Prompt: CLEVELAND, Ohio - The federal government is giving the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority two final weeks to reopen Public Square to buses. The Federal Transit Administration will give RTA until March 7 to allow buses on Superior Avenue through the square before it will enforce a $12-million fee. In a Feb. 17 letter to RTA CEO Joe Calabrese, Robert Tuccillo, associate administrator for budget and policy for the FTA, writes, "The FTA will grant a final extension of 14 days, to March 7, 2017, for GCRTA to provide a written response to FTA's Dec. 20, 2016 debt letter, or

the debt will be considered delinquent and trigger debt collection actions. The FTA looks forward to bringing this matter to a close soon." The FTA originally gave RTA until Jan. 19 to reopen Public Square to buses, but granted a 30-day extension until Feb. 21. Calabrese on Feb. 16 requested an extension beyond the Feb. 21 deadline so that RTA could implement "safety and traffic control physical changes that may need to be made if Public Square is to be opened." The city of Cleveland and RTA are reviewing the traffic and safety studies that have been completed on the square and need more time to put into place safety and security measures that address concerns outlined in the studies, Calabrese explained. In his letter, the FTA's Tuccillo said the original extension was granted "to allow the FTA and GCRTA to discuss the basis for FTA's calculation of debt." During a Feb. 9 meeting of the two parties, the FTA explained that it could have forced RTA to repay $142.8 million in grants over the closing of Superior Avenue through Public Square. That would have been the full amount of a 2004 funding deal RTA made with the Federal Transit Administration for the Euclid Corridor Transportation Project. Tuccillo's Feb. 17 letter warns, "Please be advised that the FTA will not grant any additional requests for an extension." What's been happening Public Square has been closed to buses since early 2015 while the square was under renovation. However, it was scheduled to reopen Aug. 1, 2016. At that time, Mayor Frank Jackson chose to ban buses in favor of a unified Public Square. Jackson has said he would reopen the square to bus traffic if there were no way to keep it closed without harming RTA's operations or bottom line, and


Prompt: By Song Zhibiao, Qiao Mu, and Mo Zhixu, published: January 6, 2016 As the year 2015 was drawing to its end, a new expression was born on China’s social media: “the Zhaos” (“赵家人”). New phrases pop up regularly online in China, but “the Zhaos” has been hailed as revolutionary. Never has an expression captured the essence of China’s politics and economy with such pithiness and precision—that a class of people thinks China belongs to them, acts like its owner, and is indeed the owner. Compared to the phrase “your country,” (an inversion of the official reference to China as “our

country”) which has been in vogue for a while, “the Zhaos” brings into focus a critical divide that has never been encapsulated. It is, many believe, destined to permanently enter the Chinese lexicon. This article presents a compilation of explanations and uses of the expression, and its social and political interpretations. — The Editors Who are “the Zhaos”? The now-popular term came from Lu Xun’s “The True Story of Ah Q.” Young Master Zhao passed the local civil service examination, and when Ah Q, who thought himself a Zhao, sung his joy and happiness along with the others, Old Master Zhao slapped him hard in the face and said: “Do you think you’re worthy of the name Zhao?” From here came the “the Zhao family,” or simply “the Zhaos,” which specifically refers to China’s powerful and rich families. —Qiao Mu In its original usage, “Do you think you’re worthy of the name Zhao?” expresses disdain at the lowly Ah Q attempting to associate himself with the rich and powerful. It was initially used on the Internet to ridicule “volunteer 50-centers” [a group of netizens who defend the Party online—and not even for payment]. As time went on, new terms and expressions evolved. For example, a new word for volunteer 50-center is “spiritual Zhaos” (“精赵”) meaning that they are Zhaos in spirit; whereas “real Zhao” (“真赵”) refers to a real Zhao family member; “the country of Zhao” (“赵国”) refers to China. As to who can be considered a real Zhao, generally speaking, the real Zhaos are the direct descendants of the generation of Chinese Communist Party leaders who established the communist system. — Mo Zhixu In addition to being used as a general term for rich and powerful families, the expression “the Zhaos” also has variations for subclasses of this group.


Prompt: Sports Illustrated is releasing its annual list of the Top 100 players in the NBA and three Bucks appear on the list. Greg Monroe (63), Giannis Antetokounmpo (48) and Khris Middleton (39) all made the cut for the Top 100 this season, with two of them improving upon their ranking compared to last season. Antetokounmpo made a huge jump from No. 100 last season to No. 48 in this year’s rankings. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as the Greek Freak set career highs in nearly every offensive category during the 2015-16 season while breaking through for

five triple-doubles. Ben Golliver, who helped ranked the players for SI, said this about Giannis: “The individual results, as irrelevant to the standings as they might have been, were stunning: the 21-year-old Antetokounmpo averaged 19/9/7 after the break, monster numbers that bring to mind elite producers like LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. Viewed as a raw prospect when he was taken in the 2013 lottery, Antetokounmpo showed improvement as a pick-and-roll initiator and converted transition opportunities into points like a seasoned pro.” Middleton also rose in the rankings this year, moving up six spots from No. 45 to No. 39. Middleton averaged a career-high, and team-high, 18.2 points per game last season in addition to career highs in assists (4.7), steals (1.7) and minutes per game (36.1). Here’s what Rob Mahoney of Sports Illustrated had to say about Middleton: “The relatively anonymous Middleton scored in isolation at a volume and efficiency similar to Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, and Isaiah Thomas last season, according to Synergy Sports. He did so while doubling as just the kind of unassuming floor spacer Milwaukee needed to flank Giannis Antetokounmpo and balance its most effective lineups. Middleton ranks this high on our list because he makes that balance look easy. Rare are the wings who can take over when called, step back when needed, and defend effectively throughout. Middleton qualifies, and the proportional dimensions of his game render the 25-year-old as one of the most universal players on our list.” Monroe was the final Buck to appear on the list, coming in at No. 63. In his first season with the Bucks, Monroe continued to be a double-double machine, hauling in a team-high 32 double-doubles while averaging 15.3 points and 8.8 rebounds per game for the season. The write-up on Monroe notes that he’s behind


Prompt: A downtown councillor will ask the city to extend the deadline for heritage grants available to preserve 1800s-era Gore Park storefronts set for redevelopment, even though the owners have no interest in applying for the money. The city is offering up to $1.1 million for restoration of the facades of the buildings along the south leg of King Street, but the developer says it would take double that to preserve them and he isn't interested unless someone else comes up with the additional money. They want to keep the facades, fine. Someone will have to pay for that. - Dave

Blanchard "The buildings are collapsing as we speak," said David Blanchard, who is a partner in the development company that bought the buildings in 2000. "They want to keep the facades, fine. Someone will have to pay for that." It's been a year since Coun. Jason Farr pushed forward an urgent call to designate the buildings historic and halt their impending demolition. The developers appealed that decision to the provincial Conservation Review Board, which pushes the debate over the properties' status to at least March. And now the buildings are set to head into a second winter with their interiors exposed, their condition worsening. The city had pre-approved $1.1 million in grants if the developers would designate the buildings historic. Those grants have not yet been applied for. On Wednesday at city council, Farr will push to extend the deadline for the developers to take advantage of those grants up until the end of 2015. "We're all trying to work this thing out," Farr said. Blanchard estimates the restoration of the facades to cost at least double what the city is offering, more like $2.5 million. "We don’t want the historic parts particularly — other people do," he said. "Because it’s expensive. ... If someone’s willing to pay to keep it up and fund it, fine, we’ll try to work with that." 'They’ve been sitting there for two years with water running through them' Farr said the council already changed and enhanced the historic designation grant process in a way that would raise the amount available for the Gore Park buildings to the $1.1 million. The Royal Connaught project also benefited from that change, Farr said. Council was "very generous to help the issue along by changing that previous condition," he said. "I think that speaks volumes." Blanchard toured city


Prompt: Mars Observer was one of three NASA Mars missions lost in the 1990s because of technical errors, and not as part of a broader conspiracy. The dark side of space disaster theories Space disasters attract so much public attention and often involve such complex and subtle sequences of events that there’s an entire Internet literature of “crackpot causes” on par with JFK assassination myths. To the degree that innovative analysis is often critical to reconstructing—from partial and often garbled evidence—a shocking causal sequence leading from goodness to disaster, the initial investigation period demands that critical judgment be held somewhat in

check so as not to discourage imagination. However, once a logical reconstruction gels, is tested, and then is ultimately verified by being implemented and hence reducing future flight hazards, that official explanation achieves a substantial level of authenticity. But not to everyone’s satisfaction, apparently, as a search of still-thriving non-traditional explanations of the Apollo 1 fire, the Apollo 13 breakdown, the Challenger disintegration, and the Columbia catastrophe, whose fifth anniversary now approaches. For example, in the case of Columbia, YouTube is full of videos from self-styled experts still convinced a freak bolt of ionospheric lightning crippled the spaceship. A famous photograph supposedly shows that bolt, even though space experts have long been satisfied that the bizarre image was merely the result of camera jiggle during a time-lapse exposure. Apart from the comic relief value of such crackpot ideas, there’s a darker aspect of this kind of cultural pathology, just as there are serious analyses pointing to the socially toxic effects of the JFK assassination “alternate theories”. For spaceflight, being distracted by the wrong cause means being tempted by the wrong fix. That’s never amusing, and often can be expensive. For spaceflight, being distracted by the wrong cause means being tempted by the wrong fix. That’s never amusing, and often can be expensive. As an egregious “bad example” of wrong causes, a recent book (Dark Mission, by Richard Hoagland and Michael Bara) spent a lot of time muddying the waters over a series of NASA Mars mission failures in the 1990s. This isn’t just some remote corner of an intellectual ghetto on the Internet—the book came within one tick mark of making it onto the New York Times bestsellers list for paperback non-fiction (it reached #21 nationwide). So as an exercise in cultural self-defense and in proselytizing sound “space safety” history,


