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An infant boy, whose body was allegedly bent in half by his father's efforts to make the baby stop crying, died Tuesday, police said. The 6-month-old boy’s father, 30-year-old Robert Resendiz, called emergency authorities in Phoenix, Ariz., on Dec. 19 when his son stopped breathing, according to FOX10 Phoenix. He died two days later. WISCONSIN FATHER GETS 6 MONTHS FOR BEATING INFANT, BREAKING 20 BONES Initially, Resendiz reportedly told police he found his son unresponsive when he woke up, which the infant’s mother apparently contradicted. Resendiz later admitted he pressed his son’s legs over his head and bent his body in half until he was “limp,” KPNX reported. He also allegedly told police he bit the infant twice “out of frustration.” Doctors at Phoenix Children’s Hospital told police the infant suffered lacerations to his liver and pancreas, a wrist fracture and pattern bruising on his thigh. NEWLY-ENGAGED PREGNANT MOM, INFANT SON, KILLED BY ALLEGED DRUNK DRIVER IN CHRISTMAS EVE CRASH Doctors said the baby's injuries were “not survivable.” Resendiz, who KNXV reports is being held on $250,000 bond on child abuse charges, is reportedly due in court Wednesday.
THE WORD is MLSsoccer.com's regular long-form series focusing on the biggest topics and most intriguing personalities in North American soccer. This week, LA Galaxy beat writer Scott French goes across the hall at the StubHub Center to examine what the future could bring for Chivas USA in their search for a new home in Los Angeles, all the way from Exposition Park to the far eastern suburb of Pomona. Click the image above or here to view the locations in more detail. LOS ANGELES – Chivas USA have long desired a home of their own, and with their lease agreement to play at the StubHub Center expiring following the 2014 season, they need to do something about it. They've been looking around for a good five or six years now, surveying possibilities in and around Los Angeles, and if there isn't a hard deadline to make a decision of some sort, a soft deadline is soon approaching. Club management would like to have a more clear idea of things before the end of the year, but options are limited and somewhat complicated. They range from a chance at a new stadium adjacent to the iconic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum all the way to the eastern suburb of Pomona, where there’s land potentially for the taking, but no stadium in site. They've looked intently at five sites in their search for a new home, but it’s not yet clear which site presents the best, most realistic option, or if an even better location might present itself for a short or long-term solution. “We do need to look at different options, and that's what we're doing actively right now,” Dennis te Kloese, the sporting president of Chivas USA and mother club Club Deportivo Guadalajara, told MLSsoccer.com. “To predict something on where we are after this season and, most important, after next season is still a little bit up in the air. “We're actively looking at different options, looking into what's best for our ownership, best for our team, and best for our family.” --- (USA Today Sports) --- Not enough has gone right for Chivas USA since they arrived in MLS for the 2005 season, under the ownership of CD Guadalajara owner Jorge Vergara and his initial partner, Antonio Cué. Branding went somehwhat awry – the Chivas moniker didn't move the huge SoCal fan bases of Club América, Monarcas Morelia, Pumas UNAM, Cruz Azul, Santos Laguna and other Guadalajara rivals – and the roster, heavy on second-division Mexican players and with only aging winger Ramón Ramírez a recognizable star, didn't entice the many here who root for Guadalajara. Worse, Chivas USA failed to deliver on one of their initial promises: to bring a Mexican brand of soccer to the US professional game. They finished 4-22-6 in their first season, and a portion of their potential audience tuned out. But they came back the next season as the club enjoyed success in following years, including a first-place finish in the Western Conference in 2007 and four straight playoff appearances, under Bob Bradley and then Preki (and with Mexican legends Claudio Suárez and Francisco “Paco” Palencia in tow). Attendance was more than reasonable, too, with a reported 19,840 fans per game in 2006, good for second-best in the league, and then roughly 13,000-15,000 per game in the seasons to follow. But the club has since fallen on hard times. They have not made the playoffs since 2009, attendance is down this season to 8,200 per game, and they're languishing in last place in the West. And some fans’ antipathy to the Vergara, who last year bought out Cué and declared the club was seeking to return to its Mexican roots, hasn't helped. Neither does playing in the shadow of the LA Galaxy, one of MLS's signature franchises and Chivas USA's in-house rivals. The two sides will square off this Sunday in the latest edition of the SuperClasico, but most of the spotlight will be on the Galaxy, who have won the last two MLS Cup titles and boast such big-name stars as Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane. Technically, Chivas USA will be the away team on Sunday at StubHub Center. But in a sense, they are always the away team there. The 27,000-seat stadium in Carson is operated by Galaxy owner AEG. It is very clearly the Galaxy's home, while the Goats are merely tenants. “I think for every team, it needs to feel like home,” te Kloese said. “It needs to feel like the team is really defending its home.” Te Kloese, a former Chivas USA technical director whom Vergara brought in last December, has led Chivas' stadium search since coming on board, and he says with the arrival last month of new team president Arturo Gálvez, “the process will speed up a little bit.” The club has wanted a new home almost from the moment they began play in MLS, and much of it has to do with demographics. Carson is located in Los Angeles's South Bay region, far from the epicenter of Chivas's target fanbase. Greater Los Angeles is home to nearly 17 million people, roughly 40 percent of them are Hispanic, and the vast majority of those have Mexican roots. This is Chivas' target audience. That mandates proximity – and simple public-transportation options, te Kloese says – to the traditional Mexican communities in East LA, those surrounding downtown Los Angeles, and those south of downtown. This is where the club would like to be. --- (Photo by Scott French) --- The most highly publicized option is in Exposition Park, immediately south of the campus at the University of Southern California. Chivas USA and Major League Soccer have engaged in sporadic talks over several years with USC about potentially building a 22,000-seat stadium on the site of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, which sits next to the Coliseum. That move was all contingent upon USC taking control of both publicly owned facilities, and final approval for that arrived in early September. USC officials have not decided what they will do with the Sports Arena property, and it could be some time before they do so. It appears that the Coliseum itself is not a likely short-term option for Chivas USA and is certainly an unlikely answer for the long run – even though it has hosted international soccer exhibtions in the past. It's unclear how long the team wants to wait for the Sports Arena project to be completed. “I think the talks have been going on for a while now, and I think we should be very open to that,” te Kloese said. “I think we should take into account every possibility for us to take benefit of all the options and anything that can offer anything positive to our franchise, and one of the options is [the Sports Arena site].” At issue is how soon the site could be ready, and if USC decides to build a stadium at all. The university has been angling