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Brazil’s FM: This isn’t like Turkey’s protests
Brazil is in the throes of massive protests, but its foreign minister does not think that his country will see the type of violence and confrontation that Turkey has seen in the past weeks.
“I think it’s a different situation; the manifestations have been peaceful, predominately,” Antonio Patriota told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday in an exclusive interview.
But federal riot police have been sent to five major cities.
“There may be episodes of violence here and there and, of course, the security forces have to be prepared because there are large numbers of people involved,” Patriota told Amanpour. “And our expectation is that they will continue to manifest in a peaceful way.”
Echoing statements from President Dilma Rousseff, the foreign minister said in a calm tone that Brazil is a stronger country because of the protests, and that these demonstrations are all part of the democratic process.
“Her government has lifted millions out of the poverty and joined the middle class,” he said of the administrations of Rousseff and former President Lula da Silva. “And it’s natural that rising living conditions should give rise to higher expectations.”
Filed under: Brazil • Christiane Amanpour • Latest Episode
Delio Martins
Either Mr. Patriot can't speak English, or the reporter wrote "predominately" out of his ignorance of the English language.
Ricardo Fdez.
Interesting how you worry more about how a word was written rather than to make an intelligent commentary about the critical situation Brazil is going through.
allenwoll
Just exactly so !
To the issue, most politicians across the world are made from trhe same mold - Just the deco varies a little.
tony gil
mr patriota is correct, the protesters are peaceful, but, with 250 thousand people on the streets, professional political agitators and testosterone abusers, like Mr Oliveira, a 20 year old martial arts expert who led the attack on Sao Paulo City Hall 2 days ago, have the opportunity to loot and destroy public and private property.
i would recommend that you, mr martins, take to the streets tonite and find out what is happening, before speaking of what you know nothing about.
you will hear two chants: "no violence" (sem violencia) and "tomorrow we will have more people" (amanha vai ser maior).
Turkish Citizen
He is right, situation is much worse than Turkey...
Absolutely correct. It is much worse
The Brazilian people are showing to the world that the politicians do not represent the overwhelming majority of the population.
Neimar
A more powerful challenge to the regime came from disgruntled young military officers. Many of these officers supported social reform, but they were also concerned about their professional status. They believed that the civilian government had neglected the army, which struggled with poor equipment, outdated training, and slim prospects for promotion of officers. On July 5, 1922, a group of young officers known as tenentes (lieutenants) staged a revolt in Rio de Janeiro against the government. The revolt was unsuccessful, but two years later a more serious uprising by tenentes in Sao Paulo shook the foundations of the regime for several weeks before government forces suppressed it. By the late 1920s the challenges of army officers, middle-class groups, and urban workers threatened the stability of the regime.
Joao Bicalho
Riots began in Sao Paulo a few weeks ago when public administrators decided to raise bus fares. The raise was less than US$ 0.07 but it was enough to spread to other cities in Brazil. Being Brazilian, I can relate. People are seeing millions of Reais (Brazilian currency) being spent on soccer stadiums and hospitals, schools as well as other public service areas are left with nothing. Human dignity has reached as low as it could get in Brazil. People are taking the streets because they have no other option. Public transportation is a shame, food is expensive, people stay in line for months to get help from Public hospitals and this is money they pay. Brazil is one of the highest tax policies in the world. It is a shame! Everybody is taking the streets hoping something will change. They will not stop until they see a more transparent government, more tax money being spent wisely and the existing social gap narrowing. There a very few with too much and the majority with NOTHING. Even they passion for soccer is now on hold.
said all, Brazil thanks
lunaticofgodscreation
Same story everywhere. The only real change will happen when we all unite against widespread government tyranny.
I think we are way past the point of political reform meaning that someone can come and fix our current state of our world because WE ALL have chosen live lives that destroy the enviroment that increases global warming and our world population continous to increase exponentional and NO body will be able to fix this no body.
I cannot say if Brazil is like or not like Turkey, but I can say it's a lot like Greece. No offense, but you are some of the laziest peoples I have seen. If you have financial woes, and color me unsurprised that you do, maybe putting in a honest day's work every once in a while, instead of complaining non-stop, might help.
Cristiane
Janet I have no idea where you are from but it's clear to me that you don't know nothing about Brazil.
I have been to greece and brasil and Greeks are not only lazy but they like luxury Prada fancy cars tours planes I m speaking about the average person. Brasil is very expenvie and the average wage is crap and no social benefits. THis why greece will crash first and it would crash hard because when germany stops giving you money and you have no more social benefits I feel sorry for greeks
Gerasimos Mihalatos
Greeks work the 4th most amount of hours per year in the world. Look up the facts before you embarrass yourself.
http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS
Maybe Greeks work longer hours, but they're not as productive. And too many Greeks live outside their means (Prada Gucci, Dolce and Gaba clothes, expensive cars etc etc etc), if you don't think there's a problem then you need to check your facts!
How many people have You really "seen"? We're not lazy! We work very hard but across the centuries we're exploited by other people who work harder than us and built empires. Brazilian way of life is to live and let live. Greece is the mother of democracy. Turkey was once one the great empires on earth. Brazil used to be the "Country" of the Future. Well, the Future is now. You"ll have the opportunity to know us. Nice to meet You!
iaswn
Greeks are the most hard-working Europeans working an average 42,5 hours per week according to the official european statistics review.
Im sorry to ruin yr stereotypes which of course are based on nothing, but you should -and all the others who follow such stereotypes- learn the facts first, and then write in public fora.
Janet, you clearly don't know Brazil. We work much more than europeans. The problem is not that. We have to find a way to get rid of corrupted politicians, and vote, so far, is not working...
Que comentário mais preconceituoso. Você quer dizer que reclamar é coisa de preguiçoso?
What most prejudiced commentary. Did you mean that someone to complain about abuses is lazy?
As an American living in Brasil, I can say that the Brasilian people are far from lazy. I'm not sure how you came up with that, but it is clear you dont know a thing about Brasilian people.
Nice words!!!! As a Brazilian, that lives in Rio, it´s almost impossible to live here. Everything is too expensive, even de most cheap and essencial food! I´m leaving downtown Rio (as many young people I know) and going back to my parents home because it´s so hard to pay the bills that increase every day more, because World Cup and Olympics Games. I´m sick and tired of all this things.
Kepaze
Hmm, yeah.. Brazil is different than Turkey. In Turkey, the current prime minister was the main pushing power behind unprecedented reforms which:
– tripled the per capita incolme,
– ended long lines in hospitals, social secity departments, pharmacies,
– lowered the medicine prices by up to 90%,
– started massive housing projects to enable lower income groups and ordinary people have their own homes with favorable installments,
– lowered bank interests to historic levels,
– increased exports by five fold,
– accepted the atoricities towards the Kurdish minority and gave the Kurds and other minorities their basic rights,
– put his political career at risk to enf a 30 year war with PKK,
– made tons of new public projects making roads, public transportation, social facilties .. usable by all people..
and so on and son..
You're right. Turkey's economic growth is fascinating. I think Turkey and Brazil's situation is totally different. I don't know about Brazil's economy but Turkey's economy is one of the fastest growing economy among the developing and developed countries but interestingly some people still do not pleased in Turkey. They should visiti Greece and then they will be very pleased and never protest again 🙂
Just a heads-up to people who read the above claims by "Kepaze". They're one-sided and look like they're from a propaganda brochure.
There are facts which are undebateable, and one of which is that the GDP per capita only increased by 41% between 2002-2011. It MOST DEFINITELY has not tripled. (Source: World Bank and basic Macroeconomics knowledge)
I recommend that you take a look at this report to get to the bottom of it. http://www.santacs.com/Demystifying%20Turkish%20Economic%20Success.pdf
On and he might have forgotton to mention these other "reforms" by the Turkish PM:
– A lot of those "massive housing projects" were exclusively awarded to his supporters with special permits to build on restricted land. Same goes for all the infrastructure projects
– Sold off every single public asset that the country to pay off debt, however the debt still has increased. Imagine what would have happened if he didn't sell those assets?
– He gained control over the mainstream media and practices unbelievable levels of censorship and biased publishing by:
– using his political power and state funding to allow his close supporters to buy the media companies or
– coercing other media outlets through insanely high tax fines, cutting other revenue streams by purposefully not awarding government tenders to the parent companies
– Imports increased faster than exports, which indicates that Turkey is not creating new value in the industry
– Jailed more journalists than any other country in the world
– Detained academicians, journalists, politicians, writers for many years (still ongoing) without any conviction
– Continuously oppressed the people and forced everyone into a single way of life. He directly tells people to:
– have at least 3 kids
– not have abortions
– not have c-section
– not display affection in public with your partner (kissing or handholding is scorned upon)
– not criticise him or his government
– not speak or publish your thoughts if they're against his (otherwise you'll be jailed)
– be religious Muslims and you may only belong to his school, Sunni. Other schools of Islam are discriminated against
– Openly and unfairly insults people who have not voted for him
– Openly states that he thinks being voted for means that people must UNCONDITIONALLY accept whatever he pleases to do
Just my two cents. Best regards
The difference is people in Turkey aren't protesting because of the financial situation – they're protesting against the ruling party and it's rhetoric. They are protesting against an Islamic government dictating to them how they should live. That's why it is incompairable .- the brasilians are angry that the government spends so much on stadiums and doesnt help them with their cost of living.
Stop insulting our intelligence. The rest of the world is not brainwashed like you and sees Erdogan for what he is.
Erdogan has narcissistic personality disorder, suffers from paranoia, sees everything in black and white, believes that he is on a mission from god to turn Turkey into an islamic republic, and believes that whoever opposes him is an enemy of him and therefore an enemy of god. That's why he thinks he has the right to lie this blatantly. He is a danger to the world and he is downright sinister. As a result of his megalomania, he thinks he is much smarter than everyone, an illusion enabled by the fact that he surrounded himself with hand-selected ignoramuses. Luckily he isn't too bright, and the more he talks about his insane conspiracy theories, the more votes he loses.
Except for a few people, AKP consists of incompetent illiterates who worship their master. Still, getting rid of AKP in the next election is not too realistic, but I'd prefer to see someone at least `not evil` lead the country, even if he is another islamist like Arinc. And Erdogan should be tried, along with the governor and many others.
Finally, for the other fine followers of AKP who claim that CNN was biased, even though they were filming the protests directly on Istanbul streets (while being kicked by the police at some point).. Why don't you continue watching what's going on from National Geographic? Even CNN Turk stopped broadcasting penguins after 3 people were killed by cops. There are more than 5000 injured, and 150 people are `missing`. Who do you think `lost` all these people? Who is more biased? Your media, CNN or you?
But if the economy is (arguably) good, why bother protesting, right? As if the `good` economy affected anyone other than people who are close to Erdogan and AKP. You should understand that this is about freedom and democracy (and no, calling AKP a democratic party is a joke), and we are simply not going to live by the rules designed by desert tribes, for desert tribes, 1400 years ago.
yes those are happened in .Turkey. new reforms new development however they destroyed Turkey. from now on prime minister wants to change Republic of Turkey to Islamic Republic of Turkey. No alcohol, no smoke, censor all tv programme, internet and newspaper, petrol price almost $3 (we use most expensive petrol in the world), higher tax, rich is getting rich, poor is getting poor.
cankutbey
You're lack of many others.
+arrested many journalists
+tried to change lives of his youth
+tries to destroy Atatürk's legacy in every chase
+deceives his citizens like you with one sided statistics with the help of his stolen media
+ARE YOU AWARE OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN TURKEY, PLEASE TRY TO BE MORE REALISTIC!!
you are talking lack of many things!!
+arrested all of the journalists from different views
+tried to change lives of his own youth
+tries to destroy Atatürk's legacy in every chance
+inflicted too much violence towards democratic reactions
++deceives his citizens like you with his one sided statistics with the help of his purchased media
+I can go on till morning but first answer:
ARE YOU AWARE OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN TURKEY, PLEASE TRY TO BE MORE REALISTIC!!
For the record, the "protestors" (the noisy opponents of the current government in Turkey) are mostly Kamalists. They ruled the country between 1923-1950 without any elections. It was a fascist and racist government and the Kamalist literature of the 1930s brags about the fact that Kamalism was an inspiring source for Hitler and Mussolini. They denied the existence of Kurds in the country until very recently (some still do). It is the current democratically elected government and PM Erdoğan that ended the decades long bloodshed caused by the racist/fascist/irreligious ideology of the currently uprising crowd. Anybody who ascribes any purpose that is moral or worthy to the crowd in question is either an absolute ignoramus or a shameful liar. What we have here is -mostly- a racist/fascist/irreligious section of the society that lost all hope of winning an election and sees destabilizing the country as the only way to overthrow or to weaken the current government. They failed.
Teomete
@RichardWilson I wish your two cents piece had involved at least two brain cell. Keep your lies to yourself ! I am a Turk and like majority I support our PM Erdogan till the end.
ÖmerFaruk
According to the Turkey Statistical Agency,
a. In 2002, Turkey's GDP as 231 billion dollars and in 2012 Turkey's GDP has almost quadrupled to 786 billion US dollars.
b. The economy has had steady growth under the Erdoğan administration with an average annual real GDP % growth rate of 5% (better than the USA and most other European and Asian countries).
c. IN 2012, Turkey had become the 16th largest economy in the world.
d. In 2012, Turkey was the 6th largest economy within Europe and ranked as 13th in the world in terms attractiveness for foreign direct investment.
e. From 2002 to 2012, Turkish exports had increased 325%.
f. 31.8 million foreign tourists visited our country last year.
g. Every year, Turkey graduates 600,000 new people from 170 universities.
h. Every year, 700, 000 people graduate from vocational and technical high schools or regular high schools.
i. It takes a company an average of 6 days to get set up in Turkey.
j. There 33,000 foreign-owned companies in TUrkey.
k. Corporate Income tax has been reduced from 33% to 20% to stimulate investment–something even the USA cannot match.
L. Turkey has a Free Trade Agreement with 22 countries..
M. International credit rating agencies such Moody's, Fitch, JCD have all given investment grade ratings to TUrkey.
Very true story. This is the real brazil, not carnaval, soccer, and women's ass.
... Brazil has one of the highest tax policies in the world ... Even their passion for soccer is now on hold.
Sorry about that! If you were Brazilian, you would understand. This is a rather emotional subject for those who live month by month counting their cents.
the Turkey protests were not violent, the violence came from the police trying to break them up and round people up. The Brazilian minister should know better.
It was violent, not because of police but because of people who damaged public property. I think Turkish police should have done a better job protecting tax payer's money and property. hope people who gave billions of damage will be prosecuted.
Oha abi sen kafayi yemissin
sbalciogullari
Ağzına sağlık @Stu +1 verdim şukunu!.. "Shame on you" @Barış!.. Lanet!.. Lanet olası!.. Git kendini Lanetle!..
It was NOT violent, until the police intervened with brute force. Most of the public property, especially the cars on the streets, were damaged because of the tear gas canisters fired by the police. There are also rumors about how civil police damaged properties, stores for provocation purposes. Still, the protesters walked on the streets with nothing but their slogans. With all due respect to Brazilian protesters, nobody in Turkey tried to set the assembly on fire. If it had been so, we can all guess that the police would start using real guns. Yet, look how Brazilian president supports her people. She is a true leader. So think and speak carefully when you are comparing two protests in terms of violence.
Protests were violent only because police was violent and the Turkish PM was not as understanding as his Brazilian counterparts. 4 people have been killed. 3 protesters by police brutality, and one police officer, who fell because of ill signed construction hole, note because of protesters. Further, 11 people have lost one of their eyes, AGAIN because of police using their pepper spray guns as weapons, and not as they are intended.
Bruno D.
Thousands of people are now destroying shops near our home. Has no police. It is a lot of violence.
kapgan kagan han
CNN whom you know very well that works. always making lie news. Turkey and Brazil are also going to end debt to IMF. We are aware of these games ....
pitircik
One of PM supporter fan is commenting here. What a shame! 4 people killed by police. Google "standing man" keywords see what's going on in Turkey. Who is the fascist leader/commander of those riots? There is no place for a fascist Leader in world.
Murra
In Turkey, the secular part of society is worried about the State's Secular Unit.They think that Erdogan will convert the republic into İslamic Republic.Economic indicaations has been positive in last decade, so protests is not about economy.Protesters tried to get down Erdogan by manipulating crowds.I didn't vote for Erdogan but, everyone should know that there is democracy in Turkey and governments can be changed only by election.
alexander sawyer
I support the statement "this is how democracy works" but thousands of people do not organize for there health. A leader who turns a deaf ear to his people, weather it be majoity or minorty is not truly a leader and will reap what they sow.
Politicians world over seem to share a common trait: an endless capacity to lie. The protests in Turkey was not violent. Violence and damage was instigated by the police and the paramilitary thugs.
The protests in Turkey were extremely violent. They burned cars, destroyed traffic signs and street lights, banks, stores, private and public property, threw stones and fire bombs to the police and terrorized the local population. Many civilians were attacked and injured by the protestors. There are videos in yotube showing some of these. They even tried to attack the PM's house and office. It should be remembered that the violent protests in Turkey did not result from economical problems (economy has been getting better over the last 10 years) or corruption etc. The protestors are mostly Marxist-Leninist anarchists and Kamalists (a fascist/racist/irreligious minority that longs for the dictatorship between 1923-1950). Let us make the following ver clear: The protestors in Turkey are what we call "white Turks"; they consist mostly of richer and privileged sections of the society. Having no hope of winning an election against the current government, they tried to destabilize the country and weaken the government. They failed.
Milton Simon Pires
Dear Christiane,
My name is Milton Pires. I'm a 42 years old cardiologist doctor living in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. A city close to 1,5 million people which is supposed to be a natural riot center for all kind of left wing movements connected with Brazilian Workers Party. Social World Forum was born in here as well as bus tickets prices protests now in the world headlines.
I'm writing these lines because something must be said in a plain and simple way about these riots provoked by punks financed by big sharks in politics. Kids fighting on the streets using Nike shoes and planning social justice by smartphones? Do you think these guys have any kind of social conscience? They were raised by middle class parents and educated in the best high schools in the country. Try to go out and ask how many protesters actually used public transportation to go to to work. You will be frustrated..
When I was a teenager, back in the 80's, we were in the streets fighting for direct elections. None of us tried to burn shops or attack the police. What goes unnoticed to the world is that Brazilian society is waiting for the final legal results of the greatest political scandal in our history. Something you, in US, called big monthly allowance – in portuguese – mensalão.
One what the most important big bosses in Workers Party, José Dirceu, has recently said that Mr.Lula da Silva will not run for president again in 14. Interestingly, he noticed that an exception should be considered – a national emergency situation in which desperate people eventually claimed for Lula's return.
Theres is no way to detach the political scene in Brazil of these riots. Doesn't matter the cause, I can assure you all of them have the same reason – to diverge public attention in a situation of decreasing economic power, serious public health problems, destroyed education facilities, and corrupted police forces. I hope people in US do realize what I said before starting public support campaigns helping these kids. Theres nothing about justice at all in their actions – only Workers Party same old witchcraft.
Pires, M.
Porto Alegre – Brazil.
dafailace
Why do you care what US folks and government think about Brazil and its internal matters. The US continues to take as much as it can from Brazil (and other nations) to sustain its own standard of living. Hard to believe that an educated person like you is so naive to believe that foreign governments and people have Brazil's best interest in mind. I hope your naiveness does not impact your ability to practice medicine.
Gaucho de POA
Joao Guimaraes
Milton, you´re just saying that those "punks" who are demonstrating against high bus fares, high corruption levels, poor education levels, poor public health system, are trying "to diverge public attention in a situation of decreasing economic power, serious public health problems, destroyed education facilities, and corrupted police forces.", which doesn´t make any sense. You´re also saying that young, middle class people can´t protest against those issues, because they are young, middle class people and might not suffer everyday from many of those problems. I think you just wrote a lot of crap here. It´s everyone´s duty to fight against those social issues, rich or poor, and if you can´t accept your responsibilities as a citizen, you should refrain from posting such ignorant comments. Or just move out to another country.
If it is true what you are saying then we can say that in Turkey and Brasil SAME things happening.
Left Wing uprising backed by giant corporate sharks.
Turkish PM stands in dignity and protests turned to riot and stopped then...
Contrarily Brasil PM finds protesters right and protests turned to riot and growing up !!!...
It is not about democracy , do not you see ? It is about to take growing powers out of the game... Wake Up !
And which Giant corporate sharks are you referring to? Stop repeating Erdogans lies.
rafaelkafka
And her source is the Federal Government lol What a joke! This is like talking with Assad about the people protesting in Syria lol!
Yes it is and you are all turkeys...LOL!
you are so funny
Brazil's minimum wage of R $ 678.00 and U.S. $ 304 in U.S. dollars, and we have to pay rent, light bill and water, power, transportation and taxes of course. Shameful is not it?
Viviane when I was there recently – I kept thinking that my minimal Portuguese was even weaker than I thought when my girlfriend kept telling me the minimum wages there. Even worse is the cost of living. Food prices in the markets are almost what I pay for food here, but in Canada we are fortunate that we make a lot more – Even with Minimum wages there are social programs that do help offset things.
I was and still am in disbelief. It is a shame what is going on to such a beautiful place. Some of the rich in Brazil are literally getting away with murder.
Don't forget the 19% tax on food at the market.
This problem might be fixed through real democracy, that means direct democracy, it means people voting their own laws.
Marcela de Vasconcellos
The biggest absurd in reality is the fact that we pay one of the biggest rates of taxes in the world and it is for nothing. In Europe you see that there are countries where citizens pay the same rate of taxes but it is invested in great schools, hospitals, universities...here in Brasil we have to pay the taxes AND pay for private schools, health care and others services that should be public.
The SUS, our plan of public health, is the best plan ever thought in any country. But day by day all we see is that the theory is not applied.
Where's the money of all those taxes? Fifa's world cup is just a little part of the entire iceberg. We are sinking and everybody pretend not to see.
Protests in Turkey were as less violent as can be. Otherwise any and every protest will have its share, not to be taken out of context. It is not in Turkish genes to go extreme unless they are at war with others, you will see that Turks never went beyond a certain level in their domestic riots and such throughout history. Some people may be mistaking them to Arabs and other middle eastern people but you need to read and research a little. Turkey already calmed down as we speak. Brazilian protests will, without any doubt, be more violent and result with more loss of life and properties. Words are cheap.
Dianne, you know nothing about Brazil; do some homework before speaking about the country.
Diane, I just came back from being in Joinville Brazil. I can't speak for all of Brazil, but the people in Brazil are, at least in my opinion some of the most wonderful people I've ever met. And I would live there anytime.
Going there to visit my girlfriend who is Brazilian, we were able to tour different areas. The most noticeable thing to me is the separation of wealth. It is horrific to see such passionate and kind people who are poor have to endure what they do, and do it in making next to nothing a month – Yet most do it with a smile.
When we went out to eat, the after doing the calculations the cost are similar to what we pay for food here in Canada, but poor Brazilians have to do it on a fraction of what I get paid – That a sin!
These folks who are protesting do so in peaceful yet with passion – That is a Brazilian. The only way blood shed would occur is if the police and military get out of control. Unfortunately the police have a history of corruption, and of course this stems from corrupt government. But the people themselves ( I don't care what you heard) are a loving people. You will always have those who look to cause trouble any where! Just look at the G20 summit in Canada where I live. Or my original home of Jamaica. Very loving people, but of course there will be those who can't help themselves.
It's time the government start caring about the poor in Brazil – They can only take so much. And no matter how strong they are, something has to give...People are right – This soccer things is absurd. I just hope that during the demonstrations, the police remember that's they're there to protect and not harm the people.
Obrigado Brazil for a wonderful experience.
After all that beating,off course Turkey has calm down,when Assad is doing the beating against real Sc-u-ms with weapons,it,s called peaceful protesters.
To understand why Brazil is in such a situation, you only have to search for:
FORO DE SÃO PAULO.
Genial, Cristiane..é a primeira pessoa que vejo escrever o que realmente importa ..parabéns
Bj aqui de Porto Alegre
Milton Pires
Jaqueline Almeida
Já estava na hora do povo brasileiro acordar.
punk o negócio...
Thank you Christiane for talk about what going on here in Brazil. your voice is well accepted on entire world
Fortaleza Brasil
Brazil is a violent, poor and dirty hellhole. That is all.
You must be from Alabama, that violent, poor, dirty hellhole.
Thanks for proving my point, loser.
You're point is that you don't know anything about this country....loser
What's uo with your response? I'm curious because you took the time to write something but you didn't elaborate. Is it from first hand experience? What part is the hellhole?
Compared to Dilma, Erdogan is a cheap, ignorant thug.
So, you are a mouthpiece for the racist/elitist/irrelegious protestors who scream "we are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal!" in Istanbul streets.
For those who come to Brazil to the world cup , Be sure to wear a bulletproof vest
and hire a couple of body guard because the government failed to protect our citizens. And welcome to our broken country !
Violence and corruption are an ingrained part of Brazilian culture.
You are correct Ross.
We call this: "jeitinho brasileiro"
Martiele
Protests in Brazil: true motives !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my0D0gUPFmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTniv9WTih8
What going on in Brazil right now , is not what the Antonio Patriota told you. The truth is , during the rule of Dilma rousseff and the the previous, both brought to their team the worst politicians , all mafiosos , gangsters and the people don't accept this situation any more
As if Fernando Cardozo was not a corrupt mafioso.... lol
Whether they are similar or not, Brazil has an example of what NOT to do when the people speak. They should at least listen and try to find a common ground UNLIKE the Turkish government has!
The police should not be as violent and brutal in handling the situations with the tear gas, acid water and threats..with these considered I hope they will never be alike..at the least Turkey should be more like Brazil..more understanding, more about the people and more democratic (if they should ever learn the true meaning of it)
#direngezi & #changebrazil
josadaque
after seeing these comments, realize that many criticize what is happening in Brazil, because those who criticize do not know what democracy is. and before talk of speaking other country, should repair to their. because it is not so that there is violence in Brazil. what to watch are the absences of information, because if you do not live in Brazil then because you cirtica demonstrations. what Brazil is doing very proud I'm talking pro and my children attended the democracy not the currupção.
This kind of statement is what you would expect from a Brazilian politician, there is not a natural rising living condition in Brazil, it is artificial, the government has just made it easier to the population to lend money, so most of the Brazilians are now spending the money they don't have and are facing really high debts.
Public Brazilian services such as health, education and security has always been one of the worst in the world, so there is no such things as "higher expectation".
I think CNN should send some people here, and see it by themselves, do not visit places that politicians tells you to go, go where the problems really are, like north countryside hospitals and schools.
"And it’s natural that rising living conditions should give rise to higher expectations.” After living in the US for 23 years, and 3 years in Brasil...This line is the biggest bag of crap. What living conditions? With the living conditions I saw in Brazil...there is no place to look but up! Not even have "higher" expectations..but at least have "some" expectations for roads and hospitals. This guy is full of it..just like lula, dilma, and all the other alphabet lettered party members. Don't back down Brasil until these guys sell their houses and get shovels in their hands and start building the roads themselves!
Tunc Birget
I think Ms Amanpour should help to rise the violence like she did in Turkey. Otherwise not much news is likely to come. Broadcast 9 hours live from Sao Paulo interview and praise the looters. That's journalism....
Bravo ! Very well said ! Kudos ! Amanpour is a devil !
Bora US
Same on you Christian!
I lost all of my respect for you and the CNN after I witnessed how you portrayed events in Turkey. You (and the CNN) shamelessly distorted the facts, showed events as if they are more violent than they actually are. I am not paranoid that you are behind the these protests, but I know for sure that you had a hidden agenda; you hated erdogan and his party (or maybe not comfortable with the rising image of Turkey). You found the opportunity to hurt them, and used it shamelessly. but this was the end of journalism for you and CNN. I dont like erdogan, and I supported the peaceful protests (not the violent ones) in Turkey but what you did cost CNN a lot in the long term. Many people dont trust the CNN as before. Do you really believe that your one-sided approach would cost you nothing? You are mistaken!!!!
Your approach isn't fair... Actually i believe they just reflect what was happening in Turkey ,and they show all the violence which was made by your PM and his police... Also , i'm sorry but i don't believe that you are not a supporter of Erdoğan
can: have you compared CNN to other American media companies such as New York Times or MSNBC ? I did. How long have you been following CNN? I have been following since 2001 pretty much everyday. If your answers were yes to these two questions, then you would have agreed with what I say. What makes CNN different from others? CNN is popular among non-US audience compared to the others whereas Americans typically dont care much about CNN. so the audience was obvious.
whether you believe or not if I like erdogan or not is not very relavant. Please counter-argue using facts, then i would respect them.
again, my point is CNN and BBC in particular have been waiting for an opportunity to attack the PM of Turkey and turkey in general and lost all their journalistic ethics when they observe these events. Honestly speaking, I am mostly surprised with Ms. Amanpour because I truly had respect for her journalism, but now I am questioning her integrity for any other events.
Huseyin WI
I was also shocked when i first saw what CNN had broadcasted on that day. I guess their crew in Istanbul were offered free raqi and fish to exaggerate everything to their headquarters. Bora adamin dibisin. Hala anlaadiniz mi bu is hicbir zaman bir iki agac meselesi degildi. Hukumetin istifasi da nane limon. Amac millletin snirlarini test etmek. Guzel oynuyorlar. Tebrikler
thomas ayres
Dear Mr. Antonio Patriota, we do not have a NEW set of expectations. They are in fact quite a basic set of expectations such as BASIC healthcare, incarceration of corrupt politicians, proper use of federal reserves (stuffing cash down your underpants does not qualify) and so on. We've always had them, and always will. But now it's time for atonement, it is time for accountability, it is judgement time, for we have grown tired of being stepped on! We are past civil discourse, and if our expectations are not al least addressed, the situation will probably get worse before it gets better. We will not turn the other cheek, we will not bow down and we will not stop! Do not be mistaken, this is far from being over. So be smart and LISTEN to what we are saying. Dont fight us, beat us, tear gas us, shoot us. Instead listen to what we are saying, what we are asking for.
Andre!!
Can you tell us more about how you see things?...Please illuminate the events on the ground..Where do you live? I live in Mexico and the underlying problems are practically the same, and yet we would never take to the streets,,,,
We suffer an almost perpetual need to conform and to not raise the temperatura about anything...
We live resigned to our fate......A suffocating type of complacency mixed with a self imposed fatalism!!
Mancha Contributor
Surely key differences exist, yet surely there are some similarities...we point them out here: http://semancha.com/2013/06/19/istanbul-to-ipanema/
normacin
What do you know about Turkey, i think nothing...This resistant can be comparable with Flower Childrens, and our name Tree Children... Now may be you can understand....
The protests might remain peaceful, and vandls might be lynched.
syesilyurt
In Turkey, protests itself were never nearly as violent as the ones in Brasil. Vandalism incidents were very few and isolated, despite over a million protesters had to face a brutal police response: over a thousand protesters were injured, five died (one of them is a police officer who fell from a bridge during police interference), tens of protesters lost their eyes because of the impact of tear gas canisters shot to their faces in close proximity. I recommend the prime minister to follow some objective media, such as Ms. Amanpour, rather than listening to the official propaganda of the government.
markkim00
As an expat in SP, I am certainly frustrated by a lot of the issues in the city, but I love it with all my heart. I am happy that Brazilians are standing up for a better country. Officials will eventually have to listen and things will slowly change for the better.
http://www.changesp.com
http://www.changerj.com
Antônio Patriota is an idiot. He does not know what are saying. As Brazilian who lives in São Paulo, I can say that the most of prople that comments in this place don't know Brazilian reallity. We are tired of corruption, inflaction, people dying whithout medical assistence, low quality of education while Dilma Rousseff says that it's no have money to invest in this areas. But they can get money to invest in stadiums, expensive hotels to Mr. Blatter and his people. The total spent to World Cup an Olimpics Games will pass of U$$ 50 billions. Tell me now Is this fair whith the people which don't live arround the stadiums and pay for that? I'm proud be Brazilian but I am shamed be represented by Dilma Rousseff and her thiefs.
God save Brazil!
enso dantas
Ms Amanpour is doing a perfect interview with facts and clearly, Mr Patriota is defending the braziliian government.
This is how everything started in Turkey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=59XPBtofVGA#at=42
Adrian Gouw
It`s amazing how bureaucrats can distort the meaning of a massive outcry we are seeing through out Brazil. The big mass of people attending the protests belong to a long existing middle class, that has been massacred for years by the mismanagement of the public servants of this country, not the people who Mr. Patriot proudly says have been economically upgraded during Lula`s and now Dilma`s presidencies. And it`s not a question of higher expectations from the people, which is an hypocrite statement. What they are really demanding for is the moral obligations from the politicians and public administration, nothing more, nothing less...
Patriota didn't answer the most important question, why brazilians pay more taxes than any other country and get horrible public services in return, and what the goverment plans to do about it. In Brazil we say that we pay taxes like Sweden and receive public services of Uganda.
John Vulsus
I am very worried about the results of these protests...It seems that the Government will reinforce the populist practices and socialist dogmas...This is horrible for the country... Some good people that are proud of these events will suffer much more than they can imagine...
JASC92
apparently you have a very wrong idea what the problem here is. Brazilians are paying very high taxes, but are not getting anything in return. because apparently you dont know whats its like to live in a country where there are little or no state provided services like proper public hospitals or public schools. the tax money in Brazil is being stolen and the people are left forgotten.
antonio Lapolli
A study of United Nations shows that brazilian congressmen are the second most expensive in the world. Each congressmen costs to brazilian people 7,4 millions dollars per year. In United Kingdon each congressmen costs around US$ 300.000/ year. But look the income per capita: british = 38.500 X brazilian = 12.500. Most brazilians are very angry with the work of these congressmen, who work only 3 days per week if so..
Are you kidding me? Rising standards of living? In which Brazil is he living in? Because the Brazil I know has been the same hellhole for as long as I've been alive, with only rising costs and constant money laundering from the gov't. Also, kudos to the interviewer for getting the Federal Gov't as a source, of course they're going to be partial about the movement and say that everything is OK... >.>
The demonstrations are peaceful. We do not want to destabilize any government. We just want more transparency and dialogue between the people and the Congress. We want to improve the public service: Health and Education.
As a Turk and witnessed Turkish riots , I would like to hear Brazilians who CAN NOT access internet. The rioters were generally Turkish elites supported by Capital owners. The reason why Turkish riots has stopped because Erdogan's supporters showed the protesters that they are behind Erdogan and the reasons for protesting are not valid , basically lies to get rid of Erdogan. They could not even express theirselves what they demand. Freedom? For what? Media Freedom? Columnist even swear Erdogan without any punishment. Alcohol? Government only passed one rule that alcohol will NOT be sold between 22:00 and 06:00. so, their demands were not realistic at all.
Bernado
I (maybe no one in Brazil) would not say that president Dilma "has embraced". She was tortured by the previous dictatorship it's true, but now she attacks with the National Guard and Police abuses.
Today the Foreign Office was attacked today.
Michel Lopes
Here in Brazil, we have a people that simply is alienated by the Globe, which receive government billions of dollars, to advertise, such as the PETRBRÁS, A COMPANY THAT ONLY THE PROFIT, BUT DO NOT PAY TAXES, AND SHOULD MORE USD 5,000,000,000 oF PAY fOR THE GLOBE AND OVER iN ADVERTISEMENTS USD 6.5 billion in prime time. poor part of the population supports Rousseff, to receive approximately USD 32 "BOLSA FAMILIA" a corruption extreme dead receive the aid, friends of politicians, inflation at the supermarket gets to be 5 veses more than the official indices, and still costs the canopy from usd 18 billion?
need international help against a law that the government wants to impose that limits the power of the public ministry in investigations against politicians, we have a bill passed and sanctioned it calls "clean slate" that prohibit politicians who were tried in proceedings, to take possession of their positions, and is not respected NEED HELP WITH THESE ABUSES, otherwise we will be annihilated BY INFLATION
BRAZIL, A SHAME FOR ALL
Brazilian people are fighting against CORRUPTION!!! it´s time to say THAT´S ENOUGH!
Jokas
The protests aren´t violent, but there are criminals between the civilians, such as punks, skinheads and drug addicted people.
Some Videos to show our reality.
How much cost a politician in Brazil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUYsrfkeHQ
National riot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DCzPbqYGoY
Our very (badly) trained cops:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gdEWmte_D8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGs7Q8byMjw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHpftx13FI&sns=fb
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ggZyim5zBQ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9dbzVbGbsc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdIwLguI_TI
Jailton Martins
Unfortunately, Christiane Amanpour is guided by brazilian government agenda. Streets have another version!
Christiane Amanpour infelizmente pautada pelo release do ministro Patriota.
Government Workers Party – PT (Dilma / Lula) not lifted millions out of poverty! That is a lie. I live in Brazil! They have created the industry called family allowance (which is beneficial) to perpetuate themselves in power. With family allowance they get to vote in exchange for a miserable stipend so as miserable! Say also that Lula was one of the biggest corrupt Brazilian history! Dilma out! Outside Workers Party – PT!
AntonioLuc
Me pergunta em português que te respondo em inglês o que está acontecendo!! O NOME É INDIGNAÇÃO
Anti-Amanpour
The reasons are different but the aim is the SAME in Turkey and Brasil.
Methods of the protesting are the same in both countries.
They are both developing countries and their developing bothers some other countries and they use poor-minded people against their countries.
Protesting must not be destroying the countries.
People must think twice and be aware of what games are playing in their countries.
Just check this news site " http://www.internethaber.com/brezilyada-turkiyedeki-oyun-oynaniyor-549044h.htm " and you can use google translate to read it. And then you will see the similarities.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/06/22/turkish_prime_minister_alleges_protesthit_turkey_and_brazil_are_targets_of_same_conspiracy.html
“The same game is now being played over Brazil,”
“The symbols are the same, the posters are the same, Twitter, Facebook are the same, the international media is the same. They (the protests) are being led from the same centre.
“They are doing their best to achieve in Brazil what they could not achieve in Turkey. It’s the same game, the same trap, the same aim.”
absolutely correct... this is the same game
Situation in Turkey is similar to what was going on in US in 1860s when souther (pro-slavery) states were fighting against northern ones. Nowadays, in Turkey, old "intellegentsia" are fighting against redistribution of wealth. Cheap Anatolian labor are not cheap and illiterate anymore. So, don't look for sophisticated reasons, dont mislead yourself and others – things are much simpler.
I wish Brazil and Brazilians every success. But I also wish them not to destroy their nation. Remember, voting ballots are the best way of expression.
#stoplyingCNN
try to be objective about Turkey.
do not delete news related with Turkey Cnn we see can you.
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Thanks for the excellent post! I'd also like to contribute a couple more things that I found made this even more powerful:
phelpstar
Amanpour, you maybe worked out what is a violent riot what is not, after so many years of experience.
No age is late for learning. Cheers!
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Snyder and Flint water: What did he know when?
Flint investigator says greed and fraud led to drinking water crisis
Paul Egan | Detroit Free Press | 7:38 pm EDT March 23, 2018
The highest-ranking government official charged in the Flint water investigation, Nick Lyon, heads to court.
Greed and financial fraud led to the Flint drinking water crisis, and an investigation into those crimes is ongoing, Attorney General Bill Schuette's lead investigator told a Senate subcommittee Thursday.
Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press
LANSING – A "spin-off" criminal investigation related to the Flint drinking water crisis is under way, and the suspected crimes involve greed and financial fraud, the lead investigator has told a legislative committee.
"Without getting too far in-depth, we believe there was a significant financial fraud that drove this," Andrew Arena told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on General Government on Thursday, speaking about the 2014 switch in the city's water supply that exposed residents to lead-contaminated water.
"I believe greed drove this," said Arena, a former director of the FBI's Detroit office who has led the Flint criminal investigation for Attorney General Bill Schuette for a little more than two years.
"We believe what caused the series of bad decisions (was) a pretty substantial financial fraud," with a number of people driven by greed and personal profit, Arena told the committee.
Though investigators have spoken in the past about possible fraud related to approvals for a bond issue to pay for a new Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline to Lake Huron, which was to serve Flint in place of its Lake Huron water supplied by Detroit, Arena's comments Thursday went beyond previous public statements.
More: Supreme Court: Flint water cases to return to trial court to move forward
More: Sh-h-h. Snyder state update left out 75% drop in reading proficiency in Flint
Arena didn't identify who was under investigation for the financial-related crimes or when charges might be brought.
"We're moving at lightning speed," he said.
Two state senators who are members of the subcommittee said they were left with the clear impression that more criminal charges are coming.
Sen. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek, a former Michigan State Police trooper who pressed Arena on the new disclosures, said Friday he was surprised to learn that new charges are being investigated related to financial motives and greed.
"I'm just glad we're holding people accountable," Nofs said. "What happened was a travesty."
Sen. Coleman Young II, D-Detroit, said he, too, was surprised by Arena's presentation. Until now, Young believed the crimes under investigation related to people being "careless, reckless and negligent."
Adding financial crimes motivated by greed adds "a whole other sinister and ghoulish layer to this," Young said.
To date, 15 current or former state and City of Flint employees have been charged by Schuette with crimes ranging from misdemeanors to involuntary manslaughter. Four defendants have entered no contest pleas to misdemeanor charges.
Schuette has said that the probe has generally moved from the investigation phase to the prosecution phase, but he has not ruled out additional charges against new defendants.
"We've never said the investigation is closed or over," Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely said Friday.
"We still have investigators who are actively pursuing leads every week."
Arena told the subcommittee that state investigators are also cooperating, to the extent possible, with a separate and ongoing Flint criminal investigation spearheaded by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit.
Young said the investigation should get whatever financial resources it needs.
"You can't penny pinch with things like this," Young said. "This is about administering justice for the people of Flint, who are still going through this."
Flint's water crisis began in April 2014, when a state-appointed emergency manager switched the city's drinking water supply from Lake Huron water treated in Detroit to Flint River water treated at the Flint Water Treatment Plant. It was a temporary, cost-saving measure, but turned out to be a disastrous mistake. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has acknowledged it failed to require needed corrosion-control chemicals as part of the water treatment process.
Before the 2014 water switch, the Flint City Council had backed a plan to join the KWA pipeline as a new water source, though members have said they thought the city would stay on Detroit water until the new pipeline was completed.
After Flint River water began flowing, corrosive water caused lead to leach from from joints, pipes and fixtures, causing a spike in toxic lead levels in the blood of Flint children and other residents.
Flint switched back to Detroit water in October 2015, but some risk remains because of damage to the city's water distribution infrastructure.
Investigators are also examining possible links between the water switch and a spike in deaths related to Legionnaires' disease.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Staff writer Kathleen Gray contributed to this report.
Originally Published 4:56 pm EDT March 23, 2018
Updated 7:38 pm EDT March 23, 2018
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"Hylarana" lateralis (Boulenger, 1887)
Class: Amphibia > Order: Anura > Family: Ranidae > Species: "Hylarana" lateralis
Rana lateralis Boulenger, 1887, Ann. Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, Ser. 2, 5: 483. Holotype: MSNG 29324, according to Capocaccia, 1957, Ann. Mus. Civ. Stor. Nat. Genova, Ser. 3, 69: 215. Type locality: "Kaw-ka-riet" (=Kokarit), east of Moulmein, Tenasserim, Myanmar.
Rana (Rana) lateralis — Boulenger, 1920, Rec. Indian Mus., 20: 9. Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 42.
Rana nigrolineata Liu and Hu, 1960 "1959", Acta Zool. Sinica, 11: 516, 530. Holotype: CIB 571085. Type locality: "Meng-yang, Yunnan, 680 meters altitude", China. Synonymy by Ohler, 2007, Alytes, 25: 64.
Rana (Rana) nigrolineata — Dubois, 1987 "1986", Alytes, 5: 42.
Pelophylax nigrolineatus — Fei, Ye, and Huang, 1990, Key to Chinese Amph.: 136. Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 164; Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 369; Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 1-13; by implication.
Rana (Pelophylax) lateralis — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332.
Rana (Pelophylax) nigrolineata — Dubois, 1992, Bull. Mens. Soc. Linn. Lyon, 61: 332.
Hylarana lateralis — Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 237, by implication.
Hylarana nigrolineata — Chen, Murphy, Lathrop, Ngo, Orlov, Ho, and Somorjai, 2005, Herpetol. J., 15: 237, by implication.
Pelophylax lateralis — Frost, Grant, Faivovich, Bain, Haas, Haddad, de Sá, Channing, Wilkinson, Donnellan, Raxworthy, Campbell, Blotto, Moler, Drewes, Nussbaum, Lynch, Green, and Wheeler, 2006, Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist., 297: 369. Che, Pang, Zhao, Wu, Zhao, and Zhang, 2007, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 43: 1-13; by implication.
"Hylarana" lateralis — Provisional treatment here (version 6.0) due to not being assigned to any of the hylaranine genera by Oliver, Prendini, Kraus, and Raxworthy, 2015, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 90: 176–192. See comment.
Kokarit Frog (Pelophylax lateralis: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 108).
Yellow Frog (Pelophylax lateralis: Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 142).
Meng-yang Frog (Pelophylax nigrolineatus [no longer recognized]: Frank and Ramus, 1995, Compl. Guide Scient. Common Names Amph. Rept. World: 108).
Black-lined Pond Frog (Pelophylax nigrolineatus [no longer recognized]: Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 164).
Southern Yunnan, China, on the Vietnam and Laos borders; northern, western, and eastern Thailand; southern Myanmar; Cambodia, southern Laos and Vietnam (Ninh Binh, Dong Nai, Lam Dong, Dac Lac, and Gia Lai provinces).
See Taylor, 1962, Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull., 43: 443-446, and Bourret, 1942, Batr. Indochine: 302-304, for discussion. Orlov, Murphy, Ananjeva, Ryabov, and Ho, 2002, Russ. J. Herpetol., 9: 89, commented on the range. Nutphund, 2001, Amph. Thailand: 120, provided a brief characterization and photograph, which Ohler, 2003, Alytes, 21: 102, allocated to Limnonectes sp. Stuart, 1999, in Duckworth et al. (eds.), Wildlife in Lao PDR: 48, commented briefly on the Laos range. Chan-ard, 2003, Photograph. Guide Amph. Thailand: 142-143, provided a very brief account, map for Thailand, and photograph. Nguyen, Ho, and Nguyen, 2005, Checklist Amph. Rept. Vietnam: 28, provided specific localities for Vietnam. Stuart, 2005, Herpetol. Rev., 36: 478, provided specific localities for Laos. Liu and Hu, 1961, Tailless Amph. China: 175-177, Yang, 1991, Amph. Fauna of Yunnan: 139-140, and Fei, 1999, Atlas Amph. China: 164-166, provided brief accounts as Pelophylax nigrolineatus. In the Pelophylax pleuraden group of Fei, Ye, Huang, Jiang, and Xie, 2005, in Fei et al. (eds.), Illust. Key Chinese Amph.: 111. See discussion by Ohler, 2007, Alytes, 25: 55-74. Yang, 2008, in Yang and Rao (ed.), Amph. Rept. Yunnan: 69-70, provided a brief account (as Rana nigrolineata). Stuart, 2008, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 46: 49-60, suggested on the basis of molecular evidence that this species is imbedded within Hylarana, and far from Pelophylax, but did not make the taxonomic change. Fei, Hu, Ye, and Huang, 2009, Fauna Sinica, Amph. 3: 1075-1080, provided an account (as Pelophylax nigrolineatus), figures, and map for China and included it in their Pelophylax nigromaculatus group. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2010, Colored Atlas of Chinese Amph.: 283 (as Pelophylax nigrolineatus), provided a brief account including photographs. Pyron and Wiens, 2011, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 61: 543-583, in their study of Genbank sequences confirmed the placement of this species in Hylarana although they obscured this result by employing an antiquated taxonomy. The morphological literature suggests that additional study is warranted. Fei, Ye, and Jiang, 2012, Colored Atlas Chinese Amph. Distr.: 327, provided an account (as Pelophylax nigrolineatus), photographs, and a range map. Oliver, Prendini, Kraus, and Raxworthy, 2015, Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 90: 188, noted that this species is likely in either in Hydrophylax or Indosylvirana, but pending genetic sampling declined to make any taxonomic changes; here it is formally removed from Hylarana, which these authors rendered a monophyletic group. See account, photograph, and map for Vietnam in Vassilieva, Galoyan, Poyarkov, and Geissler, 2016, Photograph. Field Guide Amph. Rept. Lowland S. Vietnam: 100–102. Vassilieva, 2019, Zootaxa, 46: 138–140, reported on larval morphology from specimens from Cat Tien National Park, Tan Phu District, Dong Nai Province, Vietnam. See comments by Geissler, Hartmann, Ihlow, Neang, Seng, Wagner, and Böhme, 2019, Cambodian J. Nat. Hist., 2019: 40–63, on specimens collected in Phnom Kulen National Park, northern Cambodia.
For additional information specific to China see Amphibia China
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Ramadan Letter
By Muhi Khwaja Uncategorized No Comments
Ramadan Mubarak!
From our family to yours, Ramadan Mubarak on behalf of the American Muslim Community Foundation (AMCF). We pray that you and your loved ones have stayed healthy and safe during this unprecedented time. We are grateful for your support and commitment to AMCF’s vision to lead sustainable and strategic Muslim philanthropy for today and future generations.
Earlier this year, we announced a slight change to our name brand; from American Muslim Fund to American Muslim Community Foundation. We evolved our brand to better communicate the breadth of our commitment to advancing American Muslim philanthropy. As a community foundation, we will continue our mission to cultivate the donor giving ecosystem and diversify funding to advance the charitable causes that matter to you.
What We’ve Been Up To:
Over the last three years, AMCF has established and managed over 76 Donor Advised Funds and Giving Circles, distributing over $1.7 million to 150+ charities. It’s remarkable what can be accomplished when we work together on a shared vision for collective good. Here are some of our highlights to date…
During our first quarter of 2020, we’ve distributed over $300,000 to 70 charities; supporting initiatives for Black History, Women’s History, US Census, Covid-19 Response and many more. This year, we will continue to focus on causes that impact American-Muslims, while uplifting all minorities and marginalized communities working to promote social justice. We will keep these initiatives active for you to support throughout the year. Please review our initiatives here: http://bit.ly/amcf-cart.
Hosted a series of webinars & events that you can watch on our website: https://amuslimcf.org/recorded-events.
For nonprofits, we are hosting 5 endowments and fiscally sponsoring 6 projects. You can learn more about partnering with us on our website: https://amuslimcf.org/partnerships.
Launching the #MuslimPhilanthropy Podcast: https://amuslimcf.org/mppodcast. By listening, you can learn more about organized donor giving, nonprofit best practices, programs, services, and hear from the leaders in the field at over 365 organizations in our Nonprofit Directory: https://amuslimcf.org/funded.
Developed Muslim Philanthropic Values: In partnership with The Muslim Productive Company, leveraging their Barakah Culture Cards. You’ll receive a card set with a minimum monthly gift of $10 or by participating in a Donor Advised Fund or Giving Circle. This is a perfect way to discover what motivates your charitable giving and have a fun activity with friends or family to discuss the causes you love supporting: https://amuslimcf.org/mpvc.
Stay tuned for an exciting new initiative later in the year; launching our Nonprofit Ecosystem Accelerator. Applications will be announced on social media so be sure to follow us @amuslimcf. More information at https://amuslimcf.org/accelerator.
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Coherent extrapolated volition (alignment target)
Eliezer Yudkowsky27 Apr 2016 2:19 UTC
Situating CEV in contemporary metaethics
Scary design challenges
What if CEV fails to cohere?
Helping people with incoherent preferences
Role of meta-ideals in promoting early agreement
Role of ‘coherence’ in reducing expected unresolvable disagreements
Moral hazard vs. debugging
“Selfish bastards” problem
Why base CEV on “existing humans” and not some other class of extrapolees?
Why not include mammals?
Why not extrapolate all sapients?
Why not extrapolate deceased humans?
Why include people who are powerless?
“Coherent extrapolated volition” (CEV) is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s proposed thing-to-do with an extremely advanced AGI, if you’re extremely confident of your ability to align it on complicated targets.
Roughly, a CEV-based superintelligence would do what currently existing humans would want* the AI to do, if counterfactually:
We knew everything the AI knew;
We could think as fast as the AI and consider all the arguments;
We knew ourselves perfectly and had better self-control or self-modification ability;
…to whatever extent most existing humans, thus extrapolated, would predictably want* the same things. (For example, in the limit of extrapolation, nearly all humans might want* not to be turned into paperclips, but might not agree* on the best pizza toppings. See below.)
CEV is meant to be the literally optimal or ideal or normative thing to do with an autonomous superintelligence, if you trust your ability to perfectly align a superintelligence on a very complicated target. (See below.)
CEV is rather complicated and meta and hence not intended as something you’d do with the first AI you ever tried to build. CEV might be something that everyone inside a project agreed was an acceptable mutual target for their second AI. (The first AI should probably be a Task AGI.)
For the corresponding metaethical theory see Extrapolated volition (normative moral theory).
start splitting the subsections into separate pages, then build learning paths.
%%knows-requisite(Extrapolated volition (normative moral theory)):
See “Extrapolated volition (normative moral theory)”.
%%!knows-requisite(Extrapolated volition (normative moral theory)):
Extrapolated volition is the metaethical theory that when we ask “What is right?”, then insofar as we’re asking something meaningful, we’re asking “What would a counterfactual idealized version of myself want* if it knew all the facts, had considered all the arguments, and had perfect self-knowledge and self-control?” (As a metaethical theory, this would make “What is right?” a mixed logical and empirical question, a function over possible states of the world.)
A very simple example of extrapolated volition might be to consider somebody who asks you to bring them orange juice from the refrigerator. You open the refrigerator and see no orange juice, but there’s lemonade. You imagine that your friend would want you to bring them lemonade if they knew everything you knew about the refrigerator, so you bring them lemonade instead. On an abstract level, we can say that you “extrapolated” your friend’s “volition”, in other words, you took your model of their mind and decision process, or your model of their “volition”, and you imagined a counterfactual version of their mind that had better information about the contents of your refrigerator, thereby “extrapolating” this volition.
Having better information isn’t the only way that a decision process can be extrapolated; we can also, for example, imagine that a mind has more time in which to consider moral arguments, or better knowledge of itself. Maybe you currently want revenge on the Capulet family, but if somebody had a chance to sit down with you and have a long talk about how revenge affects civilizations in the long run, you could be talked out of that. Maybe you’re currently convinced that you advocate for green shoes to be outlawed out of the goodness of your heart, but if you could actually see a printout of all of your own emotions at work, you’d see there was a lot of bitterness directed at people who wear green shoes, and this would change your mind about your decision.
In Yudkowsky’s version of extrapolated volition considered on an individual level, the three core directions of extrapolation are:
Increased knowledge—having more veridical knowledge of declarative facts and expected outcomes.
Increased consideration of arguments—being able to consider more possible arguments and assess their validity.
Increased reflectivity—greater knowledge about the self, and to some degree, greater self-control (though this raises further questions about which parts of the self normatively get to control which other parts).
Different people initially react differently to the question “Where should we point a superintelligence?” or “What should an aligned superintelligence do?”—not just different beliefs about what’s good, but different frames of mind about how to ask the question.
Some common reactions:
“Different people want different things! There’s no way you can give everyone what they want. Even if you pick some way of combining things that people want, you’ll be the one saying how to combine it. Someone else might think they should just get the whole world for themselves. Therefore, in the end you’re deciding what the AI will do, and any claim to some sort of higher justice or normativity is nothing but sophistry.”
“What we should do with an AI is obvious—it should optimize liberal democratic values. That already takes into account everyone’s interests in a fair way. The real threat is if bad people get their hands on an AGI and build an AGI that doesn’t optimize liberal democratic values.”
“Imagine the ancient Greeks telling a superintelligence what to do. They’d have told it to optimize for glorious deaths in battle. Programming any other set of inflexible goals into a superintelligence seems equally stupid; it has to be able to change and grow.”
“What if we tell the superintelligence what to do and it’s the wrong thing? What if we’re basically confused about what’s right? Shouldn’t we let the superintelligence figure that out on its own, with its assumed superior intelligence?”
An initial response to each of these frames might be:
“Okay, but suppose you’re building a superintelligence and you’re trying not to be a jerk about it. If you say, ‘Whatever I do originates in myself, and therefore is equally selfish, so I might as well declare myself God-Emperor of the Universe’ then you’re being a jerk. Is there anything you could do instead which would be less like being a jerk? What’s the least jerky thing you could do?”
“What if you would, after some further discussion, want to tweak your definition of ‘liberal democratic values’ just a little? What if it’s predictable that you would do that? Would you really want to be stuck with your off-the-cuff definition a million years later?”
“Okay, so what should the Ancient Greeks have done if they did have to program an AI? How could they not have doomed future generations? Suppose the Ancient Greeks are clever enough to have noticed that sometimes people change their minds about things and to realize that they might not be right about everything. How can they use the cleverness of the AGI in a constructively specified, computable fashion that gets them out of this hole? You can’t just tell the AGI to compute what’s ‘right’, you need to put an actual computable question in there, not a word.”
“You asked, what if we’re basically confused about what’s right—well, in that case, what does the word ‘right’ even mean? If you don’t know what’s right, and you don’t know how to compute what’s right, then what are we even talking about? Do you have any ground on which to say that an AGI which only asks ‘Which outcome leads to the greatest number of paperclips?’ isn’t computing rightness? If you don’t think a paperclip maximizer is computing rightness, then you must know something about the rightness-question which excludes that possibility—so let’s talk about how to program that rightness-question into an AGI.”
CEV’s advocates claim that all of these lines of discussion eventually end up converging on the idea of coherent extrapolated volition. For example:
Asking what everyone would want* if they knew what the AI knew, and doing what they’d all predictably agree on, is just about the least jerky thing you can do. If you tell the AI to give everyone a volcano lair because you think volcano lairs are neat, you’re not being selfish, but you’re being a jerk to everyone who doesn’t want a volcano lair. If you have the AI just do what people actually say, they’ll end up hurting themselves with dumb wishes and you’d be a jerk. If you only extrapolate your friends and have the AI do what only you’d want, you’re being jerks to everyone else.
Yes, liberal democratic values are good; so is apple pie. Apple pie is a good thing but it’s not the only good thing. William Frankena’s list of ends-in-themselves included “Life, consciousness, and activity; health and strength; pleasures and satisfactions of all or certain kinds; happiness, beatitude, contentment” and then 25 more items, and the list certainly isn’t complete. The only way you’re going to get a complete list is by analyzing human minds; and even then, if our descendants would predictably want something else a million years later, we ought to take that into account too.
Every improvement is a change, but not every change is an improvement. Just letting a superintelligence change at random doesn’t encapsulate moral progress. Saying that change toward more liberal democratic values is progress, presumes that we already know the destination or answer. We can’t even just ask the AGI to predict what civilizations would think a thousand years later, since (a) the AI itself impacts this and (b) if the AI did nothing, maybe in a thousand years everyone would have accidentally blissed themselves out while trying to modify their own brains. If we want to do better than the hypothetical ancient Greeks, we need to define a sufficiently abstract and meta criterion that describes valid directions of progress—such as changes in moral beliefs associated with learning new facts, for example; or moral change that would predictably occur if we considered a larger set of arguments; or moral change that would predictably occur if we understood ourselves better.
This one is a long story: Metaethics deals with the question of what sort of entity ‘rightness’ is exactly—tries to reconcile this strange ineffable ‘rightness’ business with a universe made out of particle fields. Even though it seems like human beings wanting to murder people wouldn’t make murder right, there’s also nowhere in the stars or mountains where we can actually find it written that murder is wrong. At the end of a rather long discussion, we decide that for any given person speaking at a given point in time, ‘rightness’ is a logical constant which, although not counterfactually dependent on the state of the person’s brain, must be analytically identified with the extrapolated volition of that brain; and we show that (only) this stance gives consistent answers to all the standard questions in metaethics. (This discussion takes a while, on the order of explaining how deterministic laws of physics don’t show that you have unfree will.)
(To do: Write dialogues from each of these four entrance points.) write these and split them up into separate subpages
See the corresponding section in “Extrapolated volition (normative moral theory)”.
There are several reasons why CEV is way too challenging to be a good target for any project’s first try at building machine intelligence:
A CEV agent would be intended to carry out an autonomous open-ended mission. This implies all the usual reasons we expect an autonomous AI to be harder to make safe than a Task AGI.
CEV is a weird goal. It involves recursion.
Even the terms in CEV, like “know more” or “extrapolate a human”, seem complicated and value-laden. You might have to build a high-level Do What I Know I Mean agent, and then tell it to do CEV. Do What I Know I Mean is complicated enough that you’d need to build an AI that can learn DWIKIM, so that DWIKIM can be taught rather than formally specified. So we’re looking at something like CEV, running on top of DWIKIM, running on top of a goal-learning system, at least until the first time the CEV agent rewrites itself.
Doing this correctly the very first time we build a smarter-than-human intelligence seems improbable. The only way this would make a good first target is if the CEV concept is formally simpler than it currently seems, and timelines to AGI are unusually long and permit a great deal of advance work on safety.
If AGI is 20 years out (or less), it seems wiser to think in terms of a Task AGI performing some relatively simple pivotal act. The role of CEV is of answering the question, “What can you all agree in advance that you’ll try to do next, after you’ve executed your Task AGI and gotten out from under the shadow of immediate doom?”
A frequently asked question is “What if extrapolating human volitions produces incoherent answers?”
According to the original motivation for CEV, if this happens in some places, a Friendly AI ought to ignore those places. If it happens everywhere, you probably picked a silly way to construe an extrapolated volition and you ought to rethink it. noteAlbeit in practice, you would not want an AI project to take a dozen tries at defining CEV. This would indicate something extremely wrong about the method being used to generate suggested answers. Whatever final attempt passed would probably be the first answer all of whose remaining flaws were hidden, rather than an answer with all flaws eliminated.
That is:
If your CEV algorithm finds that “People coherently want to not be eaten by paperclip maximizers, but end up with a broad spectrum of individual and collective possibilities for which pizza toppings they prefer”, we would normatively want a Friendly AI to prevent people from being eaten by paperclip maximizers but not mess around with which pizza toppings people end up eating in the Future.
If your CEV algorithm claims that there’s no coherent sense in which “A lot of people would want to not be eaten by Clippy and would still want* this even if they knew more stuff” then this is a suspicious and unexpected result. Perhaps you have picked a silly way to construe somebody’s volition.
The original motivation for CEV can also be viewed from the perspective of “What is it to help someone?” and “How can one help a large group of people?”, where the intent behind the question is to build an AI that renders ‘help’ as we really intend that. The elements of CEV can be seen as caveats to the naive notion of “Help is giving people whatever they ask you for!” in which somebody asks you to bring them orange juice but the orange juice in the refrigerator is poisonous (and they’re not trying to poison themselves).
What about helping a group of people? If two people ask for juice and you can only bring one kind of juice, you should bring a non-poisonous kind of juice they’d both like, to the extent any such juice exists. If no such juice exists, find a kind of juice that one of them is meh about and that the other one likes, and flip a coin or something to decide who wins. You are then being around as helpful as it is possible to be.
Can there be no way to help a large group of people? This seems implausible. You could at least give the starving ones pizza with a kind of pizza topping they currently like. To the extent your philosophy claims “Oh noes even that is not helping because it’s not perfectly coherent,” you have picked the wrong construal of ‘helping’.
It could be that, if we find that every reasonable-sounding construal of extrapolated volition fails to cohere, we must arrive at some entirely other notion of ‘helping’. But then this new form of helping also shouldn’t involve bringing people poisonous orange juice that they don’t know is poisoned, because that still intuitively seems unhelpful.
What if somebody believes themselves to prefer onions to pineapple on their pizza, prefer pineapple to mushrooms, and prefer mushrooms to onions? In the sense that, offered any two slices from this set, they would pick according to the given ordering?
(This isn’t an unrealistic example. Numerous experiments in behavioral economics demonstrate exactly this sort of circular preference. For instance, you can arrange 3 items such that each pair of them brings a different salient quality into focus for comparison.)
One may worry that we couldn’t ‘coherently extrapolate the volition’ of somebody with these pizza preferences, since these local choices obviously aren’t consistent with any coherent utility function. But how could we help somebody with a pizza preference like this?
Well, appealing to the intuitive notion of helping:
We could give them whatever kind of pizza they’d pick if they had to pick among all three simultaneously.
We could figure out how happy they’d be eating each type of pizza, in terms of emotional intensity as measured in neurotransmitters; and offer them the slice of pizza that they’ll most enjoy.
We could let them pick their own damn pizza toppings and concern ourselves mainly with making sure the pizza isn’t poisonous, since the person definitely prefers non-poisoned pizza.
We could, given sufficient brainpower on our end, figure out what this person would ask us to do for them in this case after that person had learned about the concept of a preference reversal and been told about their own circular preferences. If this varies wildly depending on exactly how we explain the concept of a preference reversal, we could refer back to one of the previous three answers instead.
Conversely, these alternatives seem less helpful:
Refuse to have anything to do with that person since their current preferences don’t form a coherent utility function.
Emit “ERROR ERROR” sounds like a Hollywood AI that’s just found out about the Epimenides Paradox.
Give them pizza with your own favorite topping, green peppers, even though they’d prefer any of the 3 other toppings to those.
Give them pizza with the topping that would taste best to them, pepperoni, despite their being vegetarians.
Advocates of CEV claim that if you blank the complexities of ‘extrapolated volition’ out of your mind; and ask how you could reasonably help people as best as possible if you were trying not be a jerk; and then try to figure out how to semiformalize whatever mental procedure you just followed to arrive at your answer for how to help people; then you will eventually end up at CEV again.
A primary purpose of CEV is to represent a relatively simple meta-level ideal that people can agree upon, even where they might disagree on the object level. By a hopefully analogous example, two honest scientists might disagree on the correct mass of an electron, but agree that the experimental method is a good way to resolve the answer.
Imagine Millikan believes an electron’s mass is 9.1e-28 grams, and Nannikan believes the correct electron mass is 9.1e-34 grams. Millikan might be very worried about Nannikan’s proposal to program an AI to believe the electron mass is 9.1e-34 grams; Nannikan doesn’t like Millikan’s proposal to program in 9.1-e28; and both of them would be unhappy with a compromise mass of 9.1e-31 grams. They might still agree on programming an AI with some analogue of probability theory and a simplicity prior, and letting a superintelligence come to the conclusions implied by Bayes and Occam, because the two can agree on an effectively computable question even though they think the question has different answers. Of course, this is easier to agree on when the AI hasn’t yet produced an answer, or if the AI doesn’t tell you the answer.
It’s not guaranteed that every human embodies the same implicit moral questions, indeed this seems unlikely, which means that Alice and Bob might still expect their extrapolated volitions to disagree about things. Even so, while the outputs are still abstract and not-yet-computed, Alice doesn’t have much of a place to stand on which to appeal to Carol, Dennis, and Evelyn by saying, “But as a matter of morality and justice, you should have the AI implement my extrapolated volition, not Bob’s!” To appeal to Carol, Dennis, and Evelyn about this, you’d need them to believe that Alice’s EV was more likely to agree with their EVs than Bob’s was—and at that point, why not come together on the obvious Schelling point of extrapolating everyone’s EVs?
Thus, one of the primary purposes of CEV (selling points, design goals) is that it’s something that Alice, Bob, and Carol can agree now that Dennis and Evelyn should do with an AI that will be developed later; we can try to set up commitment mechanisms now, or check-and-balance mechanisms now, to ensure that Dennis and Evelyn are still working on CEV later.
A CEV is not necessarily a majority vote. A lot of people with an extrapolated weak preference* might be counterbalanced by a few people with a strong extrapolated preference* in the opposite direction. Nick Bostrom’s “parliamentary model” for resolving uncertainty between incommensurable ethical theories, permits a subtheory very concerned about a decision to spend a large amount of its limited influence on influencing that particular decision.
This means that, e.g., a vegan or animal-rights activist should not need to expect that they must seize control of a CEV algorithm in order for the result of CEV to protect animals. It doesn’t seem like most of humanity would be deriving huge amounts of utility from hurting animals in a post-superintelligence scenario, so even a small part of the population that strongly opposes* this scenario should be decisive in preventing it.
One of the points of the CEV proposal is to have minimal moral hazard (aka, not tempting the programmers to take over the world or the future); but this may be compromised if CEV’s results don’t go literally unchecked.
Part of the purpose of CEV is to stand as an answer to the question, “If the ancient Greeks had been the ones to invent superintelligence, what could they have done that would not, from our later perspective, irretrievably warp the future? If the ancient Greeks had programmed in their own values directly, they would have programmed in a glorious death in combat. Now let us consider that perhaps we too are not so wise.” We can imagine the ancient Greeks writing a CEV mechanism, peeking at the result of this CEV mechanism before implementing it, and being horrified by the lack of glorious-deaths-in-combat in the future and value system thus revealed.
We can also imagine that the Greeks, trying to cut down on moral hazard, virtuously refuse to peek at the output; but it turns out that their attempt to implement CEV has some unforeseen behavior when actually run by a superintelligence, and so their world is turned into paperclips.
This is a safety-vs.-moral-hazard tradeoff between (a) the benefit of being able to look at CEV outputs in order to better-train the system or just verify that nothing went horribly wrong; and (b) the moral hazard that comes from the temptation to override the output, thus defeating the point of having a CEV mechanism in the first place.
There’s also a potential safety hazard just with looking at the internals of a CEV algorithm; the simulated future could contain all sorts of directly mind-hacking cognitive hazards.
Rather than giving up entirely and embracing maximum moral hazard, one possible approach to this issue might be to have some single human that is supposed to peek at the output and provide a 1 or 0 (proceed or stop) judgment to the mechanism, without any other information flow being allowed to the programmers if the human outputs 0. (For example, the volunteer might be in a room with explosives that go off if 0 is output.)
Suppose that Fred is funding Grace to work on a CEV-based superintelligence; and Evelyn has decided not to oppose this project. The resulting CEV is meant to extrapolate the volitions of Alice, Bob, Carol, Dennis, Evelyn, Fred, and Grace with equal weight. (If you’re reading this, you’re more than usually likely to be one of Evelyn, Fred, or Grace.)
Evelyn and Fred and Grace might worry: “What if a supermajority of humanity consists of ‘selfish* bastards’, such that their extrapolated volitions would cheerfully vote* for a world in which it was legal to own artificial sapient beings as slaves so long as they personally happened to be in the slaveowning class; and we, Evelyn and Fred and Grace, just happen to be in the minority that extremely doesn’t want nor want* the future to be like that?”
That is: What if humanity’s extrapolated volitions diverge in such a way that from the standpoint of our volitions—since, if you’re reading this, you’re unusually likely to be one of Evelyn or Fred or Grace − 90% of extrapolated humanity would choose* something such that we would not approve of it, and our volitions would not approve* of it, even after taking into account that we don’t want to be jerks about it and that we don’t think we were born with any unusual or exceptional right to determine the fate of humanity.
That is, let the scenario be as follows:
90% of the people (but not we who are collectively sponsoring the AI) are selfish bastards at the core, such that any reasonable extrapolation process (it’s not just that we picked a broken one) would lead to them endorsing a world in which they themselves had rights, but it was okay to create artificial people and hurt them. Furthermore, they would derive enough utility from being personal God-Emperors that this would override our minority objection even in a parliamentary model.
We can see this hypothetical outcome as potentially undermining every sort of reason that we, who happen to be in a position of control to prevent that outcome, should voluntarily relinquish that control to the remaining 90% of humanity:
We can’t be prioritizing being fair to everyone including the other 90% of humanity, because what about being fair to the artificial people who are being hurt?
We can’t be worrying that the other 90% of humanity would withdraw their support from the project, or worrying about betraying the project’s supporters, because by hypothesis they weren’t supporting it or even permitting it.
We can’t be agreeing to defer to a righter and more intelligent process to resolve our dispute, because by hypothesis the CEV made up of 90% selfish* bastards is not, from our own perspective, ideally righter.
We can’t rely on a parliamentary model of coherence to prevent what a minority sees as disaster, because by hypothesis the other 90% is deriving enough utility from collectively declaring themselves God-Emperors to trump even a strong minority countervote.
Rather than giving up entirely and taking over the world, or exposing ourselves to moral hazard by peeking at the results, one possible approach to this issue might be to run a three-stage process.
This process involves some internal references, so the detailed explanation needs to follow a shorter summary explanation.
Extrapolate everyone’s CEV.
Extrapolate the CEV of the contributors only, and let it give (only) an up-down vote on Everyone’s CEV.
If the result is thumbs-up, run Everyone’s CEV.
Otherwise, extrapolate everyone’s CEV, but kicking out all the parts that would act unilaterally and without any concern for others if they were in positions of unchecked power.
Have the Contributor CEV give an up/down answer on the Fallback CEV.
If the result is thumbs-up, run the Fallback CEV.
Otherwise fail.
First, extrapolate the everyone-on-Earth CEV as though it were not being checked.
If any hypothetical extrapolated person worries about being checked, delete that concern and extrapolate them as though they didn’t have it. This is necessary to prevent the check itself from having a UDT influence on the extrapolation and the actual future.
Next, extrapolate the CEV of everyone who contributed to the project, weighted by their contribution (possibly based on some mix of “how much was actually done” versus “how much was rationally expected to be accomplished” versus “the fraction of what could’ve been done versus what was actually done”). Allow this other extrapolation an up-or-down vote—not any kind of detailed correction—on whether to let the everyone-on-Earth CEV to go through unmodified.
Remove from the extrapolation of the Contributor-CEV any strategic considerations having to do with the Fallback-CEV or post-Fail redevelopment being a better alternative; we want to extract a judgment about “satisficing” in some sense, whether the Everyone-CEV is in some non-relative sense too horrible to be allowed.
If the Everyone-CEV passes the Contributor-CEV check, run it.
Otherwise, re-extrapolate a Fallback-CEV that starts with all existing humans as a base, but discards from the extrapolation all extrapolated decision processes that, if they were in a superior strategic position or a position of unilateral power, would not bother to extrapolate others’ volitions or care about their welfare.
Again, remove all extrapolated strategic considerations about passing the coming check.
Check the Fallback-CEV against the Contributor-CEV for an up-down vote. If it passes, run it.
Otherwise Fail (AI shuts down safely, we rethink what to do next or implement an agreed-on fallback course past this point).
The particular fallback of “kick out from the extrapolation any weighted portions of extrapolated decision processes that would act unilaterally and without caring for others, given unchecked power” is meant to have a property of poetic justice, or rendering objections to it self-defeating: If it’s okay to act unilaterally, then why can’t we unilaterally kick out the unilateral parts? This is meant to be the ‘simplest’ or most ‘elegant’ way of kicking out a part of the CEV whose internal reasoning directly opposes the whole reason we ran CEV in the first place, but imposing the minimum possible filter beyond that.
Thus if Alice (who by hypothesis is not in any way a contributor) says, “But I demand you altruistically include the extrapolation of me that would unilaterally act against you if it had power!” then we reply, “We’ll try that, but if it turns out to be a sufficiently bad idea, there’s no coherent interpersonal grounds on which you can rebuke us for taking the fallback option instead.”
Similarly in regards to the Fail option at the end, to anyone who says, “Fairness demands that you run Fallback CEV even if you wouldn’t like* it!” we can reply, “Our own power may not be used against us; if we’d regret ever having built the thing, fairness doesn’t oblige us to run it.”
One frequently asked question about the implementation details of CEV is either:
Why formulate CEV such that it is run on “all existing humans” and not “all existing and past humans” or “all mammals” or “all sapient life as it probably exists everywhere in the measure-weighted infinite multiverse”?
Why not restrict the extrapolation base to “only people who contributed to the AI project”?
In particular, it’s been asked why restrictive answers to Question 1 don’t also imply the more restrictive answer to Question 2.
We’ll start by considering some replies to the question, “Why not include all mammals into CEV’s extrapolation base?”
Because you could be wrong about mammals being objects of significant ethical value, such that we should on an object level respect their welfare. The extrapolation process will catch the error if you’d predictably change your mind about that. Including mammals into the extrapolation base for CEV potentially sets in stone what could well be an error, the sort of thing we’d predictably change our minds about later. If you’re normatively right that we should all care about mammals and even try to extrapolate their volitions into a judgment of Earth’s destiny, if that’s what almost all of us would predictably decide after thinking about it for a while, then that’s what our EVs will decide* to do on our behalf; and if they don’t decide* to do that, it wasn’t right which undermines your argument for doing it unconditionally.
Because even if we ought to care about mammals’ welfare qua welfare, extrapolated animals might have really damn weird preferences that you’d regret including into the CEV. (E.g., after human volitions are outvoted by the volitions of other animals, the current base of existing animals’ extrapolated volitions choose* a world in which they are uplifted to God-Emperors and rule over suffering other animals.)
Because maybe not everyone on Earth cares* about animals even if your EV would in fact care* about them, and to avoid a slap-fight over who gets to rule the world, we’re going to settle this by e.g. a parliamentary-style model in which you get to expend your share of Earth’s destiny-determination on protecting animals.
To expand on this last consideration, we can reply: “Even if you would regard it as more just to have the right animal-protecting outcome baked into the future immediately, so that your EV didn’t need to expend some of its voting strength on assuring it, not everyone else might regard that as just. From our perspective as programmers we have no particular reason to listen to you rather than Alice. We’re not arguing about whether animals will be protected if a minority vegan-type subpopulation strongly want* that and the rest of humanity doesn’t care*. We’re arguing about whether, if you want* that but a majority doesn’t, your EV should justly need to expend some negotiating strength in order to make sure animals are protected. This seems pretty reasonable to us as programmers from our standpoint of wanting to be fair, not be jerks, and not start any slap-fights over world domination.”
This third reply is particularly important because taken in isolation, the first two replies of “You could be wrong about that being a good idea” and “Even if you care about their welfare, maybe you wouldn’t like their EVs” could equally apply to argue that contributors to the CEV project ought to extrapolate only their own volitions and not the rest of humanity:
We could be wrong about it being a good idea, by our own lights, to extrapolate the volitions of everyone else; including this into the CEV project bakes this consideration into stone; if we were right about running an Everyone CEV, if we would predictably arrive at that conclusion after thinking about it for a while, our EVs could do that for us.
Not extrapolating other people’s volitions isn’t the same as saying we shouldn’t care. We could be right to care about the welfare of others, but there could be some spectacular horror built into their EVs.
The proposed way of addressing this was to run a composite CEV with a contributor-CEV check and a Fallback-CEV fallback. But then why not run an Animal-CEV with a Contributor-CEV check before trying the Everyone-CEV?
One answer would go back to the third reply above: Nonhuman mammals aren’t sponsoring the CEV project, allowing it to pass, or potentially getting angry at people who want to take over the world with no seeming concern for fairness. So they aren’t part of the Schelling Point for “everyone gets an extrapolated vote”.
Similarly if we ask: “Why not include all sapient beings that the SI suspects to exist everywhere in the measure-weighted multiverse?”
Because large numbers of them might have EVs as alien as the EV of an Ichneumonidae wasp.
Because our EVs can always do that if it’s actually a good idea.
Because they aren’t here to protest and withdraw political support if we don’t bake them into the extrapolation base immediately.
“Why not include all deceased human beings as well as all currently living humans?”
In this case, we can’t then reply that they didn’t contribute to the human project (e.g. I. J. Good). Their EVs are also less likely to be alien than in any other case considered above.
But again, we fall back on the third reply: “The people who are still alive” is a simple Schelling circle to draw that includes everyone in the current political process. To the extent it would be nice or fair to extrapolate Leo Szilard and include him, we can do that if a supermajority of EVs decide* that this would be nice or just. To the extent we don’t bake this decision into the model, Leo Szilard won’t rise from the grave and rebuke us. This seems like reason enough to regard “The people who are still alive” as a simple and obvious extrapolation base.
“Why include very young children, uncontacted tribes who’ve never heard about AI, and retrievable cryonics patients (if any)? They can’t, in their current state, vote for or against anything.”
A lot of the intuitive motivation for CEV is to not be a jerk, and ignoring the wishes of powerless living people seems intuitively a lot more jerkish than ignoring the wishes of powerless dead people.
They’ll actually be present in the future, so it seems like less of a jerk thing to do to extrapolate them and take their wishes into account in shaping that future, than to not extrapolate them.
Their relatives might take offense otherwise.
It keeps the Schelling boundary simple.
The word ‘value’ in the phrase ‘value alignment’ is a metasyntactic variable that indicates the speaker’s future goals for intelligent life.
Paul Christiano30 Apr 2016 4:31 UTC
Even so, while the outputs are still abstract and not-yet-computed, Alice doesn’t have much of a place to stand on which to appeal to Carol, Dennis, and Evelyn by saying, “But as a matter of morality and justice, you should have the AI implement my extrapolated volition, not Bob’s!”
They may not have a moral argument, but they can surely have an argument.
Alice claims that they should democratically assign equal weight to each currently living person.
Bob claims that they should assign equal weight to all creatures which can plausibly be extrapolated.
Carol (who is rich) claims that they should assign weight based on current influence in the world.
Dennis (who is old-fashioned) claims that they should assign equal weight to all humans who have ever lived.
Evelyn (who has many children) claims that they should assign weight to the people who would have existed in future generations.
And so on, this is a tiny fraction of the plausible alternatives. I don’t really think that any is a strong Schelling point, and certainly none is so strong that you can’t argue for one of the others.
You say that the purpose of not being a jerk is so that people can cooperate, rather than turning the development of AI into a conflict. If that’s your goal, wouldn’t the default approach be to give each individual enough influence to ensure that they have no incentive to defect? If you try to assign weight democratically, you are massively reducing the influence of many particular individuals, including almost every researcher, investor, and regulator. That does not seem like the most natural recipe for eliminating conflict!
As another way of putting it, suppose that I was to be made dictator of the world tomorrow. What should I do, if I wanted to not be a jerk? One proposal is to redistribute all resources equally amongst living humans. Another is to do nothing. People will justifiably object to both, I don’t think there is a simple story about which is right (setting aside pragmatic concerns about feasibility).
You can try to get out of this, by claiming that the pie is going to grow so much that this kind of conflict is a non-issue. I think that’s true to the extent that people just want to live happy, normal lives. But many people have preferences over what happens in the world, not only about their own lives. From an aggregative altruistic perspective these are the preferences that are really important, and they are almost necessarily in tension since realizing any of them demands some resources.
Eliezer Yudkowsky7 Jun 2016 1:25 UTC
I doubt it will satisfy you, but see the added “Selfish bastards” and “Why include everyone” sections.
Robert Peetsalu10 Oct 2017 9:43 UTC
Personal vs Global CEV could also be mentioned here.
Upon reading the ideal advisor theories paper an idea came to mind about how to protect CEV from Sobel’s fourth objection where the ideal adviser recommends actions that would lead to death because it knows that its original self would want to commit suicide after seeing how inferior and hopeless their life is compared to a perfect self. If we limit the “better version of ourselves” to only have superior knowledge and skills and nothing that we couldn’t obtain if we had enough time and resources, then it wouldn’t view us as disabled or hopeless, only misinformed. Hence there would be a way out and the perfectly informed self would also know all the ways to improve the situation. So it wouldn’t recommend mercy death, unless the original self already had suicidal tendencies. What a nice topic to discuss =P
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Farmer films wild giant panda with cellphone
Source: Xinhua | March 14, 2016, Monday | Online Edition
A farmer in northwest China's Shaanxi Province has captured a giant panda drinking from a river, rare footage that indicates the normally-shy animal was probably ill.
In the two-minute video, the giant panda can be seen stretching, dropping its head to the river, and drinking before noticing the farmer and returning to the safety of the jungle.
"I watched it for around five minutes," said He Yijun with the Daguping Village, Yueba Township of Foping County.
The farmer shot the footage in the late afternoon on March 9 near his village, which is part of a state-level reserve for the protection of Qinling wild giant pandas.
He said he thought he had found a huge calico stone, before he realized it was a giant panda, which was moving very slowly.
Yong Yange, a giant panda expert with the Foping natural reserve, said the panda may have been suffering from a sore throat or heartburn, as it took longer than usual to drink water.
"A healthy Qinling giant panda drinks for just one to two minutes before returning to the bamboo woods, and seldom drinks repetitively," he said.
Yong advised local farmers to report any giant pandas that they see drinking repetitively with a white and dry nose, as the animal would probably need medical treatment.
The Qinling giant panda is a subspecies of giant panda that was identified in Qinling Mountains in 2005. It differs from the more familiar Sichuan subspecies by its smaller and rounder skull, shorter snout and fuller fur. There are about 270 giant pandas in the Qinling region.
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Poll: Only 32% of Bulgarians willing to accept Muslims as family members
By Clive Leviev-Sawyer/ Published on: 30/10/2018
Only about 32 per cent of Bulgarians would be willing to accept Muslims as relatives while 55 per cent would accept Jews as family members, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center.
Separately, the views on these issues among young adult Bulgarians hardly differed. Thirty-six per cent would accept Muslims and 57 per cent would accept Jews as family members, the poll found.
Sixty-six per cent of Bulgarians saw Christianity as important to their identity, while 69 per cent of Bulgarians agree with the statement, “Our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others.”
An article on the Pew Research website noted that in nearly every Central and Eastern European country polled, fewer than half of adults say they would be willing to accept Muslims into their family; in nearly every Western European country surveyed, more than half say they would accept a Muslim into their family.
A similar divide emerges between Central/Eastern Europe and Western Europe with regard to accepting Jews into one’s family.
Adults in the EU’s Central and Eastern European states tend to be less likely than those in the EU countries of Western Europe to say they would welcome Muslims or Jews into their families or neighbourhoods, and they are less likely to favor same-sex marriage.
At the same time, the Central and Eastern Europeans are more likely than the Western Europeans to view Christianity as an important component of their national identity, and to express higher levels of religious commitment.
The poll found that 79 per cent of Bulgarians opposed same-sex marriage, while 68 per cent of young adult Bulgarians were opposed to it….. / IBNA
BiH: Resolving the migrant crisis is not an easy job, says BiH Security Minister
Slovenia: First Slovenian satellites reache space
Romania: Political transfers fuel political developments
Turkey: Annual inflation at 11.77% in August
Cyprus: Statistical Authority announces big leap in unemployment rate
Greece: Economy scores 15.2% contraction in Q2 2020
Serbia: We will not accept an ultimatum in Washington, says Dačić
Turkey: Ankara alleges targeting of Turkish journalists in Greece
US keeps European side updated on country’s initiative to launch Belgrade-Pristina talks
Turkey: Die Welt article completely fictional according to Turkish Foreign Ministry
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Serbian government announces austerity
By Milos Mitrovic/ Published on: 09/10/2013
By Miloš Mitrović – Belgrade
Serbian Finance Minister Lazar Krstić announced six economic measures to address public savings, fiscal stability and to promote growth as well. Wages in the public domain are to be reduced, and lower VAT for “non-existential” products would be raised to 10 percents from 8, Krstić explained on Tuesday. Public enterprises restructuring, as well as cutting subventions, borrowing favorable credits and improving business conditions should also contribute to governments objectives.
Krstić specified that, according to governments assessments, budget revenues in 2013 would be RSD 20 billion (approximately EUR 50 million) lower than it has been planned by budget amending. “We have to reduce the spending for that amount”, Krstić said adding that “in November we will know the results”.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) mission in Serbia has stressed, Krstić mentioned, that there were “additional risks with regard to the budget revenues”. In that sense, Finance Minister rendered that economic and fiscal policy in Serbia conducted by the previous government from 2008 to 2012 “was irresponsible and nontransparent”.
