand to troll presidential critics, putting a fright into even seasoned commentators," it said. In Duterte's ongoing war against illegal drugs, at least 1,840 deaths have been recorded. Of this number, 1,088 were killed during police operations. Aside from this, the piece said Lee would never back away from a territorial claim "for the elusive promise of a few bags of silver in development aid." The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled last July that China's economic claim on the South China Sea was without basis. The Duterte administration, however, has been careful not to bring up the matter in international fora or with China, saying it wants to work with the rising superpower in resolving the issue. "The Duterte-ordered extrajudicial killings, and his gyrations on the maritime dispute with China, have raised a stench for the Philippines that is far more perverse than the haze that used to spread out from Indonesia. If it goes on for too long, it could potentially be a bone in ASEAN's throat," said the Straits Times. It also warned against signs that Duterte may be endangering the Philippines' once promising economic future. "Global investors have turned skittish in recent weeks as his coarse tongue and take-no-prisoner methods get attention," it said, citing the Peso dropping to a seven-year low. "Mr Duterte


Prompt: Image caption The school is also facing a probe by the Education Funding Agency A Muslim free school accused of imposing strict Islamic practices, such as segregated classrooms, has closed following an inspection by Ofsted. The BBC understands Ofsted's findings were so damning that the acting head of Al-Madinah, in Derby, had little choice but to shut it down immediately. The school said the move was due to a "health and safety issue" but expected it to reopen in the "very near future". Ofsted said it could not disclose its concerns until the inspection ended. It added it had "made

some findings and shared them with the principal". The second day of the inspection is taking place later. In a statement on the school's website titled "short term closure", interim principal Stuart Wilson said: "Owing to a health and safety issue, I have taken the decision to close the school... until I am confident that all children are safe on site. HOW FREE ARE FREE SCHOOLS? Free schools are "free" in as much as they are not bound or funded by local authorities. Instead, they receive their funds directly from central government and have increased autonomy over the curriculum they follow, teachers' pay and conditions and the length of school terms and days. However, they are not free to do whatever they wish and must follow statutory and recommended procedures, much like any other maintained school. For example, all schools must have a child protection policy and all teachers and other adults who have contact with pupils must have an enhanced criminal records check. Free schools are inspected by watchdog Ofsted and have a duty to enter pupils for public exams such as national curriculum tests (Sats) and GCSEs; they are held to account by pupils' results, again as maintained school are. In terms of admissions, free schools cannot select by ability, but can select up to 10% of pupils on aptitude for a specialism such as sport or art. Faith-based free schools must admit at least 50% of pupils "without reference to faith" when the school is oversubscribed. "As parents, you will be informed directly, and on the website, when you are able to send your children back to school... "Assuring you that we have your children's best interests at heart." In a series of newspaper reports unnamed former staff members of Al-Madinah, which opened as a free school


Prompt: Sometimes greatness is hard to spot. Before going on to lead the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships, Michael Jordan was famously cut from his high school basketball team. Scientists often face rejection of their own—in their case, the gatekeepers aren’t high school coaches, but journal editors and peers they select to review submitted papers. A study published today indicates that this system does a reasonable job of predicting the eventual interest in most papers, but it may shoot an air ball when it comes to identifying really game-changing research. Studying peer review is difficult due to the confidential nature

of the process, but sociologist Kyle Siler of the University of Toronto in Canada and colleagues were able to examine the peer-review history of 1008 articles that were submitted to three elite medical journals: Annals of Internal Medicine, The BMJ, and The Lancet. In total, just 62 of the manuscripts were accepted (6.2%), confirming just how difficult it is to be published in a top-tier journal. Editors “desk rejected” 722 of the manuscripts, meaning they never made it to the journal’s peer-review stage. However, 757 of the initially rejected articles eventually went on to be published elsewhere. This allowed Siler and his team to analyze if, like Jordan, the vetoed papers would go on to achieve greatness. The researchers found that, by and large, the gatekeeping system was predictive of a paper’s eventual number of citations. Papers that were accepted outright by one of the three elite journals tended to garner more citations than papers that were rejected and then published elsewhere, they report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Additionally, papers that were desk rejected went on to receive fewer citations than papers that were approved by an editor, but then rejected during the subsequent peer-review process. “It’s a sign that these editors making snap decisions really quickly still have a nose for what quality is and isn’t,” Siler says. There is a serious chink in the armor, though: All 14 of the most highly cited papers in the study were rejected by the three elite journals, and 12 of those were bounced before they could reach peer review. The finding suggests that unconventional research that falls outside the established lines of thought may be more prone to rejection from top journals, Siler says. Part of the disparity may also arise from using citations