for years for control of the Coliseum and Sports Arena and finally took over operations in July, shortly after the governing board of the California Science Center – Los Angeles' science museum, also located in Exposition Park – unanimously authorized the final piece of a 98-year lease agreement last month. USC's first priority is to refurbish the 90-year-old, 93,607-seat Coliseum, the centerpiece of two Olympic games, former home to two NFL teams and now the Trojans' football home. The lease deal mandates that the university spend up to $100 million on improvements. Plans for the Sports Arena – a 54-year-old venue that was at different times in the past home to the NBA's Lakers and Clippers but also outlived its usefulness a while ago – haven't been finalized. The Coliseum Commission, the previous managers, in 2010 presented a draft environmental impact report that suggested two potential replacements: the 22,000-seat stadium and an amphitheater. USC could choose something else, too. “You won't notice a lot [of work in the complex] this year, because we just got control of it,” USC athletic director Pat Haden told ESPN Los Angeles last month. “There will be a few cosmetic things. ... Over the next year or so, we've got to develop a plan and a fundraising plan for what it's going to look like, but I don't think anything major is going to be taking place for another two years.” The proposed stadium would be designed to be shared by an MLS club and USC's women's soccer and women's lacrosse teams. It also could stage concerts and high school football games and would be an alternative to the Coliseum for international and club soccer matches. Vergara, always adamant that the club will remain in Los Angeles, said last November that he planned to reopen talks with USC. Both USC and Major League Soccer officials declined comment for this article when contacted by MLSsoccer.com, but MLS Commissioner Don Garber has voiced his support of the move in the past. “The league gets very engaged with all of our clubs in stadium development and, by the way, we're pretty good at it,” Garber said last November. “We've been working for the last year or so on a project here, we're going to continue now that [Chivas] ownership has been finalized and try to get that stadium back on track. It certainly was delayed for many, many months. We'll give them a call and hope they're still interested.” --- (Photo by Scott French) --- Chivas USA, however, also have interest elsewhere. East LA College's Weingart Stadium is in Monterey Park, and borders Unincorporated East Los Angeles, which in the 2010 US Census boasted 120,000 residents of Hispanic/Latino ethincity, 97 percent of the area's population. Like the StubHub Center, it is easily accessible via three major freeways – with a fourth, the northwest-southeast spine Santa Ana Freeway, also nearby – and the school, a community college, recently built a parking structure near the venue to alleviate the traffic crunch. The stadium, built in 1951 and refurbished in 1984 for the field hockey competition at the Los Angeles Olympics, holds 20,355 in all-bench seating, but the field is artificial turf surrounded by a running track that limits width. The press box and locker rooms would require ample rennovation. “I think we're open to it,” said East LA men's soccer coach Eddie Flores, who has been involved in preliminary talks with Chivas USA. “But until they finally decide to sit down and talk to the college, nothing's really happening." Vergara, te Kloese and Palencia, the former Chivas player who is now the club's director of soccer, have all toured Weingart during their search. “I think first of all, the location is one of the positives,” te Kloese said. “I think to make it an MLS facility, there obviously needs to be some remodeling. But if you're looking at a house to rent for your family, there are things that you look at: The location, the style of the house, but you need to look a little bit further also, with the vision of making with maybe some remodeling.” Said Flores: “We could have the stadium renovated for probably $50 million. I think that's a bargain, but I'm not shilling out the $50 million.” Before construction could begin, the usual paperwork – environmental impact reports, architectural plans, agreements on financing, etc. – would have to be approved. And the school is state property, so there's added bureaucracy to negotiate. “The logistics are going to be tough, because it's a public entity ...” Flores said. “The dynamics when they built [StubHub] Center, those dynamics probably exist here.” --- (Photo by Scott French) --- Those dynamics exist at Cal State Fullerton, too, but Titan Stadium is the only option that could feasibly serve as a home field as is. The facility, built in 1992, seats only 10,000 and the locker rooms are not up to par, but the stadium could be expanded – and Chivas USA think it could work as a short-term solution while a permanent home was built elsewhere. “Fullerton offers certain benefits and positive sides,” te Kloese said. “[It] has been a site for international games and games that are of impact, and that's what we're looking for.” Chivas USA and the Galaxy have played US Open Cup matches on the grass at Titan Stadium, which also has staged US men's and women's national team games. Fullerton is convenient for fans in Orange County, southeast Los Angeles County, the eastern San Gabriel Valley and western Inland Empire. Titan Stadium appears to be the team's most realistic short-term option at this point, according to a club source, but it's less appealing as a long-term solution. There is a substantial Hispanic population in north Orange County and the surrounding regions, but it's not particularly convenient for fans in the Mexican enclaves closer to downtown Los Angeles. Further south, the municipally owned, 10,000-seat Santa Ana Stadium would probably have to be torn down and rebuilt to be suitable. The stadium was home to the Santa Ana Winds/Fullerton Rangers in the PDL and has been a staple for semipro games for decades, but it's unlikely any serious renovations will be made in the name of soccer. Right now the stadium is used primarily for high school football, serving as the home field for powerhouse Mater Dei and the city's public schools. The adjacent parking structure is owned by the county, limiting revenue-sharing opportunities. And to the east, in Pomona, the site known as Fairplex (the Los Angeles County fairgrounds) is the most curious option of the group. Pomona is at the eastern edge of the county, a barrier of sorts between the San Gabriel Valley and the Inland Empire. But there is no stadium present – there's a horse track, a dragstrip and room to build – and it's a remote locale, not at all convenient from Los Angeles. There are other, smaller venues Chivas could peruse for short- or long-term solutions – Cerritos College in Norwalk, Veterans Stadium in Long Beach, Citrus College in Glendora, Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita – plus land in or near Irwindale, where Al Davis considered building a stadium for the NFL's Raiders a couple of decades ago, and in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the Inland Empire. Chivas USA arent’t looking at any of these, but they will play a friendly next Wednesday night against Veracruz at Citrus College's stadium. Maybe they'll like what they see. Te Kloese said the hope is “that our club and franchise can be of impact in a positive way in the Los Angeles area, and we need a good house for that." Now, however, it's about picking the right one. “I think there are more than enough opportunities,” he said. “I think from everybody we've spoken to, we feel there is an openness to discuss opportunities to do that, but we also need to be respectful to every agreement that we have, and we need to be careful. We need to be solid in our decision-making in looking for the best option.”