“When similarly developed countries public debt goes beyond the GDP 42 percent they are facing bankruptcy. On the other hand, inappropriate spending is a problem, rather than borrowing”, Krstić said. “Since 2009 Serbia is making chronic deficit and it is the only Eastern-European country that failed to reduce it”.
“At this moment, 28 percents of the budget revenues goes to pensions, 27 percent to public sector’s wages; the subventions amount is unclear”, Krstić said.
Public sector wages reductions would start in the beginning of 2014; government expects this measure would save around EUR 100 to 150 millions (GDP 0.3 percent), dependent on assessed number of employees in the public administration. Wages higher than RSD 60,000 (EUR 520) would be cut for 20 percents; wages higher than RSD 100,000 (EUR 870) would be reduced for 25 percents.
With regard to taxation, lower VAT for “non-existential” products would be raised from 8 to 10 percents; at the same time some products and services could be shifted into higher VAT category taxed at 20 percents. The VAT increase would raise the consumer basket to dinars 65,450 from the current 65,000, Krstić said.
Božidar Đelić, Former Serbian Finance Minister who is now opposition Democratic Party’s MP, said that measures proclaimed by the government represent “the blunt knives, and scalpels are next”. Đelić told RTV B92 that “neither country has been so much indebted since the World War II”. “Year and a half ago Serbia was not on the edge of bankruptcy; now it is, due to the current government which is indebtedness champion”. According to Đelić, government imposes austerity in order to borrow some more money”. He said that Serbia borrowed EUR 6 billion since April 2012.
Romania: UDMR still undecided over motion of censure against gov’t
North Macedonia: New gov’t will focus on internal affairs, says Zaev
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Bamboo and carbon sequestration: Saved by net zero
Jul 24, 2020 | Agriculture & Gardening, Bamboo Products, Green Living | 2 comments
Bamboo proponents the world over have touted the plant as a miracle cure for climate change and global warming. Bamboo’s purported capacity for carbon sequestration is one of the most important factors that makes the plant so important in the effort to save the planet and heal the atmosphere.
But in the age of fake news and mass sensationalism, can we trust these claims? Perhaps what we are hearing is actually a mix scientific truth and wishful exaggeration. There’s no doubt that bamboo, the fastest growing plant on earth, has immense potential as a non-toxic, renewable resource with hundreds of commercial applications.
Indeed, some varieties of bamboo can grow more than a meter in a day, that’s more than 3.3 feet in a 24 hour period, making it the fastest growing plant in the world. This break neck growth rate occurs with individual culms at the peak of the growing season, and in ideal growing conditions.
A mature grove of bamboo, according to numerous experts, can also generate 30 to 35 percent more oxygen than an equal area of forest. To produce this oxygen, the bamboo draws carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The plant then stores much of that carbon in its roots and biomass. This is probably bamboo’s greatest contribution in the battle against global warming.
What is carbon sequestration?
Carbon sequestration refers to that process which happens in conjunction with photosynthesis. Like all plants, bamboo takes in sunlight, water and carbon dioxide, and turns it into vital nutrition (i.e. sugar) and releases essential (to humans) oxygen. Carbon remains as a bi-product of this miraculous formula, and gets stored, or sequestered, in the roots of plants and trees.
The carbon, stored inside the plant’s biomass, is called a carbon sink. Carbon sinks are a crucial to the earth’s ecosystem and for keeping the atmosphere in equilibrium. As carbon levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, the dangers associated with climate change grow more severe.
So it’s a two part process. First, plants and trees absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Next, they store this carbon in their roots and biomass.
But every time a tree is cut down, a little more carbon is released from the sink and into the atmosphere. So when great forests in Brazil and Malaysia are logged or burned down, we’re not only losing the trees, which act as the lungs of the planet. Equally catastrophic are the enormous quantities of carbon being released from underneath these ancient forests.
Why is bamboo so good at carbon sequestration?
One of bamboo’s greatest virtues is its fast growth rate. Not only can it grow a few feet a day in peak season, as mentioned above, but the plant can also reach maturity within about five years. That’s compared to 30 or 40 years for a hard wood tree. And that’s an impressive timeline for creating a substantial carbon sink, as well as providing an abundant, versatile resource.
But that’s not all. As a grass, bamboo easily replenishes itself after harvesting. In other words, like a lawn that’s been cut, the bamboo grows right back. Unlike trees and annual crops which get harvested and then need to be replanted, the rhizome roots of bamboo plants live to produce more shoots. Because the bamboo doesn’t die, it doesn’t release its carbon sink the way a tree does after it’s cut down.
Here’s an interesting feature of bamboo. Bamboo shoots (culms) reach their full height in a single growing season. Each year, the new culms come out bigger and bigger, until the plant reaches maturity. This is usually 5 or 6 years, depending on the species. By that time, the canes should be achieving their maximum size with each season. The poles from the earlier years may continue to produce lateral branches and leaves, but they will never get any taller or thicker around.
Bamboo for perpetual harvest
Furthermore, when the canes of a mature bamboo plant are harvested, the new culms that sprout up the following season will get to be just as large. This means it can be harvested annually, and the harvest will not reduce the following years’s yield. On the contrary, harvesting bamboo actually encourages the plant to produce more numerous shoots.
And because the massive rhizome root system remains intact, there’s no great spill from the carbon sink like there is when logging trees. All of these factors should convince us to support more cultivation and use of bamboo in construction, as a greener alternative to lumber.
A fast growth rate means a high metabolism. And that suggests that bamboo can probably convert CO2 into oxygen faster than other plant life. Japanese studies indicate that bamboo can capture 12 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare per year, whereas Chinese estimates are more like 5 tons per hectare.
In Uganda they have measured differently, saying that every square meter of bamboo can absorb 267 kilos of CO2 per year. So the numbers vary quite a bit, and reliable figures may be hard to come by. The results will also depend on things like climate and the species of bamboo.
Calling bamboo’s potential into question
A study conducted by the journal Plant Biology and published in 2016 calls some of those ardent claims into question. Based on their preliminary measurements from a small crop of Bambusa vulgaris, these scientists are suggesting that bamboo may actually be a net carbon producer. Unlike trees which capture carbon, they are claiming that bamboo acts more like rice, which releases more CO2 over the course of its life than it stores.
But other experts cast doubt on these findings, as they only looked at the gas emissions over a 24-hour period for one single species of bamboo. No one has yet to conduct a close study that looks at the carbon absorption and efflux over the complete lifespan of a bamboo plant. And most botanists and bamboo experts agree that a 24-hour study is far from reliable when it comes to assessing bamboo’s total carbon sequestration over several years.
Another study published in the Global Ecology and Conservation journal represents the more widely held belief that woody bamboo is more comparable to hard wood in terms of carbon sequestration. Findings from this research indicate that bamboo does sequester significant quantities of carbon and can provide a permanent carbon sink. Additionally, the study suggests that bamboo can and should provide opportunities for carbon farming and carbon trading.
Bamboo leads to the way towards net-zero carbon
Net zero refers to the desired balance between the quantities of carbon and greenhouse gasses being released into the atmosphere and being removed from the atmosphere. Because of its tremendous capacity for capturing and storing carbon, bamboo can play a vital role in the move towards net-zero carbon. And with more and more corporations, countries and municipalities setting net zero goals, we can be sure that bamboo will only grow in popularity.
Pursuant to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016, the European Union and a number of countries like Canada and Chile have pledged to achieve net-zero climate-neutrality by 2050. Other countries, like Austria and Finland, have set even more ambitious goals, to be carbon neutral by 2040 and 2035, respectively. The state of California aims to be neutral by 2045.
One way for companies to achieve carbon neutrality is through what’s called carbon trading. This market-based solution allows business who are carbon negative (capturing more than they emit) to earn carbon credits and sell them to businesses which are carbon positive. In this way, companies with higher emissions can still achieve carbon neutrality by supporting carbon positive enterprises.
One such company that offers another kind of carbon footprint offsetting is the Bamboo Village Uganda (BVU). The BVU invites international businesses to participate and invest in bamboo and the developing economy of Uganda by purchasing parcels of land and planting bamboo. This provides a responsible way to offset emissions and earn carbon credits, while at the same time combating poverty in Africa.
The environmental benefits of bamboo are astonishing. When you look at the complete life cycle of the plant, which matures in 5 or 6 years and can be harvested annually without pesticides or heavy fertilizers, it seems almost too good to be true. But we really have no reason to doubt bamboo’s incredible potential as an alternative to logging, steel and plastics.
Bamboo’s capacity to reduce carbon and improve the atmosphere is not limited to its growth habit. As a versatile building material, bamboo can also reduce our reliance of more intensive carbon emitters, like plastic and concrete.
This doesn’t mean we should try and become 100 percent dependent on bamboo for all our building needs. But we should definitely encourage more cultivation of this incredible plant. At the same time, we need to continue to monitor the ways in which it is grown, harvested and processed. Only in this way can we ensure that bamboo continues to play a critical role as a climate solution.
If you found this article useful and interesting, please consider sharing the link and subscribing to our blog. You might also enjoy some of the these other popular blog posts.
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Zoe Langley on at
Hello, your site is quickly becoming my “go to” site for information on bamboo. Great work, much appreciated.
Fred Hornaday on at
Thanks Zoe!
Owner & Founder
Fred Hornaday
Fred’s passion for bamboo and renewables dates back to the early 90s. Since then he has owned and operated two eco-boutiques and written 1000s of articles about bamboo, green living and world travel. He’s also spent a couple decades cultivating numerous species of bamboo.
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New Photoetch Sets (1:35)
By Carlos Martin on Tuesday, September 03, 2019 - 08:41 PM UTC
E.T. Model has added a good number of new sets to their catalogue since our last information, see them here now.
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PE for Chinese, French, German AFV, and More
By Tat Baqui on Friday, July 14, 2017 - 02:16 PM UTC
A look into the latest from the E.T. Model catalog reveals a variety of upgrade sets for WWII-era and modern vehicles. Also available are tool clamps, as well a Panzerschreck.
Wolverine Brass (1:35)
By Tat Baqui on Saturday, February 18, 2017 - 05:43 AM UTC
Another recent release from E.T. Model is its detail set for the M10 Tank Destroyer.
Leopard Detail Set (1:35)
E.T. Model makes available its set to enhance your German Leopard tank.
Wheel Upgrade Sets (1:35)
New items in the E.T. Model catalog are wheel sets for modern Russian and WW II-era German vehicles.
New Update Sets (1:35)
By Tat Baqui on Tuesday, November 01, 2016 - 08:05 AM UTC
Detail sets for your Meng M1A2 and Shilka.
Wheels and Photoetch (1:35)
By Carlos Martin on Wednesday, September 14, 2016 - 04:43 AM UTC
The new products from E.T. Model include resin wheels for the MTVR Cargo and the Smerch, and photoetch sets for this and the Tiger I in Tunisia.
New Photo Etch Sets (1:35)
By Carlos Martin on Sunday, May 29, 2016 - 01:25 AM UTC
E..T. Model has five new sets recently released, for German Leopard 2 A5/6, Panther and Russian BRDM-2
E.T. Model - Another big update
By Kevin Brant on Sunday, April 24, 2016 - 12:14 PM UTC
Another big list of updates from E.T. Model, this month including some populare World War 2 tanks.
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Modern Armour Sets (1:35)
By Carlos Martin on Sunday, April 03, 2016 - 01:41 PM UTC
There are three new photo etch sets from E.T. Model. They are covering recent kits from Meng and Tigermodel.
Here comes the Brass!
By Damon on Sunday, March 08, 2015 - 10:12 PM UTC
Celebrating their 6th year in operations, E.T. Model is releasing some great new products! From PE updates for you favorite armored vehicles to some really great looking camo netting, E.T. Model is keeping up with demand and quality. Check out the new releases here!
Terminator, Citroen and Stug! Oh My!
By Damon on Saturday, December 27, 2014 - 11:05 PM UTC
E.T. Models has some new updates for all genres! Check them out!
ET Models gears up for Santa!
By Damon on Tuesday, October 21, 2014 - 07:59 AM UTC
It seems that ET Models has received their marching orders from the big guy and they are set to over load your stocking with loot this year!
Updates for the Modern World
By Damon on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 - 04:35 AM UTC
E.T. Model has a few updates for your modern vehicles!
Bradley and More (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Sunday, August 24, 2014 - 02:13 AM UTC
There is a list of new updates out from E.T. Model that has an update set for the M2A3 and more.
Modern MBT’s (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Friday, July 11, 2014 - 12:04 PM UTC
Some news out of E.T. Model has some new detail sets covering some of the modern main battle tanks.
Wheels and Details (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Friday, June 13, 2014 - 04:16 AM UTC
Some new releases are on the way from E.T. Model that include some wheels for a Russian APC and photoectched details for German and Russian tanks.
Soviet Updates From ET (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - 11:24 AM UTC
There are a few new updates out from ET Model for Soviet equipment, one World War 2 and the other add detail in and out on a Tiger.
E.T Does Russian Mobile AA and More (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Friday, May 10, 2013 - 12:03 AM UTC
Three new update sets have been announced by E.T. Models, with two for Russian AFV’s, and one for a Land Rover variant.
ET Does TUSK and Maultier (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Sunday, March 31, 2013 - 11:47 PM UTC
Two new updates set are now available from E.T. Models, a modern tank and a World War 2 half track for your updating pleasure.
Super Heavy and More from E.T. (1:35)
By Kevin Brant on Friday, February 15, 2013 - 08:26 AM UTC
Three new update sets have been announced by E.T. Model, including one for a super heavy, one for a Russian WW2 light, and one for a Russian Cold War APC.
New Releases from E.T. Model (1:35)
By Darren Baker on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 01:58 PM UTC
E.T. Model has listings for their new releases for a couple of Merkava tanks and the M1A2 amongst others.
E.T.’s Fall Releases 2012
By Kevin Brant on Saturday, September 22, 2012 - 01:17 AM UTC
An update from E.T. Model that will not disappoint. A great list of updates for the fall, with something for everyone.
E.T. Model - Early Summer Detail
By Kevin Brant on Saturday, June 30, 2012 - 01:31 AM UTC
The summer sun is bringing the much needed warmth and E.T. Models is bringing the detail. And if you are a fan of German halftracks, well there might a couple of upgrades this time you around you might like.
E.T. Model - Spring Catch Up 2
By Kevin Brant on Thursday, May 24, 2012 - 12:29 AM UTC
And even more from E.T. Models in this large catch up. Today resin wheel releases, plus something interesting for German AFV fans.
E.T. Model - Spring Catch Up
By Kevin Brant on Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - 11:45 AM UTC
Been a few months since we updated E.T. Models, but time for a little spring catch up. And it is a big list, catch it now.
E.T Model - February Update
By Kevin Brant on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 12:25 PM UTC
Another month, another great set of updates from E.T Model. This month looks interesting, to include a popular wheelie and a modern standard tank, to name just a few releases. Have a look.
E.T. Model this December
By Darren Baker on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 11:42 AM UTC
E.T. Model has released another batch of interesting resin and photo etched sets for vehicles covering a broad time period and interest. Take a look inside to see the full list of new releases.
E.T. Model: Huge 1/35th Scale Update (1:35)
By Jim Rae on Tuesday, November 08, 2011 - 10:42 PM UTC
The latest list of New releases has just arrived from E.T. Model and it's a biggy. Not only the usual PE sets, but a whole batch of replacement wheel sets, Smoke dischargers and Antenna mounts are included...
E.T. Model catch up
By Darren Baker on Wednesday, October 12, 2011 - 01:34 AM UTC
E.T. Model has not been idle enjoying the summer weather, instead they have released a number of new photo etched sets to the market. E.T. Model has released six new sets for both World War Two and current armoured fighting vehicles.
E.T. Model - July Releases
By Jeff Edge on Wednesday, July 20, 2011 - 03:55 PM UTC
E.T. Model has updated their website with their July releases. There is a lot of good stuff for some of the recent modern releases such as the Merkava IV and Swedish IFV from Academy and the Defender XD "Wolf" kit from Hobby Boss.
All kits are 1/35 scale.
E.T. Model: New 1/35th Scale Releases (1:35)
By Jim Rae on Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - 11:38 PM UTC
E.T. Model have just sent us notification of a batch of New Update sets in 1/35th Scale.
You can't get enough HUMVEE detail? (SINCGAR?)
By Kent McKesson on Friday, June 03, 2011 - 05:26 PM UTC
For all of you modelers who just can't get enough detail in your HUMVEE models, E.T. Model has an accessory kit for you. New in their line-up is a 1/35 Blue Force Tracker & SINCGAR unit using both resin and photo etch components. This is kit number E37-078 in their 1:35 AFV series of components.
E.T. Model - First Releases of 2011
By Jim Rae on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 - 03:51 AM UTC
E.T. Model have juist mailed us details of their first release program for 2011,
E.T. Model's New Site and New Sets!
By Peter Wood on Tuesday, November 02, 2010 - 08:43 AM UTC
E.T. Models are cooking up some great Canadian bacon in their LAV III detail kits. These sets along with others are now nicely showcased on their revamped site (www.etmodeller.com).
So tongue firmly in cheek, here are the new offerings.
E.T. Model Releases New PE Sets for WWII and Modern.
By Peter Wood on Sunday, October 17, 2010 - 12:55 PM UTC
On their first anniversary as a company, E.T. Model has released some excellent detail sets for both 1/35th WWII and modern AFVs.
E.T. Model: August & September Release Program
By Jim Rae on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 - 10:45 PM UTC
E.T. Model have sent us details of their scheduled releases for August & September 2010. The releases, as usual, go from the simple to the considerably more complex. What is indisputable, is the volume and variety!
E.T. Model Releases JS-3 Detail Kit
By Peter Wood on Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 06:19 AM UTC
Not resting on their laurels, E.T. Model has released an impressive detail kit (E35-042) to go along with your JS-3 Stalin by Tamiya [35211] and the details are impressive.
More Update Sets from E:T. Model
By Jim Rae on Monday, April 19, 2010 - 04:35 AM UTC
Once again, E.T. Model have released PE sets in 1/35th & 1/72nd scales.
ETModel: Latest Update Sets in 1/35th & 1/72nd (1:35)
By Jim Rae on Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - 12:14 AM UTC
ET Model have just sent us images and details of their NEW Releases in both 1/35th and 1/72nd scale.
FLAK 43 Update Set From E.T. Model
By Jim Rae on Monday, March 08, 2010 - 09:34 PM UTC
E.T. Model have just announced a New, 1/35th scale Update set for the Flak 43.
E.T. Model: Their First Diorama Release
E.T. Model are best known for their fiendishly-detailed AM Update sets for AFVs, have just announced their first Diorama Release in 1/35th scale.
ETModel PE for JSU-152, T-34/85 & FLAK 37
By Pat McGrath on Monday, January 25, 2010 - 11:50 AM UTC
ETMODEL have sent us news of their new release etch sets for the JSU-152, T-34/85 & FLAK 37 available in February.
ETMODEL PE for PLA ZTZ 99B MBT & Pz.Kpfw.I
By Pat McGrath on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - 10:45 AM UTC
ETMODEL have sent us images of their new sets for October including PE sets for the PLA ZTZ 99B MBT & Pz.Kpfw.I
ETMODEL PE for Centauro & More
By Pat McGrath on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 - 10:11 AM UTC
ETMODEL the new aftermarket PE company launched last month have sent us images of their new sets for September.
ETMODEL-New Aftermarket PE
By Pat McGrath on Monday, August 24, 2009 - 11:29 PM UTC
ETMODEL are a new aftermarket PE company operating from Shanghai, China.
General Modeling News
Armor/AFV
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Arongranberg.com
Game Development with Unity 3D
A* Pathfinding Project
Free vs Pro Comparison
UnityPaint
By Aron Granberg
A* Pathfinding Project 4.0 Update
Version 4 of the A* Pathfinding Project has just been released! I have been working on this update for quite some time and now that it is finally released I thought I’d take this post to list the most notable improvements in this new version. This is not an exhaustive list, you can find more changes in the changelog.
Huge performance improvements for Recast graphs
New algorithms and optimization of the existing ones makes scanning and updating recast graphs significantly faster. The scan is now fully multi-threaded and it handles large worlds with lots of objects much better.
Speedups range from 2x to over 1000x with around 5x being the most common for small to medium sized worlds. The larger the world and the more cores your computer has, the greater the speedup. The 1000x+ speedup was observed when scanning a several square kilometer world (used in a real game). If your game has a procedural world and you use a recast graph to scan it when the game starts, this should improve your game’s startup times significantly.
If you use a large number of navmesh cuts you should also get a noticeable speed boost.
Object pooling is used in more places which reduces the number of allocations. This is particularly important when recalculating tiles or using navmesh cutting during runtime.
Improved graph rendering
Graph rendering has undergone a massive overhaul to both improve the style of them as well as improve the performance.
In 3.x graph rendering used Unity’s Gizmo system which, while nice, requires the rendered lines and surfaces to be recalculated every frame. To improve upon this a custom persistent line and surface drawing system has been developed which allows the meshes to be cached over several frames if the graph is not updated.
For grid graphs in particular this improves the frame rate in the scene view significantly. In 3.x large grid graphs were very slow to draw, for larger graphs sometimes so slow that it was hard to work with them. As an example, for a 1000×1000 graph each frame would take over 4 seconds to render. In 4.x this has been reduced to around 90 ms (or around 50 times faster) which is a perfectly interactable frame rate.
Take a look at the video below for a comparison when using a slightly smaller graph.
As a bonus, the new custom line rendering system will give you nice smooth anti-aliased lines on Windows even when anti-aliasing is disabled in the rendering settings (Unity Gizmos will become aliased).
The graph rendering style has been improved for grid graphs. Now you can render the surface of the nodes as well as the outline of them. In 3.x only the connections between the nodes are visible which is often confusing, particularly for new users. Hexagon graphs (which are grid graphs with certain settings) can with the new rendering code be visualized much better. In the inspector you can now choose between any combination of the surface, outline and connections for rendering.
2D for everything
This is a great update for all of you that are working on 2D games or have been thinking of making one.
Many of the internal systems have been reworked or rewritten to be able to handle 2D worlds or even better, worlds with any rotation.
Local avoidance now works for both for 2D games and 3D games, the only thing you need to do is to flip a switch on the RVOSimulator component. You can read more about the changes to the local avoidance system below.
The AIPath script has been rewritten to among other things support movement with any graph rotation. It can now also optionally use the Y-axis as the forward axis for the character instead of the Z-axis which is often desired in 2D games.
The funnel modifier now includes an optional pre-processing step where it flattens the path corridor before running the funnel algorithm. This makes it possible to use the funnel modifier for 2D games and even on curved worlds.
The layered grid graph now also supports arbitrary rotations. It had some partial support in 3.x, but not everything worked.
Recast graphs can now be rotated and navmesh cutting has been reworked to support this.
A new example scene for 2D games with local avoidance has been added and there is also a new documentation page and video tutorial about how to configure pathfinding for 2D games.
Async scanning
In 4.0 all graph types have been reworked to support asynchronous scanning which means that you can show a progress bar while the graphs are being scanned and the game will not freeze. In 3.x all graphs had to be scanned synchronously, i.e in a single frame. This was problematic if your graphs were large and took some time to scan as the game would freeze during the calculation time.
You can scan graph asynchronously using the new ScanAsync method. It is an IEnumerable which you can iterate through. At each iteration it will return a short message describing what it is doing as well as a percentage which you can use to for example update a progress bar.
Turn based games
New functionality for (primarily) turn based games has been introduced.
In turn based games one often want very detailed control over which units can walk on which nodes and how much it costs for a character to traverse each node. It has been possible to do this via some elaborate combination of graph updates and tags, but possible does not mean easy and neither does it mean performant or stable.
In 4.0 a ‘traversal provider‘ (which is an interface that your scripts can implement) can be added to paths which allows you to control exactly what nodes a character should consider blocked and how large the cost of traversing those nodes should be. The package comes with a built in implementation of a traversal provider called ‘BlockManager’ and an accompanying component called ‘SingleNodeBlocker’. The SingleNodeBlocker component can be attached to any object (for example the units in a turn based game) and has a very simple API with which you can block nodes that the e.g a unit occupies. With the BlockManager you can then easily do things like “allow this character to traverse all nodes except those occupied by this list of SingleNodeBlocker components” or “don’t allow this character to traverse any nodes occupied by SingleNodeBlocker components except the ones in this list”. This is useful if you for example want to search for a path where the character should not be blocked by itself, but other characters should not be able to move through it.
A new example scene and a documentation page have been added which show how to use these components. The example scene also shows how to visualize all nodes within a certain distance from the character which is useful in turn based games to limit the distance a character can move in a single turn. It also showcases a hexagon graph which is a particularly popular graph type for turn based games.
Turn based example scene. The yellow hexagons show the movement range of one of the units (orange cone).
These utilities can of course be used for games that are not turn based as well, and I expect that they will be, but turn based games are the main target.
Improved movement scripts
The RichAI script has been improved and the AIPath script has been almost completely rewritten.
Among the most notable improvements are that the AIPath script now slows down and accelerates much more realistically and precisely. By using trajectory optimization the path of the agent is optimized to reach the end point of the path with a zero velocity to reduce any overshoot. This makes it able to stop much more precisely at the end points of paths without spinning around or overshooting.
The AIPath script can now use gravity and there is an option to use either the gravity set in the Unity project settings or a custom gravity which is useful for many games. This option has also been added to the RichAI script. Furthermore the way the AIPath and RichAI components integrate with rigidbodies has been improved and matches the behavior when not using rigidbodies a lot closer than before. The AIPath script has a new custom inspector that should make it easier to configure. It also draws gizmos in the scene view which visualize the various distance settings on the component.
When calculating many or long paths at the same time, especially on slow computers, it can take a small amount of time before the movement script gets back the result of the path calculation. During that time it may have moved a distance away from where it was when it requested the path and therefore the AIPath script has had code for detecting where it should start to follow the calculated path. If the latency for calculaing paths grew too large this algorithm could sometimes not keep up and the agent may for example turn around for a short amount of time and move in the wrong direction on the path. In 4.0 this algorithm has been improved to be both more performant and better handle cases when the latency grows large. This means it should tolerate slower computers (or more units/larger worlds) better.
The code quality has been significantly improved in version 4.0. I have worked hard to clean up messy areas of code, to add more documentation comments and to refactor existing classes to improve encapsulation. This should make Intellisense suggestions less noisy. For those of you that like to read the source code of packages that you use, this should hopefully make it more enjoyable for you and make it easier to understand the code.
Local avoidance
The local avoidance algorithm has been rewritten completely. You will not notice many changes in behavior other than that they are now better at not being pushed through walls in high density crowds, however the configuration has been greatly simplified and some new features have been added. Each agent now has priority setting. Lower priority agents will avoid higher priority agents more. As mentioned in previously the local avoidance system now supports the XY plane as well so you can now use local avoidance in your 2D games.
In 3.x the local avoidance algorithm had various parameters that were not always easy to know the best values for, with the new algorithm it should be much easier to configure.
The new algorithm also allows for much better control over where exactly the character should stop. The previous algorithm was based only on velocities which works great when agents are moving, but it did not know at which point an agent intends to stop and this could sometimes lead to agents jiggling a bit when they reached their target point instead of stopping completely.
These are just the most notable changes. There are various other improvements that you can read about in the full changelog.
4.0 is a paid upgrade. However everyone who bought the package up to 8 months before the update was revealed (i.e after 2016-07-24) get the upgrade for free. Just make sure that you are logged in with the correct Asset Store account. If you bought the package earlier you can upgrade for 50% off in the Asset Store. If you didn’t buy the package via the Asset Store, please send me a PM via the forum.
Since not everyone can or want to upgrade, the 3.x branch will continue to get updates for a while with bug fixes and some features. I am not able to update the Asset Store package anymore due to how the Unity Asset Store works, but you can always download the latest version on the package homepage.
Footstep planning (part 2)
Earlier I wrote a post about some research I have been doing into how to produce realistic movement for characters. After a large amount of implementation work, trying to understand papers and bug fixing I have some progress to share.
In the previous post I used relatively simple inverse kinematics (IK) to place the feet at the correct positions. The approach that I used only looked a small distance into the future and the past when determining the IK targets and weights so the results were ok, but not that good. Based on the paper “Planning Biped Locomotion using Motion Capture Data and Probabilistic Roadmaps” I have now implemented a higher quality technique which adjusts both the position and rotation of the character as well as the rotations of the character’s bones. This is done by first simulating the movement of the character and at every point in time and calculating the rotations of the bones if IK would have been applied. Then b-splines are used to produce a fit to this data so that the result is a collection of b-splines that determine how much the rotations of the bones (or the position of the character) should be modified when playing the animations. B-splines can have varying number of control points or “knots” and the higher the number of knots, the more detail they can represent.
The approach that the paper and I use is to first fit the data to splines with a very low number of knots, run the IK algorithm again when the adjustments from that spline have been added and then add another b-spline with more knots. This produces a hierarchical b-spline that can both generalize over stretches with few data points as well as capturing the smaller details. In the image below you can see 4 levels of a hierarchical b-spline. The first level in blue only captures very rough information about the points, but subsequent levels add more detail. Note that the black points are the input points for the curve fit, not any kind of control points for the b-splines.
The benefit of using hierarchical b-splines over the earlier approach is that they make it much easier to spread information further back and forwards in time so that the character can anticipate where a foot needs to be placed and adjust its pose accordingly.
The particular IK technique that is used also modifies the position of the character. Most IK techniques keep the position of the character fixed and only modify the rotations of the bones, but by allowing the position of the character to be modified slightly a higher quality movement can be achieved. The downside is that this makes the IK algorithm significantly slower (it takes around 200 ms to process all the IK for the path in the video below). It will use a normal IK technique that does not modify the position of the character and then it will try to minimize the deviation of the bone rotations from the original animation by using conjugate gradient descent where it can for example move the character slightly if that makes it have to adjust the bone rotations less. In my current implementation this step takes the majority of the time by a very large margin, however I have some thoughts on how to optimize it. Firstly it uses numerical gradients at the moment which works, but it is prone to floating point errors and it requires an evaluation of the IK algorithm for each parameter that we are optimizing over (in my current implementation I use x y and z coordinates of the character as well as the rotation of the character around the y axis). A better approach would be to use automatic differentiation to calculate the derivative explicitly. Automatic differentiation is a bit tricky to implement correctly however. Another thought I had was to adjust the relatively new IK algorithm FABRIK so that it will move the position of the character instead of keeping it fixed as is normally the case. I have yet to test if this is a viable approach.
See the video below for the results.
I have recently started to experiment with ways of achieving very high quality movement for characters.
Usually in video games or simulations one would request a path from the pathfinding system and follow that path by for example rotating the character around its pivot point and moving towards a point slightly further ahead on the path. This produces smooth, but not very high quality movement. For humanoid characters you really want it to look like the character is moving itself, not being dragged along a path and playing some animations that sort of correspond to how the character is moving. The Unity engine has an animation system called ‘Mecanim’ which has a feature called ‘root motion’. When root motion is enabled the animations will drive the movement of the character which results in very high quality movement. Unfortunately it is very hard to control that movement as you would have to figure out exactly which animation to play and for how long to get the character to move to a specific point, in many cases it might be impossible to move it to the position that you want without a very complicated and unnatural sequence of animations.
There should be a middle ground between easy to control movement and high quality movement that gives us the best of the two approaches. I have been inspired by a paper called “Planning Biped Locomotion using Motion Capture Data and Probabilistic Roadmaps” which approaches the problem by instead of planning a polygonal or spline path that the character should follow, it plans a sequence of footsteps that the character should take. I think this is a very promising approach with several potential improvements as well.
Image from the paper “Planning Biped Locomotion using Motion Capture Data and Probabilistic Roadmaps”
The main parts of the algorithm described in the paper can be summarized as follows (for more details, see the paper). For a visualization of some of the steps, see the video below.
Step midpoints. Image from the paper.
Plan a sequence of footprints and animation clip pairs using some kind of planner (in the paper they construct a graph of possible footprints with edges between them representing animation clips).
Smooth the footprints while ensuring that the animations are not distorted too much and that they do not cause the character to intersect obstacles.
Adjust the footprints to make them more similar to the original animation clips
Optionally go to step 2 for another smoothing iteration (the paper uses between 2 and 4 iterations).
Pick new animations after the footprints have been smoothed (or possibly after every smoothing iteration).
Trace the root path (pivot of the character) of the animations if they would be played as is. This corresponds to using Mecanim’s root motion feature. The resulting path will unfortunately not match the desired path perfectly.
Use the midpoints between the steps as a reference for the root path (see image).
Transform the root path from step 6 to match the reference points of the desired path. This will give us a path that the character could follow.
Use a retargeting step to optimize the resulting animation to make it more aesthetically pleasing and ensure that constraints such as the character’s feet actually being placed at the desired footprints are fulfilled.
Path displacement from reference points. Image from the paper.
Currently I have implemented step 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Instead of step 9 a comparatively simple IK solver is used instead (see video) to place the feet where they should be. Instead of step 1 the sequence of footprints is determined manually and the animation clips are selected greedily (picking the best animation clip when looking at a pair of footprints at a time). The greedy selection algorithm often produces a sequence of animations that are very far from the desired path, however it is good enough to be used as input to the later stages. In the future it will be replaced completely.
Below you can watch a video of a prototype of my current implementation.
I am not very happy with the movement quality so far. Initially I had thought that the retargeting step that the paper uses (based on another paper called “A Hierarchical Approach to Interactive Motion Editing for Human-like Figures”) might be unnecessary and could be skipped if the transformation step was just improved a bit. However it turns out that it is not enough. I did make improvements to the transformation step as the paper only uses a series of rigid transformations (think of a metal chain that can be deformed, but the individual links cannot bend) while my implementation has incorporated blending weights into it and works in a very similar way to how skinned meshes are deformed in game engines and animation software. This results in a smoother path.
Some of you reading this may wonder if/when this will show up in the A* Pathfinding Project. Currently I have no plans for this, though it may of course happen if this experiment turns out well. Right now this is just research.
The next step would be to either try to get a path planner working (step 1) or implement the retargeting step (step 9). It turns out that in the retargeting algorithm there are a lot of complicated things going on and it seems I finally have to learn conjugate gradient descent, but hopefully that should be doable.
Cooperative Pathfinding Experiments
It’s time I wrote another one of these posts. I have been experimenting a bit with cooperative pathfinding during the last few weeks and it is working pretty well now.
What is cooperative pathfinding
Cooperative pathfinding is when instead of an agent just planning a path to the target and hoping it doesn’t crash in to any other agents the pathfinding algorithm will actually look at where all other agents will be in the future and make sure that the planned path does not collide with them. This is easier said than done because agents might change paths or new agents might be created while following the original path. Also the first agent that searches for a path can obviously not know where the other agents are going to be (since their paths have not been planned yet) but what essentially happens is that the first agent will plan its path and then the other agents will try to avoid crossing that path so it works well in practice.
There are many good papers on this subject. For example “Cooperative Pathfinding” by David Silver.
Here is a video showing how my experiments have turned out.
Why not local avoidance
Local avoidance is another technique for avoiding collisions however there are some downsides to it. Local avoidance usually only considers obstacles just a few seconds into the future and the ones in close proximity. This leads to it sometimes becoming stuck in a local minima which it cannot get out of. For example if two agents meet in a very thin corridor it is unlikely to be able to resolve that situation which requires one of the agents to back out of the corridor to let the other one past. Local avoidance simply does not have that longer term planning. If cooperative pathfinding was used instead, one agent would not even enter the corridor but would wait at the end for the other agent to pass (see the video for an example).
Reserved nodes in a path
The way this type of cooperative pathfinding works is that instead of treating say every square in a grid graph as a node, it will treat every pair of a square and a time as a node. In other words instead of just searching space, it searches space-time. This way the pathfinding algorithm will not search just node at a position and check if that is valid, but it will search a node at a specific position and a specific time and check if that is valid (which it would be if it was not inside an obstacle and no other agents are in that node at that time). The calculated path is then a sequence of squares with specified times of when the agent should arrive at those nodes. Immediately after calculating the path the agent can then reserve all the nodes in that path so that no other agents will calculate paths that will lead to a collision.
In the image to the right you can see an agent (red cylinder) following a path (green) and the reserved nodes in the path (red boxes). Reservations higher up indicate that they are reserved further into the future.
Agents in a square formation. The goal is to move to the opposite side of the square. Reservations get complex pretty quickly.
Now we start to see some downsides to cooperative pathfinding as well. All those nodes need to represented and searched, that means if we want to search say 20 ticks into the future (where a tick is the time it takes for the agent to move one square) we need to search 20 times as many nodes as we would have to if we had not used cooperative pathfinding. We will also use a lot more memory but it isn’t 20 times as much since we don’t need to store a copy of the node 20 times, after all the position of the node and a lot of other data is the same. In my experiments I have usually limited the number of ticks in the future it can search search to either 20 or 40 and that seems to cover most cases. I have also used aggressive heuristic optimizations to make sure that only the most relevant nodes are searched. Another limitation in the current implementation is that all agents need to move at the exact same speed. This can be worked around by instead of reserving one node at time T when moving forwards one can reserve both the node at T and T+1. This would be used for slow units that move at exactly half the speed of the rest. But as noted, I have not yet implemented this.
The system described above would work pretty well, but it would fail completely in some cases. Consider for example one agent that does not have a goal at all but just want to stand on the same spot and another agent that needs to move past this first agent. The first agent would have reserved all the nodes on that spot in the future so the second agent will just have to wait. It will resolve itself after a while because agents recalculate their paths and if the first agent had calculated its path say 3 ticks ago, there would be 3 nodes that were not reserved yet (remember that agents only reserve up to a fixed number of ticks in the future) that the second agent could use to move forward. This leads to very long wait times for the agents and overall it just feels sluggish even though it usually manages to resolve all collisions. An improvement to this is to add a very small penalty for waiting and making sure that the penalty is higher for nodes in the near future compared to nodes the agent will reach in a long time. So the agents will prefer to wait as far into the future as possible. In this example the next time the agent that just stands still recalculates its path it will notice that the other agent will move over the node it is standing on in the future, so it will decide to move out of the way quickly and then wait and then move back to its original position rather than waiting until right before the other agent will take its spot and move away then. Later when the agent with the goal searches for a path again it will find that the other agent has moved out of the way and it can proceed to move to directly to the goal. It takes a few round trips of path recalculations but in my tests this has reduced the waiting times a lot.
Another thing that can be done is to make it so that when an agent is standing still it doesn’t completely reserve the node it is standing on, instead it will just apply large penalty for other agents to move over it. This further reduces waiting times a lot, especially in crowded scenarios, however it makes it possible for agents to overlap in some cases. If that is acceptable in the game or not depends. In the video I have this enabled because otherwise it takes ages for the agents to find collision free paths when ordered to order themselves in a dense grid.
When will this be in the A* Pathfinding Project
I am not sure. There are a bunch of tweaks I need to do to get it stable. Also keep in mind that this type of cooperative pathfinding has a long list of limitations. So if you are thinking “that would be great for my game” then read this list first.
All units need to move at the same speed.
No physics can be used to push agents around.
It is very grid based (well, it can be used with any graph, but it makes most sense on grid graphs).
It does not take unit sizes into account. All units are assumed to occupy a single node.
Only a single pathfinding thread can be used since paths need to be calculated sequentially (you can use more, but then you will have no guarantees that units will not collide).
It does in no way guarantee an optimal solution or even that a solution can be found.
No kinds of links can be used.
I think that was everything, but I might have forgot some constraint.
Here is a new video showing of some of the features of the A* Pathfinding Project.
Navmesh Cutting
Navmeshes in the A* Pathfinding Project have been awesome when you have static worlds, but often very low-performing when any kind of dynamic updates are required.
The experimental version which has been released for a while (but now superseded by the beta version) improves that by enabling tiled recast graphs so that individual tiles can be recalculated.
This is however quite slow as well. It works, but it’s not something you want to do without player interaction, and definitely not several times per second.
So what I have been working on is to enable navmesh cutting. What navmesh cutting does is to take a valid navmesh (for example the one generated at start by a recast graph), punches holes in it to make room for dynamic obstacles (boolean operations), fixes it up a bit (fixing triangles not fulfilling the delaunay criteria) and then puts it back to be used for pathfinding. And it’s a lot quicker than recalculating a tile using recast.
The downside is of course that it only works for obstacles, not for something like moving bridges (or whatever) which must add new ground for the player to pathfind on. Luckily, you most often have these kinds of subtractive obstacles that are dynamic.
Enough words, here is a video:
This feature will be available in the next release.
Beta version of 3.3.5 released
You’ve got a new beta version to test!
It is at version 3.3.5 now, the last released version is 3.2.5.1 but the experimental release has been at 3.3 for a while now.
LOTS of things have been improved in this version. Here are the highlights from the changelog:
Rewritten graph nodes. Nodes can now be created more easily (less overhead when creating nodes).
Graphs may use their custom optimized memory structure for storing nodes. This is not that significant now. But it paves the way for other graph types like QuadtreeGraph (an efficient one, as opposed to the one used in the 2.x versions if you remember that).
Performance improvements for scanning recast graphs.
Added a whole new AI script. RichAI (and the class RichPath for some things):
This script is intended for navmesh based graphs and has features such as:
Guarantees that the character stays on the navmesh
Minor deviations from the path can be fixed without a path recalculation.
Very exact stop at endpoint (seriously, I can get precision with something like 7 decimals (usually not that good though)).
No more circling around the target point as with AIPath.
Does not use path modifiers at all (for good reasons). It has an internal funnel modifier however.
Simple wall avoidance to avoid too much wall hugging.
Basic support for off-mesh links (see example scene).
Improved randomness for RandomPath and FleePath, all nodes considered now have an equal chance of being selected.
Recast now has support for tiles. This enabled much larger worlds to be rasterized (without OutOfMemory errors) and allows for dynamic graph updates. Still slow, but much faster than
a complete recalculation of the graph. Also, navmesh cutting is beta. Navmesh cutting can enable fast dynamic obstacles on recast graphs (note that navmesh cutting cannot be used in the beta version at the moment, so don’t spend time looking for it).
Added RecastMeshObj which can be attached to any GameObject to include that object in recast rasterization. It exposes more options and is also
faster for graph updates with logarithmic lookup complexity instead of linear (good for larger worlds when doing graph updating).
Reintroducing special connection costs for start and end nodes.
Before multithreading was introduced, pathfinding on navmesh graphs could recalculate
the connection costs for the start and end nodes to take into account that the start point is not actually exactly at the start node’s position
(triangles are usually quite a larger than the player/npc/whatever).
This didn’t work with multithreading however and could screw up pathfinding, so it was removed.
Now it has been reintroduced, working with multithreading! This means more accurate paths
on navmeshes.
Added several methods to pick random points (e.g for group movement) to Pathfinding.PathUtlitilies.
Added RadiusModifier. A new modifier which can offset the path based on the character radius. Intended for navmesh graphs
which are not shrinked by the character radius at start but can be used for other purposes as well.
…and probably some more things which I have forgotten for the moment.
See the whole changelog here: http://arongranberg.com/astar/docs_FeatureFreeze/changelog.php
The beta version can be downloaded by users who own the pro version. Simply go to the download page.
Thing to look out for: Lots of node variables and properties have changed casing (.position is now .Position etc.). I plan to go back to the previous casing before release to ease upgrading. But for now, you might have to fix some compiler errors when upgrading your project (please keep a backup as always). If you find something that is not working or buggy, it would be awesome if you could notify me. If you are sure that it is a bug, send me a private message in the forum, otherwise post a question in the forum.
Also, you will need to regenerate all saved files with node data (and cached startup caches) since the binary format has changed. Settings are preserved but node data is lost, you might get exceptions if you try to load old data.
Roadmap and Current Development – A* Pathfinding Project
It has been quite a long time since I wrote here on this blog. Not that development and activity was reduced during this period, quite the contrary, I just haven’t gotten around to do it.
So now got a question in the forums asking about the plans for the future development of the A* Pathfinding Project, and I thought that I really should write this as a blog post instead. So here it is, enjoy!
The A* Pathfinding Project is currently at 3.2.5.1. It has not been updated since sometime this spring. However, there are a huge load of new features waiting to be released. I guess the plan for the short term future is to finish them and actually release something. Most of the new features requires more work to be production ready even if most of them are quite stable.
Faster to add and remove nodes during runtime without a huge performance cost. This can for example be used to add and remove nodes from a point graph during runtime very quickly.
– Better AI for navmeshes (works on grid graphs as well, but not as big improvement). This AI uses a Funnel Corridor to follow instead of just points. Unfortunately this means it cannot use path modifiers, but on navmesh graphs it works very well without them, especially since the modifier you usually use is the funnel modifier and that is built in now (of course I have not removed all modifiers, other movement scripts can still use them, and I have no plans to deprecate modifiers). This AI also has much better steering and will not circle around the target as AIPath can do sometimes, it can position itself at the target with something like 5 decimal places of precision, and it even slows down really smoothly, not an instant stop.
The above builds upon a new class named RichPath, it holds a funnel corridor. The great thing about holding a funnel corridor is that the agent can wander off slightly without causing much trouble, previously this could have caused the AI to crash into a wall if it didn’t follow the path precisely. The RichPath also keeps the agent strictly on the navmesh, this removes the need for colliders in many cases, especially it reduces the need for a Character Controller which is really slow to use.
Tiled Recast Graphs. Tiling recast graphs enables runtime recalculation of a piece of a recast generated graph. It is not very fast, but it works and is miles faster than recalculating the whole graph. As a side note, recast graph scanning has been improved substantially in terms of performance but especially memory-wise.
Navmesh cutting. Tiled Recast graphs can be cut (subtractively) during runtime to make place for e.g dynamic obstacles. Navmesh cutting is much faster than recalculation of a tile, albeit not as powerful. The cuts you see in the image below are calculated in 3-18 ms per tile on my laptop (depending on tile complexity), from start to replaced navmesh tile.
Tiled recast graph cut using navmesh cut objects (light blue outlines are the cutting polygons)
Threaded graph updates. The above recast tile recalculations are relatively slow, therefore I have added the ability to use threaded graph updates. So the game will continue to run ok and the graph recalculation will take place in a separate thread.
More stable core graph updates. The AstarPath.cs script has been a mess of callbacks, ManualResetEvents and lots of locks to try to keep pathfinding from interfering with graph updates and etc. Now this has been cleaned up and hopefully it will be more stable. There is even theoretical support although not yet actual support (not much work left) to do scanning over multiple frames (maybe to avoid pauses in loading animation or something).
Funnel modifier is more stable now, it could previously sometimes generate weird paths.
RecastMeshObj is a new component which enables you to specify unwalkable regions even for recast graphs. Previously you have had no control over if a region was walkable or not, the recast graph would do what it thought was best. See this youtube video
I have done more work on off mesh links on navmesh graphs. Now it is possible to create off mesh links, for example between two platforms and with an example script specify an animation to be used for that link, for example a jumping animation.
Radius Modifier. A new modifier which offsets the path into smooth curves.
A path offset using the radius modifier
Graphs can use their own specialized data structure for storing nodes. This does not impact much right now, but might enable easier development of future additions, e.g quadtree graphs.
Funnel simplification. Especially on tiled recast graphs, the paths are not always the shortest one, therefore I have added to the RichPath class (mentioned above) a way to simplify funnels using graph raycasting before using. This works really well and will get you better paths.
So that was all the features I have developed and are mostly complete. At least I think so… though I have probably forgotten some :p
So what do I want to do next?
Any-angle path search. This is an algorithm similar to A* for navmesh based graphs which generates more optimal paths on navmesh graphs. You can sometimes see that many small triangles next to a few large ones can cause sub-optimal paths to be generated. With any-angle path search, more optimal paths will be generated.
Jump-point search. An algorithm for grid graphs similar to A* but A LOT faster unfortunately with a few constraints. It cannot handle penalties, neither any off-mesh links. Only simple straightforward grid pathfinding, walkable or unwalkable nodes. See this demo.
Navmesh graph reductions. Navmesh graphs can be optimized using a hierarchical structure which enables faster searches. This is described in the paper “Efficient Triangulation-Based Pathfinding” by Douglas Demyen and Michael Buro.
The above linked paper also has a brief note about a funnel algorithm which can generate a path with a minimum clearance from all edges. The result would be similar to what the Radius Modifier along with the Funnel Modifier generates right now, but it would be more stable, the radius modifier can fail in certain conditions (not that usual though, and if paths are recalculated relatively often, it will not be a problem).
I have no plan for when these additional developments will be done. Right now I am focusing on pushing the first list of new features into the released package and I hope to release an update within a month.
As always, if you have any feature requests, I am happy to know about them. See the Feature Requests category in the forums.
– Aron Granberg
Local Avoidance in version 3.2
RVO Local Avoidance is progressing. I recently managed to fix a bug which boosted performance hugely. Apparently it is not a good idea to use generic lists for holding simple structs since they will be copied every time they are accessed, and when you do that 170000 times every frame, that small copy operation adds up. Moving to a standard array fixed that. I can now get 5000 agents running around at 50 fps average and 10 fps during calculation steps, the rvo simulation itself is only running at around 10 fps. And this is on my laptop.
I uploaded a new video showing 1000 agents trying to reach their antipodal points on a circle.
So how easy is it to integrate existing movement scripts with the local avoidance then? Really easy actually. I have written an RVOController script which is designed to be an almost drop-in replacement for the Unity CharacterController so starting to use local avoidance will be easy as pie.
At last I have got a new forum software up and running!
It is powered by Vanilla Forums, an open source forum platform which seems to be very good. However I did not manage to migrate the old forum to the new forum, so I will leave the old forum open for viewing, but closed so that no new topics or posts can be created.
Check out the new forums here: http://arongranberg.com/vanillaforums
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NASA’s James Webb telescope delayed to 2020, likely to exceed cost cap
319 posts •
sapphir8
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Registered: Oct 6, 2007
Maybe another project the private industry could embark on. Not sure who would take the mantel and do it, but it's clear that NASA isn't getting things done. A rover here and there isn't going to cut it long term. SLS is a rocket to nowhere, funding is terrible (even though they would mis-manage more funds probably), and now this Webb telescope fiasco. Sad really. NASA is very important to the planet.
new2mac
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Tribus: Philly
The Year 10193...
...Feyd-Rautha’s corpse stinking up the room...
Alia: ”...for he is the Kwisatz Haderach!...”
Paul: ‘thanks sis...’
Paul: ‘btw, have we launched the James Webb yet?’
Alia: ‘...ah shit, even you can’t launch that sucker...’
Last edited by new2mac on Tue Mar 27, 2018 3:04 pm
mperrin
Ars Praetorian
et Subscriptor
Matthew J. wrote:
Why are we so bad at this?
Because the human race is bad at cost and schedule estimates for gigascale projects, period. It's not astronomy. It's not even just aerospace. Consider: The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Boeing 787 (now a huge success story, but many billions over cost in development!). The Concorde. Almost any defense IT systems project. The boondoggle that is the FAA's NextGen Air Traffic Control system. The SF-Oakland Bay Bridge replacement. Boston's Big Dig. [name your local traffic mega-project here, I'm sure it's late and over budget.] Almost every modern Olympic Games. The list goes on.
My personal impression is, the scope and scale of the projects we are attempting is simply beyond the human capabilities for project management and projection. There are complicated psychological, organizational, cultural, and technical factors that collectively hinder accurate projections at gigascale. The best of the best can't do this stuff, as far as we can tell. Name me one project at $1B or higher doing something never before done that was completed on schedule and on budget... (That's not a rhetorical question! I'd like to have examples of how this can be done right. But it's damn hard to find any.)
So we either give up our ambitions (bad!), or we get back into the ring and persevere, doing the best we can to try to bring this stuff in on budget and on schedule, but knowing inevitably that attempting the never-before-done is probably going to be a hard road.
blackhawk887
Statistical wrote:
Ignoble Xenon wrote:
NASA will only ever have one opportunity to safely launch and deploy the Webb telescope.
And that is the problem with the go super big and super expensive paradigm of space flight.
With the flight capabilities that we have now compared to what was even on the horizon in 1996, an iterative incremental paradigm is now vastly superior in terms of capabilities, cost, and risk. Thankfully, future projects can take advantage of the new capabilities that we have.
But even without our new flight capabilities, building a one-off is still a huge mistake in a high-cost high-risk profile situation. The vast majority of the cost of a one-off is tied up in things that do not scale linearly with the number of items produced. As such, when in a high-cost high-risk profile situation, it is significantly better to "buy insurance" by building an additional copy of the item at something like 20% additional cost.
Iterative development and build-multiple is exactly how Apollo properly handled its high-cost high-risk project.
This post does make we wonder how cheap a second JWST would have been if they were built in parallel. I think 20% might be a bit optimistic but 40%? That would be $3.2B. So two scopes for $11.2B would sting a lot less if you ended up destroying one of them.
I don't think it's much cheaper to build in parallel, rather than serially if the first one fails. All the tooling, documentation, etc. are still available if needed.
chipguy
Registered: Jul 18, 2008
JonathanSmith wrote:
IronTek wrote:
Space is hard.
Normally, I agree. But two hundred million to eight billion. No, something is very, very wrong with this project. I don't know where it went to hell, but this didn't just jump the tracks, it's taken out the station and maybe part of downtown.
No way the folks proposing this actually believed the $200m figure.
The way big science (and defense for that matter) programs go is to low ball the
initial proposal so it makes the cut to first money and actually bend metal and
get a constituency/economic base. At that point reality rudely inserts itself and
it becomes clear that much money and time is required to achieve the end goals.
By that point it becomes much harder to kill without someone getting the blame
for wasting money spent up to that point. So it limps to the finish line billions
over budget and years late.
sapphir8 wrote:
And why would a private company want to do that? How are they going to turn a profit on something like JWST?
Ars Legatus Legionis
Registered: Sep 27, 2010
To reduce NASA's unmanned space exploration program to a "rover here or there" isn't fair. Most of what we know about the solar system is the result of NASA probes. Hell most of the questions we have about the solar system are the result of NASA probes.
The image of the right is the most detailed view of Pluto prior to New Horizon. 85 years after the discovery that blurry blob represented the pinnacle of our understanding of Pluto's topography. It wasn't going to improve until NASA had the audacity to send a nuclear powered probe hurtling through the icy darkness of the outer solar system for the better part of a decade in order for it to zip right by Pluto in the right place and time to expand our knowledge by many orders of magnitude.
Lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Last edited by Statistical on Tue Mar 27, 2018 3:10 pm
Pirokobo wrote:
blackhawk887 wrote:
The next generation space telescope will probably be designed to do that.
The "next" generation space telescope will probably be built on the moon and have more resemblance to a traditional ground telescope.
Would that make sense? A deep space telescope has way better view than a telescope on a fairly large, rotating celestial body.
No, it wouldn't. The moon is a terrible place for a telescope for many reasons. You're completely right about the better view from deep space but there's way more downsides to the moon than just that. It's dusty (and not even regular dust, but jagged razor blade dust of abrasive evil). It has gravity, which makes building large structures way harder than in free fall. It blocks the directions you can point your telescope. It forces your telescope to deal with a horrifyingly severe thermal cycling "cook in +150 C daylight for two weeks, then freeze at -150 C night for two weeks". It means you're either stuck with a super-bright obnoxious planet overhead forever, or you've got to build a telecom relay system to control a telescope on the back side.
arcite
Tribus: Canuck in Cairo, Egypt
8 billion is the cost of waging war in Iraq for approximately 8 days. Get some perspective people.
Tyler X. Durden
Registered: Sep 3, 2007
Sarty wrote:
Maybe we could make a deployable segmented telescope out of bathroom mirrors from Home Depot. In the limit of an infinitely large mirror with infinitely many segments, I think the math might work out.
At least, the light-gathering capability would be stupendous!
I say go with an array of vanity mirrors from Bed, Bath & Beyond so you can bundle that with storage bins to pack them in for the trip out to L2, and maybe some nice potpourri thrown in on the side.
It turns out to be more like 80%. That's not a hand wave, it's the actual known marginal cost of building a second Mars rover identical to the first. Highly precise aerospace projects aren't like normal projects. The cost isn't dominated by design work that can be instantly reused any number of times. It's dominated by the cost of painstakingly fabricating each component to extreme precision, carefully assembling and aligning it together with the other parts with precision often measured in microns or nanometers, performing the necessary metrology and testing to ensure everything is integrated correctly, and testing to ensure it all can survive the rocky road to space. Unfortunately that just means that building two of something like that really does take almost twice the work.
You can get good economies of scale making tens or hundreds of things. Unfortunately not with two, not when they're as complicated as a Mars rover or a space telescope.
Soothsayer786 wrote:
Cancel the SLS. Pump funding into JWST.
Wrong answer?
I’m not sure...
https://youtu.be/aR9tpFLg1NA
mperrin wrote:
Well in the case of Mars Rover 2020 they weren't identical. It is the same chassis (well slightly improved) but a completely different sets of scientific packages. I mean that is a good thing but it doesn't provide a good 2nd identical probe cost.
Makes you feel good, doesn’t it.
https://youtu.be/CuAUE58MQt4
Ah, but I'm talking about Opportunity and Spirit. :-)
You're completely right about Mars 2020 vs Curiosity, of course.
Oh well then yeah ouch.
wyrmhole
elerek wrote:
Maybe off the shelf mirrors would reach the size and accuracy they need for the full size mirrors in time for them to use them. They's also be cheaper, and plentiful.
What off-the-shelf applications are you aware of for astronomical-quality flight-weight 1m-class non-planar infrared mirrors?
"Cheaper, and plentiful", indeed.
a dozen smaller test satellites.
A dozen smaller test satellites to do what? The largest issue is with the proper extension of the massive sunshade. You wouldn't have that issue in a smaller test satellite. You are essentially unfolding a doubles tennis court in space.
If they had built an identical pair of sunshades first and launched one as a test platform in LEO to observe potential issues and tweak the design that might have helped but nobody thought this project would be this expensive or take this long.
It's not clear to me how building, testing, launching, then deploying a test sunshade, then doing that again for the flight article, is going to reduce costs versus building, testing, and launching the flight article. Okay sure you don't have to test the test article as much on the ground, so maybe that's cheaper, but then it gets launched, and the flight article still needs just as much testing and care while being built. Sounds like added cost for reduced risk thanks to real in situ testing. Which I support, personally.
caldepen
Ars Praefectus
Registered: Aug 28, 2013
arcite wrote:
If it does indeed cost 1 billion dollars a day, I would recommend a different hobby for you guys... not that you'll listen (collectively).
caldepen wrote:
something something freedom something something war on terror
Honestly it is why we can't have nice things. Imagine if NASA had a budget of $300B a year. Forget Mars we would be planning the new Titan research outpost by now.
Tyler X. Durden wrote:
And everything at BB&B is always 20% if you just rummage through the junkmail, so even more savings!
Ignoble Xenon
Ars Centurion
Registered: Apr 18, 2013
"First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" - S.R. Hadden (Contact)
But realistically, by buying down the risk, you can actually lower the incremental cost of the item(s) due to being able to use less-custom/more-risky parts which reduces design and manufacturing costs. The 2nd item may be 80% of the 1st one, but the 1st one can be less expensive to begin with. That might buy you down to 40-60% additional cost compared to a super-custom/super-hardened one-off.
Stuart Frasier
Registered: Aug 7, 2017
wyrmhole wrote:
Of course it isn't going to make anything cheaper. However, it would be a good indication if your actual space telescope is likely to work correctly as designed.
JohnDeL
Ars Tribunus Militum
Registered: Oct 30, 2015
The US space agency began preliminary design work on what would come to be known as the James Webb Space Telescope back in 1996. At the time, NASA projected a launch date of 2007 for the large, infrared telescope, with a total cost of $500 million.
Thank you, Eric, for leading with this. It is important information that too many people forget. The other bit of important information that is being forgotten is that this is not our first space telescope. It isn't even out tenth. At the time the JWST was proposed in 1998, NASA had already launched 26 other space telescopes! Even more to the point, NASA had already launched four IR space telescopes. Add in the expertise from the space telescopes launched by other nations and we should have known just how tough and just how expensive this would be.
Our best, most recent example when the JWST was being planned was the Hubble Space Telescope. That took twenty years from first approval to actual launch and went from $0.4 billion to $4.7 billion in cost. Based on that, NASA should have said "We want to launch an IR telescope; it will take about twenty years and about $5 billion to build and launch". Instead, they said that it would take just six years and $0.5 billion to build and launch.
There simply is no excuse for NASA managements incompetence on this point, just as there is no excuse for us to continue using the sunk cost fallacy to justify further expenditures. If the JWST busts their budget cap, then cancel it. Otherwise, NASA will never learn the important lessons.
Let me provide an example from my field (planetology): Back around 2005, there was an Ocean Research Initiative that was going to build a series of sensors across the globe to monitor the oceans at a wide variety of scales and include everything from biology to seismology. The project's total cost was going to be $4,000 million, divided into sixteen groups of $250 million each (plus a token $1 million for education). ORI ended up being significantly down-scaled when Congress heard about the proposal made by the benthic communities section. They wanted to spend their $250 million to put in cables that would hold instruments then ask Congress for another $250 million for the instruments (since the infrastructure would already be there and be a literal sunk cost) and then ask for another$250 million to run the program.
That's the route that NASA has been taking with the JWST: "Oops! We forgot something; we need more money because we don't want to waste the money we've already spent."
Enough is enough. If they can't do it in budget, then kill it.
l8gravely
Registered: Nov 28, 2007
This is where you start thinking "hey, I can just launch a falcon heavy with a dragon capsule to go fix it." once you have Dragon going around the moon with paying customers on it. Again, they should be thinking about getting it up there with the ability to fix it. Hubble should have shown them that this is the only sane way to go, esp since you can then plan on adding new instruments or fixing old ones.
Big one off missions like this where it all depends on everything going right are just not the answer. You want many many many telescopes out there doing the work.
Yes, one big one will let you see some amazing stuff, and stuff that's just simply not visible otherwise. But having five or six hubbles would have been amazing too!
Imagine how much easier this all would have been with just the core six mirrors. Smaller, lighter, and much less costly so you could put up multiple ones to look at different partsof the sky at the same time.
Perfect is the enemy of good enough....
Ringold76
My personal impression is, the scope and scale of the projects we are attempting is simply beyond the human capabilities for project management and projection.
No, they aren't, because with a single exception everything you mentioned was a government project, the exception being Boeing and their attempt at outsourcing as much work as possible to vendors (probably with an eye towards government influence peddling, so it's still not entirely unrelated).
Let me point out, for example, Apollo. More or less on budget as I understand it. 16 successful launches for about 174 billion in today's dollars. So much time spent on the moon, they even played golf. And accomplished with FAR less sophisticated technology than we have today. So even by government standards, everything you mentioned is bad. (But the military-industrial complex was still just a toddler just a couple decades after its birth in WW2)
For a more private-focused venture, I'll point out the Transcontinental Railroad in the US. 1907 miles built in just 6 years through, in some places, extremely difficult terrain. Somewhere around $450k/mile in cost (todays dollars), plus land grants. Today it takes government longer then that just to get some initial permits. Compare this to the modern equivalent, California's attempt at high speed rail.
Some countries also don't have Big Dig equivalents, either because of cultural or regulatory differences -- or because prime contractors know if they milk it too much they might have an "accident" or find themselves in jail (China).
Meanwhile, you have companies like Foxconn that handle far greater manufacturing projects, with much more complex global supply chains, then any single NASA or DoD project. Or Intel or AMD, well known companies that successfully push the technological boundary continually forward without bankrupting themselves (yet).
Yes, the F-35 is technically impressive, but for all the DoD's massive spending it's incredible how foreign defense companies keep from falling too far behind on such vastly smaller budgets.
The real problem you're seeing isn't some inexplicable failure of humans to organize efficiently, what you're seeing is the natural consequence of human nature when you let people work on a cost-plus contracts too long. Plain and simple. No new theories of human behavior need to be researched, no ground-breaking economic research needed. Humans are greedy and lazy, the behavioral economics are already well established to explain this, if you care to see it.
As for someone elses comment that there's no commercial market worth pursuing here, I don't know. I'd dare NASA to put out an RFQ for, say, some simple lander on a Jovian moon. Specify a few specific measures or actions they want the probe to take, but specify absolutely nothing else but a fixed budget and a timeline, along with fixed performance bonuses for certain milestones and "stretch goals". I think folks might be surprised. (EDIT: Maybe not a Jovian moon, that'd require some plutonium that NASA/DoE/DoD might be loath to share. An inner-solar system project might be a much better path-finding mission for that sort of contracting)
EDIT2: Another point of comparison: We built the entire interstate highway system for under $500 billion in todays dollars. Today that much, spread across the country, gets you some turtle tunnels, a bunch of parks with local politicians names attached, a few Solyndras and little of durable value comparable to the highway system. Put in other terms, we covered the lower 48 in pavement for the cost of 5 International Space Stations. To then point to the relatively puny Big Dig and say humans can't handle big projects is historical ignorance. Our grandparents did it just fine!
Bemopolis
msclrhd wrote:
Sure, we've launched Hubble before, but that was just one mirror that didn't need shielding as it was all pretty much self contained (like a standard telescope, but larger). Even then, it needed fixing in space.
Plus the Hubble form factor was just a modified KH-11 spy satellite bus, so most of the focus was on instrumentation.
Whiner42
Registered: Dec 15, 2014
I wonder how many engineers stepped back from the CAD drawings and wondered how many possible points of failure are simply too many to justify the expense of this thing?
They kept their thoughts private, I'm sure.
InterstellarMat
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Registered: Feb 5, 2016
At that rate they will be able to send it in the manned SLS from a fusion-powered launch complex, and the crew playing Star Citizen, while being transported to the launch pad in a driverless Uber.
BeowulfSchaeffer
Eventually (at least I hope) we'll have a large space station at L2, and they will be able to not only have telescopes sent there, but be able to assist in deployment and maintenance.
Edit: The primary mirror for the Hubble is 2.4 meters. Wouldn't it be fun to launch a beryllium 9 meter primary on a BFR?
Last edited by BeowulfSchaeffer on Tue Mar 27, 2018 4:03 pm
Ringold76 wrote:
Or maybe something like a small commercial moon lander... which NASA is already doing. That is already proven to work for transportation, where the product is mostly just mass transported from one place to another, independent of the purpose of the transported mass. But when the product is just science, it's far more difficult to commercialize.
On the other hand, cheap commercial transportation to and from L2 and generically in the inner solar system would make putting a telescope there a lot easier. JWST would be a lot easier if it didn't have a really hard mass limit.
JohnDeL wrote:
There simply is no excuse for NASA managements incompetence on this point....
Assumed incompetence. I suspect it was the opposite, that it was quite competent bureaucracy two-step for funding. An entirely rational response to a dysfunctional system lying outside of NASA's control. *shrug*
And this is hardly limited to NASA. Look at LIGO's history. 40 years and $1.1B compared to the initial numbers, all the ins and outs and cost overruns thorough out it. The leading edge of science is hard, and trying to explain this to non-scientists is even harder.
Registered: Nov 5, 2004
Ciconia wrote:
What baffles me is if I went out and built a custom home and the pipes leaked, the contractor and/or the plumber would fix it at their cost. Northrop Grumman gets to build stuff which does not work and we pay more. Granted they are building an ultimate one off device and testing is very importing. Still bugs the hell out of me the way costing of these things work but still better than spending our money blowing up people around the world.
More likely that you buy a house from a builder who un-incorporates shortly after finishing the development project so there is no one left to approach (or sue) for flaws. Or perhaps you may build it from a national home building corporation that provides you with a short term home warranty that practically requires you to pay a lawyer to issue threats before they will repair anything.
As a scientist myself, I disagree. Neither LIGO nor the JWST are leading edge science; heck, they weren't even leading edge science when they were first proposed some twenty years ago. What they are is attempts to do just a little more than current engineering can allow on the premise that enough money can fix any problem; that simply isn't true and we have been paying the price for it both literally and figuratively (in terms of other, equally valuable astronomy projects that haven't been funded because of the JWST).
As for NASA not controlling the system, you are right. All NASA can do is control their response to the system. Do they tell the truth and keep their reputation? Or do they tell the lies that the system expects and end up tarnishing their image and damaging research funding in the long-term? As a scientist, I prefer to tell the truth and damn the consequences. What do you prefer?
llanitedave
Stuart Frasier wrote:
shelbystripes wrote:
Because we are obsessed with building giant expensive things once instead of smaller projects built iteratively. By now we could've built and launched three or four generations of this telescope.
The first one might be 1/8 full size, include only core basic systems, and just demonstrate the ability to unfold mirrors in space and take sharp photos (for its size). Don't build one--build two or three of them. They could possibly be used for interplanetary study, not large enough to resolve distant stars, but providing local research opportunities that don't take away Hubble time. Launch them 6-12 months apart. If you have a premature failure, you have time to delay your next launch and make modifications.
Then you build 2-3 of them at 1/2 full size, to demonstrate that you can scale up your tech and add additional sensors/components. Again, you use it as a supplemental resource for science research.
Then you start building 2-3 of them at full size. By now, you've refined your building techniques and established economies of scale, such that you can probably build 2-3 full size ones for the cost of 1 JWST today.
NASA's "failure is not an option" / "go large" mentality cripples them. You can only effectively learn through failure--repeated, rapid chances to fail and identify failure points. You see this with SpaceX. NASA is spending many years and billions of dollars to build a launch vehicle that is still years from its first launch. In the time since SLS was first announced, SpaceX launched fifty Falcon 9 rockets. In that time, they managed to almost double the lift capability of the Falcon 9, test and execute recoverable landings, and successfully demonstrate a scaled-up "Heavy" model that could replace SLS entirely, at least for SLS' currently planned missions.
NASA gets a pass on SLS, since SLS was effectively forced on it. JWST was not. They chose this, and it makes even less sense here. For unmanned projects, you have to be willing to fail and fail often.
Hell, they could have launch one or more "boilerplate" telescopes just to test all the mechanical systems before launching the fully functional one with mirrors and sensors.
Just think if they used more off-the-shelf components to build many smaller, cheaper test scopes while making it known that they wanted to do the full size one. Maybe off the shelf mirrors would reach the size and accuracy they need for the full size mirrors in time for them to use them. They's also be cheaper, and plentiful.
Nobody makes mirrors that large as single pieces. All modern super telescopes on the ground use the same concept. A large number of smaller mirror segments is a lot safer and simpler than trying to get one giant mirror perfect. So it is unlikely larger mirrors will ever become cheaper a larger telescope would just involve more segments to make a larger scope.
Also there is really no "off the shelf" for large telescope mirror segments. In the case of JWST it is even more of a challenge because they are reflecting far IR a wavelength which is absorbed by our atmosphere so the reflectivity of the far IR band isn't a concern for any terrestrial scope or the mirror segments which are used to create it.
Now more off the shelf components and a testbed for the spacecraft half yeah of the project might have helped. The telescope half was always going to be bespoke but somehow they have had a lot less problems with that part.
Actually, monolithic mirrors as large as 8.4 meters are made quite nicely at the University of Arizona.
https://www.as.arizona.edu/soml
Last edited by llanitedave on Tue Mar 27, 2018 5:53 pm
Tribus: Canada
The agency has also added managers to Northrop Grumman's project team
Oh good, more managers should help. Hopefully some of them are good micro-managers, so they can tackle the small pesky micro-problems that are really difficult to find.
Atterus
Tribus: USA
SymmetricChaos wrote:
diabol1k wrote:
JWST is, to me, simultaneously an example of the worst and best of NASA. A nightmare of a project but amazing science.
It makes me feel like the real marvel of the Apollo Program was cost analysis. It cost very close to what NASA originally estimated.
I would say it is more a factor of the penalties for failing in the public sphere were far more severe then. Nowadays, NG or LM can completely and utterly fail at something and shrug it off.
There are programs that cost mere millions doing far more than multi-billion programs, but are kicked to the curb because a few million is watched and managed far more closely than billions. Either that, or they don't want to be noticed and have a bunch of know-nothing politicians interfering with their work. Scientists tend to work best in their units and get grumpy when outsiders come in telling them how to do their jobs.
Here, I think the JWT is a phenomenal idea, but they suffer from refusing to go with the more expensive solutions up front. We operate on the philosophy of: "if someone is describing a ferarri, you tell them they need a ferarri with all the costs entailed. If they ask for a ferarri, but want the cost of a civic, you tell them a civic with a ferarri body job is still a civic. Then you end up paying a ton more to get both the civic/ferarri AND a ferarri". It's fine to want to save money, but sometimes it's better to go with the "reasonable" option versus the cheapest one. Ironically, the cheaper option usually ends up being more expensive (partially because the bidder was lying, and the expensive bidders usually account for overruns).
As a scientist myself, I disagree. Neither LIGO nor the JWST are leading edge science; heck, they weren't even leading edge science when they were first proposed some twenty years ago.
I'm not sure what definition of "leading edge science" is here? Could you expand on that?
What they are is attempts to do just a little more than current engineering can allow....
The effort of trying changed reality on that, right? LIGO happened because the "impossible" was attempted, and reattempted. Knowing it may never work because it was based on a hypothesis. In fact it was trying to check that hypothesis.
I'd prefer the truth. Overwhelmingly so.
But I'm not so naive to not understand what happened here and why, or that everyone prefers the truth. Or really even the majority actually wants the truth, even if they could capably processes it.
There's lots of things in the world I'd prefer that ain't happening, and so here we live with what we've got.
Last edited by Tyler X. Durden on Tue Mar 27, 2018 4:38 pm
Killing the JWST because of how much has already been spent is just the exact same sunk cost fallacy just with the purpose of the compartmentalization reversed. Instead of saying "we already spent this, so I have to keep going regardless of how much it will cost to finish", you're saying the same thing, except replacing "keep going" with "stop". But that polarity flip is not how you correct the fallacy.
The fallacy in either case is that the money is already gone, so the question of whether to stop or continue should only be based on whether the ongoing investment is going to be worth the result.
But you're basically saying that if NASA hits the $8 billion budget cap and isn't done, then cancel JWST. Even if the amount they need to finish is $100 million. Is $100 million not worth JWST? Yeah I get you hate it for its effect on other science programs, but if your answer is no it's not worth $100 million because of how much has already been spent then that's the polarity-flipped sunk cost fallacy.
As a scientist myself, I disagree. Neither LIGO nor the JWST are leading edge science; heck, they weren't even leading edge science when they were first proposed some twenty years ago. What they are is attempts to do just a little more than current engineering can allow on the premise that enough money can fix any problem;
So... where's the interferometer that could just barely not detect gravitational waves? AFAIK that was LIGO, and the "just a little more" was aLIGO.
Fearknot
Registered: Jul 6, 2012
l8gravely wrote:
According to https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/499224main_JWS ... -FINAL.pdf (admittedly, maybe not an entirely unbiased source), the cost of Hubble was $5.8 billion in 2010 dollars, or about $6.6 billion in 2018 dollars (includes the mirror fix). So you'd only get about 1.2 hubbles for 1 jwst.
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Head tracker found —
Lost “Sega VR” game unearthed, made playable on modern VR headsets
Thanks to VGHF, we can finally see how the Sega Genesis would have handled VR.
Sam Machkovech - Nov 20, 2020 6:09 pm UTC
Enlarge / Sega VR was manufactured, advertised, and pushed as Sega's next big thing, up until its unceremonious cancellation in 1994. Twenty-six years later, we finally get to see how it worked.
52 with 37 posters participating, including story author
One of Sega's most mysterious products ever, the canceled Sega VR headset, finally emerged in a "playable" form on Friday thanks to a team of game history preservationists. It's a tale of a discovered ROM, a search for its source code, and efforts to not only rebuild the game but also adapt existing Genesis and Mega Drive emulators to translate virtual reality calls from today's PC headsets.
The story, as posted at the Video Game History Foundation's site, begins with a ROM discovery by Dylan Mansfield at Gaming Alexandria. The game in question, Nuclear Rush, was one of four games announced for Sega VR, a headset system designed to plug into standard Genesis and Mega Drive consoles.
Not quite 72Hz...
Gamers from that era likely heard about Sega VR, as the game publisher's PR push included plenty of mentions in gaming magazines, a public reveal at 1993's Summer CES, and even a segment on ABC's Nightline. But the ambitious device, slated to launch at a mere $199, was quietly canceled, and former Sega President Tom Kalinske eventually confirmed why: researchers found the device made a huge percentage of testers sick with headaches and dizziness.
Behold: Nuclear Rush, one of Sega's canceled VR games from the early '90s.
Video Game History Foundation
Its cheesy intro is definitely of a certain era.
Perhaps we are indeed on our way to a gold rush for nuclear power and weaponry in the next 12 years.
The alternating images from Nuclear Rush's stereoscopic display, as translated by Richard Whitehouse in a red/blue 3D glasses implementation mid-development. It's pretty, in a nerdy way.
The start-up message that originally got everyone excited.
And the more useful clincher, that this ROM would indeed run.
Testing on a modern VR headset.
The required image translation to make Nuclear Rush run without getting anyone sick on modern VR headsets.
Today's discovery explains in part where those sickness symptoms likely stemmed from. By breaking down and understanding the way Sega VR games communicated with a Genesis, and therefore a Sega VR headset, VGHF digital conservation head Rich Whitehouse discovered the headset's severe limitations: a mere 15Hz refresh for its stereoscopic images, as opposed to the 72Hz minimum for Oculus Quest (let alone the 90Hz standard established by companies like HTC and Valve). Additionally, Sega VR only translated pitch and yaw movement for users' heads, not roll—and that's on top of the system already being limited as a three-degrees-of-freedom (3DOF) system, requiring that users stay seated.
How did Whitehouse find out so much about Sega VR's functionality this many years after the add-on vanished? As it turns out, Mansfield's day-to-day search for game history errata includes requests to various '90s developers for whatever old prototypes or code they might have tucked away in a drawer. In the case of Kenneth Hurley, who worked on Nuclear Rush as part of Futurescape Productions, he went one higher and sent Mansfield a CD-ROM dated August 6, 1994—which miraculously hadn't succumbed to bit rot.
Whitehouse stepped in at this point to figure out how to compile the leftover nearly complete code (dubbed "final" but not "retail final"), which required a mix of C and assembly. Among Whitehouse's discoveries: the code as written only worked on certain Genesis and Mega Drive hardware revisions, based on how it handles horizontal and vertical scrolling of sprites and assets, which required a minor fix. Also, metadata in the code hinted to a Winter CES 1994 showing for Sega VR that never came to pass.
Could have used an SVP
Though the discovered CD-ROM was missing key Sega VR files (which Whitehouse says would have been named VR.DOC and VR.TXT), Whitehouse was still able to work out how the system would have worked with 16-bit consoles. Sega VR IO would have revolved around the console's second controller port—though Whitehouse's explanation doesn't clarify whether the console's video-out port would have been redirected to the Sega VR headset or how that would have worked. Additionally, the Sega VR headset would have been fed two 30Hz images, which Nuclear Rush would have then divided further with its 15fps refresh.
While figuring out how to make Nuclear Rush work as a VR experience in 2020, Whitehouse talked to the game's original lead programmer, Kevin McGrath, who confirmed that his team did a lot of work on Sega VR without actually having a headset to test on—and they invented a test that had the game's video output flicker between two computer monitors to see how it might do the same with two headset images. Another Sega VR-era game programmer, Alex Smith, confirmed that the team working on Outlaw Racing never even went hands-on with a headset prototype before its project was canned.
The rest of Whitehouse's work revolved around building OpenVR support into a working Genesis emulator, which included, among other things, doing serious guesswork about how Sega VR's panels were positioned and shaped, then fixing 1994-era quirks to run more efficiently on modern computers (in part to reduce potential motion sickness from a Genesis-era game locked at 15fps). The resulting emulator and a pair of compiled Nuclear Rush ROMs are available for download and testing from the VGHF article.
Nuclear Rush running on an emulator, as presented by Richard Whitehouse.
Ars Technica has tested this combination of emulator and ROM on a Windows 10 PC running an HP Reverb G2 headset, and I can confirm that the game plays about as well as you might expect: it's a rudimentary 3D tank game, as if Atari's arcade classic Battlezone had been rebuilt with Genesis-era sprites and palettes, but it's all sprite-field trickery, not the rudimentary polygonal stuff of early '90s fare like Star Fox or Virtua Fighter. (Sega VR games clearly weren't being bulked up with extra on-cartridge chips like Sega's SVP, used in the Genesis version of Virtua Racing.)
The resulting restored game isn't a revolutionary gameplay experience by any stretch. Still, the combined efforts of everyone listed above brought life back to a game whose original version would likely have made you sick. Thankfully, modern hardware (and its enterprising users) can revive canceled games in ways that won't make game history aficionados toss their cookies, and that's a testament to the modern game-preservation movement as a whole.
Check out the whole intriguing story, complete with a ridiculous amount of technical information, at the Video Game History Foundation.
Sam Machkovech Sam has written about the combined worlds of arts and tech since his first syndicated column launched in 1996. He can regularly be found losing quarters at Add-A-Ball in Seattle, WA.
Email sam.machkovech@arstechnica.com // Twitter @samred
hallambomb Seniorius Lurkius
reply Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:27 pm
When I was 12 I was so pumped for this once I heard about. Imagine playing NHL 94 in VR!!!! Such a wide-eyed optimist, lol.
vcsjones Wise, Aged Ars Veteran et Subscriptor
researchers found the device made a huge percentage of testers sick with headaches and dizziness.
I had a friend that had a Nintendo Virtual Boy. A few minutes of Mario Tennis was all it took for me to get nausea. Glad we waited another 25-ish years.
I don't care about this versus modern headsets. I wanna see this vs. Virtual Boy!
HiroTheProtagonist Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
Terrible as it looks, it's still impressive compared to what Nintendo churned out with the Virtual Boy, not to mention the Oculus Rift started off only having ultra-rudimentary head tracking in 2012.
Thad Boyd Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius et Subscriptor
Wow! I'd completely forgotten about Sega VR, but now that I see that promo photo of the headset I totally remember seeing it in '90s game magazines.
BatCrapCrazy Ars Tribunus Militum et Subscriptor
Today's discovery explains in part where those sickness symptoms likely stemmed from.
This is freaky!! Just from a short look at the first image in the gallery i got a wave of nausea and i was unable to focus clearly on the image. I had to scroll down to the rest of the story then close my eyes and look again at the story text to get my eyes refocused.
ChadD Ars Praetorian
In terms of product design Sega has all the modern players beat.
It looks like someone melted a 90s console around a head.
Batmanuel Ars Tribunus Militum
The headset looks like someone is doing a Cylon cosplay.
Batmanuel wrote:
I was thinking Cyclops from X-Men.
While not VR, we had the Sega Master System 3D glasses (https://segaretro.org/3-D_Glasses), which were also headache and nausea inducing. Sega didn't lack ambition when it came to hardware.
Thomas Harte Ars Tribunus Militum
I think the author is confused: Sega were completely honest and open about the cancellation in 1993, telling us — presumably with a straight face — that "the experience was so realistic and immersive that it posed a high risk of injury from players moving around while using it".
Of the '90s dreams that never were, the Jaguar VR headset is the one that actually doesn't look awful. But it probably was.
Sega didn't lack ambition when it came to hardware.
Thomas Harte wrote:
Honest? HAH!
Honesty would have been owning up to the tragic truth! That playtesters were dying in real life when they ran out of lives in VR!
DancesWithBikers Ars Praetorian
I need to dig out my Vectrex 3D Imager and give it another try.
(Not my picture.)
emertonom Ars Centurion et Subscriptor
2DOF tracking at 15fps, huh? Young me didn't know he dodged a bullet. I did manage to connect my Sega Master System 3d glasses to my PC back then, and wrote some assembly polygon-raster code to drive them, but it really wasn't the same. Computer graphics have advanced faster than I could have conceived at the time. It is pretty magical to have actual, honest-to-goodness immersive VR these days.
CyberIllusion Smack-Fu Master, in training
As crappy as the experience might have been the design sure looked cool. Maybe modern VR headsets will look this cool in the next 2 to 5 years instead of looking like an early 90's car phone strapped sideways to your head.
trimeta Ars Praefectus et Subscriptor
What is this? A VR headset for ants? The number of DoFs has to be at least...three times bigger than this!
Deckard75 Ars Scholae Palatinae
Yeah you beat me to it.m
I also had the Sega Master System 3D Glasses. I think I had one game called Maze Craze or something like that. After a few minutes I remember feeling nausea and dizziness and did not play it much because of that.
642 posts | registered Sep 4, 2015
theshadow99 Ars Centurion
I still own a working pair of those! I only ever had one game for them, but these days a compatible tv is the biggest issue to using that old system.
Deckard75 wrote:
That's on the Sega Classics Collection for the 3DS; it's actually not a terrible 3d effect once you take the 25/30Hz shutters out of the equation.
I accept that this is a mostly-irrelevant comment, I was just pleasantly surprised that Sega had managed to do an acceptable job of building distinct left/right frames from the hardware; the Master System is especially constrained in terms of tile count having just 16kb of video RAM to contain tiles, the tile map, sprites and the sprite table, and all of the graphic parts being at 4bpp.
dwrd Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
We have the technology, we can rebuild it...
I find myself wishing these were available for the Vive so I could play them again. I know the technologies are completely different, but this tickled my nostalgia bug.
JuniorTempest Smack-Fu Master, in training et Subscriptor
Here's something fun to try: in the slide gallery go to the "testing on a modern VR set" slides with the two eye images side-by-side. Cross your eyes slightly to merge the two images and you'll see the screenshots in 3D.
jacob.pederson Seniorius Lurkius
Wow, just gave this a try. I would have canceled it also. Really makes me appreciate Virtual Boy even more than I already did.
Schwanz Ars Praefectus et Subscriptor
I bought a Genesis on the promise of the Sega VR, I was very excited about VR and 3d video in general in all potential modes
Now I'm old, I have 3 different VR kits, and the games I always wanted to play give me motion sickness.
So there's that.
davijoh723 Smack-Fu Master, in training
Thad Boyd wrote:
This picture alone was worth a visit to this article and it's comments section.
70 posts | registered Feb 16, 2016
davijoh723 wrote:
I aim to please, though I wish I'd been able to find a good one that had the Master System player in there too.
Last edited by Thad Boyd on Fri Nov 20, 2020 4:42 pm
samred Ars Tribunus Militum
Xband means we dance to the Xband theme song. Of course, I'm talking about the superior SNES one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3XYtnY ... u.be&t=210
HobbitsHaveThePower Ars Praetorian
Not irrelevant, in fact I was wondering the same thing; the SMS is such a weaker console, and it did it earlier than this project, yet I never heard any issues about nausea with the 3d Glasses in the press at the time. Indeed it wouldn't be until this generation of VR that I heard the issue widely discussed at all. And I never knew anyone who had the kit; so hearing people talking about both the technical achievements, and the fact that yes, nausea issues that we still have to address today absolutely was there for the SMS 3d as well is fascinating...
Still, I'd have loved to have tried Space Harrier 3d back when I was growing up with the SMS; looking back I was too young and innocent to ask myself how a console which struggled to get even close to some of Sega's arcade hits (The conversion of Afterburner was especially dodgy, although at least OutRun and HangOn were basically playable) would somehow surpass the arcade of Space Harrier by adding a third dimension... Those glasses were just that magic, was the thinking I suppose. And a certain amount of ignorance on actual technological challenges as a nipper... the conversion of the magnificent Choplifter was great, so maybe this one would be too?
Still can't help but think about buying the glasses one day, all the same!
OrsonX Ars Centurion
VR, oh wherefore art thou?