Prompt: Julian Assange just trolled the world's media. After announcing that he would be making a statement on the steps of the Ecuadorian embassy, where he has been in self-imposed confinement for the last two weeks, speculation began to mount as to whether he would be leaving the embassy for good. So tortured has the whole saga become that there was even discussion about what the legal status of the embassy's steps were. Are they Ecuadorian land, in which case he would be able to return to the embassy after, or are they technically British, which would leave him open to

re-arrest. In the end, it didn't matter. What we got was a statement, with no chance for follow-up questions, from Susan Benn, one of the board members of the Julian Assange Defence Fund, which largely reiterated what we already know. The statement opened by revealing that the Met asked Assange to report to Belgravia police station at 11:30 this morning, and that although he decided not to obey the request, "this should not be considered disrespect". What followed was largely the spreading of fear, uncertainty and doubt. The first half of the statement focused on the moves made against Assange in the United States, as well as the horrendous treatment meted out to Private Manning, the alleged source for Wikileaks' famous dump of diplomatic cables. Although much of what was said, regarding efforts to indict him, the convening of a grand jury, and the desire to charge him with conspiracy to commit espionage, is true – if perhaps overstated – it is also largely irrelevent to the question of whether Assange should be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape. The only tenuous link to the actual matter at hand was that "informal talks between the US and Sweden have been conducted". One would be surprised if they had not, and the existence of "talks" does not reveal anything about their content. Indeed, it would be unlikely if the US had also not had "informal talks" with Ecuador by now, although Assange will be hoping Ecuador's response is curt. Benn did turn to the Swedish allegations, and although she avoided one common line from Assange's supporters - that of minimising his alleged crimes altogether - there were other exaggerations and misstatements. Benn characterised the last ten days spent in Wandsworth Prison as "solitary confinement", as well as claiming that


Prompt: Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the U.S. Diplomacy Center at the State Department in 2014. On Thursday, he addressed an email he sent to Hillary Clinton telling her that he used a personal computer to do business with other officials and foreign leaders. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said in a statement Thursday that he was not trying to “influence” Hillary Clinton when he sent her an email telling her he used a personal computer attached to a private phone line to do business with foreign leaders and

State Department officials, but rather to explain his own technological practices years earlier. And for those practices, Powell offered no apologies. “I have been interviewed by the State Department [inspector general] and the FBI about my actions and decisions,” Powell said in a statement. “I stand by my decisions and I am fully accountable.” Powell issued the statement after Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) released a January 2009 email exchange between Powell and Clinton. Responding to a question from Clinton about restrictions on BlackBerry use, Powell wrote that he didn’t have such a device, but he did have “a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line.” [Read the full exchange between Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton] “So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department servers,” Powell wrote. “I even used it to do business with some foreign leaders and some of the senior folks in the Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels.” Later, after writing at length about what he perceived as overblown concerns about spies accessing his devices, Powell advised Clinton that the “real danger” was that her correspondence on a BlackBerry could ultimately be made public. “If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it [sic] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law,” Powell wrote. He added later: “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.” According to a report by the State Department’s inspector general, Powell had already acknowledged using a laptop on a private line and sending notes to ambassadors and


Prompt: The number of illegal drug samples containing fentanyl has doubled every year in Canada since dealers began smuggling a black market version of the prescription painkiller into the country, new figures show. The figures, based on samples seized by police and analyzed by Health Canada's Drug Analysis Service, provide the first national snapshot of how rapidly illicit fentanyl has moved east from British Columbia. Amid a dearth of national surveillance data on Canada's deadly opioid crisis, the lab results provide fresh evidence of a booming underground market in fentanyl. A Globe and Mail investigation last year revealed how China's chemicals

industry has helped foster a market for illicit fentanyl in Canada. Story continues below advertisement Read more: Fentanyl's deadly path: How the powerful drug gets across Canada's border and into the hands of users Read more: A Killer High: How Canada got addicted to fentanyl Read more: On Cheque Day, a toxic mix of money and drugs in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside As the death toll from illicit drugs climbs, more communities are sounding the alarm. Mayors of Canada's biggest cities plan to meet on Friday with federal ministers to discuss a "co-ordinated response to an unprecedented rash of opioid overdoses and deaths." Unlike the United States, Canada does not have national systems tracking the number of overdose deaths or visits to hospital emergency departments – a gap federal Health Minister Jane Philpott has pledged to fill. "In the absence of real-time monitoring, we are looking to seizure data, [emergency] calls and on-the-ground reports," said Michael Parkinson, a community engagement co-ordinator with the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council. Laboratories operated by Health Canada detected fentanyl in 3,721 illegal drug samples in 2016, compared with just 231 in 2012, according to statistics obtained by The Globe. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement While fentanyl accounted for a tiny portion of all drug samples, it is growing at a faster rate than other categories. Benoit Archambault, national director of the Drug Analysis Service, said the labs received 120,000 samples in 2016, up 2 per cent to 3 per cent a year. British Columbia, the centre of the opioid crisis, accounted for half of all samples containing fentanyl in 2016 and saw its numbers triple from 2015, the statistics show. But every province and territory has been exposed to the powerful opioid. The number of samples containing fentanyl doubled between 2015 and


