Prompt: The Latest: Sen. Ayotte rejects Trump statements about Khans WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local): 6:40 p.m. One of the more endangered Republican incumbents says she's appalled that Donald Trump would belittle the parents of a U.S. Army captain killed in Iraq with his insults and disparaging comments about Muslims. Khizr Khan, father of fallen US Army Capt. Humayun S. M. Khan and his wife Ghazala speak during the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia , Thursday, July 28, 2016. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte said in

a statement Sunday that Capt. Humayun Khan made the ultimate sacrifice and was a "true American hero." Ayotte said his family deserves support, respect and gratitude and has every right to express themselves any way they choose. Ayotte she was "appalled that Donald Trump would disparage them" and that the GOP presidential nominee "had the gall to compare his own sacrifices to those of a Gold Star family." In the firestorm over Trump's comments, the two Republican leaders in Congress — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan — issued statements praising Capt. Khan. But neither made any mention of Trump or backed off their endorsement of the nominee. Ayotte has said she supports Trump. She is locked in a tough race with New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan. ___ 6:30 p.m. The Senate's Democratic leader, Harry Reid, is calling on the top Republicans in Congress to revoke their endorsements of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in the wake of his criticism of the parents of a Muslim American soldier killed in Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan have praised the sacrifices of the Khan family and Muslim Americans in the U.S. armed forces. While calling for Americans to honor the Khans, both McConnell and Ryan stopped short of criticizing Trump by name. In a statement issued Sunday, Reid says anything short of revoking their endorsements of Trump is "cowardice" on the part of the Republican leaders. Reid says "this shouldn't be hard" and calls Trump "a sexist and racist man who insults Gold Star parents, stokes fear of Muslims and sows hatred of Latinos." The Nevada Democrat says Trump shouldn't be president and that "Republican leaders have a moral responsibility to say so?." ___ 4:55 p.m. House Speaker Paul Ryan says Muslim


Prompt: After a terrible personal performance against the Cowboys in round 8, Newcastle captain Kurt Gidley has announced that he’s heading over to England to finish out his career with Warrington. But first, there is a long NRL season to play out, and the Knights need to figure out where Gidley fits into their team. Gidley has his fair share of critics, but he is still a valuable player. He just needs to be used in the right way. Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Reddit Email Share At the moment Rick Stone is starting Gidley at fullback and moving him to hooker a

third of the way through the game to make way for Sione Mata’utia at fullback. This is a frustrating, overcomplicated and downright ineffective tactic. For a number of years Gidley has been part of Newcastle’s spine, and he has a great deal of respect from his teammates and the coaching staff. But it’s becoming clear that he needs to move from a shot caller to a support player. Gidley often over calls his halves for the ball, only to make a poor decision when he gets it in his hands. The halves, Jarrod Mullen and Tyrone Roberts, seem to lose confidence and refuse to back themselves when Gidley is calling the shots. Advertisement Advertisement No one can doubt Gidley’s commitment to the Knights, but in his effort to do everything himself he makes a lot of errors. But despite all this Gidley does have a place in the Knights’ top 17 – as an impact lock/second row coming off the bench. Gidley has the ability to break tackles, make tackles, throw offload and play the ball at the line – all attributes which would make him an excellent impact backrower. He’s also one of the fittest blokes in the NRL, and holds the Knights’ record in the beep test. In fact, he has broken his own record a number of times. Compare his offensive career stats to those of Luke Lewis, who has also been slapped with the same utility tag for much of his career. Like Gidley, he has been forced to play a number of positions, from fullback to forward. Gidley: Games 236, metres per game 101, tackle busts 480, offloads 297 Lewis: Games 242, metres per game 82, tackle busts 385, offloads 173 Gidley also averages more tackles a game (18.3 v 17.4), less missed tackles (2.3


Prompt: Bob Chapman | February 23, 2011 Public debt has become a problem worldwide. What is becoming more and more evident is that it is unsustainable and simply unpayable. It could be compared to a giant Ponzi scheme. We see no meaningful debt reductions thus, government will have to raise taxes, which will further suppress the economy, or people and companies will be forced to buy such bonds, or perhaps pension and retirement funds will be seized to continue the game for a while longer. The whole concept of government debt in the US, whether it’s federal, state, municipal, corporate or

personal stands on very shaky ground. Debt is serviced with revenues and income and when both are falling it is difficult to service. We have begun to enter a period of slowly rising interest rates. In the US the Fed has managed interest rates to be as low as possible to both aid in a recovery and to keep the financial edifice from collapsing. Over the past six months the bench mark 10-year Treasury note yield has risen from a yield of 2.20% to 2.74% and presently stands at about 3.60%. That 1.4% rise in rates has been offset by GDP growth of 3%. The problem is that such GDP growth has been maintained by growth in debt. The two sources of debt are the Fed and government. The Fed has been buying the government debt by creating money out of thin air. That is called monetization and it causes inflation. The government demand comes from revenues that have fallen and continue to fall, and as a result government issues more debt. The lenders, the bond buyers, sell dilution in the value of debt and in the dollar and as a result demand a higher yield. At this stage you can see how important QE1 and 2 and fiscal stimulus have been over the past 2-1/2 years. Had they not been implemented the economic and financial system would have collapsed. The next question to be asked is will we have to have quantitative easing and stimulus indefinitely? The answer is yes, but unfortunately if that path is followed lenders will demand ever-higher interest rates and the dollar will continue to fall in value versus gold and silver and other currencies. We estimate GDP growth to be 2% to 2-1/4% in 2010, down from 3%, all of which were aided by


Prompt: This year my boys were about 2½ years old for Christmas, providing an interesting setting to reconcile my views and values surrounding the holiday. I have lots of fond childhood memories around the magic of Christmas and getting presents; so given my recent philosophical changes how should I approach this topic with my family? Well, now that it’s the New Year, why not reflect upon it? Leading up to Christmas The boys started singing and requesting Christmas songs pretty early in December, or late November. We stuck to classics such as Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

and Deck the Halls. I was pretty amazed actually at their ability to learn and recite songs; this was a fun part of Christmas for sure. Daily we would sing Jingle Bells together in the car on the way home for the day. I like to push decorating as last as possible, usually mid-December. I grew up in a house where we would get a tree a week or two before Chistmas day and my Dad would ceremoniously toss it out the front door on New Year’s Day. Our decorations are quite modest; consisting of a few strings of lights outside, a small tree and any cards received and other decorations we’ve received as gifts. We don’t like a lot of clutter in general, so we take a pretty minimalist appraoch. Gifts The boys got one gift each and a stocking full of little toys and things from Santa. Our families have free reign to give them what they want, but we do encourage them to keep it moderate. My wife and I actually forgot to get them something specifically from us, which was our plan. That being said, the boys received more than enough gifts from family. My wife has a wonderful habit of purging toys occassionally, storing some, giving some away and cycling previously stored toys into rotation. There is no need for more toys at any point. Santa When we discussed this topic last year, before the boys were really talking, we both agreed that ideally we wouldn’t even bother with the myth of Santa. We came around thankfully, remembering the magic we each experienced as kids. Our compromise is that we agreed Santa would bring one wrapped gift per child each year along with a stocking full of trinkets and useful items. Wrapping it up As


Prompt: The image is striking: A pale woman with white hair is grabbing a black woman by the face. The white figure looks angry and determined. The black figure looks submissive; her body all but disappears into the background of the ad itself. “PlayStation Portable,” the text says. “White is coming.” Wait, is this real? Yes, it is. The ad ran in the Netherlands in 2006 to advertise a white model of the PlayStation Portable, and it quickly drew controversy. “Whilst the images used in the campaign were intended solely to highlight the contrast between the different colors available for the

PSP, we recognize that the subject matter of one specific image may have caused concern in some countries not directly affected by the advertising," Sony Computer Entertainment of Europe said in a statement at the time. "As a result, we have now withdrawn the campaign." It was a ridiculously tone-deaf advertisement then, but that was a long time ago. Why is it back on the radar? One tweet went viral I wish I had a better reason for all the noise around this image, but it boils down to the fact one person tweeted the ad yesterday and it blew up. sony: literally just make the most racist thing you can imagine designer: wait what sony: we'll give you ten grand designer: pic.twitter.com/02a9UJM4vA — enmet (@emmetbroaders) April 4, 2017 With nearly 20,000 retweets and over 29,000 likes, that’s a tweet with a lot of reach. A lot of people, seeing the ad for the first time, assumed it was new or still running and tweeted their own version of it next to some version of “What the hell?” The individual who tweeted that image has also been subjected to 48 hours of “well, actually” replies where people point out the age of the advertisement, which is a fact they already knew. glad that we're doing bad ads again even better that it's an opportunity to drag sony once again — enmet (@emmetbroaders) April 4, 2017 The viral tweet used a rhetorical construction that’s been around for a while, mocking the idea that ad companies have no idea what they’re doing, but at least their checks don’t bounce. Company: "We'll pay you to sponsor our food even though you're a YouTube makeup artist" Youtuber: https://t.co/VHochp3Ymu — anna (@annathedrama) February 16, 2017 There are other bad ads out there? I mean, there