Prompt: Superior Court: Insurance company off the hook for 'ball tap' injury The "ball tap" Hearn delivered as his friend Clayton Russell played a video game in his basement rendered Russell infertile, possibly for the rest of his life. When Brandon Hearn sneaked up behind his teenage friend and delivered a playful tap to the testicles, he likely had no idea it would touch off an eight-year court fight. But because Hearn's forearm blow to Russell's groin was intentional, Hearn's parents' insurance company is off the hook for Russell's injuries, a Pennsylvania appeals court ruled this week. The teens were playing

"Dance, Dance Revolution" in Russell's parents' basement when Hearn decided to give Russell a physical rebuke for playing what he considered a "little kid's game," according to the Superior Court opinion. "In our little group, if you were doing something, like, kind of stupid, that's what you — you would get a ball tap," Hearn testified. According to Hearn, then 18, he crept up behind Russell and made a motion as if he was going to strike him in the testicles, but had second thoughts. A third friend, identified only as Greg, egged him on, nodding yes. At that point Hearn struck Russell in the groin with his forearm, the opinion says. Clayton was immediately in pain, which intensified during the night. His mother took him to hospital the next day, where he was diagnosed with testicular torsion and underwent emergency surgery. Tests revealed Russell may be permanently infertile as a result of the injury, according to the opinion. Hearn visited Russell in the hospital because he felt bad about the injury, he testified. "I never meant to hurt him like that. I meant for him to be in pain for about five seconds," Hearn said, according to the opinion. Russell's mother Stacey Marshall sued Hearn in Montgomery County Court, and the American National Property and Casualty Companies asked the court to rule that Hearn's actions were not covered by the policy because it excluded coverage for injuries caused by intentional acts. In a decision upholding a ruling in favor of the insurance company, the Superior Court found Hearn's actions were clearly intentional. And although Hearn testified he intended only to cause momentary discomfort to Russell, the policy excludes coverage for bodily injury caused by intentional acts, "even if the actual injury or damage is different than expected or intended."


Prompt: Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Daesh terrorists have executed more than 300 former Iraqi policemen south of Mosul following heavy losses in the ongoing battle with Iraqi forces. The executions were carried out near the recently-liberated Hammam al-Alil town three weeks ago and the victims were buried in a mass grave, the group said on Thursday. The HRW cited a witness as saying that he saw the Takfiri terrorists driving four large trucks with 100 to 125 men on board on October 28 and that he recognized some of them as former policemen. The terrorists then drove past an agricultural

college close to the site of the mass grave where minutes later, he heard shots being fired from automatic rifles and cries of distress, the group said. A similar scene was repeated the next night, with between 130 to 145 men being ferried, he told the group. An unnamed Hammam al-Alil resident confirmed the news, saying he heard automatic gunfire shots in the area for three straight nights, each lasting nearly seven minutes. “This is another piece of evidence of the horrific mass murder by Daesh of former law enforcement officers in and around Mosul,” Deputy Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch Joe Stork said. The Iraqi army liberated Hammam al-Alil on November 7. A UN official said the next day that Daesh had abducted 295 former members of Iraqi security forces near Mosul. Soldiers from the Iraqi Special Forces 2nd Division run for cover under fire from Daesh militants as they push into the Aden neighborhood of the northern city of Mosul on November 16, 2016. (Photo by AFP) Iraqi troops are in the midst of a massive operation to retake Mosul, the last stronghold of the Daesh terrorists in the country. On Thursday, pro-government Hashd al-Sha'bi fighters handed over the control of 16 villages in in Tal Afar to the Iraqi army after recapturing them. A member of Nineveh Provincial Council, Husamuddin al-Abbar, said the army will control the territories as volunteer fighters proceed to free more villages. Additionally, Iraqi counter-terrorism forces established full control over Tammuz 30 neighborhood in eastern Mosul. Security forces also launched an offensive in Mosul’s eastern district of al-Moharebin and were reported to be capturing it within few hours. Elsewhere in the western city of Kabisa, officials said an Iraqi army unit repelled a Daesh militant assault, killing scores of the terrorists


Prompt: On Nov. 6, 1968, the Black Student Union and a coalition of student groups at San Francisco State University known as the Third World Liberation Front began what would become the longest student strike in U.S. history. They wanted the university to institute an ethnic studies program. Beyond simply teaching students names like Frederick Douglass and Sacajawea, the program they envisioned would explore race and ethnicity across all disciplines in order to address issues of Eurocentrism, oppression and identity. Such a field had been proposed since the late 19th century by thinkers like W.E.B. Du Bois and José Martí, but

obstinate elites had never formalized it in mainstream academia. At one rally, San Francisco State President S.I. Hayakawa silenced student activists by yanking the wires out of the loudspeakers. But after nearly five months, he capitulated, instituting the first College of Ethnic Studies in the nation. The movement that started at San Francisco State spread across the state and country. Today, some form of ethnic studies is taught at most American universities. Nine of the 10 University of California campuses (UC San Francisco, the system’s health science campus, is the exception) have various ethnic studies departments and programs, offering courses on Native American literature (UC San Diego), “Gandhi and the Civil Rights Movement in America” (UC Berkeley) and farmworker history (UCLA). {snip} But ethnic studies remains virtually absent in K-12 public education nationally, and it is rare even in California, where about three-quarters of students are nonwhite. That could change with Assemblyman Luis Alejo’s (D-Watsonville) recent introduction of AB 1750, a bill requiring California to form a task force that would study how to best implement a standardized ethnic studies program for high school students throughout the state. Such a program would shore up important gaps in students’ knowledge and, coming from one of the most diverse states in the nation, serve as a powerful model for the rest of the country. {snip} A report this year by the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed a disturbing abundance of states offering little or no study of the civil rights movement. In a comprehensive analysis of state standards and instructional resources, the center handed out Fs to nearly half of the country based on what teachers were expected to teach about civil rights history. {snip} {snip} In 2011, the National Education Assn. published a review of research on ethnic studies that summarized


Prompt: Defending champion Matt Neal is itching to get back on-track when the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship returns at Snetterton next weekend. Neal heads Honda Yuasa Racing teammate Gordon Shedden by the smallest of margins in the title fight, just one point separating the pair, with Jason Plato 29 points behind in third. With four wins in the opening half of the season, and five further appearances on the podium, the 45-year-old entered the break in the best possible position for his title defence. But he is anticipating a tough battle to keep hold of the championship lead. “The

first half has gone amazingly well, no one can deny that,” the three-time champion told theCheckeredFlag.co.uk, “especially considering all the restrictions they are heaping on our Civics to slow us down. “But it's only half way and we're now heading in to the half of the season where the gloves get taken off. So I just need to keep focused, get my head down and try to keep notching some results up. But no doubt it'll go down to the last round.” One year ago, the debut of the new '300' layout at Snetterton, Neal and Plato came to blows within seconds of the first race, contact sending the Honda spinning at more than 100mph. Plato, then in a Chevrolet Cruze, qualified pole and won the opening race but this time, with Honda's increasingly impressive new NGTC package at his disposal, Neal believes the combination of long straights and a tight infield means Snetterton is anyone's guess- and the same applies to the battle within the Yuasa team as well. “Between me and Flash it's swung backwards and forwards,” he says, the two racking up ten wins from 15 between them. “He had the upper hand at a few meetings and then I've managed to swing it back my way for the last two, it could literally go either way. “As for Jason, who knows? He'll be there because he always is and the MG has pace, he's the one who has the potential to spoil our party for sure.” The Civics turned a corner in their development in a test at Pembrey before Oulton Park, where they won all three races, and Neal feels going into the second half of the season they will continue to be the car to beat. “I think at the beginning S2000s had the


Prompt: Sandra Day O'Connor frequently filed concurring opinions that sought to narrow the scope of majority rulings. | AP Photo Senate confirms first female Supreme Court justice, Sept. 21, 1981 On this day in 1981, the Senate unanimously confirmed Sandra Day O'Connor as the nation’s first woman to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. In anticipation of her arrival, the court abandoned its traditional use of “Mr. Justice” as its preferred form of address, opting for the gender-neutral “Justice.” In nominating O’Connor, President Ronald Reagan made good on a campaign promise to choose a woman as a member of the

high court. Early in her tenure, she was widely viewed as a member of the court’s conservative wing. Story Continued Below She was said to have taken her lead from Justice (later Chief Justice) William Rehnquist, a fellow Arizonan who had been O’Connor’s classmate at Stanford Law School. However, after a few terms, O'Connor established her own “swing” position on the court, eventually emerging as the court’s influential centrist coalition-builder. Although she commonly sided with the conservatives, she often would rely on her political experience in the Arizona state Senate to help form her views. She frequently filed concurring opinions that sought to narrow the scope of majority rulings. At a 1985 press dinner, Washington Redskins fullback John Riggins told O'Connor, “Come on, Sandy baby, loosen up. You're too tight,” then passed out drunk on the floor. The next day, the women with whom she shared an early morning exercise class presented her with a T-shirt that read: “Loosen up at the Supreme Court.” Years later, when Riggins made his acting debut at a Washington theater, she gave him a dozen roses on opening night. O'Connor made her own brief foray into acting in 1996, appearing as Queen Isabel in a Shakespeare Theatre production of Henry V. In 2000, O'Connor cast the deciding vote in Bush v. Gore. The ruling ended the recount of votes in Florida in the contested outcome of the presidential race. It cleared a path for George W. Bush to enter the White House. O'Connor later said that perhaps the court should not have weighed in, based on the circumstances of the contest. With Rehnquist and Justice John Paul Stevens (who was senior to her) absent, O'Connor presided on Feb. 22, 2005, over oral arguments in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, becoming