The American critique of the Asian crisis was correct. The countries involved were nominally capitalist but needed major reforms to create accountability and competitive markets. Something similar is true today of the United States . So I’d like to invite the finance ministers of Thailand , South Korea and Indonesia — whom I and other Americans deemed emblems of crony capitalism in the 1990s — to stand up and denounce American crony capitalism today. Capitalism is so successful an economic system partly because of an internal discipline that allows for loss and even bankruptcy. It’s the possibility of failure that creates the opportunity for triumph. Yet many of America’s major banks are too big to fail, so they can privatize profits while socializing risk. Photo The upshot is that financial institutions boost leverage in search of supersize profits and bonuses. Banks pretend that risk is eliminated because it’s securitized. Rating agencies accept money to issue an imprimatur that turns out to be meaningless. The system teeters, and then the taxpayer rushes in to bail bankers out. Where’s the accountability? It’s not just rabble-rousers at Occupy Wall Street who are seeking to put America’s capitalists on a more capitalist footing. “Structural change is necessary,” Paul Volcker , the former chairman of the Federal Reserve , said in an important speech last month that discussed many of these themes. He called for more curbs on big banks, possibly including trimming their size, and he warned that otherwise we’re on a path of “increasingly frequent, complex and dangerous financial breakdowns.” Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Likewise, Mohamed El-Erian, another pillar of the financial world who is the chief executive of Pimco, one of the world’s largest money managers, is sympathetic to aspects of the Occupy movement. He told me that the economic system needs to move toward “inclusive capitalism” and embrace broad-based job creation while curbing excessive inequality. “You cannot be a good house in a rapidly deteriorating neighborhood,” he told me. “The credibility and the fair functioning of the neighborhood matter a great deal. Without that, the integrity of the capitalist system will weaken further.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist, adds that some inequality is necessary to create incentives in a capitalist economy but that “too much inequality can harm the efficient operation of the economy.” In particular, he says, excessive inequality can have two perverse consequences: first, the very wealthy lobby for favors, contracts and bailouts that distort markets; and, second, growing inequality undermines the ability of the poorest to invest in their own education. “These factors mean that high inequality can generate further high inequality and eventually poor economic growth,” Professor Katz said. Does that ring a bell? So, yes, we face a threat to our capitalist system. But it’s not coming from half-naked anarchists manning the barricades at Occupy Wall Street protests. Rather, it comes from pinstriped apologists for a financial system that glides along without enough of the discipline of failure and that produces soaring inequality, socialist bank bailouts and unaccountable executives. It’s time to take the crony out of capitalism, right here at home.
Volunteers Moazzam Raja, left, and Zakariya Hassouneh call registered voters during a gathering of American Muslims working to gain votes for Hillary Clinton on Aug. 22. (Phelan M. Ebenhack for The Washington Post) Farooq Mitha’s friends, seated in a tight circle at a mosque here on a recent evening, told it to him straight. “This would be the easiest election to take Muslims for granted,” said Mohammad Mubarak, a lawyer, as several of the other Muslim American political activists nodded. The prospect of a Donald Trump presidency may frighten plenty of Muslim voters, the group told Mitha, but Hillary Clinton isn’t particularly popular, either. In the Democratic primaries, many Muslim voters backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Clinton was too hawkish for them — and may still be even if she earns their votes. And then there are voters such as Oz Sultan, a counterterrorism analyst and commentator in New York who calls himself “a lifelong conservative.” “I don’t think Hillary Clinton has the ability to keep our country safe,” he said Wednesday from his home in Harlem, after watching Trump speak at a national security forum. Sultan’s biggest concern is the Islamic State, and Clinton “has gone on a destabilizing spree,” he said, noting the Obama administration’s military offensive in Libya. Farooq Mitha, left, Vetnah Monessar, center, and Nadia Hassouneh chat during a gathering of American Muslims working to organize votes for Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in Orlando, Fla., Aug. 22, 2016. (Phelan M. Ebenhack/For The Washington Post) Registered Muslim American voters are a starkly diverse and growing constituency, and Mitha, 34, who was named Clinton’s Muslim outreach director last month, is trying to woo them all. Back in this Gulf Coast city where he grew up, he expected a tough crowd. He already had held roundtable discussions in Michigan, Ohio and Virginia, and he knew that some Muslims in his home town viewed Clinton as too right-wing or centrist on issues of domestic spying and Middle East policy. His counter: “I don’t think a presidential campaign has ever hired anyone to do Muslim outreach,” Mitha told his friends. The campaign has looked at the numbers and embarked on an unprecedented outreach to a voting bloc that has the potential to decide elections in several swing states, where support for Clinton has been ticking downward since the Democratic National Convention. Take Florida, where Clinton remains locked in a tight race with Trump. In a state where the 2000 presidential election was decided by a 537-vote margin for George W. Bush, there are about 180,000 registered voters who are Muslim, Arab and South Asian, the civic nonprofit group Emerge USA estimates. Two years ago, Muslims made up just under 1 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study. But the population is growing; Emerge USA, which collects data on Muslim voters and has a political action committee to support candidates, puts the number at closer to 2 percent of the population. Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia “alone add up to almost 1 million Muslim voters,” said Khurrum Wahid, a Miami-based lawyer and the organization’s founder. “With a decent voter turnout in those states, Muslims will be the swing vote in both the presidential and many close House races.” Most Muslim Americans now lean Democratic, according to the Pew study. In past decades, many were fiscally conservative, profamily and eager to see their cities get tough on crime. Surveys conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American Muslim Alliance in the aftermath of Bush’s 2000 election found that between 72 percent and 80 percent of Muslims polled said that they had voted for him. But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Bush’s rhetoric on religion and the decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, the majority began voting Democratic. At the same time, Muslims are generally less politically active than the larger American population; only 62 percent of those who were U.S. citizens were certain that they were registered to vote, compared with 74 percent of adult U.S. citizens overall, according to Pew. To reach those voters, the Clinton campaign has appointed two state-level Muslim outreach coordinators to work with Mitha, and the campaign also has dispatched Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, and Huma Abedin, Clinton’s close adviser and deputy campaign manager, to key swing states across the country. Ellison estimates that he has met with at least 10 Muslim groups since the July convention. One recent Monday morning, he showed up in a tiny Orlando doctor’s office where the campaign was holding its kickoff phone bank for Muslim volunteers and rattled off reasons Muslims should vote for Clinton. She has fought for children’s rights, he said. She stood up for Abedin when the Trump campaign attacked her. And she has gone out of her way to meet with Muslims, Ellison said, stopping in his home district of Minneapolis to meet with Somali American community leaders. “The Clinton campaign is more inclusive of the Muslim community than any presidential campaign that I’ve ever seen,” he told the group of phone bank volunteers that included doctors, lawyers, college students, Palestinian Americans, Guyanese Americans, Kenyan Americans and others. Sheer diversity One of Clinton’s challenges is the population’s sheer diversity. Nearly a third of all Muslim Americans are black, according to Pew, some of them with deep roots in a distinctly American sect, the Nation of Islam. About 8 in 10 Muslim Americans are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Muslim Americans come from different ethnic, linguistic and cultural backgrounds; span the economic spectrum; and have policy opinions and priorities that can be just as divergent, community leaders say. Some, like Sultan, are even likely to vote for Trump, who has called for a ban on Muslim immigrants and surveillance of mosques. “I know, personally, three doctors” who are voting for him, Azhar Subedar, an Islamic scholar, told Mitha in Tampa. The Trump campaign did not respond to questions about whether it is trying to attract Muslim voters or considers the constituency a potential tipping point in any swing states. This cycle, get-out-the-vote efforts are surging in Muslim communities. The Clinton campaign, Emerge USA, the Washington-based Arab American Institute, CAIR and a variety of smaller, local organizations, including mosques, have held voter registration drives, candidate forums and phone banks. The most common arguments for Clinton offered by her Muslim advocates tend to revolve around Trump. “Obviously, this election has a sense of urgency that we haven’t felt before,” said Muna Jondy, a Syrian American activist and lawyer from Flint, Mich. “Because it’s not just an option between a Republican and a Democrat. It’s between a fascist and another person.” “Never before in the history of America has a major party had someone who was screaming bigotry into a megaphone,” Ellison told the phone bank volunteers in Orlando. “No Muslim can sit around and let this happen.” The Trump factor “doesn’t work with everyone,” said James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, who served as a campaign adviser to Sanders. Support for Sanders among Muslim voters was “huge,” said Ellison, who also backed Sanders. A Muslims for Bernie 2016 Facebook page, with 7,523 likes, still exists. A Muslims for Hillary 2016 Facebook group has 820 members. Muslims for Trump has 428. Sanders’s supporters say that, unlike Clinton, the senator from Vermont spoke out about key Muslim voter concerns, such as the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. “It was an issue that always existed in our community,” said Nuren Haider, 31, who is running for Orange County commissioner in Florida. “But he brought it to the limelight,” said Mohammad Shair, a 23-year-old Florida law student who now plans to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Ellison tries to remind the disenchanted Muslims who supported Sanders that Clinton has done a lot of good. He tells them that she regrets her vote in favor of the Iraq War — and that there are congressional votes he regrets, too. “I also tell them: ‘There’s going to be a president, and it’s not going to be one of these third-party candidates. It’s going to be the Democrat or the Republican. . . . So understand the clear and present danger presented by the alternative,’ ” he said. ‘We’ve been burned before ’ That binary choice makes some Muslim voters “feel like they have no choice,” Amina Spahic, the Tampa Bay regional director for Emerge, told Mitha and the others who gathered at the mosque in Tampa. Mubarak, the Tampa lawyer, said he regretted his votes for President Obama and what he considers the administration’s hawkish drone policy and increased federal surveillance of Muslims. He wants to believe that Clinton would be different. But “the problem is we’ve been burned before so many times,” he said, “and frankly we’re tired of it.” To those voters, Clinton’s statements on the issues provide little reassurance. The campaign website’s explanation of her stance on combating terrorism starts with the words “radical jihadists” — a term that some Muslim activists say stigmatizes Islam. Her national security page makes prominent reference to “protecting Israel” but no similar reference to Palestinians and Syrians, which some voters say they’d like to see. In a March speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group that aligns with the Israeli right and is opposed by many liberal American Jews, she twice referred to “Palestinian terrorists.” Ghazala Salam, a Clinton delegate at the Democratic National Convention in July who chairs the American Muslim Democratic Caucus in Florida, said the former secretary of state is simply the most qualified to do the job. Whether you like all of her policies or not, Salam said, she knows how to deal with the outside world. Skeptical Muslim voters are “coming around,” she said, and what they do next will be critical to the future of Muslim participation in U.S. politics. Had Muslims been more politically engaged before the 2016 campaign, “we would have not really heard a person like Trump come out and say openly the things he did about Muslims,” Salam said. “For it not to happen again, we have to have proactive engagement in every level of government.” Emily Guskin and Jenna Johnson in Washington contributed to this report.