Prompt: Despite all the bad press and the endless predictions of potential problems, the Denver Broncos will be fine if Pro Bowl linebacker Von Miller ultimately is suspended for the first four games of this season. They still have Peyton Manning playing quarterback. They still have a schedule that ranks as the easiest in the NFL. They also have that proverbial chip on their shoulders, the one that has been sitting there since they flopped in last year's playoffs. As disheartening as the news of Miller's impending suspension had to be for the Broncos organization -- and he's currently appealing the

punishment for allegedly violating the league's substance-abuse policy -- these are facts that can't be denied. The AFC remains so weak that a Denver team that is the clear-cut class of the conference could overcome even his absence. There would've been more legitimate concern had Miller been lost to injury or during a more critical stretch of the season. But one glance at the Broncos' September lineup reveals that they will survive his possible loss without much concern. For those who believe the Baltimore Ravens pose a substantial threat in the season opener because they are the defending Super Bowl champions, think again. That game will be played in Denver, and the Ravens won't be nearly as scary as they were at the end of last season. Baltimore is replacing several key leaders (Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Matt Birk and Anquan Boldin) and dependable playmakers (Paul Kruger, Dannell Ellerbe and Bernard Pollard). This team, one that nobody was hyping when last year's postseason began, has 9-7 written all over it. Von Miller is an impact player, but Denver has a lot of other things going for it in 2013. AP Photo/Jack Dempsey Broncos fans also shouldn't be quivering at the thought of Denver facing Philadelphia and Oakland in Weeks 3 and 4. Those teams combined for six wins last season, and it's hard to see them drastically improving this fall. The only real disappointment here could be Miller's lost opportunity to pad his stats. Between the uncertainty surrounding the Eagles' quarterback situation and the questions about new Raiders quarterback Matt Flynn, Miller could've set sack records in those contests. That leaves only a Week 2 road trip to the New York Giants as the most imposing sight on Denver's early schedule, and this much we know right now: There is


Prompt: ALAMEDA, Calif. -- A "frustrated" Mark Davis said he stands behind general manager Reggie McKenzie and new interim head coach Tony Sparano as the Oakland Raiders try to bounce back from a 0-4 start and the firing of coach Dennis Allen. However, Davis said it is imperative that the Raiders improve. "The way we were losing was frustrating," the Raiders owner said after the news conference to announce Allen's firing and Sparano's hiring for the rest of the season. "I think it's just the way we lost some of the games, yeah, I think we weren't in them. To me,

that's not what the Raiders are. ... In my analysis, I think we do have players that can play in this game. And I just think that there may be some changes in how the schemes are utilized. Dennis is the one who has taken the fall for it." Editor's Picks Williamson: Raiders need to remember how to win What does interim head coach Tony Sparano think the Raiders' biggest problem is? They have forgotten how to win, Bill Williamson writes. Davis said it was McKenzie's decision to fire Allen and that he agreed. McKenzie chose Allen in 2012 after Davis made McKenzie the primary decision-maker of the franchise in the first move after the death of his father, Al Davis, in November 2011. Allen was 8-28 as the Raiders coach and they have lost a league-high 10 games dating to last season. Asked if it was a mistake to keep Allen after consecutive 4-12 seasons, Allen said, "No, that was Reggie's decision, and you see where it ended up. So, I don't know if you'd call it a mistake." McKenzie said in the news conference that he will hire the next coach. Yet he said he realizes nothing is guaranteed with his own job security. "A lot rides on me," said McKenzie, whose drafting and free-agent signings have yet to pay dividends on the field in Oakland. "I brought Dennis here to win, and that did not materialize." Sparano At A Loss Since Tony Sparano became the Dolphins' head coach in 2008, the teams he has been involved with have had just one season .500 or better. The past six seasons, his teams have finished below .500 every year: Team W-L Role 2008 Dolphins 11-5 HC 2009 Dolphins 7-9 HC 2010 Dolphins 7-9 HC 2011 Dolphins 4-9* HC 2012


Prompt: Julian Assange's residency at the Ecuadorian embassy in London would be coming to an end should Ecuadorian presidential hopeful Guillermo Lasso win the election next week. Lasso made the remarks in an interview to the Guardian on 9 February. "The Ecuadorian people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear," he said during an interview in Quito. "We will cordially ask Señor Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate." Israel: 12th Dead Sea Scroll cave of Qumran discovered The right-wing candidate of the Creo-Suma alliance is running behind the ruling socialist party candidate

Lenin Moreno in the first round of the vote on 19 February. Moreno served as vice-president under current president Rafael Correa between 2007 and 2013. He is a well-known activists for the rights of people with disability as he has been in a wheelchair since he was shot in a robbery in 1998. He has been leading the polls since November, but Lasso, who is a former banker, could still stand a chance of winning should the two face each other in a run-off. Couple arrested after autistic girl found locked in cage covered in excrement The Correa government has been supporting Assange's request of political asylum since 2012 when the Australian sought refuge in the country's embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is accused of rape. But, according to the Guardian, politicians and diplomats are increasingly weary of the situation and occasional tensions have surfaced. Internet access to the Wikileaks founder was temporarily cut during the US presidential election, when his website published leaked email about the Democratic Party and its candidate Hillary Clinton. "We wanted to be clear that our sovereign space was not being used for interference in the election of another country," the foreign minister, Guillaume Long told the British newspaper. Man trapped underwater by digger saved by using yoga position He added that there is a human cost to the situation and that the embassy staff has been "through a lot". "This is probably the most watched embassy on the planet," he said. According to Long, the staff tried to give Assange, who recently said he had not seen the sunlight in four years, as much comfort as possible, but the building does not have outside areas and he occupies a room on the first floor, where there is not much light. Julian


Prompt: O'Sheas Merchant pub on Merchants Quay The decision to turn accommodation above a popular GAA pub into a shelter for homeless families has been described as inappropriate. The city council will turn the current emergency accommodation at O'Shea's Merchant pub on busy Merchants Quay into a family hub. The move is part of drastic plans by Housing Minister Simon Coveney to ensure no families will be living in hotels or B&B accommodation by the start of next month. The emergency accommodation above the pub will be turned into one of 15 family hubs across the city planned by the council's

Homeless Executive. None of the hubs will be run by the Homeless Executive. All will be taken over by housing services. No details have yet been released about the opening date of the hub at O'Shea's Merchant or the number of families who will stay there. However, it is understood that the families currently using the emergency accommodation are expected to remain when the property is transformed. O'Shea's Merchant is a popular Dublin pub, especially among Kerry supporters. Those living in the hubs will be allowed visitors but will not be permitted to have anyone stay overnight. Clubs Meals will be provided on-site and each family will have their own en-suite washing facilities. Homework clubs for children will be included. Last month, city councillors backed a motion calling for a change in the way family hubs are chosen. Previously, councillors had been left in the dark about hubs until plans were finalised. Cllr Mannix Flynn - who tabled this emergency motion - has hit out at a lack of information for families and councillors and said the hub above O'Shea's Merchant was in a "highly inappropriate" location. "[The council] is not telling us what buildings it is looking at or where the money is going," he said. "It's highly inappropriate - a really busy corner of a main street. It's also a stones throw away from Merchants Quay Ireland [Homeless and Drug Service] which is an issue of constant complaint from the public over anti-social issues." News of the latest hub comes just two weeks after it was revealed that a hub would be located in a Bargaintown furniture store site on the Malahide Industrial Estate in Coolock. Two more will be located in Lynam's Hotel on O'Connell Street and Mater Dei on Cloniffe Road. Others will be located in


Prompt: Cards Against Humanity, before it became go-to entertainment for a generation raised on the Internet and saddled with a backward idea of political correctness, began as a crowdsourced, printable game created by a group of old high school friends. A 2011 Kickstarter campaign produced the actual cards. In the promotional video, we’re introduced to half a dozen white guys who explain that it’s for “horrible people,” or at least the type of people who like to jokingly describe themselves as such. Recently, for a Black Friday promotion, they sent 30,000 people boxes of actual bullshit. It’s that sort of thing.

The concept is simple: One person throws out a fill-in-the-blank prompt card, and the rest of the players have to supply the missing words with cards bearing phrases like “pooping back and forth forever” and “not giving a shit about the Third World.” The founders promise that the game is “as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.” Their success is startling: Cards Against Humanity is the No. 1 bestseller in Amazon Toys & Games, with five expansion sets to date, three holiday packs, and bundles with themes like “nostalgia” and “science.” There are more than 14,000 five-star reviews on Amazon. “That’s a level of devotion that can’t be explained by shock value alone,” wrote Nick Summers in Business Insider, as “the humor is calibrated to startle without being outright offensive.” Well, that’s not exactly true. The first time I played Cards Against Humanity, I couldn’t remember having ever laughed so hard. It was at a friend’s engagement party, with 10 people I knew better than just about anyone, our faces turning red and streaming with tears as we envisioned a mopey zoo lion, a frolicking gassy antelope, and Micropenises: The Musical. The hilarity lived in the shock, and each card had us doubled over almost before we could read it. You’re the “horrible person” who played the cards in the first place. It’s not the game’s fault. The second time I played, I still laughed a lot, though I started recognizing all the cards. The third time, I realized that some made me uncomfortable. The fifth time I played, I was thankful that my friend had brought an expansion pack, because there are only so many times I can cackle at the idea of Glenn Beck balls-deep in a squealing hog. I’ve played it about a dozen times,


Prompt: A Portrait of Poly Psychopharmacology You think maybe something wasn’t quite right? This journey started the summer of 1985 and is about to end in the next couple of months. I have been withdrawing the past 6 years. Nothing ever did “work” and in retrospect much made me worse, hence the withdrawal process that began six years ago of which I am at the tail end. The reason it didn’t work is because after an illicit drug induced mania, I basically just had average problems of living to deal with, and then once I started on drugs the issues became

drug induced symptoms. Iatrogenic psychiatric and other symptoms. My diagnosis, given as a life sentence never really had much credibility. Many times on the “trials” of these drugs I went through periods of at least two weeks (my doctor always told me to stick it out as the side-effects might pass) in which I suffered immeasurably. They generally didn’t pass, but sometimes I got used to them, sort of like the proverbial toad in water. The cocktail I ended up after much experimentation left me the least twisted, but grossly twisted nonetheless. In retrospect I see now how one drug led to the next. The “mood-stabilizers” which left me depressed led to the antidepressants which left me with insomnia and agitation which led to the benzos for sleep. They still didn’t get rid of the agitation which led me to the antipsychotics (which made everything worse and in fact my doc kept adding Risperdal milligram by milligram until I was on 11 mg for my akathesia which I now know is CAUSED by the Risperdal—he was treating my symptom with the drug that was causing the symptom!! No joke.) My akathisia ceased when I finally got off the Risperdal. We always called it “anxiety.” What crap. All that left me so sedated, the next step was the stimulants. The addiction to benzos left me in tolerance withdrawal which increased the anxiety and thus led to more benzos. Unfortunately I’ve learned this happens to way too many people, some of whom never even realize it. Drugs leading to more drugs leading to more drugs. And once in the trap it’s almost impossible to see clearly. To realize what is going on is difficult and perhaps sometimes impossible. Now I’m virtually done with my withdrawal of the final cocktail of 6 meds