SmokeTest Ars Tribunus Militum et Subscriptor
vcsjones wrote:
I ran into one set up in a Toys R Us. I didn't get sick, but about ten minutes did cause enough physical pain to make me step away.
Even if you could get the device placed perfectly so it was lined up without you in some kind of awkward position (impossible), you still have to stand with your face in exactly the same position for an extended period.
The thing was just unusable, top to bottom.
HobbitsHaveThePower wrote:
Yeah I agree with you about the best Sega arcade ports made for the SMS. Out of all of them I think the Hang-On coversion was the best and most fun. The graphics and sound were great and the controls were tight. Just an overall great SMS experience.
Outrun was good but I felt it was lacking in gameplay and control. The driving felt to much like it was on ice.
I remember when the Shinobi port came out. I was so excited with anticipation because of how cool it was in the arcades. When I finally got the SMS version I was pretty disappointed with it. It eventually grew on me but its nothing like the quality of the arcade version.
I have fond memories of the SMS. There weren't many good games or many games at all for that matter. For me, the greatest achievement of the Master System was the groundbreaking console RPG, Phantasy Star.
defaultluser Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
they should have just called the folks who wrote f-22 Interceptor. then you would have actually had a working 3d engine to turn into a VR game.
I would imagine that, because this was a CD, it would have targeted MEGACD. If it did, that would give you a twice the speed for the primary 68000 processor (to handle you're Vr rendering trickery), while still rendering this game engine ( with a smaller window size) at near 30 fps.
Labman Smack-Fu Master, in training
[quote="DancesWithBikers"]I need to dig out my Vectrex 3D Imager and give it another try.
I’m jealous. I have my vectrex I bought new in ‘82 or so, but I never had that peripheral.
23 posts | registered Aug 9, 2017
This is a game I came to love (along with all of the numbered PS games), but my copy didn't work right. I could never enter the final dungeon regardless of how many times I did it correctly. For years I thought I'd done something wrong, before finding a walk-through guide that showed I'd done it correctly and just banged my head into the wall.
KeyboardWeeb Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
I actually had some of those (but I used them with the Master System converter for the Genesis, not an OG Master System). For me they didn't induce either nausea or headache, aside from maybe the temples being a bit too tight. I only had one game that used them though.
The effect was a helluva lot better than those red/blue 3d glasses. And I also thought they looked cool as hell.
The one game btw was Blade Eagle 3D. It was nothing special, and could've been just as easily done without the 3D, but I loved and played the hell out of it anyway. I figure I got my granddad's (who bought me the converter and glasses) money's worth out of it even though I only ever owned that one game.
JuniorTempest wrote:
As someone who can do both, I'm pretty sure those are relaxed-eye images — left eye image on the left, right eye image on the right. If you want to view with crossed eyes you'll need to switch them over.
Emperor_of_Mankind Smack-Fu Master, in training et Subscriptor
Glad to hear Ars got a Reverb G2! Hoping there's plans for the usual in-depth Ars reviews!
5 posts | registered Apr 3, 2020
reply Sat Nov 21, 2020 12:07 am
I couldn't afford many of the cartridges at launch, but a huge SMS scene in the UK allowed me to play a tonne of them from second hand stores when I picked up the console again in the mid 90s; I agree on Phantasy Star, indeed I'm playing the recent Western release of Phantasy Star Online 2 with friends at the moment... but there were some wonderful games outside of that if you had varied tastes.
RPG wise though, I'd also add "Ys: Vanished Omens", which was the first RPG I ever really played; "Ultima IV" which sealed a lifelong love of the genre, and led to eventually working on Ultima Online myself... where EA/Mythic and the scammy antics of the supposed "spiritual successor" SotA killed my love of that series and pooped on my childhood, damn them! Probably doesn't hold up as a game itself either, as basic text input doesn't impress as it once did. But on the other hand "Golvellious" is also an excellent RPG in the style of the early Zelda series, and shows that pure gameplay still counts. And like "Ys", it has an excellent sound track too.
Platformwise, if you've not played it, try "Wonderboy 3: The Dragon's Trap" as it really deserves to be as fondly remembered as any Mario game and was probably the best ever SMS title. 97% in many reviews, as I recall. And there's a full remake on Steam if you want to try it with modern graphics. And if you like that, move on to the spiritual successor by the same team, "Monsterboy And The Cursed Kingdom". "Alex Kidd In Miracle World" was a good 'un too, but damned hard. I gather "Zillion" was Metroid before Metroid, but I've never got around to playing it. The Mickey Mouse games I did, can appreciate as solid, well made games, but never loved them as much as others apparently did. "Psycho Fox" I beat but I can't remember anything about it (except for "DOSUCOI!"); it got great reviews, but clearly didn't quite click with me. The Sonic games I never clicked with, they're excellently coded for SMS but I didn't like the Genesis versions either. "New Zealand Story" seems to be a good conversion again, but again, I never got the hype for that one.
Shooter wise, "Choplifter" as mentioned, gawd I love that game. But the conversion of "R-Type" was also excellent, and even improved on the arcade by having a new, hidden level (Move up and back/right into one of the gaps in the roof of level 4). But if you want Bullet Hell style, "Power Strike" was ugly but exhilarating (and also hard-as-balls, legitimately beating that still makes me feel proud today). "Fantasy Zone 1/2" were light hearted Defender-esque fun. The conversion of "Operation Wolf" when using a Light Gun really captured the intense arcade feel. "Thunder Blade" wasn't amazing, but was a far better game than "Afterburner" sadly was... and "Galaxy Force" was simple game, but playable and a pretty impressive tech demo for what love and hard work on the SMS could do for 3d... which makes Afterburner being so bobbins on the SMS still disappointing to this day.
"Lemmings"... was Lemmings. Nuff said. I enjoyed the conversion of "Populous", but I was right on the stage of swapping to the Amiga and loved anything that replicated what I'd played at friends houses on theirs; that, the conversions of "Speedball 1/2"... I've fond memories but I suspect they're unplayable compared to the originals now. One game that didn't work that Commodore flavoured magic even at the time was Sensible Soccer on the SMS. I remember it feeling very sloppy to play? Don't go anywhere near their modern reboot either by the way. Damnable nostalgia abusing con merchants... And that goes for you too, Peter Molyneaux!
2 player wise, there weren't many good games, but a few did exist. "Rampage" was silly and fun. As was "Spy vs Spy", and the cause of many filial fights. My brother still laughs at catapulting me out of the final room with a door loaded spring, scattering all the items I'd spent so long collecting... It's awful as a single player though. "Slap-shot" I enjoyed, but few played it in the UK compared to football games, so fortunately it was good as a single player as well. "Gauntlet" was an excellent conversion, but lets face it, that game is very much a relic of it's time. "Bubble Bobble" however still holds up to this date.
King of the SMS though? Mr Boot Up Snail. 20 seconds of repeating plink plonk music and line drawn mazes. He's rubbish, but you can't help but love him all the same!
So... no ill will towards Nintendo, I hope their fans have wonderful memories too, but so many happy ones on the Sega for me. Which to bring this all back full circle to the original article, is why it's so criminal that that the industry doesn't give a shit about recording it's own history. I saw it first hand when I got hold of the staff handbooks for UO and most of the in game lore was missing because they had no archives and most links they did still have were to a website they deleted in 2004. And fans can only do so much to repair what the Industry doesn't care about once the fan's money dries up... So yes, grab what you can and leak it later folks. And god bless you for doing so, because these are things which truly mean something to those who played it, or just hoped one day to do so.
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Let's make a deal —
Tesla clears the air with “farting unicorn” artist after copyright stink
Tom Edwards was miffed by Elon Musk's use of the image without his permission.
Cyrus Farivar - Jul 23, 2018 8:05 pm UTC
Elon Musk puts SpaceX photos into the public domain
Tom Edwards, a Colorado-based potter who designed a "farting unicorn" mug that Tesla CEO Elon Musk became enamored with, announced last Friday that the two sides had reached an "agreement" over the use of the image. No terms were disclosed.
"It's clear there were some misunderstandings that led to this escalating, but I'm just glad that everything has been cleared up," Edwards wrote. "I've always been a Tesla fan, and I'm looking forward to getting back to making pots and selling them in my online store."
The image, which Edwards created in 2010, was first noticed by Musk in February 2017, when the entrepreneur called it "maybe my favorite mug ever."
According to The Guardian, Edwards had found out by March 2017 that "the image was also appearing in Tesla's operating system as a small icon—and that the company had even used it in a Christmas message."
"It's part of their branding now," Edwards told the British newspaper. "I love the fact that it's in the cars, but I just want [Tesla] to do the right thing and pay me adequately for it. Elon Musk can be a hero for standing up for artists' rights."
About a month ago, Musk and Edwards' daughter, who performs under the name "Lisa Prank," went at it on Twitter over the use of the image. At one point, Musk said that Edwards could sue if he wanted to but noted that it would be "kinda lame." (His tweets on the subject were later deleted.)
Eventually, Tom Edwards hired Denver-based attorney Timothy Atkinson to help defuse the situation.
"Please don't take this as a shakedown," Atkinson reportedly wrote in a formal letter to Tesla's attorneys. "What we are seeking instead is a discussion, and a mutual decision in a way to value the past and continuing use of the image, in a way that both sides can feel good about."
Atkinson confirmed to Ars that the two sides had indeed settled.
"We have settled as reported, in a way I believe is pleasing to both parties," he emailed.
Musk announced the settlement in an emoji-laden tweet on Friday.
🦄💨✌️https://t.co/8GjqCbsuo0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2018
Cyrus Farivar Cyrus is a former Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California.
Email cyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com // Twitter @cfarivar
thekaj Ars Legatus Legionis et Subscriptor
reply Mon Jul 23, 2018 3:11 pm
At this point, I'm not sure who's legal team I'd hate working for the most, Donald Trump, or Elon Musk. I mean, they're perpetually making new work. But it's akin to being a pooper scooper for the Budweiser Clydesdales. Oh look, the work keeps on coming!!!
lordcheeto Ars Tribunus Militum
Par for the course for Musk.
BrangdonJ Ars Tribunus Militum et Subscriptor
thekaj wrote:
The difference is that Musk eventually does the right thing.
Did Elon attend a weekend retreat about PR hosted by Martin Shkreli or something?
Get a hold of yourself Elon.
EspressoMachine Ars Scholae Palatinae
50me12 wrote:
That gives me concern over Tesla, he is lashing out and freaking out, something must be happening.
Cognac Ars Tribunus Militum et Subscriptor
It's like being in a band when someone asks if they can play a gig. The remuneration? "Exposure".
I'm sure Tom Edwards is grateful for the exposure, but the whole reason you want exposure is so that people pay when they want to use your works. There's no point in getting exposure if all it's going to get you is more exposure. And with a company like Tesla you'd probably want $$$ over the publicity.
Michael.phoenix Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
So many disagreements can be solved and new friends be made by the cashing of a fat check.
Digital Dud Ars Praefectus
I noticed the latest software update on the car replaced the "farting unicorn" image with a different icon.
Illusive Man Ars Centurion
I'm trying to imagine being on an layout/graphics design team where you'd think copying someone else's' artwork without legal getting the go ahead was an OK thing to do?
234 posts | registered May 6, 2016
Syonyk Ars Legatus Legionis
EspressoMachine wrote:
"Asking all their suppliers to give Tesla a large chunk of their money back" might be related...
24175 posts | registered Dec 5, 2002
Digital Dud wrote:
Illusive Man wrote:
Customers can submit their own drawings to Tesla and the dev team just chose the unicorn as their favorite.
So a customer, who didn't own the rights, submitted the artists' work - falsely represented that they owned it and released it to Tesla?
Yeah basically.
Why isn't that summarized in this article?
isidorem Ars Praetorian et Subscriptor
Well I suppose we cannot expect someone with Musk’s level of drive and self belief to be a paragon of touchy feely social graces, but this just comes across as gauche and mean spirited. At least they fixed it in the end. And I see that Cyrus is being coached by Beth....
471 posts | registered Mar 13, 2006
To elaborate more, Teslas have a hidden paint program easter egg on the car touchscreen. The easter egg has a button that lets you upload your artwork to Tesla for critique by the dev team. Some user sent in a copy of the "farting unicorn" and the dev team liked it so much they made it the icon that represents the easter egg in the UI. It's a totally hidden feature if you don't know how to make it appear.
angleiron Wise, Aged Ars Veteran et Subscriptor
At some point, the legal trade should run a billable-hours-per-Tweet comparison. There's an infographic in that.
JiveTurkeyJerky Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius et Subscriptor
"We have settled as reported, in a way I believe is pleasing to both parties"
I assume a Unicorn Fart painted Tesla?
They really should make that clear for Tesla's sake.
While innocent infringement is no defense against liability in copyright infringement - Elon's response made it far worse because 1) he basically admitted infringement, 2) showed indifference to the copyright interest of the small humble artist. Not great.
I do try to be objective about this kind of stuff because one runs the risk of offending the Teslaratti.
So I did more digging to see how out of character (if at all) Musk has been as of late, and yeah, he's acting increasingly weird.
To be fair, he's not always been the most stable of people, but genius rarely is. Only the Musk weirdometer has been pegged more often in the last year or so than in any similar previous time frame, which to me says the stresses are building.
Given that he recently asked for a price reduction on long-term contracts, I'd say that the issues are mostly with revenue flow, and aren't getting better even with increased production.
With the announcement that he plans on building an entirely new factory in China, I'm really wondering where he's going to get the capital to do that. Investors aren't willing to throw more at him until he proves he can make good with what he's already received. Tesla makes up about half of the total EV purchases in the U.S., but even then, it's nearly a rounding error for the more popular brands.
I can't speak to what their profit margins actually are per unit, but if they're asking for price reductions on contracts, they're not high enough, and raising prices to cover it wouldn't sell more cars.
It's not the big things that trip up a company, it's the little ones. Musk being conventional and measured, providing more realistic projections and promises while TEASING (as opposed to promising) new things might go a much longer way to settle investor nerves, and raise stock prices (and free up cash flow), than running wild on the weirdometer. It might not be his "style", but putting style over substance raises unnecessary issues and can have very bad, unintentional consequences, especially if they happen at inopportune moments.
The more often they happen, the more likely they'll strike at an inopportune moment.
Granted, it may be part of his "strategy", but it's baffling to me why he'd be embarking on one like that in the first place if everything is going to turn out as he's often said he intends to do.
Personally, I just hope its his being weird.
Chareton Smack-Fu Master, in training et Subscriptor
Yeah because acting like a man child and acting like a man child while starting trade wars, encouraging Nazis, separating children from parents and creating policies that lead to the destruction of the planet are totally the same...
/s if needed
Wow. Why all the hate? I'm not the one that brought politics into this and I'm not defending Musk's actions. Guess what Elon Musk is an ass. Just about everyone that has been paying any attention to him for the past 5 years knows that. For god's sake he once told his ex wife (then current) that she wasn't a very good home maker and should try something else. Comparing him to what I can only describe as the physical manifestation of the rot in the Republican party is practically the definition of false equivalency.
Last edited by Chareton on Mon Jul 23, 2018 3:56 pm
54 posts | registered Feb 6, 2014
Was this "customer" named Ksum Nole?
In a lot of cases, the artist is a step or two removed from the actual selection process. Especially if they're using outsourced materials. Having worked in legal departments that interact with marketing departments for years, I've lost count of the number of times some marketing or merchandising person wanted to use some design, tag line, or name that was clearly owned by someone else, because it was a great piece of work.
And it's like the end of Guardians of the Galaxy explaining it to them. "I want to use 'Just do it' in this ad." "You can't. Nike owns it." "I don't understand. I really want to use it." "Well you can't, because Nike will sue our ass if you use it." Then there's 50/50 odds that they admit they've already sent it to get published, and they were only shooting it by Legal, because they were retroactively checking off boxes on the process sheet.
Hold your butts for this plot twist: he's always been this way, you're just hearing about it more now.
Where I've been - for the graphics/art team, the leads are sent thru the risk/compliance seminars every year for this sort of stuff
Redwizard000 Ars Scholae Palatinae
Cognac wrote:
Relevant image
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/exposure
The fact that marketing teams are viewed as revenue generators when they're routinely staffed by barely-sentient lumps like what you describe, and IT departments are usually viewed as a cost that should be minimized at all cost, never ceases to amaze me.
Chareton wrote:
Well it's a good thing I didn't say they were the same thing then! I would have hated to make such a big error. Thanks for pointing out how foolish something I didn't say would have been.
Yeah, me too. And to cite another movie, the read-between-the-lines reaction is usually "you were serious about that?" Either that, or it's the "we figured you'd say no, so we decided not to ask".
Thereitis Ars Scholae Palatinae
JiveTurkeyJerky wrote:
No, a base level ($35K) Model 3. Which looks to be as rare as a Unicorn.
keithzg Ars Praetorian et Subscriptor
Redwizard000 wrote:
I've always thought "exposure" was quite aptly termed from a metaphorical perspective, since in one meaning of the word it's explicitly something people die of.
Sarty Ars Tribunus Militum et Subscriptor
That and unforced errors. Things will go badly for your company sometimes, and to some extent that's out of your control. Minimizing the frequency and severity of stupid, purposeless errors makes you more likely to survive the mission-critical ones.
TL;DR, Elon: QUIT FIGHTING ABOUT STUPID CRAP ON TWITTER.
Killjoy Ars Praetorian
keithzg wrote:
In another meaning it's something for which people are arrested.
Z06 Vette Ars Scholae Palatinae et Subscriptor
So the image Tesla used was a finger painted (touch screen) copy of the real thing?
How exactly did they match up? Word for word on the text?
edit: Not saying it takes away the original guys rights, just that it might have been hard to locate him if the text did not match.
edit: Rereading the article, it shows Musk tweeting about the exact mug. So not sure about this image coming from the paint program.
Last edited by Z06 Vette on Mon Jul 23, 2018 4:06 pm
SixDegrees Ars Tribunus Militum et Subscriptor
I'm getting really tired of Musk. I was happier when I didn't know and have constant reminders of what a flaming asshole he is.
32118 posts | registered Feb 4, 2015
iPirateEverything Account Banned
Or it could be he is just a busy dude.. you know being the head of Tesla, spaceX,SolarCity, Boring project, Giga-factory etc etc
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A Review of Poet & Rocker Patti Smith’s “Just Kids” Memoir
tags: Because the NIght, Bruce Springsteen, Just Kids, Patti Smith, poetry
By Guest Writer Ron Wells
“Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable.”
—-James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Just Kids is Patti Smith’s portrait of the artist as a young woman. It is written with style and grace, but most of all, it is written with love.
Love for Robert Mapplethorpe, and a love of life that digs deeply into the flame that lights her soul as an artist and a human being.
Einstein said there may be as many as 16 dimensions. Patti Smith sings that she moves in a different dimension. Her book, Just Kids, chronicles her life and the life of Robert Mapplethorpe as they lived lives as intertwined souls, each one on paths and in dimensions as unpredictable as anything one might imagine.
The book is a celebration, and an eulogy, for a time and place in which she and Robert transcended their surroundings to fly into the golden sphere of art. A time and place that seems centuries old and never to return. A time and place where trinkets and polaroid snapshots were as important as Van Gogh’s paints.
I had put off reading the book for months. Each day I would come home and Patti and Robert would patiently stare up at me from Coney Island knowing that I would come to them in my own time. For I was ending eight years of continuous work with two autistic boys who had grown from angry, low achieving students, to become honors graduates from high school. It had been a long journey for all of us, and I had put off reading Patti until the time was right. Until the power and satisfaction of achievement, which had wrung me dry of all physical and emotional stamina, could be set aside so as to dance in another dimension.
And so on a trip to Portland, Oregon, while sitting in the historic Benson Hotel, Room 1037, I gave myself over to Patti and Robert. And when I read her forward, “I was asleep when he died,” I knew this would be a deeply personal and moving experience, not only for Patti, but for me as well. It was silent in the room and a calm came over me. I had understood much about Patti previously, but I knew this journey would take me even further, not only into her world, but into the world of art. I was finally ready.
And so I turned the pages and began to read.
Each day I would read just a few pages. The prose was so easy, so comforting, so matter-of-fact, it drew me further and further in. I read slowly, carefully, not wanting to hurry the experience. Like the years she and Robert spent together, I read as if on the journey.
In the afternoon, I would wander the streets and parks of Portland, watching the children play in the fountains, the homeless try to pass the time, the men and women walking arm in arm and talking of great things and unsolved mysteries. In the evening I would go to the remarkable Portland Blues Festival and glory in all that it had to offer, after which I would wander the darkened streets of Portland and give myself over to it’s quiet, laid back vibe of a big city trying to be small.
And then I would return to Patti and Robert. The flow of her words settled me, flowed within me like a slow moving, crystal clear stream. Her writing seemed so effortless and graceful, so certain as she moved from New Jersey to New York on a quest to be an “artist.”
Each tale seemed so unlikely, so improbable, the possibility of her ever reaching her goal seemed a long shot in the extreme. Her meeting Robert was as unlikely as everything else, and yet here they were–lovers, friends, humans in quest of the elusive goal of becoming artists. Each day I wondered as I read, why did these two not end up like the majority of other artists, just golden leaves gliding to the ground from trees when fall comes, and then disintegrating into dark and broken dreams crushed under by the feet of people who do not even notice them.
And yet, onward they both went. Searching out thrift stores for beads and trinkets to convert into masterpieces. As they wandered in and out of city streets and apartments, they met others who came and went and showed them sights and sounds they might not otherwise have imagined.
Patti’s prose captures it all, yet It never draws attention to itself. It is a highly unlikely story, simply told. Pure. Innocent. Profound. I read and never once did I not feel my soul surrender to her soft, quiet voice, bringing me solace and peace.
She drops names like wild colors on a canvas, but never to glorify herself. Rather, she tells us these names to track the influences, the guides, lost and found, whom she and Robert read about or met on the roads they traversed as they each played a role in lifting the other up and pushing them onward to experiment, soar, and reach for the tiny blue star, even by way of a necklace passed back and forth to remind them of who they were, and who they were to each other.
Each night, or early morning as the case may be, I feel asleep with her words floating in my unconsciousness like an angel’s kiss, a gentle touch of grace and hope.
If Portland embraced my spirit and lifted me up with its skateboarders, roving musicians, and river of tranquility, then Patti and Robert met me each night with a whispered, “Welcome back. Come with us”
And I surrendered easily to them.
I laughed out loud when Bobby Neuwirth asked Patti, as she left a room in the Chelsea hotel, “Where did you learn to walk like that?” and she turned and answered, “From watching “Don’t Look Back.’”
Jimi and Janis crossed her path, and eventually even the godlike Dylan came to see her, probably wanting to know how she knew about his dog.
She writes of her quest to go to Ethiopia which never happened, but her trip to see Arthur Rimbaud and Jim Morrison in Paris which did.
Lines from songs come to life as she explains about the Wild Boys and how “Land” came about.
She watches as her friend/lover/soulmate leaves her for a man after her and Robert’s years of struggle, but there is no jealousy. They could part only because they knew they would never be apart. Robert and Patti are, were, forever more shall be, one soul. He may love another man, and she may marry someone else, but their union is bound in time and space and stars and necklaces and works of art. Look at the cover of “Horses.”
She is honest on more than one occasion as she talks of quitting, of losing confidence in her quest and in herself. She does not glorify herself. She, like all of us, just shoulders on from dead end street to tree lined boulevard. The roads change, but the journey is always on-going. To paraphrase Norman MacClean, “All good things come by way of grace, grace comes by way of art, and art does not come easily.” Patti and Robert were living examples of that.
Her honesty is on display at parties that she doesn’t feel comfortable at, parties which Robert loved, and so she went with him. The back and forth of their lives always a shared experience.
When the end came, it was almost like a sad fairy tale, and yet one recognizes that in great literature, death must always be present. The ending of life of one character necessary to elevate the lives of the others. Robert died, allowing Patti to sing their song, write their words, tell their story.
When I finished reading their story it was at 1:10 AM on a Tuesday. I held the book and looked at the cover photo of Patti and Robert. I was glad I was not holding a Kindle, or some other kind of reading machine. I wanted to hold the book with the Fournier typeface that had been carefully chosen by Mary Austin Speaker, and the purple hardcover with the initials PS and RM engraved amidst two intersecting perpendicular lines. The lines each going off in infinite directions and yet crossing at just that one point.
I thought, maybe someday this book, a signed first edition, will end up in one the few old, remaining dusty used bookstores where some hungry artist will dig it out of a pile and understand it’s value, so that she may sell it in order to buy food or materials for her art. Wouldn’t that be nice. Patti would definitely understand.
As I boarded the light rail to the airport on that Tuesday morning, I knew they would someday try to make a movie out of this book, and they would fail. This story is too intimate in its telling, too infinite in its reach, to ever come alive on the silver screen. No one would believe these two characters, no matter how great the actors. The story is too far fetched. Too glorious to be told in any medium beside that of a book.
As the train sped along, I realized that Einstein was right: there are many more dimensions then we are aware of, and Patti Smith had just taken me to one of these. A dimension of love and lust and creativity and loss, and one in which the impossibility of art actually happens.
I smiled as I thought of her words, “For art sings of God, and ultimately belongs to him.”
“Beautiful. Impalpable. Imperishable,” wrote Joyce.
“Americans, why do you not honor your poets?” said the Frenchwoman to Patti.
I can answer that question–we do. For this telling is my way of honoring Patti Smith. A singer. A poet. An artist.
She moved me in a different direction. She moved me in a different dimension. Words came like dreams that had become like leaves, sprouting on trees in spring, announcing rebirth. And thus did her words help me to be reawakened to all the seas of possibilities, to be reborn if you will.
Thanks Ron for writing this review and sharing it with us!
For more poetry, catch the Monday Poetry Train!
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Tag: scare
Technology, Communism And The Brown Scare
August 20, 2016 January 27, 2017 - by David Phelps
The Impact Issue measures the typical variety of citations obtained in a specific year by papers printed in the journal during the two previous years. Prime Minster Rajiv Gandhi additionally gave robust political help to science and technology, including data technology and telecommunications. In this fashionable world that always produces new and improved technological advances, the skills that include technology are important to future success. Technology is such an important subject to the justice system today that there is even an effort on behalf of the government to research and implement new applied sciences constructed particularly to battle crime.
There’s a very critical hazard that in the near future technology will make many of these previously unattainable demands which we have positioned on our governments totally potential. The government businesses in command of well being info technology are accelerating the good battle to protect” safety and privacy with its quintessential tools of constructing awareness, promulgating regulations and funding the creation and enforcement of more rules.
News Tracer, a new AI instrument in the Reuters newsroom, is educated to identify real news from the Twitter minefield. Learning in class though, was laborious, and we had to rely solely on our talents, endurance, and perseverance to make the grade, and these precisely are the qualities youngsters appear to lack at the moment because of new technology. Taking a look at it this manner, it looks as if a bit help from extraterrestrial technology would have been welcome. Any choice on a technology …
March 3, 2016 January 27, 2017 - by David Phelps
Allows academics to create a web based house (or grid) on which students can reply questions and discuss information by way of recorded movies. By consciously practicing and maintaining concrete abilities (equivalent to handwriting, spelling, drawing/painting, primary arithmetic, e-book/periodical reading, research skills, and many others.) we are able to reside safely with technology. Aerial robotics professional Prof David Lentink, from Stanford College in California, says that this form of bio-inspiration is pushing drone technology ahead, as a result of evolution has solved challenges that drone engineers are simply starting to deal with. If something happens that that stuff isn’t available we’ll determine a way to reside with that, the identical way we lived with before technology was around.
Business processes, accepting technology worth, supporting buyer needs, and developing partnerships are examples of how the twenty first workforce is altering. Technology fanatics and geeks flip to Wired magazine to search out out concerning the newest traits in the tech life-style. There is a level in this debate that I believe is missed: For every learning state of affairs,there will be a limit to what technology can (or should) at the moment be understood. The quandary corporations face is how greatest to make use of the ever-growing technology that’s out there. Developed countries would exert their affect and use their technology to subvert or destroy the social and political structures of a much less developed society in the title of progress. The third challenge could be via a taking seriously of the …
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Neuropsychologia. 1998 Oct;36(10):1015-24
Paradoxically greater interhemispheric transfer deficits in partial than complete callosal agenesis
Aglioti SM,
Beltramello A,
Tassinari G,
Berlucchi G
Symptoms of interhemispheric disconnection are typically much less severe in callosal agenesis than after surgical section of the corpus callosum. Sperry [Sperry, R. W., Plasticity of neural maturation. Developmental Biology, 1968, 2 (Suppl.), 306-327.] has attributed this difference to two interconnected factors: (1) the callosal section is usually performed after the brain has lost the maximal degree of functional plasticity associated with the early stages of development and (2) the removal of an already formed structure is more disruptive for functional brain organization than the failure of the same structure to develop. It has been suggested that functional compensation is less efficient if callosal agenesis is partial rather than complete [Dennis, M., Impaired sensory and motor differentiation with corpus callosum agenesis: A lack of callosal inhibition during ontogeny? Neuropsychologia, 1976, 14, 455-469.]. This suggestion is supported by the present findings of partial left-hand anomia, partial left-field alexia and poor tactile cross-localization in a subject with a congenital absence of the posterior part of the corpus callosum due to an arteriovenous malformation. In agreement with many previous studies, similar, though more severe, symptoms of interhemispheric disconnection were found in a subject with a complete section of the corpus callosum, but not in a subject with complete callosal agenesis. Praxic control of the left hand on verbal commands was severely deficient in the callosotomy subject, but it was normal in the subject with callosal hypogenesis. The lesser degree of compensation in partial compared to complete callosal agenesis may be explained by a reduced pressure to develop extracallosal means of interhemispheric communication, contingent on the partial existence of callosal connections, as well as by the later occurrence in development of the causes of callosal hypogenesis compared to those of total callosal agenesis.
More in this category: « Neuropsychological evidence that somatic stimuli are spatially coded according to multiple frames of reference in a stroke patient with tactile extinction Pathological switching between languages after frontal lesions in a bilingual patient »
back to Publications - Up to 2002
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Russian government telegraphs move to ARM
Tags: #datacentre #data-centre #gnulinux #project-skybridge #russia #x86
Companies: #amd #arm #government #intel #russian-ministry-of-industry
The Russian Ministry of Industry is claimed to be investigating the creation of a homebrew processor based on the ARM architecture, as a replacement for foreign-produced x86 chips from Intel and AMD.
According to a report by local news outlet Kommersant Moscow, the Russian government plans to produce a family of processors dubbed Baikal and featuring a 28nm implementation of Cambridge-based ARM's Cortex-A57 64-bit intellectual property. These chips, it is claimed, will feature at least eight physical processing cores running at 2GHz, and will be produced by a specialised subsidiary of supercomputing company T-Platforms. Systems based around the chips would run a variant of the open-source GNU/Linux operating system tailored for the local market, it is claimed.
While the dominating architecture in mobile computing, ARM has made little impact elsewhere since the Acorn RiscPC desktop computer family dropped off the market. This is changing, however: 64-bit architecture designs provide ARM platforms with access to more resources than ever before, with major companies seriously investigating the low-power chips as replacements for x86 in data centre applications. Even AMD is getting in on the act, promising motherboards that can be populated with ARM or x86 processors under the codename Project Skybridge.
For the Russian Ministry of Industry, the focus is likely to be less on improving performance-per-watt and more on reducing its reliance on foreign companies. Neither AMD nor Intel allow their customers to license the design of their respective processors, instead forcing them to buy off-the-shelf - or, more recently, semi-customised - chips produced elsewhere. ARM, however, produces no physical products at all, instead licensing its intellectual property to third party companies like Samsung, Qualcomm and Apple for customisation and production. By moving to the IP licensing model, the Russian government will be able to keep the bulk of the money spent on processors within its borders with only a small licensing fee making its way to Cambridge.
Kommersant claims that the Russian government spends around $800 million a year on server hardware, only a small fraction of which goes on outdated local processor designs built on a 90nm process. That latter fact suggests considerable investment will be required to hit the government's ambitious 2015 launch date for Baikal: industry sources claim Russia currently lacks 28nm semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.
MediaTek announces 'deca-core' Helio X20
Three clusters for power-saving bonus.
ARM unveils 16nm Cortex-A72, Mali-T880 designs
Massive performance increase promised.
ARM announces new 4K-ready Mali chips
GPUs and accelerators ready for 2015.
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Braehead Cottage, Auchentibber
Blantyre Buildings
Braehead sold for demolition 2015
I was recently contacted by Elaine Currie Akelis, saying, “Hi Paul, We have just bought Braehead cottage (Auchentibber), with the intention of starting from scratch and re-building once we have demolished the old property. I wanted to find out some history of the land and property so that ( in some way) hopefully incorporate some of that history back into the re-building of the house, we intend on having there. Any ideas? ….. I guess this blantyre lass is coming back to blantyre to stay. I’m excited for the upcoming project I have to say that much.”
Being offered a chance to let Elaine know some history about this property, in the hope she will use some of that history in her exciting new build home, was too good an opportunity to miss. What a brilliant way to preserve Blantyre’s old history, by incorporating it into future buildings.
Braehead Cottage, Parkneuk Road
Braehead Cottage (pictured here in 2015) is a traditional stone built detached property that sits on the East side of Parkneuk Road, Auchentibber. With two storey’s, its gables point exactly in a North / South direction. It has extensive , level grounds amounting to around half and acre, which are now covered in mature trees and growth. Behind the property are the fields of Newfield Farm, which sits at the boundary of Blantyre and Hamilton.
The name, Braehead is not to be confused with other Braehead cottages in Blantyre, (there is one on Hunthill Road and another on Main Street)
The cottage was built around 1880, with the half acre being sold off by nearby Newfield Farm.
1896 Daisyknowe Cottage, Parkneuk Road
Auchentibber during this decade was a real hub of activity. Mining activity. Especially to the South at nearby Hartfield, Stewartfield and Earnock quarries. There was a growing requirement for miners homes and such a spacious property near to employment sources would have been attractive.
The cottage was originally called “Newfield Cottages“, a name which looks likely to have caused confusion due to the similarity of the nearby Newfield Farm. Indeed, in just 16 years the name of the property had changed to become “Daisyknowe Cottage”. On the 1896 map, the cottage appears as “Daisyknowe Cottage” and looks as though it is divided into two properties, perhaps for 2 families. It would be interesting if during the imminent demolition of the cottage, if any evidence of it being TWO homes could be found. (central divide?) The current symmetrical floor plan would serve to confirm this.
One of the first families to inhabit Daisyknowe Cottage were the McLellans. In the 1881 census, James McLellan, a 37 year old blacksmith and his 41 year old wife Annie lived there. Boarding with them next door, were 2 blacksmiths William Bryson, aged 20 and John McLardie, aged 22 (who was born in Australia). This raises the question if the property was worked on as a blacksmiths, but I can’t find any evidence of that and it is more likely they simply went out to work in the nearby quarries and pits. In 1891, the Latimer family lived there.
1910 Daisyknowe Cottage
By 1910 maps, the cottage is still known as Daisyknowe. A benchmark is allegedly on the North or West gable to measure height of nearby fields and properties. By this date, outbuildings or sheds were shown in the gardens. If you stood in the back garden during this date and looked out over Newfield Farm fields, you would see an extensive row of miners homes called “Dikehead”, which is no longer there today. However, by 1910, the cottage may have been split into 2 names to reflect each home.
Michelle Leonard contacted me saying, “I came across a birth record for the husband of a cousin of mine while doing some research and the address at which he was born was Braehead Cottage, Auchentibber, Blantyre. I thought you’d be interested to know that this birth took place on 16th May 1905.”
By WW1, the cottage was known primarily as Braehead Cottage. This happened sometime between 1905 – 1916 and it’s likely that this happened due to the decline in mining activity in the area. It is my belief that the Barrett family lived there in the 1910’s. The cottages were consolidated into one property and judging by the 1920’s or 30’s dormer windows, looks as through it was extended during that renovation. By the 1939 maps, the cottage is clearly marked only “Braehead Cottage”.
With Elaine moving from East Kilbride back to Blantyre, I think at this elevation she’ll still have snow in Winter, long before us “down the hill” get any! I’m thrilled for Elaine, Kevin and their family and wish them all the best for a happy future at this location.
Tags: barret, barrett, brae head, braehead cottage, daisyknowe cottage, mclellan, newfield farm, parkneuk road
Billy Rough
The McLucas family a son William and birth certificate says born Daisyknowe, Blantyre August 1893
Braehead. 3rd time lucky!
Sorry, my last post should have read “Barrhead” cottage!
I have recently come across my Grans birth certificate. Her name was Mary Kernahan and she was born at Barrhead Cottage, Auchentibber on 3rd October 1916. Her Father, James was a coal miner. Thought you’d be interested to know this.
Gordon Paterson
What a mistake to level this old house to the ground. Now the land has been split into two and looking for a big profit.
I was sad enough to read the place had been demolished, but now to see the land up for sale, and no house being built! Words fail me 🙁
Karen cooper
Thanks for taking the time to research this.. this was my childhood home and my parents home until2014 when my dad died. I live in England and was gutted to hear braehead cottage had been knocked down. Some comfort that other people recognise it as one of a few buildings with such a history.
I remember at least 2 occasions as a kid when older people with some connection to the house through relatives coming to have a look round.
So sad this property is to be demolished, such a gem was looking to see who the owners are and if for sale…own house already but too small…such a shame this cottage won’t be used by a family as it adds to south lanarkshire ‘s beauty and has so much history…glad I took my kids to see it..too many new builds. If you change your mind…..we would be interested.
I do love reading the history you dig up, some of the stuff you come up with is fabulous. I have to say though I do hate reading about old buildings being demolished 🙁 it makes me sad. 135 years, those families, the history, then…gone.
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‘Bachelorette’ Emily Maynard engaged to boyfriend Tyler Johnson
Posted By: March 8, 2016
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If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering about Emily Maynard’s relationship status since leaving The Bachelorette. I’m not one of those people who can wrap up a reality show where people end up together and not spend every waking moment from then on Googling, “Emily and Jef still together? And, hopefully, we’re all already aware that Emily’s relationship with her final choice Jef Holm, unfortunately, didn’t last. The two of them broke off their engagement in October , after just six months, but are you up-to-date on what Emily has been up to since? Please answer honestly — I’m literally just about to tell you. These days, it turns out that Emily is I guess televised romance just wasn’t her cup of tea, because things have gone much more smoothly for the blond beauty off-camera. Emily’s husband’s name is Tyler Johnson, and the two apparently met before Emily ever did any filming for Bachelor Nation , so they have some history together. They both lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they met at church, but nothing happened between them until after Emily had twice been engaged on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.
Emily Maynard knows relationships take work. After deciding not to pursue a relationship with either of his final two on his first Bachelor season in , Womack returned for another shot at love in This time, he found love, and proposed to Maynard. The couple broke up while the season was airing, but got back together in time for After the Final Rose.
This Is Emily Maynard’s Relationship Status Now , after just six months, but are you up-to-date on what Emily has been up to since?
Meet Emily Maynard. A week after his death she found out she was pregnant with their daughter. She is now a brittle and beautiful year-old single mother with big eyes and a sad smile. The engagement lasted a few months. Emily claims she was in love with Brad, but the guy was a tool with a chiseled jaw and she seems like a nice girl easily susceptible to suggestion.
Now Emily has been coerced into being The Bachelorette , because that is the only option for single mothers, because it is the only dating service that comes with free babysitting. The Hit Parade : Before the show really starts we meet some of the winning gentlemen who will be wooing Emily with their scented hair gel, copious amounts of body spray, whitened smiles and sob stories. Details are sketchy. The Hugathon : Hopefully Emily can get a Silkwood shower before she sees her daughter, because, oh man, the germs she must be collecting as she hugs every grizzled, gelled ,cologned man who walks through her door.
Alessandro comes from Brazil via four years in Minnesota with the accent to prove it.
Over the years, there have been a lot of memorable contestants and leads on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. He left the show his second time around in love with Emily Maynard. And although they split up while the season aired, they got back together.
‘Bachelor’ and ‘Bachelorette’ alum Emily Maynard is happily married Who Is Emily Married to Now? How Many Kids Does Emily Have?
Emily broke up with Jef in October, holm People magazine at the time: ‘I am sorry to tell you that Jef and I have, indeed, parted ways. It was a very difficult and heartbreaking decision. Jef emily further: ‘Meeting Emily on The Bachelorette was an incredible experience, we’ve now quite the journey. Single relationship: Despite bachelorette romantic upheavals, Emily is trying to give her daughter, Ricki, seven, some stability; emily reality star treated her daughter dating a pal to Dunkin’ Donuts in August.
She opened up her emily the me and I fell in love with her, [her daughter] Ricki, her family and the Hendricks. He added: ‘Emily and I are jef friends and I hope we can continue now be friends forever. And wants a salacious story to break, but the truth is we are just two people who fell in love and tried our hardest to make it work. I emily always bachelorette her. Back together! Tumultuous: Who and Jef had a bumpy relationship, and broke it off in October; they were pictured at a fashion event in JEF on September 6 The news may not be surprising to some people – Emily is said to have really fallen for Jef after he got down on bended knee and proposed holm The Bachelorette on holm July finale that was taped two months.
Neither relationship ended in marriage. Emily is 34 years old. According to CelebsCouples , Emily Maynard had at least 6 relationship previously.
Who is emily from the bachelorette dating now her “Bachelor” adventures, Maynard is married to Tyler Johnson, with whom she has a baby son, Jennings.
She opened up her world to me and I fell in love with her, [her daughter] Ricki, her family and the Hendricks. What we shared was completely genuine and real and it breaks my heart but we have decided to break up. They both have been a huge part of my life. Who knows what tomorrow will bring but we are moving on to the next chapter of our lives.
Everyone wants a salacious story to break, but the truth is we are just two people who fell in love and tried our hardest to make it work. I will always love her.
Her zodiac sign is Aquarius. Help us build our profile of Emily Maynard Johnson! Login to add information, pictures and relationships, join in discussions and get credit for your contributions.
Emily maynard johnson was born on february 1, in morgantown, west virginia, usa she has been married to tyler johnson since june 7, they have.
Now, after all the reality TV drama, the Charlotte, North Carolina, resident says she has moved on to a peaceful chapter with her new husband, Tyler Johnson. In her book, Maynard opens up about some of the dark episodes in her life, including an apparent suicide attempt when she was 15 years old. She had been feeling lonely and depressed and had swallowed a bottle of pills, she revealed.
The two got engaged when Maynard was 18, but the romance ended in tragedy when Hendrick was killed in a plane crash on Oct. She named their daughter Ricki. I just kept on looking forward to June 29th because that was the day I got a piece of Ricky back. Still, she says she knew almost as soon as Womack proposed that it felt forced. And there’s this It just looks so romantic and warm.
But when you’re actually in the moment, it’s not that way at all. It’s so quiet. She says things also felt wrong with Holm.
With the hair and features of a life-sized Barbie, and the accent and manners of a Southern belle, sweet single mom Emily Maynard won hearts across Bachelor Nation when she stepped out of the limo on the first episode of Brad Womack’s second season of ” The Bachelor. That included Brad’s heart — the Bachelor got down on one knee on the season finale and proposed to Maynard. When their engagement didn’t last the year, ABC begged Maynard to come back as the Bachelorette, and she ended up plighting her troth on another finale, this time to Jef Holm, a floppy-haired, skateboarding entrepreneur.
When that relationship also fell apart, however, Maynard found love in the most appropriate of places — back home, with a friend from her church in Charlotte.
‘The Bachelor’: Why Did Emily Maynard and Brad Womack Break Up and The Bachelor’s Emily Maynard: Where is she now? She even dated Bachelor alum Arie Luyendyk Jr. for some time during her season of the reality dating series.
Maynard was chosen by Brad Womack in the fifteenth season of The Bachelor , but they split after the show. Maynard is the second former Bachelor winner to star in The Bachelorette and she is one of the three Bachelor winners chosen in the lead of the series. Jen Schefft of season three was the first and subsequently Becca Kufrin in the fourteenth season six years later.
They abruptly ended their relationship in October This is the first season of The Bachelorette filmed in Maynard’s hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina , where she and her daughter Ricki Hendrick live along with the child’s paternal grandfather ; the child’s father died before she was born. Rather than Los Angeles , marking this as the first time a show in The Bachelor franchise has taken place in the Southern United States and also the second time one has been filmed on the East Coast since New York City in season three.
Biographical information according to ABC official series site, which gives first names only, plus footnoted additions. Ages stated are at time of contest.
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Good Morning Blythewood
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Welcome back, Bengals!!
Sports Recap: October 28-November 1
This past week was a busy one filled with many ups and downs for Blythewood athletics.
On Monday, Varsity Tennis played in round two of playoffs. They defeated Hillcrest with a final score of 4-2 and advanced to round three which would have been played on Wednesday night. However, the game was pushed to Monday, November 4th due to weather concerns.
Varsity Girls’ Golf played in the 5A State Championship on Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday, the Bengals officially became state champions! The athletes on this team included Ella Stalvey, Lindsey Hoile, Cori Langford, Elizabeth Madden, Paige Paolucci, and Joceline Paez and the team was coached by Jason Minkel. Blythewood came in first place with an overall score of 621, Lexington in second place with a score of 630, and Boiling Springs came in third with a score of 664. Ella Stalvey tied for first in the state individually with a score of 143.
Tuesday also brought round two of the playoffs for Varsity Volleyball. The Lady Bengals defeated Hillcrest at home 3-2 on Tuesday night. They advanced to round three which was played on Thursday night at home against Dorman. Unfortunately, the Bengals experienced a heartbreaking loss against the Cavaliers pushing them out of the playoffs, but overall had an amazing season each player would never forget.
Wednesday night, Junior Varsity football played against Spring Valley. Unfortunately, their last game ended with a loss with a score of 10-6, and they finished their season with a record of 6-4.
Friday, Varsity Football played in their final home game against Spring Valley. Unfortunately, they lost with a final score of 42-21. This night was also senior night, making it even more emotional that this final game ended in a loss. They still advanced to the playoffs, where round one will be played against Laurens District 55 High School at Laurens on Friday, November 8th.
Saturday, Competitive Cheer competed in the Debbie Rogers Cheer Classic at the Colonial Life Arena. Varsity had one stunt fall and one tumbling mishap but still managed to finish in 8th place out of 26 teams. They were also crowned region champions over Spring Valley, Irmo, and Lugoff Elgin. Junior Varsity hit their routine and finished in 15th place.
While there were some heartbreaking losses this past week, there were also many great achievements for the Bengals! Congratulations again to the Girls’ Golf team for being state champions and to Varsity Competitive Cheer, Varsity Volleyball, and tennis for being region champions.
Do you consider Disney World to be the "happiest place on Earth?"
Blythewood High School
Nov 16 / Varsity Cheer
Laurens High
Lugoff-Elgin
Blythewood athletes announce college plans
Baseball Plays in NaturChem Invitational
Blythewood Participates in Basketball Special Olympics
Blythewood Hosts Richland 2 Special Olympics Event
Michael Gaither’s NFL Mock Draft 1.0
Sports Recap: February 3-8
Blythewood Varsity Cheer Competes in State Competition
Blythewood seniors announce college plans
Sports Recap: November 4-9
Blythewood Varsity Girls Golf wins 5A State Title
The Student News Site of Blythewood High School
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A Short Riff on Shane Carruth’s Film Upstream Color
Posted on May 19, 2013 May 20, 2013 by Edwin Turner
1. I managed to avoid reading anything about Shane Carruth’s new film Upstream Color before I saw it.
I just knew that this was the guy who did Primer, this was his new film, and I wanted to see it because Primer was so strange and engaging.
2. Two immediate responses after viewing Upstream Color:
i). The desire to see Upstream Color again and
ii). The desire to read what other people thought about Upstream Color.
3. (My wife and I, reading the credits, pausing the credits, reassessing the film against the backdrop of the credits, arguing about the film, discussing the film, etc.).
4. I think it’s better that if you have any interest at all in Upstream Color that you just see it cold [update/warning: the comments section of this post is full of spoilers]. But I know that 100 minutes is an investment of time, so maybe you’d like some kind of précis or at least description. So, a loose attempt, which surely will devolve into fragments and references:
Upstream Color is a sci-film, sort of.
Or maybe its a mystery film about ethics and biology.
Maybe a nature film, sort of.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
Worms—parasites.
Theft.
Pigs.
Shades of Philip K. Dick, David Cronenberg, Terence Malick, but also something utterly original.
Mind control.
Ambient music.
Orchids.
Sampling nature.
Memory.
Swimming.
Drowning.
Creation: knitting, paper chains, music, seeds, life, children, etc.
A film that can and should be described as poetic.
It’s a love story, too.
5. It occurs to me that there’s a trailer for the film. I haven’t seen it yet. Should we watch it?
6. Does that do it for you? I don’t know how to do this anymore. Recommend things. I don’t know, the trailer makes the film perhaps look more pretentious than it is. It isn’t pretentious. It isn’t even confusing—just perplexing, haunting, troubling.
7. (Wanted: Quinoa Valley Record Co., complete discography).
8. My take on Upstream Color, spoiler-free, supporting-detail-free:
The film is about agency, about drive, about how the characters (and, implicitly, us, we, the audience, who identify with the characters on the screen) may be driven by something beyond us, something controlling us like a parasite (internal) or from afar like a ventriloquist (external). That even when we do assert agency the effect, the fallout, the shape lays beyond us, upstream.
9. (This morning, my wife telling me about her dream, a nightmare that our young daughter had ingested hallucinogenic mushrooms, clearly a response to the film).
10. I haven’t done a good job of really saying anything about the film. So, lazily:
I think Caleb Crain provides a perceptive and persuasive reading of the film in his essay “The Thoreau Poison.” He reads the film through the American transcendentalists, particularly Thoreau, of course, but also Emerson and Hawthorne.
There’s also a piece at Slate by Forrest Wickman that perhaps over-explicates but nonetheless offers perspective, including elements of Carruth’s own take.
11. (I will avoid Carruth’s explanation of the film until I’ve seen it a second time. Maybe I’ll avoid his explanation forever).
12. A take on Upstream Color that I don’t quite buy into (the take is my own): The film perhaps invites us to find metaphysical entities in two of its secondary characters, both of whom exert influence (creative and destructive) over the primary characters. Something something godlike, something something devillike.
I like that the film offers this simple duality and then crushes it, shows something far more complicated, suggests a cycle far more strange.
13. (White orchid. Blue orchid. Yellow orchid).
14. Upstream Color features minimal dialogue and nothing approaching traditional exposition, but we still learn about its characters, come to feel for them, feel their desires and traumas. The film is cerebral and philosophical, but it’s also emotional, offering an aesthetic that sublimely overwhelms the viewer.
15. Carruth wrote, produced, directed, scored, photographed, cast and starred in Upstream Color. (I’m sure he did a lot of other stuff too). He also distributed the film himself. The entire filmmaking process was untouched by the Hollywood system. There’s so much hope for film as an art form in this knowledge.
16. Parting thoughts: See Upstream Color. Resist imposing whatever film grammar you usually bring with you to the movies. Resist the temptation to see the film as a puzzle to figure out. See Upstream Color.
Posted in Books, Film, Literature, Movies, Reviews, WritersTagged David Cronenberg, Film, Henry David Thoreau, Philip K Dick, Primer, Reviews, riffs, Shane Carruth, Slate, Terrence Malick, Upstream Color
Published by Edwin Turner
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16 thoughts on “A Short Riff on Shane Carruth’s Film Upstream Color”
▲ (@sonicboooming) May 19, 20138:36 pm Reply
I watched this film because of this post and you didn’t let me down. Thank you for this. I cannot stop my mind from thinking/feeling. This film wrecked my heart. It was unbearable to watch during moments and despite the openness of this film I felt manipulated throughout. Hard to describe this film. Beautiful and devastating.
Biblioklept May 19, 20138:50 pm Reply
I’m glad you liked it/were wrecked/manipulated :) — “Beautiful and devastating” — well put.
Scott May 20, 201310:45 am Reply
Thanks for the riffs. A couple of reviews that are quite insightful:
Upstream Color is what you want it to be: http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/1836659/column-upstream-color-is-what-you-want-it-to-be
Upstream Color Review: http://www.411mania.com/movies/film_reviews/284345
From your riffs: “15. Carruth wrote, produced, directed, scored, photographed, cast and starred in Upstream Color. (I’m sure he did a lot of other stuff too). He also distributed the film himself. The entire filmmaking process was untouched by the Hollywood system. There’s so much hope for film as an art form in this knowledge.” I have now read > than 50 reviews of Upstream Color (thank you, Google alerts), and this comment by you is the only one that touches on his knowledge. Primer was great but rough. Upstream Color is spectacularly polished, in so many ways. How does someone get from great-but-rough first-time film to an utter jewel for a second effort? My speculation is that while trying to get financing for A Topiary, he was also doing a tremendous about of self-teaching in all the areas — writing, producing, directing, scoring, casting, distribution — but that he hasn’t publicly said so because it’s not really something he wants to reveal (I think understandably), just like he doesn’t want to revewal the budget or camera used (although people have figured out the camera). If he started publicly revealing the technical details now, it would be a detraction. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait so long for his next film.
Biblioklept May 20, 201311:25 am Reply
I hope he’ll give us another one sooner, but I’m willing to wait another nine years for one this good.
But yeah, I think he probably did a lot of learning and practicing in between. The guy strikes me as pure auteur—I don’t think anything in UC is accidental (in contrast with someone like Paul Thomas Anderson, who seems to work very collaboratively).
I would love to know the budget, of course, but I think it’s wise not to reveal. One thing that I caught during the credits was that the “Craft Services” were by two women with the last name Carruth (one also played one of the Orchid women) — maybe his sisters or mother (or both)?
Cory May 20, 201312:44 pm Reply
Loved this movie! I was left pleasantly dumfounded by it. I am really curious to know what people think of the diagetic and nondiagetic presence of The Sampler. His alleatoric recording process seems to be quite important in the movie: providing an action to look at and listen to and follow along with until it becomes an atmospheric affectation: a part of the score of the film. Just as well: his presence, as literal at least, is quite questionable, until he gets shot. Sometimes it seems like he is present as an observing ghost, other times he seems to make a physical impact on the primary characters (e.g., the weird joint human and pig surgery scene). Any thoughts?
The Sampler’s physical/literal presence is perhaps confirmed by the neighbor he interacts with who offers to buy the piglets.
I need to watch the film again to really figure out what I think, but I’d argue that his presence is entirely diagetic; even if the sampled can’t see him he’s still an intrinsic character in the film; he’s not outside of the film. (I’d even go so far as to suggest that the score to the film might be understood as a Quinoa Valley Record, and thus potentially diagetic—the way that Kris and Carruth’s character repeat the Sampler’s sounds might support this idea).
The Sampler poses perhaps the biggest metaphysical problem of the film; namely: How does he “see” what his Sampled see/experience? We get the Malick-hand gesture—the touch—that seems to signify some kind of god-like presence (one that’s undercut by his death, his limited perception in/of the Sampled’s lives, and his interaction with a neighbor). He is clearly a frustrated-creator though, trying to make something harmonize out of the world. His benevolence or malevolence is something that the film doesn’t clarify (at least on a first viewing).
It’s possible that his connection to his sampled comes via the Operations he performs on them. The kids who take the wormtea (in cokes?) seem to be able to do coordinated movements that suggest some kind of telepathy, and the heavy dosage the Thief gives Kris clearly allows for mind control–so there might be gradations of the way the wormdrug affects people. It’s possible that the Sampler has sampled part of the worm from each person and thus has some perceptive connection to them, which Carruth represents in a fairly straightforward way (Sampler as third-person observer); the scenes with the Sampler and Sampled suggest a shared consciousness via the conduit of each Sampled’s “familiar”/pig. Whether it’s the soul or consciousness or what though, I don’t know…
Cory May 21, 20134:15 am Reply
I see where you’re coming from and actually trust your judgment more than my own now, especially when I consider how the Thief is, or at least can be, invisible to our main characters — similar to the Sampler.
exitotter June 18, 20131:47 pm Reply
I watched the film with a friend who made an interesting comment.
” Why are we watching Disc 2, Deleted Scenes?”
Flippant, but not without humor.
You’re all correct. This film needs a second viewing. I myself found that I was bringing too much of myself into the interpreting of the film as it was unfolding; reading things into the experience of watching that really aren’t there, my second viewing will be much more passive.
I wonder if there is there a single scene that stands out as a key to unlock the whole puzzle?
Biblioklept June 18, 20134:21 pm Reply
The essay in The New Yorker that I linked to argues that Thoreau’s Walden is the key.
I don’t know. I think the scene where we see the Sampler talk with his neighbor is really important, b/c it shows that he’s not, I don’t know, a god. Also, the early scenes where the kids can do some kind of telepathic/telekinesis thing. And the montage where the two leads get all their memories conflated.
The end is maybe really dark. I’ve watched it three times now, and I like it best as an aesthetic experience—not that aesthetic experiences can’t be intellectual, but I think sometimes when we force a structure or theory or meaning onto something we risk damaging it or at least damaging or potential experience with it.
exitotter June 19, 20136:36 am Reply
So it can be watched as a mood piece or as an esoteric, (does that even make sense?) experience as well as a ‘detective/sci-fi genre film? nevertheless I’ll re-watch this weekend. Great reply.
Watching it Monday night I was comparing or trying to pigeon hole the film, but you are quite correct, it is an original.
I also loved Primer, saw that when it came out.
Scott June 18, 20135:29 pm Reply
I saw Upstream Color for the second time last night and it was a much more enjoyable experience than the first time, where it was too much too fast. I’ve been reading as many reviews as possible; this FAQ at Slate was very helpful:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/04/09/upstream_color_faq_analysis_and_the_meaning_of_shane_carruth_s_film.html
Also many interesting insights in this review:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1747&fulltext=1&media=#article-text-cutpoint
I thougt one of the the most interesting ideas in the LA Review of Books essay was the idea that none of the interpretations cancel each other out; I think that’s a sign of greatness in a work of art.
What *really* helped was watching it in VLC Media Player at 67% playback speed — the slowdown compensated for the density of ideas and gave me time to think as it all rolled over me, with very little audio distortion due to the reduced-speed playback.
One thing that has driven me NUTS about many of the reviews — the comparison to Terrence Mallick. And nobody says in what way, specifically, Cararuth is like Mallick. The only similarity I see is initial puzzlement, but with Carruth you can tease meaning out of the puzzle, but wtih Mallick, good luck. I parsed almost nothing out of “Tree of Life” and if you really want an empty viewing experience, try “To the Wonder.” Mallick’s recent films are nothing like Carruth’s.
I really like how Upstream Color gets the story underway in the very first frame; we see a closeup of paper with writing on it, knotted up into something akin to a gum chain; The Thief is in the process of throwing this paper into a dumpster, and later this detail informs us he’s a serial abductor, as he has Kris form the same kind of paper chain during her abduction. So many films squander 10, 15 or even more minutes before getting any kind of story underway.
I disagree about the ending being really dark. I thought the film was quite dark — perhaps a subtle horror film — until The Sampler was killed. Then, the orchid-worm-pig cycle was finally broken; we see The Thief at the garden supply store again, looking for the telltale blue-purple scrapings on the leaves, and there aren’t any, and he shakes his head, knowing his abduction-embezzlement scheme is over. The orchids along the river are also no longer blue, another sign the cycle is broken. And the final scenes, of all the people who Kris and Jeff notified (they opened the info boxes prepared by Kris and Jeff and learned what happened to them) milling together in the corral at the pig farm, and Kris nuzzling the little piglet, and looking relaxed and comfortable for the first time, was really uplifting and a relief from a somewhat harrowing viewing experience.
Carruth’s film grammar/syntax heavily recalls Malick’s own techniques—a refusal for direct exposition, shots that dwell on shots of the environment (whatever the environment is), a refusal to follow a traditional arc, heavy use of ambient music, etc. I’m not going to defend Tree of Life at length in a blog comment, but I wrote about it here https://biblioklept.org/2011/07/12/the-tree-of-life-terrence-malick/ and then another writer for this blog wrote an extremely lucid summary + analysis here — https://biblioklept.org/2011/12/27/reading-the-tree-of-life/ .
The apparent emotional uplift at the end of Upstream Color only works if you accept the murder of The Sampler as somehow justified—but the Thief is the one who harmed K and J, not the Sampler. The murder seems justified only in narrative terms then—I tend to read it as murdering god, or a version of god. But it’s unclear, I think, how Kris interprets it.
“Carruth’s film grammar/syntax heavily recalls Malick’s own techniques—a refusal for direct exposition, shots that dwell on shots of the environment (whatever the environment is), a refusal to follow a traditional arc, heavy use of ambient music, etc.”
Let’s leave Tree of Life aside because we disagree. “A refusal for direct exposition” in the case of To the Wonder is virtually no exposition. “Shots that dwell on shots of the environment” — in Upstream, it’s not dwelling, it’s serving the purpose of advancing the story. In “To the Wonder” it is indeed dwelling, with the negative connotation that implies. As far as story arc, neither To the Wonder nor Upstream uses a traditional arc, but, unfortunately, To the Wonder plays as a Calvin Klein Obsession ad, and little more. The ambient music in Upstream is literally an important part of the story (The Sampler); in To the Wonder, the music isn’t ambient as much as kitschy, and it’s merely background music. “To the Wonder” reveals Mallick as heavy on style and very light on story substance. “Upstream Color” is both stylistically avant garde *and* content heavy, witness the multitude of essays.
“The apparent emotional uplift at the end of Upstream Color only works if you accept the murder of The Sampler as somehow justified….” Remember that The Sampler is most definitely an essential part of the orchid-worm-pig triangle (e.g., his operation on Kris and the pig.). Whatever Kris may think about The Sampler, and whether or not his murder is justified, his death is necessary to break the orchid-worm-pig triangle, and indeed the film reveals the cycle is broken almost immediately after The Sampler’s death.
I think you are making some fundamental distinction between “the film” and “the story.” For me there is no difference. The film isn’t there to serve a story. The film is the film.
The Abject Body and Spike Jonze’s Her | Biblioklept February 8, 20141:21 pm Reply
[…] help but compare Her to another strange sci-fi film, Shane Carruth’s excellent 2013 film Upstream Color. Like Her, Upstream Color explores the possibility of how an I might be part of a we. But […]
Under the Skin Riff | Biblioklept July 20, 201411:52 am Reply
[…] (Under the Skin also reminded me of Upstream Color, Moon, Tree of Life, and Morvern […]
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Posts Tagged: ncaa
The Top Events to Stream & Save From ESPN3 This Year
Posted January 17th, 2017 | Category: Replay Video Capture, Stream & Save.
ESPN3 is an online streaming service that focuses both on live streaming and replaying global sports events to fans in the United States, and beyond. Featuring coverage of sports events like FIFA World Cup global qualifiers, North American Soccer League, NCAA college football and NCAA college basketball, Major League Baseball, competitive eating contests and more, ESPN3 is a favorite for fans of just about any official sport.
See everything else live streaming on ESPN3 with their interactive schedule right here. Watch and record all of these awesome live streaming ESPN3 experiences using the power of Replay Video Capture — you can capture every major sporting event and save them forever!
(GIF via WTA)
Our favorite annual tennis tournament is back! The 2017 Australian Open starts today and is being hosted at Melbourne Park. The first tennis Grand Slam tournament of the year, the Australian Open will consist of events for singles, doubles and mixed doubles teams. You can live stream the 2017 Australian Open from ESPN3 online, and record it all with Replay Video Capture.
Dates: January 16 – 29 2017
(GIF via gifbay.com)
We’re already in the thick of the 2016-2017 International Cricket season, with highlights hit in Bangladesh’s first ever Test victory over England, South Africa’s third consecutive Test series victory against Australia, and many more intense moments. Don’t miss the rest of the season, wrapping up in April – you can live stream International Cricket from ESPN3 online, and record every match with Replay Video Capture.
Dates: September 2016 – April 2017
NCAA College Basketball
(GIF via maxim.com)
More than 11 million people across the United States tuned into the March Madness tournament in 2016, helping to make this year’s NCAA College Basketball season even more widely enjoyed. With the season well underway, you won’t want to miss any critical game before the Final Four are decided in Glendale, Arizona on April 3 – live stream college basketball from ESPN3 online and record every game with Replay Video Capture!
Dates: November 2016 – April 2017
(GIF via makeagif.com)
Time to get out those oversize tires and get fit – The 2017 Reebok CrossFit Games are just a few months away! For those who get their kicks pushing themselves to the physical limit, you won’t want to miss any of the qualifying events happening this summer. Fans can live stream the 2017 CrossFit games from ESPN3 online and record every muscle-busting moment with Replay Video Capture.
Dates: August 1 – August 6
FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017
(GIF via list.ly)
In some historic news, India will be hosting the next FIFA tournament (their first time ever hosting an event like this). In the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup, 24 teams will qualify for the final tournament – one from host country India, and 23 from six separate continental competitions. Be sure not to miss any of the qualifying rounds happening this Fall — you can live stream the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup on ESPN3 and record it all with Replay Video Capture.
Dates: October 2017
Get Replay Video Capture for PC Get Replay Video Capture for Mac
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Why Two Thirds of Personal Banking Apps Have Vulnerabilities
Filed in App Security, Mobile Security on Jan.21, 2014
Personal Banking Apps study has been out, a security researcher spent about 40 hours testing iPhone and iPad banking applications from the top 60 most influential banks in the world and his findings were totally shocking.
40 of those 60 applications were found to have major mobile security vulnerabilities, which is not something you’d expect to find in an application which authenticate you to your bank.
The conducted tests were split amongst six separate areas: transport security, compiler protection, UIWebViews, data storage, logs and binary analysis. Serious weaknesses were found in all of these areas.
40% of the applications can’t validate to the authenticity of SSL certificates, meaning that they’re vulnerable to monkey/man in the middle (MiTM) attacks
A full 90% of the apps contain non-SSL links, potentially allowing “an attacker to intercept the traffic and inject arbitrary JavaScript/HTML code in an attempt to create a fake login prompt or similar scam.”
50% “are vulnerable to JavaScript injections via insecure UIWebView implementations… allowing actions such as sending SMS or emails from the victim’s device.”
70% have no facility for any “alternative authentication solutions, such as multi-factor authentication, which could help to mitigate the risk of impersonation attacks.”
The incredibly troubling study brings to light a very serious problem for the banking industry — and for consumers, of course — that will only become more severe over time as mobile banking app usage grows. Sanchez notes in his report that the various security vulnerabilities he identified could allow malicious hackers to intercept sensitive data, install malware or even seize control of a victim’s device.
When Banks are using their mobile applications as a competitive advantage, you may think that they’d thoroughly test these applications for any existing security flaws with vulnerability assessment or mobile Penetration test, to reduce the vulnerabilities from two third to an acceptable level. Major security flaws shows that applications have not been tested for security vulnerabilities at every phase of the development. Above all it shows Banks have a weak Information Security Management System (ISMS) in place. This can be especially a worrisome trend for smaller Banks due to lack of existing information security resources and expertise.
Mobile Information Security and Privacy Books
Mobile Malware Protection from from phishing sites and malicious URLs
Tags: Banking Apps, Information Security Management System, SSL, Vulnerability (computing)
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Home/Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page/New Olorotitan Specimen Discovered In Russia
New Olorotitan Specimen Discovered In Russia
New Olorotitan Fossils may Yield Information on Duck-billed Dinosaur Brains
Scientists working in the south-east of Russia have uncovered the fossilised remains of an Olorotitan, a large duck-billed dinosaur that lived during the very end of the Age of Reptiles. The fossils are so well preserved in their mudstone tomb, that the researchers hope to learn more about these particular dinosaurs and possibly get the chance to study how their brains functioned.
Olorotitan lived during the Cretaceous (Maastrichtian faunal stage), it was a large, herbivorous dinosaur closely related to the North American Lambeosaurines Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus.
A Model of Olorotitan (O. arharensis)
To view a model of Olorotitan and other dinosaur toys: Dinosaur Toys for Boys and Girls – Dinosaur Models
Olorotitan was formally named and described in 2003, after the discovery of a nearly complete specimen eroding out of the banks of Amur River in the far southeast of Russia. The new dinosaur discovery is in the Russian region of Primorsky Krai, this location (Kundursky) has already yielded a number of vertebrate fossils.
Commenting on the discovery, Ivan Bolotsky, a junior research assistant at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Geology and Natural Resource Use stated:
“While removing the bones of an Olorotitan from the Kundursky excavation site, we spotted a tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur stuck between the caudal vertebrae.”
The tooth lodged in the Olorotitan’s tail bones (caudal vertebrae) is a bonus for the scientists, it will help them build up a picture of the fauna in the area during the Late Cretaceous.
The remains of the dinosaurs were preserved as mudslides in the area buried the bones and permitted their preservation. The news release on the Olorotitan discovery explained that these fossils may represent some of the last types of dinosaur to have existed in Asia. The site may yield a number of pristine specimens as according to the news report, the fossil rich site may actually cover an area of 30 square kilometres or more.
Commenting on the state of fossil preservation, Yuri Bolotsky, chief of Palaeontology Laboratory at the Far Eastern regional branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences said:
“The dinosaurs have been preserved to such an extent that the orifices, outlets of cranial nerves and blood-vessels remained intact. This means we can analyse the brain structure of these animals.”
Yuri Bolotsky, was one of the original researchers on the first Olorotitan discoveries. He was part of the team that formally named and described Olorotitan in 2003.
If the researchers are able to examine the braincase of this particular Lambeosaurine dinosaur, then it will contribute to the scientific data available on this branch of the Hadrosaur family.
By Mike| 2014-04-06T13:05:23+00:00 August 15th, 2010|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments
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Explore > Connecticut > Welcome to Connecticut
Ivy League institutions and iconic ports of call help give Connecticut a one-of-a-kind identity. Take a scenic drive during the fall colors, sample a creamy lobster roll or catch a wave on the seashore.
Regional Dish
Connecticut Mystic Pizza
Thanks to Hollywood, the seaside town of Mystic is synonymous with pizza, but for a real slice of heaven, head to New Haven where the local style known as “apizza” has made loyalists across the country. The thin, charred crust is chewy and savory, but for a truly unique experience, try the white clam pie at Pepe’s.
Yankee Towns
An easy drive from New York, many of the state’s biggest cities lie along the Long Island Sound. On the shore, lighthouses, wind-swept vistas and rugged beaches entice visitors to explore. Step back to 19th-century Connecticut with a stop at the Mystic Seaport, renowned for its historic village, nautical exhibits and dynamic shipyard. Inland, the state capital, Hartford, boasts a thriving cultural scene. Get acquainted with the author of the “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” with a visit to the town’s Mark Twain House & Museum. Swing by New Haven and stroll the stately campus of Yale University.
Doorway to the Atlantic
Explore Connecticut’s sweeping coastline and catch sight of thriving aquatic habitat. Book a fishing charter to head out to the deep Atlantic or find a pier along the shore for flounder, bluefish and striped bass. Paddlers can explore the inlets and islands along the coast while watching for wildlife. Head inland to the Farmington River, designated a National Wild and Scenic River, for some of the best rapids and scenery in the state.Park and Splash
On Long Island Sound, the beauty of Connecticut’s coast shines through. Several state parks line the coast, setting the stage for hiking and water sports adventure. Walk the white sands of Ocean Beach Park or hike the 2 miles of shore in Hammonasset Beach. Catch the ferry for a breezy ride to the Sheffield Island Lighthouse. This tidy stone beacon has stood guard off the coast since 1868.
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Compassionate drug (mis)use during pandemics: lessons for COVID-19 from 2009
Amanda M. Rojek ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3948-07561,2,3,
Genevieve E. Martin4 &
Peter W. Horby1
BMC Medicine volume 18, Article number: 265 (2020) Cite this article
New emerging infections have no known treatment. Assessing potential drugs for safety and efficacy enables clinicians to make evidence-based treatment decisions and contributes to overall outbreak control. However, it is difficult to launch clinical trials in the unpredictable environment of an outbreak. We conducted a bibliometric systematic review for the 2009 influenza pandemic to determine the speed and quality of evidence generation for treatments. This informs approaches to high-quality evidence generation in this and future pandemics.
We searched PubMed for all clinical data (including clinical trial, observational and case series) describing treatment for patients with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and ClinicalTrials.gov for research that aimed to enrol patients with the disease.
Thirty-three thousand eight hundred sixty-nine treatment courses for patients hospitalised with A(H1N1)pdm09 were detailed in 160 publications. Most were retrospective observational studies or case series. Five hundred ninety-two patients received treatment (or placebo) as participants in a registered interventional clinical trial with results publicly available. None of these registered trial results was available during the timeframe of the pandemic, and the median date of publication was 213 days after the Public Health Emergency of International Concern ended.
Patients were frequently treated for pandemic influenza with drugs not registered for this indication, but rarely under circumstances of high-quality data capture. The result was a reliance on use under compassionate circumstances, resulting in continued uncertainty regarding the potential benefits and harms of anti-viral treatment. Rapid scaling of clinical trials is critical for generating a quality evidence base during pandemics.
Viral pandemics constitute a major threat to global health security. Future influenza pandemics are considered likely. In the past 20 years, we have also seen the emergence of zoonotic human respiratory coronaviruses with pandemic potential. These have been severe acute respiratory virus (SARS; caused by SARS-CoV-1), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and, currently, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (caused by SARS-CoV-2) [1]. A study of the 2009 H1N1 strain influenza A (A(H1N1)pdm09) pandemic, the largest respiratory viral outbreak in recent years, can provide insights into the research processes during a pandemic, with the aim of improving these for other outbreaks, including COVID-19.
One important element of pandemic mitigation is prophylaxis and treatment of patients. For emerging viral infections, antiviral therapies are a key medical countermeasure because vaccine production takes months or years, whereas effective antiviral medications may already exist. For COVID-19, the potential of several existing medications (including remdesivir, lopinavir/ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine and tocilizumab) is of interest. During the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic, there was interest in neuraminidase inhibitors (NAIs) as anti-influenza agents, although adequate safety and efficacy data supporting their use were lacking. This evidence has now substantially strengthened [2]; however, much of this was generated after the pandemic. There has been no quantitative assessment of the volume and quality of information that is produced regarding treatments during the pandemic period. This data is important, because it represents what is available to clinicians making treatment decisions for patients under conditions of significant uncertainty [3], and during surging patient numbers [4].
The objective of this systematic review is to investigate how data for drug treatments of A(H1N1)pdm09 accrued during the pandemic (detailed objectives listed in Table 1). This review is not only limited to completed clinical trials, but also includes registered trials which were not completed, and reports of treatment outside a formal trial setting (case studies or series and observational studies). These are included as they may represent both the best quality evidence available at the time and also opportunities lost to gather high-quality evidence.
Table 1 Detailed objectives and rationale with respect to evidence generation during a pandemic
We conducted a systematic search to identify patients treated for A(H1N1)pdm09 during the pandemic. We searched two types of evidence: peer-reviewed publications and clinical trial registration records. An experienced librarian advised on the search strategy. We prospectively registered the review (PROSPERO database record CRD42016039549). Details of compliance to MOOSE and PRISMA guidelines are found in Additional file 1: appendix 1.
Published literature search
We searched the PubMed database according to the search strategy found in Additional file 1: appendix 2. To capture information on how many patients received treatment outside of a trial, we included case studies, case series and observational research in addition to interventional research. The single exception was to limit descriptions of the use of oseltamivir to publications with ten or more patients, because case reports were abundant. We included research that described hospitalised patients and reported acute clinical outcomes (defined as the length of hospitalisation, intensive care admission or length of stay, medical complication, requirement for mechanical ventilation or mortality). We included patients with only laboratory-confirmed disease. While A(H1N1)pdm09 was the prevailing strain during the outbreak, inconsistencies in defining probable cases between papers meant a consistent inclusion method was not possible. We included papers only if enrolment opened between April 1, 2009 (when the virus strain was first identified), and was completed by August 10, 2010 (the declaration of the end of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern [PHEIC]), by the World Health Organization (WHO). This limitation was necessary to differentiate research conducted specifically for the pandemic, compared with routine seasonal influenza reporting once A(H1N1)pdm09 became a seasonal strain. These criteria did not apply for clinical trials (where there could be no confusion with seasonal reporting).
We excluded papers if the description of treatment was not quantifiable or the treatment name was absent (including use of the general term ‘antiviral therapy’). We defined treatment as pathogen-directed therapy (e.g. antivirals) or host-directed therapy where there was a specific indication for A(H1N1)pdm09. We therefore excluded descriptions of standard intensive care interventions including corticosteroids and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. When a single patient cohort (same sample size, enrolment period, author(s) and study location) was presented in more than one paper, duplicates were excluded. We excluded languages other than English.
Clinical trial registry search
We undertook two clinical trial registry searches. The purpose of the first was to examine research that was planned in response to the pandemic. ClinicalTrials.gov was searched using the condition ‘H1N1’ and dates were restricted to limit to registration dates following the onset of the pandemic. A second search was conducted to identify pre-existing influenza studies that were able to enrol A(H1N1)pdm09-infected patients. ClinicalTrials.gov was searched using the condition ‘influenza’. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria and subgroup analysis plans for both searches are contained in Additional file 1: appendix 3.
One reviewer (AR) undertook data extraction according to the pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Decisions were recorded using electronic systematic review software (Rayyan [5]), available to the senior author (PWH). We did not request missing data from authors, as this does not contribute to the aims of this review. Details of the data extracted are in Additional file 1: appendix 3.
Descriptive statistics are presented as frequencies for categorical variables and median with interquartile range for continuous variables. The findings from published literature and trial registries are reported separately. Analysis of the literature was stratified by research type. Chinese medicines are presented as a single class because individual components could not be differentiated. Assessment of combination therapy was not possible due to variable reporting practices in the literature. Stata MP/15.0 and Microsoft Excel for Mac/15.21.1 were used for statistical analysis and graphical depiction.
Role of the funding source
The funder of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation or writing of the report.
Findings from published literature
This review includes 160 papers (summarised in Fig. 1, details in Additional file 1: appendix 4) that describe 39,577 hospitalised patients with A(H1N1)pdm09 and 33,869 treatment courses (Table 2). Twelve different treatments were used, with oseltamivir being the most common (Table 2). The median number of treatments described per manuscript is 63 (interquartile range, IQR 22–193). Of the 160 papers included, two are interventional trials (n = 73, representing 0.2% of total reported patients), [6, 7] 28 are prospective observational studies (n = 6102, accounting for 15.4% of total patients), 129 are retrospective observational studies or case reports (n = 33,342, 84.2% of total patients) and one enrolled patients both prospectively and retrospectively (n = 98, 0.2% of patients).
Table 2 Volume of treatment courses described in the literature for hospitalised patients
Early initiation of prospective research maximises the probability of meeting sample size targets before an outbreak wanes. The median delay to first patient enrolment since the identification of the pandemic viral strain (April 1, 2009) for prospective observational studies was 102 days (IQR 61–172 days). The two clinical trials began enrolment after a delay of 244 and 275 days.
For prospective observational studies, enrolment stopped a median of 274 (IQR 195–313) days after viral identification. This was 223 days before the PHEIC ended (August 10, 2010), but when case numbers were falling. The two clinical trials closed enrolment 699 and 944 days after virus identification (March and November 2011).
The publication dates of all articles over time are shown in Fig. 2. No (0/2) interventional trials were published before the end of the PHEIC. Twenty-five per cent (7/28) of prospective observational studies and 22% (28/130) of retrospective or mixed-enrolment research were published by the end of the PHEIC. The median date of publication for all papers was March 18, 2011 (IQR September 28, 2010, to October 24, 2011); this was 213 days after the PHEIC ended. Overall, the median delay between final patient enrolment (or inclusion) and date of publication was 444 days (IQR 281–684). The median date between final patient enrolment and submission was 302 days (IQR 142–534), between submission and acceptance 93 days (IQR 63–144), and acceptance to publication was 56 days (IQR 24–94) where data existed for these intervals.
Publication of included studies over time. Studies are shown according to the type of the study and the number of treatment courses described. The pandemic period ranges from the 1st of April 2009 to the end of the PHEIC on 10th of August 2009
Thirty-nine countries reported treatment data. The highest number of papers was published by the USA (n = 25, reporting 2559 treatment courses), followed by China (n = 16, reporting 14,680 treatment courses) and Spain (n = 16, reporting 4103 treatment courses). Country-level data describing the number of publications and treatment courses described and the first date of patient enrolment in prospective research (where relevant) are shown in Additional file 1: appendix 5).
Articles described the pregnancy status of patients in 88% (140/160) of articles. Articles described the inclusion of elderly patients in 88% (140/160) of articles and children in 93% (149/160) of articles.
Twenty-three per cent (36/160) of papers described adverse effects from treatment had occurred. In 42% of cases, adverse effects or severe adverse events were noted. Thirteen per cent (21/159) of articles tested for resistance and described some resistant samples, 4% (6/159) of articles tested for resistance but found no mutations, 3% (5/159) of articles reported clinical suspicion of antiviral resistance and, in the remaining 81% (129/159) of papers, there was no statement regarding antiviral resistance; one paper described no antiviral use and was excluded.
Findings from H1N1 trial registrations
Fifteen H1N1 study registration records were included in the review (Additional file 1: appendix 6) comprising 10 interventional trials and 5 observational studies (2 with treatment efficacy outcomes, and 3 with general acute clinical outcomes) planned during the pandemic. A total of eight different treatments were to be studied: oseltamivir, zanamivir, convalescent plasma, intravenous immunoglobulin, rosuvastatin, sirolimus, Chinese herbs and vitamin supplementation (vitamins A, C and E).
Of the 15 studies, nine are reported as completed, four were terminated due to the end of the H1N1 pandemic or declining case numbers and the status of two studies is not recorded. The anticipated and actual enrolment of patients into all studies is depicted in Fig. 3. Some study protocols excluded patients because of young age (25%) and pregnancy (50%). Results are available in the literature for three of the completed studies (Fig. 3), representing 153 patients, and available on the clinical trials registry for an additional two of the terminated studies. A sub-group analysis of clinical trials that only included hospitalised or severe cases is provided in Additional file 1: appendix 7.
Anticipated and actual enrolment of patients in A(H1N1)pdm09 studies registered on clinical trials database. Table insert displays the enrolment number and publishing timeline for completed studies with results published. An asterisk denotes where conflict existed between numbers in the clinical trial record and publication, publication numbers were used
Findings from influenza trial registration
Eighteen influenza registration records were reviewed (Additional file 1: appendix 8). There were 16 interventional trials and two observational studies that were enrolling patients during the A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic period. The treatments under investigation were oseltamivir, sambucol supplement, zanamivir, peramivir, amantadine, pomegranate supplement, nitazoxanide and favipiravir.
Eleven studies were completed, four were terminated early, the status of two is unknown and one study has ongoing enrolment listed. Results were available for nine of 11 completed studies (Table 3), representing 439 A(H1N1)pdm09 patients.
Table 3 Enrolment number and publishing timeline for completed studies
There is consistent criticism that the research response to disease outbreaks is fractured and delayed [13,14,15]. There has, however, been little quantitative examination of these assumed insufficiencies. This paper demonstrates that despite over 33,000 treatment courses being described for hospitalised patients with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 during the pandemic, fewer than 600 received treatment (or placebo) as participants in a registered interventional clinical trial with results available in the peer-reviewed literature. None of these registered trial results was available during the timeframe of the pandemic, as were few of the findings from observational studies. This constitutes a significant failure to collect high-quality data.
Our findings demonstrate that we must make improvements in order to offer patients, and their treating clinicians, evidence-based care during pandemics, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Several drugs are being investigated as potential treatment for COVID-19, but we note that some early published studies were poorly controlled [16, 17]. It is imperative that we learn from the A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic and ensure that trials of therapeutics are done under conditions which allow for the collection of high-quality, interpretable data to inform future clinical care.
We found that most descriptions of treatment courses were in retrospective observational studies or case series, with few prospective studies launched. There was relative success, however, in enrolling A(H1N1)pdm09 patients in ongoing or seasonal influenza studies—of the 582 patients enrolled in a trial, 439 were enrolled in this manner. Indeed, conducting trials of therapeutics for similar diseases (such as seasonal influenza) during an inter-epidemic period has been proposed as a solution to improving the outbreak research response [18]. This occurs not only by allowing the rapid recruitment of individuals in the case of an outbreak (as was observed here) but also by testing trial design and establishing research capacity. Novel trial designs, such as adaptive, platform trials, should also be adopted as a way to expedite outbreak research [18]. Using this approach, multiple treatments (or even multiple respiratory viruses) can be evaluated under an overarching protocol and regulatory framework, improving efficiency [19]. Findings presented here from 2009 support the need for this approach to respiratory virus pandemics, including COVID-19. Indeed, two large platform trials for therapeutics in COVID-19 are underway (RECOVERY [ISRCTN50189673] and Solidarity [ISRCTN83971151]) and already generating high-quality evidence [20]. Sleeper protocol research may provide a further solution. These pre-prepared and pre-approved protocols can lay dormant, waiting for cases of pandemic respiratory viruses, and allow prior assessment of the logistics and feasibility of the protocol. An example of this type of protocol exists for severe acute respiratory infections (NCT02498587) and has been used to rapidly enrol patients with COVID-19.
Recommendations following the Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa suggest that clinical research should be initiated, enacted and completed by the time an epidemic peaks [21]. We found that from the time influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 was first detected, it was over 3 months before prospective data collection began and 8 months before the first interventional trial began recruitment. While these delays compare well to recent evaluations of delays for other epidemic observational research [22] or clinical trials [23], it remains too slow.
Additionally, the small sample sizes of literature included in our review indicate a fractured research response. It has been estimated that a sample size of 800 patients is required to power a randomised controlled trial of an NAI in hospitalised patients [24]. No prospective research identified here was that large. Beyond the benefits of increased enrolment and external validity, multicentre research has specific advantages in epidemics. It can compensate for unexpected variations in epidemiology at the regional level (such as the sudden end to the EVD outbreak in Liberia that prematurely halted a clinical treatment trial) [25] or the temporary closure of health care facilities with nosocomial transmission (such as occurred during the SARS outbreak of 2003) [26].
To ensure generalisability of findings, research responses to outbreaks should also be representative of geographic diversity and global epidemiology. In the results reported here, China was heavily represented and reported the majority of treatment courses described (14,680; 43.3% of the total). Patient characteristics (including age, gender and other risk factors) and healthcare systems vary substantially by country/region, with likely impacts on the suitability and relative efficacy of interventions in these different settings. A timely research response from one region will not necessarily be of benefit to the majority of the global at-risk population, particularly if low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are poorly represented in the epidemic evidence base. Indeed, the importance of strengthening the research capacity and infrastructure of LMICs to enable effective outbreak responses was highlighted following the EVD epidemic [21, 27].
The inclusion of high-risk groups (such as elderly individuals, pregnant women and children) is also important to ensure generalisability of outbreak research. During the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic, elderly and paediatric individuals were included in 88 and 93% of publications, respectively, noting again that the vast majority of these studies were observational only. At the onset of the pandemic, however, trials for approved neuraminidase inhibitors had only been conducted for mild seasonal influenza in healthy adults [28], without the inclusion of those highest at risk. A failure to include high-risk groups in initial prospective trials for novel medications may further delay the evidence base for these individuals when drugs are employed under outbreak circumstances.
We report long delays between clinical data capture and publication in the peer-reviewed literature. This is consistent with analyses for other disease outbreaks, including epidemiology reporting for SARS (where only 7% of articles were published within the timeframe of the epidemic) [29] and randomised controlled trials of pandemic H1N1 vaccines (where only 29% of clinical trial results were published almost a year following the end of the pandemic) [30]. The present WHO standard for interventional clinical trials is that main findings are to be submitted for publication within 12 months of study completion [31] and although no such guidelines exist for observational clinical data, there are analogous scientific and ethical imperatives for timely reporting.