All content featured on our charity site is produced by young volunteers with the support and mentoring of our professional production team. Battling ‘the 1%’ : Occupy Wall Street Several hundred protestors were arrested over the weekend in New York as the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Campaign gathered momentum. The movement, which started as a protest outside the city’s Stock Exchange, condemns economic inequality and the influence of lobbyists and corporations on the government. Bound by the slogan ‘We Are The 99%’, demonstrators are seeking to battle the corporate greed of ‘the 1%’ and are increasingly capturing the attention of both the international press and the American public. Influenced by the non-violent tactics of the revolutionary Arab Spring, the OWS campaign is spreading to other cities across the United States. Whilst most political commentators agree that the corruption and financial malpractices leading to the global economic downturn must be tackled, analytical opinion of the OWS resistance has been both for and against. John Avlon, a senior columnist at The Daily Beast , fundamentally views OWS as a lost opportunity, arguing that as ‘a policy-free event’ it offers no tangible answers. ‘These protestors have the trappings of anarchists with Apple Computers’, he writes. ‘They are earnest and know how to play for the cameras. They have internalized slogans that capture emotions but are too often unrelated to solutions.’ Other reports have been more sympathetic. Writing for the Guardian, David Graeber analyses OWS as the result of ‘colossal social failure,‘ rooted in ‘obvious reasons’. Graeber brings to attention the hesitance of protestors to recognise ‘the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged,’ interpreting the lack of the policy-specific demands as a deliberate move.
TV presenter says Isis is weaker than it seems but Australian MPs who preach hate and division are only helping ‘these bastards’ prosper The Project's Waleed Aly hits out at Isis over Paris attacks in viral video A powerful video of Waleed Aly outlining strategies to stop Isis after the Paris attacks has drawn more than 13 million views on Facebook. Aly, one of the hosts on Channel 10’s The Project, has become renowned for his editorials at the end of the show. On Monday’s program he focused on the aftermath of the attacks in France that left 129 people dead. “Isil’s weak,” Aly began, “I know it doesn’t look like that now, but it’s the truth. And they don’t want you to know it, which is why it’s something we should talk about.” The host outlined how Isis took credit for every attack, including those planned without any coordination from the group, such as the Sydney siege, “so that they appear bigger and tougher than they actually are”. “But Isil don’t want you to know that. How do I know? Because Isil told us they don’t want you to know that in their monthly magazine. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Waleed Aly’s editorial about Isis on The Project “Isil don’t want you to know they would quickly be crushed if they ever faced a proper army on a real battlefield. They want you to fear them. “Isil’s strategy is to split the world into two camps, it’s that black and white.” He added: “They want countries like ours to reject their Muslims and vilify them,” before cutting to a clip of Pauline Hanson speaking in an interview. The video ends with a riposte to MPs who are “preaching hate”. “I am angry at these terrorists. I’m sickened by the violence and I’m crushed for the families that have been left behind. But you know what, I won’t be manipulated. We all need to come together. “It’s exactly what Isil doesn’t want. So if you’re a member of parliament, or a has-been member of parliament preaching hate at a time when what we actually need is more love, you’re helping Isil. “I’m pretty sure that right now, none of us wants to help these bastards.” The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, endorsed Aly’s “insightful” stance. Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) Waleed makes some very insightful points here. Worth a watch. https://t.co/xSpE2iP5OB But the Herald-Sun commentator Andrew Bolt savaged Aly’s comments in his blog on Tuesday, saying Aly “could be seen to have an agenda” because he was a Muslim and a former spokesman for the Islamic Council of Victoria when it “voted to make the extremist Sheik Hilali the mufti of Australia”. Bolt said Channel 10 should consider whether Aly should be the station’s “main explainer of Islamic terrorism”. “Anything that suggests that we can fight the Islamic State with a few hugs and hashtags, plus a big bucket of sand in which to bury our heads, is just what they want to hear,” he wrote.
Libya's interim prime minister has confirmed the presence of chemical weapons in Libya and says foreign inspectors would arrive later this week to deal with the issue. Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril said Sunday that Libya has no interest in keeping such weapons. Last week, Ian Martin, the top U.N. envoy to Libya, told the U.N. Security Council that undeclared chemical weapons sites have been located in Libya. Jibril did not provide any details about the chemical weapons. In August, Fox News interviewed Rep. Mike Rogers, R.-Mich., who said he saw a chemical weapon stockpile in the country during a 2004 trip. At the time, he said the U.S. was concerned about "thousands of pounds of very active mustard gas." He also said there is some sarin gas that is unaccounted for. A Russian-drafted U.N. resolution, to be voted on this week, calls on Libyan authorities to destroy stockpiles of chemical weapons in coordination with international authorities. In February, the U.S. State Department told reporters that some chemical weapons remained in the country and the U.S. government was encouraging the Libyans to secure the sites. The U.S. had been trying to revive a program to prevent Libyan chemical, biological and nuclear scientists from working for terror groups or hostile nations, a State Department official said last month. Besides chemical weapons, hundreds of experts worked in Muammar Qaddafi's weapons of mass destruction programs. After Qaddafi agreed to dismantle the programs in 2003, the U.S. launched an effort to steer Libya's WMD scientists into civilian research projects, including water desalination, oil and gas production and nuclear medicine. Since Qaddafi's fall, American and U.N. officials have warned that the failure to control Libya's weapons could destabilize the whole of North Africa. It remains unclear how many weapons have been uncovered in Tripoli since Qaddafi's fall, said Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, who has been searching the city for them. Lots of munitions appear to have been hidden in civilian buildings to avoid airstrikes by NATO, which bombed regime military targets under a United Nations mandate to protect civilians. At one unguarded site, Bouckaert said he found 100,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. Elsewhere, he found weapons caches hidden under fruit trees. "The problem is that the locals usually find out first and by the time we