Prompt: Shaquem Griffin thought UCF football coaches were joking when they told him to join the linebackers' room last month. Up until the start of spring practice, he spent the majority of his college football career working out with the secondary, which includes his twin brother, Shaquill. Griffin, who is a redshirt junior from St. Petersburg, made his biggest play during a game last season on special teams when he recovered a muffed punt against Tulane. But when the new coaching staff looked at Griffin, they didn't see a safety. They saw a potential pass rusher at outside linebacker. "My father

always talked about me playing linebacker," Griffin said. "And now that I was in there I was like let's give it a shot and it actually went really good for me...my dad was like I told you so, I told you so. That's the funny part about it." Griffin brought some experience to the position having played linebacker in sports during his time at Lakewood High School. The Knights will rely on Griffin to bring his speed and athleticism to the linebackers as the team transitioned from a base 4-3 defense to a 3-4. There is no set group of starters, but Griffin and senior Errol Clarke have seen their fair share of reps with the 1s at outside linebacker with Chequan Burkett and Mark Rucker working the inside. New linebackers coach Jovan DeWitt said he's been pleased so far with Griffin and Clarke's performance on the edges. "They're doing a really good job and buying into a lot of the things that we're doing. They're having some success. Obviously Griff came down from the back end on the secondary level but he's got some height to him and some strength and some quickness that we want," DeWitt said. "Errol's a really good football player and he's picking things up really well. He's transitioned really well into being an edge guy. He's got the combination of understanding the coverage area aspect and still being a physical enough player in the box for us." Griffin's background as a safety makes the transition much easier in a 3-4 defense here linebackers are more spread out as if they were on a basketball court. His brother, Shaquill hasn't been surprised by his success in the new role either. Like their father, Terry, he always saw Shaquem more as a linebacker. "[Shaquem] was really


Prompt: Posted on September 11, 2011 in Articles The President ordered from Costco for the Osama Bin Laden watch party. Turkey pita sandwiches, cold shrimp, potato chips. The White House’s comfort food of choice to witness the end of the world’s most wanted man. “Now entering Pakistan,” CIA director Leon Panetta narrated over the big screen. Joe Biden kneaded rosary beads. Hillary Clinton covered her face in shock. But President Obama looked on. Stone-faced. “GERONIMO. EKIA.” Geronimo. The code name for Osama Bin Laden. EKIA. Enemy Killed In Action. Osama Bin Laden had been shot in the head. A hushed silence.

“We got him,” President Obama said finally, quietly. A pause. Then the backslapping, the high-fiving all around. “We got him.” With that Obama grabbed a sandwich to go and marched upstairs to tell the nation. **************************************** Osama Bin Laden was irrelevant by 2011. Al Qaeda, decimated by Drone attacks from above, infighting from within, and reviled across most of the Muslim world. But the visceral joy was still there. That sneering, bearded mug of barbarity was shot in the head. By an American bullet. The mystique died next. Turns out, Osama Bin Laden was not a hardened ascetic denouncing the West from a snow-capped mountain pass. Instead, he reclined on the third floor of a million dollar compound forty miles from Pakistan’s capital. He was a vainglorious media junkie who dyed his beard for his next video. He spent his time looking at a) himself on TV and b) porn. Osama Bin Laden was protected not by legions of hardened Mujahideen fighters but two well-to-do Pakistanis and their children. A private family that kept to itself with no phone-lines. They burned their trash indoors lest anyone riffle through the refuse. He spent his final days listening to the pitter patter of children’s feet. Buffalo crowning a yard over. And that cloudless night the incoming roar of four U.S. helicopters and then gunfire. He was shot once in the head, once in the back, before his body was unceremoniously dumped somewhere in the Indian Ocean. A decade after September 11, Osama Bin Laden was not the savior of the Muslim world but its scourge. His name sneered, not chanted. A decade later, Osama Bin Laden was no longer the bearded totem of resistance to American imperialism. He was the crutch of Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi and the region’s other loathed strongman


Prompt: @cheesyhel/Twitter A birthday greeting card that tells 13-year-old girls they could get jewels from rich boyfriends "when they have bigger boobies" has sparked outrage on Twitter. The condemnation was unleashed following a Dec. 7 tweet from user @cheesyhels in the United Kingdom: "Look at this shockingly awful card I found today for a 13 year old!" she wrote, along with a link to an image of the card. The card, created more than 14 years ago by a company that was since acquired by Hallmark Cards UK, read: "You're 13 today! If you had a rich boyfriend he'd give you

diamonds and rubies Well, maybe next year you will - when you've bigger boobies!" The drawing on the Arnold Barton brand card depicts a girl holding a box containing a ring. There was immediate outrage on Twitter. The original tweet was retweeted 515 times. American author Maureen Johnson also tweeted about the card, and her tweet was retweeted more than 1,100 times. User ?@andrewtshaffer tweeted in response: "I hope when she's 14 she doesn't have a boyfriend buying her rubies because of her boobies." Other Twitter users expressed disbelief. "Is that real? That cannot be real," Tweeted user ?@katelinnea. @cheesyhels also tweeted the image to Twitter user @LynnCSchreiber, who wrote a post about it for Jump!, a British magazine for young girls. In her post, Schreiber wrote: "Words failed me when a Twitter friend showed me the card that she had seen in a local newsagent." "You won't have to rely on a boyfriend, or hope that your 'boobies' grow big enough," Schreiber's post continued. "You will be successful and happy because of your intelligence and creativity, not because of your looks." Hallmark's U.S. corporate office posted an apology from Hallmark UK on its website on December 7. It also explained that the card was created before Hallmark bought the company in 1998. "We are as surprised and horrified as anyone else to have discovered that there are still copies in circulation," David Dean, managing director of Hambledon Studios, a subsidiary of Hallmark UK, said in the statement. "The card has not been produced for over 15 years and would never pass our own strict guidelines of taste and appropriateness. We would like to assure all our customers that we will do everything in our power to track down remaining copies." Schreiber updated her blog and posted on Twitter to


Prompt: One of the best parts of Wear OS is the ability to customize your watch face. It’s a small thing, but making it look how you want it to look adds a uniqueness that can make your watch truly yours and distinguishable from everyone else’s. There are a ton of great selections, but here are a few Android Wear watch faces that we think shine above the rest. As of the time of this writing, these watch faces should work on most Wear OS and Android Wear smartwatches. Check out more excellent Android Wear apps and games! 10 best Android

Wear apps (Wear OS apps) 5 best Wear OS games (Android Wear games) AccuWeather Price: Free / $2.99 DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY AccuWeather is a decent weather app. On top of all of its mobile features, it also has support for the newer Wear OS features. It's not a watch face on its own. It's a fully usable Android Wear app. It just so happens to also have Android Wear watch faces. To be honest, they aren't the most amazing watch faces ever. However, they're clean, they show you the weather, and they're Wear OS compatible. Since it can cover your phone, watch, and watch face, you can kill several birds with one stone using this app. DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Black Metal HD Watch Face Price: Free / $2.49 DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Black Metal HD is an ideal middle-of-the-road watch face. It features a black, brushed metal style look. The watch face itself has customizable elements as part of the Wear OS Complications feature. It can show things like battery status (for phone and watch), Google Fit, current weather conditions, and more. The watch face does virtually everything you'd want a watch face to do. It has a few bugs, but otherwise it works well. It's definitely one of the simpler, but better Android Wear watch faces. DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Bubble Widget and Wear Launcher Price: Free / $3.95 DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY DOWNLOAD ON GOOGLE PLAY Bubble Widget and Wear Launcher bills itself as a widget and launcher for Android Wear. As it turns out, it also has an interactive watch face. Essentially, the launcher becomes the watch face. You'll see the time, of course. The watch face will also


Prompt: The 2016 college Senior Bowl begins tomorrow with the weigh-in, followed by practices Tuesday-Thursday, with the game next Saturday January 30th. This is my position-by-position breakdown of who I’m liking and who I’m looking to gain more information on going forward: Cornerback Always one of the positions that has had the most distinct Seahawk archetypes, CB begins with a player that is near 6’0" and 190lbs. We’ve seen exceptions (WT3 and Burley pretty much the only two in six years…and Burley wasn’t a draftpick), but for the most part it’s those benchmarks. Weight is less of a deal-breaker than height/length.