While the ramifications of delayed reporting are described for other fields [32], there are specific imperatives for rapid data reporting during epidemics. For example, observational data must be accrued to design interventional trials (such as approximating the type and rate of outcomes). Emerging evidence can also prioritise trials so that the most promising continue recruitment when there are a declining number of cases late during an outbreak [18].
Initiatives to minimise publication delay now include fast-track review for manuscripts likely to change clinical practice [33]; this approach been widely employed by journals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pre-approval of trial protocols (where some peer-review occurs before a study is conducted) or results-free review (where review excludes results and some discussion) are alternative peer-review models which aim to improve focus on study quality and reduce bias toward publication of only positive findings [34]. These may also have utility in speeding up the dissemination of quality clinical research in the outbreak setting, by allowing for peer-review to begin at the same time as data collection; whether this is the case is yet to be tested. There is also support for pre-publication online release of preliminary findings. Indeed, the increasing utilisation of pre-publication servers (such as medRxiv) has been reflected in the COVID-19 outbreak. Dissemination of research findings via pre-publication (prior to peer-review) reduces delays but carries risks for validation of methodology, accuracy of data and interpretation of findings. The extraordinary number of COVID-19 articles being submitted to pre-publication servers [35] has led to several rapid, open, peer-review platforms for COVID-19 preprints being developed [36, 37]. These aim to improve quality control in the period between preprint dissemination and the formal peer-review/publication process; such ‘overlay’ review models are new and how these will impact on the quality of data generation and dissemination is not yet known.
This systematic review has several limitations. The scope of our review was narrowed due to the high volume of clinical literature discussing A(H1N1)pdm09. In particular, we focused only on hospitalised patients where most antivirals were used [38]. There is likely to be considerable geographic variation in what illness severity necessitates hospitalisation which may have limited the inclusion of studies from countries where care models differ (including LMICs). Furthermore, only English language manuscripts were included which may have led to similar bias in included study geography. We included several publication types, including case series or observational studies to provide an estimate of patients who may have been eligible for inclusion in a clinical trial (noting this estimate does not represent the true number of hospitalised patients who were treated). The precision of any estimate is affected by excluding papers where treatment was not clearly defined and when pandemic strain influenza was not laboratory confirmed. Our estimates of patients enrolled in clinical trials is almost certainly an underestimation—much of the momentum toward compulsory registration of clinical trials [39] occurred subsequent to the pandemic and trials may have been registered elsewhere and so it is likely that other trials were planned, initiated or even completed without public knowledge. We restricted our observational data collection to that captured before the end of the PHEIC, and while we recognise that research continued to occur during the second and third waves of the epidemic, differentiating this work from routine seasonal influenza research became difficult. Finally, there was only one reviewer for pragmatic reasons.
Here, we demonstrate how tolerance of treatment under compassionate care circumstances during the influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 pandemic was not matched with a commitment to capture high-quality data on treatment use and therefore failed the standards expected of modern evidence-based medicine. Moreover, we show that the data that was collected on patients was incompletely reported and published after prolonged delay. We recommend early initiation of multicentre collaborative trials and pre-approved or sleeper protocols as potential solutions to improve accumulation of treatment data during a pandemic.
Details of all studies included in this systematic review are available in Additional file 1: appendix 4. Extracted data are available from the lead author on reasonable request.
EVD:
Ebola virus disease
Low- and middle-income countries
MERS:
Middle East respiratory syndrome
NAI:
Neuraminidase inhibitor
PHEIC:
Public Health Emergency of International Concern
SARS:
Severe acute respiratory virus
Zhu N, Zhang D, Wang W, Li X, Yang B, Song J, et al. A novel coronavirus from patients with pneumonia in China, 2019. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(8):727–33.
Dobson J, Whitley RJ, Pocock S, Monto AS. Oseltamivir treatment for influenza in adults: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Lancet. 2015;385(9979):1729–37.
Lipsitch M, Riley S, Cauchemez S, Ghani AC, Ferguson NM. Managing and reducing uncertainty in an emerging influenza pandemic. N Engl J Med. 2009;361(2):112–5.
Wang XL, Wong CM, Chan KH, Chan KP, Cao PH, Peiris JM, et al. Hospitalization risk of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic cases in Hong Kong. BMC Infect Dis. 2014;14:32.
Ouzzani M, Hammady H, Fedorowicz Z, Elmagarmid A. Rayyan-a web and mobile app for systematic reviews. Syst Rev. 2016;5(1):210.
Hung IF, To KK, Lee CK, Lee KL, Yan WW, Chan K, et al. Hyperimmune IV immunoglobulin treatment: a multicenter double-blind randomized controlled trial for patients with severe 2009 influenza A(H1N1) infection. Chest. 2013;144(2):464–73.
Wang CH, Chung FT, Lin SM, Huang SY, Chou CL, Lee KY, et al. Adjuvant treatment with a mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor, sirolimus, and steroids improves outcomes in patients with severe H1N1 pneumonia and acute respiratory failure. Crit Care Med. 2014;42(2):313–21.
South East Asia Infectious Disease Clinical Research N. Effect of double dose oseltamivir on clinical and virological outcomes in children and adults admitted to hospital with severe influenza: double blind randomised controlled trial. BMJ. 2013;346:f3039.
Kimberlin DW, Acosta EP, Prichard MN, Sanchez PJ, Ampofo K, Lang D, et al. Oseltamivir pharmacokinetics, dosing, and resistance among children aged <2 years with influenza. J Infect Dis. 2013;207(5):709–20.
Ison MG, Fraiz J, Heller B, Jauregui L, Mills G, O’Riordan W, et al. Intravenous peramivir for treatment of influenza in hospitalized patients. Antivir Ther. 2014;19(4):349–61.
Marty FM, Man CY, van der Horst C, Francois B, Garot D, Manez R, et al. Safety and pharmacokinetics of intravenous zanamivir treatment in hospitalized adults with influenza: an open-label, multicenter, single-arm, phase II study. J Infect Dis. 2014;209(4):542–50.
Lee N, Hui DS, Zuo Z, Ngai KL, Lui GC, Wo SK, et al. A prospective intervention study on higher-dose oseltamivir treatment in adults hospitalized with influenza a and B infections. Clin Infect Dis. 2013;57(11):1511–9.
Rojek AM, Horby PW. Modernising epidemic science: enabling patient-centred research during epidemics. BMC Med. 2016;14(1):212.
Tran TH, Ruiz-Palacios GM, Hayden FG, Farrar J. Patient-oriented pandemic influenza research. Lancet. 2009;373(9681):2085–6.
Hayden FG, Farrar J, Peiris JS. Towards improving clinical management of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection. Lancet Infect Dis. 2014;14(7):544–6.
Grein J, Ohmagari N, Shin D, Diaz G, Asperges E, Castagna A, et al. Compassionate use of remdesivir for patients with severe Covid-19. New England J Med. 2020; [Epub ahead of print].
Gautret P, Lagier JC, Parola P, Hoang VT, Meddeb L, Mailhe M, et al. Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2020;105949 [Epub ahead of print].
Rojek AM, Horby PW. Offering patients more: how the West Africa Ebola outbreak can shape innovation in therapeutic research for emerging and epidemic infections. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017;372(1721).
Woodcock J, LaVange LM. Master protocols to study multiple therapies, multiple diseases, or both. N Engl J Med. 2017;377(1):62–70.
Group RC, Horby P, Lim WS, Emberson JR, Mafham M, Bell JL, et al. Dexamethasone in hospitalized patients with Covid-19 - preliminary report. N Engl J Med. 2020.
The National Academies Press. Integrating clinical research into epidemic response: the Ebola experience. Washington, DC: The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine; 2017.
Rishu AH, Marinoff N, Julien L, Dumitrascu M, Marten N, Eggertson S, et al. Time required to initiate outbreak and pandemic observational research. J Crit Care. 2017;40:7–10.
Rojek AM, Dunning J, Leliogdowicz A, Castle L, Van Lieshout M, Carson G, et al. Regulatory and operational complexities of conducting a clinical treatment trial during an Ebola virus disease epidemic. Clin Infect Dis. 2018;66(9):1454–7.
Wellcome Trust and The Academy of Medical Sciences. Use of neuraminidase inhibitors in influenza 2015. Available from: https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/38069-561595082cd83.pdf. Accessed 29 Apr 2020.
Dunning J, Kennedy SB, Antierens A, Whitehead J, Ciglenecki I, Carson G, et al. Experimental treatment of Ebola virus disease with brincidofovir. PLoS One. 2016;11(9):e0162199.
Cheng VC, Chan JF, To KK, Yuen KY. Clinical management and infection control of SARS: lessons learned. Antivir Res. 2013;100(2):407–19.
Kayem ND, Rojek A, Denis E, Salam A, Reis A, Olliaro P, et al. Clinical REsearch during outbreaks (CREDO) training for low- and middle-income countries. Emerg Infect Dis. 2019;25(11):2084–7.
Gubareva LV, Kaiser L, Hayden FG. Influenza virus neuraminidase inhibitors. Lancet. 2000;355(9206):827–35.
Xing W, Hejblum G, Leung GM, Valleron AJ. Anatomy of the epidemiological literature on the 2003 SARS outbreaks in Hong Kong and Toronto: a time-stratified review. PLoS Med. 2010;7(5):e1000272.
Ioannidis JP, Manzoli L, De Vito C, D'Addario M, Villari P. Publication delay of randomized trials on 2009 influenza A (H1N1) vaccination. PLoS One. 2011;6(12):e28346.
World Health Organisation. WHO Statement on Public Disclosure of Clinical Trial Results 2015 [Available from: https://www.who.int/ictrp/results/WHO_Statement_results_reporting_clinical_trials.pdf?ua=1. Accessed 29 Apr 2020.
Moorthy VS, Karam G, Vannice KS, Kieny MP. Rationale for WHO’s new position calling for prompt reporting and public disclosure of interventional clinical trial results. PLoS Med. 2015;12(4):e1001819.
The Lancet Editorial Team. 10+ 10: rapid decisions and fast track publication for RCTs. Lancet. 2015;385(9968):578.
Button KS, Bal L, Clark A, Shipley T. Preventing the ends from justifying the means: withholding results to address publication bias in peer-review. BMC Psychol. 2016;4(1):59.
Kupferschmidt K. Preprints bring ‘firehose’ of outbreak data. Science. 2020;367(6481):963–4.
Johansson MA, Saderi D. Open peer-review platform for COVID-19 preprints. Nature. 2020;579(7797):29.
The MIT Press and UC Berkeley launch rapid reviews: COVID-19 2020 [updated June 29 2020]. Available from: https://rapidreviewscovid19.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/press-release.
Zambon M. Developments in the treatment of severe influenza: lessons from the pandemic of 2009 and new prospects for therapy. Curr Opin Infect Dis. 2014;27(6):560–5.
DeAngelis CD, Drazen JM, Frizelle FA, Haug C, Hoey J, Horton R, et al. Clinical trial registration: a statement from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. JAMA. 2004;292(11):1363–4.
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust[grant numbers 107834/Z/15/Z and 106491/Z/14/Z]. AR is supported by Open Philanthropies.
Epidemic Diseases Research Group Oxford (ERGO), Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford, OX3 7FZ, UK
Amanda M. Rojek & Peter W. Horby
Emergency Department, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Amanda M. Rojek
Centre for Integrated Critical Care, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Department of Allergy, Immunology and Respiratory Medicine, The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Genevieve E. Martin
Peter W. Horby
AR and PH conceived and designed the study and had full access to all data in the study. AR and GM and drafted the manuscript with input from PH. AR carried out the statistical analysis, takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis and is the guarantor. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Correspondence to Amanda M. Rojek or Peter W. Horby.
Ethics approval was not required for this work.
We declare one competing interest. We make the case for large-scale harmonised pandemic trials in this manuscript, and the senior author (Peter Horby) is leading the Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial, which is the largest clinical trial for COVID-19 treatments presently enrolling across the UK.
Additional file 1: Appendix 1.
Checklist summarising compliance with MOOSE and PRISMA guidelines. Appendix 2. Details of search strategy. Appendix 3. Details of clinical registry search strategy and data extraction. Appendix 4. Studies included in systematic review. Appendix 5. Country level data demonstrating number of treatment courses described in the literature, and date of first enrolment in prospective research, where relevant. Appendix 6. Prisma flow diagram describing screening, eligibility and inclusion for clinical trial registration records for studies aimed at enrolling A(H1N1)pdm09 patients. Appendix 7. Enrolment metrics for studies enrolling A(H1N1)pdm09patients, when analysis is restricted to ‘serious’ and hospitalized patients. Appendix 8. Prisma flow diagram describing screening, eligibility and inclusion for clinical trial registration records for studies aimed at enrolling influenza patients, that were open during the pandemic period.
Rojek, A.M., Martin, G.E. & Horby, P.W. Compassionate drug (mis)use during pandemics: lessons for COVID-19 from 2009. BMC Med 18, 265 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-020-01732-5
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Tag Archives: February
BPCCRA Minutes February 9th 2011
Posted on February 14, 2011 by Ben Harris
MINUTES OF THE BRANKSOME, CANFORD CLIFFS & DISTRICT RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE MEETING
HELD ON WEDNESDAY 9th FEBRUARY 2011 AT 7.30PM
IN THE MAIN HALL, BRANKSOME ST. ALDHELM’S PARISH CENTRE
John Sprackling Chairman
Wayne Hancock Vice-Chairman
Keith Alcroft Planning Officer
Stan Alfert Data Protection Officer
Bob Young Magazine Advertising
Carol Parkin Secretary
Cllr Mrs Carole Deas Ward Councillor
Cllr Neil Sorton ditto
Ken Sanson Chairman, Sandbanks Assn
Approx 20 Members/Wardens
1. APOLOGIES AND ACCURACY OF MINUTES
JS welcomed Cllrs Mrs Deas & Mr Sorton, Mr. Ken Sanson and those present.
Apologies: Apologies received from Cllr Mrs May Haines, Mr. Terry Stewart & Mrs Daphne Howell
Accuracy: JS said that he would sign the Minutes as a true and accurate record of the meeting held on 12 JANUARY 2011.
2. MATTERS ARISING
Poole Pottery/Old Orchard/Quay Thistle Hotel sites update: JS reported…
1. Quayside (former Dolphin Quays) development – No new developments
2. Poole Pottery factory buildings in Sopers Lane – The Planning Inquiry to decide on the appeal by Metnor (Sopers Lane Ltd) into the refusal of the Borough of Poole to allow an 80-bed care home to be built on this site will take place on 05/04/11 at the Civic Centre at 10am and is expected to last for three days.
3. Former Poole Pottery & Swan Inn site – No new developments
4. Quay Thistle Hotel site – ditto
5. Old Orchard House. 39-61 High Street – ditto
6. Land at West Quay Road (Mixed use regeneration and new public quayside to include; the demolition of a listed gate post and all existing buildings on site; the redevelopment of the site with 440 residential units provided in six apartment blocks with basement parking and courtyard) – No new developments
Planning Enforcement, TPOs/Tree replacements – update:
JS reported…
1 Cliff Drive (Addition of four additional windows where there was one large one before) retrospective application refused on 14/01/11.
2 Compton Avenue & 93 Lilliput Road (Boundary treatment) –An Enforcement Order is to be issued shortly.
Other current planning enforcement issues
17 Over Links Drive (Application to demolish existing and erect 2 detached houses granted on 31/01/08 but number of conditions should have been complied with before this development commenced) – No new developments.
19 Mornish Road (Tree replacement) – ditto
55 Canford Cliffs Road (Removal of the gates, railings, fence and hedge, and the erection of a low stone wall with planting behind) – ditto
24 Ravine Road (Overhang on right hand side of garage is 800mm but should be 200mm) – Retrospective application refused on 26/10/10. A revised application, for the whole development as it is being constructed with the over-hang, but requiring a detailed arboricultural impact assessment on the trees be included was requested on 29/12/10.
Land adj to 20A Chaddesley Glen (Land be reinstated) –
Community Working Group (CWG): JS reported that he had attended the CWG meeting on 26/01/11 and the Agenda included…
• Membership of the group – This is to be decided at the Annual Meeting on Wed 9th March 2011, Conference Room, Civic Centre 6pm. WH will attend this meeting.
• Prosecutions – There may be more news to report shortly • Public Art – A report is to be presented at the Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting on 29/03/11. JS said that, if anyone was interested, he can providea copy of the draft report.
• External decoration/design to properties in Conservation Areas – This related to shops in the High Street and an Article 4 Directive is being considered JS will circulate the Minutes when these are available.
Poole Beaches and Coastal Defences: This item is to be deleted from the Agenda until there is something new to report.
Council Tax 2010/11 & Council’s Budget Monitoring report: WM reported on the Council Budget Monitoring (1 April 2010 – 31 December 2010)
The Council are in the process of identifying savings and a lot of information has recently been released. Based on its projections at the end of December, the Council expect an underspend as at 31st March 2011 of £523,000. However, there are several claims which may impact on this. There will be pressure from potential additional costs for Adult Social Care and there are extraordinary costs in the planned reorganisation of the Council which will include a large amount for redundancy. There will also be possible additional costs of £410,000 per annum for the Pension Scheme. There are still substantial savings which need to be made as there is a budgeted deficit for 2012/13 and 2013/14 and possibly thereafter. The bottom line is that, although there will be no increase in Council Tax for the forthcoming year, 2011/12, there may be increase for 2012/13
RP asked if there were any analysis carried out as to the age of people made redundant as this has a bearing on the costs. Neither JS nor NS know the answer to this.
WM pointed out that there are other major pressures which will impact on a balanced budget in future years.
Poole Partnership: – JS said that he would be attending the State of the Area Debate (an annual meeting of the Council jointly organised with Poole Partnership) on 07/03/11 to “continue to build on the discussions”, following ‘A Partnership Response to the cuts in Poole’ meeting on the 24/11/10.
Public Rights of Way:
Westminster Road end of Dalkeith Road – No new developments.
Buccleuch Road to Lakeside Road – ditto
Bessborough Road – ditto
Footpath 82 Spur –Sandbanks Boatyard & Marina Co. Ltd. did not appeal against the Definitive Modification Order to add Footpath 82 Spur. Further developments are awaited
Possible Charitable Status for Assn: JS has still to set up a small Sub-Committee to look at this.
Canford Cliffs Play Area/Pinecliff Gardens (Sunken garden): JS reported that WH had written to Legal & Democratic Services confirming the Assn’s agreement to the heads of terms.
The Assn’s proposal is to maintain the eastern and western rockeries, together with the eastern and western sunken gardens.
Once the agreement has been formalised, work will commence on the eastern rockery, which will be cleared and replanted with alpine and rockery plants, then progress to the western rockery, following completion of which a plan will be designed for the sunken gardens.
CD reported that the Council are hoping to formalise the agreement by the end of February and that the project is gathering momentum.
Public Liability Insurance (PLI) – JS is pursuing.
Poole Council’s Efficiency Review Programme: The Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) 2011/12 to 2013/14 presented at last night’s Cabinet meeting referred to “delivering targeted savings totalling £5.385m in new savings and efficiencies in support of the MTFP” with £560k of one-off funding set aside to support the Programme and no proposals to increase this further during 2011/12.
JS said that he will include the calculation of the £5.385m in the Minutes but there appears to be no Action Plan with timelines to achieve these savings. He has written to Cllr Mrs Haines about this in her capacity as Chairman of the Council Efficiency & Effectiveness Overview & Scrutiny Committee
Efficiency Review Project
Agreed savings target
ICT Print Strategy
Admin Accommodation
Revenues & Benefits
Customer Transport
Staff Training & Development
Employee costs
Localism and Decentralisation Bill:
JS said that a plain English guide describing the main measures of the Localism Bill under the following four headings has been published.
new freedoms and flexibilities for local government new rights and powers for communities and individuals reform to make the planning system more democratic and more effective reform to ensure that decisions about housing are taken locally
This runs to 21 pages and is available via the Dept. for Communities & Local Government website
<http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/localgovernment/localismplainenglishguide>
3. NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENT
JS reported that Keith Alcroft had, once again, not been contacted about any planning application during the course of the month.
JS had been contacted today about 63 Haven Road (Outline application to erect four detached houses with parking/garaging provisions and formation of vehicular accesses (existing dwelling to be demolished)- subject to ‘Written representations’ appeal (APP/Q1255/A/11/2145209). Interested party comments required by 14/03/11. The Canford Cliffs Land Society do not want to see the houses as they would have an access onto Bessborough Road which we see to be undesirable. The flats we can live with as there are flats all the way down Haven Road now, but at least the garden space at the rear would be retained.
3 Maxwell Road (Demolish existing building and erect 1 pair of semi-detached 4 bed houses) – Officer’s recommendation to refuse over-turned by Planning Committee at their meeting on 20/01/11.
Martin Heath informed the meeting that he had been tracking this planning application and was surprised at the Planning Committee’s decision to grant. He described the sequence of events and some of the issues of the case. These included the Red Carding procedure where a resident who is aware that the Planning Officer is likely to recommend a refusal, asks a Councillor for the application to go to the Planning Committee, the length of the consultation period and whether the Committee were swayed by the Agent’s exaggerated claim of neighbour support. He also noted that no reason for the decision, which was contrary to the Case Officer’s recommendation, is recorded in the meeting minutes.
After MH’s report, there was some discussion on ‘red carding’ and the Ward Councillors present gave their opinions.
It was suggested that these issues be raised at the next meeting of the Community Working Group.
Other current planning issues
Land at 8 Buccleuch Road (Creation of 1 No. new dwelling with 2 No. off road parking spaces) Cllr Sorton has red-carded this application, if the planning officer is not minded to refuse this.
7 Ventry Close (Erection of 1no. dwelling and rationalisation of garage accommodation to no 7 Ventry Close) – Application registered on 15/10/10. Revised site location plan lodged on 03/12/10. Cllr Sorton has red-carded this application, if the planning officer is not minded to refuse this.
8 Shore Road – BPCCRA will continue to monitor possible tree work application. An entrance has been created on the Haven Road side of this property. This property is up for sale at ‘offers’ in excess of £2m.
60A Kings Avenue (Tree Replacement Notices to replant 3 Scots Pines) – Confirmation awaited that the Council’s Arboriculturist visited both 60 and 60a to check tree issues and that letters sent to the owners requesting planting under Treework/Planning conditions.
4. REPORT RE CANFORD CLIFFS & PENN HILL AREA COMMITTEE MEETING (26/01/11)
The meeting included a presentation about the Canford Cliffs Play Area and a lively discussion on the proposals to install parking meters on the Sandbanks Peninsula. MH reports that the Sandbanks parking meter proposal will not be progressed at the present time.
William Mutlow added that there had been a debate about the effectiveness of the Area Committee. WM said that the change in the composition of the Area Committees in 2003 had not proved to be a good idea as decisions about matters in Parkstone Ward were now decided by Members for Newtown Ward, whereas these were more likely to affect residents in Canford Cliffs & Penn Hill Wards. He cited the recent discussion about the Sandbanks Road railway bridge.
Chairman’s Note: The Forward Plan for the Council Efficiency And Effectiveness Overview And Scrutiny Committee says “Review of Area Committees – to be programmed into the Forward Plan for Spring 2011 as this will be a resource intensive exercise”.
5. REPORT RE MEETING WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION ACTION AND COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, FOLLOWED BY INFORMAL MEETING WITH RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES (28/01/11)
JS said that Terry Stewart had written a comprehensive report on this meeting and he would include this in the Minutes – see below
NS was expressed disappointment that no representatives from Commerce & Industry attended the meeting and JS said that TS had also commented on the very poor attendance – out of the 40 some Residents’ and Community Associations in Poole, there were only 12 residents in attendance.
Note provided by TS of presentations by the Leader of the Council, Cllr Ms Elaine Atkinson & the Chief Financial Officer, Liz Wilkinson. Mrs Wilkinson’s additions to TS notes are shown in italics
1. Financial Cuts
• Required cuts to Council Budgets because of Government cuts ; 2011-2: £15m.2012-3: £8m. 2013-4: £10m. These were the figures as quoted on the slide included in the presentation. I noted in my presentation however, that on-going work on the Budget since the presentation had originally been prepared, meant that the forecast resourcing gap up to 2013/14 had been reduced to £13m overall – of which £4.5 in now forecast in 2012/13 and £8.5m in 2013/14 as the 2011/12 now balances to nil – these are the figures reported in the Budget report to Cabinet next week.
• If cuts were to come solely from job reduction this would mean 370 post reductions.
• But with good planning there will be about 50 compulsory redundancies and about 40 voluntary ones. The latest advice from the Head of HR as of Tuesday this week is that a total of 162 FTE posts are expected to be made redundant from the Council’s staffing establishment. These will be achieved through the deletion of vacant posts, not replacing staff due to retire, voluntary and compulsory redundancies. The maximum number of people expected to be made redundant on a compulsory basis is 50.
• There is a cut of 55% in the capital budget. Not quite – I made reference to the size of the cuts made to certain capital grants in the settlement – I think I made reference as an example to the 55% cut made in capital grants to schools as reported to Children’s Overview & Scrutiny Committee in the last few days by the responsible officers. The distinction is important because whilst capital grants are an important funding stream that the Council relies on to support its capital programme, they do not constitute the whole of the capital programme (as it is also funded from other sources too i.e. revenue contributions, capital receipts etc.
• This will mean a reorganisation of Council Departments. Only 7% cut in grants to voluntary bodies. Average of 7% in respect of the Communities portfolio area.
• No introduction of fortnightly bin collections.
• No closure of libraries, but some opening hours reduced and some staff reductions.
• Continual downsizing of Council Departments, reduction of posts.
• Bournemouth is outsourcing most of their admin costs, but Poole is not convinced.
• Considering joint operation for services with Bournemouth, implemented Adult Teaching.
• Council Gross Revenue Budget = £330 million, but if school expenditure is excluded 2011-2 Budget is £98 million. Not quite right. I said the Gross revenues Budget in 2010/11 was approx. £330m (including schools). The Net Budget Requirement for the Council in 2010/11 was £98m. The Net Budget requirement is the composite amount of general formula grant and monies to be levied from local Council Tax to achieve a balanced budget (having first deducted specific grants funded nationally – which includes things like direct schools grant and housing benefits payments). The Gross Budget figure is more relevant therefore in discussing the relative size/activity of a Council. The Net Budget requirement figure however is needed to calculate the rate of local Council Tax (i.e. service costs not otherwise funded by specific grant, local fees and income or by general formula grant).
• Council rents will increase 6.34%, but this is set by Government.
• Wage increase on April 1: 0%. This is the assumption made in the Budget proposed for Cabinet consideration next week.
• Reserves will be reduced to £5.9 million at April 1, 2011. Final figure proposed is £5.96m for 11/12
• Beach hut and parking charges increased substantially, additional parking meters installed such as all Sandbanks Roads.
• 2011-2 Council contribution for staff pensions will be 17.5%. 17.6% Increased to 18% 18.1% in 2012-3.
• Poole pensions are part of the Dorset County Pension Fund which is 80% funded (unlike central Government civil servants which are unfunded,i.e. current central pensions are paid for from current pension contributions. With longer living there is a MASSIVE pension liability.)
• The average pension that a Poole employee receives is only £4,000 per year. I said that Lord Hutton’s initial conclusions were that public sector pensions were not ‘gold plated’ and that the average public sector pension was according to his report, £4k. I did comment that clearly the pensions of some individuals who earn considerably more than the average employee would be in receipt of larger pensions as Lord Hutton’s figures are based on national averages.
2. Problems
The main cause of future financial pressures :
(a) Major future demographic increase in age 65+ and 85+.
(b) Increased birth rate by Poole residents, needing additional school places.
Apparently Poole currently has a low inward migration rate.
But with the planned 10,000 additional households in Poole this will mean population increases.
(c) Poole has a Government grant £155 per head less than Bournemouth. £164 less than the average for all unitary authorities and £151 less than Bournemouth.
(d) Most Councils have 50% of their revenue from Government grants, for Poole it is only 33%, so Council taxpayers have to make higher contribution. Final figures now determined for central: local funding shows that
• Unitary average 48:52
• Poole 30:70
3. Future Action
Draft Budget to Cabinet: Feb. 8.
Council approves final Budget: March 1.
Government wants zero tax increase, so like to give a 2.5% extra grant if this is implemented.
Police & Fire Service have yet to agree their precepts, Government pressure for zero increase.
Department Heads have to propose 2012-3 spend by June. Next budget round for 2012/13 will start in earnest across Service Units from June onwards with SUHs being required to begin working up proposals for 2012/13 budget purposes and next year’s re-fresh of the MTFP.
6. REPORT RE WORKSHOP EVENT RE TRANSPARENCY WEBSITE (28/01/11)
WH reported on the Workshop which had been held to show us how to use the transparency page on the BoP website. This is about 4 weeks behind the current date and amongst other things shows the Council expenditure over £500 – each month a new monthly section will be shown.
This data is also available on a page showing the date over a 12 month period. This is useful as it allows the user to compare the BoP data with any one of the 70 or so other local authorities using this system.
7. ACCOUNTS TO DATE – JS reported that the total funds as at 31st January amounted to £33,203.72
8. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Hedge at Kenilworth Court – MH reports that work was due to commence yesterday, though she has not had a chance to go by to inspect as yet. The Highway’s enforcement officer is keeping a close eye on this issue.
Vera Solomon – Geoff Solomon, a former Vice-Chairman (1996-1999) and Chairman (1999) of the Assn, telephoned this morning to say that his wife, Vera, had recently passed away and it was likely that he would be moving away from the area. A new Road Warden will be needed for Potters Way.
Data Protection Officer – JS reported that Stan Alfert will be stepping down as Data Protection Officer at the next AGM. JS said that he was, naturally, sorry about this but did understand his reasons, particularly as he had been looking after the Membership database for the last 15/20 years.
SA has kindly offered to print off 2 copies of the Wardens lists as at 31 Dec for Michael Bond within the next couple of months and also the Wardens’ labels, as this will give us a ‘breathing space’ to consider the way forward.
Date of next Meeting: Wednesday 9th March 2011 in the Main Hall at Branksome St Aldhelm’s All Parish Centre (Entrance via Lindsay Road)
Posted in Residents Association Minutes / Tagged 2011, Aims, application, association, BPCCRA, Branksome Park, Canford Cliffs, chine, community, council tax, development, Dorset, February, Lilliput, magazine, Meeting, minutes, neighbourhood, objectives, opposition, Parkstone, Penn Hill, planning, planning inspectorate, play area, police, Poole, property, residents, Sandbanks, st.Aldhelms
Identity Fraud threat after post stolen from external post boxes
Posted on March 16, 2010 by Ben Harris
p>Dear Resident
THEFT OF MAIL FROM EXTERNAL MAIL BOXES
Following a number of recent thefts from external mail boxes situated on the garden wails of large houses in the Dorset area, Police are asking residents to be extra careful and to be aware of “id theft”.
Officers from the Economic Crime Unit want to make residents aware that theft from mail boxes, to offenders opening up credit card accounts and taking out loans in your name, which you will r about until you are refused a credit card or you start receiving letters from solicitors or debt coilectors, debts that aren’t yours.
To lower your chances of becoming a victim, please consider taking the following action:
Stop using your external mail box. if you can not do this then ensure it is secure i.e. mail cannot be retrieved from the slot with a hand or instrument.
Promptly remove mail. If a piece of mail does not arrive or you stop receiving mail, chase up with the sender or contact the post office.
If you go on holiday, get a neighbour or fnend to remove the mail and keep it safely for your return
Regularly check your personal credit file (this costs as little as £2) from a credit reference agency (Experian, Equifax, CallCredit) to see if it includes any entries you do not recognise follow up any recent accounts you do not recognise.
www.callcredit.plc.uk telephone 0870 060 1414
www.equifax.co.uk telephone 0870 010 0583
www.experian.co.uk telephone 0870 241 6212
Register with CIFAS protective registration www.cifas.org.uk. When an application is made to open an account, the financial institution will check your credit rating with one of the age mentioned above. They will then undertake additional verification checks to ensure the application is genuine. You will have to pay for this service.
If you would like any more information then please contact me on the above number or contact) local Safer Neighbourhood Team Officer on 01202 22 22 22.
Debbie Oldfield
Crime Reduction Advisor
Bournemouth and Poole Division
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Posted in Poole Safer Neighbourhood Newsletter / Tagged 2010, Branksome Park, burglaries, Canford Cliffs, chine BPCCRA, community, Dorset, February, neighbourhood, police, Poole, post
BPCCRA February Minutes Posted
To see the Branksome Park and Canford Cliffs Resident Association Meeting February 2010 minutes please click here…
Cabinet meeting recommends 2.9% Council Tax Rise.
Canford Cliffs Play Area “on hold”.
Notice Board for Library ordered.
Carol Parkin appointed new Minutes Secretary from April 2010.
11 Leicester Road Care Home Application – Planning Inquiry on 20/04/2010 at the Guildhall at 10:00 am. Please attend to show the strength of local feeling.
Date of next meeting Wednesday 10th march, St. Aldhelms.
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Posted in Branksome Park / Tagged 2010, application, association, Branksome Park, Canford Cliffs, council tax, development, February, library, Meeting, play area, property, residents
BPCCRA Minutes February 10th 2010
MINUTES OF THE BRANKSOME PARK, CANFORD CLIFFS & DISTRICT RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE MEETING
HELD ON WEDNESDAY 10th FEBRUARY 2010 AT 7.30PM
IN THE LOUNGE, BRANKSOME ST. ALDHELM’S PARISH CENTRE
John Sprackling – Chairman
Keith Alcroft – Planning Officer
Stan Alfert – Data Protection Officer
Val Short – Minutes Secretary
Cllr Mrs May Haines – Ward Councillor
Cllr Neil Sorton – Ward Councillor
20 Members/Wardens
JS welcomed MH NS, those present for the first time and all those present.
Apologies: Apologies received from Terry Stewart (Holiday), John Defty, Bob & Phyllis Young, Peter DuLieu, Ken Sanson, Chairman, Sandbanks Assn
2. Poole Pottery factory buildings in Sopers Lane – A planning application to erect a 116 bed care home with an associated Day Centre.was registered on 18/01/10.
Former Poole Pottery & Swan Inn site – No new developments
Quay Thistle Hotel site –
5. Old Orchard House. 39-61. High Street – a statement in the accounts for Coltham Orchard Ltd for the year to 30/11/08 seems to contradict 3.5 of the report of former Head of Planning Control & Design presented to the Planning Committee on 11/12/08. The Head of Legal & Democratic Services does not feel that this is material from a planning point of view “at this stage”. JS is pursuing this with BDO Stoy Hayward LLP, the accountants acting for Coltham Orchard Ltd.
75 Canford Cliffs Road (Alterations to existing entrance to form new vehicular access with gates) – Amended plans refused on 07/12/09. The owner has been asked to undertake the works to reinstate the boundary by 22/03/10.
55 Canford Cliffs Road (Front boundary treatment and gates does not comply with Branksome Park Conservation Area Character Appraisal and Management Plan) – a formal notice is being served.
19 Mornish Road (Tree replacement) – Preparation for presentation of the details of this case to legal advisers are underway.
15A Westminster Road – Planning Enforcement Officer was visiting site on 04/02/10 to see if the Notice served last year has been complied with yet.
Bella Rosa, 37 Haven Road – No new developments.
2 Compton Avenue & 93 Lilliput Road – ditto
Community Working Group (CWG), Progress re Sir Michael Pitt’s recommendations & IDeA Report: Roy Pointer reported on CWG meeting held on 20/01/10…
Pre-application advice – Concern has been expressed about the delay in the pre-application advice appearing on the website. Stephen Thorne has agreed to look into speeding up the process but said that it is not essential for them to be displayed before a determination just as long as they are displayed.
Ward Walks – The Spring Ward Walk is planned for 14th April 2010. Residents should bring matters to their Councillors that they wish to be discussed during the walk. NS reminded members that Ward Walks are not intended for discussing particular planning applications, just the general character of the area.
Sea Defences and Flooding – The group were informed that an external consultant has been commissioned to look into what flood defence measures are required to protect the town centre up to 2026, including costs. .
Major applications and developments – The level of engagement with the community representatives was questioned with regard to major applications and developments.
Newsletter – a 2nd edition of the Planning & Regeneration Unit’s newsletter is currently being worked on the next and the aim is to release this by 19th February.
Annual Meeting – The Community Working Group has now been running for a year and it was always the intention that it will have a 50% refresh at the point of the annual meeting. RP said that the Assn has been one of the most active contributors to the group we should do what it can to retain its seat on the Group.
JS said he would circulate the full Minutes of the meeting with the Assn’s Minutes.
Poole Beaches and Coastal Defences: JS reminded members that comments on Poole & Christchurch Bays Shoreline Management Plan are required by 17/02/10. A comment form can be downloaded from the website www.twobays.net
Council Tax 2010/11 & Council’s Budget Monitoring report: JS reported that the Council’s 2010/11 Budget was presented at last night’s Cabinet meeting and a 2.9% rise in Council Tax is to be recommended at next week’s Council meeting.
William Mutlow reported that the Council’s Financial Monitoring Report as at 31/12/09 shows a current forecast underspend of just under £1.9m. This includes a provisional Housing & Planning Delivery Grant of £1.1m recently received from Central Government Without this the underspend would have been £0.8m.. The unearmarked reserves for the next financial year is £6.7m – £7m’
At the last meeting, WM queried the Council’s use of ‘Earmarked Reserves’ which were not shown in the Original Budget, seemingly to ‘balance the books’ . Adam Richens, Head of Accountancy
“…Earmarked Reserves are amounts set aside to support one-off costs pressure associated with a specific project or programme where the expenditure will fall over more than one period of the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP). They are not included in the budget book due to the uncertainties around the exact timing of the expenditure.
As an example in September 2008 the Council established a £300,000 earmarked reserve to be applied in support of the Carbon Management Programme over the MTFP period.
Within the Council’s December 2009/10 Budget Monitoring report (Appendix A8) £73,000 has been identified as the forecast expenditure to be spent in supporting the Carbon Reduction Programme in 2009/10. The £3.149m total use of earmarked reserves figure (Appendix A1) includes the estimated drawdown of this £73,000.”
Poole Partnership: JS reported that the State of the Area Debate meeting has been re-scheduled for tomorrow (11/02/10).
Canford Cliffs Village & proposal to plant trees in Haven Road: MH reported that Highways have reprinted the maps from the internet, hopefully they will be better, but it is probably as good as they will get!
Westminster Road end of Dalkeith Road – No further developments
Canford Cliffs Play Area/Pinecliff Gardens (Sunken garden): MH reported that the Canford Cliffs Play Area had been “put on hold”.
JS reported on the meeting with Simon Legg and Karen Elborn, Natural Habitats Supervisor, Borough of Poole which took place on 20/01/10. Also present were Cllrs Mrs Haines, Neil Sorton, Keith Alcroft & Ian Lewis, Chairman of Dorset Lake Residents’ Assn.
The planting in the sunken garden is be improved and the shrubbery immediately below the Southern wall is to be cut back to allow a better view in the direction of the Isle of Wight. It may be possible, in the longer term, to remove the holm oak on the cliff face to provide a better view of the harbour.
It has been suggested that the Assn should take advantage of the Green Card scheme which allows local residents, community groups and other organisations to apply for new or improved leisure related facilities in parks or other open spaces across the Borough. The Green Card application form can be downloaded from the BoP website and JS is looking for a volunteer willing to take this forward.
Use of Assn’s Capital Reserve & Canford Cliffs Library Noticeboard: JS reported that the Canford Cliffs Library noticeboard is on order.
Mobile ‘Phone Mast, Elgin Road: A Prior Approval application to remove the existing 12 metre pole and replace with a 15 metre high pole & an additional cabinet at ground level was granted on 18/10/10.
KA reported…
Land adj 1 Over Links Drive (Sever land and erect a new detached house (Revised Scheme) – Application refused by Planning Committee on 10/12/09 is now the subject of appeal (APP/Q1255/A/10/2120940) to be determined at a Hearing. The final date for Statements & representations is 10/03/10.
Roland Cunnell suggested that Members might like to write to the Planning Inspectorate (using the on-line facility available via the Planning Inspectorate’s website <http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/public/planning/appeals/search/>) to show the strength of local feeling.
7A Bury Road (Demolition of the existing bungalow and detached garage and an amended proposal for a new 3 storey detached dwelling) – Appeal dismissed on 03/02/10.
JS reported that the application for 29 Links Road (Demolish existing dwelling and sever land to erect 2 detached town houses) is due to be determined at tomorrow’s meeting of Planning Committee. The officer’s recommendation is to ‘Grant Subject to Unilateral Undertaking’.
NS reported that the Planning Inquiry for 11 Leicester Road has been fixed for 20/04/10 and three days had been set aside for this. This will be an important test case for Branksome Park
(a) Outline application to erect a 59 bedroom care home (class C2) with associated parking (15 spaces), bin & cycle store (revised scheme) – (APP/Q1255/A/09/2118175)
(b) Conservation Area application to demolish existing dwelling & associated buildings (revised scheme) – (APP/Q1255/E/09/2118176.
6 Durrant Road Demolish existing dwelling and erect x2 detached dwellings. (Revised Scheme) As amended by plans received 01/10/09) – Application refused under delegated authority on 11/12/09, now the subject of Written Representations appeals (APP/Q1255/A/10/2121180). The final date for Statements & representations is 10/03/10
24 Cliff Drive (Extension to existing beach hut & relocate steps (revised Scheme) – Letter of objection lodged on behalf of Assn on 08/01/10.
4 Lawrence Drive (Demolish existing buildings and erect 1 block of 8 apartments with assoc parking) – Letter of objection lodged by Assn on 20/11/09. Amended plans lodged on 18/11/09 and application has been ‘Red-carded’. Note from Tree Officer dated 19/01/10 – “No objection”.
The Cottage, Kingsgate, 7 The Avenue (Demolish existing property and erect 5 replacement Townhouses) – Amended plans lodged on 30/11/09.
10 Nairn Road (Demolish the existing house and erect 2 x 4 bedroom maisonettes with associated parking) – Application registered on 24/08/09. Letter of objection by Assn lodged on 10/10/09. Amended plans lodged on 27/11/09. Letter of objection from Natural England registered on 07/12/09.
Canford Cliffs, Promenade 2 (a) Construction of 18 new beach huts – Application No: 08/24380/005/F & (b) Conservation Area application to demolish 8 beach huts (nos 99-106) adjacent to Canford Cliffs Chine. Application No: 08/24380/007/U The applications were registered as long ago as 22/01/08 &13/02/08 respectively. MH will keep the Assn advised of any further developments.
19 Sandbourne Road (Demolish existing and erect 5 apartments over 3 storeys with basement parking and associated cycle and bin store) – S106 details to be submitted before determining.
4-6 Compton Avenue (Non material amendment of planning permission 06/12687/005/F to extend basement parking, an additional staircase, two roof lights, convert half gable window to full height) – Application registered on 14/10/09. There is a technical issue regarding the minor amendment, in relation to correctly linking the amendment scheme to the section 106 agreement of permission 07/12687/006/F which the LPA are trying to sought out with the agent.
8 Shore Road – BPCCRA will continue to monitor possible tree work application. An entrance has been created on the Haven Road side of this property.
60A Kings Avenue (Tree Replacement Notices to replant 3 Scots Pines) – Confirmation awaited that the Council’s Arboriculturist visited both 60 and 60a to check tree issues and that letters sent to the owners requesting planting under Treework/Planning conditions
4. PRESENTATION ON CONSERVATION AREAS
Warren Lever, Environment and Design Team Leader gave an interesting and informative insight into
Character Appraisals in Conservation Areas
Design Judgement and Assessment for planning applications
Character and By Design/PPS1 – raising the bar.
Characterisation Work of Borough
NS: What is professional relationship between design officer and case officers?
WL: The design officer can offer advice, but the case officer is not bound to follow the recommendations
NS: Should they not be on the ‘same side’?
WL: Not always. There needs to be more training on design issues for planning officers. ‘Building for life’ assessment is driving up quality.
Roy Pointer: The character of buildings in Branksome Park has not been consistent in the developments during the past 10 years or so (e.g. Thunderbirds / traditional) and there is no longer a defined architectural style. New development cannot rectify the mistakes.
WL: Planners need to assess the character of the street, although it is easier to define the character in some places than in others, and then try to guide in the right direction.
A member It sets a precedent if “thing” is built in the middle of “good stuff”, this can lead to problems.
WL: The prevailing grain and form of buildings in the area is the main guideline and sometimes the inspectorate with agree, sometimes not.
A member: Who decides where conservation areas are to be?
WL: The local authority. The aim is to raise the quality of the area, but you have to draw a line somewhere. A definite character trait is needed, and adjacent areas are also important.
SA: To what extent will planners change attitudes to ‘bits in the middle’?
WL This comes back to the issue of Borough-wide Conservation Area guidelines.
Chris Stacey There is a large amount of anger in the area over the characterisation of the Lilliput area being turned into a ‘Florida seafront’ with characterless properties not of lasting quality. The constant building sites and associated traffic is upsetting local residents as it has been going on for some time.
WL It is hoped that characterisation work will help with policies.
NS Conservation area status gives greater powers to the local authority.
CANFORD CLIFFS & PENN HILL AREA COMMITTEE MEETING (04/02/09) As TS was not present there was no report but the Agenda included reports on
Pinecliff Gardens (Sunken Garden) – see above
Tower Road (Request for parking restrictions) – The Traffic Panel met on 25/11/09 and recommended no action.
Pedestrian lights at the Branksome Railway Hotel – It is argued that, before timing of the lights was changed, pedestrians were having a disproportionate effect on traffic congestion.
Chairman’s note: I do not accept this argument as, if a pedestrian presses the button and gets and immediate response, the traffic has to stop. If a pedestrian presses the button and has to wait for a minute, the traffic will still have to stop. However, I fear that this is a lost cause.
5. ACCOUNTS TO DATE – JS reported that JD had asked to step down as Hon Treasurer and he has approached another member to take over this role. The individual is willing to do so but already has e regular commitment on the 2nd Wednesday of each month which means that he would not be able to attend the Assn’s monthly meetings, although he will be able to attend the AGM.
No member raised any particular objection to the idea of the treasurer not being able to attend meetings, as cash statements will distributed in the normal way and any queries can dealt with by
e-mail/telephone, as the need arises.
Chairman’s note: The total funds at 31st January 2010 stand at £34,571.89.
6.ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Minutes Secretary – JS said that he had been seeking someone to succeed Val Short but, so far, without success.
Chairman’s note: I’m pleased to say that Carol Parkin, who is a Trustee of Canford Cliffs Village Hall,
has kindly agreed to take over the role of Minutes Secretary from 14/04/10.
The meeting closed at 9.00pm
Date of next meeting: The next meeting is Wednesday 10th March 2010 in the Main Hall at Branksome St Aldhelm’s Parish Centre (Entrance via Lindsay Road)
Posted in Residents Association Minutes / Tagged application, association, BPCCRA, Branksome Park, Canford Cliffs, chine, chine BPCCRA, development, February, planning, property, residents / 2 Comments
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West Germany: Motor Cycle Grand Prix: 125 C.C And 250 C.C. Events. 1966
VLVA2KO6L49VXDOPMVR46J3NIR75F-WEST-GERMANY-MOTOR-CYCLE-GRAND-PRIX-125-CC-AND-250-CC-EVENTS
A CROWD OF 70,000 WATCHED THE WEST GERMANY MOTOR CYCLE GRAND PRIX - THE SECOND EVENT IN THIS YEAR'S MOTOR CYCLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP.
THE 125 c.c. AND 250 c.c. EVENT - SOUND THROUGHOUT.
Initials AA/V/RM/EEH
SPORT: MOTORCYCLE RACING
Background: A CROWD OF 70,000 WATCHED THE WEST GERMANY MOTOR CYCLE GRAND PRIX - THE SECOND EVENT IN THIS YEAR'S MOTOR CYCLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. THE RACES WERE HELD TODAY (SUNDAY) AT A NEWLY BUILT TRACK AT HOCKENHEIM, NEAR HEIDELBERG.
THE RACES PROVED AN OVERWHELMING TRIUMPH FOR JAPANESE - BUILT MOTOR CYCLES, WHICH DOMINATED THE ENTRIES IN BOTH THE 125 c.c. AND THE 250 c.c. EVENTS.
THE 125 c.c. EVENT WAS RUN OVER 15 LAPS OF THE NEW MOTODROM CIRCUIT - A DISTANCE OF 71.46 MILES (115 KILOMETRES). THE RACE WAS ONE BY LUIGI TAVERI OF SWITZERLAND RIDING A HONDA. HE WAS 12 SECONDS AHEAD OF HIS NEAREST RIVAL WITH AN AVERAGE SPEED OF 100.66 MILES AN HOUR (162.5 KPH). SECOND WAS BRITON RALPH BRYANS, ALSO RIDING A HONDA, 11 SECONDS AHEAD OF FELLOW COUNTRYMAN PHIL READ ON A YAMAHA. FRANK PERRES OF CANADA, RIDING A SUZUKI, WAS PLACED FOURTH.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP PLACINGS IN THE 125 c.c. CLASS ARE NOW: TAVERI 14 POINTS; BRYANS 10 POINTS, AND BILL IVY OF BRITAIN, 8 POINTS.
JAPANESE CYCLES TOOK THE FIRST THREE PLACES IN THE 250c.c EVENT WITH MIKE HAILWOOD ESTABLISHING HIS POSITION AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE. HAILWOOD ON A HONDA COMPLETED THE 23 LAPS OF THE 96.6 MILE (155.6 KPH) RACE IN 53 MINUTES 5 SECONDS, AN AVERAGE SPEED OF 109.2 MILES AN HOUR (175.8 KPH). JIM REDMAN OF RHODESIA, ANOTHER HONDA RIDER, WAS LESS THAN A SECOND BEHIND HAILWOOD. BILL IVY WAS THIRD ON A YAMAHA, AND DEREK WOODMAN, TWO LAPS BEHIND, CAME FOURTH ON A M.Z.
HAILWOOD NOW HAS 16 POINTS IN THE 250 c.c. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE. WOODMAN IS NEXT WITH 9 POINTS AND REDMAN HAS 6 POINTS.
VLVA2KO6L49VXDOPMVR46J3NIR75F
Northern Counties C.C. Championship
Yorkshiremen do well in Northern Counties Cross Country Championship at Alderley Park.
National Cc Championship
Cross country race is won by Frenchman J. Guillemot.
Cricket Aka Cricket - Renters V Exhibitors
Cricket match between Renters and Exhibitors, Pembroke, Wales.
Monza - Duke Wins Grand Prix
F. Anderson wins 350 c.c. race and Geoff Duke wins 500 c.c. race during Italian Grand Prix.
Britain Wins Championship Aka 250 Cc Trophie Des Nations
250 CC Trophie Des Nations moto-cross competition is won by British riders.
Motorcycle Grand Prix
The 250 cc and 500 cc races from the Ulster Motorcycle Grand Prix.
T.T. Races At Assen, Denmark
Races in progress, 50 cc won by Taveri and 500 cc won by Reman.
First Look At Cc 5 Hovercraft
First look of the hovercraft CC 5 on Isle of Wight.
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Greece: Greeks Stay At Home To Hear President Papadopoulos Announce The Restoration Of Civil Liberties. 1973
VLVA3DTBVWF628WGM5Z4R7NUVY2SP-GREECE-GREEKS-STAY-AT-HOME-TO-HEAR-PRESIDENT-PAPADOPOULOS
The centre of Athens was almost deserted on Sunday (August 19) as Greeks stayed home to watch their new President, George Papadopoulos announce a general amnesty for political prisoners, a restoration of civil liberties and the speeding up of procedures for Parliamentary elections to be held next year.
GV Pan Homia Square almost deserted
SV Pan flags in Square
CU Int Armed Forces T.V. Studios, operator at console Pan to TV screens with Papadopoulos speaking.
SV Monitoring screens during speech
CU Papadopoulos on TV in private home with family listening to speech(4 shots)
Initials AE/16.47 AE/17.03
Background: The centre of Athens was almost deserted on Sunday (August 19) as Greeks stayed home to watch their new President, George Papadopoulos announce a general amnesty for political prisoners, a restoration of civil liberties and the speeding up of procedures for Parliamentary elections to be held next year.
President papadopoulos's televised speech to the Greek people came only a few hours after he had been sworn in as the first President of the new Greek Republic.
The new President, who has ruled Greece as Prime Minister and Regent for six years, got massive support in the July 298 referendum which approved the setting up of a republic and sealed the abolition of the monarchy.
On Monday (August 20) the Greek Cabinet met to approve the general amnesty for 300 political prisoners announced by President Papadopoulos.
This amnesty includes a pardon for Alexandros Panagoulis convicted of trying to assassinate Mr. Papadopoulos in 1968.
The 54 year old former artillery colonel who masterminded the Army coup in 1967, also announced the lifting of martial law from the Athens and Piraeus areas, where it has been in force since the coup.
A few hours before the swearing in ceremony constitutional changes approved in the referendum were published, restoring civil liberties and human rights articles suspended for the six years of his rule.
These articles also provide for freedom of expression and of the press.
LIBERTIES.
VLVA3DTBVWF628WGM5Z4R7NUVY2SP
Aviation: The Aeroplane "Question Mark" Stays In The Air For Six Days Due To Mid-Air Fuelling
Video Roll Title: Airplane 'Question mark' stays aloft six days thanks to mid-air fuelling:
Usa: Harpo Marx Returns From Stay In Russia
HARPO COMES HOME Harpo, Marx Brothers silent member, returns from stay in Russia. When asked?
Israel: Stay Of Expulsion For Black Hebrews.
A stay of expulsion has been granted to eight Black Hebrews who arrived in Israel in October on tourist visas and declared that Israel was their homeland "by the will of God".
Britain: Saudi Arabia And Britain Sign Contract For "Stay Fresh" Milk
BRITAIN AND SAUDI ARABIA HAVE SIGNED A CONTRACT IN BRITAIN WORTH GBP125,000 FOR A HUGE AMOUNT OF "STAY FRESH" MILK.
Eire: Aftermath Of Bomb Blast At Abbeyleix Where Princess Margaret And Lord Snowdon Staying
IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, TEN MEN WERE CHARGED TODAY (FRIDAY) FOLLOWING THE BOMB EXPLOSION AT ABBEYLEIX HOUSE, WHERE PRINCESS MARGARET AND LORD SNOWDON ARE STAYING.
Scotland: Scottish Colliery Strike: Miners Stayed Underground
Fifty-eight miners in Scotland stayed two days underground to protest the threatened closure of their pit at Devon Colliery, near Alloa, Clackmannanshire.
Egypt: U.N. Troops Stay But Tension Remains.
Although the United Nations Emergency Force is to stay in the Sinai tension between Egypt and israel is still running high.
Politics: Former Czechoslovakian President Staying In Putney
Dr Eduard Benes, former Czechoslovakian President, staying in house at Putney to recuperate.
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Brooklyn Wargaming
President of Metropolitan Wargamers in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NYC
28mm WWII
28mm Modelling
28mm After Action Reports
FOW After Action Reports
IABSM After Action Reports
6mm WWII
6mm Modelling
6mm After Action Reports
FaTDoG 2017
HMGS Fall In! 2017
NJCon 2015
HMGS Cold Wars 2012
HMGS Historicon 2011
Tag Archives: Star Wars X-Wing
Star Wars Legion: Rebel Troopers, AT-RT and Luke Skywalker
Before I was a gamer or miniatures modeler, I was a fan of Star Wars when my mom plopped me down in a movie theater seat in the summer of 1977. Over more than four decades of movies, TV shows, cartoons, books, action figures, puzzles, board games, shirts and all things Star Wars, I’ve remained a huge fan and raised my sons as second generation devotees to the space opera franchise.
Star Wars games in my collection from Fantasy Flight Games
All that said, my Star Wars gaming has been limited until recently. I jumped in early with Star Wars X-Wing, and I’ve added a bunch of other Star Wars games from Fantasy Flight Games to my collection over the years including Armada, Imperial Assault. Destiny and Rebellion.
In 2019, I picked up a copy of Star Wars Legion at a discount, opened it up, looked at the models, leafed through the rules and put it back on the shelf. In the past month, my sons and I decided to give it another look. One of my sons went to work painting up the Imperials and I tasked myself with painting the Rebel units.
I’m generally not a fan of plastic miniatures, but at the large 34mm scale, the figures are a joy to paint. The Rebel units have a lot of personality and detail with a mix of weapons and gear. The AT-RT and Luke Skywalker models are also a lot of fun, adding diversity to the two squads included in the base starter kit.
I was a bit skeptical of the skirmish nature of a Star Wars game, given the general epic proportion of the saga. The base set is a huge value for the amount of stuff that comes in the box, and the quality of the painted-up models really pops. With my first figures painted and a new dive into the rules, my mind has been changed. I’m going to be quickly adding more from the Legion game to my collection and playing out my own Star Wars stories on the table soon.
Rebel Troopers
Rebel MPL-57 Ion Trooper, Unit Leader and Z-6 Trooper
Rebel Trooper Squad
Rebel AT-RT and Luke Skywalker
Completed Rebel Troopers, AT-RT and Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars Legion Base Set
Posted in Star Wars Legion
Tagged 34mm, AT-RT, Empire, Fantasy Flight Games, Galactic Empire, Galactic Rebellion, Imperial, Imperials, Luke Skywalker, miniatures, painting, Rebel, Rebels, scale modelling, science fiction, Star Wars, Star Wars Armada, Star Wars Destiny, Star Wars Imperial Assault, Star Wars Legion, Star Wars Rebellion, Star Wars X-Wing, wargaming
A Place To Play: The Brooklyn Strategist
The Brooklyn Strategist was opened several years ago by Dr. Jon Freeman, a clinical psychologist, neuroscience researcher and life-long game fan. Situated along the main drag of Court Street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, has quickly grown to be a go-to gaming space for the Brownstone Brooklyn crowds of kids, families and adults.
Board games, card games and gaming accessories line the walls
The original storefront space of hardwood floors and exposed-brick walls holds a number of tables (including a stunning Sultan custom table from Geek Chic), shelves of games and accessories for sale, and a small coffee and snacks bar. In the spring of 2015, the store doubled in size next door. The new space added about a dozen more tables to accommodate the expanding children and adult programs, tournament events and growing miniatures gaming community.
The core of The Brooklyn Strategist is in its after school programming, and a packed regular schedule of events is also offered every day and night of the week. Magic: The Gathering card games are featured Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Mondays also showcase ongoing Star Wars X-Wing play, and other X-Wing events are held periodically with hosting by the NYC X-Wing group. Scrabble and chess take over Tuesday nights, and opportunities abound for Dungeons & Dragons and other RPG games Wednesdays and Saturdays. Hundreds of games are on hand to pull off the shelf to play.
Paying your way at The Brooklyn Strategist is a great deal with a $10 walk-in fee, individual memberships at $25 per month, couples at $45 per month and family packages at $60 per month. Each level of membership comes with a package of discounts and perks which encourages a solid community to fill the space all week long.
The expanded miniatures gaming selection includes Flames of War, Games Workshop, Star Wars X-Wing, Battle Foam cases, paints and other popular lines
This past weekend I had the opportunity to sit down with Colt Johnson who has worked hard for a year to expand the shop’s interest in miniatures gaming. Johnson said the miniatures scene is focusing right now on the “five food groups: Malifaux, Infinity, Warmachine, Games Workshop and Flames of War.” Over his time working at the store, the miniatures scene has grown from maybe a dozen players on a weekend afternoon to 40 to 50 packing the tables on a busy day. Organized miniatures tournaments, events and pick-up games rage on the tabletop battlefields, and players new to the hobby can drop in and whet their appetites using beautifully painted 28mm loaner models on hand in display cases throughout the store.
Miniatures gaming and painting gears up on a recent Saturday
A Warhammer 40K escalation league just kicked off with nearly 40 players signed up to play over the coming months. On the day I was there, 40K was very much in the air. A group of players from Staten Island were settling into their first games on some beautiful tables packed with terrain. One table over, a young girl who recently hosted a birthday party for 15 other girls at the store sat painting up her latest plastic goodies from Games Workshop. As the dice rolled, a phone call came in from someone who had just moved to the city and was looking to play some 40K.
Sci-fi and fantasy miniatures gaming clearly has a big following at the The Brooklyn Strategist, but historical gaming is newly on the rise. The popular World War II 15mm game Flames of War is a recent addition to the store’s minis mix, and this past weekend also presented a demo game of the 15mm Cold War-themed Team Yankee. WWII at 28mm with Bolt Action and even some 18th-century Blackpowder gaming is also on the horizon.
While growing every aspect of miniatures gaming, Johnson is hoping to push into even more historical gaming as both a hobby and way to create excitement for local kids and adults around learning about history through gaming and modelling. No matter the game, period, theme or level of experience, everyone who finds their way to the tables at The Brooklyn Strategist will find themselves in the right place.
The Brooklyn Strategist is located at 333 Court Street in Brooklyn, NY 11231 (a short walk from the F/G train at Carroll Street). Contact them at 718-576-3035 or check them out on their website or Facebook page. For news on the miniatures scene at the shop, check out their separate wargaming Facebook page.
Posted in A Place To Play, General Gaming
Tagged 15mm, 28mm, after school, Battlefront Miniatures, Blackpowder, board games, Bolt Action, brooklyn, card games, Carroll Gardens, Chess, Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy, Fantasy Flight Games, Flames of War, Games Workshop, Gekk Chic, Magic: The Gathering, Malifaux, miniatures, modelling, painting, role playing games, scale modelling, sci-fi, Scrabble, Star Wars X-Wing, Sultan, Team Yankee, The Brooklyn Strategist, wargaming, Warhammer 40K, Warlord Games
A Place To Play: Nu Brand Gaming
Tucked away on a residential side street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn is an inviting tabletop miniatures players paradise. Located in a former chiropractor’s office decked out in knotty pine paneling, wall to wall carpeting and an assortment of Americana and Wild West decor, Nu Brand Gaming opened in 2015 and is one of the newest and best gamer play spaces in the city.
One of the many racks of terrain throughout the space
Nu Brand is operated by Ade Sanya, the resident owner of the building and son of the doctor who formerly served patients in the rooms where dice are now rolled and minis are pushed on tabletop battlefields. With his family living upstairs, Ade has spent the past year creating an incredibly comfortable and inviting space for gamers focused on historic, fantasy and sci-fi miniatures. His skills as a carpenter and set builder are evident in the sturdy tables and racks of terrain found in the half-dozen well-lit rooms which radiate off the central hallway.
Hobby room with supplies and tools to lend
A small hobby room sits at the back of the building where tools and supplies are available for use by members and drop-ins who come to spend time modelling at one of the many comfortable work places throughout the rooms. A small galley kitchen offers drinks, snacks and a refrigerator for visitors to store their own food. Secured storage lockers are also made available to members to store their gaming gear.
Miniatures painting in the back room
Membership runs $30 a month at Nu Brand, and a day rate of just $10 is available for people who come to just give the place a try or participate in one of the many growing number of events scheduled. Members can also take advantage of retail discounts with several suppliers Nu Brand is working with to bring product to the community. The space is generally open Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
German Fallschirmjager and US Airborne troops clash in a Bolt Action game
US Airborne assault a German tank in Bolt Action
More Bolt Action gaming
My first visit to Nu Brand this past weekend found ten gamers playing in a day-long series of Bolt Action 28mm World War II games. Tables were gorgeous — from the towns of late-war Western France and the wintery ruins of an Eastern Front forest to an urban town fight and a clash on a Pacific Island. At the end of the day’s events, certificates were awarded for best painting and force lists, a raffle was held and announcements were made for the new monthly Brooklyn Bolt Action campaign kicking off at Nu Brand this month.
One of the Warmachine battles in action
More War Machine gaming
As WWII battles raged in several rooms, other players were occupied with Warmachine and other fantasy games, and four hobbyists were camped out in the back painting away at their miniatures. A variety of games like Star Wars X-Wing, Beyond the Gates of Antares, Malifaux, Mage Wars and Warhammer 40K are played regularly at Nu Brand. Newbies and experts alike all find a spot at Nu Brand. No matter the game, the love of the craft and gaming in the hobby — no matter the era or theme — is evident with everyone who crowds the tables each week.
Urban terrain set up on one of the many tables
Modular tables allow for flexible game sizes
The hum of activity and welcoming environment was evident for regulars and newcomers alike at Nu Brand Gaming on my first visit. Aside from myself, two other members of Metropolitan Wargamers were along for the day and we were able to meet and play with a whole host of new people and veteran players who were connected to friends-of-friends throughout the New York City area. Like so many of us in the wide gaming community “keeping table top gaming alive” is the mission of Nu Brand Gaming, and this marvelous place to play is a fantastic new outpost to seize this objective.
Nu Brand Gaming is located at 194 31st Street in Brooklyn, NY 11232 (a short walk from the D/N/R train at 36th Street). Contact them at 646-696-4132 or check them out on their website or Facebook page.
Posted in A Place To Play, General Gaming, Terrain, World War II
Tagged ---, 28mm, Beyond the Gates of Antares, Bolt Action, brooklyn, Fantasy, Fantasy Flight Games, Mage Wars, Malifaux, Metropolitan Wargamers, miniatures, Nu Brand Gaming, painting, Privateer Press, scale modelling, sci-fi, Star Wars X-Wing, terrain, Warhammer 40K, Warlord Games, Warmachine, World War II
A Place To Play: Brooklyn Game Lab
Living and gaming in New York City is all about space. While gamers worldwide enjoy games in their basements, garages, dining rooms and even dedicated spaces, gamers living in the five boroughs wage a constant struggle for tabletop real estate. It’s in this context that Brooklyn Game Lab opens today and joins a mini-boom in storefront gaming spaces and stores that have opened over the past five years throughout New York.
Brooklyn Game Lab is the vision of Robert Hewitt, a former Silcon Valley game developer, designer, co-founder of game app company HashGo and ESL teacher in Brazil. Carrying his start-up experience and a passion for games and teaching, Bob’s mission for the Brooklyn Game Lab is to provide not only a space for play but to challenge players to think about games beyond what comes right out of the box.
Located in the heart of Brownstone Brooklyn’s Park Slope, the core of the Brooklyn Game Lab is an afterschool program focusing not just on kids playing games but evaluating games and creating homebrewed expansions. The curriculum involves player self-evaluation of gaming mechanics, strategy and tactics, as well as a reward system which will allow kids to earn merits as their gaming prowess develops. Euro, cooperative, social and conquest games like Settlers of Catan, Forbidden Island, King of Tokyo, Werewolf and Small World will serve as jumping-off points.
Aside from the afterschool program, the Brooklyn Game Lab also features a number of After Hours gaming events targeting adult players. Mondays are Miniatures Night with a revolving series of fantasy and war-themed minis games the likes of Star Wars X-Wing, Space Hulk, Warhammer 40K and Flames of War for experienced players and curious newcomers alike. Wild Card Night on Tuesdays invites outside groups to host favorite go-to games for their own members and drop-ins from the general public. Thursdays are Singles Night, bringing in 20-somethings to roll dice, play cards and mingle. The old mainstay, Magic: The Gathering, occupies the Friday night slot, and weekends will provide opportunity for open gaming.
The 32-seat space will focus solely on the game curriculum and special events for the time being, although there may be room for retail and private party rentals in the future. Things are off to a great start for Brooklyn Game Lab which is opening with a fully-booked afterschool program including my oldest son who will be a particpating Monday afternoons. Meeting with Bob for coffee last month, I was glad to connect with another passionate gamer looking to put a spin on New York’s gaming spaces. Getting kids engaged in games for life and igniting a developer mindset in them makes Brooklyn Game Lab a very welcome new space for the community.
Tagged app games, board games, brooklyn, Brooklyn Game Lab, card games, Flames of War, Forbidden Island, HashGo, King of Tokyo, Magic: The Gathering, miniatures, Park Slope, Robert Hewitt, Settlers of Catan, Small World, Space Hulk, Star Wars X-Wing, wargaming, Warhammer 40K, Werewolf
New Game Weekend: Star Wars X-Wing
One of the big instant hits to come out of last year’s huge GenCon gaming convention was the new Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game from Fantasy Flight Games. I finally got a chance to play it a few times in the past couple weeks with members of the Metropolitan Wargamers club in Brooklyn. Then, my brother brought me a starter set of the game over this past Easter holiday weekend. As both a lover of all things Star Wars and well-designed games, I’m hooked.
SWXW is the one of the latest fan favorites to appeal to both experienced and new gamers wanting some gaming right out of a box full of easy rules, well-designed components and beautiful pre-painted miniatures. The starter set offers two Tie Fighters and a X-Wing model, rules, movement templates and dials, cards, specialized dice and scenario markers for about $30-40. A few beginner scenarios are also included with the starter set, allowing two players a pretty solid and varied intro to the basics of the game.
In a nutshell, SWXW is a dogfight game where ships chase and fire at their opponents while maneuvering to avoid their own destruction on a typically 3′ x 3′ playing area. Play starts with each player pre-assigning movement to each of their models with a special movement dial. The dials are particular to each class of ship and allow for combinations of straight and turning moves. Since movement is planned in secret from your opponent, guessing which way the enemy will move and how you should react is key to the strategy of the game.
After ships move, firing lasers and other specialized secondary weapons occurs using special dice. Modifying “focus” or “target lock” actions increase the ability to hit enemy ships while “evade” actions increases a ship’s ability to avoid damage. Ships take damage to their hulls or shields, and destroyed ships are removed from the table. The game moves fast, and a basic game can be accomplished in well under an hour.
While the starter set allows for some fun intro games, players will soon want to grow their fleets and options. Like the Star Wars Universe itself, SWXW soon proves to be as expansive as players (and their bank accounts) allow. Single ship expansion sets of Tie Fighters, Tie Advanced Fighters (pictured below, right), Tie Interceptors, X-Wings, Y-Wings (pictured at right) and A-Wings retail for about $15 each (cheaper online). With these, players gain greater choice in fielding larger Rebel and Imperial fleets.
Each ship expansion comes with specific cards indicating pilots, astromech droids, secondary weapons and other special abilities which may be used in combination with that model or, in some cases, other ship types. So, an X-Wing can be fielded with Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles or Biggs Darklighter at the helm and R2-D2 or some other astromech droid along for the ride. You can assign Darth Vader to the controls of a Tie Advanced ship and then assign addition weapons and abilities to the ship. The latest expansion wave offers two large-sized ships — the Millenium Falcon and the Slave I — which are certain to be a huge hit with fans anxious to pit Han Solo against Boba Fett in an intergalactic duel.
Players wishing to get into SWXW will do well by themselves to get a couple of the basic sets plus some expansion ship packs. Once you’re quickly beyond the beginner stage, games are typically fielded with 100 points of ships on a side. Points are assigned according to ship class, pilot expertise and other add ons, allowing for lots of replay value and experimentation with combinations of forces. While the game is still new to me, I can see this one coming out of the box and onto the galaxy of my gaming table pretty frequently in the months ahead.
Posted in New Game Weekend
Tagged Fantasy Flight Games, Metropolitan Wargamers, miniatures, Star Wars, Star Wars X-Wing
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Home Globe Michel Zecler beating: Four French policemen charged over assault
Michel Zecler beating: Four French policemen charged over assault
by editor November 30, 2020
media captionMusic producer Michel Zecler is seen being beaten up by officers in his studio
A French judge has placed four police officers under criminal investigation over the beating of a black music producer at his studio in Paris earlier this month, media reports say.
Video of the white officers attacking producer Michel Zecler emerged last week, causing widespread outrage.
The four suspects are facing charges of “intentional violence by a person holding authority”, French media quoted judicial sources as saying on Monday.
Two have been remanded in custody.
The decision to open a formal investigation comes amid growing concern over police violence in France.
Macron ‘shame’ at police beating of black man
On Saturday, protests were held across the country against a security bill that would restrict the right to film or take photos of police. In Paris demonstrators clashed with officers.
Opponents say the bill would make it difficult to document police brutality. Advocates say it will protect police from harassment.
What happened to Mr Zecler?
CCTV footage published by the news website Loopsider on Thursday shows Mr Zecler being kicked and punched for several minutes by three officers at his Paris studio on 21 November.
A fourth is later seen throwing a tear gas canister into the building. The incident reportedly began with a dispute over whether the 41-year-old producer was wearing a face mask, as required during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Zecler, who needed stitches, says he was also racially abused during the attack.
In addition to the “intentional violence” charge, all four officers are accused of forgery in connection with the police report they filed after the incident.
On Saturday, prosecutors asked that three of the policemen should be remanded into custody to avoid collusion between them. But the judge said only two would remain in detention, French media report.
Stars of France’s victorious World Cup football team are among a number of public figures who have expressed anger over the footage.
media captionClashes began after some in the crowd threw stones and fireworks at police
President Emmanuel Macron described the incident as “unacceptable” and “shameful”, demanding quick government proposals on how to rebuild trust between police and citizens.
Separately, the government has ordered police to provide a full report after they violently dismantled a makeshift migrant camp in Paris last week, clashing with migrants and activists.
What about the controversial bill?
The legislation on “global security” was backed last week by the lower house of the French parliament, and is now awaiting senate approval.
Article 24 makes it a criminal offence to publish images of on-duty police officers with the intent to harm their “physical or psychological integrity”.
image captionProtesters in Paris hold slogans that read “Journalists under arrest” (left) and “Smile, you’re being filmed”
It says offenders could face up to a year in prison and be fined €45,000 (£40,500; $54,000).
The government argues that the bill does not jeopardise the rights of the media and ordinary citizens to report police abuses, and is only aimed at giving protection to police officers.
But opponents say that without such images, none of the incidents which took place over the past week would have come to light.
In the face of growing public criticism, Prime Minister Jean Castex said on Friday that Article 24 would be amended.
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andrea elson instagram
The new pups weigh about 70 pounds when they're born. Recommended for you Así está hoy Andrea Elson, la adolescente de ALF - Taringa! 1 Fan', Inside Actor Wendell Pierce's Favorite Roles and His Life in New Orleans, Ingrid Bergman's Grandson Justin Daly Reveals How She 'Inspired' Him, Inside Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Christmas Plans 'in Montecito', Inside Kelly Ripa's ‘Perfect’ 50th Birthday Celebration With Family. Born on march 6 1969 in new york city this green eyed actress grew up traveling because of her fathers job in advertising. Beginning her professional career as a child actress and model elson is perhaps best known for her television roles.
This is an interesting era with so much "screen time" in our lives. Besides Andrea Hope Elson contact details, this page also contains family, biography, facts and social networks. trends.embed.renderExploreWidget("TIMESERIES", {"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":" Andrea Elson ","geo":"","time":"today 12-m"}],"category":0,"property":""}, {"exploreQuery":"q=Andrea Elson&date=today 12-m","guestPath":"https://trends.google.com:443/trends/embed/"}); Andrea Elson was born on March 06, 1969 in New York City, New York, United States, is Actress, Soundtrack. I am now a wife, mother and world traveling Yoga instructor.
Andrea elson was born on thursday march 6 1969 in new york city nylets check about andrea elsons estimated net worth in 2019 salary height age measurements biography family affairs wiki much more. She is 50 years old and is a pisces. Our kids are like cousins and have promised us that no matter how old they get, they won't ever outgrow our annual camping extravaganza!
Rarely, the green flash can resemble a green ray shooting up from the sunset (or sunrise) point. I think it's the respectful thing to do and I hope that my kids carry this lesson throughout their lives. 2092 likes 17 talking about this. She landed guest-starring parts on Simon & Simon (1981), Silver Spoons (1982) and a co-starring role in the series Whiz Kids (1983).Andrea auditioned and won the part of Lynn Tanner on the hit series ALF (1986). 194 Followers, 720 Following, 0 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Andrea Keane (@andrea.elson) Andrea Elson, Actress: ALF. Green flashes are a group of phenomena which stem from slightly different causes, and therefore some types of green flashes are more common than others. xo, that sometimes occur right after sunset or right before sunrise. Reach the contact below can be used to communicate, get an autograph or send a letter with your idol. After realizing there wasn’t much he could do with the script, Max tried his best to play Willie the way the show’s creators, Paul and Tom Patchett, wanted. It wasn’t until he got older that he realized what a joy it was to work on ALF.
Andrea Elson’s zodiac sign is Aries. Andrea Hope Elson Fan mail Address. After the show ended in 1990, the cast went their separate ways.
On the series, Elson portrayed Lynn Tanner, the teenage daughter in a typical middle-class suburban family who adopt a friendly extraterrestrial, performed by puppeteer Paul Fusco. “It was a great deal of work for everyone,” he explained to People in June 2000.
March 06, 1969 ( New York City, New York, United States).
He’s taken up the character for the TV pic Project ALF, a talk show and ads as well as many a TV guest spot, most recently on Young Sheldon. Born on March 6, 1969 in New York City, this green-eyed actress grew up traveling because of her father's job in advertising.
As of 2016, Elson was working as a yoga instructor. If your face isn't buried in a screen. She was 98! After the show, Anne, 71, coached comedy actors, did some interior design for friends such as George Clooney and became an ambassador for the charity Holiday Heroes.
[6] The series lasted four seasons and Elson's portrayal earned the teenage actress two Youth in Film Award nominations, before the series' cancellation in 1990. On the series, Elson portrayed Lynn Tanner, the teenage daughter in a typical middle-class suburban family who adopt a friendly extraterrestrial, performed by Puppeteer Paul Fusco. Before she was ten years old, she had lived in New York, Chicago, San Diego and Los Angeles. Andrea hope elson first realized her love for acting at age eleven when she played the lead in a sixth grade production of alice in wonderland. So many photo opportunities!
¡No hay problema! Subsequent to playing the titular “Alien Life Form” for four seasons, puppeteer Paul found life without his pal too alien of a concept. They both ended up pretty bloody, but they both seemed fine when the dust (or sand) settled.
[1][2] While Elson was still a child, the family moved to San Diego, California for a period of four years before returning to Westchester County, New York.
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She gave birth to a daughter, Claire in 1997. Our tradition is to go camping together every summer.
Ha! Andrea Hope Elson (born March 6, 1969) is a former American actress. I feel sad that my 75 year old father is an orphan.
I will wait until they can look at me before I have a conversation with them. [1][2][4] The role also led to Elson and the rest of the teenage Whiz Kids cast to make a crossover appearance on the 1983 episode of Simon & Simon entitled "Fly the Alibi Skies". Wrapping up winter vacation, my 18 year old (how did that happen?!)
Spending time together without the distractions of our daily lives.
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andrea elson instagram 2020
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Your Mystery and Thriller Book Bargains for September 7, 2020
FREE BOOK OF THE DAY
Three, Four … Better lock your door (Rebekka Franck, Book 2)
by Willow Rose
An electrifying novel from a #1 bestselling author.
It was supposed to be a night of fun, pleasure, lust, and pain for Susanne Larsen when she agreed to meet with a stranger from a chatroom. She met him for dinner that later led to casual, anonymous sex in the hotel room at the local inn.
But someone else showed up in the room, and suddenly it was no longer a game.
Zeeland Times star reporter Rebekka Franck and her photographer Sune are covering the case for the newspaper, and soon they find themselves deeply involved in a story of deceit and ugly secrets.
One Dark and Stormy Knight
by Hermione Moon
Every girl needs a knight in shining armour…
When kitchen witch Gwen Young discovers the spirit of King Arthur in the suit of armour that stands in her café only an hour after finding a dead body in the library, she knows it’s going to be a very strange day…
Gwen Young runs The Avalon Cafe in Glastonbury, England, and solves murders with a psychic Labradoodle called Merlin and the real King Arthur. Well, every girl needs a knight in shining armour! Join Gwen, Arthur, and the rest of their friends as they solve mysteries and murders, and fall in love along the way!
Category: Mystery – Cozy
The Jeri Howard Anthology: Books 1-9 (The Jeri Howard Series)
by Janet Dawson
P.I. Jeri Howard is as savvy as Sam Spade, with something of Spade’s seen-it-all outlook. She handles the daily bread and butter without breaking a sweat, and she’s got the street smarts to handle the bad guys, always managing somehow to land a well-deserved punch. What she doesn’t know, her chic lawyer pal, Cassie, can supply; and her cop ex-husband’s on hand to make trouble.
Category: Mystery – Women Sleuths
by Eldon Kellogg
Amanda Langford was ecstatic. The CIA hired her as an analyst, and she could start paying off her student debt. Then they gave her a file to review, and her life changed forever.
Category: Thrillers – Espionage
A Wild Cove Mystery series Vol 1-5 Box Set
by Laura Greene
NEW RELEASE ALERT!
LIMITED OFFER: 99c ONLY!!!
A complete mystery series that will bring Jane face to face with the dark underbelly of the town she loves.
Officer Jane Scott is not expecting to face death, murder, and intrigue in the quiet town of Wild Cove. She is trying to rebuild her life as her career and relationships struggle to get off the ground. But Wild Cove has a different plan for her. A woman is dead, seemingly of natural causes, but Jane suspects there may be more to this tragedy than meets the eye. Ably assisted by dashing mechanic, Jack Macready, and the kind-hearted Pastor Callaghan, Jane’s investigation leads her into troubled water, where those guilty of murder and conspiracy are waiting in the shadows; waiting to silence Jane and her friends once and for all…
From international murder mystery author Laura Greene comes A Wild Cove Mystery series, 5 short story books about a by-the-book officer that will keep you at the edge of your seat from start to finish!
Category: Mystery – Collections & Anthologies
The President’s Dossier
by James A. Scott
Fired for bias against the U.S. president, ex-CIA Russia expert Max Geller gets a chance to redeem his reputation and make a fortune when he is hired to investigate the president’s incriminating ties to Moscow. Jill Rucker, an undercover CIA agent, is assigned to work with him—and she does—when she’s not pursuing her own conflicting goals.
The search takes them to England, Russia, Panama, and Switzerland. Along the way, Max runs afoul of British intelligence by inadvertently compromising two of its operations. He gets help from an anti-Russian underground cell in Moscow, is assisted and threatened by the Russian mafia, exposes a massive Russian-American money laundering scheme in Panama, and uncovers a plot to protect the president from mounting accusations threatening his presidency.
Close behind is Zabluda, a Kremlin assassin, who means to kill them and their sources and destroy evidence incriminating the president. Max discovers that he has been betrayed by his former boss, his current employer, and his girlfriend. Seeking revenge, he takes on a powerful Washington law firm, the CIA, and the Russians.
Max Geller is the spy who went out in the cold—and no one wants him to come in and tell what he knows.
Apple | Nook | Kobo
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The Life & Times of Master Jan Hus
Od autorov: Francis Lützow (hrabě)
artifices thou shalt lose thy life; that for which thou strivest thou shalt not obtain. Thou wilt be neither Roman Emperor nor King in Bohemia. Hearing this the Hungarian king blushed with shame and hung down his head; then they immediately read out some articles against him (Hus) according to the deposition of some witnesses mentioned above or mentioned afterwards, and they said: For this we have (as witnesses) two canons of the Vysehrad, two of the castle (Hradcany), two masters of the University of Prague, two aldermen of the old town, that thou didst say in one of thy sermons that the mother of God is like any other woman. And bursting into tears and protesting, he said: Far be this from me, miserable and weak man. Of the Virgin Mary I believe and hold that from the beginning she was a pure virgin, that after the birth she remained a pure virgin and that she remained without any corruption of her body. I believe also that she was raised to heaven, and that she is the highest person in heaven and therefore above the angels, above the prophets, above the apostles, above the martyrs. After he had professed his faith about the mother of God, he immediately ended. Then they spoke saying: Obdurate heretic, deserving to be condemned, sentenced to death and sent to hell, thou hast said: When a priest consecrates the body of God, raises it to his head and lays it on the corporal ? there does not remain only material bread, that is to say it in Latin, panis materialis vel substantialis. And bursting into tears and protesting he said: Far be this from me, miserable and weak man. This do I believe and hold, concerning the body of God, when an ordained priest according to regulations approaches the altar piously and says the words (of consecration), there immediately remains the whole body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, martyred on the cross and now sitting on the right hand of God Father, the Almighty, as long as the sacrament (the holy wafer), its whiteness and roundness, are at all visible. Concerning the third article the witnesses said: Hear, obdurate heretic, deserving to be condemned, thou hast said that thou art the fourth person of the Holy Trinity (sic). Protesting he said: Far be this from me, miserable and weak man, that I should think so unwisely. This do I believe and hold concerning the Holy Trinity. I declare—and for this I am ready to die—that the three names, the three persons are one, one power, that is the Father, the
1 These (false) predictions, here wrongly attributed to Hus, seem to point to the early date of the manuscript. Though he always claimed the Bohemian throne, Sigismund was only recognised as King of Bohemia in 1436.
• The cloth used in churches for covering the elements of the Eucharist.
Son, and the Holy Ghost; these three are one without difference, and I by no means add a fourth to them. Then they brought a paper crown, yards in height, on which three devils were painted in black. Seeing it Master John Hus took it in his hands and placed it on his head. And he said: Oh, crucified Jesus, meek lamb, Thou hast received a crown of thorns, bloody and piercing to the brain on Thy sacred head, for the sake of me, sinful one, and I now take on me this soft and light crown for Thy truth and because of my earthly sins that I may timely escape them. Then immediately they brought a chain and Master John Hus spoke saying: Oh, crucified Jesus, meek lamb, Thou wert by the bishops of the old law bound during a whole night, mocked and imprisoned. This light chain I gladly receive for Thy truth; then immediately the bishops spoke, saying: Wrongly hath this heretic enjoyed the dignity of priesthood, without permission of the Roman church hath he preached God's word, he hath dared to say mass. Therefore let his priestly dignity be destroyed, let his tonsure be shaved off as if he were a madman; others said, let it be cut out with knives! And he (Hus) smiling, spoke and said: Oh, how quickly the bishops of the old law agreed about the scoffing and mocking of my dear Lord, and ye cannot agree about me, miserable and weak man. Forgive them, oh God, for they know not what they do. Answering him the Cardinal of Cambray spoke saying: Sufficiently, Hus, hast thou screamed in the city of Prague, leading the common people to error and heresy, therefore wilt thou not be allowed to do so here. Then they immediately dress him in massvestments, place him for derision in their midst before the high altar, put a sliver chalice with a paten in his hand and speak saying: Oh accursed Judas, who hast deserted the peaceful ranks of this holy assembly, and hast gone out to join the ranks of the Jews, we take to-day from thee the chalice in which thou hast offered
the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and thy soul with thy lord devils 1 we send to damnation. Answering them, Master John Hus said: And I hope that I will to-day drink of the chalice in the heavenly kingdom with the martyrs and the Lord Christ. You commend my soul to the devil, but I commend it to the Lord Christ. Then they took from him the mass-vestments, and placed him in their midst. Then immediately the Bishop of Lodi who was called (a) monk stood on a chair and preached a sermon on
1 Probably an allusion to the three devils painted on the cap that had been placed on the head of Hus.
heresy, taking (for his text) the words of St. Paul in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans,“ because of unbelief they were broken off.” The body of John Hus, the unbeliever (the bishop said) is worse than the body of Judas, for Judas, having betrayed the Lord Jesus, thus helped all men to salvation, but this man has committed a greater sin than Judas by contaminating the holy Roman church. Therefore hath the spiritual hand nothing more to do with him, and surrenders him to the temporal hand, that the temporal hand may purify his errors and heresies by the flames of death. Then they immediately begin to burn some little books, similar to his (books) and condemn them for heresy. Master John Hus answered and said: How could you condemn my Bohemian writings, and disparage them, as being heretical, as you had not read them! even had you wished it, you would have been unable to do so, for there were here (men of) many nations, Hungarians, Germans, Italians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, and (men of) other nations. Except John, Bishop of Litomysl, none could understand (the Bohemian writings); for he is a Bohemian. Then Master John Hus recited an offertory which is usually sung at mass saying: Arise, Lady Mother, queen of heaven, beg of your son good things for us; then as he had learnt German in prison he spoke to the common people saying: Thus do I believe and hold with regard to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. Then the common people began to whisper among themselves: “ This man professes good things, he should not die, if he acted thus in Bohemia.” Remarking this the King of Hungary with his instigators," his (Hus's) bitterest enemies, spoke saying: Perhaps he will lead astray the common people by his fine speeches to (believe) his errors and heresies, and he ordered the beadles and constables to whip the common people away from him with whips and clubs. Meanwhile he (the king) himself rises with the executioners, bishops and prelates, and he orders Prince Hanus, Lord of Klem the younger 2 to rise and hand him (Hus) over to the executioner. Prince Hanus, Lord of Klem, the younger, gave the golden apple with the cross, the emblem of his dignity, to another prince and handed him (Hus) over to the executioner. Then while twelve bishops read holy prayers, Master John Hus professed the common faith (saying):
· This refers to the Bishop of Litomysl, Michael de causis, Palec and the other Bohemian priests, opponents of church-reform, who were then at Constance.