arrive and we can get some guards there, a lot of the most dangerous weapons have already been taken away," he said. The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Page for Women on Web, which connects doctors with women in places that restrict abortion access, deleted over ‘promotion or encouragement of drug use’ Facebook has censored the page of an organization that helps women obtain abortion pills, citing its policy against the “promotion or encouragement of drug use”. Civil rights groups: Facebook should protect, not censor, human rights issues Read more Women on Web, which is based in Amsterdam, helps connect women with doctors who can provide abortion pills if they live in countries where abortion access is restricted. It is a sister organization to Women on Waves, which provides abortions and other reproductive health services on a ship in international waters. Women on Waves announced that the page had been “unpublished” on its own Facebook account, writing: “Women on Web provides life-saving information to thousands of women worldwide. Its Facebook page publishes news, scientific information and the protocols of the World Health Organization and Women on Web has answered over half a million emails with women who needed scientific, accurate information essential for their health and life. “We expect Facebook will [undo] this action soon enough, as access to information is a human right.” This is the second censorship row between Facebook and Women on Web. In January 2012, Facebook deleted the profile photograph of the group’s founder and director, Dr Rebecca Gomperts. The image contained instructions for inducing an abortion using Misoprostol. Gomperts was locked out of her account for two days after re-posting the image, but Facebook subsequently apologized and reinstated both the image and her account. We expect Facebook will [undo] this action soon enough, as access to information is a human right Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. With nearly 2bn users, the social media site plays a crucial role in disseminating news and information around the world. But Facebook has struggled to meet competing demands to allow for the free flow of information while cracking down on graphic material (such as the live-streamed murder of a baby in Thailand in April). In 2016, the company faced international condemnation over its decision to censor the iconic Vietnam War photograph of a naked girl fleeing a Napalm attack. Facebook subsequently altered its policy to allow for editorial judgments about newsworthiness. On 3 May, amid criticism over its handling of graphic videos, Facebook announced that it would hire 3,000 more content reviewers. Such content reviewers are tasked with applying the company’s “community standards”, often with uneven results. Facebook’s has faced particular difficulty enforcing its rules for “regulated goods” – prescription drugs, marijuana, firearms, and ammunition. The company bars “attempts by private individuals to purchase, sell, or trade” such items, but has struggled to halt gun sales. The company has cracked down aggressively on pages related to legal medical marijuana, however. In 2015, the site temporarily banned business publication Crain’s for promoting a cover story about medical marijuana. Update: On Friday, Facebook apologized for the page deletion, saying that it had been made “in error” and the page had been restored. “Facebook is a place for people and organisations to campaign for the things that matter to them, and Women on Web is an example of that,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “We apologise for this and for any inconvenience caused.”
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Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine? Anyone who has ever read an Ayn Rand novel or George Orwell’s 1984 is familiar with the lifeless patterning of the propaganda state, where the big lie is repeated so steadily that it is eventually mistaken for truth. As speaker after speaker on the opening night of the Republican National Convention took their turns at spinning a “We Built It” fantasy—based not on what President Obama said or intended to say about small business but on an imagining of what might turn the maximum number of voters against the president—the Grand Old Party opted for repetition over revelation. Ad Policy Aside from Ann Romney’s assurance that what she has with her husband of forty-three years is a “real marriage,” the only compelling speeches and storylines of the night came from the candidates the Republican Party rejected. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and, even more consequentially, the absent Ron Paul. Paul was not allowed on the RNC stage because, of course, he does not back Mitt Romney. And because he says this his “revolution”—as opposed to Paul Ryan’s retrenchment—is “the future.” Santorum got a prime-time speaking spot, in return for agreeing to pretend to be happy about endorsing the candidate he once blasted as the “worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.” Despite his awkward circumstance, Santorum brought the crowd to its feet with a speech so rhetorically rich that delegates were instantly reminded that it was Mitt Romney’s money—not his personal appeal or his message—that won him the nomination. Santorum, the Anyone-But-Romney candidate who came closest to stopping Romney, tried to connect not just with the base but with a broader electorate that actually works for a living. “I shook the hand of the American Dream. And it has a strong grip,” Santorum said, recalling the appeals to working Americans that distinguished his primary campaign from Romney’s regal run. “I shook hands of farmers and ranchers who made America the bread basket of the world. Hands weathered and worn. And proud of it. I grasped dirty hands with scars that come from years of labor in the oil and gas fields, mines and mills. Hands that power and build America and are stewards of the abundant resources that God has given us. I gripped hands that work in restaurants and hotels, in hospitals, banks and grocery stores. Hands that serve and care for all of us. I clasped hands of men and women in uniform and their families. Hands that sacrifice and risk all to protect and keep us free. And hands that pray for their safe return home. I held hands that are in want. Hands looking for the dignity of a good job, hands growing weary of not finding one but refusing to give up hope.” As Santorum spoke, not on the message of the night but on a deeper message of outreach to working-class voters delivered in the language both parties once employed, the crowd that packed the great hall roared with approval—if not entirely for the political point, then surely for the relief from the drab repetition that defined “We Built It” night. This was not the empty rhetoric molded by the mandarins who have managed the life out of the fortieth Republican National Convention. The only speech that might have been more engaging would have been the one that wasn’t delivered—by Paul. Unfortunately, Paul was not being allowed near any official microphones. Paul was the Romney challenger who stayed in the race