A guy can put on 10lbs but you can’t make a short guy tall. That gives us our first pass at filtering down to a list of: James Bradberry 6’1"/213 Eric Murray 6’0"/199 William Jackson 6’1"/185 Jalen Mills 6’1"/194 Deiondre Hall 6’2"/190 Harlan Miller 6’1"/180 Maurice Canady 6’2"/195 So, the good news is that is a pretty long list of options. But a) that list will probably filter down again after weigh-in when the arm-lengths are announced, b) I’ve already filtered that list down in my mind to one. After considering all of the intel that I have access to, the only CB that I am currently considering as a draftpick from this group is Maurice Canady. And even with him, I think I’d have to see him on the board in the 6th round to be interested. I don’t think he’s WT3 in the 4th, nor Sherm or Tye Smith in the 5th…I think he’s more Byron Maxwell in the 6th. And he’ll need two years on the PS/active-redshirt/bench to get his technique complete. Now, before making you think this makes the CB class seem a disaster, keep in mind the declared Juniors includes Jalen Ramsey, Mackensie Alexander, Vernon Hargreaves, Eli Apple, Kendall Fuller, Artie Burns, Rashard Robinson, Xavien Howard, Zack Sanchez, Daryl Worley. About 7 of those guys are over 6’0". Defensive End I don’t recall ever seeing such an extreme, across the board swing to a 3-4 style DE in a single class. These guys, outside of Noah Spence, are MASSIVE. And, quite frankly, many are being mislabeled as DE. Literally, f you look at the North/South specific rosters, the South lists only one guy as a DT (Quinton Jefferson), and then lists seven DE’s. And those DE’s run 261, 265, 275, 283, 303, 313 lbs. The


Prompt: Let’s be honest Allyson, this really is all your fault. For months now I’ve been flying under the radar, working hard at achieving my no-reputation reputation. I openly let my peers judge me and was happy being referred to as “Who?” and “Her?”. And it was all for two reasons: One, they didn’t know me. And two, if we ever did meet, I could scream “You don’t know me! You don’t know me!” the same way sassy, out of control, pregnant teenagers do on Maury. But those dreams are far behind me now. Because today is a Thursday and I

find Thursdays to be exceptionally boring. So imagine my excitement when I get an email from my school telling me I need to pick up a package. I’m already in the 7.56 to 7.73 range of happiness on any given day so I hit Chris Traeger levels of optimism. Public Service Announcement: Apparently that much happiness affects one’s situational awareness and ability to rationalize. Because I got my package and started dancing. Like, in the mailroom, started dancing. Mind you, I’m a terrible dancer. I only wish I could dance half as well as Elaine. About 45 seconds in I say to myself, ‘You should stop. If someone notices you’ll never be able to achieve your Maury-level dreams.’ Why I didn’t stop there is beyond me. The CIA World Factbook should really examine their projected population growth rates for India and Nigeria because they have nothing on the population growth of my college’s mailroom. In the minute and a half I spent dancing our mailroom managed to grow from one person (Me) to about 30. This includes the girl that sits behind me in criminal law and two guys that I will see in chemistry class tomorrow morning. And naturally, there were all staring at the crazy person dancing (Dancing. Seizure. Call it what you will). So as any sane, reasonable person does, I took my package and ran the hell out of there. Thank God the embarrassment is over, right? Wrong! I ran so fast that I body slammed my apartment building’s door which wouldn’t have been a problem if the cute guy living on my floor hadn’t been opening it with a basket full of laundry. No, instead laundry flew everywhere and I mumbled something along the lines of “thank you” and “reddit”. Now he thinks I’m an


Prompt: Donald Trump. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) This story has been updated. In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made what appeared to be some of his most extensive comments yet about international climate change negotiations. In particular, Trump said he didn’t like the Paris climate agreement, recently signed by 175 countries, including the United States, and would either renegotiate it or do something more than that. “I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something

else,” Trump told Reuters. “But those agreements are one-sided agreements and they are bad for the United States.” [U.S. and 170 other nations sign historic climate agreement] The main reason given, in the Reuters story about the interview, was that Trump didn’t believe other countries would comply with what Paris requires. “Not a big fan because other countries don’t adhere to it, and China doesn’t adhere to it, and China’s spewing into the atmosphere,” he said. While the White House press secretary Josh Earnest dismissed the remarks Wednesday — “I don’t know if there’s anyone losing sleep here at the White House,” he said at a press briefing regarding Trump’s plans — environmental groups quickly denounced the statements. However, Trump’s words in many ways appear less a rehash of Trump’s overall climate change skepticism and more just baffling. Consider some of the things that don’t make much sense about what Trump appears to be saying, in light of what the Paris agreement actually is and how it works. [Trump: ‘I’m not a big believer in man-made climate change’] Trump suggests the agreement is “one-sided” or “bad” for the United States. It’s not entirely clear why he thinks that, but if the implication is that it imposes something on us from outside, that isn’t how the agreement works. Under Paris, each country makes its own individual commitments to reduce emissions. The United States sets its own targets, in pledges made to the United Nations, and like every other country, it is supposed to increase them over time. Thus, in the end, the United States does as much as it can or wants to under Paris. In fairness, the agreement certainly does assume that all countries are earnestly committed to cutting emissions. The current U.S. pledge, to reduce emissions 26 percent to


Prompt: In the nineteenth century, the march of progress made it possible for the first time for human science to contemplate and comprehend those phenomena which had long seemed to contravene the laws of nature. Within a matter of decades, concepts that had long been viewed as witchcraft or sorcery were laid bare in the terms of a new and secret science, and governments and organizations around the world began to classify, study, and collect all such anomalies. And, just as artists throughout history have turned a critical eye to the events of the day in their work, so too did

the artists of this scientific Renaissance begin to interpret these new discoveries on canvas. By the 1870s, Paris was the center of the world of anomalous art, and the city stood witness to endless debates about the role of the anomalous in art, or whether such a role existed at all. When in 1874 the famed Salon des Magnifiques refused to allow any "works of a phantasmagorical nature" to be displayed at their grand exhibition, those artists shut out by the committee organized their own counter-exhibition, to be held at the same time across the river. "Sommes-Nous Devenus Magnifiques?", as the show came to be called, was the talk of the Parisian press for months, earning equal amounts of curiosity, dismissal, and outright derision, but the exiled gadflies had made their point - the paranormal, the anomalous, and the bizarre had found a place in the world of art and would not be so easily gotten rid of. "Sommes-Nous Devenus Magnifiques?" held its exhibitions every ten years thereafter, and as time passed the world of anomalous art grew larger. From its beginnings in Paris, artists from all across France and Europe, and later from the Americas and the Orient as well, began attending the increasingly prestigious - and increasingly bizarre and difficult to keep hidden from the disdainful eyes of a concerned government - exhibition, expressing new and different interpretations of the role of the anomalous in human life. It was at the sixth decennial exhibition in 1924 that the growing rift between the two largest schools of thought - logical vs. emotional, science vs. faith, Old World vs. New - came to a head, for it was at that show that for the first time, the works of the French surrealist Marcel Duchamp would be exhibited alongside those of


Prompt: ST. PAUL, Minnesota (CNN) -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin came out swinging Wednesday night, but it's going to take more than just fighting words to win over the independent and undecided voters who hold the election in their hands. Gov. Sarah Palin's speech Wednesday night fired up Republican delegates. Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention marked her first major address as the Republican vice presidential candidate. The Alaska governor tore into Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as two-faced, arrogant and unable to lead while she painted Republican candidate John McCain as courageous reformer who is ready to take charge.

Her prime time address was full of humor and sarcasm. Her tone was a hit with delegates watching in St. Paul, Minnesota, but it didn't resonate well with everyone outside of the Republican circle. "She came across as angry and overconfident," said Kuntal Warwick, an independent voter from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. Palin had little to say about policy, and her speech was full "of smugness and mockery," Warwick said. Independents like Warwick, combined with voters who have yet to make up their mind, are the ones who could decide who ends up in the White House. Watch what iReporters think about the speech » "The base of the Democratic and Republican parties -- their votes are predictable," said John Avlon, author of "Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics." "It's the swing voters who decide who's going to carry the balance of power, who will ultimately win that election state-by-state and even nationwide." Avlon didn't have a problem with Palin's tone. He said her humor and confidence will probably appeal to the independents, but it's the lack of substance that will leave that group in search of something more. Grade the speech » Independent voters tend to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal, and they usually vote for the more centrist candidates. iReport.com: What do you think of Palin? Palin's speech touched on her fiscal record, but her far-right stance on social issues, which Avlon says "could be a real wedge with independent voters," were largely unmentioned. Watch analysts discuss the good, the bad and the ugly » "I think she has really helped close the enthusiasm gap which existed and really energized them," Avlon said, but "there is a substance gap that still exists, things we don't know about Sarah Palin in terms of what policy she


Prompt: Sound isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when you’re playing a mobile game. But that could change if RJDJ co-founder, Michael Breidenbruecker, gets his way. In an interview, Breidenbruecker described the company’s latest app, Dimensions and the potential of sonic augmented reality applications, a genre so bleeding edge that his company’s apps may be the first entries to it. Breidenbruecker is a co-founder of last.fm, the web music service that tracks, or scrobbles, the music its users listen to across a variety of environments, devices, and software applications. He is also the founder of RJDJ, the mobile

app company that created Inception – The App, which is based on the movie of the same name. Inception- The App takes gamers through a multi-level dream space, allowing them to move through and experience dream state to dream state, collecting ephemera and unlocking new dreams in the process. Dimensions has a similar concept, moving between dimensions, but is based on sound – that of the environment the user is in. Breidenbruecker calls the back-end technology here King Kong Context Detection Technology, a title which he says was created “because it sounds more fun than the technical terms.” The app is a trippy sonic experience, creating an almost hallucinogenic trip through one’s own life activities. Inspired by games like Shadow Cities and Epic Win, RJDJ wanted to create a game that connects to the things we do in our real life. Contextual cues form the kernel from which the game experience can create a sonic environment. In Dimensions, there’s also a GPS/Google Maps component, with players seeking out glowing “Quantum Cells,” a kind of currency that players use power a beam used to gather artifacts and repel enemies. Ultimately, though, Breidenbruecker is interested in the bigger ideas, like Will Wright’s HiveMind ideas, which he read about right here on VentureBeat. The app developers at RJDJ wanted to create a game where players didn’t need to focus on the game at all times – to make a game that could be played in real life, rather than only on the touchscreen. He says, “When we started to talk about that, and we read what Will Wright is up to at the moment, we realized that the whole genre is starting to happen here, which was super interesting and new.” He’s also aware that being the first to a new genre isn’t