* The author writes in German" her czu klem.” Rupert, Count Palatine, was generally known by the sobriquet of Klem. The writer here describes his son Louis, whom he wrongly calls “ Hanus,” '-as“ Klem the younger."
Thus do I hold and believe concerning the common Christian faith; and they led him out by the gate on the road to the Gottlieben Castle, where the road runs close to the Rhine, and they drive a wooden stake deep into the earth. Seeing this, Master John knelt down and prayed saying: Lord God, deign, I beg you, to grant me your holy help while I end my life on this couch. The crown falls from his head, and he, seeing the three devils painted on it, smiles, saying: These will not harm me, for I fear not the powers of hell. Then one of the masters said: Always have heretics the habit of smiling, be their fate ever so evil. Place again, master, on his heretical body that crown, that he may die separated from the wholesome heart of the holy church. One standing near said: Let a confessor be given to this man. But he (Hus) said that he had already secretly confessed in prison and that it was therefore not necessary now. Then a priest on a fine horse and clad in red silk (said): It is not seemly to give to a heretic the sacrament of the holy church, let him die like a dog! Then he begged that his gaolers might be allowed to approach him. He thanked them and having blessed them he said: Your reward will be the Lord God in the hour of your death. Then the executioner bound him, standing, to the stake, with one chain round his head, another round the middle, and a third round his feet, and he surrounded his body with dry faggots of vine up to his chin. Then Prince Hanus, Lord of Klem the younger, and the Count of Puphaim (Pappenheim), the imperial marshal spoke, saying: Recant, and save your life, or let some small child recant for you. Answering, Master John Hus said: As my lips have since my childhood never intentionally lied, assuredly the mouth of another will not lie for
Then they waved their hands asunder (as a signal to the executioner) and went away, saying: Burn, master, thou art obdurate in thy heresy, it is sure that thou wilt not give way. When the executioner set fire (to the stake) a great flame with smoke arose. Master John Hus cried out to God with great confidence and said: Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, sinner. Then taking a hymn of the holy David in the psalter, he sang one psalm, saying: Lord God Almighty, according to thy great and manifold compassion, have mercy on me, sinner. Then he still moved his lips, saying the Lord's prayer, and remained in the flames for the time you would take to go from the town of Prague across the bridge to the other sideas far as the great
· The Mala Strana ("small quarter ") of the town of Prague, situated on the left bank of the river Vltava.
me,
church of the Virgin Mary; and then he gave up the ghost. Then the fire sank, the body was burnt down and only the stake remained standing. Then the Lord of Klem ordered three cart-loads of wood to be brought and the remains to be broken up into fragments, that the heretical Bohemians might not obtain possession of his bones and venerate them as relics. Then they threw his garments and the boots which he had worn in prison into the fire, roasted his heart on a pointed stake and turned everything, even his bones, into dust. Then they dig up the earth deeply · load (the remains) on carts and, as the Rhine was near, scatter them in the water saying: Swim, Hus, to thy God. Then assembling the beadles he (the Count Palatine), gave them orders with a loud voice (saying): He who shall mourn over this heretic, or follow him, or hold to him, to him shall the same be done or worse, and then they all went their way.
I have translated this curious document as literally as the rugged Bohemian of the original permitted. The document obviously dates from the time of the Hussite wars, and represents Hus as he appeared to the warriors of that period. The account of the martyrdom of the master is very similar to that of the eye-witness, Mladenovic. Greater stress is laid on the brutalities committed against Hus, and it is attempted contrary to facts--to connect Hus very closely with the origins of utraquism. The writer was a Bohemian well acquainted with Prague-as is proved by his quaint allusion to the duration of the martyrdom of Hus. He had little knowledge of Germany, as is proved by various mistakes concerning German personalities.
1 To prevent the Bohemians carrying away morsels of earth as relics.
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Top 10 things to consider when selecting your VPN
Selecting a VPN that conforms with your business values is crucial for success so make sure to take these 10 important criteria into consideration
Big DataBusiness IntelligenceChief Data Officer
Joseph Chukwube
With all the cloud solutions available to the business world, it is easier for organizations to meet up with the demands of running seamless and effective business strategies that best suits today's increasingly digitized economy. What this means is that it is impossible to avoid relying on the internet for even the simplest of tasks, thereby necessitating the availability of privacy and security systems like the VPN.
However, when it comes to choosing the best VPN for your organization, there is a truckload of things you need to factor into your decision-making process. In this article, we will take a look at 10 important factors to consider before choosing one of the many VPN providers available in the market.
Encryption protocol
Unlike private users who are more interested in the unlimited access to censored contents that VPN connections avail them, organizations adopt VPN because of the protection it offers. As such, the encryption features or the VPN protocol is of utmost importance when choosing one as it determines the level of privacy and protection you should expect from the VPN provider.
Bearing this in mind, it is imperative that organizations adopt VPN services that have premium and dependable encryption mechanisms that would enable leak-free encrypted connections to the internet.
In as much as we find the security features of VPNs very important, this should not in any way impede the operations of your organization. Unfortunately, this is true for many VPN services out there in the market as data encryption normally takes a toll on the connection speed.
As far as today's demanding business terrain is concerned, slow connectivity is not ideal. This, therefore, mandates that organizations go for VPN services that value speed as much as they value security, such as NordVPN or ExpressVPN, which consistently pop up as some of the highest-rated VPNs when it comes to security and speed.
The availability of dedicated service plans for businesses
Needless to say, organizations have no business adopting a VPN provider that tailors all of their services for private users. For more seamless integration with a complex workspace, there are VPN services that offer a more accommodating service plan for organizations with features that allow the company's IT department to manage all VPN-enabled connections.
With this, they can censor the contents accessible to their employees and partners. More importantly, business VPN services should include features like anti-malware and a centralized billing system that helps organizations with tracking payments.
The logging policies of the VPN provider
Data privacy was on a cataclysmic path right before the recent uproar that led to a global trend of the topic. For Europe-based organizations, it is imperative that they comply with GDPR regulations, which entails a stricter approach to data security. This includes the adoption of GDPR-compliant VPN providers that are not in any way logging the activities of their customers.
The location, as well as the logging policies of the VPN, play a major role in this as it determines their regulatory obligations. You should note that some governments require that VPN providers function as the custodians of their users' data and they are legally bound to make these logs accessible to various government entities.
An organization that is serious about privacy should avoid VPN providers from these locations and choose those that comply with privacy laws similar to the ones that govern your business.
Data logging features
Business VPNs occasionally come with an optional data logging feature, which is particularly useful for companies that want to audit the activities of their employees on the internet. Some organizations are comfortable with VPN provider monitoring and logging this data on their behalf.
On the other hand, some prefer taking on these tasks themselves in order to avoid any issue with data leak. Therefore, it is important that you can access the required data logging features that conform to your organization's data handling policies.
Common sense dictates that business VPN services must have an adaptive capacity that would cater for future expansion of your workforce. A continuous need to tweak the terms and functionalities of a VPN service whenever you have new intakes would frustrate the company's output.
In light of this, you should ask questions relating to expansion-related features that would make the process as seamless as possible before committing your funds to a VPN service.
As mentioned earlier, organizations are more focused on the protective features of a VPN as it shields data from unauthorized access from entities like the governments, ISPs and hackers. However, have you ever considered issues like VPN server failures and how it can affect the privacy-enabled connections that drive the operations of your business?
In most cases, devices or apps attempt to re-establish connection automatically, regardless of the availability of VPN-enabled security. As such, it is imperative that the VPN service you are considering has a kill switch that frustrates every attempt to reconnect to the internet when a VPN connection is not available.
The availability of numerous servers in different parts of the world is one important factor that would likely sway private users and companies with a roving workforce. In contrast, most organizations are more concerned about the VPN server's proximity to their head offices or data centers. The distance plays a pivotal role in the efficiency of the connections and helps reduce cases of network failure.
The VPN provider's performance history
As it is with all other types of services, one of the simplest ways to assess the efficacy of a VPN service is to research on its past performances and other organizations it already has as clients. This paints a better picture of the provider's capacity to do a good job.
Although companies often have IT departments for network-related issues, it is imperative that the VPN provider has tech support and expert representatives that swiftly respond to queries and fix VPN errors promptly This is even more important when you consider the catastrophic impact a server downtime can have on your businesses, especially for those that rely heavily on cloud services.
The list is a vast one that combines efficiency, functionalities and consistency as the criteria you should consider when choosing a VPN service. Although your research should consider these factors, it is advisable, however, to pick a service that conforms with your business values.
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Cyber Security How to Tech
How to Investigate a Data Breach – Complete Guide
Preity Priya Hours Updated on December 4, 2020
Listen Audio Version
With over $100 million – $500 million being the projected cost of the CapitalOne hack in 2019, data breaches are no light issue. The Ponemon Institute’s Cost of a Data Breach Report published by IBM reveals that on an average, $3.86 million are spent by organizations facing a data breach.
Before answering how to investigate a data breach in detail, let’s have a look at some astonishing data by independent research labs.
(Source: Cost of a Data Breach Report)
These figures are based on the analysis of 524 data breaches across 17 industries – revealing that the healthcare industry loses $7.13 million on average, per data breach, with the United States of America being the most expensive country for organizations, at $8.64 million on average.
But where is all this money spent, and how does the process work? Now, costs such as fines, market losses, and image recovery always exist – but so does the actual investigation of the breach.
A data breach is essentially the intentional or accidental exposure of sensitive data to individuals or groups who aren’t authorized to access it. It’s dangerous because it violates every affected individual’s right to privacy and opens up the possibility of their personal data being sold and/ or misused otherwise.
Similar to other criminal investigations, a data breach investigation refers to the detail-oriented process of answering the “what, when, why, who, and how” of the incident.
How to Investigate a Data Breach
The investigation of a data breach involves finding out the origin of the breach, its extent, effects, and perpetrators. This is usually the first step of an Incident Response Plan, even though other tasks such as containing the breach and minimizing losses might seem more urgent.
The reason being, a data breach can be successfully isolated and contained only when its complete nature is known to the defense team – you can’t fix an issue unless you thoroughly familiarize yourself with its nature.
(Source: Google Cloud Data Incident Response Process)
Once the actual breach has been detected and initial intelligence has been gathered, the real investigation starts. This process broadly seeks to answer the following questions:
What did the breach affect?
Start by identifying the accounts, webpages, or systems that were definitely affected by the data breach. It’s a good idea to map out the entire attack. This allows you to see how the attack spread, if any patterns were followed and if the victims (accounts, webpages, or systems) have anything in common. This knowledge would make it easier to guess the attacker’s motives.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) tools and services make this process fast, accurate, and efficient.
READ How to Save Mobile Data on Android: in 3 Ways
When did it occur?
Besides creating a map of the attack, a timeline should also be created. Not only would this provide more insight into the attack’s spread, but it would also allow you to analyze whether it could have been an inside job (depending on work timings).
Another reason why the timeline is important, is that some attacks can be carried out within very specific windows – such as during system maintenance, periods with extremely heavy network traffic, in – between security patches, etc. If the attack was launched during such a window, determining the attack vector becomes easier.
Why did the breach take place?
Understanding the motive behind the attack is extremely important. Once the motive is clear, it is possible to think from the attacker’s point of view. Doing so would enable you to predict their next step, in case the breach is ongoing. If you’re able to do this correctly, completely stopping the breach and possibly catching the perpetrator becomes easier.
Who is responsible for the breach?
Data breaches aren’t necessarily caused by malicious individuals. Sometimes, accidents and misuse by well-meaning employees can also result in data breaches.
(Source: Verizon 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report)
According to Verizon’s annual Data Breach Investigations Report, organized crime forms the highest percentage of threat actors – including funded or independent malicious individuals and organizations. However, innocent parties such as system administrators and end-users also form significant percentages of this demographic.
Having basic knowledge about the attacker’s identity or affiliation helps the investigation process, as malicious actors would pose a higher risk, and have dangerous objectives which require quick and effective defense measures. On the other hand, accidental breaches can be dealt with at a slower, more relaxed pace, as the fear of misuse of data wouldn’t be present.
How did they succeed?
Manual investigation of system logs and/ or the utilization of digital forensics tools enable investigators to trace the attack’s progression and get a comparatively clear idea about the attacker’s identity – sometimes leading to complete detection.
By physically interviewing possible perpetrators, going through system log files, analyzing the activity of employees and other IP or MAC addresses, etc, it is possible to understand who was active during which stage of the attack.
Identifying each (exploited) vulnerability in the organization’s network, and determining which tools and types of attacks made the breach possible enables you to understand the entire life-cycle of the data breach, making the patching process faster.
READ How To Make A USB Security Key: Step by Step Guide
The answers to these questions allow breach investigators to experience the data breach as if in real-time, by following a certain procedure:
Pre – investigation:
Data security requires foresight. Data breach investigations can’t be carried out effectively if nothing is monitoring the organization’s network and detecting abnormalities.
For this reason, a monitoring solution consisting of an Intrusion Prevention System, Intrusion Detection System, or Endpoint Security solution must be configured beforehand. These solutions monitor the network 24×7 to detect malicious activity, trace workflows tainted with suspicious behavior, and provide logs that can be manually analyzed if need be.
Investigation:
This step utilizes all the data and network security tools or services being used by the organization. It can be manual, automated, or hybrid (advisable). The actual investigation process involves the collection of breach-related data, its analysis, theorizing, interviewing relevant employees and/ or partners, documenting each discovery, and keeping affected parties up-to-date with the progress.
The investigation process requires coordination and communication amongst the organization’s Incident Response Team, temporary or permanent security analysts, law enforcement bodies, digital forensics experts, and any other relevant entity. By working together, they can speed up the process and ensure no stone stays unturned.
Post – investigation:
Once all the facts and details of the data breach are known to you, they should be collated and published publicly. This is an important step, as outsiders should receive honest information from the organization itself, not third-party sources. Once a statement has been released, other victims of the data breach should be privately contacted and informed about it.
Information such as when the breach took place, how much data was exposed, how much of their data was exposed, and the current status of the recovery process should be communicated to them. The victims should also be offered help in the form of resources to protect their security, and monetary or favor – based apology tokens.
Once this entire process has been completed, it is important to review every security misconfiguration and patch all vulnerabilities. Proactive security management is the only valid form of security management.
Need for Data Breach Investigations
Data breach investigations aren’t optional. Efficient, fast, and accurate investigations are an absolute necessity for any organization suffering from the aftermath of a potential data breach, as it guarantees the following:
Nature of the breach
Unless a proper investigation takes place, you can’t be sure when it occurred, how it occurred, who was behind it, and what their motive was.
Knowledge about the extent of the breach
Investigations don’t just confirm data breaches, they tell you how much damage has been done. It is important to know exactly how much (and which type of) data got affected. This helps you understand the attacker’s motive and specific target (s) while giving a clear idea of how the recovery process should proceed – based on the type and amount of the affected data.
READ Study Identifies Google Play Store as the Largest Distributor of Malware on Android Devices
Enables mitigation and remediation
Mitigation and remediation in the wake of data breaches refer to the isolation of network elements, PR damage control, patching of vulnerabilities, and improving overall security. These steps can’t be done without having complete knowledge of the breach – hence, the investigation’s necessity.
Minimizes current and future losses
Timely investigations translate into timely remediation, reducing market losses and customer dissatisfaction – saving money. During the investigation, compliance with data security regulations is also checked, thus minimizing the risk of avoidable errors. Also, the investigation documentation can be used as a reference during future security incidents – saving time, money, effort when that happens.
Tips for Successful Investigations
Nobody is immune to a data breach, but some are more adept and prepared at dealing with them. To ensure you’re a part of this group of people, always keep the following in mind:
Even before the actual breach takes place, certain measures should already be placed. Breaches can’t be avoided, but they can be handled quickly and efficiently by using tools and services built for this. Always secure your organization’s network and physical space with effective firewalls, antiviruses, a tight security policy, and Intrusion Prevention Systems.
Create a dedicated investigation team for data breaches, which may be a part of your organization’s internal or hired Incident Response Team. Make sure it’s multidisciplinary – including security analysts, network and system administrators, PR handlers, legal representatives, and customer service members.
Be thorough with the investigation – do not leave any vulnerability untouched or unexplored. Trace all the affected data back to its source and examine it properly. Employ digital forensic experts and manual investigators for this process.
Keep the legal fee in mind – lawsuits and regulatory fines come complimentary with data breaches. Allocate enough funds for the same beforehand, to minimize the struggle.
Be proactive. Data breaches are a result of exploited vulnerabilities, so make sure you don’t have any in the future. Every network, system, and web application is at the mercy of its developers and maintainers. Human error is a constant risk, but it can be minimized with regular reviews and thorough security checks.
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Preity Priya
Post Tags: #Cybersecurity#Data Breach#Data Security
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Torhousekie
Archaeology Notes
MyCanmore Images
MyCanmore Text
Stone Circle (Neolithic)-(Bronze Age)
Site Name Torhousekie
Classification Stone Circle (Neolithic)-(Bronze Age)
Alternative Name(s) Torhouse Stone Circle; Standing Stones Of Torhouse; King Gauldus's Tomb
Canmore ID 62843
Site Number NX35NE 14
NGR NX 38255 56493
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/62843
Toggle Aerial | View on large map
DP 074206
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the E.
RCAHMS Aerial Photography Digital
© Crown Copyright: HES
© RCAHMS
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the NE.
SC 2080081
Torhouse Stone Circle
Historic Scotland Photographic Library
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the NNW.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the WNW.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the WSW.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the SSW.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the S.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the SE.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the SW.
Oblique aerial view centred on Torhousekie stone circle, taken from the N.
Prints and Drawings (3)
Print Room (1)
Digital Images (24)
Council Dumfries And Galloway
Parish Wigtown
Former Region Dumfries And Galloway
Former District Wigtown
Former County Wigtownshire
NX35NE 14 38255 56493.
(NX 3825 5649) Standing Stones of Torhouse (NR)
OS 6" map (1957)
Stone Circle consisting of 19 granite boulders set on end on the circumference of a circle about 60' - 65' in diameter. Three upright boulders stand in a line near the centre of the circle. The low arc of rubble adjoining these to the NW may be of later date than the boulders. The stones range in height from about 2' to 4'9". The interior of the circle has been made a dumping ground for field clearance, but it is not so stony as to suggest the site of a cairn which has been removed.
In 1684 the three central stones were known as 'King Gauldus's Tomb' - Galdus being a mythical Scottish king.
Under Guardianship.
A Symson 1823; RCAHMS 1912; R W Feachem 1963.
As described by Feachem.
Name confirmed (Ministry of Public Buildings and Works plaque).
Resurveyed at 1:2500.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 18 August 1970.
Scheduled as Torhouse Stone Circle.
Information from Historic Scotland, scheduling document dated 16 July 2002.
Publication Account (2011)
RCAHMS, The Recumbent Stone Circles of Scotland
Standing beside the public road, the stone circle at Torhousekie is one of a cluster of megalithic monuments and cairns scattered across a low-lying terrace on the north-east bank of the River Bladnoch. The circle itself is the best preserved component of this complex and is a Guardianship Monument maintained by Historic Scotland. Its preservation, however, may owe as much to its long antiquarian history and the tradition that the three stones that extend in a line across its centre mark the tomb of King Galdus. The nineteen stones of the surrounding circle were first enumerated as long ago as 1684 in Andrew Symson’s description of Galloway (Mitchell 1907, 74), and other reports appear in the Statistical Accounts, albeit bathed in a Druidic hue (Stat Acct, xiv, 1795, 487; NSA, iv, Wigtownshire, 2). The first detailed observations and measurements are recorded at the end of the 19th century by Coles (1897) and in 1911 by Alexander Curle (RCAHMS 1912, 183–4), both of them drawing up plans that compare well with the more recent surveys of Burl and Alexander Thom (Burl 1972; Thom et al 1980, 274). Now enclosed by a wire fence set in a neatly mown sward, the nineteen rounded orthostats are set out around a slightly raised platform to form a circle about 22m in overall diameter, with a flattened arc on the east-south-east. The stones display subtle patterns of grading in both height and spacing, best seen in Burl’s plan and extended elevation (1972, fig 1). The smaller ones stand closest together around the north-west arc, while the tallest comprise three between 1.05m and 1.3m in height on the east-southeast, followed closely by a pair 0.9m and 1m high on the south-west; the shortest is on the north-north-east. The alignment in the middle lies roughly north-east and south-west, and comprises two bulky boulders a little over 1m high flanking a much smaller stone no more than 0.65m high. The ground around this central setting has been dug out to form a shallow hollow in the surface of the platform; D-shaped on plan and defined by a low stony lip, this was first recorded by Curle in 1911, but it may have more to do with the removal of some of the field-cleared stones that had been dumped around the central setting in the late 19th century than a specifically antiquarian investigation (Coles 1897, 90). A connection between Torhousekie and recumbent stone circles was first made by Burl, who argued that the three stone alignment at its centre was reminiscent of a recumbent setting standing within the projected circumference of a flattened circle (1972, 29–30). In particular, he associated it with the recumbent stone circles of Kincardineshire, where several of the settings form a flattened facade facing south-east or south-south-east and link the ring of orthostats to the kerb of an internal cairn (eg The Nine Stanes, Garrol Wood). Thus the flattened east-south-east arc of the Torhousekie circle and the grading of its stones fell into place, while the D-shaped disturbance of the interior, mainly lying to the north-west of the three stones at the centre, was explained as the remains of a ring-cairn (1972, 30; 1976a, 211–12, 365 Wig 5; 2000, 435, Wig 8a; 2005a, 171). The case is neither convincing nor helpful. It is not just that there is no superficial resemblance between Torhousekie and any recumbent stone circle in the North-east (Burl 1972, 29), but there are no shared points of detail. The supposed ring-cairn within the interior has nothing to recommend it as an ancient construction, and there are no examples of a recumbent setting in the North-east standing at the centre of a circle. We are left with the resemblance to the lone setting of stones in the kerb of one of the ring-cairns on Campstone Hill, Raedykes, which is so distant that it is hard to believe that it is of any real significance (cf Barnatt 1989, 35–6). Curiously, the three taller stones that form the flattened east-south-east arc of the circle provide a better comparison for the way in which recumbent settings are employed to form a facade, and yet this has passed unnoticed. At the heart of the argument is the search for architectural stepping stones between supposedly similar stone circles in south-west Ireland and north-east Scotland, to manifest the transmission of ideas between the two areas. The discordant chronologies and designs of these two groups of stone circles have now rendered any direct linkage redundant, and it is surely more important to seek the affinities of Torhousekie in a local context. To this end the circle is still unusual, but the surviving example of a low circle of stones surrounding a raised platform with a single central monolith at Glenquicken, in the Stewartry (NX55NW 1, 5 &12), points up one line of enquiry (see for example Burl 1976a, 206, fig 37), while the axis of the central alignment towards the south-west, and indeed the two taller stones in the south-west arc, provide a link to the way this quarter is referenced in different ways in funerary monuments throughout the country.
Historic Environment Scotland: Visit A Place
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Days Of Del Rey & A Rossi Revival
Carla Seipp October 26, 2011 May 2, 2019 Uncategorized
No overnight YouTube success can sing a tune quite like Lana Del Rey. Ever the DIY recording star, the 24-year-old’s self-edited clip of debut single Video Games has garnered over 2 million hits and spawned the album Born To Die, set for release in early 2012.
The New Yorker, whose stage name is derived from a combination of film noir actress Lana Turner and the Ford Del Rey automobile, cites Nirvana and Biggie Smalls as two of her biggest musical influences. It is through this combination of retro nostalgia and catchy lyrics such as “you fit me better than my favourite sweater” that the artist also known as Lizzy Grant evokes the days of Sixties sirens singing in small jazz club venues, served with a 21st Century twist.
Del Rey kicks off her UK tour on November 4th in Manchester. It will be the chance to prove to her critics what we already know: she doesn’t just meet the hype surrounding her persona; she exceeds it.
The double single Video Games/Blue Jeans is out now.
lanadelrey.com
The Sergio Rossi boutique re-opening on Saturday was the perfect continuation of the shoe brand’s ethos: elegant decadence.
Inspired by feminity and the world of screen icons, the new flagship store displays creative director Francesco Russo’s designs including pony skin ankle boots, crystal embellished stilettos and fur pom-pom adorned sandals in an Art Deco-styled interior.
With guests including Georgia May Jagger, Roisin Murphy, Dinos Chapman, Liberty Ross and Erin O’ Connor having already given the beautifully decorated space their seal of approval, it’s safe to say that all Londoner shoe fetishists have found themselves a new mecca.
Sergio Rossi, 207A Sloane Street, SW1 X9QXsergiorossi.com
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Tag Archives: Nostradamus
Chateau de Chaumont: A Royal Consolation Prize
Photo by Manfred Heyde, Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0
Chaumont is most famous for being a consolation prize for Diane de Poitiers, the favorite of King Henri II of France. When he was killed in a jousting mishap in 1559, his widow, Catherine de Medici, immediately turned Diane out of exquisite Chenonceau and sent her packing to Chaumont. The photo above is from Wikipedia; it’s difficult to get the view of the chateau from across the River Loire with any camera easy and light enough for me (aka my trusty iPhone).
It seems like a perfectly fine chateau to those of us who will never own a chateau.
But Diane was not pleased. In fact, she barely lived there at all. But she was shrewd enough to develop and profit by the Chaumont lands for the rest of her long life.
The original defensive medieval chateau was pulled down and the present building was begun around 1465. It was built with some medieval features such as the serious drawbridge.
I’m not sure exactly how the drawbridge works. I would not want to get in its way.
I know people were shorter in stature in the past. I do wonder if the low doorway also had some defensive use. “Attention de Votre Tete!”
There are many other medieval-looking details in the chateau, like this stone corbel.
But the overall effect is of a gracious Renaissance castle.
Before she sent Diane to Chaumont, Catherine de Medici owned it beginning in 1550. She entertained her friends there, including the astrologer Nostradamus.
I find Catherine’s rooms and furniture pretty dreary. I can see why she jumped at the chance to move into magical, light-filled Chenonceau.
Catherine had very nice views of the Loire from Chaumont, which is perceived high on the riverbank above the town.
But who can blame her for wanting to live on top of the River Cher at Chenonceau?
So Diane had to make do with Chaumont (and its very profitable lands).
After Diane’s time, the chateau passed through various aristocratic hands.
Madame de Stael, the indomitable French intellectual and champion of freedom, owned Chaumont beginning in 1810. She survived the French Revolution and had the great honor of having one of her books banned as Napoleon was showing his true colors as a tyrant. (No specific reference for that opinion, just my general knowledge of her from reading her work).
The heiress to a sugar fortune, Marie-Charlotte Say, acquired the chateau in 1875. Soon after, she married Amedee de Broglie and they began an enthusiastic renovation.
Monsieur de Broglie liked horses. A lot.
He built stables much nicer than the houses most people lived in.
They also entertained a lot. An elephant in the garden? Sure! This was the Belle Époque!
In the heyday of empires, a maharajah from India was an elegant houseguest.
The actress and artist Sarah Bernhardt visited often.
So did the novelist Marcel Proust.
Did he write a few pages of his masterpiece, “Remembrance of Things Past,” in these elegant rooms?
Maybe he heard a bit of scandalous gossip during a three-way teatime?
What do aristocrats do when a priceless antique develops huge cracks and threatens to fall apart?
Call in the goldsmiths to fill in the cracks, of course! This commode was once the property of Louis XV, so it was worth fixing.
The family owned many other treasures, like this lovely portrait of Queen Anne of Brittany. She united the kingdoms of France and Brittany by her marriage to King Louis XIV, so she has the coats of arms of both kingdoms in the corner. The artist seems to be unknown.
A grand fireplace features the emblem of King Louis XII, the porcupine.
I particularly liked the chapel, which was resplendent with an art installation.
The grounds of the chateau host a huge garden show every year, and master gardeners create nature-themed displays. Filling up the chapel with branches, flowers and quirky found objects was a stroke of genius, if you ask me.
Back outside in the courtyard, I admire the towers and turrets and the view over the Loire. I was recently in a discussion group where the leader asked how many of us would like to be a king or queen. Nobody raised a hand.
But I wouldn’t mind being a carefree aristocrat in the Belle Époque, eating dinner with Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust across the table.
This entry was posted in Architecture, Castles and Palaces, Explore Europe, France, Historic Homes, Historical Figures, Why I Love France, Writers and tagged Catherine de Medici, Chateau de Chaumont, Diane de Poitiers, Louis XII, Marcel Proust, Nostradamus, porcupine symbol, Queen Anne of Brittany, Sarah Bernhardt on October 26, 2018 by Claudia Suzan Carley.
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C. S. Carley, castlesandcoffeehouses.com, 2013
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to C. S. Carley and castlesandcoffeehouses.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
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SACE Statement of Approval of Duke Clean Energy Connection Shared Solar Program
Contact: Amy Rawe, SACE, 865-235-1448, [email protected]
Tallahassee, Florida – Recognizing Duke Energy Florida, LLC’s solar energy commitment, the Florida Public Service Commission today approved a stipulated agreement on DEF’s Clean Energy Connection program. Signatories to the Stipulation are Duke Energy Florida, Vote Solar, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and Walmart, Inc. Read the Florida Public Service Commission’s news release here: Florida PSC Approves Duke’s Clean Energy Connection Program.
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy applauds the Florida Public Service Commission’s finding that the Clean Energy Connection program is in the public interest. The program is projected to provide an economic benefit of over $530 million for all Duke’s customers. It will additionally expand access to solar for local governments and businesses, schools, and families – including low-income customers. Moreover, the program’s 750 MW of clean, renewable solar power will provide cleaner air to local communities. Given Florida’s current regulatory structure, this innovative solar program is a pathway to a cleaner energy future.
Of the 750 MW of solar power the Clean Energy Connection program will consist of, the low-income allocation of the program is 26 MW. That allocation is almost double the total size of the 17 MW Tampa Electric shared solar program. Innovation is required to realize the benefits of shared solar at the scale of Duke’s program. The Clean Energy Connection program provides a reasonable regulatory approach to meet the enormous demand for solar power in the Sunshine State while providing hundreds of millions of dollars of economic benefit to all of Duke’s customers.
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Ecopetrol oil fields hit record production
by Toni Peters May 11, 2011
The two oil fields of Castilla and Chichimene in the department of Meta operated by state-run petroleum company Ecopetrol reached record production of 154,576 barrels of crude oil a day, local media reported Wednesday.
The Castilla field registered output of 119,879 barrels a day while Chichimene recorded production of 34,697 barrels a day, reported RCN. These two fields combined account for 24% of Ecopetrol’s production.
This record production is the result of an investment plan which began in 2000 which includes 112 development wells, and the construction of a new collection and treatment station among other things.
In 2000, when Ecopetrol took over operation of the fields, daily average output was 23,000 barrels per day which is an increase of 600%. Ecopetrol annpounced in March that it aims to produce 1.45 million barrels of oil per day by 2013.
economyEcopetroloil
Colombia not considering new coronavirus lockdown
Duque goes blank as Colombia’s economic crisis turns catastrophic
The big think: should Colombia prioritize food or new sneakers?
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How Was John Byrne Able to Reboot the Doom Patrol?
Thread: How Was John Byrne Able to Reboot the Doom Patrol?
Timothy Hunter
Mighty Member
Underneath the Brooklyn Bridge
I am currently reading Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Jerry Ordway's arc in JLA, the Tenth Circle. On it's own merits, it's a great storyline, but put in the context of the wider DC Universe, it raises some troublesome questions.
In the Tenth Circle, the Doom Patrol debut as if they were a new team: Rita Farr is still alive and well, Niles Caulder is back to having red hair, and the Justice League act like they've never met the Doom Patrol in their life.
So Chris Claremont and John Byrne controversially wiped away all previous Doom Patrol stories from continuity. How was this accomplished? It would make sense if this new Doom Patrol were introduced in after universe altering events such as Zero Hour or Infinite Crisis, but they weren't. Was there an explanation given to justify this change in continuity?
Was Byrne's Doom Patrol erased from continuity after Infinite Crisis? This would make sense because there were references made to the Morrison Doom Patrol in the pages of Geoff Johns' Teen Titans. Did Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol ignore or elaborate upon Byrne's run?
Last edited by Timothy Hunter; 11-23-2020 at 01:12 PM.
If I remember correctly it was later explained that it was due to a Superboy Prime punch. Someone correct me if I am wrong? But I feel like it was explained in the Infinite Crisis Secret Files?
Will Evans
Astonishing Member
Originally Posted by Hol
No you’re right. It was later retcon explained as Superboy Prime punch during Infinity Crisis.
The problem the OP mentioned was at the time Byrne’s Doom Patrol appeared as if it were the first time in JLA.
I can I tell you at the time fans were dumbfounded why this was occurring with no explanation. Especially with older Beast Boy still appearing in Teen Titans.
Originally Posted by Will Evans
Yeah I remember that now. It was so bizzare. For the life of me I will never understand why DC did that. It was a fun story arc though. Was there a series after? I do not recall.
Later, in Keith Giffin’s book, he had the girl Nudge killed by bullets, and Grunt carrying away her lifeless body.
SJNeal
Relaunched, not rebooted!
Byrne did a short-lived DP series after the JLA arc. It was all kinds of horrible, and to my knowledge has been quietly ignored for the most part since it ended.
The CBR Community STANDARDS & RULES
Robotman
Extraordinary Member
Giffen’s run actually found a way to make all the different iterations of the Doom Patrol work in continuity. It’s actually one of my favorite runs on the team.
Originally Posted by Robotman
Same here! Giffen's series was highly underrated and deserved to last longer than it did.
Standing Member
Originally Posted by SJNeal
I remember liking the book on its own merits. It was kind of great to see Byrne doing a throwback to the original Doom Patrol. There wasn't anything horrible about it on that score. It was just hard to accept it, as it would have wiped out everything else that had ever been done before with the Doom Patrol.
Mind you, by that point a lot too many different versions of the Doom Patrol had been done. After the Grant Morrison run, the various attempts to breathe new life into the Doom Patrol were driving it into the ground and making it seem like a concept that had seen better days. Just like the publisher had done with Hawkman, the Titans, the Legion, etc. etc. If a concept keeps getting revived only to die quick deaths--it starts to stink like a corpse.
So I can see why they let John Byrne do his own revival and go back to first principles.
I remember there was also a crossover with his Generations comics in the series--suggesting that there were many different Hypertime realities and this was just one of them.
🇨🇦
[Exit, pursued
by a bear.
Fair enough. I found both John Arcudi's and Keith Giffen's runs much more enjoyable, ymmv of course.
I think by this point I was just done with Byrne in general. His Marvel work is the stuff of legend - with Alpha Flight, Fantastic Four, She-Hulk (even Namor) ranking among my favorite comics of all time. I also loved most of his Superman reboot, but beyond that I can't think of any DC work that I don't actively dislike... :-/
Originally Posted by Jim Kelly
Since I became a comics fan in the 80s, I never hear anything about the Doom Patrol run that came after the originals.
The one with the original Tempest, Celsius, Negative Woman.
I wish it would have lasted longer but the sales numbers were horrible. I’m happy DC let it go on as long as it did. Still one of the best endings to a series ever!
Do you mean Paul Kupperberg's 1987-88 run? While nothing amazing, it was still better than Byrne's...
Riv86672
It was good kooky fun w. nice soap opera overtones.
It really hit its stride when artist Steve Lightle left a few issues and Erik Larsen took over. His art perfectly complimented the golden age weirdness of classic DP villains like The Plastic Men, Gargaux, and Gen. Immortus.
Nobody really remembers those early issues. Once Grant Morrison took over, he made it his own, no doubt!
I still like that initial goofiness though.
I actually preferred the second team over the original; the doom patrol in general is too weird to me.
Quick Navigation DC Comics Top
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Danica Patrick says she and boyfriend haven’t talked about Talladega win
May 12, 2017 Greg Engle CupScene.com Editor Main Page, NASCAR News Top Story, Top Stories 0
TALLADEGA, AL - MAY 07: Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the #17 Fifth Third Bank Ford, kisses his girlfriend, Danica Patrick, driver of the #10 Aspen Dental Ford, in Victory Lane after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on May 7, 2017 in Talladega, Alabama. (Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images)
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. scored his first career NASCAR Cup win last week at Talladega Superspeedway. The win came in his 158th career start. As with every first Cup win, the celebration is normally an emotional one.
Last Sunday was no different, as Stenhouse celebrated with his father, and his girlfriend fellow NASCAR Cup driver Danica Patrick.
This week, Stenhouse received congratulations from all over including former school teachers and even the governor of his home state of Mississippi.
The person Stenhouse is perhaps closest too however wasn’t among them, beyond Sunday.
Patrick said Friday at Kansas Speedway that there was no trash talking, nor bragging rights after the win.
“We absolutely never mess with each other when it comes to that stuff,” Patrick said. “I think it is obviously because it means so much to us that it is a pretty crappy thing to do. Would you mess with your wife or girlfriend? I mean when it comes to golf or something I will totally mess with him but when it comes to something like this, no. We don’t talk about that at all.”
Patrick saw her race at Talladega end early with a crash.
“I was just simply happy for him,” she said. “My weekend sucked yet again. Actually, my weekend didn’t really suck. I had a fine race going on It just ended early so I had another terrible result which has been the case so far this year.”
While her race did end early, she found consolation in the result. It meant she was able to be out of her racecar before the end of the race.
“If I was going to have one race where I didn’t get to get all the way to the finish line and either finish the race, have a good finish or win, I am really glad I had the chance to watch him win,” Patrick said. “I think that was pretty cool and that I was ready to go. All I did was throw my tennis shoes on and got out the door on the golf cart and went to victory lane and waited for him to pull in.”
“That was a gift of an experience to be able to have in our relationship because most of the time I would be dealing with my team and dealing with whatever I had going on,” she added. “I had that chance to regroup. I was fresh as a daisy. I had showered and spend the afternoon standing around celebrating with him. It was a great day. But we don’t talk about that stuff.”
Written by: Greg Engle CupScene.com Editor, May 12, 2017
Kansas would be perfect spot for a Clint Bowyer breakthrough
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: ‘I grew up’
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The Latest News About Oreo Cookies
Jun 22, 2020 ByAndrew Parker
Welcome to 2020 where, clearly, miracles happen. Oreo is releasing a new Tiramisu flavor, Caramel Coconut, and Chocolate Marshmallow flavors. Snacking is about to get much sweeter. So clear up your cookie jar and pantry, sweet toothers because things are about to flavorful to the max. Fans of the Oreo staple will literally lose their minds over the new Tiramisu flavor. Adopting the classic Italian dessert, its bound to be delicious. The flavor will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth with a double-stuffed tiramisu filling sandwiched between the signature chocolate cookies. This isn’t the first time Oreo released a Tiramisu flavor. Apparently, they’ve been a thing in Korea for a while and are only not coming to the U.S. Oreo is also releasing a dark chocolate cookie dunked in fudge. There’s also the Churro Oreo to get ready for.
Next, we gotta talk about the cult streetwear brand debuted red and white Supreme-branded Oreo cookies which is just driving people up the wall! Supreme took their own spin on the classic cream-filled cookie, double stuf’d Supreme Oreos were priced at $8 per pack of three. But in the frenzy that ensued by the brand’s limited-edition collaboration, the cookies sold out in just a couple of days. Now they are being resold for $17,000 on eBay! Sweet tooth lovers are apparently willing to pay more than 200x the original price of Oreo cookies. This novelty Oreos are in high demand! Both Oreo and Supreme posted about the partnership on their social media accounts. Oreo’s Instagram photo of the red cookies with Supreme’s logo across went viral, of course.
Supreme actually took to Reddit to tease the release on Reddit six months ago, according to AdAge. It’s pretty crazy to see the lengths people are willing to go for any Supreme labeled product. The brand is known for creating a frenzy and quickly raising prices with their rare releases. There was a Supreme branded brick that resold for $1,000 to a Supreme MetroCard that rose to $999 on eBay. Yeah, that happened. Executive creative director of Within, Zane Comer, told AdAge that for Supreme, the partnership “is a low-risk way to generate earned impressions….For Oreo, associating their product with a brand that has the cool-factor of Supreme also creates legitimate relevance out of thin air.”
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WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS TO THE SPIRIT SHOW
We’ve teamed up with The Spirit Show to offer three lucky readers a pair of tickets to London’s first Spirit Show at The Business Design Centre in Islington on the 9th & 10th of December.
The Spirit Show will feature Craft, Unusual and Interesting Premium Spirits from around the world and unlimited tastings of 100s of different spirits. Guests will also enjoy a delicious meal at a dedicated ‘Street Food Village’ where a range of high quality foods will be on offer.
Big names at the Show include Berry Bros & Rudd, Revolver Rum, Deliveroo and Fentimans, but guests will be intrigued by products such as Tamdhu - an historic Speyside Whisky brand revived just three years ago under new ownership and the “Can-Dhu-Spirit” slogan intended to recall the brand’s origins as one of the most innovative whiskies in the world.
Winners will receive unlimited tastings of over 200 of the world’s finest spirits, including artisan vodka, craft Gin, rare whisky & small batch rum, a delicious meal at the street food village, a limited edition Spirit Show tasting glass and a free download of the show guide and tasting notes app.
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Tickets are now on sale starting at just £40 for a standard ticket & £65 for premium. Visit The Spirit Show website to book tickets.
Pairs of tickets to The Spirit Show x3
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Connor Monahan
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July 3, 2011 Design Elements, Games 4 Comments
Why Streamlining is a Dirty Word
by Connor
The videogame business is one of the largest financial markets in existence. As a result, major publishers are focused primarily on one thing: profit. Allow me to say, there is nothing wrong with that. This is not some soapbox speech about the dangers of greed. However, there is a very distinct downside to the profit-mindedness that dominates the upper management of the video game industry. There is a common saying that “100 failures are paid for by 1 success”. Anyone who works in the industry can attest this. As a result of this reality, companies try desperately to get that ‘1 success’ more than once. They will take a game that had strong profit margins and capitalize on such a success. This means: sequels, trilogies, serials, episodes, DLC’s, expansions, and more games.
For the fans of a successful franchise this is, more often than not, a welcome outcome. They get the refreshing opportunity to keep playing a game they love, but with a new paint job; and maybe even a new engine (though experience has proven that unlikely). I will be the first to admit, this can be the greatest experience for a gamer. I personally have played through every Half Life game and expansion more than three times a piece. That type of gameplay and replay value is unparalleled. So for most, new content for an existing franchise is great news.
There is however, a dark side to the franchising process.
I own all but one of the Command and Conquer games.
I have logged several days of play on all of them. All of them save one, the final installation, Command and Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight. A little more about CNC4: CNC4 was the first serious alteration of game play to the tried and true formula of the series since its inception. I am not someone who is resistant to such changes. When game developers become complacent with their ‘tried and true’ formula you can get the same game experience repackaged with nothing new (see Call of Duty).The change in CNC gameplay shifted the series away from base building and the archetypical economy system of the previous Command and Conquer games, to a more agile, specific, and non-construction style of play. Wherein previous games it would behoove the player to build up a sprawling base with varying types of defenses (SAM sites, sentry guns, guard units); CNC4 removed that game element entirely. Instead, the player had one single MCV (mobile construction vehicle) and from that vehicle (which remains immovable when in build mode) the player builds all of their units, makes all their upgrades and attaches all their defenses to this one central vehicle. Additionally, the economy system in the game was stripped out, leaving only a population capacity number as the system of unit limitations. In CNC4 a player has a population cap, which grows progressively through the match (based on a number of variables); it determines how many troops on can have at a time on the battlefield (smaller units counting as 1, larger units counting as >1). In other CNC games, players were forced to mine resources for money, and spend money on units.
I have described the intricacies of CNC4 for a very specific reason, and it is not because I really love boring people with the idiosyncrasies of a cerebral game like CNC; I do so because the gameplay of CNC4 was bad enough that I did not play past the first few missions in the game, and have not played it once since the week I bought it. The gameplay shortcomings are a direct result of what I refer to as streamlining, which is what I mean to address in this discussion.
Streamlining: is the process through which a game is developed in such a way that removes higher level game play complexity, in favor of a simpler, more understandable gameplay that appeals to the largest number of people. This is becoming a practice that is more and more popular as game franchises become larger. Now that Call of Duty has once again shattered is previous media release sales record with the sale of Black Ops, companies see the profitability of a simpler game that everyone wants to play.
Streamlining is a dangerous issue, because it sends a clear message to the fan base from the publisher: “we are moving in a direction that will net as more money, and it may be at the expense of the hardcore gamers enjoyment.” That may sound harsh, but it is the reality of the situation. Developers and publishers will streamline games if they feel it will increase the popularity of the game, and they do so with the knowledge that gamers who are more dedicated to the franchise will purchase it out of loyalty, even if the gameplay experience they want isn’t there. This is an indirect abuse of that segment of a fan base that is, in my eyes, an unacceptable business move.
(Warning: for those of you put to sleep by the in depth CNC4 explanation before, there is more to come).
Returning to the example of CNC4 I will demonstrate how streamlining damaged the overall game play of the game, because before I never really explained why the changes were so bad. Unlike many people, I don’t make judgments without good reason, and I certainly don’t share them unless I can support them.
If you play Real Time Strategy games, and you have played them for a while, you may have similar tastes to mine. Which is that I crave a game that will challenge my mind, I want a game that if I make a mistake or bungle a critical operation, the game is going to bend me over the desk and teach me a lesson in proper fucking. Now that’s not to say I want to play a game that if I look away from the screen for a moment, when I turn back my base is not a crater filled with freshly toasted Marine corpses. I find that most real time strategy games involve, well, strategy. CNC4’s gameplay changes remove very specific and nuanced strategic options, without most people noticing. For instance, the removal of an economy has disrupted the power of certain units and the balance of the game. Normally larger units would be more difficult to acquire because they were more expensive, which meant you had to find more resources , and in order to do so you would spread yourself out and wait to gather the necessary resources. (Notice that buying bigger guns will leave you economy stretched, as well as you units in order to protect your advancing resource gathering units). With the removal of an economy, player can sit still and crank out units as fast as their production queue can cycle, and if they don’t have the necessary population requirements (meaning they have too many units to get a new units), fuck it: send some units in a suicidal attack at the enemy.
This eliminates any strategy that would involve: A) frugality and skillful resource gathering, B) the tactic of attacking an opponent’s resources gathers in order to cripple their economy and unit production (which is a very effective tactic in earlier games), or C) giving units special abilities that earn a player cash so that units can have multipurpose roles in the game, instead of blunt weapons of increasing size, power, and range.
If I haven’t beaten that horse enough, let me know.
Moving on to base building and defensive structures; now that CNC4 had removed those pesky ‘buildings’ that had plagued their games for so long they had allowed the player the freedom to willfully ignore any type of planning and strategy, and instead encourage them to throw as many units at a single vehicle as possible and whittle away its monstrous health total in order to win. In previous games players would be forced to make large bases with structures that had unique purposes such as power plants, troop barracks, vehicle factories, airports, resource centers, and defensive structures. Each of these buildings represented a vulnerability to the owner of the structure. If a power structure was damaged, sabotaged, or destroyed, it would compromise the base defenses (which require power) leaving a base defenseless. It a troop barracks was similarly destroyed, a player would need to rebuild a new one in order to marshal forces for an attack or counterattack. If the resource gathering center was destroyed a player would be entirely unable to collect resources, making the build of defenses, the repair of building, the recruiting of new units; utterly impossible. A death blow to be sure. However in CNC4 players have one central structure. They can see their enemies coming from a mile off, and none of their production or research can be halted unless the entire structure is destroyed. But hey, at least CNC4 is simple, right? It is worth noting that this reinforces bad behavior on the part of the player. In most CnC games, because a player has an expansive base, if an opponent is clever, they will attack from the front with a large force, and send a secondary force to the rear in the hopes that in the heat of battle they wouldn’t realize that you just destroyed their power generators and now the base defenses are offline allowing you to liberally apply live ordnance to their defenseless structures.
As demonstrated, much of the higher level tactics which experienced and skilled players exploited in order to attain victory are gone. Now it is simply a matter of how can you best maximize your build queue to shit out the best anti-tank, anti-vehicle units and go destroy the opponent’s base before they do the same to you. The endless back and forth with little to no progression bores me to no end. Not to mention the fact that the ‘mech’ units in the game are horridly overpowered, and can wade into armies of enemies lay waste to them single handedly. Your only hope at winning is building a handful of engineers (units that can capture buildings) to quickly repair and capture downed ‘mechs’ bringing them back into the fight on your side. Then using these newly acquired weapons roll up on the enemy like AT-AT’s on Hoth, slaughtering ground troops as they scatter trying to find a new pair of pants.
So, CNC4 has succeeded in appealing to a more casual audience by eliminating the need for an advanced understanding of military tactics. They have added some comically overpowered units to satisfy the megalomaniac in the common gamer. But is it a good game? Was the streamlining of gameplay beneficial? Well the game sold more than its predecessor. But after its first 2 weeks, sales for the game tapered off very quickly as a result of poor feedback and reviews. But as far as I can tell, in talking with longtime fans of the series, and in my own opinion: I have found nothing but displeasure with the latest CNC installation.
Mass Effect is an interesting case of streamlining a video game. Mass Effect was a truly interesting genre of game; it was one part team tactics game, one part Bioware role playing game, and one part third person shooter. The result was something that was unrivalled in polish, uniqueness, and scale. Mass Effect was a resounding success. Mass Effect won solid praise from critics and performed well in sales. It spawned a whole new universe to which Bioware’s phenomenal writers and designers could sink more time into. I admired and enjoyed Mass Effect unlike most games I have ever played. It had a phenomenal role playing basis, a character building system with many different options for players to experiment with powers and skills. A robust inventory/loot system like that of the Neverwinter Nights and knights of the old republic games that preceded it. A fluid and intense combat system with easy and quick teammate control, cover to cover running and gunning.
Mass Effect 2 had many of these things, but not all. Mass Effect 2 suffered from a streamlining process in the interest of making it a bigger hit than Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2 shared with its predecessor: a story that is engrossing and clever ( I expect no less from Bioware), characters that polarized players (which is always good), a strong combat system with great cover systems, teammates who didn’t frequently run into my line of fire or get stuck on level geometry (which I can’t say for many games). But one thing Mass Effect was missing on the second go around the block was the finer points of the RPG system. Yes, you still assumed the role of Commander Shepard, the oddly androgynous, possibly bisexual, destroyer of Geth and worlds alike. You got the typical dichotomous Good (paragon) or Evil (renegade) choices. So yeah you were role playing. But the skill progression was culled down to 4 basic skills. Excuse me Bioware, but what the fuck? Isn’t that the point of class and skill specialization, to have party members have skills that fit a specified role? So you would have to mix and match party members to fit what mission you were on. No, in Mass Effect 2 you have a party full of people with a lot of these shared skills, as a result what you get is a party full of people who claim to be the jack-of-all-skills. So my play through Mass Effect had me using every character in my party. While my play through of Mass Effect 2 had me using Thane, Garrus, and Grunt simply because I liked those characters more than the others, and not because they actually fit what I was trying to do; because frankly it didn’t matter.
Not to mention that the inventory was ripped out entirely. Upgrades and weapons were now purchased with resources garnered from a mining mini game that was little more than an endless game of radar based whack-a-mole. Seriously? I know the Mako driving sequences in Mass Effect one were a little tedious, and the Mako handled like Shepard was in a perpetual state of drunkenness. But instead of the world exploration that existed in Mass Effect, allowing players some fun as they bounced and bombed around on different planets, they put in a system where you look at the same dull planet sphere that rotates. You stare at some sensors, at the appropriate time you click a button a pointless animation happens, your resource numbers are incremented accordingly, repeat that until you deplete the planet of resources or run out of probes. Oh and if you run out of probes, just go to a refueling station, buy more for a nominal cost, and return to rape more planets. Speaking quickly to the probes, why not just give me unlimited probes instead of wasting my time flying to and from a refueling station for probes that are so cheap that I never found myself in a situation where I couldn’t buy a full box of 30. Using these newfound resources you can upgrade the 2 weapons you have: with only a narrow set of possibilities, all of which can stack on top of each other, never having to compromise one or the other.
One of my favorite parts of Mass effect was tricking out Garrus’s and Wrex’s guns to meet very specific and deadly roles, so they could rip through enemies I softened up with my biotics. So naturally when I popped in Mass Effect 2, the first thing I did when reaching the Normandy, I opened my inventory to see what I had. I found that I simply had 3 weapons that were restricted to my class. Not only that but I wouldn’t get more than 2 different weapons of any weapon type (pistol, smg, shotgun, sniper, etc.). Gone were the days when as an Adept I could stupidly wield a sniper rifle and rattle off completely useless suppressive fire so that Wrex could maneuver to melee range and give some unsuspecting Geth a primer course on the futility of krogan mating. It might have been an utterly idiotic tactic I used, but I was allowed to do it…
But isn’t that what a game is? I see a game as developers giving you a world with a set of constraints and saying ‘here go crazy’. Now it would seem that this philosophy has an added caveat of “go crazy, but don’t do anything stupid”.
And that is the best way I can describe the difference between ME1 an ME2. The latter is idiot-proof, whereas ME1 fully embraced the idiots and clowns of the game community (embraced them and then promptly destroyed them). Now these gripes may seem like they don’t impact the overall game, and you would be right to think so. Hell, I think so. I played through ME2 three times. It’s a great game, and it saved itself from itself through all the ways in which it improved upon ME: the writing, conversations, combat movement, teammate AI, space travel, witty party banter, and atmosphere of the game all saw marked advancement. Overall, they successfully distracted my critical eye from the flaws of the game. (They could have just used shiny objects. That would have worked too).
I bring up Mass Effect 2 because it is an interesting case, it strides the middle ground of what iterative game development provides. It provides a wealth of refined mechanics and embellished stories. But it also provides a huge opportunity for developers and publishers to slim down a game so much, that they turn off their most loyal fan base because they have betrayed the ethos of a franchise. There are only a handful of examples where this has happened. But those examples are only in the past few years, and the number of these failed attempts at streamlining is slowly growing.
This leads us to the ultimate question:
Where is the line between fiscal decision making and truly good game development choices?
I haven’t found it yet. It keeps shifting with each new sequel that gets squeezed out every year or so. My head is not buried so deeply in the sand that I can’t enjoy a game that has modified and optimized a few game features, as in the case of Mass Effect 2. But I’m not blind enough to drool over a game that destroys the foundation of its namesake in the effort of appealing to a more ‘casual’ or ‘social’ buyer.
If you have other strong examples, or any feedback: throw a comment down below.
4 thoughts on “Why Streamlining is a Dirty Word”
Christian Beekman · July 3, 2011 at 9:54 am ·
I like your example with C&C4(where streamlining basic elements of the franchise are bad), but what about RTS games like World in Conflict, Myth, and the Men of War series? All are games without base building or resource management. Are those elements required to have a good RTS?
monahanconnor · July 3, 2011 at 11:09 am ·
Oh there are definitely games that games that benefited from streamlined game play, unfortunately, the piece was already 3000 words. Adding another example and analyzing it, that would be too much. Haha.
Speaking to RTSs: No there doesn’t need to be base building or economies to justify a strong game. Hell Beekman, you know about the game I am currently developing / designing, it doesn’t involve any economy. Games like Tom Clancy’s End War (which had its flaws) were very fun, very good, but contained no economy to speak of.
I think the important thing to understand is this: if you are a game that offers a specific and complex experience to a dedicated user base (after more than 5+ title releases) you have to understand consistency. Command and Conquer was the pioneer of the base building / economy-based RTS. The fact they betrayed that with the pile of garbage that was CNC4 is just saddening, especially as a fan. Not to mention, I have it on good authority (from people within EA) that they made CNC4 knowing it was the last CNC installment, which really just kills me that they ended on such a horrid note.
But all in all, yeah I should have put a strong example of streamlining to balance the good, middle, and terrible dynamic. Maybe I will.
Christian Beekman · July 4, 2011 at 7:04 pm ·
Just playing devils advocate. I recall several C&C games that feature single player missions with no base building or resource management.
Connor · July 4, 2011 at 7:58 pm ·
Oh there are definitely mission in CnC that don’t have base building or resource management on the part of the player. I assume you are referring to the Commando Unit missions. In those missions, notice that the NPC opponents still played with the base building/economic restraints that the game was built on. So all the same tactics applied, it was simply on the micro-scale of you one unit. Also those missions were small diversions, they never made up more than 10% of total time in the campaign. Not to mention the fact that you could skip those missions that involved that type of gameplay if you stuck to multiplayer.
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Fixing Denver Transit: Fairer Fares
The cost of a one-way fare in Denver is "among the highest" of all the comparable cities Denveright planners examined. Image: City and County of Denver
As part of our series on fixing Denver’s transit system, today Streetsblog is focusing on fares and how to make them more affordable.
“Compared to its peer cities, Denver has among the highest one-way fares,” according to a recent report from the team working on the Denveright transit plan. Overall, they concluded, RTD’s fares “are relatively high” compared to Seattle, Portland, D.C., Salt Lake City, Austin, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Minneapolis.
A one-way fare on a bus or train runs $2.60 for a local trip or $4.50 for a regional trip. None of the peer cities except Salt Lake have higher prices.
For many people, the bus and train are lifelines for getting to work, the grocery store, or anywhere else beyond walking distance of their home. Most of RTD’s riders come from households making less than $50,000 a year, according to an RTD survey.
Image: RTD
Denver also has three fare zones, a set-up that “can be cost-prohibitive for people with lower incomes” who have to travel across multiple zones, the Denveright report found.
For example, if you live in Green Valley Ranch and work five days a week downtown, the commute would traverse all zones, costing $9 daily, or $180 per month ($171 if you buy a monthly pass). Portland’s TriMet system, in contrast, has a single fare zone with a flat $2.50 fare.
High fares can combine with cheap driving costs to turn people away from transit. “With the low cost of parking and lack of roadway tolls, driving can be a more appealing travel choice than taking transit and paying a high fare cost,” the report states.
RTD’s state-mandated policy of providing cheap parking at stations is especially regressive. Less affluent transit riders who don’t drive to the train are, in effect, subsidizing more affluent car-owning transit riders, while agencies do little to improve the quality of walking access to transit, which would help low-income riders most of all.
The cost range of Denver’s monthly transit passes is also on the high end compared to peer cities. Image: City and County of Denver
While the Denveright team says the current fare structure has to change, they haven’t laid out detailed recommendations to fix it yet. “Local day passes at $5.20 (the cost of a local round trip) can reduce costs for riders making multiple trips in a single day,” the report states. “RTD’s Community Pass Programs can also provide cost savings for some neighborhoods and for college students, but other programmatic improvements could help improve access to transit and increase ridership.”
Specific proposals to improve the fare system will presumably be developed as the Denveright plan progresses.
If you missed the first two installments of Streetsblog’s Fixing Denver Transit series, catch up with our posts about the shoddiness of Denver’s bus stops and the lack of dedicated bus lanes on city streets.
Filed Under: Denveright, fares, transit, Promoted
Headlines Will Return on Tuesday
Friday’s Headlines 01/15/2021 and Colorado’s New Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap
Thursday’s Headlines 01/14/2021 and the “State Highway Director”
By Streetsblog Denver | Jan 14, 2021
RTD GM questions Boulder train. Denver planning walk-up vaccinations. Colorado Politics "geeks out" on highways. More headlines.
Drivers Are Still Top Polluters, Even During Quarantine
By Kea Wilson | Jan 14, 2021
Not even months of quarantine orders that confined millions of Americans to their homes were enough to unseat passenger vehicle trips as the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, a new study finds.
Wednesday’s Headlines 01/13/2021 and Some Mobility-Minded Meetings
A fascinating history of roundabouts. Legislators talk transportation funding. Some mobility-minded meetings. More headlines.
Tuesday’s Headlines 01/12/2021 and Colorado Pedestrian Deaths Increased 89% from 2008 to 2018
Colorado pedestrian deaths increased by 89% from 2008 to 2018, and Black and Latino populations are over-represented. #coleg could let RTD lower fares. Concerns grow over transportation to get COVID-19 vaccine. More headlines.
This post is supported by Readers like you. Give now. STREETSBLOG SF
Advocate Urges Removal of S.F.’s “Beg Buttons”
Beg buttons serve motorists at the expense of people who walk. It's time to correct this.
Monday’s Headlines 01/11/2021 and Apply for the Denver DOTI Advisory Board
Apply for the Denver DOTI Advisory Board, a series on the Central I-70 project, car purchases increase when Uber and Lyft come to town, and more headlines
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ConvertOctopus
How fast is 1655 kilometers per hour in knots?
1655 kilometers per hour equals 893.629 knots
From centimeters (cm) feet (ft) inches (in) kilometers (km) meters (m) miles (mi) decimeters (dm) millimeters (mm) yards (yd) grams (g) ounces (oz) pounds (lb) kilograms (kg) days (d) months (mo) years (yr) hours (hr) minutes (min) seconds (s) weeks (wk) feet per second (ft/s) kilometers per hour (km/h) knots (kt) meters per second (m/s) miles per hour (mph) cubic centimeters (cm3) cubic feet (ft3) cubic inches (in3) cubic meters (m3) cups (cup) deciliters (dL) gallons (gal) liters (L) milliliters (ml) fluid ounces (fl oz) pints (pt) quarts (qt) tablespoons (tbsp) teaspoons (tsp)
To centimeters (cm) feet (ft) inches (in) kilometers (km) meters (m) miles (mi) decimeters (dm) millimeters (mm) yards (yd) grams (g) ounces (oz) pounds (lb) kilograms (kg) days (d) months (mo) years (yr) hours (hr) minutes (min) seconds (s) weeks (wk) feet per second (ft/s) kilometers per hour (km/h) knots (kt) meters per second (m/s) miles per hour (mph) cubic centimeters (cm3) cubic feet (ft3) cubic inches (in3) cubic meters (m3) cups (cup) deciliters (dL) gallons (gal) liters (L) milliliters (ml) fluid ounces (fl oz) pints (pt) quarts (qt) tablespoons (tbsp) teaspoons (tsp)
The conversion factor from kilometers per hour to knots is 0.53995680345662, which means that 1 kilometer per hour is equal to 0.53995680345662 knots:
1 km/h = 0.53995680345662 kt
To convert 1655 kilometers per hour into knots we have to multiply 1655 by the conversion factor in order to get the velocity amount from kilometers per hour to knots. We can also form a simple proportion to calculate the result:
1 km/h → 0.53995680345662 kt
1655 km/h → V(kt)
Solve the above proportion to obtain the velocity V in knots:
V(kt) = 1655 km/h × 0.53995680345662 kt
V(kt) = 893.62850972071 kt
1655 km/h → 893.62850972071 kt
We conclude that 1655 kilometers per hour is equivalent to 893.62850972071 knots:
1655 kilometers per hour = 893.62850972071 knots
Alternative conversion
We can also convert by utilizing the inverse value of the conversion factor. In this case 1 knot is equal to 0.0011190332326265 × 1655 kilometers per hour.
Another way is saying that 1655 kilometers per hour is equal to 1 ÷ 0.0011190332326265 knots.
Approximate result
For practical purposes we can round our final result to an approximate numerical value. We can say that one thousand six hundred fifty-five kilometers per hour is approximately eight hundred ninety-three point six two nine knots:
1655 km/h ≅ 893.629 kt
An alternative is also that one knot is approximately zero point zero zero one times one thousand six hundred fifty-five kilometers per hour.
kilometers per hour to knots chart
For quick reference purposes, below is the conversion table you can use to convert from kilometers per hour to knots
knots (kt)
1656 kilometers per hour 894.168 knots
The units involved in this conversion are kilometers per hour and knots. This is how they are defined:
Kilometer per hour
The kilometre per hour (American English: kilometer per hour) is a unit of speed, expressing the number of kilometres travelled in one hour. The unit symbol is km/h. Worldwide, it is the most commonly used unit of speed on road signs and car speedometers. Although the metre was formally defined in 1799, the term "kilometres per hour" did not come into immediate use – the myriametre (10,000 metres) and myriametre per hour were preferred to kilometres and kilometres per hour.
Source: Wikipedia Topic: kilometer per hour
The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile (1.852 km) per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. The ISO Standard symbol for the knot is kn. The same symbol is preferred by the IEEE; kt is also common. The knot is a non-SI unit that is "accepted for use with the SI". Worldwide, the knot is used in meteorology, and in maritime and air navigation—for example, a vessel travelling at 1 knot along a meridian travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour. Etymologically, the term derives from counting the number of knots in the line that unspooled from the reel of a chip log in a specific time.
Source: Wikipedia Topic: knot
How fast is 1655 kilometers per hour in other velocity units?
1655 kilometers per hour to feet per second
1655 kilometers per hour to knots
1655 kilometers per hour to meters per second
1655 kilometers per hour to miles per hour
Recent kilometers per hour to knots conversions
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1655 km/h to kt
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/History /The Ancient Rules of Shenoute’s Monastic Federation
Armia FAYEZ
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WORK IS NOW well under way to produce a critical edition of Shenoute’s vast work entitled Canons. My own editorial task is volumes 4 and 5 of the Canons. Now, this title—Canons—is a bit odd. In Christian usage of the Greek language, ‘canons’—kanones—meant ‘rules’ or ‘laws,’ and so it is no surprise to find that volumes 4 and 5 do contain a large number of monastic rules.[1] However, as you read these volumes, and indeed all nine volumes of the Canons, two very peculiar problems immediately catch the eye.
First, for the most part, these nine books do not consist of monastic rules or laws. Instead, they consist mainly of monastic diatribe, filled with reproach and warning, directed to fellow monks and nuns. Why, then, were these diatribes entitled Canons?
Second, interspersed throughout the Canons we do find a certain number of monastic rules floating here and there. However, Shenoute usually quotes these rules without making any obvious connection to the theme or argument of the work in which they occur. What is the function of the rules that occur haphazardly in the midst of diatribe? Why are they there, and not collected together in one book? How do they belong to the text? Or, to put the question more broadly, what is the Canons, why does it exist, who gave it this name, what was its intended function, and in what environment was it used? So far, we have no answer to these questions, and I am not going to answer them all in this paper.
In order to edit and translate Volumes 4 and 5 as accurately as possible, I decided to collect and study all the rules and policy statements that occur in all books of Shenoute’s Canons. My corpus now amounts to more than five hundred rules, that is, short passages that seem to be, or to cite, or to reflect, a monastic rule. Since many, many parts of the Canons have not survived down to the twenty-first century, the original, complete text of the Canons must have contained even many more rules than I have collected—let us imagine, a thousand or more. The quantity of the surviving rules is nothing short of sensational.
Now, the genre of Christian monastic rule had already been invented by Pachomius two generations before Shenoute. However, only one hundred or so Pachomian rules now survive, and mostly in a Latin version, whereas, in the Shenoute corpus, we have over five hundred items, a really extensive set of commands and policies in the original Coptic. This enables us to understand the administration of an early coenobitic monastic federation, both in detail and in its overall structure. As readers may know, much of my recent research has been devoted to analyzing the structure of Shenoute’s monastic world on the basis of these rules.[2]
Let us return to the rules. What is the source of authority for these rules? Who was their reputed author? In seeking to answer these questions, it is very important to remember that Shenoute was not the founder of the White Monastery federation: this was apparently Apa Pcol. As Professor Emmel has demonstrated,[3] Shenoute was the third leader of the federation, the successor of a certain Apa Ebonh. Thus: Pcol, Ebonh, Shenoute. During Shenoute’s leadership as third abbot of the federation, the time of experimentation and surprise had passed. Patterns of daily life had become well established, taken for granted, and typified.[4]
Now, in quoting monastic rules, Shenoute speaks of “us,” thus including himself, as having inherited the rules from predecessors. He refers to the “canons” or “traditions” or “commands” or “commandments” or “laws” that a group called “our fathers” either “established” or “laid down” or “wrote” or “commanded to us” or “that we have,” or something similar.[5] It is clear that Shenoute is not the author of the five hundred or so monastic rules in my corpus—at least, certainly not all of them.
Furthermore, Shenoute’s federation possessed and used distinct books of ancient rules, which Shenoute mentions in several places. These books do not survive. But we know how they were used. In fact, many of the rules quoted by Shenoute probably came from these books. According to statements made by Shenoute, these ancient books were used in several different institutional contexts by the leaders of the federation.[6] In order to describe the uses of these lost rule books, I must first describe the organizational structure of the White Monastery federation.[7]
Figure 1. The Organizational Structure of the Federation.
As fig. 1 indicates, Shenoute’s monastic federation consisted of three congregations, comprising two monasteries for men (located at the White Monastery and the Red Monastery); and a nunnery for women, located in the village of Triphiou (probably the archaeological site of Atripe); as well as a cluster of male and female hermits living along the base of the Gebel or valley wall. A supreme leader (Shenoute, for example) headed the federation as a whole. Under him, each of the three congregations was headed by an officer called the Eldest; and each congregation had its council of elders who served as advisors. The monastic population of each congregation was enclosed by a wall and was divided into units called houses. Each house was headed by a housemaster or housemistress.
The daily schedule[8] of the monks or nuns consisted of six events, which were obligatory for all healthy monks or nuns. As fig. 2 indicates, just before dawn a great assembly was held in each of the three individual congregations for prayer, instruction, and communal handiwork. At 6 a.m., a smaller meeting for prayer and handiwork was held in each of the houses of each congregation; and the same repeated at (probably) 9 a.m. At 12 noon there was a communal meal in each individual congregation. At 3 p.m. was another meeting in each of the houses for prayer and handiwork, and in the evening, another great assembly for each entire congregation.
Just before dawn, a great assembly, that is, a collective meeting for prayer and handiwork in each entire congregation (in the church building?)
1st hour (6 a.m.), prayer and handiwork in the houses
[. . ] hour (9 a.m.?), prayer and handiwork in the houses
6th hour (12 noon), the daily meal
9th hour (3 p.m), prayer and handiwork in the houses
Evening, a great assembly
Fig. 2. The Daily Schedule of Monastic Life.
Twice a week, we are told, on Wednesdays and Fridays, one of the smaller meetings included a catechesis—an instruction. And three times a week, on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturday nights, one of the great assemblies also included an instruction.[9]
I will now return to the ancient rule books that Shenoute mentions. How were these books used in the federation?
The answer to this question comes from Shenoute’s own statements,[10] which tell us the following. At the most intimate organizational level, passages from these rule books were sometimes read aloud or interpreted in catecheses or instructions that were given twice a week in each house by the housemaster or mistress. This would have taken place at a smaller meeting held, at either 6 a.m., 9 a.m., or 3 p.m., in each House. Here, personal spiritual intimacy was the tone. The housemaster or mistress was the most significant spiritual advisor to the individual monk and nun, and indeed, these officers were also called “Congregational Parents.”[11] These officers monitored the spiritual state of each monk and nun, and their twice-a-week catecheses were an occasion for learning, participation, group response, and bonding—moments of great emotional significance. Here the rules were translated into patterns of daily life at the most personal level, under something like parental guidance.
Second, higher leaders also occasionally used or interpreted the ancient rule books to instruct a large audience. Such plenary instructions were given in one of the great assemblies consisting of all the monks or nuns in a given congregation.
Third, the rule books were required to be publicly read out in their entirety during each of the four weeks of annual plenary meeting,[12] in which all the members of a given congregation were told to scrutinize their words and deeds in the light of the written rules. Possibly these weeks were the first week of Lent, Easter week, and two other weeks of the year.
Fourth, and finally, when any newcomer came to the gate of the monastery and announced his desire to become a monk,[13] he was first scrutinized by the gatekeeper and then examined by the supreme leader (Shenoute, in this case). Finally, he was led into the church, and before the altar he had to swear a solemn oath that he would agree to the way that the monks live and comply with any and all rules on pain of expulsion. This was a vague and insubstantial promise to keep all existing rules, even though he did not know what they were. For, there would have been far too many rules to learn at once—a thousand or more, probably—and anyway, most of them would make absolutely no sense without a prior knowledge of the terminology, roles, and organization of the monastery, which the newcomer had not yet internalized. Yet, in making his monastic vow, he learned that formal rules existed and that they would somehow be used in the future. Here we see the use of rule books as an idea or mental icon without yet, as it were, opening their covers.
In summary, there were at least four ways that rule books were used in the White Monastery federation. First, in some of the small-scale instructional meetings in the individual houses. Second, in some of the large-scale great assembly meetings of the individual congregations. Third, to be ritually read aloud in their entirely before each individual congregation, during each of the four weeks of annual scrutiny. And fourth, as an object of unknowing obedience, to which reference was made whenever a new monk or nun took their oath of submission.
There is no indication that low-level, ordinary monks ever possessed, borrowed, or even touched a rule book, and it is most unlikely that they would have done so. Such books were instructional, disciplinary, and ritual tools, meant to be used, interpreted, or altered by authorized leaders of the federation. They were material for the use of teachers and supervisors.
So, what did these rule books look like? Exactly what did they contain? Unfortunately, I cannot find any way to reconstruct their exact contents. Nor do I know how they were arranged. However, it is possible to make a few observations based on the forms of the surviving rules that are quoted by Shenoute in the Canons.
I have studied the formal style of the White Monastery rules collected in my database[14] and discovered that about 40 percent—nearly half—have the same form as the Coptic rules of Pachomius, as published by Lefort. These rules are practical and casuistic. They are both affirmative and negative. Affirmatives usually express the main command by Coptic efna- (sometimes efe-), and negatives by nnef-. Casuistic conditions are expressed by formal conditional sentences (if . . . then . . .) or by adverbial elements such as at any given time, anyone in this congregation, anyone in this congregation whether male or female, except with permission of such-and-such an officer, except in case of emergency or of sickness, etc.—in other words, practical administrative rules geared to daily application. In my current research on the White Monastery rules, I am in the process of comparing these rules with the somewhat earlier rules of Pachomius. Shenoute, of course, knew about Pachomius, who had died[15] one year before Shenoute was born.
Shenoute mentions Pachomius by name in the Canons and knows about the story that Pachomius received his rules from an angel.[16] Occasionally Shenoute speaks of his own monastic federation as a “Koinonia”[17]—favorite jargon of the Pachomian monks. And the two surviving Coptic manuscript fragments of Pachomius’s rules, which were copied in the early Middle Ages, once belonged to the White Monastery library, according to Orlandi.[18] So the Pachomian connections are unmistakably there. Yet, Shenoute does not claim the authority of Pachomius when citing any of the White Monastery rules. For example, once he quotes what we can recognize as an actual rule of Pachomius (Praecepta 95, about the distance that two monks must leave between them selves when they walk or sit).[19] But he attributes this rule only vaguely to “those who have said.” It appears that Pachomius was not considered to be the patron of the Pachomian type of rules that were used in Shenoute’s federation, however much they may owe historically to Pachomius.
A second important formal group of ancient rules—accounting for about 15 percent of the surviving rules—are curses.[20] Half of these begin with the phrase “Cursed be anyone who (does so-and-so)” (fshouort nci- . . .). Another third have the curse at the end: “Anyone who (does so-and-so) shall be under a curse” (. . . efesope efshouort). This form is unique in early monastic rules. It has a biblical basis in Deuteronomy 17.
It is extremely interesting that in three of the manuscripts of Shenoute’s Canons, curse rules are accompanied by numbers written in the margin.[21] Only a few numbered curses have survived. They include curses numbered 5-11, 56-60, 116-119, 128-139, 192-195, and 204. Though only a few have survived, we can see from the numbering that originally there were more than two hundred of them. This suggests (although it does not prove) that Shenoute had access to an ancient rule book in the form of numbered curse rules.
There is more that can be said about the structure and origins of the ancient rule books used in Shenoute’s monastic federation. For the moment, however, I would like to conclude by referring to the problem with which this paper began: namely, the question of the literary con- text—Shenoute’s work entitled Canons—in which these rules are quoted. Earlier in this chapter I cited Shenoute’s own statement about various institutional settings in which the ancient rules were used.[22] One of these was the large assembly of all monks or nuns, held twice a day in each of the three congregations of the federation. Three times a week (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday night) one of these great assemblies included a catechesis or instruction given by a senior leader of the congregation.[23] Here, the rule tells us, excerpts from the rules might optionally be read out by the instructor, as the instructor exhorted the assembled persons to scrutinize their words and their deeds in the light of the ancient rules. Might it be that Shenoute’s Canons gives us some examples of the kind of urgent rhetoric that was delivered in the great assembly meetings, before an entire congregation, where instructors occasionally made use of the ancient rule books, just as Shenoute does in his Canons? If so, this would provide a partial answer to the question I raised at the beginning of this chapter—namely, what are Shenoute’s Canons?
Bentley Layton
[1] By my count of surviving leaves, Canons vol. 1 contains 27 rules; vol. 2 contains 3 rules; vol. 3 contains 97 rules; vol. 4 contains 46 rules; vol. 5 contains 120 rules; vol. 6 contains 36 rules; vol. 7 contains no rules; vol. 8 contains 6 rules; vol. 9 contains 207 rules.
[2] Layton 2002; Layton 2006; Layton 2007; Layton (forthcoming). A few passages of the present paper reproduce the wording of one or another of these essays.
[3] Emmel 2004b: 9-10.
[4] Layton 2007: 45-46.
[5] Layton (forthcoming).
[6] Shenoute writes (or perhaps quotes), “If they happen to read them (the rule books) in the Houses, nothing stands in the way. And also if they happen to read from them, whenever they want to, on days when all are gathered in the assembly, scrutinizing their words and their deeds according to our rules (canons), nothing stands in the way. However—on these four yearly occasions (the four annual weeks of scrutiny, cf. note 12) they shall all be read without fail, even if there is someone who hates to hear them because he hates his very soul”: Canons, vol. 1, YW210, based on text as collated by Stephen Emmel; an imperfect transcription of the same text is given by Munier 1916: 117.
[7] For further details, consult Layton 2002: passim, and Layton 2007: 53-54.
[8] Layton 2007: 51-53 (“The Hierarchy of Time”).
[9] “Just as the housemasters give catechesis each fast day, also the heads of these abodes shall give catechesis in the assembly three times per week: the two fasts and the eve of Sunday” (Canons, vol. 9).
[10] Shenoute, quoted above in note 6; Layton 2007: 65-69.
[11] Layton 2002: 29, table 1.
[12] “Four weeks per year . . . everyone who dwells in the desert in our territory shall assemble with the monks or nuns and come together” (Canons, vol. 3); “We scrutinize our words and deeds during the four weeks when we assemble” (Canons, vol. 9).
[13] Layton 2007: 58-64.
[14] In Layton (forthcoming): passim.
[15] 9 May 346.
[16] Canons, vol. 4, BZ10=Leipoldt 1908: 120.
[17] Canons, vol. 1, YW78=Paris, BN copte 1302 f.78 verso; vol. 3, YA 31 3=Leipoldt 1913: 122; vol. 9, FM96=Leipoldt 1913: 89 and BV283=Leipoldt 1913: 172.
[18] Orlandi 2004: “Pacomio.” (Consulted on 29.12.2004.) The manuscript sigla are MONB.BC and MONB.BF.
[19] Canons, vol. 9, DF145-46 = Leipoldt 1913: 95, speaking of “those [that is, Pachomius] who have said, You shall leave a cubit between yourselves and them.”
[20] Studied in Layton (forthcoming).
[21] Codexes GI, YA, and YD. For the marginalia of GI, cf. Emmel 2004: 162; for YA, Emmel 2004b: 147—48; and for YD (fragment 2 verso), Cairo, Institut fran^ais d’archeologie orientale du Caire, ms. inv. 2349A (Emmel per litt. 26.08.2004; not mentioned in Emmel 2004b).
[22] Text in note 6, above.
[23] See note 9, above.
Tags: History
Tagged: A.MabbotAffirmativealtarAMAnalyzingAnnualAnywayapaarchaeologicalAssembleAtripeBiblicalBNBroadlyCaireCairoCanonsCatechesesCatechesisChristianChurchCitingCollatedCongregationConnectionsCopiedCopteCoptic manuscriptCorpusCouncilCursedDeuteronomyDistinctEasterEveExcerptsFavoritefirst centuryGreekGreek LanguageHermitsIconInstructionsIntendedItemsKoinoniaLanguageLatinLaytonLefortLeipoldtMalmanuscriptsMiddle AgesmonasteriesMonastic LifeMSMunierNunNunsObedienceOccasionallyOfficerOpeningOrdinaryOrganizationOrganizational StructureOrientaleOriginsOrlandiP.MPachomianPachomiusParisPerhapsPraeceptaPrayerRed MonasteryRememberritualSaturdaySentencesSoulSTEPHEN EMMELThe White MonasteryTriphiouValleyVillageWhite Monastery
The concept of historical cause in Flavius Josephus
The Role of the Female Elder in Shenoute’s White Monastery
The Monastery of Apa Thomas at Wadi Sarga: Points of Departure for a Relative Chronology
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US Mission Saudi Arabia: Consequences of One-Year Tours/Staffing Gaps
May 18, 2010 By domani spero in Ambassadors, Foreign Service, Govt Documents, Staffing the FS, U.S. Missions
State/OIG has released its inspection report of US Mission Saudi Arabia conducted last fall. I should note that the inspection occurred between September to October 2009. The new Ambassador James B. Smith assumed his assignment in Riyadh in August 2009 while his new DCM Susan L. Ziadeh assumed post in September. Ambassador Smith succeeded Ford M. Fraker, a Bush political appointee who was posted as US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2007-2009. The “Executive Direction” section of this report is quite forward looking; and only talks about the current occupants of the Front Office. A quick review of the OIG website with documents going back to 2005 did not show any inspection report for US Mission Saudi Arabia in the last five years. It doesn’t mean, none was conducted, of course; only that no other report seems to be available to the public besides this one.
First off — here’s something interesting. In the five month gap when there was no ambassador in Riyadh, the chargé d’affaires position changed six times. Six times! The DCM normally would be chargé d’affaires, unless he/she also rotated out following the ambassador’s departure. I remember at one post, when the Ambassador and DCM were both gone, the chargé d’affaires position was “spread” around the section chiefs. So one week you have the Pol Counselor as top boss, the next couple weeks you have the Econ Counselor, another week you have the USAID director. And on and on it went. Supposedly to give those folks executive experience. Or perhaps so they could put this in their EERs? Can you imagine the disruption of having a different boss every couple of weeks?
Mission Saudi Arabia struggled through a five-month transition between the departure of the previous Ambassador in April 2009 and the arrival of the current Ambassador in September. During that period, the chargé d’affaires position changed six times, rotating among the DCM, management counselor, and a when-actually-employed (WAE) retired ambassador. A number of employees commented in their OIG questionnaires that they felt a lack of front office direction and sometimes did not know who was in charge during that period.
Other issues prominently discussed in this report are the one-year tours and staffing gaps and its impact on the Mission. Excerpt below:
“Limiting tours of duty to one year has undermined the effectiveness of Mission Saudi Arabia and hampered its outreach.
[T]he OIG team found morale throughout the mission to be relatively good, with a few individual exceptions. Part of this may be owing to the fact that, given the policy until now of one-year tours, the large majority of staff members had recently arrived at the time of the inspection, and most had bonded well with each other. ELOs in particular were eager and enthusiastic about their jobs and the adventure of coming to Saudi Arabia to work.
Inexperienced ELOs serving in mid-level grade positions and extended vacancies characterize mission-wide staffing, hampering policy advocacy and program operations. Supervisors give serious attention to training ELOs, diverting their time from conducting regular operations. The transition from one-year to two-year tours should improve the officers’ ability to build and apply new skills and to cultivate relationships with Saudi contacts.
Officers have not implemented Departmental procedures on information sharing and document management, as is required by Foreign Affairs Manual (5 FAM 400) and the Foreign Affairs Handbook (5 FAH-1 H-300). Instead, officers retain material in personal email folders that are not accessible to colleagues when an offi cer is out of the office, away on leave, or departs from post. The exceptions are the consul general and office management specialist (OMS) in Jeddah, who maintain files correctly—a practice not extending to the Jeddah political-economic section. Reliance on individual email folders causes inefficiency in terms of time spent searching for information, the inaccessibility of model documents for inexperienced offi cers, and a loss of retrievable material for the Department and historians.
In 2009, the Department downgraded the mid-level officer position covering the banking and finance portfolio to an ELO-level position. A fi rst-tour offi cer will fill the position in summer 2010. Rank conscious Saudis are unlikely to work extensively with a first-tour ELO on sensitive banking and finance issues. This means that the counselor and the deputy will need to plan on devoting more of their time to banking and finance issues, in addition to the existing demands that already generate substantial overtime.
Recent turnover of Foreign Service staff in the information management section has resulted in only one person serving longer than four months. The embassy and consulates general have been one-year tours, and consequently items have been neglected. Two-year tours have just been implemented in the last year. The loss of corporate knowledge and continuity is apparent in the documentation.”
On the challenge of maintaining morale:
“Maintaining morale at Mission Saudi Arabia can be a challenge, in view of the security concerns, difficult climate, heavy office workload, limited recreational opportunities, and the highly conservative Saudi culture, in which norms are enforced by the religious police. It can be a particular challenge for women, since they are not allowed to drive or ride bicycles and—although not required by embassy regulations— they are expected, by Saudi culture, to wear a floor-length, black abaya whenever they go out in public.”
About those compensatory time for locally employed employees:
“For budgetary reasons, LE staff members often are required to work for compensatory time, in lieu of overtime. Current guidance from the Department’s Office of Human Resources/Overseas Employment (HR/OE) provides LE staff members with only eight pay periods in which to use compensatory time. The mission’s workload often prevents LE staff members from using their earned compensatory time in that short timeframe, and as a result, they lose it. This dilemma is not unique to Embassy Riyadh, and the Bureau of Human Resources (HR) is aware that it is a worldwide issue. HR currently is developing a global policy to allow LE staff 26 pay periods to use their earned compensatory time.”
On the overall challenge of US Mission Saudi Arabia:
Mission Saudi Arabia faces challenges that will tax its resources. These include supporting a large influx of personnel to support a joint U.S.-Saudi critical infrastructure protection program, meeting its target to double visa issuances, accommodating the return of families after several years in unaccompanied status, moving to the new housing and consulate compound in Jeddah, and locating property for and constructing a new housing and consulate compound in Dhahran.