Prompt: Gov. Bill Haslam took part in a panel discussion with Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, HCA chief financial officer Bill Rutherford and two other health care executives on Saturday. (Photo11: John Partipilo, The Tennessean) NASHVILLE — Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam will get a chance to reopen talks with the federal government over expanding the state's Medicaid program when he sits down Sunday with the Department of Health and Human Services' new leader. The Republican governor and Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell are scheduled to meet for the first time since Burwell replaced Secretary Kathleen Sebelius last month. The closed-door meeting will take

place on the final day of the National Governors Association's summer conference in Nashville. The meeting comes as Haslam faces mounting criticism for not agreeing to offer TennCare, the state's Medicaid program, to more adults as called for under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Haslam and Burwell also will sit down a day before a deadline for the state to respond to a stinging letter from federal Medicaid director Cindy Mann that said Tennessee is failing to meet the law's requirements. "I wouldn't call it a totally new start," he said. "But I think when you have a new, key player it matters to sit down." On Saturday, Haslam presided over a panel at the NGA conference that touched on Medicaid expansion and state innovation. Andrew Dreyfus, president and chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, said his state had all but eliminated the uninsured since it put its version of the ACA into effect in 2007. He also said the state had begun to make headway on costs, mainly by shifting doctors into programs that pay them for how well their patients do, rather than for each service they provide. Dreyfus said the federal government should give states latitude to design their own programs. "We're actually going to end up with five or six flavors, or variations, of how the ACA is going to play out," he said. "I think that state experimentation with varieties is going to take us very far." Bill Rutherford, chief financial officer and executive vice president of Nashville-based Hospital Corporation of America, said during his remarks that its costs to provide care to the uninsured had dropped 30 percent in the five states that the company operates in that had expanded their Medicaid programs. Haslam said he believes providers and insurers in


Prompt: I have just found out something that has excited my greatly while reading the latest edition of Practical Reptile Keeping. Well any news of this kind is enough to excite any reptile enthusiast, but it excited me a little more this time around. Me and my girlfriend are currently saving up for a working holiday in Australia, which we aim to be setting off sometime in late 2015 if all goes well. While we are over there, I am hoping to not only gain more experience in working with reptiles and amphibians, but to also see the variety of species

in their natural habitat while travelling the continent. Well cut to the chase, the news is that there have been new herp species discovered in Cape York Peninsula, North-East Australia. These include a leaf-tailed gecko, a golden-coloured skink and a boulder-dwelling frog. In this area of Australia, there is a place called Cape Melville which is a sort of mountain range filled with exceptionally large black granite boulders. Earlier this year, the National Geographic Expedition Council and a film crew choppered into this largely unexplored area and weren’t disappointed in what they discovered. The nature of this landscape has effectively stranded several species of animals away from the rest of the continent by a border of hot, dry forest, for possibly millions of years. The gecko that the team found is a species of leaf-tailed gecko, that bears a resemblance I think to one of my favourites, the aptly named satanic leaf-tailed gecko. Though due to the isolation that these animals have endured, they are rather different to their relatives. It spends its daytime hidden away in those granite boulders, emerging at night to hunt in much cooler temperatures. Although hunting maybe isn’t an appropriate word to use based on the method carried out by the geckos, they rather ambush their prey while lurking in the cracks and crevices of the boulders. They have very slender bodies, making their legs appear unusually long, and their colour gives effective camouflage. The second creature found was a species of skink, with a beautiful gold colour to its skin. Reptiles never fail to impress with their variety of colours and patterns. This animal is also long and slender in limbs and body, but is more active in the day unlike the gecko. The name given to this skink (Saproscincus saltus) was assigned because