longest, and who won almost 200 delegate votes. (The actual delegate vote for Paul was hard to measure, as RNC officials only announced votes for Romney during Tuesday night’s roll call, but the Seatte Times counted 193 for Paul.) Not that many years ago, coming second in the convention vote might have guaranteed Paul a convention speaking slot. At this convention, it guaranteed him—and his supporters—treatment so rough that his supporters, the largest dissident block on the floor, openly accused party chair Reince Priebus and his team of “corruption.” Paul backers had enough delegates and support in the states to have their candidate’s name put in nomination. But that didn’t count in the Priebus party. As the New York Times noted: “Delegates from Nevada tried to nominate Mr. Paul from the floor, submitting petitions from their own state as well as Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Oregon, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. That should have done the trick: Rules require signatures from just five states. But the party changed the rules on the spot. Henceforth, delegates must gather petitions from eight states.” But Priebus did not just rewrite the rules of 2012. More ominously, he and the Romney team rewrote the rules of 2016. The party brass engineered a fundamental change in the next nominating process in order to assure that neither Paul—nor anyone else as interesting, or dissenting—will ever again be able to beat the establishment at its own game and win substantial numbers of delegates. The Paul delegates, many Tea Party conservatives and a number of renegade Romney delegates objected, creating the only real drama of the day, and the convention. As Priebus and his allies gaveled objections down, the Paul delegates shouted their disapproval from the back-of-the-hall seats to which states with substantial Paul contingents had been relegated. “It’s a coronation,” said David Aiello, a medical student from Rhode who, like many Paul delegates, complained that “the party leaders, the people in charge, they don’t want a real debate. That’s obvious this week.” Aiello, 25 years old, savvy, smart and highly engaged, is precisely the sort of young person the Grand Old Party needs to bring into its ranks. “That’s what I thought,” said Aiello. “But I’m not getting that vibe.” Some Paul delegates were so offended that they exited the convention. Others speculated about whether they would back the GOP ticket. And libertarian-leaning young voters across the country got a signal that they weren’t really wanted at the Grand Old Party. In a fall race where it is likely that many states will be decided by narrow margins, the disregard for these voters (who might sit the election out, might vote for Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson or might even consider Obama and the Democrats) could come back to haunt the Romney campaign. Paul said Tuesday that his delegates felt they had been treated “atrociously.” And, no, Paul added, he will not be rushing to join the Romney team. “I haven’t made up my mind,” he told Fox. “Put me down as undecided.” Paul Ryan has tried to secure Paul’s endorsement, claiming that the Romney-Ryan ticket will appeal to Paul’s supporters. After all, the platform references the Gold Standard. But Paul’s not so easily bought. “I have not endorsed the ticket,” Paul explained Tuesday. “I endorsed the principles I have been talking about.… I endorse peace, prosperity, individual liberty and the Constitution. I am more intent on that than on the politics.” Read more of The Nation’s coverage on the RNC: Ben Adler, “GOP’s Ladies’ Night: Will It Work?”
Since, in one way or another, we are all essentially stockholders in The American Presidency LLC (a division of The Trump Organization), we should probably take some time every now and again to check on how our national portfolio is doing. First, it seems we've had something of a setback in Florida. The family of Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and chief Middle East troubleshooter, was seeking to buy the Miami Marlins baseball team from Jeffrey Loria, one of the towering villains in professional sports, famous for yanking the Expos out of Montreal, blackjacking stadium revenues out of the taxpayers of south Florida, and assembling World Series champions only to sell them off for parts. Loria and the Kushners are a match made somewhere south of heaven. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it seems that obvious anagram Reince Priebus freed himself from the shackles holding him to the wall in the Blue Room and got in the president's ear. He persuaded Himself to consider naming Loria ambassador to France, a job Loria apparently really wants, perhaps to sell the Eiffel Tower to Asheville for a right-fielder currently laboring in A-ball. Anyway, this spoiled it for the Kushners because this would have been seen as a quid pro quo so glaring that even the extended Trump family couldn't stand the gaffe. So somebody else gets to own what's left of the Marlins. The Kushners go shopping for another baseball team. And the United States is represented in la belle France by a guy The Washington Post describes thusly: The 76-year-old Loria is a widely despised figure in South Florida for keeping the Marlins' annual payroll among the lowest in MLB, often by purging the team of talented players on the verge of paydays, while getting hundreds of millions in public funding for a new stadium. He went from being a New York art dealer to the owner of the Montreal Expos in the early 2000s, then sold that team, which became the Washington Nationals, in a multiparty transaction that eventually landed him the Marlins in 2003 for $158.5 million. Bonne chance, Mr. Ambassador. Try not to move the embassy to Bulgaria, OK? Despite that setback, our investment in this presidency is paying off elsewhere. Remember how tough the president* was on China throughout the campaign, and how the bluster continued once he was sworn in? Well, you're probably already tired of all this winning. From The Washington Post: The news has also been used to reignite the debate about whether his business interests conflict with his role as president, and about whether his success in securing trademark rights violate the Constitution's bar on receiving benefits from a foreign state. Under Trump, U.S. relations with China have already been on something of a roller-coaster ride, with early tensions over policy toward Taiwan eased last week when Trump spoke by telephone to Chinese President Xi Jinping. The trademark case, though, appears to have proceeded independently of this process. The decision to back Trump's trademark claim for construction services relating to residential, business and hotel real estate was first flagged by China's Trademark Office back in September, when a long-standing rival claim by a Chinese man called Dong Wei was invalidated. We are again assured that the president* will receive no material benefit from this decision in his favor. So much winning. Business as usual in the White House didn't used to be, well, business as usual. But now, so much winning. Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.