Prompt: After news broke Wednesday night that the President may have struck a deal with Democratic congressional leaders to pass DACA legislation, on Thursday morning, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today gushed over how Trump “sounds like a Democrat” when discussing illegal immigration and tax reform. Continuing their giddy evening newscast coverage of Trump inviting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to the White House for dinner, the ABC and NBC morning shows found sudden respect for the commander-in-chief after spending the entire summer pummeling him. “Before that bipartisan dinner, the President presided over a

bipartisan meeting....Where the Democrat-turned-Republican president sounded a lot more like a Democrat, saying the wealthy may have to pay higher taxes,” correspondent Cecilia Vega proclaimed on Good Morning America. Following Vega’s report, co-host George Stephanopoulos announced: “This has enraged conservatives. A couple tweets overnight, Steve King, conservative from Iowa, ‘Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair. No promise is credible.’” Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief John Avlon hailed: You know, he seemed conflicted about DACA and the compassion for individuals is one of the things he really tweeted out, “Why would we want to deport people who are here through no fault of their own, who are serving their country in the military in some cases.” Those are more Democratic talking points than conservative. <<< Please support MRC's NewsBusters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. >>> Stephanopoulos followed up: “The President also sounds like a Democrat saying wealthier – the wealthy are gonna have to pay more under his tax plan.” Avlon agreed: “...the President saying he’s going to focus on middle class tax cuts and the wealthy might get a hike, that sounds like a Democrat.” On NBC’s Today, correspondent Peter Alexander enthused: All of it a strategic shift for the President. Just last week, shocking the capital by making a deal with Democrats on a debt ceiling extension, pulling the rug out from under the GOP....Not long ago, Mr. Trump mocked Schumer as the “head clown,” Pelosi as a “loser”....Now he’s cozying up to the Democratic duo....Even sounding a lot like a Democrat on taxes, signaling that the rich might pay more. Reporting for Wednesday’s CBS This Morning, Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes touted: “I think what it says is that the President likes to be able to not just cut deals, but cut quick deals and


Prompt: ANALYSIS/OPINION: President Obama claims federal budget deficits have not soared out of control during his administration. He has officially jumped the shark. On Wednesday at a Denver fundraiser, Mr. Obama said he was “running to pay down our debt in a way that’s balanced and responsible.” He claimed that “after inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law” and that since he has been president, “federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years. Think about that.” It doesn’t take much thought to see that this is the most absurd claim

in political memory. Mr. Obama is basing his boast on an already discredited study by journalist Rex Nutting that purported to show that “Obama has been the most fiscally moderate president we’ve had in 60 years.” Among other fatal problems with the study is that it omits all spending that took place during the first nine months of the Obama administration, which were the last nine months of fiscal 2009. Thus, all of the initial spending programs to which the White House points with pride - particularly the failed nearly trillion-dollar economic stimulus program - are George W. Bush’s responsibility so far as Mr. Nutting is concerned. The “savings” Mr. Obama signed into law were all based on rosy economic projections, none of which has come true. The fiscal 2010 budget, fancifully titled “A New Era of Responsibility,” projected a $1.2 trillion cut in the deficit to $533 billion by 2013. The fiscal 2012 budget, which had no hopeful title, raised this number to $768 billion. Mr. Obama’s September 2011 deficit-reduction proposal further raised the projected 2013 deficit to $912 billion. The fiscal 2010 budget also hopefully projected 6.26 percent economic growth for 2012 rather than the anemic 1 percent to 2 percent growth the country is suffering. Naturally, Mr. Obama would much rather make reference to the imagined future his economists projected than to the grim reality he actually created. Other simple metrics show the disastrous impact of Mr. Obama on the deficit. The 2009 budget deficit was three times that of 2008. The deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product went from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009. The deficit for the first month of fiscal 2010 was $176 billion, which was greater than the $161 billion deficit for all of 2007. In his


Prompt: There are numerous examples of schools punishing students for seemingly innocuous online activity. In 2012, after a Minnesota student wrote a Facebook post saying a hall monitor was “mean” to her, she was forced to turn over her Facebook password to school administrators—in the presence of a sheriff’s deputy. The school made an out-of-court settlement with the student, who was represented by the ACLU. In other recent cases, student banter that would have gone unnoticed in the pre-digital era has drawn swift punishment. In Kansas, a high school class president was suspended for a Twitter post making fun of his

school’s football team. In Oregon, 20 students were suspended over a tweet claiming a female teacher flirted with her students. And just a few days ago, also in Kansas, a student was suspended for a tweet that made the principal “uncomfortable” (in the wording of the school’s disciplinary incident notification). “We cannot allow the hard-fought battles for student speech rights to be eroded in the digital age,” says Lee Rowland, an ACLU staff attorney specializing in speech, privacy, and technology. “School officials aren’t permitted to listen in on chatter at students’ private gatherings with friends, or rifle through their private videos and photo albums. Nor should we permit them to do so simply because those conversations or images are digital.” No one disputes the fact that students can be cruel online. Chip Douglas, a 10th grade English teacher in North Carolina, resigned after students created a fake Twitter profile that portrayed him as a hyper-sexualized drug addict. But some First Amendment advocates believe a subsequent law enacted by the North Carolina legislature in December 2012, the first of its kind, has gone too far. Intended to protect teachers from cyber-bullying, the law prohibits students from making any online comments meant to “intimidate or torment” a school employee. Such broad language creates two big First Amendment problems. First, schools can punish any speech as long as they can cite “intimidation.” Second, schools can punish students for comments made after school hours, in the privacy of their own home. “You can’t equate online speech created on personal time with in-class speech, and it’s dangerous to try,” says Frank LoMonte, director of the Student Press Law Center. “Schools are so prone to censor and intimidate whistleblowers who complain about school conditions on school time. Students absolutely must have some safe space where they


Prompt: Saturday, June 1 9:00 am – 2:30 pm Rain or Shine | Come early for best selection A complete list of species available will be posted on approximately May 15. UMass Waltham Field Station 240 Beaver Street, Waltham, MA 02452 Buy Native ~ We offer over 120 native species, and more than 2,000 plants for sale. Our sale is now in its fifth year! Native plants are the foundation of our local food webs. Help support birds, pollinators, and other beneficial insects by adding more natives to your landscape!  Perennials for sun, shade, part-shade, and all types of soil

conditions.  A large selection of ferns, both evergreen and deciduous. Grasses and sedges, for cool season and warm season interest.  Trees and shrubs, at small sizes you can take home in your car.  Remember that native trees and shrubs do the most to increase biodiversity and to enhance the wildlife value of your landscapes. Remember that native trees and shrubs do the most to increase biodiversity and to enhance the wildlife value of your landscapes. This year we will have three previously unavailable species—sweet goldenrod, bluestem goldenrod, and spotted beebalm—custom grown just for our sale.   All of our plants are native to the eastern United States, and the majority are indigenous to New England.  Our friendly native plant and landscaping Experts will be available all day to answer your questions and give advice on plant selection.  All sale proceeds support our programs. Thank you! Grow Native Members: Get the quantities you want— order your plants in advance! Members at the Advocate/Family level and above may pre-order plants prior to the sale, selecting the exact quantity of plants desired and having them reserved in advance. We expect to offer 70-80 species through pre-order. The Pre-Sale catalog and order form will be e-mailed to all members in late April, and orders will be due by May 15 . The minimum order is $150 .  in late April, and orders will be . The minimum order is .  Pre-Sale orders will be available for pick up on either May 31 or June 1.  If you want to pre-order plants, please support our work by becoming a member at the Advocate/Family level or above, or by renewing your membership. Your annual contribution helps to make this sale possible. We appreciate your generous support. Sale


Prompt: Stuart, a 66-year-old man with diabetes, felt lousy—constantly fatigued, nauseated, and short of breath after just the slightest exertion. His daughter, worried by his increasing frailty, took him to the emergency room at the local hospital. Her concern was amply justified: Stuart was suffering from heart failure. Like 5.1 million other Americans each year who suffer from heart failure, he was admitted to the hospital to treat this serious, often life-threatening condition. The caring medical team stabilized his condition, and Stuart left the hospital after 10 days, glad to be home with words of advice and a few medications. Within

a month he was back, once again fatigued, and facing a second episode. Stuart’s story is far from rare. Hospital readmissions for chronic conditions such as diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and congestive heart failure (CHF) are both common and very costly. Studies conducted in the United States indicate that nearly 20% of Medicare patients who are hospitalized for chronic conditions are often readmitted within 30 days. Experts at Edifecs indicate that it costs Medicare—and US taxpayers—about $26 billion a year, and often a large majority of these readmissions are actually considered avoidable with accurate prioritization and personalized care protocols. Readmission-related costs have become so onerous that the Affordable Care Act includes financial rewards and penalties to deal with the readmission problem. Hospitals that reduce their readmission rates receive financial incentives; those that do not, lose reimbursement and get penalized. Holistic tools that can reliably predict heart-failure readmissions—taking into account all aspects of each patient’s condition and risk factors—would significantly help patients and hospitals. The growth in the use of electronic patient records has recently offered the potential for such analysis, but little had been done to harness the collective intelligence contained in hospital patient records augmented with other data sources. By introducing cloud computing technology and applying some of the latest advances in machine learning techniques, researchers are rapidly changing this situation. One leading example of this is RaaS (Readmission Score as a Service), a platform that was developed by the University of Washington (UW) Tacoma’s Center for Data Science. RaaS compares a patient’s medical information to a database of heart-failure outcomes, using advanced machine learning techniques to arrive at a risk-of-readmission factor as well as corresponding actionable guidelines for the patient-provider team. Those patients identified with a high risk receive additional treatment: the goal is to reduce


Prompt: Top 5 Tips for a Successful and Sane Kickstarter In the coming months we'll be inviting guest blog posts from a variety of people in and around indie development, across a wide range of topics, and we're delighted to present this week's expert insight from the Failbetter Games team. If the name's not familiar, their games certainly will be - Sunless Sea was developed with the aid of a Kickstarter campaign, releasing in early 2015 and emerging as one of the games of the year. Earlier this year, the team launched a new Kickstarter campaign for the follow-up, called Sunless

Skies. At the time of writing, it still has a few hours to go (so go back it!), but if you're reading this after it's done, we'd recommend looking over the campaign all the same to understand how the team structured the page, the assets they used, and so on. If you have specific questions, or would like to see certain topics covered, let us know in the comments section. 1. Prep your page within an inch of its life Write an introduction to your game, covering all of the most interesting or unique aspects. What will make people want to play it, instead of anything else? What will make people want to back it, with no gameplay to convince them? (Or do you have a demo?) Then make it as clear as possible. This is easier said than done! Something that makes sense to you, who knows the game backwards, might not be obvious on first reading to someone new. And you only have people’s attention for a short amount of time! Get as much feedback as you can at this stage, perhaps from someone who reviews Kickstarter campaigns professionally. We released the preview link of our page quite widely when it was almost ready. This meant lots of peoplgot to take a look at it early, which feels quite special. We’re pretty sure this contributed strongly to our campaign being funded in four hours! 2. Give your backers plenty to do We knew that we had a core of people who have followed our work and backed us before, so we wanted to make sure there was something in the campaign for all of them. Some have the finances to contribute at a high level, so we created some limited backer rewards at a high tier for them.