Prompt: MANKATO, Minn. — Jared Allen has always appreciated the honor of being selected to the Pro Bowl and spending the week with his peers in Hawaii. The Minnesota Vikings’ five-time Pro Bowl defensive end said one of his best NFL memories was his first Pro Bowl in 2007 and last year he waited out surgery on his left shoulder and right knee to appear in the game. As one of the perennial Pro Bowlers in the league, Allen is against the changes to the game that the league announced this week. “I’m disappointed that it’s come to this and that

we’re always trying to find some way to create new ratings or create a new fan experience,” Allen said Friday. “At some point it’s got to be about the players. This is our honor and they should at least talk to us before they make this change.” Article continues below ... The league made several radical changes to the Pro Bowl which will take place starting at the end of this season. Changes include the elimination of kickoffs and the elimination of the return spot in lieu of an extra defensive back, a change which has come under fire from some players. Return specialists will no longer be eligible to be selected and could lose money in regards to Pro Bowl incentives in their contracts. The league announced the changes this week, stating they were made in conjunction with Dominique Foxworth, the president of the league’s players association. The league is also doing away with the traditional AFC vs. NFC format and will include a fantasy football-type televised draft in which players will be selected with the help of Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders. Eliminating the kickoffs, teams will start each quarter with possession on the 25-yard line. Other changes include a new two-minute warning at the end of the first and third quarters with the ball changing hands at the end of the quarter. Voting will also change with rosters that will consist of 43 players per team, with selection no longer reserved for AFC and NFC squad. Defenses will also have the ability to play Cover-2 or press coverage as opposed to strict man coverages as in the past. “These new rules I hear about are disappointing,” Allen said. “I think there wasn’t anything wrong with it as far as AFC-NFC and sometimes we try


Prompt: Worldbuilding Things pertaining to creating worlds and the people, places, governments, creatures, and everything else within them. General Culture Country & Culture-Development Questions Questions to help you develop your countries and their cultures, whether they're fantastic fairytale kingdoms or futuristic space colonies. Tips To Create Fictional Philosophies & Value Systems How to create and develop philosophies and value systems - even ones that are very different from what we're familiar with already. Moral & Ethical System Development Questions Things to ask to help you work out the details and implications of your setting's moral and ethical systems. On Creating Fantasy

Alphabets Just some tips and brain-stretchers I wrote on creating fantasy alphabets. Tips 'n Stuff To Make Better Science Fiction/Fantasy Slang & Swear Words Make better, catchier, and more potent SF slang and swears! "I Need A Name For My Town/City!" - Help Coming Up With Names For Fictional Towns And Cities At a loss for naming your town or city? Here are some tips and things that might help. Town & City Development Questions Things to ask yourself when you're developing your towns and cities. Holiday Development Questions Questions to ask yourself to help you develop fictional holidays. Tips To Create Richer & More Realistic Fantasy & Science Fiction Cultures & Civilizations If you want your fantasy or science fiction worlds to really feel like something that really could exist somewhere, check this out. Designing Fictional Fashion: Figuring Out What Your SF Characters Wear Principles to help you figure out what your science fiction, fantasy, or future characters wear. A Few Things Writers Need To Know About The Medieval Period Some essentials to know if you're working on or thinking about working on anything inspired by the Middle Ages. A Few Things Writers Need To Know About Medieval Feudalism Many European governments used this system during the Middle Ages, so if you plan to write anything inspired by or set in it, it's crucial to know about it. Things To Know When Writing Historical Fiction & Fictional History - NEW! There are some frequent errors people make here, so this article will clear them up. General Mythology Human Psychology and its Effect on Myths, Legends, and Superstition A well-developed world needs myths and legends. Here I explore a bit on how they might be born. Basic Tips To Create More Believable Sci-Fi & Fantasy Religions & Belief Systems Create


Prompt: Video, citation shed new light on baby bison euthanized in Yellowstone Share This YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — A Utah woman says she encountered the young bison calf that was euthanized after tourists put the animal in their vehicle. EastIdahoNews.com broke the story that gained worldwide attention this past week. Natalie Kinzel told KUTV 2News she was at Yellowstone on May 9 when she saw a herd of bison crossing a river. She recorded video with her phone as a little bison was swept downstream and ignored by the herd. The calf eventually made it out of the water but