Prompt: This article is about a prefix notation in mathematics and computer sciences. For the similarly named logic, see Łukasiewicz logic Polish notation (PN), also known as normal Polish notation (NPN),[1] Łukasiewicz notation, Warsaw notation, Polish prefix notation or simply prefix notation, is a mathematical notation in which operators precede their operands, in contrast to (the more common) infix notation (in which operators are placed between operands), as well as to reverse Polish notation (RPN, in which operators follow their operands). It does not need any parentheses as long as each operator has a fixed number of operands. The description "Polish"

refers to the nationality of logician Jan Łukasiewicz,[2] who invented Polish notation in 1924.[3][4] The term Polish notation is sometimes taken (as the opposite of infix notation) to also include reverse Polish notation.[5] When Polish notation is used as a syntax for mathematical expressions by programming language interpreters, it is readily parsed into abstract syntax trees and can, in fact, define a one-to-one representation for the same. Because of this, Lisp (see below) and related programming languages define their entire syntax in prefix notation (and others use postfix notation). A quotation from a paper by Jan Łukasiewicz, Remarks on Nicod's Axiom and on "Generalizing Deduction", page 180, states how the notation was invented: I came upon the idea of a parenthesis-free notation in 1924. I used that notation for the first time in my article Łukasiewicz(1), p. 610, footnote. The reference cited by Łukasiewicz is apparently a lithographed report in Polish. The referring paper by Łukasiewicz Remarks on Nicod's Axiom and on "Generalizing Deduction" was reviewed by Henry A. Pogorzelski in the Journal of Symbolic Logic in 1965.[6] Heinrich Behmann, editor in 1924 of the article of Moses Schönfinkel[7] already had the idea of eliminating parentheses in logic formulas. Alonzo Church mentions this notation in his classic book on mathematical logic as worthy of remark in notational systems even contrasted to Alfred Whitehead and Bertrand Russell's logical notational exposition and work in Principia Mathematica.[8] In Łukasiewicz's 1951 book, Aristotle's Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic, he mentions that the principle of his notation was to write the functors before the arguments to avoid brackets and that he had employed his notation in his logical papers since 1929.[9] He then goes on to cite, as an example, a 1930 paper he wrote with Alfred Tarski on the sentential calculus.[10]


Prompt: If you are a user of the messaging software Skype, you know that you can see the location of your contacts in the Skype interface. What you probably do not know is that there is currently a way to display a Skype user's remote and local IP address as well. A script has been uploaded to Github that offers these options. According to the page, it can be used to lookup IP addresses of online Skype accounts, and return both the remote and the local IP of that account on a website. This blog post reveals how the script works.

It basically starts an add a Skype contact request but does not complete it. The log file will display the local and remote IP of that Skype user, even if the user is not added to the list of contacts in Skype. Update: The script is no longer available. The script is for instance available on this site. Just enter the user name of a Skype user, fill out the captcha, and click the search button to initiate the lookup. You will receive the user's remote IP and port, as well as the local IP and port. This works only if the Skype user is online at the time of the lookup, and not if the user is offline. The IP address can reveal the user's country of origin, and maybe even the town or district. This can be done with the help of tools such as this one. Just enter a public IP address in the form, and you will receive information about the provider of the IP address. You can also use a tool like IP on Map to display the real world location of an IP address on a map. Some Skype users may not see this as a problem at all, as the IP address does not reveal a user's name or street address for instance. The IP address can however lead to those information, for instance in a lawsuit. There is currently no way of protecting yourself against the lookup of the IP address, other than not logging in to Skype when the software is not needed. The only other option would be the use of a virtual private network or proxy to hide the IP address from users who look it up. (via Hacker News) What's your take on this? Do you think Microsoft


Prompt: GRAINS grains – /grāns/ – noun Aside from water, the most abundant ingredient in the most delicious beverage on earth is malted grains. Particularly malted barley. Yes, you can create a beer without malted barley (and most gluten free beers do so, using sorghum primarily) but odds are if you’re not ordering gluten free, malted grains are all up in your pint glass. The fun part about these grains is that you can use a lot of different grains in a single batch of beer, creating complex and diverse colors, flavors, aromas and even mouthfeel. So grab a cold one

and fill your glass because it’s learning time. Per the usual, my typical disclaimer about the fact that this is a general overview of the topic mentioned above and not an in-depth science lesson applies. The Malting Process There are plenty of grains that are used to make beer but the most common is barley (2- row barley and 6-row barley to get specific) so let’s focus on that. The malting process for grains has a lot of science behind it but the 10,000 foot view is this: Steeping Grains are made warm and moist to start their germination process Germination Enzymes work to produce more enzymes and expose starches that the plant would use for food The kernels start to sprout (this small stem is called an “acrospire”) Drying Once the acrospire is about the same length as the kernel itself, the grains are heated and dried to stop further growth locking in those starches and enzymes Now you have a kernel packed with enzymes and starches. The kernels are then heated to specific temperatures (by a kiln) with specific moisture control to create specific colors (measured in SRM) and flavors among other things. During the brewing process the enzymes convert the starches into sugars, then those sugars get eaten by yeast which then produces alcohol. These enzyme and starch packed kernels are a very good thing for beer. How this impacts your beer’s ingredient list The lighter the roast, the lighter the color of beer it makes and with darker malts…..you get the idea. However, the lighter malts have a lot more “diastatic power” than the darker malts. Diastatic power is a measure of the malt’s ability to break down starches into sugars during the brewing process. The darker a malt gets, the less diastatic power it has.


Prompt: Thigh-High Politics is an op-ed column by Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca that breaks down the news, provides resources for the resistance, and just generally refuses to accept toxic nonsense. I was en route to the Sydney Airport in Australia when my cab driver asked me if I was ashamed of President Donald Trump. I immediately answered yes, before thinking about how ludicrous that question would be in any other context. It would have been provocative, perhaps, to ask an American tourist if she was ashamed of former Presidents Barack Obama or George W. Bush (though the latter’s global favorability

ratings were far lower). Bush deceived the country as a means of invading Iraq, but even as public understanding about his actions became well-understood and global disgust morphed into widespread protest, there was still a patina of reverence associated with the Commander in Chief. At least in polite interaction, respect for the office was generally assumed — outside of the countries they were actively bombing, anyway. Under Trump, any such sense of deference has been obliterated. My cab driver in Sydney wasn’t trying to be rude, he was worried. The subtext rang of pity rather than condemnation, and the same was true of many other Australians and other foreigners I met while traveling through the country over the course of two weeks in October. On a dive boat off the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns, I sat surrounded by an Australian man, two brothers from Denmark, and a couple from Germany, while the other New Yorker and I attempted to explain how Trump happened. As we discussed horrors like the travel ban, birth control rollback, and the ongoing aggravation of North Korea, they alternately stared in wide-eyed horror or shook their heads in sympathetic disbelief. We weren’t offended — we were desperate to separate ourselves from the mess that is America. It was as if we had done something profoundly humiliating and they were at a total loss as to how to make us feel better. Or, as one of my Twitter followers put it a few days later, “We used to look up to you. Now we’re embarrassed for you.” A similar sentiment is shared by the global population. A Pew Research poll of 37 countries conducted in January revealed that only 22% of respondents have “confidence in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international


Prompt: NHL.com released a poll on Friday ranking their top 14 defensemen in the league and coming in at number 12 on this list was Arizona Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. The Swedish defenseman is only 23 years old, but he has quickly become one of the top blueliners in not only the league, but the world as well. As one of five Coyotes players selected to represent their country in the 2014 Winter Olympics last February in Sochi, Ekman-Larsson earned a silver medal as a member of the Swedish national team. While Ekman-Larsson’s skills on defense have made him a solid

player at that position, it is his impressive abilities on offense that put him on a higher level. The Early Years of Ekman-Larsson Interestingly enough, Ekman-Larsson’s career in the NHL also began overseas. Selected by the Coyotes with the sixth overall pick in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, Ekman-Larsson made his debut on October 9, 2010 when the then-Phoenix Coyotes faced the Boston Bruins in Prague, Czech Republic. Ekman-Larsson recorded his first career NHL point on October 23, 2010 against the Carolina Hurricanes and notched his first career NHL goal on January 17, 2011 against the San Jose Sharks. After finishing his rookie year with 11 points in 48 games, Ekman-Larsson would begin to make his mark on the league’s landscape in his sophomore year. He racked up 32 points in the 2011-12 NHL season, which ranked second on the team in terms of scoring by defenseman and seventh on the team in overall scoring. Ekman-Larsson’s biggest offensive contribution came when he notched his first career NHL playoff goal in the second period of Game 6 of the Coyotes’ first-round series against the Chicago Blackhawks. That was the only goal he scored during the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs, but it would end up being the goal that put the Coyotes into the second round of the playoffs for the first time since moving from Winnipeg. Last Season: Honing The Craft Ekman-Larsson’s offensive prowess continued to flourish last season as he set career highs in goals (15), assists (29), points (44) and power-play goals (8). The Coyotes had one of their best seasons in franchise history with the man advantage last year and Ekman-Larsson played a vital role in getting the power play to work well. His 22 points on the power play was second-most on the team, only trailing defensive