Prompt: These are stories Report on Business is following Tuesday, April 9, 2013. Follow Michael Babad and the Globe's top business stories on Twitter. Bitcoin surges Bitcoin, the digital currency that has become a global phenomenon, reached an all-time high today, topping $200 (U.S.). Story continues below advertisement It went as high as $240.11 at one point. As The Globe and Mail's Omar El Akkad writes, Bitcoin has become an Internet sensation, suddenly surging in value four years after its birth. Just to illustrate how far it has come, one Bitcoin was worth about just $9 two years ago, and is

now being talked about by those in the currency trade, among others. Of late, this currency has been gaining as the euro crisis rears its ugly head again. Now, of course, there are questions over whether it's in bubble territory. What to make of this? "You can think of Bitcoins like the suburbia of Toronto, with the crucial difference that the land isn't real and the government steps in to limit the supply the more investors apply," said Sébastien Galy of Société Générale. "The difference is that instead of taking years for that boom-and-bust process to happen it is happening at an incredibly rapid pace," Mr. Galy added. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement "Another way to look at it, is Germany post World War I where the absence of manufacturing supply and imported goods meant that lots of moneys helpfully supplied by the central bank was chasing a very limited supply." As to its frothy nature, Mr. Galy said something's a bubble only when it pops but "it has characteristics of one, it would be safe to assume." As an asset, said Justin Fox, editorial director of the Harvard Business Review Group, Bitcoin "is clearly in a bubble," and has been so always. Though looking at asset pricing may be the wrong approach in this case, he wrote today on the group's blog. "A dollar bill lays claim to no stream of future earnings, yet nobody says there's a 'dollar bubble' because somebody's willing to give you a candy bar for one," he said. "This even though a dollar is almost certain to buy you less in a few years than it does now. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 2013 dollar has one-tenth the purchasing power of the 1950 version." Bitcoins, in turn, have


Prompt: Our Chief Justice thinks that if the evidence of gerrymandering is too sophisticated for laymen to grasp, the court should ignore it. Chief Justice John Roberts in Jackson, Miss., on Sept. 27, 2017. (Photo11: Rogelio V. Solis, AP) For 12 years, Chief Justice John Roberts has worked overtime peddling the dubious conceit that he and his life-tenured colleagues on the U.S. Supreme Court are above politics and determined to remain so. Yet Roberts himself is a consummate politician — a strategist who worries about appearances and harbors a ward heeler's contempt for the intelligence of the average voter. And his

cynicism was on full display last week when justices took up the politically fraught problem of gerrymandering. Plaintiffs in a case known as Gill v Whitford want the Supreme Court to rule that Wisconsin legislators violated the U.S. Constitution when they drew district boundaries that systematically diluted the electoral clout of their state's Democratic voters. More: What if Trump reimbursed us for his Oval Office gains? Time to start a tab. More: Limbaugh, Hannity and Jones on North Korea: A parody in one act A lower court ordered Wisconsin to draw a fairer map after concluding that evidence and voting data submitted by the plaintiffs proved Republicans had configured districts designed to preserve their party’s legislative majority even when Democrats win a majority of the popular vote. Roberts, who knows a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs will jeopardize Republican gerrymanders in more than a dozen other states, wants his colleagues to stay out of a partisan process even simpatico conservatives like Justice Samuel Alito concede is “distasteful.” The chief justice says the public will lose respect for the courts if he and his colleagues stick their noses into all that distastefulness. But what if a majority party uses its mapmaking prowess to effectively disenfranchise the opposing party's voters? And what if those aggrieved voters can use the same technological advances their opponents exploited to prove an election was rigged, and even to quantify the advantage its rivals gained by manipulating a state's political boundaries? That's exactly what has happened in the Wisconsin case, as one of the country's premier scientists explained in a remarkable friend-of-the-court brief filed on behalf of the plaintiffs. Mapping chromosomes and rigged elections It's rare for disinterested third parties to play a decisive role in landmark Supreme Court cases. But the arguments filed by Eric


Prompt: By Mick Krever, CNN Tensions between China and Japan, at their worst in half a century, are making conflict “much more likely now than it’s probably been in years,” the former top U.S. State Department official for East Asia told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. If a conflict were to break out, Kurt Campbell said, it would likely be a “small skirmish, probably easily contained.” But the larger context, of "what is really the two great countries of Asia, China and Japan" is hard to ignore. "Tensions between the two countries are greater now than they've been probably in a half century."

The two countries have long been loggerheads over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea – the Chinese call them Diaoyu and the Japanese call them Senkaku. The heat was turned up, however, when China declared an “Air Defense Identification Zone” over the chain of islands. The U.S. military responded by sending two unarmed B-52 bombers through the heart of the contested airspace. America must make clear to China, Campbell said, that the drawing of a military air zone “is deeply provocative.” “This is a recipe for the kind of incident that we saw in 1983,” he said, when the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007. The U.S. has refused to recognize China air defense zone, but has nonetheless advised civilian aircraft flying through the area to notify the Chinese government. That advice made the Japanese, with whom the U.S. has a military defense treaty, none too happy. The U.S., Campbell said, has “two imperatives” – one military, and one civilian. On the military side, he said, the U.S. was very clear that it would not acknowledge China’s new declared air defense zone. But “civilian airspace monitors,” he said, “have a different set of metrics, and their prime directive is to avoid a mishap in the air.” “Their initial guidance was apolitical in that sense,” he said. “But I think the problem is that it has created a little bit of incoherence.” Campbell told Amanpour that he expected that Vice President Joe Biden to clarify the U.S. position. He met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday and was set to talk with the Chinese leadership later in the week. The U.S. military will continue to operate in China’s declared zone, Campbell said, as it long had. But he added that he thought there would be


Prompt: A common narrative in the political and cultural discussions of reproductive health focuses on reducing the number of abortions taking place every year. It’s supposed to be one thing that those who support abortion rights and those who oppose abortion can agree on, the so-called common ground. The assumption is that we can all agree that abortion itself is a bad thing, perhaps necessary, but definitely not a good thing. Even President Clinton declared (and many others have embraced) that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. According to the Guttmacher Institute, almost half of all pregnancies among American women

in 2005 were unplanned or unintended. And of those, four in 10 ended in abortion. (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html#1) In other words, between one-fifth and one-quarter of all pregnancies ended in abortion. Without any other information, those statistics can sound scary and paint a picture of women as irresponsible or poor decision-makers. Therefore reducing the number of abortions is a goal that reproductive health, rights and justice activists should work toward, right? Wrong. Those numbers mean nothing without context. If the 1.21 million abortions that took place in 2005 (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html#1) represent the number of women who needed abortions (and in my opinion, if a woman decides she needs an abortion, then she does), as well as the many women who chose to terminate pregnancies that they very much wanted but could not afford to carry to term, then that number is too high. The work of reducing the number of abortions, therefore, would entail creating an authentically family-friendly society, where women would have the support they need to raise their families, whatever forms they took. That could include eliminating the family caps in TANF, encouraging unionization of low-wage workers, reforming immigration policies and making vocational and higher education more accessible. On the other hand, if those 1.21 million abortions represent only the women who could access abortion financially, geographically or otherwise, then that number is too low. Yes, too low. If that’s the case, then what is an appropriate response? How do we best support women and their reproductive health? Do we dare admit that increasing the number of abortions might be not only good for women’s health, but also moral and just? What if we stopped focusing on the number of abortions and instead focused on the women themselves? Much of the work of the reproductive health, rights and justice movements would


Prompt: The eight World Cup second round matches are spread over the course of four days. Here’s previews for the first half… Uruguay v South Korea Uruguay have been one of the most impressive teams so far – playing for and achieving a draw against France, destroying South Africa and recording a solid 1-0 victory over Mexico. They started the competition with a 3-5-2 shape, which became more like a 5-3-2 when the wing-backs had to contain France’s wingers. They’ve since switched to a 4-3-1-2 with Diego Forlan playing behind the main two forwards, and they’ll surely play the same formation

after their two wins. South Korea’s first XI is fairly predictable. The only changes they’ve made so far have been at right-back, bringing in Oh Bum-Suk against Argentina – but he was the worst player on the pitch, so Cha Du-Ri has regained his place. The formation will probably be 4-2-3-1. Playing Park Ji-Sung on the left-hand side might be useful to track the forward runs of Maxi Pereira, although he was fielded in the centre of the three against Argentina. Picking up Forlan is the obvious task – with two holding midfielders, Korea will have a man tracking him, but must worry this will concede the midfield ground to Uruguay. Korea should look to play down their left-hand-side, because Uruguay’s shape tends to be slightly lopsided. Alvaro Pereira, generally a left wing-back, is playing a more central role but tends to drift back out wide, sometimes meaning Uruguay look like two banks of four minus a right-sided midfielder. USA v Ghana The US start as favourites, but this one might suit Ghana tactically; they will be content to sit back and soak up pressure, before hitting the US on the counter-attack. The American full-backs have appeared a little slow in recovering their position after forays forward so far in the tournament, which will be perfect for the pacey Ghana wingers. The best course of action for the US is to put the Ghana centre-backs under as much pressure as possible early on. Ghana will probably have a 3 v 2 advantage in the centre of midfield, so more direct balls towards the strikers (with Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan supporting very close by, something they did particularly well against England) might be a better approach than playing through midfield. In particular, 20-year-old Jonathan Mensah has looked slightly nervy so