was left all alone. “It was just heart-wrenching because it was literally collapsing, and there was no buffalo around,” Kinzel told KUTV. Kinzel kept recording as the calf alternated between leaning against her car and standing there, shivering. “It was so pitiful,” Kinzel said. “We were teary eyed when we left.” It’s impossible to say for certain that the bison in her video is the same one that ended up being euthanized, but Kinzel is convinced it is. She says all the details match up — same place, same time of day, and same description of a baby animal lost and cold. Meanwhile, a citation given to the tourist who put the bison calf in his car is shedding further light on what happened. Shamash Kassam, who was with his son visiting from Canada, told officers the bison was in the middle of the road, wet and shivering, and would not leave their vehicle for 20 minutes. Kasaam said they waited to see if any bison would come back for the calf. “After 20 minutes they still could not see any bison anywhere in the vicinity, the bison calf would not leave their vehicle, appearing to be seeking warmth from the engine, and Kasaam stated he decided to pick up the bison calf or it would have been road kill,” the citation states. Courtesy photo Kasaam drove to the Buffalo Ranch and called law enforcement. The responding officer told Kasaam that he was preventing the bison’s mother from locating it and possibly altering its ability to survive in the wild. “Kasaam states that he understood what he did was wrong and he would never pick up or disturb any wildlife again, and instead would wait at the scene and call for law enforcement,” the citation states. The document says a


Prompt: This school treats its most troubled students like trailer trash, whistleblowers say. The principal of William Cullen Bryant HS in Long Island City, Queens, has rounded up more than 20 failing kids with behavior problems — and put them in a trailer where they stay all day. Principal Namita Dwarka calls the boxy, red trailer housing the confined misfits “the Scholars Academy.” Teachers come to the trailer for English, math, science, history and other classes. Even lunch is brought in. If kids go into the cafeteria, they are not served, one told The Post. The only break is phys ed

in the yard, when a teacher “rolls out the balls.” “Most of the kids are not happy with the situation,” a staffer said. Some “act crazy” during class, making it difficult to concentrate on work, one trailer student said. Others defiantly listen to music on headphones. The trailer empties out as the day goes on. By the last two periods, “everybody leaves, nobody stays there,” the student said. If he sticks it out, he’s the only one in the trailer besides the teacher. “She just sits there, looks at me, and waits for the bell to ring,” he said. A dean lets him sign in and leave. The student’s mom was shocked to learn of the cooped-up conditions. “I thought it was the regular school,” she said. “You might as well send them to Rikers Island.” Teachers describe the trailer assignment as “challenging.” “It’s a struggle to teach these kids,” one said. “They are not easy kids to deal with.” Staffers said the trailer may get laptop computers so students can do online “credit recovery” to make up for failed classes. Others say the isolation is not conducive to success. “These are kids with a lot of issues,” said Gus Prentzas, president of the Bryant HS parents association. “To have them locked up in a space like this is unacceptable.” Prentzas called the trailer — which looks “like a shipping container” — not only jail-like, but a potential health hazard. Teachers have reported seeing mold in the trailer, which is air-conditioned and has a couple of small windows. Officials said the trailer was inspected but no mold was found. Two other trailers hold classes that regular students attend for single periods. The “Scholars Academy” “is designed to provide extra academic support in a safe and structured environment,” a DOE spokesperson


Prompt: Got a question for Philologos? Ask him directly at philologos@mosaicmagazine.com. My previous column dealt with linguistic evidence for Israelite sailors’ having reached India from Palestine in the time of King Solomon. About it, Anson Laytner writes: In Solomon’s day there was no Palestine, so the trip would have been impossible! Seriously, though, if Mosaic’s own team misuses terminology, what about the rest of us? Perhaps it is time for you to write something on the geographical names Judah, Israel, Judaea, Palestine, etc. Seriously, this is a subject that I have written on—and more than once during my years as a

Jewish-language columnist. And yet, although I dislike having to repeat myself, perhaps Anson Laytner is right that it deserves to be written about again. Few place names these days arouse quite as much passion as does “Palestine,” nearly all of it directed against Israel. To any Jew who was old enough to read at the time the state of Israel was created, this can only seem grimly ironic, because “Palestine” was once a Jewish word, too. I can’t watch a news clip of anti-Israel demonstrators chanting “Palestine will be free/ From the river to the sea!” without remembering the blue-and-white Jewish National Fund collection box that stood in the kitchen of my parents’ New York apartment in 1947-48, when I was a boy of eight or nine. On it, across a map of the Jewish homeland, was written in flowing letters: “Fight for a Free Palestine!” There was nothing exceptional about this. English and French “Palestine,” German Palästina, Polish Palestyna, Russian Палестина: this was the standard word in European languages, used by Jews no less than by others, for the country whose greater part was renamed Israel after 1948. It had been the standard word since the early 19th century, when it gradually replaced the term “the Holy Land” that had been in use in the Christian world in medieval and early modern times. When, in 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, it proclaimed, “His Majesty’s government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Jews, unless they were anti-Zionist, were exultant over this wording. It was the Arabs who weren’t. Sign Up For Our E-Mail List Get the latest from Mosaic right in your inbox Daily Weekly It is true that in speaking or writing Jewish languages like Yiddish, Hebrew,