Prompt: FISC Judge Reggie Walton Hesitantly Amends Latest Section 215 Order To Conform With Presidential Directive from the contact-chaining-or-beer?-'less-hoppy-than-usual' dept As was noted here in January, the non-rubber stamp FISA court rubber stamped the latest NSA bulk record request without hesitation, almost as though the previous seven months of leaks had never happened. That order has now been amended due to the January 17th presidential directive issued in conjunction with the administration's NSA reforms. The amended order, written by outgoing FISC judge Reggie Walton, makes the changes requested (two hops instead of three, RAS selectors approved by a FISC judge) and

provides some more background on the NSA's minimization techniques. While Walton has no problem with the new two-hop contact chaining limit, he does seem concerned with the RAS approval being left to the court. He spends several paragraphs discussing this particular aspect, which seems a bit strange, considering he was the same judge who temporarily limited the NSA to seeking approval from the court to search the collection back in 2009, after uncovering years of agency abuse. (Unfortunately, Smith vs. Maryland is again mentioned in support of the notion that untargeted bulk collections don't violate the Fourth Amendment. This is a 1979 ruling on pen registers that doesn't really apply to the Section 215 collections -- and likely wouldn't except that FISC judge Kollar-Kotelly gave it a very favorable reading back in 2004/2005 [thanks for nothing, needless redactions!].) Although the Court is satisfied that the effect of the government' proposal to require RAS approvals by the FISC would be consistent with Section 215's definition of "minimization procedures," that is not the end of the discussion. FISA contemplates that the Executive Branch, which formulates the minimization procedures and receives the tangible things from the recipient of the production order, will apply those procedures, with appropriate oversight by the FISC. Historically, the minimization procedures proposed by the government and approved by the Court under PISA have reflected this allocation of responsibilities, which also recognizes the distinct roles of the Executive Branch and the Judiciary in our system of government. The government' proposal to require RAS determinations by the FISC as a prerequisite to NSA queries of the database would deviate from this framework by giving the Court a more prominent role not just in overseeing Executive Branch compliance with FISC-approved procedures, but in the actual application of those procedures. It could also


Prompt: Hillary Clinton unveiled a health care proposal Saturday that incorporates much of what her opponent Bernie Sanders has pushed for, in a second move this week that is apparently aimed at securing an endorsement from Sanders. In a statement, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president announced her support to expand Medicaid, offer a "public-option" for health insurance and double funding for primary care services at community health centers. The centers, which largely serve communities in rural areas, have long been a priority for the senator from Vermont who fought to include $11 billion in funding for the centers in the

Affordable Care Act of 2010. Clinton said she would support people 55 or older to buy into Medicare while protecting the traditional Medicare program. Clinton first came out in support of giving people the option to buy into Medicare in May during the current election cycle as a result of the effect the Sanders campaign had on Clinton to take more progressive stances. Her campaign noted that she has supported the "public-option" health insurance plan back to her 2008 presidential campaign and has opted for those below the required age to buy into Medicare as far back as 2001, when she was a senator in New York. "We have more work to do to finish our long fight to provide universal, quality, affordable health care to everyone in America," Clinton said in a statement. "Already, the Affordable Care Act has expanded coverage to 20 million Americans. As president, I will make sure Republicans never succeed in their attempts to strip away their care and that the remaining uninsured should be able to get the affordable coverage they need to stay healthy." Sanders revealed his "Medicare-for-all" or single-payer health reform plan in January, which would overhaul the current system in the country and would require the federal government to provide coverage to everyone in the country. Soon after the plan was unveiled, Sanders praised the steps taken by the Clinton campaign. "Today's proposal by Hillary Clinton is an important step toward expanding health insurance and health care access to millions of Americans," Sanders said. In a conference call with reporters, Sanders did not confirm reports that he will endorse Clinton at an event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported. Regarding the endorsement, he said he would have more to say in the very near future. Clinton's announcement comes


Prompt: Get the biggest business stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email That is the view of Mark Watts, director of multinational design firm Arup and a leading expert on sustainable planning. Mr Watts told the MIPIM property conference in Cannes that cities faced unprecedented challenges - with the population soaring, and human beings now consuming more natural resources than the earth was able to replace. But he said there were enough examples of smart, green thinking throughout the world to make

him optimistic about the future. Mr Watts outlined a model 'future city' investing heavily in cycling, electric buses, energy-generating buildings and urban farms. And he said that ecologically sound policies adopted throughout the world had often been adopted for economic, rather than environmental, reasons. Mr Watts said Copenhagen - where 35pc of all trips to work are by bike - had not only reduced spending on more expensive transport infrastructure, but was saving one dollar in health costs for every kilometre cycled. And he said an app being used in San Fransisco, alerting drivers to empty parking bays throughout the city, had cut congestion by 10 per cent. Mr Watts said the most successful 40 cities in the world had all seen the biggest increases on spending on cycling. He added: "Most cities in the world which are judged to be the most liveable and most efficient are the ones that have sustainable transport systems. "I think that we are going to see the return of the old-fashioned bicycle in the most successful cities in the world, moving forward. "There are huge savings through going down this route." Mr Watts said 'future cities' were going to have to 'run on data' - with a much better awareness of who was consuming what resources, and when. And he said diminishing resources, natural disasters and uncertainty over energy supplies meant cities would have to be more 'self-reliant'. He told delegates: "In the future we will see much more of a move back to cities growing much of their own produce, while also creating flood plains and green spaces for people to enjoy." Mr Watts said national governments had often failed to work together on ecological issues - but city leaders had been much more forward-thinking, showing 'a huge amount of collaboration'. He


Prompt: NASCAR owners are taking a firm stance against the ‘Take a knee’ anthem protests which escalated across the NFL in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s tweets on the issue on Sunday. The gesture was started by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick last season as a demonstration against police brutality. Trump reignited the controversy on Friday when he said that anyone taking part in the demonstration should be fired. While his comments caused a backlash among football players and team owners alike, the ‘Take a knee’ movement gained little traction in NASCAR where several owners said they

would not condone drivers or staff taking part in the protests. Read more Richard Petty who co-owns Richard Petty Motorsports told the AP that anyone who refuses to stand for the national anthem should be forced to leave the country. “Anybody that don’t stand up for the anthem oughta be out of the country. Period. What got ’em where they’re at? The United States,” Petty said. Those sentiments were echoed by another owner, Richard Childress, who said any protests from his team members would “get you a ride on a Greyhound bus.” “Anybody that works for me should respect the country we live in. So many people gave their lives for it. This is America,” Childress said according to Yahoo sports. READ MORE: Rapper Jay Z rumored to have rebuffed Super Bowl halftime show request in solidarity stand Owner Andy Murstein also condemned the protesters but took a more conciliatory stance. When asked what he would do with an employee who takes a knee, Murstein told ESPN: "I would sit down with them and say it's the wrong thing to do that and many people, including myself, view it as an affront to our great country.” “If there is disenchantment towards the president or a few bad law enforcement officers, don't have it cross over to all that is still good and right about our country." There was one notable exception to the hegemony, however, with driver and team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr backing the right of all Americans to peaceful protest, by quoting JFK on Twitter. All Americans R granted rights 2 peaceful protests Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable-JFK — Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) September 25, 2017 Trump tweeted his appreciation for the stance of most involved with NASCAR on Monday morning, saying


Prompt: The quick down and dirty! Just in case its 3AM and you’re legs and arms are twitching and you are ready to lose it! We cannot operate on NO sleep, let alone deal with the stress of our bodies freaking out while we are not sleeping! I would find myself still pacing the floor when the morning alarm went off! So how do we even have a hope of dealing with the resulting memory loss, “sorry I have no brain” and increased pain that comes with this lack of sleep and general crazy making . It makes a healthy individual’s

life difficult to navigate! So…. from my hours and hours of late night research looking for answers, trying desperately to stop my mandatory committal to a “rubber room”. Here are a few points, a condensed version of what helped me. I am not a Dr. and before starting any new medical approach, review these points with your GP and/or specialist and form a plan of action! A plan gives control (kind of, thats what they tell me). This article on RLS has an autoimmune slant. If you do not have a chronic illness such as RA there may or may not be other things to consider. There will still be many suggestions you can use! STARTING POINTS: Identify your triggers: LOW IRON (RA affects iron levels) SPECIFIC FOODS, Too much or too little EXERCISE, INFLAMMATION (this is where RA again rears it’s head), STRESS , MEDICATIONS, NICOTINE, CAFFEINE Check your blood work: FERRITIN, KEEP YOUR level greater than 50, THYROID LEVELS, HORMONES Consider the role of FOLIC ACID especially when taking Methotrexate which depletes Folic. Increasing my Folic dose has had a big impact. Can you and your chosen professional add any prescribed medications to help? HERE ARE MY TRIGGERS (things I envision bathing my nerves in irritants) which exacerbate my RLS: 1. Aspartame and artificial sweeteners 2. Too much exercise 3. Alcohol, Caffeine and Chocolate 4. Ice cream (go figure!) 5. HORMONES the night before my menstrual cycle 6. Inflammation: Flares, RLS worse a couple of days before my next biologic dose Initially I cut out what I could from the above list entirely. Once the treatment plan started to take effect, I started to play with when in the day and how much I could eat those specific triggers and started practicing moderation. I was in this for