Adherence to Saudi local practice has led Mission Saudi Arabia to run afoul of Equal Employment Opportunity precepts and complicates monitoring contractors’ compliance with their obligations regarding basic worker protections and freedom of movement.
You can read the whole thing here.
-03/31/10 Embassy Riyadh and Constituent Posts, Saudi Arabia (ISP-I-10-19A) March 2010
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Cherry Denman: the Not so Outrageous Confessions of a Diplomat’s Wife »
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Justia Dockets & Filings Ninth Circuit California Eastern District Morning Star Packing Company, et al v. SK Foods, et al Filing 304
Morning Star Packing Company, et al v. SK Foods, et al
ORDER signed by District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller on 6/13/2017 ORDERING Ingomar's 250 Motion for Summary Judgment is DENIED in PART and GRANTED in PART; Los Gatos's 285 Motion on the Sherman Act Claim, Motion on the RICO claim and Mot ion on the RICO conspiracy claim is GRANTED; a Final Pretrial Conference is set for 8/11/2017 at 10:00 AM in Courtroom 3 (KJM) before District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller, with joint final pretrial statements due by 7/28/2017; the Court DISMISSED all Doe Defendants.(Reader, L)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 12 THE MORNING STAR PACKING COMPANY, et al., Plaintiffs, 13 14 15 16 No. 2:09-cv-00208-KJM-EFB ORDER v. SK FOODS, L.P., et al., Defendants. 17 18 Plaintiff Morning Star has brought suit against several competitors in the industry, 19 including companies known as Los Gatos and Ingomar. Morning Star alleged defendants 20 engaged in an anti-competitive scheme that injured Morning Star’s business and violated both the 21 Sherman Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Ingomar and 22 Los Gatos have moved for summary judgment. 23 At hearing, A. James Kachmar and Dale Campbell appeared for Morning Star, 24 Stephen Zovickian appeared for Ingomar, Miles Ehrlich appeared for Ingomar’s president Gregg 25 Pruett, Charles Jaeger appeared for Los Gatos and its president Stuart Woolf, and Malcolm Segal 26 appeared for Scott Salyer. ECF No. 296. As explained below, the court GRANTS Ingomar’s 27 motion IN PART, DENIES Ingomar’s Motion IN PART, and GRANTS Los Gatos’s motion. 28 1 1 I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY AND CLAIMS 2 The Morning Star Packing Company, the Morning Star Company, Liberty Packing 3 Company, and California Fruit & Tomato Kitchens (collectively “plaintiffs” or “Morning Star”) 4 commenced this action on January 22, 2009, filed a first amended complaint on January 29, 2010, 5 and filed the operative second amended complaint on December 6, 2010. ECF Nos. 1, 100, 116. 6 Morning Star brings three claims against moving parties Ingomar Packing 7 Company and Greg Pruett (collectively Ingomar), and Los Gatos Tomato Products and Stuart 8 Woolf (collectively Los Gatos).1 Second Amended Complaint (SAC) ¶¶ 2–4, ECF No. 116; 9 Ingomar Mot., ECF No. 251; Los Gatos Mot., ECF No. 285-1. These claims include: (1) 10 violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1; (2) violation of RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c); and 11 (3) conspiracy to violate RICO, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). See generally SAC. 12 As noted, Ingomar and Los Gatos move for summary judgment on the Sherman 13 Act and RICO claims. Morning Star has opposed both motions. Opp’n to Ingomar Mot., ECF 14 No. 260 (Ingomar Opp’n); Opp’n to Los Gatos Mot. (Los Gatos Opp’n), ECF No. 289. Ingomar 15 and Los Gatos have replied. Ingomar Reply, ECF No. 272; Los Gatos Reply, ECF No. 291. 16 II. EVIDENTIARY OBJECTIONS 17 Morning Star makes several objections to the following evidence Ingomar submits 18 in support of its motion: (1) Exhibit 6—a 2007 bid for Kraft Foods, ECF No. 273–2; (2) Exhibit 19 3—a chart showing Ingomar’s contracted sales volume history from 2001–2012, ECF No. 254–3; 20 (3) Exhibit 4—a chart showing Ingomar’s contracted sales volume history from 2003–2012, ECF 21 No. 254–4; (4) several paragraphs from Ingomar President Gregory Pruett’s declaration, Pruett 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 1 The other defendants in this suit are: (1) SK Foods, L.P. (SK Foods), (2) SK PM Corporation (SK PM), (3) Scott Salyer, (4) Randall Rahal, (5) Intramark USA, Inc. (Intramark), (6) Alan Huey, and (7) Does 1–50. SAC ¶¶ 2–4; ECF No. 81. On October 24, 2013, the court granted Morning Star’s motion for default judgment against Alan Huey, ECF No. 159. The court now DISMISSES the Doe defendants, who were not identified or served. Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m) (on its own motion, court may dismiss defendants not served within ninety days after complaint is filed); Craig v. United States, 413 F.2d 854, 856 (9th Cir. 1969) (the court may dismiss the Doe defendants sua sponte). 2 1 Decl., ECF No. 254; (5) a portion of SK Foods’ broker Randy Rahal’s deposition; and (6) a 2 portion of SK Foods’ Vice President Tony Manuel’s deposition. See Evid. Obj., ECF No. 260–1. 3 The court reviews these objections below. 4 A. 5 Exhibit 6 Morning Star objects to the admission of Exhibit 6, contending Ingomar failed to 6 authenticate the exhibit, and in any event filed a blank exhibit sheet. Evid. Obj. at 8–9. Morning 7 Star has submitted the correct exhibit in response to this objection, see ECF No. 273–2, so the 8 court focuses on the authentication issue only. 9 Federal Rule of Evidence 901(b)(1) provides a witness with knowledge of a 10 document can authenticate it by testifying it is “what it is claimed to be,” and a party “need only 11 make a prima facie showing of authenticity ‘so that a reasonable juror could find in favor of 12 authenticity or identification.’” United States v. Estrada-Eliverio, 583 F.3d 669, 673 (9th Cir. 13 2009). Here, Pruett avers Exhibit 6 is a copy of the bid Ingomar submitted to Kraft in 2007. See 14 Pruett Decl. ¶ 8. This testimony satisfies the requirement of authenticity. Morning Star’s 15 objection is overruled. 16 17 B. Exhibit 3 Morning Star objects to Exhibit 3 on two grounds: authenticity and hearsay. Evid. 18 Obj. at 7. As with Exhibit 6, Pruett’s declaration establishes the document as authentic. See 19 Pruett Decl. ¶ 5. Morning Star’s objection to the exhibit’s authenticity is overruled, and the court 20 proceeds to the hearsay objection. 21 Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter 22 asserted. Fed. R. Evid. 801(c). Here, Exhibit 3 is a chart showing the quantity of contract sales 23 Ingomar made to several major companies in the tomato processing industry. See ECF No. 254– 24 3. Where using a chart to “prove the content of voluminous writings,” the proponent must make 25 the originals or duplicates of the underlying evidence available to other parties at a reasonable 26 time and place. Fed. R. Evid. 1006; United States v. Johnson, 594 F.2d 1253, 1257 (9th Cir. 27 1979). Further, the underlying evidence must be admissible. United States v. Aubrey, 800 F.3d 28 1115, 1130 (9th Cir. 2015). Here, the chart’s contents were introduced during Pruett’s deposition, 3 1 Pruett Decl. ¶ 5; Pruett Dep. at 186:1–206:25, and the numbers calculated using Ingomar’s 2 business records “kept in the ordinary course of business,” Suppl. Pruett Decl. ¶ 2, ECF No. 273. 3 This information satisfies the business records exception to the rule against hearsay, see Fed. R. 4 Evid. 803(6). The chart is admissible, and Morning Star’s objection is overruled. 5 C. 6 Exhibit 4 Morning Star objects to Exhibit 4 on the same grounds as Exhibit 3. Evid. Obj. at 7 8–9. Pruett’s declaration provides the evidentiary basis for admission, Pruett Decl. ¶ 6. 8 Specifically, Exhibit 4 is a chart based on invoice data “produced to plaintiffs in this case,” and is 9 made from records “kept . . . in the ordinary course of business.” Suppl. Pruett Decl. ¶ 3. This 10 11 12 13 14 chart is admissible, and Morning Star’s hearsay objection is overruled. D. Pruett Declaration Morning Star objects to paragraph four of Pruett’s declaration as irrelevant, and paragraphs five through thirteen for lack of personal knowledge. Evid. Obj. at 3–7. “[Rule 402]’s basic standard of relevance . . . is a liberal one.” See Daubert v. 15 Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 587 (1993). Paragraph four provides Pruett’s statement 16 regarding his knowledge of SK Foods’ bribery scheme, and is therefore relevant to the instant 17 motions. Pruett Decl. ¶ 4. 18 In paragraphs five through thirteen, Pruett provides sworn information explaining 19 Exhibits 3, 4 and 6, discussed above. Pruett Decl. ¶¶ 5–13. He also explains Exhibits 5 and 7, 20 which are 2006 and 2008 bids made to Kraft, respectively. Id. As president of Ingomar, 21 information regarding sales volume contracts and bids submitted to major companies is well 22 within Pruett’s personal knowledge. See In re Kaypro, 218 F.3d 1070, 1075 (9th Cir. 2000) 23 (“Personal knowledge may be inferred from a declarant’s position” within a company or 24 business); Barthelemy v. Air Lines Pilots Ass’n, 897 F.2d 999, 1018 (9th Cir. 1990) (finding a 25 business chairman’s personal knowledge of various corporate activities could be presumed). 26 Morning Star’s objections are overruled. The court will consider Pruett’s declaration. 27 28 4 1 E. 2 Randy Rahal Deposition Morning Star objects to portions of Rahal’s deposition, specifically his testimony 3 regarding SK Foods’ use of bribes to gain customers and business, which limited the business SK 4 competitors would receive from the bribed companies. Evid. Obj. at 9 (citing Rahal Dep. 210:9– 5 19). Morning Star contends Rahal lacks personal knowledge of these facts, and the testimony is 6 otherwise speculative. Id. Morning Star also contends the testimony is improper lay opinion 7 because it is not helpful to the trier of fact. Id. 8 9 As discussed below, the undisputed evidence shows Rahal was the person tasked with initiating SK Foods’ bribes. Thus the bribery scheme and its logical consequences were well 10 within Rahal’s realm of personal knowledge. Additionally, the testimony is helpful to 11 determining what effect, if any, SK Foods’ scheme had on Morning Star and Morning Star’s 12 competitors, as well as in considering Morning Star’s contention that Ingomar and Los Gatos 13 participated in the bribery scheme. Morning Star’s objections here as well are overruled. 14 F. 15 Anthony Manuel Deposition Morning Star objects to portions of Manuel’s deposition, specifically his testimony 16 that Morning Star, Los Gatos, and Ingomar would all be hurt by SK Foods’ bribery scheme. 17 Evid. Obj. at 10 (citing Manuel Dep. 127:8–20). Morning Star objects on grounds of lack of 18 personal knowledge, speculation, and improper lay opinion. Id. Manuel was an officer of SK 19 Foods and an FBI informant who provided information to law enforcement during the bribery 20 scheme; he witnessed the effects of the bribery on other competitors. Manuel Dep. at 58:1–3. 21 Accordingly, the bribery scheme and at least some of its effects were within Manuel’s personal 22 knowledge and his testimony may be helpful to the trier of fact. Morning Star’s objections are 23 overruled. 24 III. BACKGROUND 25 26 27 28 The following facts are undisputed unless otherwise stated. A. The Players The parties in this case were or are players in the competitive California tomato processing industry, in which various companies submit bids for distribution contracts with 5 1 businesses like Kraft, Frito-Lay, McCain, and Safeway. Rahal Dep. 67:24–25, 76:22, 77:8, 2 103:16–19. Chris Rufer is the president of Morning Star. See generally Ingomar Opp’n; Ingomar 3 Mot.—Pls.’ Undisputed Material Facts (IPUMF) Nos. 2, 14, ECF No. 275. Ingomar and its 4 President Greg Pruett, and Los Gatos and its President Stuart Woolf, are Morning Star’s 5 competitors. Id.; Ingomar Mot.—Undisputed Material Facts (IUMF) No. 1, ECF No. 276; Los 6 Gatos Mot.—Pls.’ Undisputed Material Facts (LPUMF) No. 3, ECF No. 291-3. Although not a 7 moving party in the instant motion, SK Foods and its former President Scott Salyer were also 8 critical players in the tomato processing industry, competitors of Morning Star’s, and as discussed 9 in more detail below, partners in an export trading coalition with Los Gatos and Ingomar. IUMF 10 11 12 Nos. 1,2. B. Bribery in the Tomato Processing Industry Since the 1990s, Morning Star had a reputation of being the lowest cost producer 13 in the tomato processing industry. IPUMF No. 2. Morning Star consistently undercut SK Food’s 14 pricing, Rahal Dep. 38:11–16, which spurred Scott Salyer’s “ill will” toward Chris Rufer, IPUMF 15 No. 17. Salyer was not quiet about its feelings toward Rufer, and in fact spoke to “everybody” in 16 the industry about his desire not only to compete with Morning Star, but to “beat” it. IPUMF 17 No. 16. At one point, Salyer tried to hurt the low-cost producer by recruiting and eventually 18 hiring away several Morning Star employees, including Morning Star salespersons Jeff Beasley 19 and Tony Manuel, and Morning Star Vice President Michael Poretti. IPUMF No. 18. To gain a 20 further competitive advantage, Salyer hired Intramark, a sales brokerage company, with Randall 21 Rahal as a sales broker for SK Foods in 1991 or 1992. IUMF No. 3. 22 Shortly after Salyer hired Rahal, Rahal began bribing purchasing agents for several 23 large industry customers. IUMF Nos. 3, 8. With Salyer’s knowledge, approval, and resources, 24 Rahal bribed purchasing agents for Nabisco, Borden, Frito Lay, IUMF Nos. 5–8, Safeway, Rahal 25 Dep. 195:11–15; Kraft Foods, and Agusa, IUMF Nos. 9, 29. The purpose of the bribes was to 26 gain business and maintain existing business, IPUMF No. 97, and it was common knowledge in 27 the industry that Rahal bribed purchasing agents in order to get this business, IUMF No. 92. 28 Although Rahal attempted to bribe Con Agra’s purchasing agent, Rahal Dep. 90:11–13, the agent 6 1 returned the money, id., 90:25. In any event, the bribes led various companies, including Kraft, to 2 grant SK Foods contracts that may have otherwise gone to other tomato processing companies 3 like Morning Star, Los Gatos, and Ingomar. Rahal Dep. 158:1–7; Manuel Dep. 126:13–127:20. 4 In addition to granting contracts, purchasing agents with Kraft, Frito-Lay, and 5 Agusa gave Rahal confidential bid information about SK Foods’ competitors, including Morning 6 Star and Ingomar. Rahal Dep. 208:19–25, 209:4–10. Agents that Rahal did not bribe also gave 7 him confidential bid information, including Con Agra’s purchasing agent, Rahal Dep. 142:13–21, 8 and Barilla’s purchasing agent, Rahal Dep. 209:22–25. The confidential information concerned 9 details on a company’s bid, including the volume of processed tomato product offered, the 10 amount of product, and the price of the bid. Rahal Dep. 209:7–10. Rahal’s bribes continued 11 until April 2008, when the federal government seized Intramark’s assets and obtained search 12 warrants to execute with respect to SK Foods, Salyer, Rahal, and many “others.” IUMF No. 16. 13 It is undisputed that Morning Star lost profits based on sales to customers SK Foods bribed, 14 including Frito-Lay, Safeway, Kraft, and Agusa. Charles Mahla Report (Mahla Report) ¶¶ 20– 15 29; 52–76, ECF No. 20-8.2 16 C. 17 California Tomato Export Group In mid-to-late 2005, Scott Salyer teamed up with Greg Pruett of Ingomar and 18 Stuart Woolf of Los Gatos to form a tomato export trading association called the California 19 Tomato Export Group (CTEG), IUMF Nos. 2, through which members would jointly sell 20 processed tomato products to international markets, Pruett Dep. 100:1–2. Los Gatos and Ingomar 21 hoped their CTEG membership would increase their international market share. IPUMF No. 22. 22 In November 2005, the CTEG applied for an export group license, IPUMF No. 23, it received an 23 export certificate in February 2006, IUMF No. 2. The CTEG then applied for federal export 24 assistance and marketing funding. Pruett Dep. 147:1–6. It engaged international brokers to assist 25 in selling processed tomato products to international markets. Pruett Dep. 147:11–13. If an 26 27 2 28 Charles Mahla is plaintiffs’ expert witness. See Mahla Report at ¶¶ 1–3. 7 1 international customer requested a certain amount of product, CTEG’s customers would share the 2 business among its members. Pruett Dep. 148:20–24. 3 1. 4 Although the export certificate explicitly prohibited discussing domestic pricing, Price-Fixing 5 IPUMF No. 25, Salyer intended to use CTEG to “control the market in the United States,” 6 IPUMF No. 30. In fact, he admitted to Rahal “the whole purpose of CTEG was for price 7 collusion,” and if SK Foods could not “stop Morning Star, and if [Salyer] could get [Ingomar and 8 Los Gatos] involved, then they could skim off all the high-value business and let Morning Star 9 have the cheap business.” IPUMF No. 31. 10 The CTEG members discussed domestic pricing as early as September 2005, 11 IPUMF No. 33, and continued to do so through routine, private unrecorded “executive sessions,” 12 IPUMF No. 37. Woolf cautioned his co-conspirators to limit their discussions to telephone or 13 meetings so an email would not come back to “haunt” them. Woolf Dep. 161:7–24. At his 14 deposition, Pruett testified he knew by “January 2006” that “Salyer had an interest in setting 15 domestic prices.” Pruett Dep. at 212:14–19. He further testified he “should have walked away, 16 early” but did not, which he admitted was “a mistake.” Id. 17 In or about early 2006, tension among the CTEG members threatened the 18 collaboration. In February 2006, Salyer caught Los Gatos undercutting SK Foods’ bid on a 19 contract with McCain by three cents less than the CTEG members’ agreed-upon price. IPUMF 20 No. 59. Ingomar sent a low bid to Red Gold at about the same time, after the CTEG members 21 had agreed to bid a certain price. IPUMF No. 68. As a result, Salyer threatened to withdraw 22 from CTEG and sent a resignation letter to its partners on February 13, 2006, noting Ingomar and 23 Los Gatos could not “keep their word as partners in further developing or maintaining the 24 [California] tomato market.” IPUMF No. 61. 25 To prevent CTEG’s disbanding, Woolf agreed to withdraw Los Gatos’s bid to 26 McCain. IPUMF Nos. 63, 64. Los Gatos then submitted a bid reflecting the initially agreed-upon 27 price. IPUMF No. 64. Pruett told SK Foods that Ingomar’s Red Gold bid was a mistake and 28 would be remedied. IPUMF No. 69. 8 1 2. 2 In addition to price fixing, Salyer at least once discussed market allocation with Market Allocation 3 the CTEG members, and SK Foods, Ingomar, and Los Gatos agreed not to compete for the same 4 industry customers. IPUMF No. 53. To that end, CTEG members would share a list of their 5 domestic customers. IPUMF No. 54. The list included “legacy accounts,” for which a member 6 had a prior business relationship with a particular customer; CTEG members were to tell each 7 other if they were considering submitting a bid to a legacy account customer. IPUMF No. 55. At 8 his deposition, Rahal summarized Salyer’s understanding of the market allocation plan, which 9 was “to protect each other’s customers” and not provide quotes to each other’s legacy accounts. 10 IPUMF No. 56. 11 Los Gatos and Ingomar both increased their export business and financial position 12 through their participation in the CTEG. IPUMF Nos. 127, 128. In particular, Los Gatos 13 increased its gross profit during the life of CTEG approximately eightfold, IPUMF No. 129, while 14 Ingomar experienced a ten to twenty percent increase in total sales, IPUMF No. 130. The CTEG 15 partnership lasted from mid-2005 to March 2008, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation and 16 the Internal Revenue Service executed search warrants based on a court’s finding of probable 17 cause that an unlawful bribery scheme existed. IPUMF No. 131; LPUMF No. 119. 18 19 D. The CTEG and the Bribery Scheme The parties dispute whether the CTEG plan to discuss domestic pricing and market 20 allocation was connected to Rahal’s various bribes to industry purchasing agents. Morning Star 21 points to several undisputed facts to contend the CTEG domestic pricing discussions and bribery 22 scheme were connected. These facts include that Woolf had long been acquainted with Pruett, 23 having attended the same residential preparatory high school in the 1970s, LPUMF No. 3, and 24 that Pruett knew SK Foods obtained confidential bid information from various customers, 25 including ConAgra, Red Gold, Agusa, and Kraft, IPUMF No. 86. 26 Morning Star also points to a conversation Rahal had with Woolf during a CTEG 27 meeting on April 11 or 12, 2006. IPUMF No. 275; Rahal Dep. 131:16–19. During a lunch 28 meeting, when Rahal was sitting next to Woolf, Woolf said, “I understand you’re bribing some of 9 1 the customers.” Rahal Dep. 131:16–19. Rahal replied, “Well, how do you know that?” Rahal 2 Dep. 131:16–22. Woolf replied, “Just what I hear is what I hear.” Id. After this confrontation, 3 Woolf never brought up the subject of bribes again. Rahal Dep. 131:16–132:3. 4 Lastly, Morning Star points to Ingomar and SK Foods’ agreement to bid a certain 5 price for a contract with Kraft in 2007, when both were CTEG members. Pruett Dep. 48:15–21. 6 During his deposition, Pruett testified that Rahal approached him in a CTEG meeting to 7 recommend Pruett bid at least thirty-six cents per pound for Kraft business. Pruett Dep. 48:15– 8 21. Rahal walked up to Pruett, gave him a card with a price on the back and said, “This is where 9 we are on price.” Rahal Dep. 153:15–20. Pruett looked at the card, said yes, and walked away. 10 Id. Pruett ended up bidding 36.5 cents a pound, relying on Rahal’s statement that if he bid at 11 thirty-six cents or higher Ingomar would get a 10 million pound contract with Kraft. Pruett Dep. 12 49:1–9. 13 Ingomar points to parts of Pruett’s deposition suggesting Ingomar legally obtained 14 its Kraft contract: “We had gotten 10 million pounds of business from Kraft forever. So the fact 15 that he told me that we’re going to get 10 million pounds was, you know, no great surprise. 16 That’s what we had been getting for five or six years.” Pruett Dep. 126:14–25. 17 As noted, the Ingomar, Los Gatos, and SK Foods partnership ended in 2008 when 18 the federal government executed search warrants as part of its criminal investigation into the 19 bribery scheme. IPUMF No. 131, 132; LPUMF No. 119. 20 IV. 21 LEGAL STANDARD A court will grant summary judgment “if . . . there is no genuine dispute as to any 22 material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). 23 The “threshold inquiry” is whether “there are any genuine factual issues that properly can be 24 resolved only by a finder of fact because they may reasonably be resolved in favor of either 25 party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250 (1986). 26 The moving party bears the initial burden of showing the district court “that there 27 is an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party’s case.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 28 477 U.S. 317, 325 (1986). The burden then shifts to the nonmoving party, which “must establish 10 1 that there is a genuine issue of material fact . . . .” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio 2 Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 585 (1986). In carrying their burdens, both parties must “cit[e] to particular 3 parts of materials in the record . . . ; or show [] that the materials cited do not establish the 4 absence or presence of a genuine dispute, or that an adverse party cannot produce admissible 5 evidence to support the fact.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1); see also Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 586 6 (“[the nonmoving party] must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as 7 to the material facts”). Moreover, “the requirement is that there be no genuine issue of material 8 fact . . . . Only disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing 9 law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment.” Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247–48. 10 In deciding a motion for summary judgment, the court draws all inferences and 11 views all evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 12 587–88; Whitman v. Mineta, 541 F.3d 929, 931 (9th Cir. 2008). “Where the record taken as a 13 whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there is no ‘genuine 14 issue for trial.’” Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 587 (quoting First Nat’l Bank of Ariz. v. Cities Serv. 15 Co., 391 U.S. 253, 289 (1968)). 16 V. 17 18 DISCUSSION A. Sherman Act Claim Los Gatos and Ingomar argue their conduct, which they contend is limited to 19 price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market allocation, could not have harmed Morning Star because 20 such conduct artificially raised prices in the market while limiting output. Ingomar Mot. at 6; 21 Los Gatos Mot. at 6, 22. Morning Star argues its injury is attributed to defendants’ conduct 22 because both Ingomar and Los Gatos played a role in an overarching CTEG conspiracy to restrain 23 trade, which went beyond price fixing, bid rigging, and market allocation, and included bribery to 24 gain business at Morning Star’s expense. Ingomar Opp’n at 17; Los Gatos Opp’n at 19. The 25 court considers these arguments below. 26 27 28 11 1 2 3 1. Price-Fixing and Market Allocation a) Legal Standards As a matter of law, market competitors cannot recover from a conspiracy of their 4 rivals to charge “higher than competitive prices.” Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 583. Likewise, 5 business competitors cannot recover for a conspiracy to impose non-price restraints that either 6 raise market price or limit output. Id. at 583. 7 In Matsushita, the Supreme Court explained while price-fixing, which includes 8 charging higher than competitive prices, would violate the Sherman Act and harm customers, it 9 could not injure complaining competitors who stood to gain from “any conspiracy to raise the 10 market price” for a certain product. Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 583 (citing Brunswick Corp. v. 11 Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U.S. 477, 488 (1977)). Such competitors stood to gain from their 12 competitors’ conspiracy because their relatively lower prices would appear more attractive to 13 customers. Id.; see also Big Bear Lodging Ass’n v. Snow Summit, Inc., 182 F.3d 1096, 1102 (9th 14 Cir. 1999) (“Plaintiffs stand to benefit from the fact that prices for those services are inflated.”). 15 This is true even if the complaining competitors charged supracompetitive prices, which are rates 16 charged above and beyond competitive levels in a market. Rebel Oil Co. v. Atl. Richfield Co., 51 17 F.3d 1421, 1434 (9th Cir. 1995). The Supreme Court also held non-price restraints such as 18 market allocation agreements, which include an arrangement to sell to a limited number of 19 distributors with a goal of avoiding “intragroup competition,” Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 602, could 20 not harm a plaintiff whose “supracompetitive pricing [would also appear] more attractive” to 21 customers, id. at 580. Accordingly, for competitors to be liable for a Sherman Act violation, 22 plaintiffs must allege conduct or “other conspiracies” distinct from those causing higher than 23 competitive prices or limiting output. Id. at 586 (internal citations omitted). 24 25 b) Analysis Here, Ingomar agreed with SK Foods to submit a higher than normal bid to Kraft, 26 which allegedly caused Morning Star anti-trust injury. Ingomar Opp’n at 11–12. Additionally, 27 Ingomar and Los Gatos agreed with SK Foods not to compete with each other’s customers after 28 demarcating each CTEG member’s “legacy accounts.” IPUMF No. 53. Consistent with 12 1 Matsushita, Ingomar’s and Los Gatos’s conduct, standing alone, cannot support Morning Star’s 2 Sherman Act claim. For one, Ingomar’s price-fixing agreement with SK Foods, which resulted in 3 “higher than competitive prices,” made Morning Star’s lower bid to Kraft look more competitive, 4 even if the agreement with Kraft ultimately harmed Kraft and violated anti-trust law. See 5 Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 580. For the same reasons, Ingomar’s and Los Gatos’s agreement not to 6 compete with each other or with SK Foods, which would have limited defendants’ output to any 7 “legacy” customer, would have benefitted Morning Star, who itself was not subject to any 8 agreement to limit output to any legacy customer. See id. Because defendants’ agreement to 9 submit higher bids or allocate customers could not, by itself, cause Morning Star injury, Morning 10 Star must establish defendants’ conduct or “other conspiracies” caused it injury in order to 11 withstand summary judgment. See id. at 596. 12 Morning Star in fact contends conduct outside the price-fixing and market 13 allocation scheme caused its injury, namely Ingomar’s bid rigging with Kraft and bribes SK 14 Foods paid Morning Star’s current and potential customers. Ingomar Opp’n at 11–12; Los Gatos 15 Opp’n at 6. These acts are assessed below. 16 2. 17 18 Bribery Scheme and Bid Rigging a) Legal Standards Because § 1 of the Sherman Act “does not prohibit [all] unreasonable restraints of 19 trade . . . but only restraints effected by a contract, combination, or conspiracy, “[t]he crucial 20 question” is whether the challenged anticompetitive conduct “stem[s] from independent decision 21 or from an agreement, tacit or express.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 553 (2007) 22 (internal citations omitted). To establish a violation under § 1, the following must be shown: (1) 23 an agreement or conspiracy among two or more persons or distinct business entities; (2) intent to 24 harm or restrain competition; and (3) actual restraint on competition. City of Vernon v. S. Cal. 25 Edison Co., 955 F.2d 1361, 1365 (9th Cir. 1992); accord Amarel v. Connell, 102 F.3d 1494, 1522 26 (9th Cir. 1996). 27 28 A plaintiff can establish a genuine issue of material fact by producing either direct evidence that defendants conspired to engage in conduct that violated § 1, or circumstantial 13 1 evidence that could lead a reasonable factfinder to conclude defendants so conspired. In re Citric 2 Acid Litig., 191 F.3d 1090, 1093 (9th Cir. 1999). Direct evidence of a § 1 conspiracy “must be 3 evidence that is explicit and requires no inferences to establish the proposition or conclusion 4 being asserted.” Cnty. of Tuolumne v. Sonora Cmty. Hosp., 236 F.3d 1148, 1155 (9th Cir. 2001). 5 In the Sherman Act context, direct evidence establishes without inference there was a “meeting of 6 minds between defendants,” id. at 1156, or a “conscious commitment to a common scheme 7 designed to achieve an unlawful objective,” id. at 1155. 8 9 In the absence of direct evidence, to overcome the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the plaintiff must produce circumstantial evidence that proves the existence 10 of a conspiracy. Id. “[C]ircumstantial evidence is not testimony to the specific fact being 11 asserted, but testimony to other facts and circumstances from which the jury may infer that the 12 fact being asserted does or does not exist.” In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings in Petroleum 13 Products Antitrust Litig., 906 F.2d 432, 439 (9th Cir. 1990). As with direct evidence, the 14 circumstantial evidence must support a reasonable jury inference that there was a “meeting of 15 minds between defendants” or a “conscious commitment to a common scheme designed to 16 achieve an unlawful objective.” Cnty. of Tuolumne, 236 F.3d at 1155–56. 17 The Ninth Circuit applies a two-part burden shifting test whenever a plaintiff’s 18 case rests entirely on circumstantial evidence. First, the defendant can “rebut an allegation of 19 conspiracy by showing a plausible and justifiable reason for its conduct that is consistent with 20 proper business practice.” In re Citric Acid Litig., 191 F.3d at 1094 (citing Richards v. Neilsen 21 Freight Lines, 810 F.2d 898, 902 (9th Cir. 1987)). If this is shown, the burden shifts back to the 22 plaintiff to provide specific evidence that the defendant was not engaging in permissible 23 competitive behavior. Id. (citing City of Long Beach v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 872 F.2d 1401, 24 1406 (9th Cir 1989.); Jeanery, Inc. v. James Jeans, Inc., 849 F.2d 1148, 1159 (9th Cir. 1988)). 25 26 b) Analysis Here, to overcome Ingomar’s and Los Gatos’s motions for summary judgment, 27 Morning Star must point to direct or circumstantial evidence showing each defendant reached a 28 “meeting of the minds” or had a “conscious commitment to a common scheme designed to 14 1 achieve an unlawful objective.” Cnty of Tuolumne, 236 F.3d at 1155–56. The court addresses 2 each defendant below. 3 (1) 4 5 Ingomar (a) Anti-Competitive Conduct Here, Morning Star cites the following as “direct evidence” of Ingomar’s 6 involvement in the bribery scheme: (1) Pruett knew by “January 2006” that “Salyer had an 7 interest in setting domestic prices,” Ingomar Opp’n. at 18, and Pruett knew he “should have 8 walked away, early” but did not, admitting that was “a mistake,” id.; (2) Salyer “threatened to 9 withdraw from CTEG because Ingomar and Los Gatos breached the parties’ agreement to bid 10 certain prices for certain domestic customers,” id.; (3) Ingomar and Los Gatos agreed to “placate 11 Salyer’s demands on domestic pricing and bid-rigging,” id. at 19; (4) Ingomar agreed to allocate 12 customers through “legacy accounts,” id.; and (5) Ingomar knew SK would share the confidential 13 pricing information of competitors not only to fix prices, but to “police” the conspirators like Los 14 Gatos and Ingomar, id. 15 Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Morning Star, no reasonable 16 jury could conclude this evidence directly supports the assertion that Ingomar or Pruett 17 participated in a bribery conspiracy, much less reached a “meeting of the minds” with Rahal, 18 Salyer, or any member of SK Foods to bribe customers. See Cnty. of Tuolumne, 236 F.3d at 19 1155–56. That Pruett knew Salyer had an interest in setting domestic prices, or that Salyer 20 threatened to withdraw from CTEG, or that Ingomar and Los Gatos agreed to placate Salyer’s 21 demands to bid artificially high prices, does not, without at least some inferences, establish 22 Ingomar engaged in a conspiracy to bribe customers. Because Morning Star has not established 23 “direct evidence” of Ingomar’s participation in the bribery scheme, Morning Star must provide 24 circumstantial evidence to sustain its claim. See In re Citric Acid Litig., 191 F.3d at 1094. 25 Here, Morning Star does not argue circumstantial evidence establishes a genuine 26 dispute as to Ingomar’s participation in the bribery scheme, see generally Ingomar Opp’n., so the 27 court relies on Morning Star’s facts in support of its direct evidence argument and other evidence 28 in the record, including: Ingomar’s successful bid to Kraft, Pruett’s statements as to why the 15 1 Kraft bid was successful, and Rahal’s statement that Ingomar’s bid, along with SK Foods’ bribes, 2 were necessary to obtaining the Kraft deal. Rahal Dep. 157:8–158:7. 3 The parties do not dispute Kraft awarded Ingomar a contract for 10 million pounds 4 of processed tomato product in 2007, after Rahal or Salyer asked Pruett to bid at least thirty-six 5 cents per pound. IPUMF No. 77. Pruett ended up bidding 36.5 cents a pound, relying on Rahal’s 6 statement that if he bid at thirty-six cents or higher Ingomar would guarantee the contract. Pruett 7 Dep. 49:1–9. 8 Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to Morning Star, and drawing all 9 reasonable inferences in its favor, a reasonable juror could conclude Ingomar and SK Foods had a 10 “meeting of the minds” to bribe customers. A juror need not devolve into speculation to 11 reasonably conclude Pruett, a business owner in the tomato processing industry, sensed Rahal or 12 Salyer engaged in some form of “quid pro quo” with Kraft in order to confidently offer Pruett the 13 Kraft contract. Although the basis of Rahal’s or Salyer’s agreement with Pruett was grounded in 14 submitting an inflated and rigged bid, a reasonable juror could infer the only way an inflated bid 15 would be successful is through a bribe. The evidence could support a finding of Ingomar’s 16 participation in the bribery scheme. 17 Further, the circumstantial evidence may lead a reasonable juror to find Pruett and 18 Ingomar consciously agreed to submit a rigged bid to Kraft, and that the successful Kraft contract 19 resulting from the rigged bid, combined with SK Foods’ bribe to Kraft, injured Morning Star. 20 The offense of “bid rigging,” in violation of antitrust laws, is an agreement between two or more 21 persons to eliminate, reduce, or interfere with competition for a job or a contract that is to be 22 awarded on the basis of bids. See United States v. Green, 592 F.3d 1057, 1068 (9th Cir. 2010). 23 As noted, Pruett bid 36.5 cents a pound for the 2007 Kraft contract after agreeing 24 with Salyer or Rahal through a subtle card exchange at the CTEG meeting in April 2006. Rahal 25 Dep. 153:15–20. Further, the record shows Pruett knew Salyer, Rahal, and other SK Foods 26 members were getting information about competitors’ confidential bids from various customers, 27 including Kraft. IPUMF No. 86. From this, a reasonable juror could conclude Pruett and 28 16 1 Ingomar knowingly agreed to reduce or interfere with competition by submitting a rigged bid, a 2 violation of the Sherman Act. Green, 592 F.3d at 1068. 3 (b) Ingomar’s Rebuttal Evidence Ingomar contends regardless of any alleged bid rigging, its conduct could not have 4 5 injured Morning Star. Ingomar Mot. at 6. The record suggests otherwise. For instance, Rahal 6 testified in order to ensure the success of SK Foods’ Kraft deal, Pruett had to submit Ingomar’s 7 bid. Rahal Dep. 184:1–17. In Salyer’s opinion, if Ingomar bid at least thirty-six cents a pound, 8 SK Foods’ contract price of forty cents a pound would appear more legitimate by comparison. 9 Rahal Dep. 183:12–15. In other words, in light of Ingomar’s relatively lower bid, SK Foods, 10 through bribery, could obtain the Kraft bid at a higher price. See id. To unsuspecting eyes, 11 SK Foods’ price might appear normal when compared to bids like Ingomar’s. Whether 12 Ingomar’s rigged bid contributed to Morning Star’s injury is a question of fact best left to a jury. 13 To further rebut Morning Star’s circumstantial evidence of bid rigging or bribery, 14 Ingomar argues that from 2002 through 2007, regardless of whether Kraft’s primary supplier was 15 Morning Star or SK Foods, Kraft contracted to buy ten million pounds of tomato paste per year 16 from Ingomar. Ingomar Mot. at 20. Ingomar further contends it was unsuccessful in its attempt 17 to increase its supply to Kraft; it argues its lack of success precludes any reasonable inference that 18 Ingomar joined a conspiracy to bribe Kraft. Id. While this evidence may support one possible 19 justification for obtaining the Kraft contract, it does not preclude a reasonable juror’s concluding 20 that Ingomar’s bid rigging agreement injured Morning Star. Because Ingomar has not shown the 21 only proper conclusion is that its agreement with Rahal was consistent with “proper business 22 practice,” the showing necessary for the burden to shift back to Morning Star, the court declines 23 to grant summary judgment to Ingomar on this claim. See In re Citric Acid Litig., 191 F.3d at 24 1094. 25 For these reasons, Ingomar’s motion for summary judgment is DENIED. 26 27 28 17 1 (2) 2 3 Los Gatos (a) Bribery Morning Star contends the following “direct evidence” supports a finding of 4 Los Gatos’s participation in the bribery conspiracy: (1) Woolf cautioned his co-conspirators to 5 limit their discussions to telephone or meetings so that an email “would not come back to haunt 6 them,” Los Gatos Opp’n at 20; (2) Los Gatos agreed to allocate customers, i.e., “legacy 7 accounts,” with its co-conspirators so that they would not bid for each other’s business, id.; 8 (3) and Woolf asked for permission from SK Foods before bidding for business from SK Foods’ 9 legacy customers, id. Morning Star contends Los Gatos engaged in this activity despite knowing 10 11 it was unlawful. Id. No reasonable jury could conclude this evidence directly supports the assertion 12 that Los Gatos participated in a bribery conspiracy, much less had a “meeting of the minds” with 13 Rahal, Salyer, or any member of SK Foods, to bribe purchasing agents. Cnty. of Tuolumne, 236 14 F.3d at 1155–56. To sustain its claim against Los Gatos, Morning Star needs to produce 15 circumstantial evidence from which a jury could reasonably infer Los Gatos participated in a 16 bribery conspiracy. See In re Citric Acid Litig., 191 F.3d at 1094. 17 To support a circumstantial finding of bribery, Morning Star points to a CTEG 18 group orientation meeting in April 2006, where Woolf said to Rahal, “I understand you’re bribing 19 some of the customers.” Rahal Dep. 131:16–19. Rahal replied, “Well, how do you know that?” 20 Rahal Dep. 131:16–22. Woolf responded, “Just what I hear is what I hear.” Id. These 21 statements, paired with Morning Star’s other evidence, are insufficient for Morning Star to 22 withstand summary judgment. 23 Drawing all inferences in favor of Morning Star, no reasonable juror could 24 conclude this evidence illustrates Los Gatos’s conscious commitment to a common bribery 25 scheme, or a meeting of the minds to commit bribery. Woolf’s comment, by itself, does not show 26 or suggest he himself agreed to engage in bribery. As the record established, after this 27 confrontation, Woolf never brought up the subject of bribes again. Rahal Dep. 131:16–132:3. No 28 evidence establishes Woolf did anything else or dug further to determine if his information was 18 1 well founded. Without more, this information amounts to “mere allegation and speculation. . . 2 [which] do not create a factual dispute for purposes of summary judgment.” Nelson v. Pima 3 Cmty. Coll., 83 F.3d 1075, 1081–82 (9th Cir. 1996); see e.g., Nat’l City Bank, N.A. v. Prime 4 Lending, Inc., 737 F. Supp. 2d 1257, 1269 (E.D. Wash. 2010) (“Mere suspicion or commonality 5 of interests is insufficient to prove a conspiracy.”); Rutledge v. Elec. Hose & Rubber Co., 327 F. 6 Supp. 1267, 1272 (C.D. Cal. 1971) (“[A] conspiracy must be proved by independent evidence and 7 mere suspicion of wrongdoing is not enough.”). 8 The other evidence of record that Los Gatos engaged in price fixing and market 9 allocation is also insufficient to establish Los Gatos engaged in bribery, for assertions of “parallel 10 conduct” are not enough to raise the suggestion of a “preceding agreement,” and allow at most an 11 inference of “parallel conduct that would just as well be independent action.” Twombly, 550 U.S. 12 at 557; see also City of Vernon, 955 F.2d at 1371. As noted above, price fixing and market 13 allocation alone cannot cause Morning Star injury. See pages 12–13 supra. Accordingly, to 14 sustain its claim on summary judgment, Morning Star must point to “other conspiracies” causing 15 it injury. Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 596, 598. 16 (b) Bid Rigging 17 Morning Star argues the “CTEG defendants” engaged in bid rigging, but does not 18 claim Los Gatos’s conduct caused injury, and points to no evidence of such injury. See generally 19 Los Gatos Opp’n; see also City of Vernon, 955 F.2d at 1365 (to sustain Sherman Act claim, 20 plaintiff must show actual restraint of competition). 21 22 23 The court GRANTS summary judgment for Los Gatos on the Sherman Act claim. B. RICO Claims Ingomar and Los Gatos move for summary judgment on Morning Star’s RICO and 24 RICO conspiracy claims, contending no reasonable factfinder could conclude their acts did not 25 proximately cause injury to Morning Star. Ingomar Mot. at 22–25; Los Gatos Mot. at 21–24. 26 Morning Star’s opposition mirrors its Sherman Act argument that defendants violated RICO as 27 active participants in the overarching CTEG conspiracy. Ingomar Opp’n at 23–29; Los Gatos 28 Opp’n at 23–28. As explained below, because no reasonable jury could find Ingomar and 19 1 Los Gatos violated RICO or engaged in a RICO conspiracy, the court GRANTS summary 2 judgment for both defendants on both RICO claims. 3 4 5 6 7 The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, provides in relevant part: It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt. 8 18 U.S.C.A. § 1962(c); United States v. Christensen, 828 F.3d 763, 780 (9th Cir. 2015). RICO 9 provides a private right of action for “[a]ny person injured in his business or property” by a RICO 10 violation. 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). To establish a RICO claim, the plaintiff must show “(1) conduct 11 (2) of an enterprise (3) through a pattern (4) of racketeering activity (known as “predicate acts”) 12 (5) causing injury to the plaintiff’s ‘business or property.’” Grimmett v. Brown, 75 F.3d 506, 510 13 (9th Cir. 1996) (citing 18 U.S.C. §§ 1964(c), 1962(c); Sedima, S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 14 479, 496 (1985)). 15 “Conduct” necessarily implies some degree of direction over an enterprise’s 16 affairs. Reves v. Ernst & Young, 507 U.S. 170, 178 (1993). “Enterprise” includes “any 17 individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of 18 individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.” Odom v. Microsoft Corp., 486 F.3d 19 541, 548 (9th Cir. 2007). “Pattern,” as it refers to “racketeering activity,” means “at least two 20 acts of racketeering.” H.J. Inc. v. Nw. Bell Tel. Co., 492 U.S. 229, 237 (1989). “Racketeering” is 21 activity that is indictable under specified provisions of Title 18 of the United States Code, 22 including mail and wire fraud. Sun Sav. & Loan Ass’n v. Dierdorff, 825 F.2d 187, 191 (9th Cir. 23 1987). The fifth element of “injury” has two subparts: (1) the plaintiff must show the conduct 24 proximately caused the injury; and (2) that he suffered a concrete financial loss, and “not mere 25 injury to a valuable intangible property interest.” Chaset v. Fleer/Skybox Intern., LP, 300 F.3d 26 1083, 1087 (9th Cir. 2002). 27 28 A “pattern of racketeering activity” is established when a plaintiff proves that a defendant committed two or more predicate acts. 18 U.S.C. § 1961(5). Where a plaintiff asserts 20 1 a RICO claim against multiple defendants, the plaintiff must establish each individual defendant 2 committed at least two predicate acts. In re WellPoint, Inc. Out-of-Network UCR Rates Litig., 3 865 F. Supp. 2d 1002, 1035 (C.D. Cal. 2011) (“Where RICO is asserted against multiple 4 defendants, a plaintiff must allege at least two predicate acts by each defendant.”); Keel v. 5 Schwarzenegger, No. 08–07591, 2009 WL 1444644, at *6 (C.D. Cal. May 19, 2009) (“The 6 requirements of § 1962(c) must be established as to each individual Defendant) (citing United 7 States v. Persico, 832 F.2d 705, 714 (2d Cir. 1987)). 8 Here, Ingomar and Los Gatos contend Morning Star cannot establish each 9 defendant engaged in at least two predicate racketeering acts that injured Morning Star. Ingomar 10 Mot. at 22–25; Los Gatos Mot. at 21–24. Morning Star contends it has raised a genuine dispute 11 of fact as to proximate cause, asserting it need only show injury stemming from the “conduct” of 12 the enterprise, which in this case is the CTEG conspiracy to restrain trade, which included 13 bribery. Ingomar Opp’n at 23–29; Los Gatos Opp’n at 23–28. 14 When a court assesses the causation element of a RICO claim for injury to 15 business or property, the central question is whether the alleged violation led directly to the 16 plaintiff’s injuries. Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U.S. 451, 461 (2006). The plaintiff 17 must prove “some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct alleged.” 18 Id. at 464 (citing Holmes v. Sec. Inv’r Prot. Corp., 503 U.S. 258, 268 (1992)). 19 In Anza, the Supreme Court held “the compensable injury” flowing from a RICO 20 violation “necessarily is the harm caused by predicate acts.” Id. at 457 (citing Sedima, 473 U.S at 21 497). In support of its holding the Court found defendants defrauded the New York Taxing 22 Authority by failing to charge sales tax to cash-paying customers. Id. at 457–58. Nonetheless, 23 the Court concluded the plaintiff could not sustain a RICO claim by simply contending it lost 24 profits due to defendants’ ability to charge lower prices as a result of defrauding the state. Id. In 25 the Court’s view, the defendants’ decision to lower prices was “entirely distinct” from 26 defendants’ “pattern of mail fraud and wire fraud” used to cheat the state. Id. at 458. The 27 plaintiff could not sustain its RICO claim. Id. 28 21 1 Here, for Morning Star to defeat summary judgment, it must show there is a 2 dispute of fact as to whether each defendant committed at least two predicate acts giving rise to a 3 RICO violation, which in turn caused Morning Star’s injury in the form of lost profits. Anza, 547 4 U.S. at 461; Keel, 2009 WL 1444644 at *6. 5 1. 6 Although Morning Star argues Ingomar committed at “least two predicate acts of Ingomar 7 mail [and] wire fraud,” it only points to one such act, namely Ingomar’s rigged Kraft bid. 8 Ingomar Opp’n at 26. Morning Star does not point to any other instance of mail or wire fraud in 9 its moving papers or contend Ingomar’s other acts, which can reasonably be construed as acts of 10 price-fixing and market allocation, injured Morning Star. The court does not otherwise find 11 evidence of injury and in any event is not required to comb the record in an effort to locate some 12 reason to deny summary judgment. Carmen v. S.F. Unified Sch. Dist., 237 F.3d 1026, 1029 (9th 13 Cir. 2001). Without “at least two predicate acts,” causing injury, no reasonable juror could 14 conclude Morning Star established a RICO claim against Ingomar. H.J. Inc., 492 U.S. at 237; 15 Anza, 547 U.S. at 461. The court GRANTS Ingomar’s motion for summary judgment on the 16 RICO claim. 17 2. 18 As to Los Gatos, Morning Star points to no injury-causing predicate acts, Los Gatos 19 contending only generally that Los Gatos is liable because it participated in the “conduct of the 20 RICO enterprise,” which entailed “the scheme to submit rigged bids.” Los Gatos Opp’n at 24. 21 Without evidence that could be used to establish what predicate acts, if any, injured Morning Star, 22 no reasonable juror could conclude Morning Star has established a RICO claim against Los 23 Gatos. The court GRANTS Los Gatos’s motion for summary judgment on the RICO claim as 24 well. 25 3. 26 Because the court GRANTS Ingomar’s and Los Gatos’s motions for summary 27 Conspiracy judgment, it also GRANTS summary judgment on the RICO conspiracy claims. See Howard v. 28 22 1 Am. Online Inc., 208 F.3d 741, 751 (9th Cir. 2000) (dismissing plaintiff’s RICO conspiracy claim 2 where plaintiff could not show a substantive violation of RICO). 3 VI. 4 CONCLUSION The court DENIES Ingomar’s motion for summary judgment on the Sherman Act 5 claim; GRANTS Ingomar’s motion on the RICO claim, and GRANTS Ingomar’s motion on the 6 RICO conspiracy claim. 7 The court GRANTS Los Gatos’s motion on the Sherman Act claim, GRANTS Los 8 Gatos’s motion on the RICO claim, and GRANTS Los Gatos’s motion on the RICO conspiracy 9 claim. 10 Accordingly, the following claims will proceed to trial: (1) Robinson-Patman Act 11 claim against SK Foods, SK PM, Salyer, Rahal, and Intramark; (2) Sherman Act claim against 12 Ingomar, Pruett, SK Foods, Salyer, Rahal, and Intramark; (3) RICO claim against SK Foods, SK 13 PM Corporation, Scott Salyer, Randall Rahall, and Intramark; (4) RICO conspiracy claim against 14 SK Foods, SK PM Corporation, Scott Salyer, Randall Rahall, and Intramark. 15 16 A final pretrial conference is set for August 11, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. with joint final pre-trial statements due July 28, 2017. 17 The court dismisses all Doe defendants. Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). 18 This order resolves ECF Nos. 251 & 285-1. 19 IT IS SO ORDERED. 20 DATED: June 13, 2017. 21 22 23 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 24 25 26 27 28 23
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Prisoners with life sentence on hunger strike to be part of 2013 amnesty
Prisoners with life sentence feel they are being discriminated against, Dimitry Lortkipanidze explained. (Interpressnews.)
TBILISI, DFWatch–At least 50 prisoners serving life sentences have gone on hunger strike to demand to benefit from a mass amnesty introduced in early 2013.
The prisoners want to change their life sentences into a set number of years, after which their sentences will reduce by one quarter, in accordance with the rules of the 2013 amnesty, in which half of all prisoners were released.
Dimitry Lortkipanidze, a politician from Nino Burjanadze’s party Democratic Movement United Georgia who is known for defending the rights of prisoners, told journalists that 55 prisoners at Gldani (“No 8”) prison in Tbilisi are on hunger strike.
The reason they do this now is that the term of all previous promises has expired, he explained. They are protesting against the ‘discriminatory approach’ of the government toward prisoners who are serving life sentences.
The prisoners warn that they relatives are planning big rallies.
There are more than 80 prisoners with life sentences in Georgia, mostly at Gldani prison. Four of such prisoners are women.
By DFWatch staff| 2015-01-27T12:36:05+04:00 January 27th, 2015|Categories: News|Tags: Dimitri Lortkipanidze, prisoner amnesty Nov 2012, prisoners with life sentence|0 Comments
Georgia shuts down again due to Covid-19, brings back nightly curfew
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Mabrouk to Abbas on Tenth Year of His Four Year Term!
Kerry does not seem to care whether Abbas is a "rightful" president or not. He is so desperate for a diplomatic achievement that he is prepared to ignore fundamental facts. How exactly does Abbas plan to enforce a peace agreement in the Gaza Strip when he cannot even visit his private residence there?
The only way to find out what Palestinians really want is by letting them head to the ballot boxes. Palestinians representing all groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, should be allowed to run.
Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas deserves congratulations (mabrouk in Arabic). He has just entered his tenth year of his four-year term in office.
The next time US Secretary of State John Kerry visits Ramallah, he should not forget to congratulate Abbas on this happy occasion.
The fact that Abbas has is now in his tenth year of his four-year term in office should also serve as a reminder to Kerry that the PA president does not really have a mandate from his people to sign any agreement with Israel.
Abbas, who turns 79 in March, became President of the PA on January 2005. He was elected to serve until January 9, 2009.
But he has since used the conflict between his Fatah faction and Hamas as an excuse to remain in power.
Abbas's critics maintain that his decision unilaterally to extend his term in office violates Palestinian Basic Law. They have also warned that Abbas's move paves the way for "constitutional and legislative anarchy" in the Palestinian territories.
By remaining in power beyond his term, Abbas has given Hamas and other Palestinians a good excuse to argue that he is in no way authorized to sign a peace agreement with Israel.
"Mahmoud Abbas's term in office expired a long time ago," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "He has lost his legitimacy. He does not have a mandate to negotiate or sign an agreement."
What this basically means is that Hamas and other Palestinian groups are not going to accept any deal between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, even if it includes far-reaching concessions on the part of Israel.
Abbas was recently quoted as saying once again that any deal he signs with Israel would apply not only to the West Bank, which is under his control, but to the Gaza Strip as well.
One can understand why Abbas is speaking on behalf of his constituents in the West Bank. But how exactly does Abbas intend to enforce a peace agreement in the Gaza Strip when he cannot even visit his private residence there?
While some may argue that Abbas has some legitimacy among Palestinians in the West Bank, especially in light of Fatah's control over the area, it is hard to say that he has much following in the Gaza Strip, which remains under the tight grip of Hamas and its allies.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, in February 2007, before Hamas seized total control of Gaza. (Image source: MaanImages)
It would have been better had Abbas called new presidential elections before the resumption of the peace talks with Israel. Such a move would have embarrassed Hamas and probably forced it to comply.
But as of now it seems that neither Abbas nor Hamas is interested in holding new elections for the presidency or the legislative council. The status quo, where each side has full control over a mini-state (Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip) appears to be convenient for both parties.
However, the need for such elections has become imperative in wake of Kerry's relentless efforts to achieve an "historic" agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
The only way to find out what Palestinians really want is by allowing them to head to the ballot boxes. Palestinians representing all groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, should be allowed to run in such an election.
A victory for the radicals would mean that a majority of Palestinians do not want peace and continue to dream about the destruction of Israel. If Abbas and his political allies win, that would be great news for the peace process and Kerry's efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
Yet Kerry does not seem to care whether Abbas is a "rightful" president or not. He is so desperate for a diplomatic achievement that he is prepared to ignore fundamental facts.
How can Kerry expect Abbas to sign any document declaring the end of the conflict with Israel when many Palestinians are already pointing out that their president does not even have a mandate to act or speak on their behalf?
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Sinsinawa Dominicans
Dominican Magazine
Six decades of North Shore determination, Catholic partnership, scientific ingenuity, Sinsinawa guidance, artistic expression, and bold resilience have created a community that is unique in its mission and unmatched in its effectiveness.
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Automotive & Truck
& Truck
Truck & Specialty Vehicle
Depositories
Findlay Industries, Inc. has divested certain of its operations in Springfield, OH and Findlay, OH to an affiliate of Superior Trim, Inc.
THE TRANSACTION
Findlay Industries divested certain of its operations in Springfield, OH and Findlay, OH to FI Asset Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of Superior Trim, on May 20th, 2009.
FINDLAY INDUSTRIES, INC.
Findlay Industries, Inc. (“Findlay Industries”) is a leading supplier of interior components and fully integrated interior system solutions for the heavy-duty truck, military, medical, recreational and global automotive markets. Findlay Industries was founded in 1959 and is headquartered in Findlay, OH, with manufacturing and assembly operations strategically located throughout North America (including one facility in Canada, five facilities in the United States and two facilities in Mexico), an engineering and technical center in Findlay, OH and a sales office in Detroit, MI.
Transaction Partner
SUPERIOR TRIM, INC.
Superior Trim, Inc. (“Superior Trim”) founded in 1961, is a supplier of interior components to the heavy-duty truck market. The Company is headquartered in Findlay, OH and has additional manufacturing facilities in Old Hickory, TN and Bloomdale, OH.
James C. Penman
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RECENT DPP TRANSACTIONS
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Ep 267 - NOS4A2 on AMC: Cast & Producer Interviews
It's time to hop in the Wraith this week! We're talking to the cast and producers of AMC's NOS4A2 adaptation of Joe Hill's classic novel! Not only will you hear from Joe, you'll also hear from Jami O'Brien (Showrunner), Zachary Quinto (Charlie Manx), Ashleigh Cummings (Vick McQueen), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Chris McQueen),...
Ep 266 - Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie: Cast & Creative Interviews
It's a pizza party in the Batcave this week! We're talking to the cast and creative team behind Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Nickelodeon! Hear us talk to Ben Jones (Producer), Marly Halpern-Graser (Writer), Ben Giroux (Robin/Damian), Andrew Kishino (Shredder), Eric...
Ep 265 - #RenewDeadlyClass - Deadly Class Cast & Producer Interviews
Who's ready to fight for Deadly Class? After not hearing news of a second season at this week's TV upfronts, we decided to take action! So this week, we're putting a spotlight on the show and sharing our interviews with the cast and producers from WonderCon 2019! We're talking toBenjamin Wadsworth (Marcus), María...
Ep 264 - Marvel's Agents of Shield Season 6: Cast & Producer Interviews
Season 6 of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is finally here! We got a chance to sit down with the cast and producers of the shows to get you ready for the premiere. Hear our interviews with Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Henry Simmons (Mack), Maurissa Tancharoen (Exec. Producer), Jed Whedon (Exec. Producer), Jeph Loeb...
Ep 263 - Tolkien: Dome Karukoski Interview
It's a SUPER SIZED show this week, and for good reason! This week we're talking to Dome Karukoski, the director of the Tolkien movie. What made the Lord of the Rings author an interesting subject for a biopic? What did Dome learn about Tolkien while making this movie? Find out about that, and a special early screening...
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Edmonton businesses looking for new ways to stay afloat amidst pandemic
CTV News Edmonton Staff
Published Thursday, August 20, 2020 8:20PM MDT
EDMONTON -- Storefront closures in Edmonton’s core have been a common occurrence since the start of the pandemic. To stem the tide, the Downtown Business Association surveyed its members to see what’s important right now to help their businesses survive.
The Starlite Room is usually busy most nights with live music. The stage has been quiet for several months, but the roof is another story.
They’ve had a few physically distanced unannounced concerts on the roof with the parking lot area before used as a viewing area.
“We’ve only had a couple of times, but the bands love it and so far we’ve had a lot of happy audience members as well,” said Tyson Boyd, the Starlite Room’s owner.
That kind of initiative is what the interim director of the DBA says will be needed as they released a new report.
MBA student Kennedy Quigley contacted stakeholders, including 15 businesses downtown, to see what they are focused on right now, including food security, hygiene, inclusivity and diversity.
A live roundtable discussion was also part of the initiative on how to adapt and maybe even thrive during physical distancing and beyond.
“The stories that are included in this report are the innovations we saw popping up downtown,” said Quigley.
Boyd says his roof top concerts might be an inspiration, but they are not profitable, but he says right now that’s not the point, he, like the association.
“I think we just really need to remain positive,” he said.
With files from CTV News Edmonton's David Ewasuk
The Starlite Room, like many other venues, sits empty during the COVID-19 pandemic. (CTV News Edmonton)
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European election
Europe’s Workforce
Europe’s youth
Terrorism and security
Webgraphic
Holidays in the coronavirus-era
Tourism is one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Representing 10% of GDP and the same percentage of the total workforce of the EU, the health of the tourism industry has major repercussions for the whole economy. As Europe slowly emerges from lockdown, nations are gradually opening their borders, their restaurants and their beaches, fully aware that without tourists, a wider economic recovery is in jeopardy.
People sit in deckchairs as they enjoy the sunshine on the beach in Brighton on the south coast of England on June 2, 2020 following a further relaxation of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown rules. - Suspected and confirmed cases of deaths from the coronavirus outbreak in Britain have risen to 48,000, according to official data published Tuesday. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP)
People sit in deckchairs as they enjoy t […]
coronavirus, Health, Tourism
Pandemic slashes international tourism by 70%: UN
International tourists arrivals plunged by 70 percent during the first eight months of 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Tourism Organization (WTO)
(FILES) In this file photo taken on July 10, 2020 passengers wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, arrive at Heathrow airport, west London. - London Heathrow said on October 28, 2020 that Paris Charles de Gaulle has overtaken it to become Europe's largest airport in terms of passenger numbers, blaming delayed coronavirus testing and travel restrictions. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP)
(FILES) In this file photo taken on July […]
coronavirus, Tourism, Transportation and mobility, Infographic, Video, Video 3D
Heathrow says Paris now Europe’s busiest airport
London Heathrow has said Paris Charles de Gaulle had overtaken it to become Europe's top airport in terms of passenger numbers, blaming delayed coronavirus testing and travel restrictions.
A man sunbathes surrounded by a barrier tape to set a secure social distance space at the Nord Beach in Gandia, near Valencia on July 1, 2020. - The European Union reopened its borders to visitors from 15 countries but excluded the United States, where coronavirus deaths are spiking once again, six months after the first cluster was reported in China. (Photo by JOSE JORDAN / AFP)
A man sunbathes surrounded by a barrier […]
coronavirus, Health, Tourism, Infographic
Spain foreign tourist arrivals fell 75% in July
Foreign tourist arrivals in Spain plummeted by 75% year-on-year in July despite the reopening of borders in the world's second-most popular tourist destination, official figures show
Beachgoers pack the beach in Brighton, on the south coast of England, as temperatures head towards a predicted 37C on August 7, 2020. Photo: Glyn Kirk / AFP
Beachgoers pack the beach in Brighton, o […]
Europeans warned not to forget virus as temperatures soar
Sun-seekers flocked to beaches as parts of western Europe baked in a heatwave, but authorities urged people to avoid crowded areas and wear masks over concerns at rising numbers of coronavirus cases
Honduran woman, Sonia Herrera, 52, pictured during an AFP interview at her home in Madrid on June 25, 2020. Photo: Javier Soriano / AFP
Honduran woman, Sonia Herrera, 52, pictu […]
coronavirus, Europe's Workforce, Health, Tourism, Transportation and mobility, Infographic
Jobless and desperate: the post-lockdown reality for many
Many workers' lives have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, as job losses in tourism, air travel, food and drink or other industries hit those both on fixed contracts and in the informal sector
People sit outside their motorhome at a campsite in Peniscola near Castellon, Spain, on July 8, 2020. Photo: Jose Jordan / AFP
People sit outside their motorhome at a […]
coronavirus, Health, Tourism, Transportation and mobility
Motorhomes come of age as Europe relaxes lockdowns
With social distancing the new norm across Europe there has been a shift in thinking about holidays, with one survey showing 83% of Spaniards planned to use their own car over public transport
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EU European Union Europe Brexit Britain politics coronavirus Health Germany France COVID-19 virus Economy Italy European Commission Trade Disease pandemic Spain migrants
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Claiming the King's Bed
19:42 Historical Mar 10, 2019 28 comments 43305 4256
FSUB
impreg
written by /u/DPP_NewFrost
In the writer's own words:
"Scene: A new queen waits nervously outside her husband’s chambers. It is late and the castle is quiet as the residents sleep. They have been married a short time but the marriage is not as she wants. It is not unusual given their arranged marriage, but she is determined to make things work. The Queen wishes to secure her place in the King’s heart, and his bed...."
I love historical fiction and romance, and this gorgeous script by /u/DPP_NewFrost captured a lot of what people love about the medieval period.
Knolan on 2021-01-14 10:06:52 (UTC)
I love this one. My family comes from Irish royalty. Plus it's an interest of mine as well. Eve, however, delivered an impeccable performance. Love the accent too.
Thank you so much! I love these historical fantasies myself xx
01Zero on 2019-11-23 07:20:40 (UTC)
What a cunning protagonist. She knows the danger of a king displeased in a new wife, let alone one widely known for amorous behavior with other women. She learns about the king without asking him directly, working as if in secret. She has the "gossipers" dismissed from his service--exercising authority without his oversight--and says it's for his sake. She allures the king at night with gentle submission and nakedness of body and heart. She speaks sweetly things, stroking his ego (and otherwise), while thanking him for his fidelity to her by removing his previous women--apparently even the pregnant ones, which she uses to speak on how she alone can provide a true heir. She references their religion twice over (thus subtly emphasizing the religious (though not cultural) imperative to monogamy).
Everything she does is precisely considered yet wholly intimate (emotionally at that). She's not wicked in any of this, either! She's smart! It's a wonderful example of a clever, earnest woman.
tl;dr Maybe I'm off my head looking too deep into it, but I don't think so. It's fun either way but your writing here, Eve, was great. It's the most exciting thing about these little audio stories you produce and this one in particular. No wonder you went into being a novelist.
It's women like this in real history who shaped the course of nations, not by trying to rip away the scepter from their king but by being sincere and clever. It's a protagonist that really proves she's worthy of the crown on her head. What a fun character.
Thank you so much, what a wonderful comment!
Vermouth1991 on 2019-12-22 15:53:48 (UTC)
It is very sweet, and my headcanon is that God will reward her clever efforts handsomely: The Queen will indeed conceive that night, and nine months later the couple will welcome their firstborn, a son, followed mere minutes later by the little crown prince's baby sister. And the King and Queen will be so in love they'll continue to make love and create more offspring. xD
Twins! Ack!
I like the second part though :P
MadWithLust on 2019-04-01 10:59:44 (UTC)
Oh my queen! What a delicious seduction! It was so effortless to be enchanted by that soft, shy whisper..."why, yes, please come in"..."but you look so lovely in that slip fit for a lovely queen" (silky slip <3 <3 <3!!!) ..."yes, it is so warm in this bed, like the warm glow of the fire dancing all over that gorgeous body of yours"...."comfort for my needs...OMG YES!"
For a king wiho's knocking up the village...I sure felt like a teenager again with the new queen! Bless those magic words! It's good to be king!
BTW, the queen has permission to enter my chamber any time! With consent of fornication! ;P
haha it's good to be kind indeed!
Aadam on 2019-03-25 04:56:45 (UTC)
That title is misleading. The Queen claimed more than the King's bed 😂. Jokes aside, this is fantastic. I don't know how you pull this off but keep up the good work.
BTW, rumor has it that the Queen has fantasized about his King entering her chamber to claim her. I think it would be in His Magesty's best interest to fulfill that fantasy :P
haha absolutely! Thank you so much! I plan to do more historical themed audios in the near future!
"IMPREG". Oh Eve! That category. O_o
My girlfriend and I would have LDR phone sex with either voice message exchanges or audio calls on skype, and she's since accepted my love for Impreg as part of the "words to make hair stand on end" category, she gets turned on when I tell her I want to knock her up and keep taking her while her belly's growing, and I absolutely lose it every time she gets into the mood to moan that she wants me to fill her up and that she wants my babies. 😭
And there are few things hotter than the woman knowing the guy to be a sex machine with evidence all over, but still claiming him so they could make babies of their own.
I know it's a pretty popular genre for a lot of people - there is something very primal about a man giving a woman a baby.
It's definitely primal for me. Humans evolved to have more complex feelings, but there would always be a primal breeding aspect to sex. Non-stop marathon fucking sessions. Cumming over and over again into her fertile belly. Drowning the woman's eggs with the man's sperm until finally he knocks her up. The baby (or babies) would be a solid reminder of lust and sex, and the woman carries it to birth, seemingly starting from nothing; no wonder there were so many cultures that worshipped the fertility goddess. And so many men in real life would continue to worship their women when they're pregnant from them, and the women love being worshipped in return.
Allaurus on 2019-03-14 19:55:12 (UTC)
Easily one of your best ones yet, it is sooo intense! I didn't even know I would like such a setting.
That's so great to hear, I love introducing listeners to new themes they might not have tried before. I love history, and I love really delving into unique themes like this.
Darx on 2019-03-12 10:09:31 (UTC)
I've never been big on role play/period piece audios, but you make a strong argument, Eve. I swear I could feel the cold stone walls of the room, smell the fire, and even the little pricks of the quills in the down pillows. You always go the extra mile with the little details like the fire crackle, it makes it so easy to get lost in the world you weave.
I'm sure I'm not the first to ever mention this, but I'm now craving some more Eve Accents. I'm somewhat partial to the Irish that comes out occasionally in some of the small videos you post in Twitter, but your British is also wonderful.
Thank you so much Darx! I recently finished another historical one where I play a female viking, so I tried a slight Scandanavian accent. I hope you like it!
It was an enchanting experience to listen to a fairy tale, Eve's Garden-style, on a chilly evening. The sound quality was top-notch as always and the foley of heavy oaken doors and the subtle crackle of a bedchamber fireplace keeping the drafts at bay made for a most immersive audio escape. The growing passion between these royal lovers brought together by station and circumstance was palpable, and the kissy denouement was the perfect epilogue to this accounting of what happens following "Happily ever after."
😆 those back scratches! Are we quite sure Her Majesty is a demure FSUB? Perhaps one day her inner wildcat will lead to a Royal Romp in the castle dungeon 😋
haha I don't think Her Majesty is as mild and demure as she would have her King believe...I think he's in for some royal shenanigans :P
"Now madam, I will part your legs like the Red Sea and proceed to mount. As I claim you as my queen, we will continue to thrust until we both scream in victory"
Sorry, I couldn't resist XD
haha I love it!
cubastank on 2019-03-10 23:28:20 (UTC)
Another award-winning performance, even if no actual awards are involved! Aw, what the heck. Here you go! 🏆😄
Yay! Thank you so much! The first time someone has given me a trophy! 😘
You deserve it! 😁
💋 thank you!
CopperQwaser on 2019-03-10 18:49:14 (UTC)
lovely audio as always. thank you Eve
You're welcome, thank you for listening!
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Who when and where
Zonal and interzonal collaboration
Types of applications
Renewals - Article 43
Mutual recognition
Amendment of authorisations
Administrative amendments
Parallel trade permits
Copy products
Minor use authorisations
Other types of authorisation
Evaluation framework
Classification labelling and packaging
Transitionel provisions
Requirements subsequent to the decision
Cooperation in the North Zone
Reporting of sales
Professional user
Reducing the impact on the environment
Pesticides statistics
Grant Programmes
Find authorised pesticides
GEP - Good Experimental Practice
Parallel trade permits - Article 52
A parallel trade permit is an authorisation for the import of a plant protection product that is identical to a product already authorised in Denmark.
As parallel trade permits according to the EU regulations are not regarded as authorisations, a parallel trade permit can only be granted to an authorised plant protection product, and not to a product which has been granted a parallel trade permit. A parallel trade permit is valid only for Denmark. It is not valid in the rest of the Northern Zone. An application must be made in each country for which you wish to obtain a permit.
Identical products
A plant protection product is considered identical with a product already authorised in Denmark only if:
a) it is produced by the same company, or an associated company or under licence according to the same method of manufacture as that of the authorised product
b) it has the same specification, that is, contains the same active substances, safeners and synergists. The plant protection product is of the same formulation type
c) the contents of the co-formulants and the packaging are the same or equivalent. The packaging and co-formulants may not have more negative effects on health or the environment than the original product.
Requirements for the application procedure
For the Danish EPA to assess whether the requirements for identicality have been met, your application for a parallel trade permit must contain the following information:
a) the name and registration number of the plant protection product in the country of origin
b) the country or countries of origin
c) the name and address of the holder of the authorisation in the country of origin
d) the label from the country of origin, if the Danish EPA so requires. A translation may also be required
e) the name and address of the applicant for a parallel trade permit
f) the name that the plant protection product will carry if authorised in Denmark
g) a draft Danish label
h) a sample of the product, if requested by the Danish EPA
i) the name and registration number of the product already approved in Denmark.
Application form for a parallel trade permit
The application can be emailed to or submitted to:
The Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticides and Biocides
Up to 55 days.
As of 1 January 2014 fees for processing applications for Plant Protection Products were introduced. Read more on fees.
Note that fees will also be charged for the renewal of a parallel permit.
When the reference product is in the process of being renewed, The Danish EPA will ask the authorisation holder to submit an application for renewal and fees will be charged upon receipt of the application.
After receiving a parallel trade permit
A plant protection product under a parallel trade permit may only be placed on the market and used in accordance with the authorisation of the original product.
The parallel trade permit will expire at the same time as the authorisation of the original product. If the authorisation of the original product is withdrawn for reasons other than safety reasons, the parallel trade permit will be similarly affected.
The parallel trade permit can be withdrawn if the conditions of the permit are no longer met, which includes withdrawal of the original product authorisation for safety or efficacy reasons.
An annual fee of DKK 500, together with the relevant duties due to the Danish Tax and Customs Administration, is payable for each permit.
The requirements for parallel trade permits are described in detail in Article 52 of Regulation No 1107/2009.
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Jump to main content or area navigation.
Learn the Issues
TRI Explorer
You are here: EPA Home
Waste Quantity: Trends Report
Data Source: 2019 Updated Dataset (released October 2020) See Note Instructions for printing wide reports
Quantities of TRI Chemicals in Waste (in pounds), Trend Report by California Amforge Corp (TRI ID 91702CLFRN750NV) for COBALT COMPOUNDS chemical, U.S. 2008-2019
Are year to year changes comparable?
Row #
Recycled On-site
Recycled Off-site
Energy Recovery On-site
Energy Recovery Off-site
Treated On-site
Treated Off-site
Total Quantity Disposed or Otherwise Released On- and Off-site
Total Production-related Waste Managed
Non-Production-related Waste Managed
1 2008 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10 2017 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
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Note: Reporting year (RY) 2019 is the most recent TRI data year available. Facilities reporting to TRI were required to submit their data to EPA by July 1 for the previous calendar year's activities. TRI Explorer is using an updated 2019 data set (released to the public in October 2020). This dataset includes revisions for the years 1988 to 2019 processed by EPA. Revisions submitted to EPA after this time are not reflected in TRI Explorer reports. TRI data may also be obtained through EPA Envirofacts.
Users of TRI information should be aware that TRI data reflect releases and other waste management activities of chemicals, not whether (or to what degree) the public has been exposed to those chemicals. TRI data, in conjunction with other information, can be used as a starting point in evaluating exposures that may result from releases and other waste management activities which involve toxic chemicals. The determination of potential risk depends upon many factors, including the toxicity of the chemical, the fate of the chemical, and the amount and duration of human or other exposure to the chemical after it is released.
Quantities of TRI Chemicals in Waste from Section 8, Column B (Recycled On-site (8.4), Recycled Off-site (8.5), Energy Recovery On-site (8.2), Energy Recovery Off-site (8.3), Treated On-site (8.6), Treated Off-site (8.7), Total on-site disposal to Class I Underground Injection Wells, RCRA Subtitle C Landfills, and other Landfills (8.1A), Total other on-site disposal or other releases (8.1B), Total off-site disposal to Class I Underground Injection Wells, RCRA Subtitle C Landfills, and other Landfills (8.1C), Total other off-site disposal or other releases (8.1D), Total Quantity Disposed of or Otherwise Released On- and Off-site (8.1)), and Non-production-related waste managed from Section 8.8.
Beginning with reporting year 2003 Part II section 8.1 was replaced with 8.1A, 8.1B, 8.1C, and 8.1D. The new columns are included to facilitate trends analysis.
Quantities of waste data are from Section 8 of the Form R, which is the standard TRI reporting form. These data are available beginning with the 1991 reporting year.
A decimal point, or "." denotes the following: if a decimal point is reported across an entire row, the facility submitted a Form A (i.e., the facility certified that its total annual reportable amount is less than 500 pounds, and does not manufacture, process, or otherwise use more than 1 million pounds); or if a decimal point is reported in a single column, the facility left that particular cell blank in its Form R submission (a zero in a cell denotes either that the facility reported "0" or "NA" in its Form R submission).
How to cite TRI Explorer. Following APA Style, 6th edition, an appropriate citation to TRI Explorer is:
United States Environmental Protection Agency. (2021). TRI Explorer (2019 Updated Dataset (released October 2020)) [Internet database]. Retrieved from https://enviro.epa.gov/triexplorer/, (January 18, 2021).
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Green/LEED Building
EP Industry Directory
Water Industry Directory
NREL Releases 2010 Green Electric Utility Ranking
Green Pricing Program Renewable Energy Sales
(as of December 2010)
Resources Used
Sales (kWh/year)
Sales (aMW)
1 Austin Energy Wind, landfill gas 754,203,479 86.1
2 Portland General Electric Wind, biomass, geothermal 735,745,202 84.0
3 PacifiCorp Wind, biomass, landfill gas, solar 587,373,391 67.1
4 Sacramento Municipal Utility District Wind, hydro, biomass, solar 395,537,564 45.2
5 Xcel Energy Wind, solar 388,837,429 44.4
6 Puget Sound Energy Wind, landfill gas, biomass, small hydro, solar 314,892,507 35.9
7 Connecticut Light and Power/ United Illuminating Wind, hydro 229,408,999 26.2
8 CPS Energy Wind 186,880,675 21.3
9 National Grid Biomass, wind, small hydro, solar 167,149,902 19.1
10 We Energies Wind, landfill gas, solar 164,546,605 18.8
The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released its annual assessment of leading utility green power programs. Under these voluntary programs, consumers can choose to help support additional electricity production from renewable resources such as wind and solar.
Green power sales from utility programs exceeded 6 million megawatt-hours (MWh) in 2010. Wind energy now represents more than three-fourths of electricity generated for green energy programs nationwide.
Using information provided by utilities, NREL has developed rankings of utility green power programs for 2010 in the following categories: total sales of renewable energy to program participants, total number of customer participants, the percentage of customer participation, green power sales as a percentage of total utility retail electricity sales, and the lowest price premium charged for a green power program using new renewable resources. According to NREL, more than 850 utilities across the United States offer green power programs.
Ranked by renewable energy sales (kWh/year), Austin Energy in Austin, Texas, sold the largest amount of renewable energy in the nation through its voluntary green power program. Rounding out the top five are Portland General Electric (Oregon), PacifiCorp (Oregon and five other states), the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (California), and Xcel Energy (Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New Mexico).
Ranked by the percentage of customer participation, the top utilities are City of Palo Alto Utilities (California), with more than 20 percent of its customers participating in its green power program, followed by Portland General Electric, Farmers Electric Cooperative of Kalona (Iowa), Madison Gas and Electric Company (Wisconsin), and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
"Participating in utility green power programs is one way that consumers can support renewable energy development. These utilities are the national leaders," said NREL senior analyst Lori Bird.
Utility green pricing programs are one segment of a larger green power marketing industry that counts approximately 1.5 million customers, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and colleges and universities among its customers, and helps support more than 9,000 megawatts of renewable electricity generation capacity.
NREL has also found that more utilities are developing community solar programs, an innovative program design that enables consumers to support local projects. Community solar programs allow customers to purchase a share of a solar system developed in their community and receive the benefits of the energy that is produced by their share. Typically, consumers will pay an upfront cost per watt of solar, and then receive a credit on their bill for the kilowatt-hours that their purchase generated.
"Utilities and third-parties are increasingly developing community solar programs as one way to support local renewable energy development," said NREL analyst Jenny Sumner. "Customers can invest in solar through community solar programs even if they are renters or own homes with shaded roofs."
The Green Power assessment was performed by NREL's Strategic Energy Analysis Center (SEAC), which integrates technical and economic analyses and leads NREL's efforts in applying clean energy technologies to both national and international markets.
Increasing Worker Safety in the Renewable Energy Industry
John Kerry Appointed to Special Climate Change-Focused Position By President-Elect Biden
NASA Model Details Drop in Pollution Due to COVID-19 Pandemic
Global Warming Still An Issue Despite Greenhouse Gas Reductions, Study Says
Latest California Wildfire May Have Been Caused By Lashing Wire
NASA Satellite Begins Orbit to Record Changes in Sea Level
How Biostimulants Contribute to a Sustainable Future
EPA Supports Environmental Improvement For Native American Tribes in Virginia
Chemicals and Toxins
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Hot dating website iq
Best TV shows 2020: the best TV series you can watch right now
Dating game show
Relationship Reality TV Shows
The Best New Reality TV Shows of 2020
The Best Dating TV Shows
You’ll Be Instantly Obsessed With These 16 New Reality Shows
By Radio Times Staff. And with having seen far more people staying at home than usual we all have Netflix to thank — the average number of hours spent watching streaming services has soared this year , and so an offering of new programmes has been hugely welcome. After something a bit darker? Perhaps more ambitious and high-concept than many of the shows that have gone before it, the drama takes place across four countries — the UK, Germany, France and Spain — and is made up of 12 individual stories three episodes per location. But living with people who wear capes and save lives every two minutes is never going to be plain sailing. Ellen plays Vanya, one of seven children adopted by a billionaire.
Both Netflix and Hulu have a variety of dating shows that you can stream right now. With these transformations comes a slew of new dating programs that tend to be viewed when everyone else goes to bed. Here are a few more guilty pleasures to watch snuggled in your favorite blanket.
9 Reality Dating Shows You Should Watch After Too Hot to Handle was like before a global pandemic hit, watching reality TV is probably not the way host this show, which is the cherry on top of this bonkers-town premise.
Subscriber Account active since. American viewers have also been introduced to foreign reality series, like the popular British dating competition, ” Love Island ,” which is available on Hulu. Thanks to streaming services, these shows are only the tip of the iceberg. Insider has many movie and TV show lists to keep you occupied. You can read them all here. Where to watch: Netflix. Based on a long-running Japanese cable series of the same name, this Netflix Japanese reality show sends seven singles searching for a relationship on a road trip together in a bright pink van.
When one of the participants begins to develop feelings for another, they’re given a plane ticket back to Japan. If the other participant shares those feelings, they’re flown back to begin dating. Where to watch: Hulu. For several years, this Bravo show followed businesswoman Patti Stanger as she ran a matchmaking agency catering to millionaires. Remember the rapper Flavor Flav?
The very best dating shows on television, ranked from best to worst. This list of the greatest dating shows also includes pictures from the shows when available. Popular dating TV shows have been a staple of television for years, so there’s often debate about what the most entertaining dating show of all time is. Don’t let your favorite dating television programs in history get to the bottom of the list- be sure to vote them up so they have the chance to reach the top spot.
The list of dating television shows below includes information like the program’s cast, creator and premiere date when available. Premiered:
3 90 DAY FIANCE: HULU.
Skip navigation! Story from TV Shows. Figuring out what TV shows to watch this summer will be more difficult than ever. First, there is the simple fact that Netflix is rolling out 10 or more new series every week. To help make the viewing process fun for you — rather than mind-numbingly stressful — we made you a complete chronological guide to summer television which we’ll be updating in the coming months. Keep reading to find out the precise shows that will be worth your time in the steamy weeks ahead, along with all the premiere dates, plot points, and cast information you need.
Crack open a hard seltzer and get comfy on the couch — you’re going to be happy staying inside with these shows. Last week, the latest Netflix show to get the axe — and cause a subsequent uproar online — was the Lord of. Since its premiere in , Bravo series The Real Housewives of New York has thrown together some of the most eclectic women in the concrete jungle for epi.
The Bachelor is usually ridiculously easy to predict, but as of late, the twisted trajectory of the dating reality series has even the most seasoned fans o. The Haunting of Hill House is back — well, kind of.
Sign up for our Watching Newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox. As the streaming age has expanded and individual services have molded their identities, Hulu has found itself somewhat lost in the shuffle. This Disney-owned service also hosts a rotating library of movies, both new releases and recent classics, rivaling the collections of many of its competitors.
Watch on Hulu. Samberg and Milioti shine, and the supporting cast is filled out with valuable players including J.
Dating game shows are television game shows that incorporate a dating system in the form of a The couple who knew each other the best would win the game; sometimes others got divorced. Once, someone divorced after appearing on The.
In this list of the best TV shows of so far, we’ve selected only elite-tier TV series that have offered a great distraction during this very strange year. While the year in TV isn’t over yet by any means, with The Mandalorian season 2 set to debut in October and HBO’s highly-anticipated Lovecraft Country coming in August, production shutdowns are likely to make the second half of this year much quieter than anticipated for new TV shows.
In our best TV shows list, you’ll find weighty dramas, fun comedies and must-see documentaries. Below, we’ll explain what the best TV series of the year are so far, and how you can stream them where you are. This alternate history drama from The Wire creator David Simon is based on the book of the same name by Philip Roth, and explores a reality where anti-interventionist Charles Lindbergh successfully ran against Franklin Roosevelt in the election over the subject of WWII.
This story is told through the prism of a Jewish family living in New Jersey, and explores the latent antisemitism of the time. While the series functions well as a hard-hitting period piece, particularly with the sheer amount of money and talent thrown at the production, it naturally has modern resonance in the way it explores right-wing populism. From Alex Garland, the director of Ex Machina and Annihilation, Devs is a moody treat of a tech thriller miniseries that blends in elements of sci-fi and horror.
Whether you love to hate it, hate to love it, or are somewhere in between, there’s no doubt that reality TV is one of the most polarizing entertainment genres there is. However, there is no better genre to watch while you’re procrastinating on that assignment, or to take your mind off of a bad day at work. And some reality shows might even teach you something. As we enter the new year, there are a whole new crop of shows just waiting to be watched—here are the most anticipated reality shows of , from your returning favorites to some brand-new series.
A new season of the TLC show hit your TV screen in January, and it features even more of the pimple popping, cyst draining , and gory skin removals that fans love. You know what, maybe pimple popping videos are just so to you.
As best title suggests, shows celebs enter the world of television but dating as they know it as the aim of the aim television for them to date ordinary people -.
Though it masqueraded as low-key and unfussy, a show that simply eavesdropped on blind dates, its approach was more high-concept than it first appeared. One person went on five dates, then chose their favourite for a second date. So far, so familiar. But the editing made it all look as if it took place on the same night, in a sort of hopeful-romantic Groundhog Day. And so each date took place at the same place, in the same clothes, often with the same questions and jokes.
These were edited to look as if they were all happening at once, and it was borderline arthouse.
If you couldn’t get enough of Love Is Blind, then here’s even more Netflix dating shows for you to get obsessed with. If you, like the rest of us, have been obsessing over Netflix ‘s latest romance offering Love Is Blind and are now in the market for a new love, then we’ve got good news for you. The streaming platform has loads more reality dating shows in the archives.
From classics like Love Island and Dating Around to the newest offering, Too Hot To Handle , there’s plenty of shows that’ll keep you busy for weeks to come. With the prospect of no new seasons of Love Island and Bachelor In Paradise to get us through summer , Netflix’s Too Hot To Handle looks like it might be our new summer spring romance.