Prompt: If Mind MGMT—Matt Kindt’s winding epic about men and women with the cognitive power to manipulate reality and those who would stop them—expanded out into a global onslaught of cities to emphasize the series’ blockbuster scope, his new project ranks up the tension and pressure by drilling deep and under. Announced today at Comic-Con International, Matt will both write and pencil the new Dark Horse monthly Dept. H, a murder mystery that takes place in a sabotaged deep-sea observatory. Sharlene Kindt, Matt’s wife who provided coloring and direction on this gorgeous Mind MGMT cover, will provide watercolors. The plot follows

Mia, a secret agent posing as a journalist, as she ventures into the Challenger Deep to investigate a homicide among the 100-strong crew. Her investigation pivots to a fight for survival as an act of vandalism sends her and her stranded researchers into a desperate search for a way to survive a two-week period before the station floods. The Kindts will embrace real-time storytelling as each issue takes place over 24-hours, adding a new tension to the suffocating pressure encroaching on the characters. Like a cross between sci-fi Jack London, The Abyss and the criss-cross espionage of Kindt’s previous material, there is no element of this new project we’re not ecstatically awaiting. (And is that a sea monster we spy?!) While in the process of inking the last issue of Mind MGMT, Matt shared the first cover of Dept. H and discussed his fear of the deep seas, his love of Jacques Cousteau and how this project, set to debut this winter, is challenging him after decades in the industry. Paste: So what exactly is Dept. H? Matt Kindt: Dept. H is my next ongoing series. I’m taking the summer off to write the whole thing, or as much as I can, and then I’ll start drawing it in the fall. It’s basically an underwater adventure/murder mystery. This woman gets tasked with going down to the deepest underwater base in the world to figure out what happened when somebody’s murdered down there. The series starts out with her getting into this weird sub designed to go down that deep, then investigating the murder. The whole series is structured around her investigation. The series takes place in real time, but is released monthly. It’ll follow her and the crazy stuff that happens down there, and the mystery and then some other


Prompt: In the previous post, we took a look at the Blackhawks’ penalty kill, so now let’s take a look at what’s viewed as the other end of the style of play spectrum: the power play. Once again, there is a list of abbreviations listed at the bottom under “Resources” with brief explanations for your convenience. All charts can be clicked on to enlarge. From this data, we can gather that Chicago has had 33 successful power-plays (success here being defined as goal-producing), and five wildly unsuccessful ones (power-plays which actually produced opponent’s shorthanded goals). To put those numbers into context,

for the season, CHI has had 177 power-play opportunities, making their success rate 18.6%, which ranks them 14th in the league (DET ranks 1st with a 25.6% success rate, BUF ranks last with an 11.4% success rate). So what’s the issue here? Should we be expecting better results? Activity As you can tell from the chart, DET, the top ranked team, puts in an above average amount of work, bringing in about 475 Corsi-for events. CHI’s Corsi-For total ranks a little higher than DET, but with less success. Why? CHI’s shooting percentage is 12.6%, whereas DET’s is 17.6%. In comparison, their shooting percentages for even-strength play are about equivalent, with CHI’s being 7.7% and DET’s being 7.6%. So what keeps CHI from becoming DET on the power-play? Shot location While CHI’s chart is not the inverse of DET’s, you should recognize that DET’s chart reads as high production yield areas being where the most shot attempts are generated, followed by medium-yield, and finally low-yield. Conversely, CHI’s goes from low-yield, high yield to medium-yield. Now let’s look at their success in these areas: HOW TO READ THESE CHARTS For the Shooting Rate and Percentage charts, with For it is better to have areas in red, green being average and blue being worse than average. The Relative Shot Rates are compared to league averages for those zones and can be read as per 1, so higher numbers are better here. Considering CHI’s shooting percentage is about average at this medium-yield area, it would be beneficial to figure out how to increase shots taken in that area. As you can see from DET’s chart, overall the shooting percentage is not something spectacular when placed in the league context. Obviously there are players with higher percentages in these areas, as this is an average,


Prompt: Photo credit: The Goldwater His was one of the hardest jobs in the U.S. 2016 presidential election, speaking for the man seen as protagonist by many, antagonist by some; and always the most controversial leading figure in the whole event. From the tumultuous campaign where his man and their team defied all the odds to the amazing victory and until this transition period where they are still being rocked by controversies mainly because of the losers' inability to accept the result, Jason Miller as President-elect Donald Trump's spokesperson hold one of the most challenging jobs there is in the whole

Trump team speaking for the man, defending him, clarifying things and generally taking the cudgels for the next U.S. President. So effective Miller is in his job that days ago he was formally offered to serve as communications director of the White House. He has accepted the logical transition- only to take it back today saying he wants to make family his main priority after he concludes his work in Trump's transition to the Presidency. Miller shared that he spent the most time with his family the past week, more than at any other time since March last year ever since he began his work for Trump from his campaign all the way to the upset victory and the current transition. Spending time with his loved ones has made Miller realized that he can not afford to take on a job at this point as demanding as what the White House communications director post would entail. Miller said he will conclude his work in the transition team, after which he is ready to hand over his responsibilities as communications director to Sean Spicer, the Republican National Committee Communications Director who was earlier announced to assume the White House press secretary position. With Miller begging off from his supposed role, Spicer is poised to serve both as White House communications director and press secretary. It was not revealed whether there are any other factors that contributed or affected Miller's decision not to take the crucial White House job, other than family matters, or if there are any conflicts with other members of the Trump team or incoming Cabinet. Miller started with the Trump campaign as a senior communications adviser, coming off from his communications work with the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump's current spokesperson said he will continue to


Prompt: The Houston Rockets are telling other teams they intend to trade disgruntled center Omer Asik by Dec. 19, according to sources familiar with the team's plans. Sources told ESPN.com that the Rockets began calling potential trade partners Friday to let them know they intend to deal Asik between Dec. 15 and Dec. 19. The Rockets tried playing Omer Asik and Dwight Howard together and were initially hesitant to entertain trade offers for the Turkish big man. Scott Halleran/Getty Images The significance of such a specific window is two-fold. Dec. 15 is the first day players who signed new contracts in

the offseason can be plugged into trades, and Dec. 19 is the last day any player acquired by Houston in an Asik deal can be repackaged with other players before the league's Feb. 20 trade deadline. The calls made by the Rockets on Friday are reminiscent of their approach with Thomas Robinson during the draft in June. It was an open secret that the Rockets would trade Robinson to help clear salary-cap space for their pursuit of Dwight Howard. Taking this step with Asik is in essence an attempt to persuade potential suitors to put their best offer on the table quickly now that the Rockets have established such an exact time frame for trying to complete a trade. Asik has wanted a new address from the moment Howard arrived in July and has privately requested a trade numerous times in the months since, sources said. The Rockets tried playing Howard and Asik together and were initially hesitant to entertain trade offers for the Turkish big man on the premise that the luxury of having either Howard or Asik on the court at all times was too valuable to surrender so quickly. But Asik's angry reaction last month to being dropped out of the starting lineup by Rockets coach Kevin McHale changed the dynamic. Team officials are now aggressively trying to find a workable trade that will not only bring back a worthy asset for a player of Asik's caliber as a defensive anchor and a rebounder but one that also happens quickly enough to ensure that Houston -- known as one of the league's most active teams trade-wise -- maintains flexibility to make subsequent moves on deadline day. Asik has repeatedly declined to comment on his trade request, knowing that any public discussion of the matter would subject him


Prompt: As the White House and congressional leaders woo votes to authorize military intervention in Syria, certain lawmakers serve as important bellwethers — and potentially critical components — to the math of 218. Military action in Syria is, ultimately, a policy vote. But it is also, inescapably, a political one. Voting against Syria could forever mar a Republican as soft on defense, just as voting for it could brand a Democrat a war hawk. And how members vote could play roles in leadership elections down the line. Elections could be won or lost and legacies built or dashed based on this

vote — and lawmakers know it. There are many votes that could be insightful gauges: Kosovo, Libya, perhaps even the fiscal cliff. But the last time the White House and Republican and Democratic leadership were on the same side of a key vote was the National Security Agency amendment from Michigan Republican Justin Amash. The NSA amendment pitted libertarian Republicans and liberal Democrats against establishment lawmakers concerned with national security. It came within seven votes of adoption. It was also the first time a majority of Democrats sided against President Barack Obama on a national security issue. And, as one Democratic aide put it, Democrats learned that “the sky won’t fall” if they vote against Obama. Another way to handicap the vote is by looking at individual legislators. These 20 so-far-undecided House lawmakers are ones to watch: Republicans Kevin McCarthy of California The No. 3 Republican in the House has yet to decide if he’ll join Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va. He probably will, but his reluctance already indicates just how tough a vote this could be. And the last thing Boehner and Obama need is the guy in charge of counting votes not on the team. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin Ryan, the proverbial GOP thought-leader, carries a great deal of weight in the House. Like McCarthy, he will probably side with leadership. But this vote also will be one of the defining ones heading into the 2016 presidential race, should he make a run. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington The No. 4 Republican still hasn’t said which way she is leaning, but if she sided against Boehner and Cantor, it would be significant. Her staff says she is “carefully considering” intervention and she is “awaiting final legislative text,” so she is unlikely