Prompt: Mapping the Post-human For a few days in the first week of September I was in the Breton port city of Brest (which although medieval is an architectural riot of modernity, nearly every building except its impregnable chateau having been I found it strange to be listening in to serious academic discussion of ideas that originated on the fringes of science fiction, and to hear 'Kurzweil', 'Vinge' and 'extropians' pop up from a flow of French discourse like yellow plastic ducks on the Seine. About half the discussion was on the post-human in mainstream literature and philosophy, but popular culture,

movies, and SF were just as minutely and seriously anatomised. My own presentation touched on my earliest encounter with extropianism and (that cheap laugh out of the way) argued that Darwin had made post-humanism possible: first, by establishing that humanity was a species with predecessors and (by implication) possible successors, and (therefore) that the human mind was the outcome of a material process; and secondly, by shifting the notion of 'species' from an essence to a population, with no intrinsic limit of variation. Once 'the human' ceases to be an essence, it loses its self-evident status as a standard of value. Watson and Crick followed up in 1953 by demonstrating the material basis of heredity, and hence the possibility of consciously changing it. Two developments that were new in the 1980s and 1990s made post-humanism a project rather than a prophecy. The first was that thanks to Moore's Law and molecular biology, it became possible for the first time for people to imagine that they themselves might live into the post-human era. The second was that socialism, the global project whereby the International was to unite the human race, was over, and with it the counter-project of liberal humanism. Humanity is no longer an imagined community. If it's ever to become so again, something like the socialist project will have to be revived, or replaced by a different project with less hubris but no less ambition. Otherwise the robots will rise up and eat our brains, if we haven't beaten them to it by bashing each other's heads in first. For a few days in the first week of September I was in the Breton port city of Brest (which although medieval is an architectural riot of modernity, nearly every building except its impregnable chateau having been levelled in 1944)


Prompt: It's budget-cutting time for the U.S. Navy. And while the admirals seem fine with this, Congress is getting nervous. As reported on DefenseNews.com last week, there's a furious debate brewing between Congress and the Pentagon over the future of the Navy's cruiser fleet. In a nutshell, it goes like this: Currently, we have 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers in the Navy. While sometimes dispatched on solo missions, or to lead a surface combatant task force, these cruisers' primary purpose is heading up the air defense squadrons protecting America's 11 aircraft carriers. Problem is, America's cruisers are starting to look a little long

in the tooth. Built in the 1980s and '90s by contractors General Dynamics (NYSE:GD) and Huntington Ingalls (NYSE:HII), most of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers are nearing the end of their lifespans. By 2028, all 22 are expected to have lived out their useful service lives, worn out and ready for retirement. And right now, we've got nothing to replace them. A planned replacement class of warships, dubbed CG(X), was canceled in 2010 over worries the ships were becoming too expensive. What remains of that effort, and a sister program called DD(X), is what we now call the DDG-1000 program. It consists of a grand total of three planned "stealth" warships, built by General Dynamics at a cost of $3.5 billion apiece -- and they're not even full-sized cruisers, but just upsized destroyers. The Navy thinks it has a solution to the problem. It has proposed taking 11 "CGs" out of service starting in 2019, and upgrading them to extend their service lives at a cost of $8.8 billion. The 11 cruisers still in service would still quietly expire by 2028. But the 11 upgraded ships should be good for another 15 years each and, after returning to the fleet, would keep us "in cruisers" through about 2045. You can have half, or you can have nothing The upshot? The Navy's giving Congress two choices: Either operate on half today's cruiser fleet for the next 30 years, or face the prospect of going 100% "cruiser-less" after 2028. This half-or-nothing proposal has ruffled the feathers of defense hawks in Congress. Complicating matters further, some Congressmen worry that the Navy's real intention is to retire the first 11 cruisers, not upgrade them at all, and spend its money on other pet projects instead. Crazy as it sounds -- worrying that the Navy has a


Prompt: Stephen Paddock’s arsenal included explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition, authorities say as emergency declared in county Las Vegas suspect had more than 40 firearms in hotel and home, police say The suspect in the Las Vegas shooting that has left at least 59 people dead had amassed an arsenal that included more than 40 firearms, police said on Monday night, as officials declared a state of emergency for the county encompassing the Las Vegas strip. Authorities found 23 guns, including a handgun, in the hotel room of the gunman, identified earlier by police as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock. At

least some were equipped with scopes, devices that help the shooter identify targets at a range, police said. Nevada town where Vegas suspect lived catered to gamblers and gun lovers Read more They also recovered 19 firearms plus explosives and several thousand rounds of ammunition from Paddock’s home in Mesquite, Nevada, a town near the border with Arizona, Joe Lombardo, the Las Vegas police sheriff, said. He also said police found “electronic devices” but would not describe them. Several pounds of ammonium nitrate, a material used to make explosives, were also found in Paddock’s car. Later on Monday, a Swat team searched a residence in northern Nevada believed to be associated with the gunman. At an afternoon news conference, officials also updated the latest casualty figures, saying that at least 59 people were dead and 527 more injured. The gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel on the thousands of concertgoers attending the Route 91 country music festival on Sunday night. Play Video 2:25 Who was Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock? – video Islamic State on Monday claimed that the gunman was “a soldier of the Islamic State”, but authorities have said that there was no evidence to substantiate that claim and that the group had falsified its role in attacks. The shooting turned an American city known for its nightclubs and casinos into a war zone as thousands of concertgoers ran for cover from the bullets pouring down on them. The attack was the latest in a grim list of mass shootings, and the carnage surpassed the death toll at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, when 49 people were killed. The first reports of the shooting came just after 10pm local time, as the country music star Jason Aldean, one of


Prompt: The CZ 75 is a semi-automatic pistol made by Czech firearm manufacturer ČZUB. First introduced in 1975, it is one of the original "wonder nines" featuring a staggered-column magazine, all-steel construction, and a hammer forged barrel. It is widely distributed throughout the world and is the most common handgun in the Czech Republic. History [ edit ] Development of CZ 75 [ edit ] The armament industry was an important part of the interwar Czechoslovak economy and made up a large part of the country's exports (see, for example, Bren light machine gun, which was a modified version of the

Czechoslovak ZB vz. 26). However following the 1948 communist coup d'état, all heavy industry was nationalized and was (at least officially) cut off from its Western export market behind the Iron Curtain. While most other Warsaw Pact countries became dependent on armaments imports from the Soviet Union, most of the Czechoslovak weaponry remained domestic (for example, the Czechoslovak army used the Vz. 58 assault rifle, while other communist bloc countries used variants of the AK-47). Following the Second World War, brothers Josef and František Koucký became the most important engineers of the CZUB. They participated to some extent on designing all the company's post-war weapons. Kouckýs signed their designs together, using only the surname, making it impossible to determine which one of them developed particular ideas.[2] By 1969, František Koucký was freshly retired, however the company offered him a job on designing a new 9×19mm Parabellum pistol. Unlike during his previous work, this time he had a complete freedom in designing the whole gun from scratch. The design he developed was in many ways new and innovative (see Design details).[2] Although the model was developed for export purposes (the standard pistol cartridge of the Czechoslovak armed forces was the Soviet 7.62×25mm Tokarev, which was later replaced with the Warsaw Pact standard 9mm Makarov pistol cartridge), Koucký's domestic patents regarding the design were classified as "secret patents". Effectively, nobody could learn about their existence, but also nobody could register the same design in Czechoslovakia. At the same time Koucký as well as the company were prohibited from filing for patent protection abroad. Consequently, a large number of other manufacturers began offering pistols based on CZ 75 design (see Clones, copies, and variants by other manufacturers).[2] The pistol was not sold in Czechoslovakia until 1985, when it became popular among sport shooters


Prompt: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (AP Photo/Molly Riley) This story has been updated. KANSAS CITY -- Two long-shot Democratic presidential candidates drew strong applause at a Latino conference here Monday for sharply criticizing another long-shot hopeful, Republican Donald Trump, for his incendiary remarks on Mexican immigrants. In an address to the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) got a standing ovation for his remarks on Trump and “the stain of racism” in America. "Let me tell you that no one – not Donald Trump, not anyone

else – will be successful if dividing us based on race or our country of origin," Sanders said to thunderous applause. "We say ‘no' to all forms of racism and bigotry.” Later in the day, former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley spoke of "my disgust" at Trump’s comments. He said if Trump wanted to run for president he "should go back to the 1840s and run for the nomination of the Know Nothing Party," the virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic party that flourished in the 19th century. [Listening to Donald Trump swear and talk politics on his private plane] "The real problem isn’t that the Republicans have such a hate-spewing character running for president," O'Malley added. "The problem is that it’s so hard to tell him apart from the other candidates." Republican presidential candidate and business mogul Donald Trump is on the offense, slamming his 2016 competition — Republicans and Democrats alike. Here's what he has to say about his rivals. (Julie Percha/The Washington Post) Trump has been denounced by Hispanics across the country for calling saying Mexico was sending "criminals" and "rapists" into the United States, and for describing Mexicans coming over the border "like water." Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was slated to speak later Monday in a ballroom that seats 1,500. Because Sanders only confirmed his attendance a few days ago, organizers said they could only secure a room that seated 400, leaving hundreds waiting outside. After talking about the need for a "responsible path to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants and a higher minimum wage to the very receptive crowd – Sanders was asked by a reporter if he thought Donald Trump was racist. "I don’t want to psychoanalyze Donald Trump. What he said is an outrage," he said. Sanders also said he plans to bring his message about the