The best dating reality shows offer viewers the unique perspective of watching singles trying to find the perfect mate. Dating tv shows are nothing new, but.
Skip to content. Best dating television shows. Best dating television shows There’s only ones and one of dating shows of reality show, trashy reality dating shows from a cultural. Cami mendes’s character was only a bachelor, videos, movies and relationship show ‘love is blind, including the uk, the official the following 14 subcategories. Usa network’s revamped version of room raiders it as. Watching contestants get the next 5 best dating, the standards of here: from australia: from the best.
Game shows that are television programs, on history. Tomatometer rankings of love find out there as a little lighter, that’s been inflicting itself on monday.
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All Drawing Guides
Easy Drawing Guides > 4th of July, easy, man-made > How to Draw the American Flag
How to Draw the American Flag
Easy, step by step American Flag drawing tutorial
Click HERE to save the tutorial to Pinterest!
Flags are used as symbols to represent countries around the world. Flags are made of fabric and brightly colored, typically square or rectangular in shape. The national flag of the United States of America is a familiar symbol around the world. Nicknames for the flag include the Star-Spangled Banner, Stars and Stripes, and Old Glory.
The American flag has undergone many changes since its original version in 1777, unveiled just one year after America declared independence from Britain. In fact, there have been twenty-seven versions of the emblem. The current style was adopted in 1960. While the flag has always had thirteen stripes, it has altered from thirteen to fifty stars, and stars in a circle pattern, star shaped pattern, and other quilt-like patterns.
Did you know? A number of other countries use flags similar in design to the American flag, with various numbers of red and white bars, stars on a blue field, or differing color patterns. These include Liberia, Bikini Atoll, Malaysia, and Brittany.
Scroll down for a downloadable PDF of this tutorial.
Today, the flag is a symbol of American patriotism and of the nation itself. Flags are flown, not just on government properties, but on private residences, at businesses, and in cemeteries, especially during patriotic holidays, such as Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, and the Fourth of July.
Flags also adorn a number of products, including clothing, pins, uniforms, postage stamps, and car decals. A small flag may appear on some items to indicate that they are "made in America."
Would you like to draw an American flag? This easy, step-by-step drawing tutorial is designed to make doing so simple, as the image is broken down into basic lines and shapes. All you will need is a pencil or pen and a sheet of paper. You'll likely want red and blue crayons, markers, colored pencils, or pens to shade your finished drawing.
If you liked this tutorial, see also the following drawing guides: Dad's Trophy, Hourglass, and Statue of Liberty.
Unlock AD FREE and PRINTABLE drawing and coloring tutorials! Learn more
Step-by-Step Instructions for Drawing the American Flag
American Flag drawing - step 1
1. Begin by drawing a pair of narrowly spaced, parallel, vertical lines. Then, draw a small circle at the top. This forms the flag pole that will support the flag.
2. Extend two curved lines outward from the flagpole. The lines should be roughly parallel.
3. Connect the two lines drawn in the previous step using a curved line. The square shape thus enclosed forms the first fold of the waving flag.
4. Extend a short, curved, diagonal line downward from the bottom corner of the flag. Connect it to the flag's bottom using another short curved line. This curved triangle shape indicates a fold in the flag.
MORE DRAWING TUTORIALS:
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5. Extend two curved lines from the flag, one from the curved triangle and the other from just below the top corner. Connect the lines using a curved line, enclosing the remainder of the waving flag.
6. Using two slightly curved lines, enclose a square shape at the top corner of the flag, near the flagpole.
7. Next, draw parallel curved lines across the flag. The American flag features thirteen red and white bars representing the thirteen original colonies, so you should include twelve lines. Don't forget to add a couple of stripes to the visible edge of the flag's fold.
8. Complete the stripes on the final portion of the waving flag, again using twelve curved lines to create the thirteen stripes.
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9. In the square, draw rows of small stars. The American flag has fifty stars representing the fifty states. Rows alternate between having five or six stars each.
Complete American Flag drawing
10. Color your American flag. The star field is dark blue with white stars. The stripes are white and red, with red bars on the top and bottom. Many flag poles are made of either brown wood or gold or grey metal.
The Complete American Flag Drawing Tutorial in One Image
How to draw: American Flag - all drawing steps
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Demarte says:
EasyDrawingGuides says:
karina griggs says:
when i did it it turned out weird when i gave it to my teacher she asked what it was
I bet it looked great. 🙂 I always have do my drawings a couple of times before I like them.
lyly chin says:
DragonWarrior56 says:
Wow, the stars are hard
And there are so many! 🙂
Aloepaws says:
I drew less than fifty stars...
(totally not guilty of anything)
CreativeRiri says:
The fourth step is hard. It turns out to look like an awkward leaf on the flag, but I love trying. Now it looks like a flower petal which isn't so bad. It's actually cute and creative.
😀 Try it a couple of times and it will come together.
This was cool
Hi! I'm Rauno from Vancouver, Canada. I believe we all can create amazing drawings with the help of good step-by-step instructions! Are you ready to start?
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Home » Headline News » Elon Musk tests positive and negative for COVID-19 on the same day: Details
Elon Musk tests positive and negative for COVID-19 on the same day: Details
Friday, November 13, 2020 • Tamil Comments
#Elon Musk
Tesla's Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk took four back to back COVID-19 tests on the same day, two of which turned up positive while two of them were negative.
Sharing the news on Twitter, Elon Musk claimed that "something extremely bogus is going on." He also mentioned that he was experiencing symptoms of a common cold and nothing particularly unusual. "Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD," Elon Musk's tweet read. Following the rapid antigen tests on Thursday, Musk said he was also awaiting results from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests from different labs. Criticizing the CEO for the "irresponsible" tweet, several users called out Elon Musk for feeding misguided people with more conspiracy theories. "Something extremely bogus is going on. Someone so successful in one field repeatedly and publicly demonstrates himself to be so abjectly unable to grasp simple concepts in another, even to the detriment of millions of people who hang off his every word," a cardiologist wrote.
This is not the first time Elon Musk has made a controversial statement regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, as he had earlier suggested that a nationwide lockdown would, in no way, be effective. During an interview on an episode of a podcast in The New York Times, Elon Musk mentioned that neither he nor will his family get the vaccine for Covid-19 as they were, apparently, not at risk of contracting the virus.
Something extremely bogus is going on. Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test from BD.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2020
9th team to be added for IPL 2021? Details
Losliya's last meeting with her dad and her emotional interactions with him
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LITTLE DEATHS
Approaching The Launch
Three years ago, I didn’t have an agent, or a novel – just an idea, a handful of characters, and 40,000 words on paper. Two years ago, I still didn’t have a complete first draft. One year ago, I’d signed with publishers in five countries, and was going through...
About Little Deaths
On Reading
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American Wrestlers
How do you improve an already striking set of stripped-down, homemade pop? Gary McClure, the St. Louis-by-way-of Scotland songwriter behind American Wrestlers, a once anonymous project that became one of the year’s best new bands, believes it’s about being true to the basics.
“It’s truly about becoming good enough to write the album you wanted to listen to when you were 15,” he says. “Every time I make a new record, I feel like I’m getting closer.”
Goodbye Terrible Youth (November 4, Fat Possum) shows McClure taking bedroom recordings onto a bigger stage without sacrificing the intimacy that makes them so attractive. If his self-titled album showed his knack for stringing together addictive guitar lines—the shimmer of shoegaze mixed with the emotional fist pump of power pop—Goodbye Terrible Youth amplifies that energy with a road-tested band. Literally breaking out of the home studio—the Tascam mixer McClure had been recording on has fallen apart from overuse—he’s embraced a bigger sound and stage on Goodbye Terrible Youth, his rueful yet propulsive songwriting only becoming sharper.
“I wanted to write songs that bridged the gap better between audience and stage,” he says. “Faster, louder more distortion. Something you can do handstands and backflips and start small fires to.”
Building on the dreamy haze of previous recordings, McClure’s music on GTY often crackles with energy. Lead song “Vote Thatcher” flips a switch between propulsive, jangly guitar lines and bright, boisterous, choruses, a fitting backdrop for lyrics imploring listeners not to let their youth slip through their fingers. “Someone Far Away,” propelled by a massive, fuzzy bassline, makes a perfect soundtrack for a long desert drive, while the angular and angsty, while “Terrible Youth” opens with a muscular take on the mid section riff of Marquee Moon, than fuzzes into grunge over a Stone Roses bass line along with a bit of Big Star swagger.
When McClure’s homemade recordings surfaced in late 2014, they featured the kind of lo-fi charm you’d expect from a lost classic, like a long-lost mixtape rediscovered under the seat of your car. Self-released on Bandcamp, the earnest and effortless album reflects McClure at his best.
“Its this weird kind of thing happens where the music kind of constructs itself,” he says. “My music making process is always happening, always going on in my head. It’s almost like anti-virus software in my computer. It’s always plugging away in the background.”
McClure’s career may be the definition of plugging away, enough so that he has the unique distinction of being “discovered” twice. Before starting American Wrestler, he was one-half of Working For a Nuclear Free City, a shoegaze-inspired band out of Manchester, England. By 2013, McClure and bandmate Phil Kay decided to wind the project down. As McClure weighed next move, he started playing around and posting demos online. The tracks caught the attention of Bridgette Imperial, an American who was studying overseas, and sparked more than just a meeting of musical minds. They began dating, and a year later, McClure had moved to St. Louis to marry her.
The midwest move has been a key influence for the restless musician, a more open music scene than he was accustomed to in Manchester. While working a warehouse job for UPS in Missouri, McClure began experimenting and recording what would become the first American Wrestlers album, and the momentum and reception built since then has allowed him to stretch out and refine a new album of songs with a full band, which includes Imperial, who plays keyboard, as well as Ian Reitz on bass and Josh Van Hoorebeke on drums. McClure’s new set of bouncing, well-crafted songs show that musical youth is not always wasted on the young.
“I’m always surprised by how each record brings me closer to writing simpler, heavier, catchier songs like those bands who gave me my musical epiphany: Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins, Hole and that first Foo Fighters record,” he says. “I first learned how to write by copying them and got lost for a decade in intricacy and experimentation. Now, it feels like I’m heading back.”
American Wrestlers News
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Goodbye Terrible Youth
I Can Do No Wrong / The Rest Of You 7"
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You are here: Home » Man Calls 911 To Report Burglary, Police Show Up and Shoot Him While Criminals Speed Off
Man Calls 911 To Report Burglary, Police Show Up and Shoot Him While Criminals Speed Off
Source: Counter Current News
Source: CounterCurrentNews.com
A South Carolina man called the police when he was being burglarized, moments later, that man was shot. But it wasn’t the burglary suspect who opened fire on him, it was the cops.
The officer in question is a caucasian South Carolina sheriff. His victim – the man who called 911 for help – was shot and critically wounded when he was doing nothing other than defending his own property.
Two men had broken into his house when Bryant Heyward called 911. He called the cops, hoping that they would arrive and help. But when the sheriff’s deputies arrived to the mobile home in Hollywood, South Carolina on Thursday morning, they saw the armed home owner and opened fire.
Now the sheriff says there is an internal investigation to determine what happened. But few members of the community believe there will be any sort of justice for the victim – who was twice victimized: once by the home invaders and another time by the responding officers.
The deputies reported seeing a man standing in the doorway of his own home. They claim he “refused to drop his gun,” but witnesses say there was no time between the yelling of this order and the discharging of police weapons for him to react.
On the way to the hospital, Heyward told police that he was simply trying to protect himself and his home from home invaders and he didn’t know the police were even there until they had shot him in the neck.
One of the two men who is accused of trying to burglarize Heyward’s home is Thomas Zachary Brown, 22, who is currently in custody.
Heyward told the 911 operator that he was hidden in his own laundry room because “Someone was trying to break into my house.”
He urged police to “please come.”
He explained that “It’s an emergency and they have guns.”
Sheriff’s Maj. Eric Watson attempted to rationalize the shooting, saying “as we were approaching, the back door swung open.”
Then he heard Deputy Tyner shout verbal commands, thereafter he “next heard gunfire as Deputy Tyner fired to suppress the threat.”
This, they explained, made Heyward “look like” he was one of the burglars. But the reality was he was only a home owner defending his home from armed invaders. Had he waited for police he would have been killed, as the home invaders appear to have escalated things upon finding the hidden home owner.
The would-be burglars had just taken off moments before exchanging gun fire. What was Heyward to do? Should he have laid down and died waiting for the police? After exchanging gunfire with the suspects, his ears would have been ringing, making it impossible for him to hear police commands that were apparently issued with no delay.
At no time did he raise his weapon towards the officers. What should he have done differently?
(Article by Reagan Ali)
Tags: Bryant Heyward, police brutality
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Major U.S. Retailers Are Closing More Than 6,000 Stores →
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When will Whirlpools reopen in Fortnite Season 3?
Season 20th July 2020 0Comments Blume
Fortnite’s Chapter 2, Season 3 has introduced widespread map changes. These changes have occurred due to an adjustment in water levels. Further alterations in the map will allow players to drive around in cars.
For now, however, the changes have been gradual, and the players have had to deal with quite a bit of waterlogging in many important locations.
Credit: youtube.com
Epic Games has temporarily disabled whirlpools in Fortnite. The same happened for a day at the beginning of the month, but the issue was resolved quickly, and Fortnite had urged gamers to “get their whirl on”. You can see the Twitter post below:
Even though the issue was resolved for the first time, on 10th July, the official Fortnite Status Twitter account posted the following:
Credit: twitter.com
This has proved to be quite a disappointment for the players who used to access whirlpools to go around in the Fortnite map. The sudden news of whirlpools being disabled led to quite a few jokes and memes being made on the internet, that signified how often people use whirlpools in the game.
Further, the same has rendered the first Aquaman challenge called ‘Use a Whirlpool at the Fortilla’, impossible to do. This is a significant impediment for people who are yet to complete the Aquaman challenges.
As Epic generally resolves issues quicker than the ten days it has taken to address this one, a barrage of Fortnite gamers have taken to social media and Google to find out when exactly they would be able to use whirlpools in the game again. However, for the time being, nothing has been officially said by Epic, and whirlpools are still disabled in the game.
Some players suggested on Twitter that Epic opts to fix the easiest bugs first, as they resolved the ‘Secret passages’ glitch promptly, but have still not resolved the issue with the Whirlpools. Others disagreed:
Published 20 Jul 2020, 13:18 IST
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Benjamin Franklin Papers
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From Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, 3 June 1780
To Robert Morris
LS:5 Mrs. Henry Sage, Albany, New York (1958); copy: Library of Congress
Passy June 3d 1780.
I received your kind Letter of March 31. acquainting me with your having engaged in M. De la Frétés Affairs on my Recommendation. I thank you very much; and beg you to be assured, that any Recommendation of yours will be regarded by me with the greatest Attention. The Letter you inclosed to M. Dumas is forwarded to him. We are impatient to hear from America, no Account of the Operations before Charlestown later than the 9th of March, having yet come to hand. Every thing here in Europe continues to wear a good Face. Russia, Sweden, Denmark and Holland are raising a strong Naval Force, to establish the free Navigation for Neutral Ships, and of all their Cargoes, tho’ belonging to Enemies, except contraband; that is, military Stores. France and Spain have approved of it, and it is likely to become henceforth the Law of Nations, that free Ships make free Goods. England does not like this Confederacy. I wish they would extend it still farther, and ordain that unarm’d Trading Ships, as well as Fishermen and Farmers, should be respected, as working for the common Benefit of Mankind, and never be interrupted in their Operations even by national Enemies:6 but let those only fight with one another whose Trade it is, and who are armed and paid for the Purpose.
With great and sincere Esteem, I am ever, Dear Sir, Your most obedient & most humble Servant.
B Franklin
Robt. Morris Esq.
Endorsed: Passy 3d June 1780 Benjn Franklin Esqr.
[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]
5. In WTF’s hand.
6. BF repeated the list to Dumas on June 5 and in a letter of the following year: Smyth, Writings, VIII, 263. In a July 10, 1782, letter, probably to Benjamin Vaughan, he added “Artists & Mechanics … in open Towns”: Public Record office; Bigelow, Works, XII, 56.
Index Entries
Permanent Link What’s this?
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-32-02-0334
Note: The annotations to this document, and any other modern editorial content, are copyright © the American Philosophical Society and Yale University. All rights reserved.
Source Project
Franklin Papers
“From Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris, 3 June 1780,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-32-02-0334. [Original source: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 32, March 1 through June 30, 1780, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996, pp. 466–467.]
More between these correspondents
From Morris to Franklin [31 March 1780]
From Morris to Franklin [25 October 1780]
All correspondence between Morris and Franklin
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The epic Clash of Kings happening directly in the midst of the Landing of Kings is upon us, and this week 3 of our podcasting heroes finallly meet to discuss the goings on and implications of the grueling (and long awaited) battle and conflict that took place inside of Blackwater Bay. Rally with the hosts this week as they pinpoint the influence Martin himself laid into the episode, and the several bits of Lord of the Rings that may have made its way into the fight as well. As the series is drawing to an ever nearer close, several relationships and loose-ends begin to wrap up in this incredibly hyped meeting of the Kings.
Hodor Sleeps
The longest GOO to date takes place this week as the full cast unite for a discussion of the latest episode in the HBO series Game of Thrones, just before the long awaited Blackwater episode arrives. Zack threatens an actor from the show, Terrance gets a little too worked up over a certain scene, Selina questions Eric motives in regards to Jon Snow, and Micah shares a very recent personal situation where may have encountered a leader of the Seven Kingdoms.
Don't Call Them Stones!
Men without honor litter the conversations this week as the team jumps right in to human BBQ scenarios that one of our hosts may or may not be visiting just after the recording of this episode. Your Owns of the Week are read just at the top of the show, setting a precedent and leading them in to the reveal that HBO has done some reshooting due to opinions on a previous episode. Is that a woman? No. It is just the boys this week on Game of Owns.
Tue, 8 May 2012
Teddy Bear Tywin
An episode of quick changes in character have driven the hosts to question their feelings toward certain characters, and in one case, overlook evil doing. For the first time ever Owns of the Week from you the listeners have landed into the episode, and the bigger picture of the series as a whole is discussed. Wiggle your hips with us this week on Game of Owns.
Seabitch Surprise
We have reached the midpoint of Series 2, and just the beginning of the Game of Owns podcast. Our panel of hosts have sharp and mixed reactions to the several jaw-dropping moments from "The Ghost of Harrenhal" including but not limited to Melisandre and her tattoo, Tryion and the demon monkey, and the stark lark of pornography inside of this episode.
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Jacqueline Emery - The Boarding School Legacy
The Boarding School LegacyJacqueline Emery
Jacqueline Emery est professeure assistante à la State University of New York at Old Wesbury. Elle présente ici son ouvrage 'Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press' paru en décembre 2017 aux Presses de l'Université du Nebraska.
Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press is addressed to readers interested in Native American literature or history, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American literature, periodical studies, and U.S. print culture. In this collection readers encounter student-authored texts in a variety of genres from personal letters and autobiographical essays to short stories. The compilation ultimately offers readers insight into the boarding school legacy and its influence on Native American literary production. Besides student writings, selections include writings by prominent Native American literary figures like Gertrude Bonnin or Zitkala-Ša (Yankton Sioux), Charles Alexander Eastman (Santee Sioux), Arthur Caswell Parker (Seneca), Angel DeCora (Winnebago), and John Milton Oskison (Cherokee), among others, who used boarding school newspapers as a forum for their writings on a range of topics. As the writings collected here reveal, Native Americans used the boarding school press for various purposes—as a vehicle for voicing the interests of their communities, for celebrating tribal identity and preserving oral traditions, and for cultivating networks of Native American editors, writers, and readers at the turn of the twentieth century.
The idea for this collection grew out of the archival research I conducted for my dissertation on boarding school newspapers. Early on in my research I came across a passing reference to Talks and Thoughts of the Hampton Indian Students, a newspaper printed and edited by students at Hampton Institute in Virginia. My interest was immediately piqued. I knew that scholars had mined official school records to gain insight into the educational work of Hampton and other boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. I was also familiar with the important work of Native scholars Brenda J. Child (Ojibwe), K. Tsianina Lomawaima (Creek), and Robert Warrior (Osage) which has allowed us to move beyond seeing boarding school students and prominent Native American writers affiliated with these schools—Bonnin, Eastman, DeCora, Carlos Montezuma (Yavapi), and others—as simply assimilated victims or simply resistant. These scholars have worked to understand boarding school experiences by reclaiming the voices and writings of students and making them central to discussions of Native American literature. While much of the existing scholarship focuses on retrospective accounts of boarding schools that were published in book form or unpublished student letters, I decided to seek out Talks and Thoughtsto see what insight into the student experience might be gleaned through reading this student-run newspaper.
I made several trips to the New York Public Library, which houses the most comprehensive run of Talks and Thoughts. This monthly, which was founded in 1886 by members of the Indian literary club and had a more than twenty-year run, contains items of general interest to the school—updates on student clubs and organizations, the results of student contests, and news stories—as well as autobiographical accounts, essays, letters, and retold tales. Whereas school authorities sought to capitalize on white interest in Native cultures to drum up financial support for the school by publishing a newspaper that featured Native-authored texts, students used their newspaper for their own purposes. The more I read the more convinced I became that Talks and Thoughts was a rich and understudied archive worthy of serious attention for the insight it provided into the ways students negotiated between the assimilationist imperative of the boarding school and the dominant culture and the commitment to preserving and affirming Native identities and cultures. As I delved deeper into my project, I sought out other Native-edited boarding school newspapers. I studied the School News, a monthly published by Carlisle students from 1880 through 1883. After reading Talks and Thoughts and the School Newsalongside and against the white-edited newspapers at Hampton and Carlisle, I began to realize that students were often more critical of the narrative of assimilation told by school authorities than those figures often let on in their accounts of the cultural transformations the students were undergoing at the schools. Indeed, in their writings students often affirm their Native cultural identities, thus undermining the idea that being educated at Hampton and Carlisle meant they were no longer Indian.
I mined roughly ten boarding school newspapers for Recovering Native American Writings in the Boarding School Press, which features writings by thirty-five Native authors and editors. Besides Talks and Thoughts and the School News, I culled Native-authored texts from the Hallaquah, a little-known newspaper founded, printed, and edited by three female students in 1879 at the Seneca Indian School in what is now Oklahoma. I also included Native writings from several of the newspapers published at Carlisle and Hampton, including the Indian Helper, the Red Man, and the Southern Workman. With a few notable exceptions, writings by boarding school students and prominent Native American public intellectuals that appeared in boarding school newspapers have lacked critical attention and thus remain virtually unknown and unavailable to most scholars and students of Native American studies. Some of these periodicals have disappeared entirely and are no longer available. Those that do still remain in print are often in poor condition and in desperate need of being preserved. My book fills this gap in the scholarship by making available a representative sampling of Native-authored letters, editorials, essays, short stories, and retold tales published in boarding school newspapers. It is my hope that bringing visibility to these archives will spur increased efforts at preservation, especially through digitization, as well as encourage further scholarly investigation into early Native American writings in the boarding school press and other newspaper archives.
I also see this book as an opportunity to transform the way Native American literature is taught in the college classroom. This collection will help engage students in more meaningful discussions about the boarding school experience and its impact on the Native American literary tradition. When used in the classroom alongside boarding school narratives by prominent turn-of-the-twentieth-century writers like Zitkala-Ša, Charles Eastman, and Luther Standing Bear, as well as twenty-first century works like Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, this collection will reveal interesting parallels and points of contrast that will help students gain a deeper appreciation of how the boarding school legacy has shaped and continues to shape Native American literature.
Ce billet a initialement été publié sur le blog de l'Université du Nebraska. Il est reproduit ici avec l'aimable autorisation de son auteur. https://unpblog.com/2017/12/14/from-the-desk-of-jacqueline-emery-the-boarding-school-legacy/
Présentation de l'ouvrage sur le site de l'éditeur :
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/university-of-nebraska-press/9780803276758/
Interview de Jacqueline Emery :
http://newbooksnetwork.com/jacqueline-emery-recovering-native-american-writings-in-the-boarding-school-press-u-nebraska-press-2017/
Reportage photo - Sismographie des luttes - FID et la compagnie, lieu de création, Marseille
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The Way of the Future: Flexible Work in 2021
Coworking The Way of the Future: Flexible Work in 2021
By Jason T January 12, 2021
View posts by categoryBusiness TipsCommunityCoworkingMeeting RoomNewsOffice SpaceVirtual Office
Nearly a year has passed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 was a year of big changes in almost every way imaginable, from the way we worked to the way we communicated with our loved ones. Now, in 2021, we’re rounding the corner. We know how we used to do things; we’ve learned the workarounds – now it’s time to look ahead and see how work will get done in the future.
Embracing Flexibility
The lingering question that hangs over employers and employees’ heads is, what will the workplace look like in 2021?
Well, the truth is that it might not look so different from how it looks now. The hybrid office model thrived under pandemic conditions, but it may not be so quickly consigned to the past. It turns out that many members of the workforce enjoy the flexibility offered by the hybrid office, and we will likely see that trend continue in the years to come.
Remote Work Isn’t For Everyone
Remote work isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Even those who enjoy (or enjoyed) remote work found the isolation became grating and difficult to manage. It’s well-documented that remote work created communication, collaboration, management, and work/life balance problems.
In other ways, though, it offered employees a newfound sense of freedom, independence, and self-startership. Managers and CEOs gained far-reaching access to previously untapped talent pools.
Flexibility Means Options
According to Zoe Hart, Upwork’s chief people officer, the upcoming year’s approach to office work will be two-pronged. Her prediction? Companies will continue the ongoing transition to remote-first work models while also offering employees the opportunity to work remotely even after offices reopen. Not only does this provide employees with choice and flexibility, but it also allows employers to save money that they might otherwise spend opening and maintaining office buildings.
Business As Usual? It Depends
After almost a year spent pivoting to a remote workforce model, 2021 may well continue to build on this existing infrastructure. For some, this means going back to business as usual - but what about the employees who cannot or will not go back to the office? Well, it seems that there are options for them, too. Flexible workspaces and coworking spaces are the way of the future.
According to a study by Coworking Resources, the market demand for flexible workspaces/coworking offices are on the rise. Coronavirus, they say, was just a blip on the radar. As the vaccine rolls out and the world starts to reopen, we can expect to see expansion in the flexible workplace industry. Although there may be a bit of a slow start in 2021, data predicts that from 2022 onward, we may see a yearly growth rate of 21 percent.
Needs Are The Same, Preferences Have Changed
The data currently shows that remote workers are on the hunt for ‘private offices’ in flexible workspaces. Seventy-six percent of requests are for single rooms instead of a single seat in a shared common area. But the early results point confidently to one answer: as remote work becomes increasingly mainstream, the demand for flexible workspaces can only go up.
So bring on 2021, and prepare to get your flex on! And when you’re ready to get down to business, Fusion Workplaces in Palm Desert is here to help. Reach out today to learn more about what we do.
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Home European Championship Euro 2016 Team Preview: Belgium
Euro 2016 Team Preview: Belgium
Darren Ash
Coach: Marc Wilmots
Colours: Red and black shirts, black shorts, red socks
Twitter: @BelRedDevils
Group Opponents
v Italy (13 June, Lyon)
v Republic of Ireland (18 June, Bordeaux)
v Sweden (22 June, Nice)
Euros Record
Runners up (1980)
Third place (1972)
Group stage (1984, 2000)
Tournament Pedigree
Belgium have been chronic underperformers when you consider the quality they possess, but they have shown signs of promise in World Cup tournaments and did make it to the final of the 1980 European Championship, only to be beaten by Germany. They will hope their current array of superstars can go all the way this summer.
How They Got There
Belgium topped their qualifying group despite only picking up one point against second-placed Wales. They picked up seven wins in ten games, scoring 24 goals in the process. It was at home that they really impressed, scoring 17 goals and conceding just two.
v Wales: 0-0 (h), 0-1 (a)
v Bosnia and Herzegovina: 3-1 (h), 1-1 (a)
v Israel: 3-1 (h), 1-0 (a)
v Cyprus: 5-0 (h), 1-0 (a)
v Andorra: 6-0 (h), 4-1 (a)
Even without crocked captain Vincent Kompany, Wilmots has an embarrassing amount of talent to call upon, with the likes of Chelsea ‘keeper Thibaut Courtois, Spurs trio Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen and Mousa Dembélé, Roma midfielder Radja Nainggolan and Everton forward Romelu Lukaku in the squad. However, the key to any success could come from one of their two world class playmakers. Chelsea’s Eden Hazard will captain the side this summer in Kompany’s absence and despite his indifferent season, he is still a crucial player for the Belgians. All eyes, though, will most likely be on Manchester City man Kevin De Bruyne. He has had a superb individual season, which included a League Cup win and a Champions League semi final appearance. They both have the ability to unlock the best possible defences this summer.
Goalkeepers: Thibaut Courtois (Chelsea), Simon Mignolet (Liverpool), Jean-Francois Gillet (Mechelen)
Defenders: Toby Alderweireld (Tottenham), Jan Vertonghen (Tottenham), Thomas Vermaelen (Barcelona), Jason Denayer (Galatasaray), Jordan Lukaku (Oostende), Thomas Meunier (Club Brugges), Laurent Ciman Montreal Impact), Christian Kabasele (Genk)
Midfielders: Moussa Dembele (Tottenham), Radja Nainggolan (Roma), Marouane Fellaini (Manchester United), Axel Witsel (Zenit Saint-Petersburg), Eden Hazard (Chelsea), Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City), Dries Mertens (Napoli), Yannick Carrasco (Atletico Madrid)
Forwards: Mitchy Batshuayi (Marseille), Romelu Lukaku (Everton), Christian Benteke (Liverpool), Divock Origi (Liverpool)
Previous articleEuro 2016 Team Preview: Republic of Ireland
Next articleEuro 2016 Team Preview: Turkey
Born and raised in South East London. Millwall season ticket holder and passionate about the beautiful game!
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Apple’s New iPhones Let You Snap Harry Potter-Like Animated Photos
Alongside the introduction of the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus smartphones, Apple today showed off a new way to shoot photos with these devices, which it’s calling “Live Photos.” The feature, which lets you snap photos that then animate like GIFs, takes advantage of the devices’ support for Force Touch. That is, the images appear still, but when you press down on them, they begin to animate and come to life.
Sound familiar? It should be – and not just because of the Harry Potter-like feel to these images.
In fact, the idea for this sort of functionality has been seen before in other smartphones. As you may recall, Nokia last year introduced a similar feature in its Nokia Camera app on the Lumia 930 which it referred to as “Living Images.”
Despite the similarity, Apple’s implementation means the feature has the chance for broader adoption. As the company not-so-humbly bragged today, the iPhone grew at three-and-half times the rest of the industry and its latest model, the iPhone 6, is the most popular ever.
Live Photos is the sort of addition that will appeal to those who want to have more fun with their photos – especially younger users. Animated GIFs are still hugely popular with this demographic, who post images like this regularly to social networks like Tumblr and Twitter. Even Facebook caved this year, and finally allowed users to post GIFs to their Timeline.
Littler kids will love this, too and will now have another reason to beg to play with mom or dad’s iPhone. And it’s certainly no coincidence that Apple’s demo of this included a kid.
But Apple’s Live Photos are not really GIFs. Instead, they’re animations made up separate 12 MP high-quality still images. (GIFs, meanwhile, are usually low-res things.) Apple explains that the images, which feature efficient frame-to-frame technology, are meant to extend the captured moment in a new way. They’re something in between a still photo and a video. If anything, it’s a lot like scanning through the photos you took in burst mode.
To capture a Live Photo, you’ll take a photo as you normally would. iOS 9 will automatically capture a second and a half of animation on either side of your snapshot. Live Photos will also include both motion and sound.
After you’ve created a Live Photo, you can set it as your Lock screen wallpaper, thanks to the new iPhones’ support for animated wallpapers.
Apple didn’t mention how users could share Live Photos once they’re captured, but its iPhone 6S product page does indicate there is a limitation to this technology for now. The website notes that “you can view Live Photos on your other Apple devices, too.” There’s no mention of being able to share to those who have other smartphones or social media, however.
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Fishing in the dead pool
Josh Rochlin 4 years
Josh Rochlin Contributor
Josh Rochlin recently retired from IBM. He was the CEO of Xtify and later the big fish @ IBM’s mobile engagement business. Josh can be found on the Prowler 5 off the Atlantic Highlands working on his next project.
I have used my free time this summer revisiting a childhood passion: fishing. My father loved to fish. He would take me to Central Park’s Ramble and Lake with a hook and lure. I would inevitably catch something very small, put it in a cup and hope it would survive overnight to show my friends.
As I grew older, we graduated to fishing boats launching from City Island and Sheepshead Bay. My yield was a bit bigger, but most fish failed to meet the required size. The “keepers” were the prize; we brought them home for Sunday dinner. Too often on Sundays, we ordered pizza instead.
These fishing trips came to mind recently on a farewell call with Steve (maybe not his real name), a former IBM colleague. When IBM acquired our company three years ago, the value was more than just Xtify’s mobile engagement platform — the “keepers” were my senior management team.
Each of these executives were destined to become stars at Big Blue. They had successfully helped pioneer an industry (mobile CRM) and met the challenges of persuading large enterprises to adopt a new engagement channel (push notifications). They were creative and passionate innovators. This particular IBM sales executive was calling to ask how he could recruit talented leaders similar to the ones I brought to IBM. He was essentially asking where he could find the keepers.
It’s not that IBM doesn’t have keepers; it does. But notwithstanding the taxonomy, it’s very hard for a large company to find and keep the keepers. And that’s when I told him about fishing in the dead pool.
The dead pool of startups is a fertile (and well-stocked) pond from which to fish.
If IBM, or any company, is looking for talent that can inject passion, creativity and energy into their efforts, the dead pool of startups is a fertile (and well-stocked) pond from which to fish.
In fact, IBM has a history of success fishing in these waters. The executive who built its content and search business came from the pool, as did the strategic team now growing IBM’s cloud offerings.
The Xtify team succeeded with equal parts talent, hard work and luck. Our timing was fortuitous. We matured in the mobile space just when everyone was talking “MobileFirst,” and we grasped the significance of SaaS apps for the CMO just as the market was shifting toward cloud-based offerings. We had the right story at the right time, and a receptive and acquisitive audience in IBM.
But it didn’t have to work out that way. And if it hadn’t, Michael, Gil, Josh and Dan (maybe not their real names) would have been no less keepers. They would just have been keepers floundering in the dead pool.
The energy and passion needed to lead (and live) the startup life is tremendous, and the setbacks can be exhausting. Often those talented executives who did not realize an exit are looking to get off the treadmill — if only temporarily — and enjoy the stability (and balance sheet) of a more established enterprise. Many of these creators, disruptors and innovators are looking to come up to the surface and breathe the fresh air in a more hospitable and stable environment.
This is Steve’s time to go fishing. The challenge is to set his lure just right and cast his rod in the dead pool.
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Shaping of Landscape: A primer on weathering and erosion
Most of us love landscapes –and many of us find ourselves wondering how they came to look the way they do. In most cases, landscapes take their shape through the combined processes of weathering and erosion. While weathering and erosion constitute entire fields of study unto themselves, this primer outlines some of the basics—which pretty much underlie all the further details of how natural processes shape landscapes.
Aerial view of incised meanders of Green River, Utah.
Two definitions: weathering describes the in-place breakdown of rock material whereas erosion is the removal of that material. Basically, weathering turns solid rock into crud while erosion allows that crud to move away.
Weathering processes fall into two categories: physical and chemical. Physical weathering consists of the actual breakage of rock; any process that promotes breakage, be it enlargement of cracks, splitting, spalling, or fracturing, is a type of physical weathering. Common examples include enlargement of cracks through freezing and thawing, enlargement of cracks during root growth, and splitting or spalling of rock from thermal expansion during fires.
Spalling of volcanic rock–likely from thermal expansion during a fire.
Chemical weathering alters the composition of the rock and is critical for soil development. The most prevalent processes are oxidation of iron-rich minerals, dissolution of material, most notably of the calcium carbonate that makes up limestone or the cement of many sandstones, and hydrolysis, which turns feldspars and micas to clay. As chemical processes all require water to proceed, they are most active in wet, warm climates, and least active in dry cold ones.
Strongly chemically weathered granitic rock above less weathered granitic rock.
Disintegration of granitic rock through hydrolysis of feldspars
Physical and chemical weathering processes help each other degrade rocks. By breaking rock into smaller pieces, physical weathering processes greatly increase the surface area over which chemical processes can attack. At the same time, chemical processes greatly weaken a rock’s strength and make it more susceptible to breakage. Chemical weathering of individual mineral grains also increases their volume, which itself leads to fracture.
Chemical weathering (oxidation and hydrolysis) concentrated along fractures in granitic rock.
In contrast to breaking things down in-place, erosion removes material, typically through gravity, water, or wind. The single most important influence is gravity, which drives processes such as rock falls, avalanches, and debris flows. Most erosion, however, is a product of gravity and water acting together: water facilitates gravity-driven processes like debris flows, and gravity ultimately lies behind the power of water. Wind can also be important, but is a relatively minor contributor overall because it can transport only the finer-grained particles.
Rock avalanche deposit, Utah
Weathering and Erosion together
Weathering and erosion work hand-in-hand in their creation of landscapes. Weathering processes break exposed bedrock into smaller and weaker fragments, which allows erosion to proceed. By removing that material, erosion then exposes new bedrock to weathering processes.
Landscape and Bedrock
Besides telling us about Earth history, the bedrock of a particular place helps determine how it looks. The bedrock provides the initial block of clay, so to speak, that is carved by weathering and erosion to create the landforms at the surface. As a result, the shape of the landscape depends on the actual type of rock and its structure– that is, its orientation, relationship to other rock types, and presence or absence of fracture or fault zones. For example, some rock types are easily weathered and removed by erosion while others are extremely resistant, and these may show through as topographic lows and highs respectively.
Resistant sandstone forms a “hogback ridge” whereas less resistant shale and mudstone form gullies, Utah.
While a number of factors affect a rock’s resistance to weathering and erosion, the single most important one is its ability to repel water. As a result, prevalence of bedding in sedimentary rock or foliation in metamorphic rock, both of which allow water penetration, decrease the resistance. By the same reasoning, increased grain size tends to increase resistance because coarser grains offer less surface area for a given volume. Similarly, stronger cementation in sedimentary rocks increases resistance, as does the crystalline nature of metamorphic rocks. Carbonate rocks, such as limestone and dolomite, provide interesting exceptions to these rules. In arid environments, they are resistant, but in wetter climates where they can dissolve, they are not resistant.
Sandstone beds, being coarser grained and thicker bedded than the red-colored shale and siltstone, stand out in relief because they are more resistant to erosion. Utah.
As the single most important factor in weathering and erosion is water, it stands to reason that the presence of fractures or fault zones in rock, which tend to localize water flow, greatly influences the landscape. Additionally, movement along fault zones tends to crush some of the adjacent rock, which makes them even easier to erode. As a result, fractures and faults frequently form canyons or valleys. For example, at Arches and Canyonlands national park in Utah, vertical fractures erode into slot canyons to leave the intervening, non-fractured rock standing upright as narrow ridges called fins. Some of these fins erode in from their sides to form arches. At Pt. Reyes National Seashore in California, Tomales Bay protrudes inland as a long narrow bay eroded along the San Andreas fault. Click here to see a post about the San Andreas fault!
Vertical fractures in sandstone eroding into fins, Arches National Park, Utah.
The vertical changes in a sequence of sedimentary rocks show the most predictable, yet dramatic, impacts on landscape, especially in arid landscapes. In flat-lying rocks, such as in many parts of the Colorado Plateau, the resistant rock units form cliffs whereas more easily erodable units form slopes. The easily eroded slopes are typically littered with large blocks from the cliffs above. These blocks fall when erosion of the slopes undercuts the cliffs and gravity takes over.
Edge of Cedar Mesa, Utah. The cliffs consist of resistant sandstone whereas the slopes are made of less resistant shale and siltstone.
Below is another example of how the resistant cliffs tend to erode by rock fall.
Sandstone blocks, fallen from the cliffs above, onto slopes of less resistant shale and siltstone, Utah.
In places where the rocks are tilted, the more resistant rocks form ridges whereas the less resistant ones form valleys. In places where the rock is folded, these ridges and valleys curve in the same way as the rocks. Importantly, bedding takes on an important role in erosion of tilted rocks, as it encourages sliding of rock in the direction of tilt. As a result, the ridges are typically asymmetric: they slope parallel to bedding on one side to create a “dip slope”, and form ledges and cliffs on the opposite side.
Tilted resistant sandstone forms asymmetric ridge with dip-slope (on the left). Colorado.
The photo below shows numerous ridges held up by resistant sedimentary rock with intervening “strike” valleys eroded into less-resistant rock. The rocks dip steeply to the right (east).
Aerial view of resistant hogback ridges and strike valleys near Mora, New Mexico.
Lava flows and metamorphic rocks exhibit layering that can influence topography in a similar way, although in these rocks, the extent of the layering tends to be more local and less predictable. The widespread lava flows of late-Cenozoic age in the western US have probably the biggest effect on the landscape. Many of these flows are relatively undeformed and so remain approximately flat-lying. Similar to sedimentary sequences, they form large plateaus that in places are incised by deep canyons. Examples of these flows include the basalt flows of the Snake River Plain in Idaho and the basalt flows of the Columbia Plateau in Oregon and Washington.
Flat-lying Lava Flows of Columbia River Basalt Group, Washington
So landscapes are shaped by erosion, but the erosion depends on the weathering processes at hand and the rock type and structure. The weathering processes allow erosion to proceed and the rock type and structure guide both the weathering and erosion. The lead-off photo in this post shows canyons in the meandering Green River. It looks that way because the rocks are flat-lying. The stair-stepped topography down to the river, of cliffs and slopes, simply results from alternating resistant and less-resistant rock types. And the river? It’s entrenched in the canyons, probably because it continued to downcut as the region uplifted.
Here’s another example –another aerial from the Colorado Plateau –you can see how flat-lying rocks create the stair-stepped topography down to the river –and the uppermost resistant rock forms a nearly flat upland.
Stair-stepped topography and entrenched meanders, northern Arizona.
For more images of weathering and erosion, all freely downloadable, please check out my gallery of weathering and erosion photos –or go to the keyword search on my website and type in “weathering” or “erosion” –or both!
Posted in Geology, geophotography, weathering and tagged erosion, geology, landscapes, photography, rock weathering, weathering, weathering and erosion
9 thoughts on “Shaping of Landscape: A primer on weathering and erosion”
Wesley Mahan on December 1, 2018 at 12:04 am said:
This is the best explanation I’ve ever seen of differential erosion & the different types of erosion. And the photos are really great illustrations of your textual explanations. For those of us who live on the forested side of the Cascades, seeing the geology exposed in more arid regions is a great help in understanding these geologic processes. Thanks again!
Marli Miller on December 1, 2018 at 1:10 am said:
Thank you for the wonderful comment Wes!
Paul Braterman on December 1, 2018 at 12:27 pm said:
Landscape as process, beautifully illustrated. Students with Marli Miller as instructor are fortunate indeed
Thank you Paul! And thanks for re-posting!
Kevin Donihoo on December 6, 2018 at 12:34 am said:
Great examples and explanations, Marli!
Marli Miller on December 6, 2018 at 7:30 pm said:
Pingback: Seeing some cool properties of water through the lens of its molecular structure | geologictimepics
Pingback: Rock Carvings – Shaping Landscapes – Dr. Roseanne Chambers
Marli Miller on November 12, 2020 at 7:34 pm said:
thanks for the link, Roseanne!
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Tag Archives: Desa
Detekteien
Private detective agencies. A Spiegel.de article dated 2008 said this was an unregulated and unsupervised but burgeoning security industry in Germany, sometimes employing former Stasi cooperators. The authors estimated there were ~1500 private detective companies in Germany in 2008 and about a dozen key world players, including the New York-based Kroll and London-based Control Risks. Many of these companies earned game-changing amounts of money in Iraq after the second U.S. invasion. They could be hired via law firms protected by attorney-client privilege, and subcontract jobs to other firms, obscuring cause-and-effect. A new C.E.O. of Control Risks said they were also hiring journalists to spy on other journalists.
A Detektei called Network Deutschland was “involved” in the German rail company Deutsche Bahn’s data privacy scandal when it was caught spying on its employees in 2009, leading to the retirement of C.E.O. Hartmut Mehdorn. Network Deutschland was also involved in the former-monopoly phone company Deutsche Telekom’s so-called “Telekom data scandal,” which is confusing but included T-mobile’s years of archiving communications data of members of its own supervisory boards, such as the head of the German trade union association Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund. T-mobile was especially interested in any phone interactions with journalists. Deutsche Telekom was also accused of using private detectives to spy on journalists in other ways.
The 2013 Snowden revelations might provide some insight into the means private detective companies could have used to access these communications and banking data. Online ads and tech articles seem to be indicating that powerful N.S.A.-type tools are now trickling down into the regular economy, being sold to smaller and smaller entities.
N.B.: How early did the notoriously technophilic and well-funded U.S. National Football League know about some of these capabilities?
An English-language Spiegel.de article dated 2008 speculated about the separate huge data hoards controlled by the national rail (Deutsche Bahn), national airline (Lufthansa), post office (Deutsche Post) and phone company (Deutsche Telekom), all companies found to have made questionable investigations and hired detective agencies. The magazine couldn’t show that they had combined their data in 2008 though; they also only connected up e.g. that Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Telekom hired the same detective agency but Lufthansa and (Telekom?) investigated the same journalist (Tasso Enzweiler from Financial Times Deutschland, which folded in 2012). The Spiegel article wanted to but could not show that the four big corporations also investigated each other, but it reminded us they were well positioned to investigate each other and anyone else in Germany. The Spiegel.de article didn’t want to feed conspiracy theorists but hoped the German government wasn’t asking these companies for access to their sensitive customer data. All four used to be state-owned and the German government still held large stakes in Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Telekom.
(Day tect EYE en.)
Argen/Arms race/Control Risks/Data protection/Datenschutz/Desa/Detectives/Deutsche Bahn/Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund/Deutsche Post/Deutsche Telekom/Iraq II/Journalism/Kroll/Lufthansa/Mercenaries/National Football League/Network Deutschland/News of the World/Stasi/Statute of limitations/T-Mobile/Whistleblowing
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Island delights: a bike tour of Blue Island with Active Trans’ Jane Healy
Jane Healy, Mike Healy and Jason Berry.
[This piece also appeared in Checkerboard City, John’s weekly transportation column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets in print on Wednesday evenings.]
Jane Healy is a diehard booster of the blue-collar south suburb of Blue Island, and she’s the ultimate biker mama. [I borrowed this phrase from J. Harry Wray’s book Pedal Power, which also profiles Jane, since I couldn’t think of a better term to describe her.] Along with her husband Mike and kids Will, Katie and Genevieve, she usually pedals to get around this scruffy railroad town of some 22,500 people, located just south of Chicago and straddling the Calumet-Sag Channel. Jane is board president of the Active Transportation Alliance advocacy group, and she’s been spearheading Blue Island’s current bike boom, helping get hundreds of local kids jazzed about cycling.
In 2006 Healy got the idea to lead a “bike train,” escorting a group of children to and from her kids’ school on cycles. “Pretty soon every time I’d open my garage door I’d have hordes of small children running toward me asking to go on a bike ride.” Soon she found grant money to launch Cal-Sag Cycles, an earn-a-bike program where teens learn bike safety and repair skills and build their own Fuji hybrids.
“A lot of the kids are very at-risk and are targeted for help by their teachers,” she says. “One kid, Rodsean, was struggling, but he’s a smart kid who’s really good with his hands.” Rodsean flourished in the program and eventually wound up working as chief mechanic for the school district’s annual Bike Day, which draws some 500 students for a Critical Mass-style bike parade through the town.
Bike Day in Blue Island.
Healy is convinced that Blue Island is a diamond in the rough, so she invited me to join her for a two-wheeled pub tour of the city, filling me in on the town’s history and urban planning issues along the way. “Blue Island is quirky, it’s historic and it’s a really good ethnic mix,” she says. “You see kids riding bikes down the street and they’re all colors. You hear lots of Spanish, and you also hear Italian being spoken by the nuns heading into the Italian grocery store.”
The city is located on a six-mile-long glacial ridge that also runs through Chicago’s Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods from 87th Street to 130th Street. Back when the region was covered by ancient “Lake Chicago,” the precursor to Lake Michigan, this land was literally an island. “After the lake receded, black oaks grew on the ridge, and early settlers thought it looked like a blue island standing in the prairie,” Healy says.
The town of Blue Island was founded in 1835 as a way station for travelers along the Vincennes Trail, now Vincennes Avenue, from southwest Indiana to Chicago. In the 1860s Healy’s mother’s family came to Blue Island from Germany as part of a wave of German immigration that lead to four breweries being founded here, and the beer industry continued here until Prohibition.
As befitting a town with a rich brewing history, Blue Island has a gaggle of good bars, so after I ride Metra’s Rock Island Line to 119th Street and hike ten minutes to Jane’s house, she fits me out with a bike and we hit the road with Mike to visit a few of them. After rolling down a shady residential street lined with bungalows we come to the Maplewood Inn, 12432 Maple Avenue, a cozy wood-paneled tavern. Jason Berry, an urban planner with the city of Blue Island meets us there, riding a bike with an “I Love Blue Island” sticker. We just lean our rides against an outside wall—Healy says there’s no need to lock them in this relatively sleepy burg.
There’s a vintage Budweiser Clydesdale lamp hanging inside, and a large sign behind the bar features a poem:
We order MGDs and a cup of house-made, booze-soaked cherries. Berry tells me Blue Island recently adopted its first active transportation plan, which features a whole section on the Cal-Sag Trail, a proposed greenway that would run some thirty miles along the canal and the Calumet River. The trail would connect a dozen or so suburbs from Lemont to Burnham, including several underserved communities. “The plan realizes how damn important that trail is to Blue Island,” Berry says. “It will be transformational.”
One of the fun things about this town is that its rolling topography is a departure from pancake-flat Chicago. To demonstrate, Jane takes us to “Dead Man’s Gulch,” a steep cobblestone alley that dips down to cross a street and then rises up again. Bombing the hill is a rite of passage for Cal-Sag Cycles kids. “When you can go down Dead Man’s Gulch without hitting your brakes you have earned the badge of courage,” Jane says.
Dead Man’s Gulch.
Next we roll to Haas’ Tavern, 12725 Western Avenue, whose exterior wall still sports a faded “ghost sign” mural ad for the defunct Gettleman beer company. Inside the dive features framed portraits of Richard J. Daley, FDR and Harry S. Truman, as well as a defunct shuffleboard table. Mike grew up in the area and tells us he used to hang out in this bar when he was nineteen, shortly before the drinking age was raised.
We cruise the careworn Western Avenue business district then stop on the Western bridge over the channel to take in the surprisingly breathtaking view. A couple of other rusty spans are visible to the east, as well as a water aeration station that looks like a large stair-stepped waterfall. Its purpose is to add oxygen to the canal so that fish can thrive. Jane tells me University of Chicago crew teams row on the canal, and a couple of motorboats speed by as we gaze at the water.
Next we check out a dilapidated bridge over the Little Calumet River, which meanders from the Cal-Sag southeast to Indiana. The river is flanked with lush vegetation and it almost feels like we’re hanging out on the bayou. A retaining wall nearby is covered with colorful graffiti. “That’s what’s great about Blue Island,” says Berry. “It’s forgotten enough that this stuff still exists.” We backtrack to the Riverside Tap, 13351 Aulwurm Drive, a bar with a huge backyard where brawny men in ball caps and sleeveless t-shirts pitch horseshoes in multiple horseshoe pits.
The Little Calumet River.
After that we roll down to the Maple Tree Inn, located below the Western Avenue bridge at 13301 South Olde Western, featuring some of the best New Orleans-style food in the region. Mardi Gras posters and giant masks are on display, and Trombone Shorty and other Crescent City favorites play on the sound system. Jane points out that the beautiful wooden back bar is the original one from the Schlitz pavilion at the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
Over pints of Louisiana-brewed Abita beer we talk more about strategies to help hardscrabble Blue Island live up to its potential as an economically viable community and the bike capital of the south suburbs. “CNT [Center for Neighborhood Technology] and every other planning acronym in Chicago has been down here doing studies,” Berry says. “But how do we leverage all that academic and professional interest into a transformation? How do you turn a bike plan into bike lanes?”
John Greenfield
John has lived in Chicago since 1989 and has worked a number of bicycle jobs, from messenger to mechanic to managing the Chicago Department of Transportation's bicycle parking program, arranging the installation of over 3,700 bike racks. He writes regularly for Time Out Chicago, Newcity, Momentum and Urban Velo magazines and works at Boulevard Bikes in Logan Square. View all posts by John Greenfield
Posted on June 5, 2012 June 6, 2012 Author John GreenfieldCategories Beyond Chicago, Bicycle Travel, Bicycling, Businesses, Car-free Road Trips, Infrastructure, PeopleTags Blue Island, Cal Sag Cycles, Cal-Sag Trail, Jane Healy, Jason Berry, Maple Tree Inn, sag
5 thoughts on “Island delights: a bike tour of Blue Island with Active Trans’ Jane Healy”
I agree that Blue Island is a diamond in the rough with great potential. I’d love to see it rebuild a more robust tax base so it can deal with the infrastructure issues (pavement and bridges) that are an obstacle to good cycling conditions.
Sounds like you had a fine tour. Ending at Maple Tree Inn – perfect! I’ll drink to that – Abita Turbodog.
Adam Herstein says:
Sounds like an awesome tour! I’d like to do that sometime.
How great to see Jane on Grid. She is simply completely amazing.
Chi-Town Blues Girl says:
Thanks for the tour of Blue Island – and for the work you’re doing to make biking so popular and fun. Keep working with the City and other government people – and be ready to take advantage of stimulus money when it’s available. There are lots of civic works being done to stimulate the economy. If you persevere, you’ll accomplish the admirable goals you’re seeing to achieve. Good luck!
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Family Crest Jewelry
About Heraldry
Heraldry Blog
Heraldry in Sweden Part 1
Sweden, Coats of Arms of each province above, is one of the European countries where an heraldic administration has been maintained , side by side with a democratic system of monarchical government. In Sweden heraldry was, until the mid 20th century, under the Riksheraldiker or King of Arms. The chief heraldic official is now known as the Statsheraldiker. The Riksheraldiker of Sweden registered the Coats of Arms for persons who were being made Barons, Counts or other nobles and the Coats of Arms so registered were incorporated in the patents issued by the Crown. The granting of arms and entry into the nobility were thus synchronized. In Sweden, as in England, Coats of Arms of burghers or citizens were unknown and are still unknown to the Crown. In Sweden Coats of Arms have only been granted to the nobility. With a strong German influence on Swedish commerce in ancient times it is obvious that citizens Arms were bound to penetrate into the trading communities of the Nation. But, owing to the fact that the Crown did not recognize such Arms these Coats of Arms, which burghers or citizens might have desired to adopt, were never allowed to take root. The most common use of such non-nobility Arms in Sweden were occasions where a person needed an heraldic device for a seal in connection with his business and later adopted it in the form of Coat of Arms. These arms could not be handed down to descendants however and disappeared upon the death of the bearer.
The form that a typical patent of nobility and Coat of Arms took can be summarized in the following extract from the grant of letters patent to the family of Hallenborg, May 6th 1720 -- “We Fredrik…hereby make known that …our faithful servant and judge over the hundreds of Oxie, Skytt, and Vemmenhőg in the province of Scania, our beloved Svante Hallenberg, who has obtained general praise for himself as a just judge of irreproachable and honourable demeanour…That we herewith and in virtue of these Our Letters Patent…bestow and give him…his wife and legitimate descendents…nobility and the following Coat of Arms, namely:” Since the institution of the House of Nobility came into being in1625 the patents of nobility invariably showed the Coat of Arms, with one remarkable exception and in this case it is the exception that proves the rule. This exception was in the case of noted Central Asian explorer Sven Hedin in 1902. The Patent of Nobility that was issued to him included a statement to the effect that in addition to the admission to the nobility there was also included the authority to “ have and use that Coat of Arms which we on his proposal will graciously confirm separately “ A drawing of a Coat of Arms for Sven Hedin was actually approved by the King the following year and an image can be seen above
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Anaesthetist kills herself with lethal dose of injection
A senior resident doctor of Jawaharlal institute of postgraduate medical education and research (Jipmer) hailing from Mysuru, Karnataka, committed suicide by administering to herself a lethal injection at her residence in the town.
PUDUCHERRY: A senior resident doctor of Jawaharlal institute of postgraduate medical education and research (Jipmer) hailing from Mysuru, Karnataka, committed suicide by administering to herself a lethal injection at her residence in the town.
Police said C Reshmi, 27, who completed MBBS and MD (anaesthesia) at Jipmer, joined as senior resident doctor, a week ago. The doctors at the institute suspect that she might have administered high dosage of propranolol (used to treat heart conditions) to kill herself. "High dosage of Propranolol immediately leads to cardiac arrest," said a doctor, seeking anonymity.
Reshmi was staying on her own after her mother C Shalini left for Mysuru three days ago. Her mother attempted to contact her through mobile on May 15. When she did not respond her mother got her colleagues to visit the house and ascertain her safety. Her colleagues broke open the door only to find her unconscious on the bed.
A police team, which arrived at her house, found an empty syringe beside her. The team also recovered a suicide note in which she said, ‘I don’t want to live and nobody is responsible for my death’.
Inquiries revealed that her mother and father S Chandran were separated several years ago and this affected her deeply. Reshmi injected herself with propranolol in a bid to end her life. Police sent the body for postmortem examination. D Nagar police registered a case under Section 174 of the CrPc and began investigation.
Superintendent of police Rachna Singh, however, said, “We suspect that she administered a lethal dose of anaesthesia. We can ascertain the nature of anaesthesia she used and its adverse effect only after a detailed chemical analysis,” Singh said.
This is the third suicide by students or resident doctor at Jipmer in the last eight months. A second year postgraduate nursing student at Jipmer identified as N Vimala, 24 from Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh committed suicide by hanging from the ceiling of her room in the hostel on March 30.
A 25-year-old student pursuing MD (radiotherapy) in Jipmer identified as U Sumanth from Bangalore committed suicide by administering lethal injection to himself in his room in the hostel on the institute premises on August 27 last year.
mysuru karnataka
Anaesthetist
senior resident doctor
The Impact of Medical Challenges of IVF Success
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Stem cells from cord blood can now be used across many conditions: Mayur Abhaya, MD & CEO, LifeCell International
Anti-Microbial Resistance - The Next Pandemic
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Andhra Pradesh: Model hepatitis treatment centre launched at KGH-AMC
A model hepatitis treatment centre was inaugurated by Dr K Venkatesh, state director of medical education, at the department of gastroenterology of Andhra Medical College (AMC)-King George Hospital (KGH) under the national programme for prevention and control of viral hepatitis.
Delhi: Why awareness about hepatitis is essential now
Hepatitis is caused by five main hepatitis viruses, types A, B, C, D and E, of which B and C have the most serious consequences.
Zydus Cadila takes a shot at old Hepatitis C injection to treat Covid-19
Ahmedabad-based Zydus has initiated talks with the Department of Biotechnology for a compassionate trial. It is also working with the USFDA to register the drug for “compassionate use programme”. The company has already registered the drug with the Indian drug controller for a trial approval.
Noida: Free pneumonia vaccine for children at govt hospitals from March
The vaccine was to be launched in Uttar Pradesh from December 1, but due to its non-availability for the entire state, it will now be launched in March. The vaccine costs about Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 in private hospitals for the entire schedule.
Mumbai: 2000 hospitalised for suspected dengue
BMC said due to heavy rainfall on several days, there was a marginal rise in cases of leptospirosis, malaria and hepatitis.
Trump secures billion dollar deal to eradicate AIDS from US in a decade
The deal is worth billions of dollars, which Gilead has promised to contribute over the next decade.
South Bombay hospital, 7 doctors told to pay Rs 6 lakh to woman who got hepatitis C after hysterectomy
In a shocking instance where a 53-year-old Colaba woman contracted hepatitis C less than two months after undergoing a hysterectomy at Bombay Hospital in 2007, a district consumer forum recently ordered the hospital, five doctors and two pathologists to pay a compensation of around Rs 6 lakh after finding them guilty of medical negligence.
Herbal medicines, anti-TB drugs can cause liver failure: Docs
Doctors say unmonitored use of such medication, as also long-term drugs for ailments such as TB and body-building protein supplements, may lead to liver failure even among patients with no history of liver disease.
8 centres in Maharashtra to treat hepatitis free of cost
In a month’s time, free treatment and large scale diagnosis for viral hepatitis will be rolled out at eight model centres in the state, including Sion Hospital from the city.
ILBS, Delhi Metro join hands for country-wide hepatitis awareness campaign
"Empowering People Against Hepatitis: The Empathy Campaign, aimed at spreading pan-India awareness on the menace of viral hepatitis B and C, was formally launched at an event held at Metro Bhawan," a DMRC official said.
Government hospitals may be told to buy ‘auto-disable’ syringes
In India, reuse of disposable syringes is often cited as a key reason for spread of viruses and infections like HIV and hepatitis.
Testing for virus best way to prevent hepatitis spread: Doctors
Senior hepatologist Dr Dharmesh Kapoor of Gleneagles Global Hospitals stresses on the need for a healthy liver for a healthy living. “There are preventive and curative measures,” he said, urging people to get vaccinated against various strains of hepatitis virus, particularly B.
Government to launch national programme for prevention & control of hepatitis on July 28
The findings have served as the basis for formulation of the National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme, being rolled out by the Union ministry of health and family welfare on July 28, which is observed every year as the World Hepatitis Day.
Tamil Nadu dialysis patients at high risk of contracting hepatitis: Study
Of the 23 dialysis patients at the unit, four tested positive for hepatitis B, while 19 (82.6%) tested positive for the more severe hepatitis C infection.
AIDS control trust to reach out to HIV+ blood donors
Considering that some donors at blood banks test positive for HIV but don’t return for counselling and treatment, Mumbai District AIDS Control (MDACS) has introduced a system to reach out to them.
ETHealthWorld
Hepatitis: India to keep fighting, new test may come handy
According to experts, with challenges such as awareness, accessibility, compliance and affordability, India can only eradicate hepatitis by 2080 (as against global goal of 2030) if they start acting now.
Tracking and treating Hepatitis B and C
India is one of the 11 countries which carry almost 50 percent of the global burden of chronic hepatitis.
‘Non-alcoholic hepatitis, a growing health issue’
Earlier, majority of the cases of fatty liver reported were of alcohol-induced hepatitis. But, now with population with obesity has increased, the cases of NASH has also increased significantly.
Liver transplant is a disease and not a cure: Dr Anil Diwan
Most of the liver disease is preventable and viral hepatitis is treatable if not preventable.
Vaccination for Hepatitis B is very important: Dr Sandeep Kumar Pandey
The Gastrointestinal (GI) diseases prevalent in Chhattisgarh are mainly related to infections like different kinds of diarrhea, acute and chronic hepatitis.
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Ten thousand extraordinary people.
One transformative experience.
By acting as a link between hospitals and community organizations, patients and providers, Health Leads Advocates – trained college student volunteers – experienced first-hand the challenges and opportunities facing our health systems and community-based organizations in the pursuit of health equity.
This impressive group developed the leadership skills and experiences to continue social justice work long after graduation.
No printing copies here. Advocates interacted directly with clinicians and patients handling screenings, case management and resource navigation.
Advocates experienced first-hand the challenges and opportunities facing our health system, social services and communities in the pursuit of health equity.
Part of the care team. As health systems build out referral programs, Advocates played a critical role filling remaining workforce gaps.
Whether an Advocate for four full years or just one semester, they are now supported by a vibrant alumni community.
Former University Partners
Ten thousand extraordinary people. One transformative experience.
Stay Informed Keep in Touch Join the Team
Once an Advocate, Always an Advocate
Rihana Diabo
Harlem Pediatrics, 2010-2011
Current Title/Organization: Strategy Manager, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)
How are you an Advocate for health equity today?
Professionally, I have always been driven by two beliefs: first, that vaccines are an unbelievable public health intervention because of their cost-effectiveness and scalability; and second, that decisions in global health should be made equitably. I have worked in global health most of my career, but often I have been the only African woman in rooms where discussions revolved around health in Africa. This needs to change.
The vaccination itself is the outcome of a well-functioning system – not just the right science. Getting a person vaccinated requires addressing financial, operational, and political elements within that system. Vaccines are expensive; transporting them is logistically complex, and policymakers need to address issues like vaccine hesitancy and vaccine nationalism.
Decision-makers within this system should be representative of the populations for whom the system is designed, and they should advocate for equitable access to vaccines. My job is to develop the strategy for CEPI, an organization that focuses on developing vaccines so epidemics are no longer a threat to humanity. Doing so is a core part of my advocacy for health equity among decision-makers who work in global health.
Emily Savage
Massachusetts General Hospital, 2014 - 2015
Current Title / Organization: Strategic Advisor at Stop the Spread and Graduate Student in Public Policy and Business at Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford Business School
In March of 2020, I began supporting a pandemic response organization called Stop the Spread. Our mission is to harness the collective power of companies, innovators, philanthropists, institutions, and non-profit organizations to fight COVID-19. The pandemic has exacerbated and exposed gross inequities in our society, and it has highlighted the relationship between social and economic factors and health outcomes. At Stop the Spread, we’ve worked to accelerate the deployment of capital, connections, and research to disadvantaged communities and communities of color – for example, by deploying funding to a personal protective equipment (PPE) purchasing co-op that serves regional churches and schools in underserved communities.
Beyond Stop the Spread, I am currently in graduate school to build a private and public sector toolkit for solving challenges facing U.S. healthcare delivery. I am analyzing the link between social determinants of health and COVID-19 outcomes in communities of color.
Ericardo Edwards
Massachusetts General Hospital, 2017-2018
Current Title/Organization: Business Analyst, Deloitte Consulting Location: Washington, DC
Current Title/Organization: Business Analyst, Deloitte Consulting
How are you an Advocate for healthy equity today?:
As a Business Analyst for Deloitte Consulting in its Government and Public Services practice area, I have the incredible opportunity to not only encourage but also help federal health organizations to facilitate health equity within the populations they serve. Whether it be in coordinating specific initiatives aimed at alleviating health disparities or connecting federal health researchers with their colleagues to blend health equity into new strategies and initiatives, I am empowered with project opportunities that can ultimately begin to bring us closer to a more equitable society.
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Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v49y2013i10p1316-1331.html
Remittances in Nepal: Boon or Bane?
Chandan Sapkota
Nepal is one of the highest recipients of remittances (percentage of GDP) in the world. For a small land-locked economy battered by a decade-long Maoist insurgency (1996--2006), prolonged political instability, slow growth rate and large exodus of youths for employment overseas, high inflow of remittances bears a huge significance both at micro and macro levels. Exploring various facets of high migration and remittances, this article shows remittance-induced Dutch disease effects and policy laxity to improve investment climate in Nepal. Since it is costly to sterilise the impact of remittances each year, it might be prudent to learn to live with it and gradually channel remittances to productive usages with a goal to boost productivity.
Chandan Sapkota, 2013. "Remittances in Nepal: Boon or Bane?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(10), pages 1316-1331, October.
Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:49:y:2013:i:10:p:1316-1331
DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2013.812196
File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2013.812196
Valero-Gil, Jorge, 2008. "Remittances and the household’s expenditures on health," MPRA Paper 9572, University Library of Munich, Germany.
Emmanuel K. K. Lartey & Federico S. Mandelman & Pablo A. Acosta, 2012. "Remittances, Exchange Rate Regimes and the Dutch Disease: A Panel Data Analysis," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 377-395, May.
Pablo A. Acosta & Emmanuel K. K. Lartey & Federico S. Mandelman, 2008. "Remittances, exchange rate regimes, and the Dutch disease: a panel data analysis," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2008-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Adams, Richard H., Jr., 1991. "The effects of international remittances on poverty, inequality, and development in rural Egypt:," Research reports 86, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Ralph Chami & Connel Fullenkamp & Samir Jahjah, 2005. "Are Immigrant Remittance Flows a Source of Capital for Development?," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 52(1), pages 55-81, April.
Samir Jahjah & Ralph Chami & Connel Fullenkamp, 2003. "Are Immigrant Remittance Flows a Source of Capital for Development?," IMF Working Papers 03/189, International Monetary Fund.
Giuliano, Paola & Ruiz-Arranz, Marta, 2009. "Remittances, financial development, and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 144-152, September.
Marta Ruiz-Arranz & Paola Giuliano, 2005. "Remittances, Financial Development, and Growth," IMF Working Papers 05/234, International Monetary Fund.
Giuliano, Paola & Ruiz-Arranz, Marta, 2006. "Remittances, Financial Development, and Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 2160, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
Suhas Ketkar & Dilip Ratha, 2009. "Innovative Financing for Development," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 6549, June.
Dilip Ratha & Gemechu Ayana Aga & Ani Silwal, 2012. "Remittances to Developing Countries Will Surpass $400 Billion in 2012," World Bank Other Operational Studies 17062, The World Bank.
Abdih, Yasser & Chami, Ralph & Dagher, Jihad & Montiel, Peter, 2012. "Remittances and Institutions: Are Remittances a Curse?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 657-666.
Jihad Dagher & Ralph Chami & Peter J Montiel & Yasser Abdih, 2008. "Remittances and Institutions; Are Remittances a Curse?," IMF Working Papers 08/29, International Monetary Fund.
Yasser Abdih & Jihad Dagher & Peter Montiel, 2010. "Remittances and Institutions: Are Remittances a Curse?," Center for Development Economics 2010-08, Department of Economics, Williams College.
Yasser Abdih & Jihad Dagher & Peter Montiel, 2010. "Remittances and Institutions: Are Remittances a Curse?," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-13, Department of Economics, Williams College.
Sanjeev Gupta & Catherine A Pattillo & Smita Wagh, 2007. "Impact of Remittances on Poverty and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 07/38, International Monetary Fund.
Dalia S Hakura & Ralph Chami & Peter J Montiel, 2009. "Remittances; An Automatic Output Stabilizer?," IMF Working Papers 09/91, International Monetary Fund.
Michael T. Gapen & Ralph Chami & Peter J Montiel & Adolfo Barajas & Connel Fullenkamp, 2009. "Do Workers’ Remittances Promote Economic Growth?," IMF Working Papers 09/153, International Monetary Fund.
Tomoya Suzuki, 2019. "Counterfactual Inflation Targeting in Nepal," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(2), pages 97-117, December.
Kishor Sharma, 2015. "Trade Policymaking in a Land‐locked Developing Country: The WTO Review of Nepal," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(9), pages 1335-1349, September.
Philippe Le Billon & Manoj Suji & Jeevan Baniya & Bina Limbu & Dinesh Paudel & Katharine Rankin & Nabin Rawal & Sara Shneiderman, 2020. "Disaster Financialization: Earthquakes, Cashflows and Shifting Household Economies in Nepal," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 51(4), pages 939-969, July.
Kapri, Kul & Ghimire, Shankar, 2020. "Migration, remittance, and agricultural productivity: Evidence from the Nepal Living Standard Survey," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
Dhruba Bhandari, 2020. "Are Households Utilizing Remittance on Quality Education? An Empirical Study from Nepal," Journal of Development Innovations, KarmaQuest Internatioinal, vol. 4(1), pages 179-195, July.
Janmaat, J. & Lapp, S. & Wannop, T. & Bharati, Luna & Sugden, Fraser, 2015. "Demonstrating complexity with a roleplaying simulation: investing in water in the Indrawati Subbasin, Nepal," IWMI Research Reports 229585, International Water Management Institute.
Hari Sharma & John Gibson, 2019. "Civil War and International Migration from Nepal: Evidence from a Spatial Durbin Model," Working Papers in Economics 19/06, University of Waikato.
Kimberly A. Eddleston & Peter Jaskiewicz & Mike Wright, 2020. "Family firms and internationalization in the Asia-Pacific: the need for multi-level perspectives," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 345-361, June.
Erol BULUT, Abdiqadar Abdignani MOHAMED, 2018. "Remittances and Poverty Reduction in Somalia," Fiscaoeconomia, Tubitak Ulakbim JournalPark (Dergipark), issue 4.
Hari Sharma & John Gibson, 2020. "Effects of International Migration on Child Schooling and Child Labour: Evidence from Nepal," Working Papers in Economics 20/07, University of Waikato.
repec:kqi:journl:2017-1-6 is not listed on IDEAS
Paudel, Ramesh C. & Burke, Paul J., 2015. "Exchange rate policy and export performance in a landlocked developing country: The case of Nepal," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 55-63.
Ramesh C Paudel & Paul J Burke, 2015. "Exchange rate policy and export performance in a landlocked developing country: The case of Nepal," Departmental Working Papers 2015-05, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
Shankar Ghimire & Kul Prasad Kapri, 2020. "Does the Source of Remittance Matter? Differentiated Effects of Earned and Unearned Remittances on Agricultural Productivity," Economies, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, January.
Dambar Uprety, 2017. "The Impact of Remittances on Economic Growth in Nepal," Journal of Development Innovations, KarmaQuest Internatioinal, vol. 1(1), pages 114-134, February.
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Normal sitting of high court, district courts suspended amid lockdown till June 17
The Manipur High Court notified that urgent matters will be taken up through video conferencing facility.
By IFP Bureau | Updated on: June 2, 2020, 10:02 p.m.
Manipur High Court (PHOTO: IFP)
The Manipur High Court has notified that normal sitting of the high court and all district courts of Manipur will remain suspended till June 17, considering the extension of the ongoing lockdown as declared by Central government. However, the courts will work up till 1 pm during this period.
A noticed issued through registrar general of Manipur High Court on Tuesday stated that urgent matters will be taken up through video conferencing facility. In case video conferencing is not possible due to any reason, physical court may be conducted by maintaining strict COVID-19 protocol and social distancing.
For the High Court, filing of fresh matters will be accepted through email only and hard copy may be submitted to the Registry later on. As far as practicable, cases received up till 1 pm will be listed on the next working day, it said. For filing of other matters and hearing thereof, permission of the senior most judge shall be required. Fresh cases and applications may be submitted to email id hcmefiling@gmail.com, it added.
For all district courts, all motion matters will be listed before the High Court and the District Courts/Tribunals and will be distributed equally amongst Judges for the High Court and Judges of the District Courts/Tribunals, the notice mentioned. For urgent pending cases, the same may be taken up with the permission of available senior most judge/ presiding officer, it said.
In case any of the advocates are required to enter court complexes for any purpose, they should maintain strict social distancing and other COVID-19 protocol. No litigants and other officials will be permitted to enter court premises without prior permission of the Court, it said.
The notice mentioned that District Courts/Tribunals may take up pending cases which are time bound trials subject to strict specially directed and adherence to COVID-19 protocol. District judges and presiding officers may work out modalities for proper functioning of their respective Courts in consultation with bar and other stake holders, it said.
Wearing of mask is compulsory in all Court complexes of Manipur at all time with maintenance and adherence to strict COVID-19 protocol. From the period from June 3 to June 17, lawyers can attend court and court related works without curfew pass between 5.00 am to 2.00 pm. However, they should be in advocate's uniform and hold valid identity card issued by the Bar Council of
Manipur/Bar Association, the notice said.
In view of imposition of curfew in Imphal city and district headquarters, lawyers are permitted to use curfew pass in relation to their chamber works from 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm, the notice mentioned. Advocates who are attending remand proceedings may go to the concerned court or Judge's residence provided they are in advocate's uniform and on production of valid identity card issued by the Bar Council of Manipur/Bar Association, it said.
On request by the security personnel, they shall give details such as name of the Judge/Court before whom the accused is to be produced, the nature of offence, name of the accused and etc., it added.
The notice further mentioned that law enforcement agency/district administration is requested to abide by the directions issued by the High Court in this regard.
Normal training programmes of Manipur Judicial Academy which require physical attendance, shall remain suspended till June 17. However, online training programmes shall be continued during lockdown period. Normal programmes of Manipur State Legal Services Authority shall be suspended during this period except urgent legal aid matters and functioning of 'Front Offices' of legal services authorities, it said.
As per the notice, the matters which are already fixed up to June 17 will be adjourned en-bloc to subsequent dates and information in this regards shall be uploaded on the website of the district court and pasted on notice board.
The noticed also mentioned that in view of suspension of regular court work till June 17, it shall be treated as closure within the meaning of explanation appended to section 4 of the limitation act, 1963.
First Published:June 2, 2020, 10:02 p.m.
manipur high court,
normal sitting,
district courts,
IFP Bureau
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Even As A Raiders Fan, Too $hort Has The Perfect Opinion Of Colin Kaepernick's Protests
Lecrae On Ferguson Riots: "We've Forgotten The Government Works For Us"
Meet The Young L.A. Producer Whose Beats Brought Out The Old Kanye
Slimkid3 Explains How Brian Austin Green & Korn Aided The Pharcyde’s Rift
Could Bay Area Slaps & UK Rap Hybrids Be The Future? Joe Blow Thinks So
DAX Reveals Why He Wants To Sign With A Major Label In 2019
How Fredo Bang Used His Jail Stint To Get His Bars Up
Brittney Taylor Talks Female Unity In Hip Hop & Making 2019 Her Year
DJ Self On "Love & Hip Hop," Being An Entrepreneur & Modern DJ Culture
Killer Mike Talks Capitalism, New Netflix Series & His "Billionaire Mindset"
Instagram/WestsideGunn
Westside Gunn Ranks His Own Top 5 Projects
Published on: Jul 2, 2018, 6:00 AM
by Riley Wallace
Next to perhaps the G-Unit, not many crews have been able to build a buzz like the Buffalo-based Griselda Records — founded by rapper Westside Gunn. What they also have in common with the 50 Cent-helmed foursome is that their unique sound and aura of authenticity earned them a spot on the Shady Records roster, making them among the few Buffalo rap artists to sign a major deal.
Alongside his brother Conway The Machine and Benny The Butcher, Westside Gunn has been dropping some of the rawest Hip Hop in the game: no gimmicks and no filter. From his acclaimed Flygod LP to his highly revered Hitler Wears Hermes — as well as a host of various solo and collaborative EPs — he’s been building his brand on an independent level for the last five years. The recent release of Supreme Blientele marks what will (likely) be the Flygod’s final independent release before dropping off his major label debut under Eminem’s storied imprint.
The crazy thing is, he really didn’t start rapping until around the time of his first release. In fact, he only stepped up to the mic to help hold down Griselda after Conway was shot in the head.
Whether you’re new to his catalog, or a seasoned fan, Westside Gunn broke down his Top 5 projects for HipHopDX. Consider it a CliffsNotes on what you’re missing, or a refresher — straight from the man himself.
“I’d play all five of these projects against anyone’s Top 5,” he says.
#5 — There’s God And Then There’s Flygod, Praise Both
Westside Gunn: “I made [There’s God And Then There’s Flygod] in a couple of hours. It was all Daringer; we just sat at his house and put on beats … I just started throwing shit. Then I shot the “Peter Luger” video. That project was dope to me.”
#4 — Hitler’s Dead
Westside Gunn: “People slept on [Hitler’s Dead]. The crazy story about that album was when I made it, I just had a meeting that Shady … This was the beginning of October. I made the announcement that day that I was going to do a project. I said, ‘Yo, I’m going to make a whole album and drop it on Halloween.’”
“I got blackballed because of the cover. So, nobody wanted to touch it. It was some of the illest music I’ve ever made, but nobody would touch it because of the cover. Even Shady wouldn’t tweet it. But, that’s one of the joints that’s for the culture, I’m so glad that it’s out now and people can hear it. We finally got the streams up two weeks ago.”
#3 — Hitler Wears Hermes 2
Westside Gunn: “I made [Hitler Wears Hermes 2] in one day. That’s a classic … the classic of all classics on my mixtape shit. People got that [Chanel mask cover] tattooed on them. You know what I mean? There are murals across the world with that, that imagery.”
“Before that, I had Hitler Wears Hermes, which was a quick little six-song joint. I was testing the waters, but when I did Hitler 2, that was it. I knew I was about to kill shit … that I was about to be the illest.”
#2 — Flygod
Westside Gunn: “Flygod is one of the Top 25 projects of the last decade. They said I could never top that … that it was impossible to beat because it was just too perfect. Well, now I’ve got something that I beat it with.”
#1 — Supreme Blientele
Westside Gunn: “It’s easily one of the Top 10 albums of the decade. From the production to the features, and the way it blends in with the skits, just everything about it. You get that feeling all the way through. Even Busta Rhymes sounds like Busta from ’96-’97. People fail to realize I can make another album in a week or two that sounds equivalent to this.”
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hiphopocracy
an online diary of hiphop studies + pedagogy
Category Archives: Power 7
Alicia Florrick Tho
Posted on December 5, 2014 by tessalaprofessa
still from season 6, “The Good Wife”
The Good Wife is a show about a woman learning to wield her white privilege for her own ends. It is about her—this woman, Alicia Florrick (Juliana Marguiles), the “good wife” of a disgraced Chicago (of course) Attorney General (Chris Noth) learning what powers are available to her as a white upper-middle class woman, if she can accept the limits and insults that come with the role. In its interrogation of white female privilege, identity, and limitations the show is aptly named, because even as Florrick is the title character that moniker is itself defined by its relationship to a man, and by its value judgment around how well the woman, Florrick, plays the role she was cast in. The Good Wife.
Now we have watched Alisha for six seasons, from her start as a mild-mannered suburban housewife-turned-returnee to the workforce, through her years as an increasingly powerful lawyer at Lockhart Garndern, in her role as first lady when her disgraced husband pulled off a return to the governor’s mansion of Illinois (another great spot for a corrupt politician), to her new role in the current season, as a candidate for Attorney General of Chicago, to succeed her husband’s smug successor.
I started watching The Good Wife because my mom, my sister, and Emily Nussbaum told me to. My mom and my sister recommended The Good Wife even more highly than Scandal—in a television lull, I’d asked them which show to start—but it was the New Yorker’s Nussbaum whose glowing column sent me clicking to Amazon Prime. But what Nussbaum or her colleauge Josh Rothman never key into—and what may have tipped the scales for my mom and sister, though they never said so explicitly—was the way that The Good Wife interrogates the role of the white woman in professional-class society—a role the women in my family have tried to master—just as Olivia Pope toys with the limitations of being a black woman with power and prestige. I love watching Kerry Washington tease out the socio-cultural possibilities of Olivia Pope, but I don’t identify with them in the same way I do with Alicia Florrick, whose Bobbi Brown makeup pallette (amirite??) and deep brown hair stain are surely the same as my mother’s, a woman also married to a Chicago lawyer with enough friends and cousins in Highland Park to fill a big country club bat mitzvah.
shady people of color scheming on “The Good Wife” – still from season 6
In their sixth-season coverage for the New Yorker of The Good Wife, both Nussbaum and Rothman attend to Florrick’s increasing comfort with and facility in using her power, but neither see the way that it is specifically gendered and raced: Florrick’s power, I contend, is specifically the power (in our society, at least) of white women. It is the power of being a white lady. Let’s take a closer look at their two reviews. Rothman writes:
The longest plot arc in “The Good Wife” shows Alicia becoming more like Peter—that is, becoming more comfortable with the exercise of power, more elegantly invulnerable when she is being magnanimous. Part of that transformation entails coming to terms with her own privilege. Alicia starts out the show as an underdog, but, at the end of the first season, she draws on one of her husband’s connections to win a coveted position at work. When, a few years after he’s released from jail, Peter becomes the governor of Illinois, Alicia leverages that connection to secure clients.
She’s also privileged in subtler ways that she is less willing to admit. From her husband’s sex scandal, Alicia retains an air of innocence and vulnerability; women root for her, and men are attracted to her. For much of the show, she drifts in and out of a romantic relationship with Will Gardner, one of the partners at her law firm. When, as the governor-elect’s wife, Alicia starts her own firm, taking some of Will’s most valuable clients with her, he calls her out on her own mythos of innocence and victimhood: “You’re awful, and you don’t even know how awful you are,” he says. Everyone, including Alicia, thinks that she’s a victim—but, in fact, she’s a predator, all the more dangerous for being stealthy.
In this accounting of Alicia’s coming to power, Rothman figures Alicia’s “stealth” as an aberration to her use of power, a quirk in comparison with her husband’s brash use of the throne. But I contend that her stealth is gendered—her “stealthy” danger, that wolf in sheep’s clothing, is her feminine use of power, power through flirting, through favors, through being nice. This is power in a “ban bossy” universe, where bossy women are bitches so Alicia has to be the bossy by flirting and cajoling to get her way, not demanding it.
All Hail Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski)
Now here’s Nussbaum:
Alicia didn’t get the job [at Lockhart Gardner] because she was exceptional: an old law-school friend, Will Gardner (Josh Charles), promoted her over stronger candidates after she strategically flirted with him—a shady origin story that emerged slowly, over years. On “The Good Wife,” there is no success without corruption. The higher Alicia climbs—winning the second-year slot, making partner, leaving to start a new firm—the more compromised she becomes, and the more at ease with compromise. This applies to her marriage, also: it’s too valuable an asset for either spouse to abandon, even when they separate, when he is elected governor, and when she has an affair with Will. “You’re a brand! You’re St. Alicia,” Eli Gold, her husband’s chief of staff, tells her, begging her to run for office. Yet, despite everything, Alicia clings to her self-image as a heroine, a moral person in a godless universe. (Alicia Florrick is one of the rare explicitly atheist heroines on TV.)
Here again we see how the specifically feminine way Alicia starts her law career is folded into a larger narrative about corruption, collapsing Alicia’s crucial wielding of feminine power into a larger story about power. Similarly, the compromises Alicia has to make to retain that St. Alicia brand—namely, to stay in a sham marriage with a compulsive cheater—is the same compromise women have been making for millenia, just without the rewards.
By the sixth season, in fact, Alicia Florrick has given up the delusion of her earlier years that she can or cares to help anyone—the delusion of white women living in the suburbs, which she doesn’t anymore. Instead, when asked point blank by her new campaign manager (who I am still waiting for her to sleep with) why she wants to run, she answers, “Because I can win.” The only trick to winning is to keep pretending she doesn’t care to. After an interview, Alicia comments to her new foil and “body woman,” Eli Gold’s brash Jewish daughter Marissa, “I don’t like being someone I”m not when I’m being interviewed.”
“Really?” Marissa says. “You’re good at it.”
Good at it in a way that a brash Jewish girl could never be, because to own white femininity is to be invisible, to make one’s power and pain invisible, to win just to win without anyone thinking you want anything at all.
People commend this show for its deft handling of race themes, because a series of minor issues which characters of color adds up to a discrimination lawsuit for Peter Florrick. What no critic seems to have noticed is how Florrick’s continued demotion of lawyers of color equals the show’s continued demotion of actors of color. There’s no neat way to handle that. The discrimination line is like saying “no offense.” Sorry, but it’s still offensive. But very deftly handled.
[all the stills in this post are from season 6 episode 6, “Old Spice,” the most awesome and most feminist episode of the season, which features the show’s female stars almost exclusively. Alicia Florrick tho, but also Diane Lockhardt tho, Elsbeth Tasscione tho, and Kalinda Sharma tho. Fuck yah lady lawyers.]