Prompt: A recent USA Today article on the inaugural conference for men’s rights activists asked whether it marked “A kinder, gentler turn to the gender wars.” In short: No, it didn't. Paul Elam of the men's rights group A Voice for Men Paul Elam // YouTube Cross-posted with permission from Political Research Associates. A recent USA Today article on the inaugural conference for men’s rights activists (MRAs) asked whether it marked “A kinder, gentler turn to the gender wars.” In May, Elliot Rodger killed six people after regularly posting misogynistic rants against the “oppressive feminist system,” and a video warning, “If

I can’t have you, girls, I will destroy you.” In the intervening time, the First Inaugural Conference for Men’s Issues, hosted by A Voice for Men, faced a successful campaign asking Detroit’s Hilton DoubleTree hotel to cancel the event. The petition, which obtained close to 6,000 signatures, pointed out that MRAs were designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2012. It continued, “MRAs are linked to the recent mass shooting in UCSB, wherein a young man declared that he would exact revenge on all the women who had rejected him. MRAs are linked to false rape statistics, further perpetuating the dangerous myth that women, ‘make it up for attention.’ MRAs are linked to threats of rape and murder against women who dare to speak out against them.” Jaclyn Friedman writes in “A Look Inside The Men’s Rights Movement”: “One of their tactics is to put out a cash bounty for personal information—including home addresses, places of employment, email addresses, and phone numbers—of feminists who upset them. The deluge of hate mail, rape and death threats for those on the receiving end of these witch hunts is hard to describe.” Get the facts, direct to your inbox. Subscribe to our daily or weekly digest. SUBSCRIBE After news outlets connected Rodger to groups in the MRA sphere, Paul Elam, founder of A Voice for Men, asserted that his organization is committed to nonviolence and that Rodger was not a member. However, Katie McDonough writes at Salon that “until the moment that he is alleged to have killed six women and men, Elliot Rodger was every bit the same as the other men who are defined by their resentment toward women and their sense of bitter victimization in the world.” While she deems it “irresponsible to lay this violence


Prompt: Interest Payments Per Year $1,367,580,000 Interest Payments Per Second $43 National Debt Per Citizen $29,961 Debt as % of GDP 115.65% GDP Of Cyprus $21,942,080,611 Cyprus Population 847,008 The National Debt Of Cyprus As part of the EU, Cyprus is monitored by Eurostat, which collects statistical data on member states, including that of national debt. Eurostat measured Cyprus’s national debt at 97.5% of GDP at the end of 2017. The IMF uses a slightly different measurement method for national debt. That organization stated the gross national debt to GDP ratio of Cyprus was 99.3% and the net debt to GDP

ratio was 81.2% at the end of 2017. The Cypriot government itself calculated its debt to GDP ratio as 98.4% at the end of 2017. Gross debt sums up all of the money owed by all levels of government in the country. Net debt reduces that figure by deducting from the debt the value of the assets held by the government. The national debt of Cyprus is high. It also has some unusual characteristics — the country has the highest percentage of debt held by non-residents of all the countries monitored by Eurostat at 82.2%. The extraordinary debt figures of Cyprus are the results of a banking crisis that occured in the country from 2012 to 2013. The country is still recovering from the effort that its government had to go to in order to solve the problems created by banking debt. The Cypriot banking crisis Leading banks all across the globe ran into a liquidity crisis in 2008. Cyprus wasn’t excessively affected by this event. However, the problem of the world’s banking sector eventually hit Cyprus. The core of the 2008 crisis lay in over leveraged property development and banks extending mortgages to those who struggled to make payments. This problem continued to run in Cyprus and the lowered economic activity in the developed world that resulted from the 2008 crisis collapsed the Cypriot property market in 2012. Fewer international buyers of vacation properties resulted in lower sales figures for Cypriot developers, a property overhang, falling property valuations, and bankruptcies. When Cyprus’s banks were left with unpaid loans to bankrupt property developers, they became unable to cover the loans that they had taken out internationally to provide funds locally. Cypriot banks had invested in Greek government debt. When the government of Greece faced a crisis in 2011, the EU


Prompt: Share Pinterest Email Bill Baker, the legendary PR man who played a key role in Land Rover’s successful return to the U.S. market in 1986, died Thursday after a battle with cancer at his home near Laguna Niguel, Calif. He was 72. Baker, a broadcast newsman from Ohio, caught Ford’s attention in the early 1970s with his road test segments that aired in Cleveland. Ford offered Baker a job on its broadcast media relations team. Two years later, Baker moved to Volvo, and then held management positions at Fiat-Lancia and Ferrari. Baker then worked for Sony Corp. of America. And

in 1983, opened his own shop and worked for Chrysler before becoming one of the first American employees of Land Rover of North America in 1986. Land Rover’s U.S. operations in the mid-1980s were small, fewer than 100 people, recalls Charlie Hughes, Land Rover’s North American CEO in the 1980s and 1990s. Baker, Hughes said, was given a small budget to promote a vehicle few Americans had ever heard of -- the Range Rover. Not only was the Range Rover a new vehicle and brand in the U.S., it was creating a new segment -- the luxury SUV. “We were a very small company and we knew we had to do some exciting things to get noticed. You turn Bill loose and all sorts of wonderful things happened,” Hughes told Automotive News. Car News Jaguar and Land Rover want to make paying for gas easier with in-car app Paying for gas usually isn't a huge hassle (unless you have to stand in line behind someone who's buying dozens of lottery tickets) but Jaguar and Shell have teamed up to allow drivers to make ... Tough odds The Rover name was somewhat tarnished with American buyers. In 1973, British Leyland, then owner of Land Rover, suddenly pulled the brand out of the U.S. market, leaving many of its dealers with nothing to sell. Seven years later, the Rover name was back in the U.S. but on a car, the 1980 Rover 3500. A mere 1,254 units of the large V-8 powered five-door hatchback were sold before the model was pulled from the U.S. market after just one year. It didn’t help that the 1986 Range Rover’s 3.5-liter aluminum V-8 engine used the Rover 3500’s engine and was a GM castoff first used in a 1962 Buick. None of that bogged down


Prompt: Brenda Chapman was a well-known personality in the industry before she arrived at Pixar, as she was the first woman ever to direct an animated film from a major studio (The Prince of Egypt from DreamWorks Animation). She had also worked in the writing department on Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Chicken Run. Excitement was in the air when she was hired by Pixar, considered by many to be the best in the animation business. She was to be the first female lead director at the studio when she came up with the idea for Brave before

she was replaced by Mark Andrews. Now, a report has emerged that she recently left Pixar. Pixar Portal, a relatively new site focused on the Pixar scene (originated in November 2011), is reporting that Chapman exited Pixar at the end of July and is now working as a consultant for Lucasfilm. The fellow Pixar site surely had the ability to contact her, as it ran an exclusive interview with her back in December. There were rumors back when news broke on her removal as the lead on Brave that Chapman would only remain at the animation studio while the film was in development and would leave once the film arrived in theaters. However, that was never confirmed by Pixar, Disney, or Chapman. If the report is true, it is certainly sad, as the story foundation ofthat Chapman created was intriguing and it would have been great to see more ideas from her at Pixar, for feature films as well as short films. In Brave, she set out to create a film that focused on the relationship of a mother and daughter, as well as to write a story starring a princess where no prince was necessary – in those ways, she succeeded in a big way. The relationship between Princess Merida and her mother Queen Elinor felt intensely real and was by far the greatest aspect of the film. Additionally, Merida worked against the Disney Princess cliché when she paid no attention to finding someone to settle down with. As of now, the news is still unconfirmed (we are attempting to confirm it) so it maybe better to avoid reporting it as fact until we know it is 100% true. If it is, though, I wish Chapman the very best at Lucasfilm. She is very talented and I would love


Prompt: Over the years, I've learned to be cautious with C++ pointers. In particular, I'm always very careful about who owns a given pointer, and who's in charge of calling delete on it. But my caution often forces me to write deliberately inefficient functions. For example: vector < string > tokenize_string ( const string & text ); Here, we have a large string text , and we want to split it into a vector of tokens. This function is nice and safe, but it allocates one string for every token in the input. Now, if we were feeling reckless, we could

avoid these allocations by returning a vector of pointers into text : vector < pair < const char * , const char *>> tokenize_string2 ( const string & text ); In this version, each token is represented by two pointers into text : One pointing to the first character, and one pointing just beyond the last character.1 But this can go horribly wrong: // Disaster strikes! auto v = tokenize_string2 ( get_input_string ()); munge ( v ); Why does this fail? The function get_input_string returns a temporary string, and tokenize_string2 builds an array of pointers into that string. Unfortunately, the temporary string only lives until the end of the current expression, and then the underlying memory is released. And so all our pointers in v now point into oblivion—and our program just wound up getting featured in a CERT advisory. So personally, I'm going to prefer the inefficient tokenize_string function almost every time. Rust lifetimes to the rescue! Going back to our original design, let's declare a type Token . Each token is either a Word or an Other , and each token contains pointers into a pre-existing string. In Rust, we can declare this as follows: # [ deriving ( Show , PartialEq )] enum Token < 'a > { Word ( & 'a str ), Other ( & 'a str ) } The type &str represents a slice of a pre-existing String . It's sort of like the pair<const char *,const char *> in C++. But the really interesting part here is the 'a . This is a named lifetime parameter, and it says, “A value of type Token has the same lifetime as the &str that it contains.” Looking at the LLVM intermediate representation, Token looks like a nice, efficient data structure. It appears to be a