Prompt: For the fourth year running, here are some of my favorite articles, videos, games, photography, discussions, and design pieces that I linked to in 2007. After you’re done with these, try the lists from 2004, 2005, and 2006. The streets of Portland are an ice skating rink for cars in this video. Reconsidering the original three Star Wars movies in light of the prequels. R2D2 = top rebel spy. Adam Gadahn’s journey from rural California teen and death metal fan to a trusted member of Osama bin Laden’s team of operatives. Chris Jordan’s photo series, Running the Numbers. Michael Poliza’s

aerial photos of Africa. More here. Malcolm Gladwell on Enron and the difference between puzzles and mysteries, investigationally speaking. Smashing Telly, a collection of TV on the web, with an emphasis on documentaries and factual programs. I liked David’s post on Zeitgeist and FEBLs. Video of an autistic person describing the language she uses to communicate with her surroundings. Good People, a short story by David Foster Wallace. Nicholas Felton’s personal annual report for 2006. A pair of posts from Neatorama on photography: 13 Photographs That Changed the World and The Wonderful World of Early Photography. The 51 Smartest, Prettiest, Coolest, Funniest, Most Influential, Most Necessary, Most Important, Most Essential Magazines Ever. Susan Orlean on Robert Lang, former physicist and current world-class origami master. Here’s my post on Lang. A Line Rider masterpiece. (Line Rider?) Kremlin Inc., a story of Vladimir Putin’s de facto dictatorship of Russia. 2007 was the year of book art: Thomas Allen’s pulp cutouts, Cara Barer’s water-crumpled books, Nina Katchadourian’s Sorted Books whose spines tell small stories, and Brian Dettmer’s book sculptures. Joel Johnson’s great post on Gizmodo scolding the site’s writers, gadget makers, and the site’s readers “for supporting the disgusting cycle of gadget whoring”. Denis Darzacq’s photographs of people seemingly floating above the pavement. Panoramic photos from the Apollo missions. These are stunning. Michael Pollan on the rise of nutritionism. His advice for healthy eating: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Desktop Tower Defense. This would top my Ten Best Games of the Year list if I’d done one. On Conscientious, several photographers answer the question “What makes a great photo?” Shorpy, a photoblog of old photographs, and FFFFOUND!, an image bookmarking site. Neither is probably legal in the strict sense, but they’re both great online curated galleries. Alberto Forero has collected a


Prompt: AND so, we're off! Last night the Australian Football League (AFL) season began. It's a time for reclaiming footy scarves from the back of the wardrobe, scheduling home games into the calendar and entering the work footy-tipping competition. Research has demonstrated that male sport fans think women are less dedicated and serious about following sport. Below is a list of four different fan types that we identified from our research talking to female AFL fans around the country - the largest study of its kind undertaken in Australia. We found the 68 women we interviewed are obsessive about Aussie Rules

and every bit as committed as their male counterparts. These self-identified fans agreed to take part in our study after hearing about it through their club, via friends or through advertisements placed in newspapers and online. We also discovered the process by which women become fans is more complicated and interesting than most people previously imagined. From our results, we developed the following four types: In the bloods You were born into footy. You cannot remember a time when you didn't go to games on the weekend. Your childhood heroes wore a number on their back. In the bloods: • have parent(s) who are/were keen fans; may also have other relatives closely associated with the sport • started to attend games with parents and were socialised into football fandom from an early age • are from a state where Aussie Rules is the major football code (Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia), or their parents are • consider fandom, including an unbreakable connection with a particular team, to be an important aspect of their identity • are among 62% of fans from our sample group Learners Footy hasn't always been your passion but you've never hated it, either. Watching the occasional game on TV and going to a few matches with mates was enough to pique your interest. On the Couch is now essential viewing. You wonder how you ever lived without footy. Learners: • developed an appreciation of Aussie Rules progressively from attending games with others and/or watching football on television • attend more games as knowledge and enjoyment of the sport grows • eventually become ardent fans • are among 24% of the female fans we spoke to Converts Becoming a fan was a revelation. Something switched in your brain the moment the siren sounded, the crowd cheered