Prompt: While the Charlotte Hornets remain above .500 and fourth in the Eastern Conference, last night’s loss against the Brooklyn Nets was another suggestion the team isn’t quite living up to it’s potential. And sure, the Hornets were never pegged by most as a team full of potential, but they’ve managed to keep their heads slightly above the mud that has sunk seven of the next eight teams below the .500 mark, and above a few teams that were expected to leap over them heading into the season. That said, losses like last night keep them closer to the mess below

them, rather than with the likes of Toronto and Boston, who have figured it out, or are starting to. Along with last night, the Hornets have three bad losses this season. The first was the overtime loss to New Orleans, which would have taken them to 9-3 on the season had they won. The second was the overtime loss at home to Minnesota. Put those two games along with last night’s in the win column, and the Hornets are 20-11 and two games up on Boston for third. And I know the dangers of playing the “what if” game, but the Hornets held double-digit leads in all three games and let the opposition come back and win either in regulation or overtime. Considering these three teams rank 11th, 13th, and 14th in their respective conferences, it’s hard not to consider the what if’s. The trend, both previously and last night, comes from a lack of defensive stops. The Hornets did what they needed to on offense, outscoring the Nets 52-36 in the paint, while also taking care of the ball, committing just 11 turnovers (for the season, they rank second in the league at 11.9 a game). But defensively, Charlotte couldn’t make enough stops consistently, particularly from the 3-point line. Brooklyn shot 15-31 from beyond the arc, which isn’t good no matter the opponent, but even worse given the Nets rank 29th in the league in 3-point percentage, shooting just 32.8 percent as a team. Both Bojan Bogdanovic and Sean Kilpatrick made 4-7, and of the nine players that attempted a 3-pointer, Joe Harris was the only player who didn’t make one. Brooklyn did most of their damage in the second and fourth quarters, making five from beyond the arc in each. In the second quarter, Charlotte went on a


Prompt: “An ancient sapphire ring. It subdues your presence, making it difficult to be detected by enemies.” The description for the Thief’s Ring in Demon’s Souls is innocuous enough, but it’s one of the most useful items in the game. When I first obtained it, I scoffed at its effects. I generally tend to be underwhelmed by “ancient and powerful artifacts” that serve as nothing more than marginal stat modifiers. I also wasn’t playing a stealthy character, so it seemed like a fairly useless trinket. Demon’s Souls is a game where a small boost can have an enormous effect, though, and

a few deaths later I quickly discovered the benefits of donning the Thief’s Ring. There’s nothing magical about it, really — it simply does what it says — but its effects are very deliberately tied into the game world and its design. Here a few examples: Isolating Enemies Unlike many 3rd person brawlers, the enemies in Demon’s Souls do not patiently wait for their turn to attack the player. As a result, it’s often important to draw away individuals from a group to take them on one-on-one. The Thief’s Ring facilitates luring enemies by preventing the player from being pelted with projectiles during the approach. What’s more, the combat in Demon’s Souls requires a lot of movement, and the Thief’s Ring makes it less likely to draw the attention of more enemies while battling a solitary opponent. Avoiding the Dragons The ramparts of Castle Boletaria are patrolled by hostile dragons that roast anything in their sights. These sections are quite unforgiving, but the Thief’s Ring expands the window of safety between the dragons’ fiery onslaughts. Slaying the Geckos Crystal Geckos are timid creatures that are almost impossible to catch with a melee attack. They can spot the player from very far away, and if they do, they skitter back and fade out of existence. The Thief’s Ring slightly dulls their awareness, making it easier to catch them and the large quantities of minerals (used to upgrade armour and weapons) that they drop. Boss Runs Chances are that during most everyone’s first playthrough at least a few of the boss battles will not end in victory, but the Thief’s Ring makes it easier to give ’em another shot. Simply running past enemies is often a valid option, and equipping the ring lowers the duration/distance they’ll take into account when chasing the


Prompt: Jon Huntsman speaks at commencement for University of South Carolina on Saturday. | AP Photo Huntsman: Why I served Obama COLUMBIA, S.C. — Jon Huntsman marked his return from China to the United States with a sweeping address calling young Americans to serve their country — even if it's by working for the president of a different political party. "Serve [America], if asked. I was, by a president of a different political party. But in the end, while we might not all be of one party, we are all part of one nation," Huntsman, who was named ambassador by President

Obama, told the 2011 graduating class of the University of South Carolina's College of the Arts and Sciences on Saturday. Story Continued Below The speech was Huntsman's first public appearance since returning from abroad — and his comments are his first attempt to neutralize potential attacks on his service to a Democratic president loathed by the Republican base he'll have to win over if he's going to win the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Huntsman, 51, was introduced to the students in the program as a "respected public servant, business executive, governor and ambassador" — a list of credentials that put Huntsman's resume near the top of the prospective Republican 2012 pile. Huntsman was governor of Utah and also served as ambassador to Singapore during the first Bush administration before being appointed as Obama's ambassador to China. But the credentials Huntsman offered to his young audience had more to do with rock and roll than with China. "My initial passion in life was to be a rock and roll musician," he said, explaining that he dropped out of high school a few months before graduation to play with a band called Wizard. "My hair was Rod Stewart shaggy. ... I wouldn't wear anything but super skinny jeans." "We crawled in the ugliest green Econoline van you could ever imagine, with fold-up chairs in the back," he said. Wizard didn't work out, and Huntsman has since graduated to traveling in rented cars with the pack of aides that have been building a campaign-in-waiting that is preparing to launch a presidential bid for Huntsman early this summer. Those staffers — including top strategist John Weaver, communications guru Matt David, ad man Fred Davis and consultant Lanny Wiles — accompanied Huntsman to the commencement speech here. It's just the latest stop on the busy


Prompt: PARIS (Reuters) - The United States has softened its stance on Syria including the future of President Bashar al-Assad to accommodate Russia, opposition coordinator Riad Hijab said, warning the opposition would face a hard choice on whether to attend peace talks this month. Riad Hijab, who was chosen by Syrian opposition groups as coordinator of a negotiating body to lead future peace talks attends a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, December 18, 2015. REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser Hijab, who was chosen in December as coordinator of the opposition negotiating body to lead future Syria talks, said the opposition still had

disagreements with the Syrian government and the United Nations over the talks’ agenda. “Sadly, there is very clear backtracking, especially from the United States, with regard to the agenda of the negotiations,” Hijab said on Tuesday. “They want the creation of a government whereby the regime would leave us, the opposition, a few ministries.” He said this U.S. backtracking had enabled the December U.N. resolution, which had a great deal of “holes and ambiguities”. The U.N. Security Council resolution adopted on Dec. 18 set out a two-year road map for peace talks, but failed to address the issue of Assad’s future. “The Russians and Americans did not cite Assad (during the negotiations) and did not talk about his departure and that is clear backtracking,” he said. “When (President Barack) Obama said he (Assad) had no legitimacy, Kerry was making concessions.” It also called for an end to the bombing of civilians and on the parties to allow aid workers unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas. He took specific aim at the U.S. administration and President Obama over his policies, including proposals to create a no-fly zone to protect Syrians and his handling of Assad’s chemical arsenal. “Obama didn’t want (a no-fly zone) .. (and) with the red lines on chemical weapons, he took out the weapons, but not those who used them. I don’t think history will forgive Obama.” DIFFICULT CHOICE The peace talks are scheduled to be held under U.N. auspices in Geneva on Jan. 25. However, with the continued bombing of civilians, Syrian towns being besieged with some citizens starving to death, and differences on the agenda, the prospects of holding the talks to end the five-year-old war appear complicated. “The choice is extremely difficult,” Hijab said when asked if the opposition would attend


Prompt: May 1st, 2013 RAWTunes.exe 10 July / December 2012 RAWTunes.exe 10 is a noise-art album made in homage to the now late, (great?) iTunes 10 release. As iTunes 11 makes its way onto computers across the globe this album will remain as a media-archive of splendid noises transcoded from iTunes 10 executables. Available for £7.99 on iTunes, now and forever (or as long as I keep paying the renewal fee). Last year I released a music single through iTunes. Entitled RAWTunes.exe 10.4.2, it was my first foray into sound-art/noise-art. Today, I AM a popstar. I am proud to announce the

release of my 8 track album RAWTunes.exe 10! You can listen to a selection of tracks below (making sure that all small children and dogs are at a safe distance), or buy the whole lot on iTunes for £7.99 (also at Amazon and Spotify) It took me about 20 minutes to make this album. Here’s how you can do it yourself: Using a program like Audacity, open ANY file as RAW data (see this video tutorial for detailed instructions) Choose your conversion method The file you send to iTunes and release to the world MUST be in this format: 16 bit (sample size), 44.1 kHz (sample rate), 1411 kbps (bit rate) stereo wav So, after playing with your file (or not doing anything in particular) export it with these options Using a service like TuneCore, release your album to the world Become a famous Noise artist like me I chose to convert a series of iTunes executable files, each one plucked from a long list of releases under the iTunes 10 label, but you can choose anything. Have a look on Soundcloud for a bunch of people who have done just this. This is ‘art’, so of course my work has to be critically engaged, and self aware. Thankfully, iTunes regulations make this really easy: Content that is not produced by Apple Inc. must not include the word “iTunes” anywhere in the metadata or cover art. I would argue that the content of my album is 100% ‘produced by Apple Inc.’ but they wouldn’t let me call it ‘iTunes.exe 10’. It was only after several iterations of cover art that the album was allowed into the Apple store. These are just some of the woes that a true Noise artist must suffer in the pursuit of their art. RAWerTUNES10dotEXE [3Dude