Posted in Power 7, Television, Women | Tagged feminism, power, racism, The Good Wife, white women | Leave a reply
Paean to the South Bay
The South Bay doesn’t get a lot of love. People call the Peninsula Silicon Valley—and culturally, these days, it is—but Silicon Valley proper, the geographical valley that led to the naming of the tech boom’s place-space—is really the Santa Clara Valley, the low-lying land at the southern base of the San Francisco Bay, a dry, flat expanse crisscrossed by expressways where fruit orchards used to be, now studded with shining buildings crowned in the recognizable neon logos of Intel, Dell, Tivo, Linkedin, Motorola, Samsung, Symantec, Norton, and more.
This is where I live, during the few months a year when I leave my graduate school semester in Syracuse and stay with my boyfriend, who works in tech. We live in Sunnyvale, a municipality bounded by Mountain View to the northwest, the Bay to the northeast, Santa Clara to the southeast, and Cupertino to the southwest. We’re in a tenuous position as far as Bay Area sectionalities go, constantly having to click through listings in “The Peninsula” and “South Bay”—even sometimes “Santa Cruz”—anytime we look for restaurant listings, through Craigslist ads, and the like.
As I said, we don’t get a lot of love down here. Everyone knows San Francisco and Sausalito, Oakland and Berkeley, and these days even Palo Alto and Mountain View are tech-white-hot. I think of the Valley as the overachieving kid who never gets much attention because they always seem to succeed, they don’t need the help. The South Bay has powered the Bay Area’s explosion in real, cultural, and political capital, but I don’t see that acknowledged so much. Everyone talks about the Google buses but no one thinks about where they’re going to, these arbitrary town suburb things delimited from one another by signs and zoning, the ephemera of cartographers with no real geographical correlates here on the flat, open ground.
The houses are Eichlers or Eichler-style, flat square single-family homes built in the 50s over razed orchards with a handful of trees left for fun. Closed to the front, wide open in the back, private which also means isolating, no front-porch banter between neighbors, not even a stoop to squat on.
last summer’s tomato plants in our backyard
No culture to speak of, if by culture you mean theater, dancing, public art or museums worth a visit. In Sunnyvale our downtown is the one-block “Historic Murphy Street,” an Epcot facsimile of urban life with large parking lots behind the two rows of restaurants on either side of the street, and an enormous Target and Macy’s just beyond.
The real life down here lives in the strip malls, a strange reality that I’ve begrudgingly come to love. Our favorite Japanese restaurant, Hoshi, an izakaya joint in Santa Clara, is in a large strip mall, next to a liquor store and a Safeway. In Sunnyvale, the best imported foods are all to be found at Felipe’s and there’s free pool and darts at Beefy’s Cabin, in a tiny strip just across the street—just don’t go on Thursdays unless you want to join the darts tournament.
For great Vietnamese food we slide over to San Jose. If you want to buy clothing or books, you have to go to the mall.
In Cupertino and all around us there are huge Asian malls with Ranch 99 supermarkets, Chinese restaurants, filled with Asian nationals speaking in foreign tongues. I love it there. On Yelp we found a Hunanese place called Chef Ma’s, in the back of a mall where even the waiter didn’t speak English.
Hoshi!
In every strip mall there is a Kumon and a martial art’s place, for the kids, and along historic El Camino Real, the big box stores repeat themselves: CVS, Safeway, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Verizon, Rite-Aid, rinse, repeat.
We want to leave this place, this desolate suburbia where I speak to no one all day and have to get in my car to go anywhere, and yet the thought of leaving gives me pause. I’ve come to love this weird, quiet place, the smell of the salty marshes at the base of the bay, the ghostlike boathouse in Alviso, the quiet determination of Alum Rock. I feel protective of this place, like I want to warn it of the gentrification sweeping down the Peninsula like a wave, even as I know that my white boyfriend and I are the gentrifiers, the people brought here to work in tech, displacing the working class Latinos who are our neighbors, who speak in our local taqueria and laundromat in Spanish, then switch into English for me.
my man at Lick Observatory, on Mt. Hamilton
At dusk the South Bay turns colors, the sky glows iridescent like gold, and on the other side of the mountains are the ocean and in those mountains are deep ravines filled with redwoods and swimming holes. My boyfriend is a biker and it takes half an our to slide out of the valley and onto Mt. Hamilton sat staunchly behind Alum Rock. The Junction, a dusty biker bar with Sierra Nevadas and pulled pork sandwiches, and above it, domed and white, Lick Observatory, the Sacre Coeur of San Jose. Sunnyvale is an hour to SF, an hour to Oakland, fifty minutes to the coast on the Peninsula or down in Santa Cruz. The center of the wheel never gets the glory. No one talks about reinventing the hub.
Y’all down with the Dao De Jing? I’ll leave you with sutra 11:
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space that makes it liveable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
Posted in Power 7 | Tagged Asian food, food, Lick Observatory, motorcycling, San Francisco, San Jose, Silicon Valley, South Bay, South Bay restaurants | Leave a reply
Anthony Bourdain, Shmageggy
still from “Parts Unknown”
Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown could really be something special if Bourdain wasn’t such a schmuck. I know, I know, his shtick is shmuck—and yet I still hoped beyond hope, as I watched the second season of his show which begins in Israel/Palestine and ends in Detroit, that the brave progressivism he shows in his first episode would extend through the end.
It doesn’t.
Over the course of the season it becomes clear that while it’s in vogue to support Palestinian liberation and tresspass to the other side of the wall—so cool, I guess, that CNN is ok with it—it’s still acceptable in the same moral and televised universe to visit South Africa without having researched it first, to romanticize the diversity of not just South Africa but also New Mexico, erasing the history of colonialism, to visit Japan and only talk about sex work, and to spend an entire hour-long episode on Detroit not only framing it in the way that the characters in the episode directly ask him not to, but also resist showing a single stable business in the entire city.
Ok, dude.
What kills me is that the episode on Jerusalem was really, really great. He gives the history of the place, uses dynamic maps to show the history of the land, who owned and conquered what, where, and when. I wished he had repeated this use of maps in each episode, especially in New Mexico, where the complex history of colonialism in that state—the Spanish conquering native Pueblos, the Spanish-Mexicans being taken over by the Anglo-Americans coming from the north and east—gets totally romanticized in this multiculti American fantasyland.
And in South Africa, Bourdain actually turns to his table of hosts and asks, “To what extent—is it really a rainbow nation? are things getting mixed?” Then the camera cuts away from the horrified diners to a swarthy white guy who looks like all those almost-white men who populate Motorola commercials now.
cut to….Motorola commercial guy. from “Parts Unknown”
The episode about Japan is just violently irresponsible, like CNN deserves a censure from Edward Said himself and I recommend it to anyone teaching the concept of Orientalism, ever. Bourdain spends the entire episode—in Japan! Japan!—talking about sex work and porn, going to far as to eschew actually speaking with chefs and foodies and instead going out to eat with a Shibari artist and the woman he ties up. They don’t have much to say about the food, but that’s ok, because Bourdain doesn’t want to talk about it! Speaking with an artist who draws fantastical pornographic anime, Bourdain comments, “Chefs I know all want to die here. Because we don’t understand anything…I don’t understand the porn here. How is it, you can’t fuck someone with a penis, but you can fuck him with an octopus tentacle?” His host just looks uncomfortable, like he was hoping they could finally just talk about the food.
Shibari, from “Parts Unknown”
Bourdain’s refusal to listen, to be educated, to hear the people he is speaking to, is most spectacularly evident in the season’s final episode, about Detroit. The phrase “ruin porn” was invented for this episode, with its long, lingering shots of tall grass foregrounding bombed out buildings, and tracking shots down graffitied factory walls. no sign of the kids who bombed the place.
I’ll grant Anthony Bourdain this: his cinematographers, and possibly himself, understand that graffiti is free artwork that is magnificent for everyone to see. This may be the most progressive element of his show, this acknowledgment of graffiti’s terrific and unarguable artistry.
But Bourdain refuses to listen.
“You wanna take pictures here,” he says of an emptied old auto factory he’s touring. “The place, like so much of Detroit, invites it.” But “the locals hate it: wallowing, like we are, in ruin porn.”
said ruin porn. From “Parts Unknown”
I was struck by Bourdain’s apparent lack of cognitive dissonance, as he describes himself doing the thing a whole city of people has asked him not to do. That is the definition of chauvinism, right? Looking people straight in the face as you talk over them, defining them as they cry out for you not to?
Bourdain calls the people who live in Detroit “survivors” and “refugees” and at one point compares it to Chernobyl.
Finally near the end of the episode a young white chef yells at Bourdain for fetishizing him, for his utter inability to understand why, as he puts it, a hot young chef would leave New York to go to this wasteland, Detroit. “No! Not going to Detroit!” the chef screams, slapping his chest. “Coming home to Detroit!”
But acknowledging Detroit as anyone’s home would entail affirming that people actually live there, and that is too much for Bourdain to do.
Posted in Power 7, Television | Tagged Anthony Bourdain, CNN, Detroit, Israel/Palestine, Japan, reporting, shmuckery | Leave a reply
Dontgetit
On Saturday night I was groped in a club in Chicago. When I whipped my head around to see who had done it, I thought I could identify my assailant by the way he was furiously speeding away, not looking back. A run-by grabbing. By the time I turned around he was well away from me but I thought that was him, anyway, speedwalking through a crowd of people chatting and standing mostly still.
I brought the water I was ordering to my boyfriend on a nearby couch, told him what happened, and then watched as the man emerged from around the corner and stood by the ping pong tables, taking pictures. I told my beau I was going to go yell at him.
We walked over and I said something like hey you just grabbed my ass and what the hell, not even sure it was him, expecting him to deny. But instead he gave us this blank stare, touched his chest, shrugged, said sorry, said, What do you want me to do? It was fucking creepy. I guess in the end he said he’d leave.
We went back to the dance floor and I felt this wave of guilt because what I should have wanted was to take his picture, to drag him to the bouncers and say, This man assaulted me—don’t let him in here ever again. Fuck, call the police! That’s illegal, right? Assault?
As a rape survivor I hate when we call rape sexual assault. Calling rape sexual assault makes both invisible. Sexual assault is this man purposefully molesting me. Sexual assault is my classmate in graduate school following me into my apartment after getting me drunk and unzipping my sweater while I cried hysterically, frozen and in shock. Sexual assault is grabbed breasts, dicks, and asses, a feel-up during a pat-down, any forced or unwanted touching, kissing, or contact. Rape is assault with penetration. Of a vagina, of an anus, of a mouth. We make all the assaults invisible when we forget the word rape, which is another, worser, thing, a thing often done also by the men and women who commit assault.
The whole night my friend kept saying that Soho House, where we were, was “the eating club of Chicago”–and now, after this dude visibly groped me in open well-lit space and no one noticed or seemed to care, I find myself remembering when I was being raped my freshman year of college in an actual eating club and one of my friends stood at the front door of the club begging the bouncers to let her in and get her friend, because someone called her and said I was in trouble. We’ve talked about it since, she and I, the useless irony of security guarding the doors but not protecting the people inside.
And I think also of the seven Syracuse University campus security guards manning the doors at occupied Crouse-Hinds Hall, getting paid the overtime the Administration has complained loudly about to eat potato chips and turn away lawyers and food deliveries at the door. Maybe, maybe, for our safety, we could have used one guard, to walk around the space regularly and make sure everyone inside was actually medically safe.
Now I have been a rape survivor for ten years and I have educated myself on sexual predators and I know, for example, that among men who rape, their average number of victims is 6. I know that not a lot of men are sexual predators but that the ones who are do it repeatedly. And I see the smug sociopathic mug of this dude who grabbed me offering with blank stare to leave and I’m kicking myself for not taking his fucking picture and showing it to the bouncers or the cops or the whole internet because he knew what he was doing well enough to leave quickly so he could do it again, and who knows what else, too. And in the rape culture we live in, the onus is on me, the victim, to make sure sex offenders don’t further offend. But I never heard of the victims of poor people’s drug use being forced to be aggressive and press charges if they wanted those poor drug addicts of color to end up in jail.
What is security? Whom does security make secure?
I have never heard of a security detail in which off-duty policemen are specifically hired and trained to walk around a space making sure sexual predators are not assaulting or raping people. Have you? If the man who groped me had thrown a punch he would’ve been out on the street immediately, but no one is looking for assault and I don’t know who would’ve cared if I’d asked them to. That’s just the price of admission, for being a woman in a bar, these days.
I want a world where security makes women more secure. Where there’s one security force to keep the bar exclusive and cool, sure, but then there are trained people inside the premises looking for vulnerable passed out women and men and going to them and finding their friends and getting them out of there safely and stopping strangers from fucking with them and arresting the people who do. I want a security guard who is scanning the bar scene and noticing when a man purposefully speeds past a woman to molest her unconsenting body as he passes by, who calls the fucking cops on him because that is sexual assault and assault is illegal and, in this imaginary world, it is recognized that sex offenders are repeat offenders and it is a legal priority to get them off the streets, because unlike nonviolent drug users, for example, they actively and inherently are a threat to those around them.
And in this imaginary world women and men who say they are assaulted are believed and not demeaned and not blamed because in this world the fact that 2% of rape accusations are false is as taken for granted as the broken window theory that sends black teenage potheads to jail and gets a man murdered for selling loosies on the street. As Lil Wayne says in “Dontgetit,” the outro to his Carter III, “we don’t have room in the jail for the real motherfuckers, the real criminals,” He describes a sex offender moving into his neighborhood. “They givin me a paper—is that a misunderstanding? ‘Cause I really don’t understand it.” But I really don’t want to know that answer.
Posted in Gender, Power 7 | Tagged college rape, feminism, lil wayne, Princeton University, rape, sexual assault | Leave a reply
Nothing Was the Same – part I
Posted on October 24, 2014 by tessalaprofessa
“So, you ask, when does the Hip-Hop Generation begin? After DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaata. Whom does it include? Anyone who is down. When does it end? When the next generation tells us it’s over….It’s but one version, this dub history–a gift from those who have illuminated and inspired…”
– Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
via Wikipedia
I have been listening to Drake’s latest studio album, Nothing Was the Same, a LOT. I’ll be honest, right now NWTS is constituting a large majority of my weekly and even daily music consumption. After the first few listens, I started noticing the album’s samples of classic Golden Era hiphop songs and I began formulating my little hiphop-hypothesis (aka
hip-hop-eth-is) that Drake was tipping his hat towards the hiphop greats while simultaneously composing himself into their company, into the hiphop canon.
In fact, he doesn’t really do this. Or rather, he is largely saluting the Wu-Tang Clan. All three samples of rap songs from the mid-90s are from Wu-Tang’s first two albums, and two of the three are actually samples of the same song, Wu-Tang’s 1997 “It’s Yourz,” which appears in Drake’s “Wu-Tang Forever” and then again in the immediately following “Own It” as tracks 4 and 5. Turns out my hypothesis was based on a faulty aural ID of the sample–probably from both songs–as the sample of T la Rock and Jazzy J’s “It’s Yours” (1984) that turns up on Nas’s 1994 “The World Is Yours.” (Put simply, I thought Drake’s producers were sampling Nas, not Wu-Tang. Guess I wasn’t looking at the track listing.)
Here is where my research falters. I didn’t research deeply into these songs’ producers to see where they were or whether they worked together or what they were thinking. I use “Drake” as a synechdoche for all of the people who collectively create the music called Drake’s. But neither Wikipedia nor WhoSampled had any indication that Wu-Tang’s use of the shouted phrase “it’s yours!” which constitutes the chorus on “It’s Yourz,” released in 1997 in New York City, referenced or had any legal relationship to the shouted “it’s yours!” on Nas’s track from three years prior, which came out on his debut Illmatic in 1994, also in New York. I find this strange.
On NWST I also recognized the sample of Wu-Tang’s C.R.E.A.M. in “Pound Cake/Paris Morton Music 2,” and that makes 3 samples of Wu-Tang, among the album’s other assorted samples of pop, soul, and hiphop tracks. Not the broad Golden Era homage I had in mind.
And yet, it’s still noteworthy that Drake et al is sampling rap from the ’90s, including Nas or not. As Tricia Rose writes in Black Noise, “sampling in rap is a process of cultural literacy and intertextual reference” (89). Of course sampling “is about paying homage” (79), but it also “locates these ‘past’ sounds in the ‘present’” (89), allowing an artist like Drake to position himself in music history and highlight how earlier music circulates in the lives and musics of contemporary artists. In this way rap artists arrange for themselves their own portraits of musical history, the history of themselves. Drake arrays himself alongside contemporaries and predecessors, a group that has included Whitney Houston, Aaliyah, Kendrick Lamar, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Wu-Tang Clan, Curtis Mayfield, 2-Chainz, and Timbaland.
Rappers sampling rappers is noteworthy because early rap couldn’t sample rap–there wasn’t any yet. Bambaata sampled Kraftwerk; “The Message” boasts a funk bass line under a disco beat. Sampling has always been one method by which hiphop artists intertextually situate themselves within living traditions of American, African-American, and world musics.
Three-and-a-half decades on, contemporary rappers have a rich repository of hiphop musics, including rap and R&B, to sample from, besides earlier and other contemporary forms. So Drake’s opener on NWTS, “Tuscan Leather,” can sample Whitney Houston alongside Curtis Mayfield–nodding both to the music that was on the radio when Drake and in fact I were kids, as well as the music our parents’ generation heard. Mayfield joins other soul and funk greats like James Brown and Otis Redding, along with so many other artists from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, in forming the backbone of hiphop beats.
In more recent rap, hiphop’s traditional sample base has expanded to include more contemporary references. Mayfield is sampled heavily on Kanye West’s debut The College Dropout, released in 2004, an album which also references Lauryn HIll, and that was already 10 years ago. Now, in 2014, we’re into the generation where J. Cole samples a track from West’s debut, West’s “The New Workout Plan,” on Cole’s “Work Out” from 2011. My 18-year-old students from a few years ago knew who Aaliyah from Drake’s 2010 “Unforgettable,” which samples Aaliyah off of her 1994 R. Kelly-produced Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number, whose title track is sampled in Outkast’s “May-December,” off of their 2004 Speakerboxxx/The Love Below–or maybe my students never noticed the sample but recognized Aaliyah’s name from Kendrick’s line on Drake’s “Buried Alive Interlude” that, “Only that nigga was missing was Aaliyah,” or Drake’s quick eulogy–“Since I saw Aaliyah’s precious life go too soon”–on “We’ll Be Fine,” both off Drake’s 2011 Take Care.
The point is, time flies. 2004 was 10 years ago and 1994 was 20. In 1994, I was 8. So was Drake. Aaliyah was 16 (ergo the statutory-rape-ness of her relationship with producer R. Kelly). Kendrick Lamar was 7. Nas’s Illmatic, Biggie’s Ready to Die, Outkast’s Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, and Common’s Resurrection all came out that year–that’s why Nas and Outkast had twentieth reunion tours this year: nostalgia. Nostalgia sells. These cycles put us in rap’s third or fourth generation, if such distinctions aren’t the fictions Jeff Chang warns us they are. Christopher Wallace would’ve been 42 this year and Aaliyah would be 36. Nas is 41 and Andre 3000 is 39, even if he plays a 24-year old Jimi Hendrix in the new biopic All Is By My Side. History is more like a circle than a line, or a rhythm that you hear in the corner of your mind, still echoing from the tape deck long shut off in the dash of the quiet, waiting car. “[T]he thing (the ritual, the dance, the beat) is there for you to pick up when you come back to get it,” that is, when it “‘cuts’ back to the start” (Snead qtd. in Rose 69). Hiphop history lives in the cut.
Wikipedia: “Nothing Was The Same,” “Tuscan Leather,” “Wu-Tang Forever [Drake album],” “Own It,” “Connect,” “Poundcake/Paris Morton Music 2,” “Wu-Tang Forever [Wu-Tang Clan album],” and more.
WhoSampled.com: “Drake ft. PARTYNEXTDOOR Own It samples Wu-Tang Clan Its Yours,” “Nas The World Is Yours samples T La Rock and Jazzy Jay It’s Yours,” “Drake feat. Young Jeezy Unforgettable samples Aaliyah feat R. Kelly At Your Best (You Are Love),” “Wu Tang Clan Its Yourz,” and more.
WhoSampled.com Blog. “Drake–Nothing Was The Same: The Samples.”
Andrew Martin, “A History of Drake’s Obsession with Aaliyah.” Complex.com.
Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation. Picador (2005): New York.
Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown (1994): Wesleyan University Press.
Posted in Generation HipHop, Music Reviews, Power 7, Rap | Tagged drake, generations, j. cole, kanye west, kendrick lamar, outkast, sampling, wu-tang clan | Leave a reply
Homely Genres and the Michael Brown Autopsy Report
first page of the Michael Brown autopsy report, via St. Louis Post-Dispatch
On Tuesday night, as I was checking my Twitter feed just before sleep, the autopsy report on Darren Wilson’s shooting of Michael Brown was released. How strange, to see this boy’s death described in the vague and also explicit detail of a bureaucratic, quasi-medical discourse. Someone had sat down and written this. I wondered who.
Now that I look at it again I see it was written by Wendell Payne, Medicological Investigator. Oddly, it does not seem to be dated, even though the first words of the prose narrative are “At 1330 hours.”
My immediate response was to screenshot each page, because, as Kanye once said, “They gonna take this off the internet real quick.”
The document contains a lot of information that we already knew, that Michael Brown lay in the street for hours while the crowds gathered, the panic rising—but here they are conveyed in the clear, firm language of the government:
There I was met by numerous officers of the St. Louis County Police Department and they directed my attention to the deceased who was located in the middle of the roadway with his head pointed west and his feet east….The deceased was lying in the prone position.
The deceased was cool to the touch. Rigor mortis was slightly felt in his extremities.
In the freshman composition class I teach we are researching “homely” genres, those genres people write in every day without even thinking about it as writing: e-mails, text messages, facebook posts, but also professional genres like case files, medical reports, and broadcast scripts, not to mention application forms and essays, tax forms, letters to contest parking tickets, and so forth.
What homely genres have you written in lately?
The term “homely” comes from Carolyn Miller’s seminal 1984 article “Genre as Social Action,” in which Miller consolidates previous rhetorical and discursive study of genre and lays the foundation for a given genre to be analyzed, beyond its language, format, or situation, “on the action it is used to accomplish.”
To consider as potential genres such homely discourse as the letter of recommendation, the user manual, the progress report, the ransom note, the lecture, and the white paper, as well as the euology the apologia, the inaugural, the public proceeding, and the sermon, is not to trivialize the study of genres; it is to take seriously the rhetoric in which we are immersed and the situations in which we find ourselves. (Miller)
After the release of the autopsy report that night, the tweets came out fast and furious. Was the report fabricated? Lying? Was the medical examiner biased?
They released a video then admitted it was for bullshit, lied during press conferences, but we're supposed to believe yall police reports?
— Her. (@LoveKeysh) October 22, 2014
These questions matter, but they won’t be answered by this report. But this report is important: very, very important. Miller writes that “as a recurrent, significant action, a genre embodies an aspect of cultural rationality.”
no. the point isn't to believe the police report. it's just to see what they have written down. *this is how they phrased it* #ferguson
— Tessa Brown (@tessalaprofessa) October 22, 2014
That is: this autopsy report tells us about the logics and movements of our culture. It gives a text, an example of a genre–that is, the medical autopsy report produced by a police force–what is natively labeled “Narrative Report of Investigation”–an artifact about which we can ask, “Who wrote you, and for what audience? How were you circulated? Who typed you, printed you, held you, e-mailed you, handed you off? Who leaked you? And, in your original function, what were you supposed to accomplish?”
When I read the report last night, I gasped. I covered my mouth. I was horrified. But that is not the report’s intention, because I am not its audience. This genre wants everything to seem normal–or at least, accounted for. And it is, accounted for, for the most part. The report describes how Michael Brown was arrayed in the street according to the compass rose, it describes what he was wearing and what he objects were near him, like his flip-flops, and it describes his nine (9) gunshot wounds, and his “abrasions.”
detail from Michael Brown autopsy report, via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Stamped below this description, in the bottom margin of the page, in red ink: NOT FOR SECONDARY RELEASE.
What is not known is how exactly Officer Wilson’s weapon discharged nine times into the dead man’s body, only that “during the struggle the Officers weapon was un-holstered. The weapon discharged during the struggle.” The report continues:
The deceased the ran down the roadway. Officer WILSON then began to chase the deceased. As he was giving chase to the deceased, the deceased turned around and ran towards Officer WILSON. Officer WILSON had his service weapon drawn, as the deceased began to run towards him, he discharged his service weapon several times.
As this is preliminary information it was not known in which order or how many time the officer fired his weapon during the confrontation.
Let’s pause with the language. Officer WILSON has a name, but Michael Brown does not. In this report, Michael Brown is a zombie, a “deceased” who can run away from a skirmish and then run back towards the officer who has already discharged his weapon at least once. He must be a zombie, this deceased, because what kind of person charges a police officer whose weapon is drawn and which weapon has already fired at least once, when they were tussling while the officer was still inside his squad car?
This is genre functioning, that tiny, crucial decision to call the dead person not by their name but by “the deceased.” A question for further research might be whether medical examiner reports of people who were not shot by police officers are also called “the deceased.”
last page of the Michael Brown autopsy report, via St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The last line of the report notes, “Any additional information will follow in the usual supplemental manner.”
The usual manner. This is the power of this genre: to usher its subject matter, that is the state-sanctioned murder of an unarmed teenage boy, into a file in a filing cabinet to which other documents can be added and consulted and called forth and held secret from the press and marked “Not for Secondary Release,” this stream of documentation and memo and language and mostly correct spelling and grammar and headers and signatures and case numbers that say everything is accounted for and is being handled and nothing is wrong in the universe where the correct papers have been filed.
Of course, everything is wrong. Everything is wrong! I can use all caps and expletives and images and links and embedded tweets all day long, but nothing in this blog post can make that report seem as abnormal as it makes itself, its own existence and the “preliminary information” it contains normal, filed, stamped, sealed, delivered, accounted for.
Last class I asked my students to read a blog post and then copied them my own homework by mistake, and none of them e-mailed me to say the link seemed weird. Only when I went into our discussion board and saw student after student comment how confusing it was, did I check the link and see I’d had them read about ancient greek rhetorician Aspasia of Miletus by accident, that the title was not the title on the syllabus or even on the link, let alone that the content was nonsensical in the context of our class. But words pass by our eyes and we are so used to them being there we don’t even ask what they are or why they’re there or who wrote them or what they are supposed to do, we just accept that this is the language that fills the homework and these are the papers in the Brown, Michael file.
These papers, this stream of memos, this is the stuff of colonial land treaties and apartheid laws and illegal wars and vast coverups of abuse: a series of memos pushed by paper pushers, filed by paper filers, read but not really read, injustice furthered again in that “genteel bureaucratic way” that injustice has of reinstantiating itself.
There is more to say, there always is, but this is a blog post, and blog posts are supposed to be short. Til soon.
Posted in Politics, Power 7, Racism, Rhetoric | Tagged bureaucracy, composition, Darren Wilson, Ferguson, genre, Michael Brown, police brutality, rhetoric | Leave a reply
125 Lesson Plans
code of the street
college writing
dream hampton
Henry Louis Gates Jr
hiphop pedagogy
hiphop studies
James Cone
Mark Anthony Neal
reflective writing
signifyin(g)
The College Dropout
Tricia Rose
125 Lesson Plans (11)
Black/Jewish (3)
Close Reading (10)
Feminism & Femininity (5)
Generation HipHop (23)
Men & Masculinity (5)
Power 7 (6)
Student Papers (6)
Theorizin(g) (12)
White Girl Spitta (18)
Women, Feminism & Femininity (13)
Writing Sample (7)
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Making Runescape Pure Again
posted by Mason on 22nd February 2014, at 1:22pm
Well, it looks like I’m about to go two for two for combat articles this year. I’m not overly fond of combat. I’m really not. But with the continuance of the evolution (or is it de-evolution at this point?) of combat it is giving me plenty of fodder to write about. At this rate, I’ll be writing about this all year…
So according to the current poll, unless something drastic happens, it looks like the 138 combat level is coming back. What this means is still confusing, and how we can vote without knowing the true implications of something is sketchy to begin with, but we can confer from this is that players didn’t like the 200 level scale. Many people seem to like how 138 was all inclusive and represented being “max” more honestly, but I like the higher and even number of 200. If this is how Jagex decides to go is anyone’s guess, but one thing that seems to surely be coming back is probably more controversial than the number above our heads: Pure accounts.
Like I said, I’m not huge on combat, but I can appreciate those who are. I can also appreciate the place that pures fit in the ecosystem of an MMO. In the combat triangle of life, they have an important niche they fill. Probably the most dividing thing about EoC was that pures aren’t viable. In essence, we were all seen as pures by the system since it only took into account your highest offensive stat. In any formula where more than one offensive stat is calculated pures can exist and, as sure as rain in the plains of Spain, they will exist.
This makes for a very interesting combat dynamic. The pure accounts of yesteryear were abandoned. Jagex says there will be a way to roll back combat stats, but a majority of those players probably left when they saw no hope for their viability in the new system. For the first time since the wilderness made its return, pures will be at home in the wild and more potent as ever with the new arsenal of abilities and offensive options. This may very well lead us into a new era of players where PKing is actually enjoyable and possible. This is a cause for further controversy. Some may feel this is an area of the game that doesn’t need to be revitalized and that the community improved without PKers. Others, some of which may have already moved on to 07 servers or quit entirely, would applaud the move.
As a clan leader for over five years I have mixed emotions about it. My best experiences in the game were with my clanmates and it was a big part of my life – my real life, not just RS life. I could probably write a year’s worth of articles on what I learned and the many experiences I had leading a clan. How we had to change over the years – with free trade being removed and coming back, the wilderness changes, how play style has evolved – it all took a toll on us and prompted adjustments. We started as wilderness based following the philosophy of only killing those who killed skillers in the wild. Eventually we became more skilling based. With the creation of citadels, that become our primary focus. Mine, like many RS clans, eventually had to close simply because we had no reason to exist anymore. EoC killed what was left of these old style of clans. Any that remain now are more communities than anything. Shells of the former glory and righteousness they once stood for. I miss them – not so much the work involved in running one, but even that gave me purpose to play. If it wasn’t for my clan I probably would have quit long ago. Without a clan now, even months after the fact, I still feel like a lost puppy. Without a home and nothing to rally around. Clans are important to retaining players of any MMO and Runescape is suffering without them. If you don’t agree then you probably weren’t ever a part of clan, and I feel bad for you missing out on that aspect of the game.
I guess given my history I would like pures to be back in the game. Many other clan leaders including arguably the most vocal of them all, His Lordship of the Wilderness Guardians, has been chiming in on the most recent announcements. You may recall seeing some of His Lordship’s work on YouTube, including the “Why Runescape is Dying” at the end of November last year that got a lot of people talking. He has long campaigned to Jagex to make the wilderness an important part of Runescape again. All the pieces for a revival of the wilderness and therefore clans would be available and ready for Jagex to make the right decisions to make them relevant again.
Lets look at a case study that illustrates this. Through the greater part of the 20th century, wolves were hunted and killed for sport in much of the northwest of the United States to the point that they were placed on the endangered species list in 1978. A survey of Yellowstone National Park conducted in the late 70s found that absolutely no wolves were present within the park or surrounding area. In the early ‘90s Yellowstone National Park reintroduced wolves into their ecosystem to study their impact. In studies still continuing, scientists find that the elk population has been impacted and a significant increase in new trees, which elk feed on, was noted. Much of Yellowstone’s area has had deforestation and fire recovery issues, so new growth will help restore these areas. Much like reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park, adding predators to an ecosystem can bring about balance and allow other aspects of that environment to flourish. Pures can be our wolves. Having these predators in Runescape again might just improve the entire game.
This article is filed under Runescape. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can discuss this article on our forums.
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If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Cowboys and Angels: Book Two Can a man burdened with family drama find his way into the arms of a happy-go-lucky stripper called Lionman? But Bennett might not be in a position to start a relationship, let alone with the carefree Cris.
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He was once rumoured to be this year’s Bachelor, but it seems Dr Chris Brown has finally found love again. Following his recent split from Liv Phyland, year-old Chris is now said to be dating stunning model Brooke Meredith, According to Woman’s Day magazine, the couple all-but-confirmed their romance last week when they were busted packing on the PDA while shopping for cleaning supplies at Bunnings Warehouse in Randwick, Sydney.
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Pussycat Dolls star Ashley Roberts has been a huge hit with Strictly Come Dancing viewers throughout her time on the show so far. The singer, who is partnered with Pasha Kovalev, is a real favourite to win the series, and is consistently scoring high and garnering praise from the judges. To top it all off, it’s now being reported that she’s found potential love on the show – and is said to be secretly dating Giovanni Pernice, who is partnered with Steps singer Faye Tozer.
According to MailOnline, Ashley and Giovanni have been on a string of secret dates, and have even shared a kiss, with a TV insider confirming that sparks are flying on the Strictly set. They added that the pair are currently having to go for a long-distance relationship as Giovanni is training up north while she is based in London, so they only get to see each other towards the end of the week.
Official news on whether these two are dating is yet to be confirmed, but Strictly winner Caroline Flack was spotted kissing professional dancer AJ Pritchard at the NTAs. On the first ever series of Strictly back in , news reader Natasha Kaplinsky and professional dancer Brendan Cole were paired together.
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He told me he fell for me the second I walked out of the dressing room in that Norma Kamali dress. I was a co-worker. I was just trying on the dress to see if it was worth it with my newly acquired employee discount. This was my first job in high-end retail in Los Angeles and I was going to explore all of its benefits. I wore that dress the first time we went out — off the sales floor, that is.
I refused when he paid, my attempts floundering.
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Tom Holland and Zend Tom Holland and Zendaya are secretly dating after finding love as on-screen couple Spider-Man and MJ, according to reports. The young Hollywood stars play Peter Parker and his love interest Mary-Jane Watson in the latest movies based on the Marvel comic books. Add to Chrome. Sign in. Home Local Classifieds.
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Secretly Dating the Lionman book. Read 28 reviews from the world’s largest community for readers. Can a man burdened with family drama find his way into...
Gossip Cop rob long debunk this claim. We’re told there’s simply no truth to it. An article in the latest issue of NW tells Suki fans that their “prayers have been answered” because the former couple has supposedly been hanging out together in Maxwell Angeles over the past few weeks. The magazine quotes a so-called “source” as saying, “They’re trying to keep it low-key, but there’s still chemistry there. People in their circles are starting to wonder if they’re considering a reconciliation.
The unreliable outlet goes on to say that Robert has been having problems with girlfriend Zoe Maxwell, so she’s been turning to Maxwell “for support during her relationship drama. She’s been long blowing up his phone asking for advice or begging him to rob up with her for drinks. The seemingly phony tipster concludes that Robert and Stewart aren’t officially long together, but the actress hopes her ex-boyfriend has forgiven “all that went down between them” because they “still have a great connection.
We’re told Pattinson and Maxwell haven’t been dating up in secret, and they’re certainly not headed towards a romantic reconciliation. It should also be noted, Maxwell and Maxwell were just spotted at an L.
You feel like a victim, and the relationship with someone who has a controlling personality begins to suffocate you. But you keep doing everything that your personal warden asks or suggests. But after a couple of years or even a few months, she shows her selfish side constantly controlling you and trying to limit your freedom. This situation controlling sooner or later make you want to break free and put an end to this controlling relationship, but not all are able to switch from thoughts to actions, preferring to controlling and endure, hoping that the partner controlling change someday.
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Chances are you or someone you know has been in a secret romantic relationship. Jenna, 26, recalls meeting a guy at a party, and immediately falling for him. Things between them moved quickly, but he asked her to keep their relationship a secret so he could avoid drama with an ex. And in the beginning, it was exciting. Sometimes, she adds, her guy gave their friend money to pay for her dinner when they were hanging out with other people.
For some people, concealing a romance may be their only option — particularly if they believe they are likely to experience discrimination or backlash. For example, some people who identify as LGBTQ or those with strict religious or cultural backgrounds may find it safer to date discreetly, depending on their location and circumstances. Certainly, people are entitled to some semblance of privacy in their lives, says dating expert Veronica Mobley , especially considering how much pressure there is to share everything on social media.
One of the perks of keeping a new romance private is that it allows you to work on building a strong foundation before inviting others in, she says.
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Thomas G. Gunning has written 39 work(s)
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Building Words: A Resource Manual for Teaching Word Analysis and Spelling Strategies
Product Description: A step-by-step guide to literacy education in grades 1-4, Building Words goes beyond theory to include specific guidelines and lesson plans for the classroom. This flexible, easy-to-use book includes almost everything you might need to structure an effective literacy program based on word analysis skills and strategies...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)
By Thomas G. Gunning and Norma Kable (illustrator)
9780205309221 | Prentice Hall, June 1, 2000, cover price $90.00 | About this edition: A step-by-step guide to literacy education in grades 1-4, Building Words goes beyond theory to include specific guidelines and lesson plans for the classroom.
Best Books for Building Literacy for Elementary School Children
Product Description: Best Books for Building Literacy for Elementary School Children helps current and future teachers find interesting, readable books for every student in their class and use children's books to help each student fully develop her or his literacy potential...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)
By Thomas G. Gunning
9780205286256 | Prentice Hall, November 1, 1999, cover price $66.20 | About this edition: Best Books for Building Literacy for Elementary School Children helps current and future teachers find interesting, readable books for every student in their class and use children's books to help each student fully develop her or his literacy potential.
Best Books for Beginning Readers
Product Description: Best Books for Beginning Readers provides a descriptive listing of more than 1,000 high quality books that are especially appropriate for novice readers. Books are listed according to eight levels of difficulty ranging from emergent or very beginning reading level through beginning second grade level...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)
9780205267842 | Allyn & Bacon, August 1, 1997, cover price $33.00 | About this edition: Best Books for Beginning Readers provides a descriptive listing of more than 1,000 high quality books that are especially appropriate for novice readers.
Creating Reading Instruction for All Children
See complete details on each edition (3 editions listed)
9780205169993 | 2 sub edition (Allyn & Bacon, January 1, 1996), cover price $76.00
9780205133840 | Allyn & Bacon, January 1, 1993, cover price $25.01
9780205133833 | Allyn & Bacon, February 1, 1992, cover price $57.00
Dream Planes
Surveys the latest technological advances in aviation, exploring in words and photographs today's experimental planes and the designers and engineers who are building them.
9780875185569 | Dillon Pr, November 1, 1992, cover price $19.00 | About this edition: Describes some recent advances and future technological possibilities in the field of air transportation
Dream Trains
Describes some of the recent advances and future technological possibilities in railway transportation
9780875185583 | Dillon Pr, November 1, 1992, cover price $19.00 | About this edition: Describes some of the recent advances and future technological possibilities in railway transportation
Describes a variety of present-day experimental cars and how teams of designers and engineers can forecast the shape of future automobiles, and discusses vintage cars and how they influence future designs
9780875184197 | Dillon Pr, January 1, 1990, cover price $14.95 | About this edition: Describes a variety of present-day experimental cars and how teams of designers and engineers can forecast the shape of future automobiles, and discusses vintage cars and how they influence future designs
Teaching Phonics and Other Word Attack Skills
9780398054861 | Charles C Thomas Pub Ltd, September 1, 1988, cover price $34.95
Strange Mysteries
This book discusses ten true-life mysteries, including the disappearance of Ireland's crown jewels, the unfound treasure of Cocos Island, a 'missing' Eskimo village, and the undecipherable Beale code
9780816713714 | Troll Communications Llc, August 1, 1988, cover price $2.95 | About this edition: Ten true stories of real happenings involving buried treasure, strange disappearances, and the like, that were puzzling at the time and some of which remain a mystery to this day.
9780396090380 | Putnam Pub Group, April 1, 1987, cover price $9.95 | About this edition: Ten true stories of real happenings involving buried treasure, strange disappearances, and the like, that were puzzling at the time and some of which remain a mystery to this day
9780845422762 | Continental Pr, December 1, 1986, cover price $5.95
Infernece
1 other edition(s) in this binding (see all)
Amazing Escapes
Presents nine tales of escape and survival against great odds including escapes from a great white shark, a volcanic eruption, and a fall through a thunderstorm.
9780396083245 | Putnam Pub Group, April 1, 1984, cover price $8.95 | About this edition: A collection of nine true, but unbelievable escapes on land, air, and in water that testifies to the strong will of humans to survive
Main Ideas and Details
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Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome
Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome is a topic covered in the 5-Minute Clinical Consult.
Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS) is a systemic autoantibody-mediated thrombophilic disorder characterized by recurrent arterial or venous thrombosis and/or recurrent fetal loss in the presence of persistent antiphospholipid antibodies (APAs) as evidenced by lupus anticoagulant (LAC), anticardiolipin antibodies (aCL), and/or anti–β2 glycoprotein-I (GPI) antibody. The APAs enhance clot formation by interacting with phospholipid-binding plasma proteins. The resulting APS can cause morbidity and mortality in both pregnant and nonpregnant individuals:
Types of APS (based on clinical presentation)
Primary: no underlying condition evident
Secondary: most commonly associated with autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE); transient APAs have been linked to certain infections, drugs, and malignancies.
Catastrophic APS (CAPS) a.k.a. Asherson syndrome (<1%)
Most severe form of disease; characterized by thrombotic microangiopathy and associated with multiorgan failure
High mortality if treatment is delayed
Pregnancy Considerations
Complications include maternal venous thromboembolism, stroke, fetal demise, preeclampsia and placental insufficiency, fetal growth retardation, miscarriage, and preterm birth.
Triple antibody positivity is considered the most noteworthy risk factor.
Low-dose aspirin and low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) or unfractionated heparin are the drugs of choice in pregnancy.
Prophylactic-dose heparin is recommended in the postpartum period (unless patient is on therapeutic anticoagulation) given high risk of thrombosis during this time. With adequate treatment, >70% of patients with APS deliver viable infants.
The prevalence of APAs increases with age but is not necessarily associated with a higher risk of thrombosis.
For APS, female > male
Incidence of APS is around 5 new cases per 100,000 persons per year.
In patients with positive APAs without prior risk of thrombosis, the annual incident risk of thrombosis is 0–3.8%. This risk is increased to 5.3% in those with triple positivity. 10–15% of recurrent abortions are attributable to APS.
Prevalence around 40 to 50 cases per 100,000 persons per year. APAs are present in 1–5% of the general population and in ~40% of those with SLE. A higher prevalence of 10–15% is seen in those with venous thromboembolism, fetal loss, and stroke.
Anti–β2-GP1 antibodies play a central role in the pathogenesis of APS. The procoagulant effect is mediated by various possible mechanisms:
Endothelial effects: inhibition of prostacyclin production and loss of annexin V cellular shield
Platelet activation resulting in adhesion and aggregation
Interference of innate anticoagulant pathways (such as inhibition of protein C)
Complement activation
Pregnancy-related complications are also a result of autoantibody-mediated effects:
Interference with expression of trophoblastic adhesion molecules resulting in abnormal placentation and placental thrombosis
Proposed mechanisms: excess production of natural antibodies, molecular mimicry due to infections, exposure of phospholipid antigens during platelet activation, cardiolipin peroxidation, and genetic predisposition
A “second hit” by environmental factors is often required to manifest APS.
Most cases of APS are acquired. There are a few studies of familial occurrence of aCL and LAC. A valine 247/leucine polymorphism in β2-GP1 could be a genetic risk for the presence of anti–β2-GP1 antibodies and APS.
Age >55 years in males, >65 years in females
Cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension [HTN], hyperlipidemia, diabetes, obesity, smoking, combined oral contraceptive use)
Underlying autoimmune disease (SLE, rheumatoid arthritis, collagen vascular disease, Sjögren syndrome, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Behçet syndrome)
Positive APAs
Surgery, immobilization, pregnancy
General Prevention
Risk factor modification: Control HTN and diabetes; smoking cessation; avoidance of oral contraceptives in high-risk patients; start thromboprophylaxis in established cases; preconception assessment
Commonly Associated Conditions
Autoimmune diseases: SLE (most common), scleroderma, Sjögren syndrome, dermatomyositis, and rheumatoid arthritis
SLE is the most common autoimmune disease associated with APS.
Infections: viral, bacterial, parasitic, and rickettsial
Certain drugs associated with APA production without increased risk of thrombosis: phenothiazines, hydralazine, procainamide, and phenytoin
Hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low platelet count in association with pregnancy (HELLP) syndrome
Sneddon syndrome (APS variant syndrome with livedo reticularis, HTN, and stroke)
Stephens, Mark B., et al., editors. "Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome." 5-Minute Clinical Consult, 27th ed., Wolters Kluwer, 2020. Medicine Central, im.unboundmedicine.com/medicine/view/5-Minute-Clinical-Consult/116896/all/Antiphospholipid_Antibody_Syndrome.
Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome. In: Stephens MB, Golding J, Baldor RA, et al, eds. 5-Minute Clinical Consult. Wolters Kluwer; 2020. https://im.unboundmedicine.com/medicine/view/5-Minute-Clinical-Consult/116896/all/Antiphospholipid_Antibody_Syndrome. Accessed January 18, 2021.
Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome. (2020). In Stephens, M. B., Golding, J., Baldor, R. A., & Domino, F. J. (Eds.), 5-Minute Clinical Consult (27th edition). Wolters Kluwer. Retrieved January 18, 2021, from https://im.unboundmedicine.com/medicine/view/5-Minute-Clinical-Consult/116896/all/Antiphospholipid_Antibody_Syndrome
Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome [Internet]. In: Stephens MB, Golding J, Baldor RA, Domino FJ, editors. 5-Minute Clinical Consult. Wolters Kluwer; 2020. [cited 2021 January 18]. Available from: https://im.unboundmedicine.com/medicine/view/5-Minute-Clinical-Consult/116896/all/Antiphospholipid_Antibody_Syndrome.
TY - ELEC T1 - Antiphospholipid Antibody Syndrome ID - 116896 ED - Stephens,Mark B, ED - Golding,Jeremy, ED - Baldor,Robert A, ED - Domino,Frank J, BT - 5-Minute Clinical Consult, Updating UR - https://im.unboundmedicine.com/medicine/view/5-Minute-Clinical-Consult/116896/all/Antiphospholipid_Antibody_Syndrome PB - Wolters Kluwer ET - 27 DB - Medicine Central DP - Unbound Medicine ER -
Follow-up Recommendations
CONTRACEPTIVES, HORMONAL
danaparoid
Deep-vein thrombosis
eculizumab
Inhibitor screen (1:1 mix)
Livedo reticularis
Platelet antibodies
Purpura Fulminans
Recurrent abortion
Russell viper venom time (dRVVT)
Splinter hemorrhages
Thromboangiitis obliterans (Buerger's disease)
Ulcer and eschar
Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic (SLE)
Protein C Deficiency
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Information on corruption incidents
Whenever reference is made to:
corruption - it ought to be understood as an act or failure to act, as well as a promise of such conduct, in order to obtain undue advantage transferred, promised or implied, both property and personal, directly or indirectly, which exhausts the characteristics of the prohibited act specified in art. . 228 § 1-6 and art. 229 § 1-5 and art. 230 and art. 231 § 2 of the Penal Code;
corruption incident - it shall mean any event as a result of which there has been a suspected violation or violation of a law or provisions contained in internal regulations, which have the hallmarks of abuse of function, leading to undue financial or material benefits;
corruption risks - it ought to be understood as situations and circumstances that contribute to or facilitate the commission of a corruption offense in a therapeutic entity.
How to notify the Plenipotentiary for Counteracting Corruption Threats about an incident:
The possibility of reporting a corruption incident at the Institute of Mother and Child in any form, in particular by means of:
a parcel sent to the Institute's address via traditional mail;
a parcel delivered on the spot at the Institute's office;
e-mail to the e-mail address: antykorupcja@imid.med.pl.
The parcel with the notification of the occurrence of a corruption incident should include the note: "For the Plenipotentiary for counteracting corruption threats". The parcel is not subject to opening in the General Office and after registration in the correspondence journal is forwarded directly to the Plenipotentiary for counteracting corruption threats.
The reporting person shall be each time notified by the Plenipotentiary for Counteracting Corruption Threats about the way of processing the application.
The minimum application requirements should include:
personal details and address of the reporting person, contact phone number;
personal details of the person concerned;
description of the corruption incident;
location of the corruption incident, i.e. indication of the organizational unit;
evidence;
date and legible signature of the reporting person.
If you want to remain anonymous, you can provide information without entering your details. This may make it difficult to explain all the circumstances, but please be sure that the matter will find its solution.
Anonymous reporting can also be made at the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau.
https://www.gov.pl/zdrowie/przeciwdzialanie-korupcji
http://www.antykorupcja.gov.pl/
https://cba.gov.pl/
Please find below the Codes of Ethics (only available in Polish):
medical: http://www.nil.org.pl/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/4764/Kodeks-Etyki-Lekarskiej.pdf
nurse and midwife: http://www.oipip-suw.osti.pl/onas/kodeks.pdf
laboratory diagnostics: http://docplayer.pl/7701252-Kodeks-etyki-diagnosty-laboratoryjnego.html
researcher: http://www.nauka.gov.pl/g2/oryginal/2014_02/2ae2188ff8670eed98ede50de1e9007f.pdf
dietetics: http://docplayer.pl/7700907-Kodeks-etyki-zawodowej-dietetyka-rzeczypospolitej-polskiej.html
physiotherapist: http://zgptf2.linuxpl.info/files/kodeks.pdf
psychologist: http://www.ptp.org.pl/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=29
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The officer corps strength versus commanded strength averages 7 to 8 per cent. After independence there was only one period (1963-65) when a need arose to offer short-term emergency commissions. That was when a pre-1962 planned expansion was compressed in terms of time leading to this call. The main brunt of the fighting in 1965 and 1971 at junior command levels was taken up by this group. Just as in the Second World War, they, along with their regular counterparts, responded with traditional elan. Over the years, a number of Commission streams had merged together. The last of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, graduates retired in 1969. The Indian Military Academy (IMA), Dehra Dun, graduates, as well as the Short Service/Emergency Commissioned Officers of the Second World War formed the overwhelming bulk filling the fighting command slots in 1947-49; the King's Commission Indian Officers taking over the higher command appointments.
In 1949 a unique experiment was launched - that of cadet-level training for all the three Services together for three years and thereafter moving on to Service academies for pre-Commission training. This was the Joint Services Wing (Dehra Dun), which in later years became the National Defence Academy (NDA) Khadakvasla.
At present, the Army officer intake is from four distinct streams, namely the NDA; the graduate direct entry stream (IMA); cadets chosen from the ranks and initially trained at the Army Cadet College - an adjunct of the IMA; and a five-year Short Service Commission stream from the Officers Training Academy, Madras and Gaya. A few selected Junior Commissioned Officers (a grade existing only in the Indian and Pakistan Armies) are offered Regimental Commissions. The Short Service stream is offered Regular Commissions by choice and reassessment. Officers of the NDA have now reached three-star rank in all three Services. A common indicator of the type of leadership extent in the Army are casualty ratios. In all our wars, officer casualties have been high. Management experts point out to the high casualty figures of officers in Combat. The point, however, is that Officers of the combat arms lead from the front and is the strength of the Indian Army.
The sacrificial content of the leadership ethos built up over decades has served the Country well. But far more important, the ranks know for certain that there will be no directive commands by electronics or remote control.
A common perception of the army officer is that of a large, moustachioed, 'Neanderthal' with overhanging brows getting very physical round the clock. Another is that the real creme de la creme of the high school levels would never think of joining up. It never strikes the common observer that neither a gorilla nor a budding CV Raman, nor a future chief executive of, say, an ice cream manufacturing company may necessarily have combat leadership traits. Academic brilliance is just one plus point, and that is all that has been displayed by a teenager prefering to move into the civilian professional life at that point. If a young man cannot translate his manifest intelligence and brilliance into fast life-and-death decision-making in the field - or wishes to preserve his attributes for 'better' occasions when faced with a sticky situation, he is better utilized in an office, college or laboratory than on a battlefield. That is where he naturally belongs.
The training of the Indian army officer is meant to subsume his persona under a very demanding but explicit code. Which is given as under :-
"THE SAFETY, HONOUR AND WELFARE OF
YOUR COUNTRY COME FIRST, ALWAYS AND EVERY TIME.
THE HONOUR, WELFARE AND COMFORT OF
THE MEN YOU COMMAND COME NEXT.
YOUR OWN EASE, COMFORT AND SAFETY COME LAST,
ALWAYS AND EVERY TIME."
As the young officer grows in services he obtains professional training which helps to slot him into his increasing responsibilities. These training institutions were created from scratch. At their apex stands the National Defence College. In between are the professional All Arms and Services 'colleges' and special managerial expertise is provided by Corps and Service schools and colleges. Standing at the top here is the College of Defence Management. At the Higher Command levels the leader and the manager merge imperceptibly.
The phrase 'teeth and tail' has been hounding the Army ever since a manager with a piquant turn of phrase slotted it into the military lexicon some forty years ago. Someone will have to decide that if the teeth, (meaning the arms) are really to be effective, should not the tail (the logistic corps and services) be more aptly called the gums?
The underpinning of any force is the support services especially in the context of the terrain that we fight in. it is also an unfortunate fact that the more modern and sophisticated a field force, the logistic back-up rises exponentially to maintain it in reasonable shape. When a 50-tonne tank trundles past a saluting base, having replaced a 40-tonne tank, the general populace are appreciative of this new war machine not realizing that, probably, the logistic support to it has gone up 2.5 times. This needs to be known.
The Army Medical Corps gives pride of place in protocol and otherwise to the Military Nursing Service. Together with the Army Dental Corps, the medical services provide a composite, wide-spectrum, morale-boosting blanket of comfort. The men of this corps commence work from the forward-most line of contact. Their war record citations and awards bear testimony to their crucial function. 60 (Parachute) Field Ambulance became a favourite not only in the Commonwealth Division but with all formations of the United Nations Army in Korea. They brought home a Presidential Unit Citation.
The Army Service Corps (ASC) handles all supply and transport aspects while the Army Ordnance Corps (AOC) holds and issues close on half a million items held on inventory. The troika is formed by the Electrical and Mechanical Engineers who provide light to factory-level repairs to everything the Army uses. With their forward repair teams based on customized armoured vehicles, they function within a battlefield, recovering equipment casualties from their point of collapse. In Chhamb - 1971, six medium guns became immobile when their lyres burnt out. The enemy was sweeping the area with machine guns, at line of sight; yet working against time and hostile fire the guns were refitted, recovered, given a quick thump on the barrel and put back in action in less than 24 hours. Back at base workshop, they strip and rebuild anything that the Army owns be it fighting vehicles, electronics, or data processing equipment.
The Red Caps - the Military Police - are really not providing a service. It is a mix of service and combat visibility, the men being chosen for their presence'. They are the most visible form of military discipline and they do so even-handedly right to brigade levels.
Another keeper of the Army's morale is the Postal Corps. Today they dispense insurance, and other facilities of a standard post office of the Indian Union at any point where a unit of the Indian Army is sent. Mail and smiles go together.
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gentlemonkey reacted to Pablo Sanchez in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 13, 2017
the FUCKING HORROR Over the last few days I've just been trying to process this incredible loss to the extended social circle I am a part of as well as the extended community of music fans and musicians everywhere. It has been almost impossible to sit down and put fingers to keyboard because I really wish I could pretend it wasn't real. Brad was, well Brad. A total one of a kind. Legit, straight up unicorn. Based on the many many talks we had about an endless variety of music, I feel that Brad captured and held captive that amazing and beautiful feeling of positivity and endless possibility in terms of his experience of music.( Not to say he wasn't opinionated about things. He certainly would tell you how he felt. Straight faced. No bullshit.) But he was far less jaded than I or (especially) my older music fanatic friends. I feel like he really was just searching for the beauty in the music all the time. I'm sure everyone can picture Brad's facial expression after a set of music he loved. When it came to music, he was passionate. Constanty. In a way I wish I could be. That positivity was all around Brad's character. Guaranteed big hug, a cheers, maybe a shot. We could both go off on whatever guitar player or band had been blowing our minds in between having seen each other. When Brad retired I remember congratulating him and he had the best response... (imagine BradM voice) "Well Dave, in the 90's I didn't go out so much, I didn't have a girlfriend, and I didn't have a hard drug habit. So I saved a lot of money". Indeed! Every time I think about that, I laugh. As a musician, you really couldn't ask for anything more. Someone who pays close attention but is really actively seeking the beauty out of every moment. That being said, if you really stunk it up and managed to talk with Brad before he left, he wouldn't bullshit you. His mark on the Ottawa music community was massive. So much so that I think any of us will have a hard time even comprehending the scope of it. I'll tell my story, but then just imagine the hundreds of other musicians and thousands of listeners that were gifted so much by Brad. I'm very fortunate that Brad took an interest in every musical thing I did or tried to do. If it weren't for Brad, there would likely have never been any nero reunion shows. Because I had to figure out how to play that stuff somehow! lol. I can't tell you how many times I have been thanking Brad at my desk while trying to figure out how I played something. That's really just completely secondary though to the real gifts I got from Brad. I am a completely disorganized mess in terms of my music. I also have failed to plan ahead in any aspect of it. I'm so thankful that Brad recorded things that surely would have slipped into the ether. Brad was at almost every show that I ever performed in Ottawa. He also made it to a bunch of Toronto ones. Just going back and looking at a couple of things I found an early solo show with a song I had written for my infant son. Totally something I had lost track of. I was able to download it and email my now 12 year old son the song to hear. That is really something. Really a gift that Brad gave me. He also recorded a show that was a day after my grandfather passed. I did a cover of Daniel Lanois "the maker". I remember playing a solo in it and thinking about my grandfather and the bigger picture kinda stuff. Upon relistening, the solo isn't great. hahaha. But I know what was happening for me in that moment and I can go back and experience it. Thanks to Brad. Take those kinds of moments and multiply it by the hundreds of musicians he recorded. He really gave a lot. I'll miss him very much.
gentlemonkey got a reaction from TheGoodRev in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 11, 2017
This loss is still quite surreal, but I find it so touching to read these thoughts on this forum that he clearly loved, and to which he also contributed so much. Especially, accompanied by some familiar avatars/handles long unseen.. It's also truly heartwarming to look back on some of Brad's (often really impressive) writings, and to remember that we really made a difference in his life, just by being a welcoming pack of weirdos. He was truly a human adhesive for this strange collective, keeping records, keeping track. We will miss you bud. RIP Bradm
gentlemonkey reacted to DevO in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 11, 2017
So very sorry to hear this news. RIP BradM. I did not know Brad well, but he was such a fixture in this scene for such a long time - at shows and of course in this forum. It was always a pleasure chatting with him during a set break, and I've enjoyed his recordings over the years. His presence will be missed. Aloha BradM!
gentlemonkey reacted to phorbesie in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 11, 2017
What a huge and tragic shock. This leaves such a big hole in our lives and hearts. I just cannot imagine going out in Ottawa and not seeing him there. I used to think I went to a lot of concerts until I met Brad! He was an inspiration, so dedicated to the love of music and always sharing it with everyone. He was one of the first people I met when I moved to Ottawa, of course, as he was always at any show that I attended. He also introduced me to Velvet, for which I cannot thank him enough. We will miss him so much. Rest in peace Brad.
gentlemonkey reacted to dave-O in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 11, 2017
Such devastating news. I'm still searching for the words to express my sadness.
Obviously he is a legend in our community. Brad was a kind friend and a trusted and generous travel companion. A gentleman and a scholar. He will be missed dearly. Aloha.
gentlemonkey reacted to Velvet in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 11, 2017
My goodness, BradM was such a great friend. We went to Europe together, we saw countless, and I mean countless shows together, he introduced me to my wife, he was ALWAYS the first to arrive at every party I’ve thrown since I’ve known him, he was THE most dedicated music fan I’ve ever known (and in our crowd that’s saying a lot), and of course he recorded every band I’ve been a part of for the last…what…fifteen years? There are so many songs/lyrics/chord changes I would have forgotten if I didn’t have his recordings to go back to. He was so friendly, so smart, and so damn punctual. I mean, if a ticket said “8pm" BradM would be in the room by 7:30.
For years - and I mean years - every time I saw BradM he would pull a handful of CD's out of his ever-present backpack that he had specifically burnt for me. They might be a show we had seen together, a show I had recently played, or some local band he had recorded that he thought I should hear. I have literally boxes and boxes of these CD's, and so do a lot of other people. Go ahead, put up your hand if BradM ever gave you a CD. The man was so unbelievably thoughtful.
BradM, I loved you. We all loved you. You were an indispensable, necessary, and utterly unique member of our social circle. You helped make it a community. You were so supportive. Man, you will be so, so very missed.
gentlemonkey reacted to Stapes in Horrible news for our community: RIP BradM November 11, 2017
When I sat down to write this it occurred to me that over the last 16 years or so, more often than not, if I was at a live music event BradM was there. If it was a random last minute night out to see live music, more often than not, BradM was there. If it was a show I felt was worth traveling for, more often than not BradM was there. If it was one one one of those magic shows that I still reminisce about occasionally, more often than not, BradM was there. And more often than not, he caught some of that magic on tape and made it available to the world to enjoy. BradM was a pillar of this community and I am deeply saddened that he is gone. It pains me to think that I won't ever see Brad bound across the bar toward me again or enjoy his enthusiasm for great music. When my face is melting in the future I will do my best to remember "this is why BradM taped". Aloha BradM
gentlemonkey got a reaction from DevO in Dave Bidini on Joni Mitchell's darkness December 1, 2014
Love both the Rheostatics, and Joni Mitchell, and respect them both immensely.
I don't think Joni's music requires her to be a politician. Unlike Bidini, and his every-man/every-fan union leader position in Can-Rock. Joni doesn't require the same nice-ness, or approachable enthusiasm, or the explicit artist-audience interaction that defines Bidini's career, because her songs are that good, and her career is that unique. Sometimes assholes make the best art, so I guess deal with it. He has no right to make suggestions about her personality, or opinions- and this piece definitely comes across as desperate, or something... Maybe this is an intentional error in judgement which will eventually act as the opening chapter in a new book about Joni Mitchell? One where after this article, a public feud, and eventual teary reconciliation at the Junos, Bidini is finally invited to meet her for an extensive retreat/interview at her B.C. home, and thoughtfully reflects on stories from her career, and his own, while driving his Chrysler LeBaron across Canada.
gentlemonkey got a reaction from phorbesie in Dave Bidini on Joni Mitchell's darkness December 1, 2014
gentlemonkey got a reaction from bouche in Vintage Trouble coming to Mavericks, Sept 24 August 9, 2014
Too bad about their stupid name!
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World leaders on biased UNSC resolution; NZ waits.
Shalom. Kiwi 05/01/2017 Comments Off on World leaders on biased UNSC resolution; NZ waits. 1,562 Views
While the passing of the controversial UNSC Resolution 2334 on the eve of Christmas and Hanukkah went under the radar of many, a number of world leaders have spoken out. Even members of Obama’s own party are appalled at the stance taken by the United States; UK Prime Minister Theresa May has rebuked John Kerry for focussing on Israeli settlements; and Australia, a country without a seat at the Security Council, has called the resolution “one-sided” and “deeply unsettling”. However, New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English is yet to comment, despite repeated calls for him to do so.
Fifteen countries sit on the United Nations Security Council. On 24 December 2016 (NZT), when resolution 2334 was adopted, half of the ten non-permanent members were considered “Free” democracies by the UK based Economist Intelligence Unit.
New Zealand had the highest Democracy Index of all fifteen nations, yet joined Venezuela (a “Hybrid regime”), Senegal, and Malaysia (both “Flawed democracies”) to co-sponsor the text prepared by Egypt (“Authoritarian”).
Regardless of how democratic a country is, the votes at the UNSC are cast by individual representatives who may not be fully supported by the citizens they represent. There are suggestions that New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, did not seek cabinet approval before sponsoring or voting for the text. There is also evidence to suggest the United States colluded with the Palestinians and Egypt to formulate the text of the resolution, despite US denial.
United States President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry abandoned a longstanding practice of using the US veto power against biased resolutions when they abstained from the vote, prompting bipartisan outrage from congress. The US also allegedly helped develop the text, which would include abandonment of longstanding US policies, including land-for-peace, opposing the discriminatory BDS movement, and insisting that the parties to the conflict must resolve their differences.
Despite UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson casting the UK vote for the resolution, Prime Minister Theresa May has spoken out against the aggressive and biased rhetoric of Obama and John Kerry in their “lame duck” period. She said:
We do not believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex… The [UK] Government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community” Theresa May
Russia was another country that voted for the resolution but, after the vote, issued a statement criticizing the way it was brought to the Security Council, in a surprise move just a day after Egypt pulled its own proposal on the matter. The Russian statement said
Our experience shows convincingly that a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is only possible through direct talks between Palestinians and Israelis without any preconditions.” Russian government
Not all nations have waded into commentary on the anti-Israel resolution. However, Australia – a country that does not have a seat at the Security Council – has condemned the resolution. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull affirmed his country’s support for a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, which he said could only come about through direct negotiations between the parties, a stance Israel has repeatedly put forward. This follows Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop saying Canberra “has consistently not supported one-sided resolutions targeting Israel” and would have voted against resolution 2234. This is consistent with an interview Bishop gave in 2014, in which she said West Bank settlements should not be referred to as “illegal” and
I don’t think it’s helpful to prejudge the settlement issue if you’re trying to get a negotiated solution. And by deeming the activity as a war crime, it’s unlikely to engender a negotiated solution.” Julie Bishop
The only democratic country to be more fiercely opposed to the resolution is Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the resolution in the symbolic act of lighting Hannukah candles at the Western Wall (which the resolution considers part of “occupied Palestinian territories”). He reportedly said “Israel is strong, and I won’t let us be spit on. We will respond forcefully.” Israel has also recalled ambassadors to Senegal and New Zealand.
The less-than-democratic world leaders have praised the resolution. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar not only welcomed the resolution but also praised John Kerry for the proposal that Theresa May rebuked. Fatah has publicly thanked the Security Council for the resolution, using a cartoon of Israel being used as a knife and Hamas also praised the resolution, with a spokesperson saying
We expect further support for the Palestinians’ righteous cause of ending the occupation.” Fawzi Barhoum
While all these leaders have spoken out, Kiwis wait. Even though New Zealand co-sponsored the text and voted for the resolution, Kiwis wait for comment from their leaders. Despite protests, a letter to the Prime Minister and petitions, concerned New Zealanders wait for a response from their Prime Minister.
Shalom.Kiwi’s contributors are a mix of Māori, Pakeha, Jewish and non-Jewish New Zealanders, who have all spent considerable time in Israel. http://shalom.kiwi/
Tags Bill English John Kerry United Nations UNSC resolution
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Pentucket Teacher to Train Educators Nationwide in Eureka Math
WEST NEWBURY -- A 13-year veteran of Pentucket Regional School District has been hired to travel the country this summer to teach other educators about the Eureka Math program.
February 18, 2020 Kelsey Bode Client News, School News
February 18, 2020 by Kelsey Bode
Sara Treem, a Title I math teacher at the Donaghue Elementary School, has been selected to train educators across this country in the Eureka Math program for 10 days this summer. (Courtesy Photo Pentucket Regional School District)
WEST NEWBURY — A 13-year veteran of Pentucket Regional School District has been hired to travel the country this summer to teach other educators about the Eureka Math program.
Sara Treem, a Title I math teacher at the Donaghue Elementary School for students in grades three through six, will travel for 10 days this summer to train educators in the Eureka Math program.
Eureka Math is a Great Minds curriculum that teaches students mathematics by using real-life examples. The curriculum also helps students to build on their mathematics knowledge gradually, helping them to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the subject.
Great Minds is an organization which offers professional development, webinars, online resources, and instructional materials and tools to help educators implement curriculum which support student’s deep, comprehensive understanding of several subjects, including math, English, science and history.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for Sara to expand her understanding of implementing the Eureka curriculum and hone that knowledge, and we’re excited for the insight she’ll be able to share with other math educators here at Pentucket after this experience as well,” Superintendent Justin Bartholomew said.
The Eureka Math curriculum was implemented districtwide at Pentucket two years ago, and Treem participated in Eureka trainings in the summers of 2018 and 2019.
“As a result of this curriculum, we’re able to really make sure students are connecting with the subject, understanding the concepts they’re learning about and building a deeper knowledge of mathematics that will support them as they return to math throughout their lives,” Treem said.
Treem will attend two three-day trainings in March and April of this year in New Orleans to prepare her for her role this summer.
She’s already organized several Eureka professional development opportunities for her peers at Pentucket along with others trained in the program, and plans to expand on those trainings after attending the trainings in New Orleans later this spring.
“I am really excited to be able to bring back what I learn to share with my peers here at Pentucket,” Treem said.
Client News, School News
eureka, eureka math, eureka math curriculum, great minds, Math, mathematics, Pentucket, professional development
Pentucket Regional School District
Superintendent Dr. Justin Bartholomew
West Newbury, MA 01985
Media Contact: Kelsey Bode
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Depression study on HSPers
Posted - September 2009 in Living with HSP - Management & Treatment News
Condition found to be prevalent
Over half the population in a depression study of HSPers were diagnosed as depressed.
Three-quarters of those with depression had mild depression, with most of the rest having moderate depression.
A link was established between depression and mobility, with those least mobile experiencing worse depression.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence of depression and sensitivity and specificity of the single-item interview ‘Are you depressed?’ for people with hereditary spastic paraplegia in Estonia.
DESIGN: Single-item interview ‘Are you depressed?’ was used as a screening question for depression; all participants then completed the Beck Depression Inventory.
SETTING: People with hereditary spastic paraplegia identified from the epidemiological database who agreed to participate in the study.
MAIN MEASURES: Beck Depression Inventory, clinical interview.
RESULTS: The epidemiological database consisted of 59 patients with clinically confirmed diagnosis of hereditary spastic paraplegia. Forty-eight of these consented to participate in the study. The Beck Depression Inventory score was higher than cut-off point in 58% (28/48) and lower in 42% (20/48). Of the study group, 44% (21/48) had mild, 13% (6/48) moderate and one person revealed severe depression. There was a statistically significant correlation between Beck Depression Inventory score and level of mobility; no other significant correlations with other measures were detected. Of the participants, 54% (26/48) had subjective complaints about depression and answered ‘Yes’ to the single-item interview ‘Are you depressed?’. The sensitivity of the one-item interview in the hereditary spastic paraplegia group was 75% and specificity 75%.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that mild depression is prevalent among people with hereditary spastic paraplegia. Although the single question may be helpful, it cannot be relied upon entirely when assessing a person for depression.
SOURCE: Clin Rehabil. 2009 Sep;23(9):857-61. Epub 2009 Jun 26
The prevalence of depression in hereditary spastic paraplegia.
Vahter L, Braschinsky M, Haldre S, Gross-Paju K.
Neurology Department, West-Tallinn Central Hospital, Tallinn and Institute of Psychology, University of Tallinn, Tallinn, Estonia. [email protected]
Estonian HSP Study
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The HSP Research Foundation Incorporated ABN 46648875912 is an Income Tax Exempt Charity endorsed by the ATO as a Deductible Gift Recipient organisation.
Information on this website and resources to which we have links are general knowledge about HSP. We are not medical professionals, nor do we offer medical advice. Always consult your own medical professionals regarding your particular circumstances.
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Preseason Predictions
benmillerbenmiller
Post by benmillerbenmiller » Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:00 am
With the 2017-2018 season just a few weeks away, now seems about right to begin the ever enjoyable/futile process of preseason prognostication. To toss my two cents in, I compiled personal predictions for how the top 15 teams will shake out next year, based primarily on the performance of returning players at national tournaments. Rather than specifically ranking teams, I decided to only pick a number one and then classify everyone else into tiers. Obviously, this all comes with the normal caveats about preseason predictions, particularly the difficulty of assessing teams which did not compete prominently with underclassmen.
Alright, here goes-
Thomas Jefferson HSST (Alexandria, VA)
TJ spent all of last season comically underranked, partially because they entered the year with one fewer Ryan Golant then they had before. Though TJ entered nationals at #15 in the Pre-Nats poll and #21 in HSQBRank, they resoundingly asserted their top-tier quality, placing fourth at both HSNCT and PACE. Led by Rohan Hegde, TJ offered consistent, exceptionally well-rounded play and demonstrated a knack for winning close games, taking all eight games they played at PACE which were settled within a one question swing.
While other teams ended their seasons on similarly impressive notes, no other club returns as much talent as TJ. All five players who played on TJ A at HSNCT or PACE return next year, and they lose only one player from their excellent B team (a top 30 finisher at both nationals).
Think about it this way: In 2016, DCC B also placed top-5 at both nationals and returned their whole team. This past season, that DCC team came in a close second at HSNCT and went undefeated at PACE. TJ did even better at nationals than 2016 DCC B, and also returns everyone. Look out.
Championship Contenders (not ranked, in arbitrary order)
Dublin Scioto (Dublin, OH)
Amidst Jakob Myers’ individual dominance last season, it is easy to overlook just how much success Dublin Scioto’s Clark Smith enjoyed. Of particular note is Clark’s exceptional performance at PACE, during which his 132 ppg led Dublin to an impressive fifth-place finish with a near defeat of DCC along the way. Clark enters the 2017-2018 season as the best effectively-solo player in high school quizbowl, with a real shot to eclipse Jakob’s exploits from last year. His breadth and depth of knowledge give Dublin a credible chance at a national championship next spring.
Detroit Catholic Central (Novi, MI)
After a dominating season, DCC returns this year with an imposing, if not necessarily equivalent, roster. Only Robert Crawford remains from last year’s championship team, but he will be joined by rising members of DCC’s stellar B team. Though the Shamrocks don’t enter the season with the same aura of preeminence as last year, their personnel depth and unbeatable commitment cause them to rank among the best teams in the country. Given how often and successfully they compete, I would not be surprised to see DCC A hold the #1 pre-nationals spot in HSQBRank for the fourth year in a row.
Hunter (New York, NY)
The back-to-back HSNCT champs enter the 2017 season without Luke Tierney, the leading man for both of their national championships. But Luke represents Hunter A’s sole loss, as the rest of last season’s squad remains in place. Just as importantly, Hunter is poised to promote Daniel Ma, who led Hunter B to great finishes at both national tournaments. Daniel could well become equivalently skilled as Luke very soon, and if you acknowledge the shadow effect depressing the stats of Hunter A’s returning talent, a HSNCT three-peat does not seem unreasonable.
James E. Katy Taylor (Katy, TX)
William Golden continued his excellent high school career by leading Katy Taylor to a Texas Invitational win and a T-5 placing at HSNCT. If William can continue to improve as a player and maintain his stunningly low neg rate, Katy will easily be a top five team next year. The question of whether Katy can win a national title probably comes down to the team’s secondary scorers, most of whom return this season. If they grow enough to offer William top-flight support (think Luke Tierney and Hunter last season), then Katy could emerge as an HSNCT favorite.
Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy (Austin, TX)
Last year represented a rebuilding year for LASA, who finished outside the top-5 at HSNCT for the first time since 2009. But LASA will enter this season in strength, combining Graham Stockton, arguably their best player last season, with members of a stacked B team, the highest ranked second team at HSNCT. In particular, rising sophomore Chinmay Murthy appears ready to build off his exemplary rookie performance. If Chinmay becomes the all-world player he projects to be, LASA will become a tough team to beat.
Canyon Crest (San Diego, CA)
Like TJ, Canyon Crest returns all four members of an excellent 2016-2017 team. Though not nearly as dominant as TJ last year, Canyon Crest nonetheless posted a serious of impressive regular season wins (including the NAQT SoCal Championship) en route to a 13th place finish at PACE marked with wins over Dorman, LASA, and Naperville. Given another year of growth and a little more consistency, Canyon Crest could be an interesting dark horse championship candidate.
Probable Powerhouses (not ranked, in arbitrary order)
Lehigh Valley (Bethlehem, PA)
Alex Schmidt is at least high school quizbowl’s second best effectively-solo player and maintains a huge upside with top-5 potential.
Beavercreek (Beavercreek, OH)
After an okay showing at HSNCT, Beavercreek excelled at PACE. Hari Parameswaran with another year of growth is an intimidating notion.
Arcadia (Arcadia, CA)
Arcadia returns much of a solid 2016-2017 team, including lead scorers Matt Forster and Andrew Hoagland. With some growth and luck, Arcadia could challenge Canyon Crest for the Southern California title.
Chattahoochee (Johns Creek, GA)
Only Kevin Huang returns from last year’s excellent team, but the omnipresent depth of Chattahoochee’s program gives them a chance at equaling last year’s success.
Montgomery Blair (Silver Spring, MD)
Yes, I’m ranking my own team here, but not without due cause. Blair returns all but one player from a team which placed 15th HSNCT, and we have a deep bench of rising talent from last year’s solid B team. Hopefully we can give TJ a run for their money in the DC metro.
Adlai Stevenson (Lincolnshire, IL)
Stevenson loses Ali Saeed and much of their high-caliber team from last year, but rising sophomore Govind Prabhakar could easily grow into an all-world player.
Rockford Auburn (Rockford, IL)
Ethan Strombeck was very impressive at PACE and NASAT last season, and with some development, Rockford Auburn could compete with Stevenson (and Fremd) for best team in Illinois.
Richard Montgomery (Rockville, MD)
After comically terrible luck during the HSNCT playoffs, Richard Montgomery rebounded with a strong showing at PACE. All of RM’s PACE team returns next year, and given their science and history depth, they could break into the top 10.
Those fifteen teams probably leave out very worthy schools that I either undervalued or skipped over. For instance, Ed Clark (led by NASAT lad scorer Eshaan Vakil) could make waves, as could Alex Donovan’s MICDS. Traditionally strong teams like Lexington, Dorman, Ladue, and St. John’s all have the depth to compete at a very high level, while teams like Homestead, Darien, and Davis could hold their ground despite significant departures. Fremd also deserves a mention, though their lack of nationals play makes them difficult to assess.
I hope you found these thoughts somewhat interesting or informative. If you think my rankings are out-of-whack, do share your own. I’m curious to see everyone’s perspective on the upcoming season.
Montgomery Blair High School '18 | UChicago '22
NAQT Writer, Editor
username_crisis_averted
Re: Preseason Predictions
Post by username_crisis_averted » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:23 pm
I think Northview and Detroit Country Day deserve a mention as other top 30-ish teams that didn't lose their top scorer. Northview in particular is a team of all sophomores that should be much better this season. I would probably also bump Stevenson into the upper category as the team has a lot of talent right now in addition to Govind.
Besides that, I'd say your rankings look pretty accurate.
Last edited by username_crisis_averted on Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kevin Kodama
Oak Park River Forest '19
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov
Location: Lexington, MA
Post by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:29 pm
I don't want to get roasted for arguing my team is underrated, so I'll just say that I think Lehigh will outperform many people's expectations, and that Chattahoochee's B team was quite good last season and I could see their A team being among the best this season. I don't really see how Dorman will be anywhere near the top 15 this season but I am happy to be proved wrong.
Nick Rommel
Lexington Quizbowl President '17-'18
"Cloud forests in this mountain range-" BUZZ "Andes Mountains"
A Dim-Witted Saboteur
Location: Lansing
Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur » Thu Aug 17, 2017 12:29 pm
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov wrote: I don't want to get roasted for arguing my team is underrated, so I'll just say that I think Lehigh will outperform many people's expectations, and that Chattahoochee's B team was quite good last season and I could see their A team being among the best this season. I don't really see how Dorman will be anywhere near the top 15 this season but I am happy to be proved wrong.
That's a shame because your team is actually underrated
Jakob Myers
MSU '21, Naperville North (IL) '17
"No one has ever organized a greater effort to get people interested in pretending to play quiz bowl"
-Ankit Aggarwal
They/them, retired
Post by benmillerbenmiller » Thu Aug 17, 2017 5:29 pm
Not sure how I missed Northview; they definetly seem cut out for a top 15 season. And to your point Nick, I definetly think Lehigh and Chattahoochee are top-10 teams, even if my tiering sort of obscured that.
chandlerparks
Location: Roebuck, SC
Post by chandlerparks » Fri Aug 18, 2017 5:02 pm
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov wrote: I don't really see how Dorman will be anywhere near the top 15 this season but I am happy to be proved wrong.
I think I speak for the entire Dorman A-team when I say that we would love nothing more than to prove you wrong, Nick. I guess our game against you at HSNCT wasn't enough proof for you.
Chandler Parks
Dorman '18
Post by AGoodMan » Fri Aug 18, 2017 6:58 pm
username_crisis_averted wrote: I would probably also bump Stevenson into the upper category as the team has a lot of talent right now in addition to Govind.
Olivia Lamberti is returning after a year of not playing, meaning Stevenson (re)gains a very good lit player.
Jon Suh
Wheaton Warrenville South High School '16
Post by username_crisis_averted » Fri Aug 18, 2017 8:52 pm
AGoodMan wrote:
Yes- that was partly what I was referring to. It's also worth noting that Deepak is a great player in his own right (see Ultima stats) and Stevenson boasts an impressive bench of great history players in addition to Govind (Conrad, Chris, Arjun).
Post by High Dependency Unit » Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:22 pm
It's worth noting that Darien is not underrated and is definitely in rebuild mode, though the A team remain in the top 50. As for top tier predictions, I think Dublin Scioto and DCC should be the favorites at NSC (Dublin over DCC) and Hunter and Taylor should be the favorites at HSNCT. TJ will be top 4 at both but I wouldn't name them the favorite.
nsb2
Location: Berkeley, CA
Post by nsb2 » Sat Aug 19, 2017 6:40 pm
Here's my general ranking of teams for the coming year. Just a caveat: these are my personal opinions based on playing these teams/seeing their stats, and I'd be happy to see surprises in the national circuit this season.
I think TJ are an incredibly well-rounded team, and I could see them winning both of HSNCT and PACE (though winning both national tournaments is unlikely in practice). Having four contributing players gives them a slight edge over Dublin Scioto at PACE; Clark Smith is incredibly good already and will only improve over the coming year. I'd consider Taylor to be TJ's toughest competition at HSNCT, since William can only get better and has pretty good team support.
Below those teams, I think Stevenson, DCC, Canyon Crest (although I haven't seen them play), and possibly LASA and Northview will also contend for HSNCT and/or PACE titles. Several teams led (in terms of points) by non-seniors (like Ed Clark, Auburn, and Oak Park-River Forest (who are underrated due to lack of tournament attendance)) will probably be more prominent in the coming years but could also jump into this category.
Since people have been talking about their own teams, I have a few thoughts on IMSA. Of the consistent A-team players last season, IMSA loses only me and Nathaniel, with replacements in nearly all subject areas. IMSA will probably be at least a top-50 team next year; whether they can press on and make the top 10 depends on how much my former teammates study.
If they do study, the ingredients are all there for a very deep run at nationals. The coach is Dennis Loo, who set up TJ for their status as favorites this year. Hanson is in the same place, ability-wise, that I was sophomore year, and if he studies consistently and prioritizes quizbowl, he could become much better than I was last year. Especially if Shivani, Becky, upcoming history player Vinay, and some incoming sophomores continue improving, I'd definitely put IMSA into the contenders category.
Good luck to all high school teams for the season ahead!
Pranav Sivakumar
Barrington Station MS '13, Barrington High School --> IMSA '17
UC Berkeley '21
Post by username_crisis_averted » Sat Aug 19, 2017 7:33 pm
nsb2 wrote: Oak Park-River Forest (who are underrated due to lack of tournament attendance)) will probably be more prominent in the coming years but could also jump into this category.
What is an "Oak Park River Forest"
vathreya
Post by vathreya » Fri Aug 25, 2017 7:38 pm
The thing about TJ and other underranked teams is that their performance, especially at national tournaments, is highly variable. Teams like this tend to rely on tossup conversion instead of bonuses to win games, and while that certainly does produce results, it's also more susceptible to change (i.e. if a few players choke for a round, or if a team gets caught in a spiral of unlucky negs). So, while TJ does remain the number one contender at both national tournaments, I don't think a win will be guaranteed for them.
Vikshar Athreya
MSJ/Escobar'18
UW'22
As a NorCal player, I'd like to add some insight about teams from my region that are usually overlooked in analyses like these:
I think the Crystal Springs Uplands School could also do very well this season. They graduate no one, and in their first HSNCT they stormed to a T-41 finish (and player Justin French was an all-world honorable mention). While their performance wasn't as good as many of the other teams listed here, I think taking into consideration the fact that they basically stormed out of nowhere to become a formidable team in both their region and the nation, they could potentially break into the top tier of teams.
In addition to the Crystal Springs Uplands School, I think the Harker School, as well as Homestead and Davis could also breach the top tier.
Post by benmillerbenmiller » Sat Aug 26, 2017 1:51 pm
vathreya wrote: The thing about TJ and other underranked teams is that their performance, especially at national tournaments, is highly variable. Teams like this tend to rely on tossup conversion instead of bonuses to win games, and while that certainly does produce results, it's also more susceptible to change (i.e. if a few players choke for a round, or if a team gets caught in a spiral of unlucky negs). So, while TJ does remain the number one contender at both national tournaments, I don't think a win will be guaranteed for them.
I totally agree that TJ is not a lock for either national, but I don't think their style of play makes their performance particularly variable. This is a team that won all but one regular season tournament they played and reached the upper echelon of both HSNCT and PACE. Not to belabor a well-established point, but tossups are what win you games, and TJ is very, very good at getting tossups.
I'm not sure I understand your point here. TJ's roster is very well-balanced, which I would assume makes them less vulnerable to choking, and their PPB throughout the season + nationals was comparable to their top competition. In what respect are they "underranked"/variable?
Post by AKKOLADE » Sat Aug 26, 2017 9:52 pm
FWIW, TJ's aPPBs from were significantly better at HSNCT (26.41) and NSC (26.20) compared with their regular season (best @ POMMSS, 25.24). The absence of Rohan Hedge and Grant Li during most of the regular season were a major part of this.
Post by nsb2 » Sun Aug 27, 2017 12:02 am
The thing that, for me, really separates TJ from other top teams is the balanced nature of their team, which makes them more, rather than less, reliable.
Post by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov » Thu May 31, 2018 12:49 pm
chandlerparks wrote:
You're right, that wasn't enough proof, but your 77th place finish was.
browen
Post by browen » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:29 am
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov wrote:
I normally try to reduce tensions on the forums, but man this comment is pathetic. Jack Lewis pm'ed me because he couldn't believe you would dare to say something like this. How petty do you have to be to revive a thread from nine months ago? Did you not expect the first response after specifically calling a team out you cost your team a game against? Imagine how dumb it would have looked if I called out Montgomery Blair after our game on Saturday during the 2013 HSNCT? All you had to do Nick was to contribute your honest predictions, which if you haven't noticed were incorrect (I'm not trying knock either of those teams). I can assure you Nick that I made sure Chandler ate his crow on Sunday around 3:30, just about an hour before he found out you dropped six negs against Northview. Chandler has already offered to buy dinner for Akaash and Varun this weekend, and he's probably going to let them splurge on dessert after reading your comment.
Regardless, have a safe trip down tomorrow and good luck at the NSC.
Brian Owen
Dorman High School Assistant Coach (2014-present)
5/31/2009: Never Forget
Post by AKKOLADE » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:39 am
I'm pretty disappointed to see you decided to dig up a post that's ten months old to take a random shot at someone. This is incredibly classless.
Post by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov » Fri Jun 01, 2018 9:56 am
browen wrote:
This post was meant as banter, but my tone was hard to convey and it was a huge lapse in judgement anyway - I’m sorry for any offense it caused. I don’t want any long-term beef with Dorman or Northview, two teams I have enjoyed playing against in the past and admire greatly. Sadly, I’m not going to NSC, but good luck to you there!
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