Prompt: The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) project is an index of linked open data citations and ontological connections that cross-tabulate the following: archaeological site names or identifiers culture histories artifact typologies sociocultural definitions of site use practical representations of investigative methods and information qualities As its base layer, DINAA adapts governmental heritage management datasets for broader open and public uses. DINAA is an exercise in open government data and community data sharing based on open source standards and ethics. DINAA (from construction, through rollout, and into future planning) is an example of how digital is simply the way

we do archaeology now, and what that means for us as professionals and social scientists. DINAA is a multi-institutional partnership between the University of Tennessee, Indiana University South Bend, and the Alexandria Archive Institute, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF #1216810 & #1217240). Our partners in many State Historic Preservation Offices and/or state archaeology offices have been amazingly enthusiastic and forthcoming in their provision of data to this end. To facilitate the interoperation and reuse of these heterogeneous governmental digital data, DINAA’s workflows, infrastructure, and products emphasize openness and contextual controls. DINAA’s 2014 goal is to integrate governmentally-curated public data from offline and online digital repositories, representing up to twenty US states, describing over half a million archaeological sites in eastern North America. See Open Context. DINAA promotes broad public extension and reuse by researchers, educators, government officials, and interested stakeholders including indigenous peoples, who may of course cross-cut any and all of the preceding categories. We strive to lower barriers to engagement and will provide direct instruction for any user to incorporate DINAA query results with open source applications like QGIS as GEOJSON files. DINAA involves methodologies and workflows typical of many open science and digital humanities programs. DINAA is meant to be open and participatory, and the long-term goal for the project is stable perpetuation as an open source, community-maintained entity, overseen by a volunteer board and a set of principles likely derived from existing and widely supported models like Creative Commons and the GNU and Open Source Software definitions. However, in construction and maintenance, the distributed nature of data production related to DINAA, coupled with protections for sensitive data (locational, personal, and cultural), add layers of organizational complexity that can only be resolved by people. Ethically negotiating these issues demands collaboration between stakeholder communities, but the


Prompt: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed concern about billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer's ad campaign calling for President Trump's impeachment, according to a report from Politico. Pelosi publicly called the ad "great" during an appearance on MSNBC. But in private, she reportedly told lawmakers at a Democratic leadership meeting the ad was a "distraction" and had reached out to Steyer to express her displeasure ADVERTISEMENT A source close to Steyer said the two have not spoken since the ad's launch. The Hill has reached out to Pelosi's office for comment. The report comes after Steyer in October launched a

$10-million national ad campaign calling for Trump's impeachment. In the ad, Steyer criticizes Trump's actions on health care, immigration and the environment, and says a Republican Congress impeached Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonInviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Howard Schultz must run as a Democrat for chance in 2020 Trump says he never told McCabe his wife was 'a loser' MORE for less. Trump in turn ripped Steyer in a tweet last week, calling him "wacky" and "totally unhinged." Wacky & totally unhinged Tom Steyer, who has been fighting me and my Make America Great Again agenda from beginning, never wins elections! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2017 Steyer, who has been seen as a potential primary challenger to Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dianne Emiel FeinsteinHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Ocasio-Cortez adviser says Sunrise confrontation with 'old-timer' Feinstein 'sad' Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid MORE (D-Calif.), is not the only Democratic figure calling for Trump's impeachment. Rep. Al Green Alexander (Al) N. GreenThe Hill's Morning Report - Presented by the American Academy of HIV Medicine - Next 24 hours critical for stalled funding talks Democrat vows to move forward with impeachment, dividing his party Citing Virginia race scandals, Dem vows vote to impeach Trump MORE (D-Texas), who has long talked about pursuing impeachment against the president, unveiled articles of impeachment early last month. However, when the GOP presiding officer moved to begin the process to consider the resolution within the hour, Green did not show up. The resolution was therefore not offered and is not getting an imminent vote. Pelosi has called for


Prompt: We are excited to announce the date and details of the ZRX token launch. Purchasers will be required to go through a mandatory registration process that will take place from August 9th to August 11th. Registered purchasers will then be able to participate in the token launch starting August 15th. Detailed registration and purchase instructions will be released in early August. To learn more about the technical aspects of 0x protocol and the role of ZRX within the network, see our FAQ. Alternatively, watch the technical overview presentation that I recently gave at Coinbase Code School. Our Values Technology First