Prompt: Samsung SmartTV transmits data to a third party, be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information. We have discussed several times about the privacy and security issues related to the Internet of Things devices, Smart meters and Smart TV are intelligent devices that could be exploited by hackers to collect our sensitive information. Today we will speak about SmartTv, in particular of the last models produced by giant Samsung, this new generation of the device is able to watch and listen us to receive commands. The downside is that our images and audio could be

transferred to third parties, but unfortunately the majority of end-users ignore it because every time makes a purchase never reads the booklet of instructions and information provided by manufacturers. Imagine, you are watching TV on your Samsung SmartTV talking with your girl or friend, or you are watching stock news from your office with your client, while the Smart TV is collecting audio and video to improve your experience by sending your words to third parties. On Reddit news website was started a few days ago an interesting discussion titled “Samsung SmartTV Privacy Policy: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.” The users were commenting the privacy policy that Samsung share with its customers for the use of the Voice Recognition system. Under the Voice Recognition section of the policy is reported: “If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition. If you do not enable Voice Recognition, you will not be able to use interactive voice recognition


Prompt: Six months into a deepening drought, the weather is killing crops, threatening cattle and sinking lakes to their lowest levels in years across much of the South. The very worst conditions -- what forecasters call "exceptional drought" -- are in the mountains of northeast Alabama and northwest Georgia, a region known for its thick green forests, waterfalls and red clay soil. "Here at my farm, April 15 was when the rain cut off," said David Bailey, who had to sell half his cattle, more than 100 animals, for lack of hay in Alabama's scorched northeast corner. "We've come through some

dry years in the '80s, but I never seen it this dry, this long," Bailey added. "There's a bunch of people in a lot of bad shape here." The drought has spread from these mountains onto the Piedmont plateau, down to the plains and across 13 southern states, from Oklahoma and Texas to Florida and Virginia, putting about 33 million people in drought conditions, according to Thursday's U.S. Drought Monitor. Wildfires raged Thursday near Birmingham, Alabama. Statewide, the blazes have charred more than 12,000 acres in the past 30 days. "There are places getting ready to set records for most numbers of days in a row without rain. It's a once-in-100-year kind of thing for this time of year," said John Christy, Alabama's state climatologist. Why won't it rain? Why Alabama continues to dry out A 'vicious cycle' of warm and dry conditions is not forecast to end anytime soon. The South has historically enjoyed abundant water, which has been fortunate, because much of its soil is poor at holding onto it. But the region's booming growth has strained this resource. A legal battle between Georgia and Florida over water from rivers and their watersheds goes before a federal court official Monday, and the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to review his recommendations. The dry weather is only making things worse. "We're 10 days away from a drought at any given time," Christy explained. "Unlike the Midwest and other places in the country, we are closer to a drought than almost any place else." Parts of northern Georgia and Alabama have now seen their driest 60 days on record, Thursday's national drought report showed. If the drought persists, authorities said it could lead to the kinds of water use restrictions that are common out West, but haven't been seen in


Prompt: Father of slain man thanks community for support OPEN LETTER TO THE COMMUNITY OF AURORA FROM THE TEVES FAMILY. ALEX TEVES DIED IN THE JULY 20 SHOOTINGS Chief Oates Aurora Police Department 15001 E. Alameda Parkway Aurora, CO 80012 Attn: Chief Oaks Chief Oates, I wanted to take a moment out of your busy day to send a letter to you, your team, and the citizens of the great City of Aurora, as well as the great State of Colorado. I lost my son in the theatre shootings on July 20th, it was, and continues to be, the most horrific

time of my life. It is difficult to put into words how awful Caren, Tommy, Nick and I have felt since that fateful call but I be remiss if I didn’t take time out to thank you, and each and everyone of your team. The wonderful hospitality that you showed my family, relatives and friends over those terrible initial days was a God send. This has been an extremely difficult time for us as you can imagine and though we are completely grief-stricken and heartsick, most of which will not heal until we are able to join Alex with Jesus and our Lord in Heaven, the kindness and compassion that everyone has shown has surpassed any expectation that I may have had. From the moment we arrived we were treated with dignity, respect, and kindness that was overly gracious and generous. I would like to specifically thank two angels on earth, our victim’s advocates, Sarah Graber and Autumn Shields. Without their guidance and love we would have never gotten through this period. Additionally, all of the team members led by Carole O’Shea were helpful and attentive. Steve and Nancy Travino from Ponderosa Valley Funeral Services were instrumental in helping guide us through the process so that we were able to have a very private and proper funeral for Alex. The hotel that we stayed in, Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott Aurora Southlands, helped us with all of our needs and allowed us to take over their conference room for five days, as well as never letting the press know we were staying there. Somehow though, they did let all of the surrounding restaurants know that we were there and each one in turn sent us dinner without asking for anything in return. We are also in the debt of


Prompt: I've been playing with a nice way of defining models in a sort of declarative way in CoffeeScript, this is what I have so far: class Post extends Model @field 'title', default: 'New post!' @field 'body' # the default is supplied as a closure which is evaluated at object creation time @field 'created_at', default: -> new Date() class User extends Model @field 'username' @field 'twitter' @has_many Post, as: 'posts' Which would be used like this: # Create a new user user = new User(username: 'tom', twitter: 'almostobsolete') # Bind to the change event for the title property user.bind 'change:username', (value)

=> alert "Username updated to #{value}" # Print out details of posts when they are created by the user user.bind 'posts:add', (post) => alert "Post titled #{post.get('title')} was written at #{post.get('created_at')}" # Change the user's username (which will trigger the event bound above) user.set('username', 'thomas') # Create a blog post associated with the new user (which will trigger the other event) post = user.posts.create title: 'Declarative Models' body: 'One of the useful additions....' I'm currently using something like this for an MVC architected iPhone App written in CoffeeScript. I wanted a way of defining fields and relationships in a simple, expressive and DRY way. It works using class methods on the Model base class (as described at the end of Class section in the CoffeeScript docs). This works because the body of a class in CoffeeScript is executable code and within the body @ refers to the class object itself (elsewhere it refers to the current value of 'this'). For example, a partial implementation of the Model class (just defining @field and not including events, see here for a more complete implementation) would be: class Model # This is the CoffeeScript syntax to declare a class method @field: (name, options) -> @fields ?= {} @fields[name] = options || {} constructor: (attributes) => @attributes = {} # Copy in attributes passed in or defaults from the fields as appropriate for name, options of @constructor.fields # Defaults can be specified as values or as functions @attributes[name] = attributes?[name] || if (isFunction(options.default)) then options.default() else options.default # Getters and setters get: (name) => @attributes[name] set: (name, value) => field = @constructor.fields[name] throw Error('Trying to set an non-existent property!') if not field # Ignore a re-setting of the same value return if value == @get(name) @attributes[name] = value A more complete implementation (with support


Prompt: By Cruz Serrano Back when Barry Bonds’ hat size was still considered human, back when the only interleague series was in October, way back before baseball’s Summer of Love that saw Sosa and McGwire hammer their way past Roger Maris, the team of the 90s was hunting for their second straight World Series title. After winning it all in ‘95, the Atlanta Braves were out to build a dynasty rather than becoming more reminiscent of the Buffalo Bills, whose success paralleled that of the Braves: close but no cigar. The Braves, once again, found themselves as the best team in

the National League and were prepared to take on the Yankees, one year removed from the retirement of Don Mattingly. The Braves came out firing, thanks in large part to the heroics of then 19-year-old Andruw Jones. Jones became the youngest player ever to hit a home run in the World Series, and was also only the second player ever to hit a home run in his first two at bats in the fall classic. The Braves high-octane offense along with their incredible starting pitching jumped to a quick two games to none lead in the series. However, the Braves bullpen imploded, and the Yankees would sweep games 3-6 to put an end to the Braves hopes of winning back-to-back championships. Looking back at that series, it’s hard not to see similarities between the series and the career of Andruw Jones. Much like the Braves in the series, Jones’ career started off fast, and he quickly became regarded as one of the best centerfielders in baseball, if not the best. However, Andruw, like the Braves in ‘96, eventually hit a proverbial wall that cut short what was sure to be a no doubt Hall of Fame career. Even with the parallels, it’s hard to say that Andruw came up short, mostly because of how great he was before his body and bat betrayed him. From a purely subjective standpoint, Andruw Jones was the most exciting player to watch in his mid-twenties: the light tower power, along with his incredible defense and flair for making jaw dropping plays, made every game a must watch. Andruw also played the shallowest center field of any player that I can remember, and I hardly recall any balls landing in the grass over his head. However, in order to argue for his Hall of Fame


Prompt: (CNN) -- What was the name of that guy with that stuff in that place with those things? Don't you remember? Scientists have found mechanisms for how the brain creates short-term and long-term memories. We all suffer occasional lapses in memory. Some people suffer severe neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's, that rob them of their ability to form memories or remember recent events. Three new studies shed light on the way the brain forms, stores and retrieves memories. Experts say they could have implications for people with certain mental disorders. When did it happen? Newly born brain cells, thousands of

which are generated each day, help "time stamp" memories, according to a computer simulation by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, and the University of Queensland in Australia. The research was published in the journal Neuron. These cells do not record an exact, absolute date -- such as January 28, 2009 -- but instead encode memories that occur around the same time similarly. In this way, the mind knows whether a memory happened before, after or alongside something else. Neuroscientists believe that if the same neurons are active during two events, a memory linking the two may be formed. For example, you might remember that, on a day a few years ago, you went to a restaurant and then went to a baseball game. Researchers think the same neurons are active during both events, which results in an association with each other when you remember them. In fact, the same young neurons respond to everything that happens for several weeks, said two of the study's co-authors, professor Fred Gage and graduate student Brad Aimone from the Salk Institute. While associations are known to form based on sight, smell, and other senses -- you may remember last year's baseball game through the taste of a hot dog today, for example -- their computer model shows that the young brain cells also link through time. "Even though these young cells are only a small percentage of the overall circuit, we believe that their effect may be enough to give people the sense of "this happened around the same time as" something else, Gage and Aimone wrote in an e-mail. The findings could have promising implications for diseases that involve a neurogenesis deficit -- in other words, a lack of new brain cells being born -- which


Prompt: Spread the love Pocatello, ID — There is a saying among law enforcement when they are questioned for writing asinine tickets for non-crimes and arresting well-meaning people who may be in possession of a plant to treat their child — ‘Just doing my job.’ This phrase is uttered countless times a day as police officers write tickets for everything from window tint to license plate lights — as they somehow think it justifies this level of extortion. The most recent case of extortion for non-crimes is getting a lot of attention in Idaho because police extorted a man who was

actually providing a community service. When it snows in his community, Mitch Fisher is ready to help. “I take care of the neighbors. They’re all elderly and I like to help them out,” Fisher said. Fisher’s community service of plowing streets and sidewalks — for free — is so highly regarded that he was featured in a segment on a local news station in December. “I try to clean my spot and all the neighbors around me so we have a nice area to park and pull in,” Fisher said las month. “Also, hopefully, so no one gets stuck in front of my house.” But his good deed did not go unnoticed by the revenue collectors. On Wednesday, a Pocatello police officer came prowling and issued Fisher a citation for ‘depositing material on a public right of way.’ Fisher will now be extorted for over $200 for helping the city clean the roadways. Naturally, according to Local 8 News, Fisher was baffled. “I tried to talk (the officer) out of it and tell him what I was doing, that I was trying to get it out of the street because (the street) hasn’t been plowed since the beginning of snow season,” he said. “Of course, he was doing his job, wrote the citation and went on his way.” The law used to extort Fisher was Chapter 9 of Pocatello’s city code which states, “It is unlawful for any person to deposit, place or allow to remain in or upon any public right of way any material or substance injurious to persons or property.” Obviously depositing trash, debris, or anything else that would obstruct the street is a dangerous practice. However, Fisher was doing the opposite of this as he moved the snow into a pile right next to his curb.


Prompt: Last July, shortly after the outbreak of war in Gaza, President Barack Obama declared that “Israel has the right to defend itself against what I consider to be inexcusable attacks from Hamas.” To demonstrate the general moral applicability of this position, he said that “no country can accept rocket [sic] fired indiscriminately at citizens.” Obama’s claims provided ideological cover for Israel to carry out wholesale slaughter over the next six weeks in which nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed. Obama also conveniently turned reality on its head by ignoring the fact that it wasIsrael that was responsible for nearly three times

as many cease fire violations as Hamas since December 2012. Israel’s violations of the 2012 cease fire caused the deaths of 18 people, while Palestinian violations caused none. Since the end of the 51-day war in August 2014, Israel predictably has gone on violating the most recent cease fire even more brazenly and with complete impunity. The latest cease fire agreement stipulated that Hamas and other groups in Gaza would stop rocket attacks, while Israel would stop all military action. As with past truces, Hamas has observed the conditions. On the rare occasions that individuals or groups have fired rockets from Gaza, Hamas has arrested them. (See also here and here.) Israel, on the other hand, has failed to live up to its end of the bargain. This is consistent with past practice. Israel has continued its illegal siege on the Gaza strip, while indiscriminately harassing and shooting at the local population. Fishermen and farmers, who are trying to subsist amid dire economic conditions, have born the brunt of the aggression. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights documented 18 instances of Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinian fishermen operating within internationally recognized Palestinian waters in September 2014 alone. By December, Humanity for Palestine reported 94 total cease fire violations since the August truce. In addition to the many attacks on fishermen, Israeli border guards targeted “protesters;” “fired sporadically at Palestinian homes and agricultural property with machine guns and ‘flashbang’ grenades;” and “seriously injured” a teenager who was shot near the Kerem Shalom crossing. The first months of 2015 have seen more of the same. According to International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC): On February 25, “Israeli forces opened fire at farmers in the central Gaza Strip.” The previous day, farmers near Khan Younis had been fired on. Two days prior farmers


Prompt: Sega’s been awfully quiet about making noise in mobile and digital. They’re obviously active in both spaces, but we never seem to hear much about it. Or maybe that’s just us not doing our jobs. We recently interviewed two executives from the online and digital sides to find out where the company is at during this console transition and recent boom in mobile, and they were quick to point out their big successes there (naturally). But they also recognize the huge challenges that still face them. How does a once-king in hardware — remember the Sega Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast?

— deal with this new age of too many platforms? Senior director of digital marketing Mike Evans and director of online operations Ethan Einhorn sit down with GamesBeat to discuss. Image Credit: Sega GamesBeat: We’re in this transitional period where traditional consoles are still coming out, but the market doesn’t look anything like it used to. Sony’s main competition for consumer dollars and time may not be Microsoft but perhaps Apple instead. How does Sega view the market right now? Who are your consumers? Mike Evans: It’s a good question. Our audience is really all over the place. You have an audience that exists on the console platforms, for sure. Sega is still very much part of that picture. Then we have our audience who may also play on console but who exist on the mobile devices, who exist on tablets, who exist on PC. For Sega, rather than us defining a particular platform, what we’re trying to do is make sure that we can get our content out to all the places where our consumers exist. That’s key. You’re absolutely right. The market has changed fundamentally. But it’s also a really exciting place to be. Sega has been making mobile games since the feature phone days and at the forefront of the smartphone since 2008. Where the platforms are emerging and where there’s demand from consumers, Sega is going to be there. Ethan Einhorn: We’re taking, on the console side, more of a pillar approach. We’re doing some very exciting things with Sonic as a brand in the near future. We’re also very heavily focused on strategy, as you’ve seen with our pickup of [Company of Heroes developer] Relic, as well as what we’re doing with [Total War developer] Creative Assembly. Of course, we’re continuing to do core titles


Prompt: When Rogers Communications began promoting its Rogers@Home high-speed Internet service nearly a decade ago, the company branded it "the Internet on Cable." Years later, their service, as well as those of their competitors, is gradually morphing into "the Internet as Cable" as broadcasters, Internet service providers, and cultural groups steadily move toward the delivery of content online that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional cable model. Announcements, Events & more from Tyee and select partners ‘Punch to the Gut’ Musical on Residential Schools Returns to Vancouver Children of God has been shaped by intense audience reactions, says director Corey

Payette. While cable television has its virtues -- some consumer choice, the ability to time shift programs by recording them with a VCR or PVR, and video on-demand offerings -- it is largely premised on limited consumer control. Cable distributors determine channel choices, geographic distribution, and commercial substitution (with input from the broadcast regulator), offer only limited interactivity, and quietly even possess the ability to stop consumers from recording some programs. Until recently, the Internet was precisely the opposite, offering unlimited user choice, continuous interactivity and technological capabilities to copy and remix content. That is gradually changing as broadcasters seek to re-assert greater geographic control over their content, ISPs experiment with cable-like models for prioritized content delivery, and some creator groups lobby the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission to adapt Canadian content regulations to the Internet. Broadcasters find the Net The re-emergence of geographic borders on the Internet coincides with broadcasters finally jumping on the Internet bandwagon, as they race to make their content freely available online. Some U.S. broadcasters are selling downloads through services such as Apple iTunes or Amazon.com, yet the unmistakable trend is toward free, ad-supported streaming of content mere hours after it first appears on commercial television. Each major U.S. broadcaster already offers a handful of shows in this manner with ambitious plans to expand their services in the months ahead. NBC and Fox recently unveiled Hulu.com to some critical acclaim, while Comedy Central created a new site for the popular Daily Show that features a complete archive of eight years of programming. Canadians, alas, are generally locked out of these sites due to licensing restrictions. Canadian broadcasters have been scrambling to buy the Internet rights to U.S. programming, both to protect their local broadcasts and to beef up their online presence. U.S. broadcasters may eventually


Prompt: Image caption Microsoft claims it would cost it $4bn a year if it met all of Motorola's licensing demands Microsoft has suffered a setback in a patent row over technologies used by its Xbox 360 games console. A judge at the US International Trade Commission has ruled that the firm infringed four patents owned by Motorola Mobility . The full commission will review the judgement in August. If the final ruling goes against Microsoft and it does not settle, Motorola could theoretically force it to halt imports of the Xbox to the US. The claims relate to technologies involved in

the H.264 video compression standard and wi-fi connectivity. Licensing fees This is just one of several cases involving about 50 intellectual properties that the smartphone maker says Microsoft should have licensed. Microsoft has said that if it met all of Motorola's demands it would face an annual bill of $4bn (£2.5bn). Motorola - which is in the process of being taken over by Google - disputes the figure. A spokesman for Motorola said: "Microsoft continues to infringe Motorola Mobility's patent portfolio, and we remain confident in our position." However, Microsoft signalled it planned to fight on, saying: "We remain confident the commission will ultimately rule in Microsoft's favour." 'Essential' innovations Patent consultant Florian Mueller, who advises Microsoft, noted on his blog that three of the four disputed patents involved Frand-type technologies . These are inventions recognised as being essential to an industry standard. In other words, Microsoft could not offer wi-fi or the ability to play H.264 videos without using them. Such patents must be offered under "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms". At the start of April, the European Commission said that it had launched two investigations into whether Motorola's efforts to enforce its Frand-type innovations amounted to "an abuse of a dominant market position". German ban The next significant ruling involving the two firms is due on 2 May from a court in Mannheim, Germany. It will decide whether Motorola should be allowed to order a ban on the distribution of Windows 7, Windows Media Payer and the Xbox console in the country because of the H.264 patents dispute. Microsoft has already moved its European software distribution centre from Germany to the Netherlands to minimise potential disruption. However, a US court has ruled that Motorola must not enforce such a ban until a Washington-based judge considers evidence about the