Amir Bandeali and I dropped everything to begin working on 0x protocol back in October 2016 and have since built out an exceptional team. We are a collection of builders and technologists that are laser focused on developing the infrastructure needed to bring the benefits of decentralization to the global financial system. While Ethereum has seen an explosion of interest over the past few months, our team will continue to take a long term view on this important technology and honor our commitment to the community. Consistently Shipping Not only will 0x protocol be live on the Ethereum mainnet prior to our token launch, we will be using 0x protocol for our token launch. That’s right, we will distribute ZRX using our fully-functional and thoroughly audited smart contracts running on the Ethereum mainnet. One of our team’s core values is to consistently ship useful tools and products. No amount of marketing can substitute for tangible results and over the past year our team has been working hard to build tools that make 0x protocol useful and accessible for both end users and developers. 0x OTC is a web application that allows users to trade ERC20 tokens directly on the Ethereum blockchain using 0x protocol. We envision 0x OTC facilitating private over-the-counter trades between known counterparties. Behind the scenes, our smart contracts are running on the Kovan test network; try it out today. 0x.js is a javascript library that simplifies the process of building a web application on top of 0x protocol. With 0x.js, you don’t need to be a Solidity expert to interact with the 0x smart contracts, generate orders or execute trades. Financial Responsibility The total purchase cap for the ZRX token launch will be set to $24M. We arrived at this number after formalizing our development roadmap and


Prompt: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images I am sure that there are Bear’s fans of all ages reading this article right now and I am sure that these Bears fans will have a special hatred for the Dolphins. Why? This isn’t a strong rivalry like the Bears versus the Packers or the Bears versus the Vikings so why make such a big deal about games played between these two teams? It’s simple. In both the 1985 and 2006 NFL seasons, the Dolphins have been the team to stop the Bears from continuing forward with an undefeated season. It’s ironic because the Dolphins are

the only team in NFL history to go undefeated (their 1972 season) and they managed to be the team to knock the Bears twice. So what happened in those two games that forced the Bears to lose and miss the chance to go undefeated? Why was it the Dolphins who knocked the Bears out? Let’s find out by looking at those two games and those four teams as we get ready for the Bears versus the Dolphins on Thursday Night Football this week. The famed Monday Night game took place on December 2, 1985 in Miami. The Bears came into this game undefeated and had been sporting the famed “46” defense, the brainchild of former Bear’s defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan. The defense had been giving teams big problems all season long and no one could seem to stop them. That is until they came to Miami. The Bears came into this game shutting down opponents with that defense and playing some of the best football in NFL history. Could Miami figure out how to beat this defense and send the Bears back to Chicago with their first loss of the season? There was one other factor built into this game for the Dolphins. In attendance at this game were several members of that 1972 Dolphins team and they didn’t want to see their “grand” lone achievement all of a sudden be accomplished by someone else. Although it may not have been spoken so much on the sidelines, you can tell that those 1972 Dolphins wanted those 1985 Dolphins to stop the streak. The Dolphins ended up beating the Bears 38-24 in a game that can best be described as a shootout. The Bears defense, so good in every other game that season, could not solve the Dolphin’s offense in this


Prompt: It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie about making supersoldiers. Scientists have turned shy, low-ranking mice into aggressive fighters who almost always win in dominance competitions. And they did it by stimulating a part of the mouse brain that controls "effortful" behavior. Mice are social animals, and male mice establish a pecking order amongst themselves by displaying aggressive behavior. Though this aggression can take many forms, neuroscientist Zhou Tingting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, joined with his colleagues to measure mouse dominance using what's called the "tube test." The tube test creates a scenario in

which there's not enough room for the mice to pass each other in the tube. Mice have to shove one another aside to get out. The mouse who shoves the most other mice out of its way will "win" the dominance game. In a recent article for Science, Zhou and his colleagues write that "winner mice initiated significantly more pushes, and with a longer duration per push, than loser mice." Winners weren't stronger than losers; they were simply more persistently aggressive. The researchers also found that the winner mice showed brain activity in a cluster of neurons called the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), which is associated with "effortful behavior" and "social dominance." Mice whose dmPFC was quiet during tube tests always lost. Zhou and his colleagues wondered whether they could create "winner" mice by stimulating the dmPFC. Using a brain stimulation technique called "optogenetics" that triggers neural activity with proteins and light, they stimulated the dmPFC region of a low-ranking mouse's brain. Then the low-ranking mouse took the tube test with a high-ranking mouse. Immediately, the loser mouse began to shove the winner mouse vigorously, winning almost every contest. There are a lot of interesting implications here for further research. First of all, winning social dominance contests is clearly not just a matter of physical strength. Having an aggressive attitude is key to winning. And second, there is the question of whether this kind of technique would work on other animals and perhaps even humans. Mouse brains are similar to human brains in some ways, but our brains are far more complicated. That makes it unlikely that a shy person could be transformed into RoboCop with just one squirt of photons from a brain implant. Perhaps more interesting is how researchers found they could permanently transform loser mice into winners,