Paul May Lag Behind Now, But Better Numbers Could Be Ahead by Josh Guckert As the country moves to within 200 days of the Iowa Caucuses, political spectators are becoming more eager to anoint a front-runner on the Republican side. Many libertarians have been anxious to see Rand Paul make a move in the polls to position himself as such, but his numbers thus far have been fairly stagnant. There are a number of reasons as to why this has occurred. First of all, as other candidates have launched their bids or simply become better known, it has resulted in endless news coverage and natural intrigue from the public. For instance, Ben Carson has swung from a RealClearPolitics average of 12.3% on March 4th, to 4.8% on May 3rd and then back up to 9.4% presently. To further prove the point, following his official announcement, Donald Trump went from coming in near-last place in most polls to finishing in second with 11% in the most recent FOX News poll (this in spite of the fact that the same poll showed that 64% of Republicans view Trump as more of a “side-show” than a serious presidential candidate). One need only look at the 2012 race to see the significance of stability as opposed to rapid surges and falls. No less than four different candidates led Romney throughout the cycle, as his numbers stayed mostly flat from February 2011 to February 2012. However, the bursts shown by the others were ultimately unsustainable, as these candidates’ novelty quickly wore off once they were subjected to heightened scrutiny. More importantly, Romney remained near the top in Iowa and New Hampshire, allowing him maximum exposure for the early contests. Only two candidates reflect this desired arc: Rand Paul and Jeb Bush. While Paul has yet to command leads in national polls, his apparent basement of 8% is one which lends itself to the gaining of ground significant enough to make a mark, particularly as many polls show Paul to be one of the top “second choices” for many Republicans. Furthermore, as Romney demonstrated, Iowa and New Hampshire can be essential building blocks in cementing status as a front-runner. Wins in both are not essential, but all serious candidates are expected to finish in the top 4 in each state. Additionally, any ground lost in one of the elections must be seemingly made up with a better result in the other (for instance, John McCain was only able to survive in 2008 following his 4th place finish in Iowa when he won New Hampshire). As it stands today, Rand Paul finds himself within striking distance of where he needs to be: he is in 4th place in Iowa and 4th place in New Hampshire. This is, of course, before any debates or advertisements have taken place and candidates are still getting into the race. Much like Romney, Paul has shown himself to be a major player in these two critical races, with others overtaking him and just as quickly disappearing. In front of Paul in Iowa are: now-apparent front-runner Scott Walker, who polled at under 5% in the state as recently as January; Marco Rubio, who was also polling at just 5% in February; and 2008 winner Mike Huckabee, who has seen his numbers steadily decline since joining the race. Likewise, in New Hampshire, in front of Paul are: Bush, who will be a force to be reckoned with, as his name ID has allowed him to steadily gain since entering the contest; Walker, who has seen his numbers in the state get cut in half over the course of the last month; and Trump, who, as previously mentioned, has received a sudden (but likely brief) surge due to his unexpected entrance into the primary. As these other candidates rely on the mere novelty of their candidacies, Rand Paul will quickly take control as he builds upon his already solid numbers and shows himself to be different from the rest. By emerging from this large field with new ideas like those outlined in his “Fair and Flat” Tax Plan and his plans to privatize marriage, Paul will soon enough position himself to become the standard-bearer of the Republican Party as its presidential nominee.
Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has told crowds in Berlin that the US and Europe have drifted apart and it is time for them to come together again. "If we're honest... we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart and forgotten our shared destiny," he said. Mr Obama is due to fly to France and the UK as he continues his world tour. His Republican rival John McCain says that while Mr Obama is in Europe, he is focusing on issues challenging the US. "I'd love to give a speech in Germany but I'd much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for president," Mr McCain told reporters. The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together Barack Obama McCain plays down speech Justin Webb's blog In pictures: Berlin visit At least 200,000 people heard Mr Obama make the only public speech of the Democratic Party candidate's world tour. His words were broadcast live in Germany, where he is a popular figure. Mr Obama began by paying tribute to the Berliners who held out against Soviet pressure during the blockade in 1948. Appealing for a renewed partnership with Europe, he identified terrorism, nuclear proliferation, trade barriers and climate change as global challenges. Mr Obama's appearance had the air of a rock concert in the Tiergarten Park, a place that has become associated with huge feel-good football parties in recent years, the BBC's James Coomarasamy reports. His rhetorical flights and unusual background have captured the imagination of a country which views its own politicians as rather dour and grey, our correspondent says. 'Intertwined world' "While the 20th Century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history," Mr Obama said. Thousands turned out for the speech "In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common," he continued. "In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and our future. "But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together," he added. He said that partnership and co-operation among nations was "not a choice". "It is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity," he argued. He spoke on Afghanistan, a sensitive issue in Germany because of pressure for it to send more troops. Mr Obama said it was time to renew nations' resolve to "rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets". "The Afghan people need our troops and your troops... we have too much at stake to turn back now," he said. Mr Obama addressed many issues in his speech: He said it was time to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it", arguing that Islamic extremism could be defeated just as communism had been in its time He urged support for the Iraqis rebuilding their lives as the US passes responsibility to the Iraqi government and "finally brings this war to a close" It was the moment, he said, to "renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons" and not "stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly atom" He urged all countries to act with "the same seriousness of purpose" as Germany to reduce carbon emissions He called for global trade "that is free and fair for all" World tour Mr Obama's visit to Berlin kicked off the European leg of his world tour ahead of November's US presidential election. One McCain supporter could be seen spreading the message in Berlin Earlier, he met German leaders including Chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr Obama flew to Germany after visiting Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, and is due to visit France on Friday, before heading to the UK. Most Germans seem to believe that an Obama victory in November would do much to improve relations between the US and Europe, our correspondent says. This speech is being compared to those made in Berlin by John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan - but they were sitting presidents. For Mr Obama to become president himself, this event - and the tour of which it is part - must be seen in a positive light by the voters back home in America, our correspondent says. E-mail this to a friend Printable version Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these?
Ben Milne, Founder & CEO – Dwolla: Empowering A New Transaction – The Future Of Money [VIDEO] Today you’ll hear from Ben Milne, Founder of the disruptive mobile payments company Dwolla, his thoughts on the future of money and empowering a new transaction. The Evolution Of Money “Money is becoming digital..money is data“, Milne said. Whenever you swipe a card to purchase something, interchange fees cost the United States economy around 40 billion dollars per year. Milne believes that this existing infrastructure is great at allowing us to get the things we want & need. However, it creates problems – not only from a fees perspective, but a risk/security perspective. Empowering A New Transaction Ben described his vision for Dwolla, a payment network: “We believe our platform can empower the future of money… …We want to empower anything connected to the internet to move money without people paying interchange fees.” When we transition from physical exchange to digital, it can change everything about payments. Money That Doesn’t Die “I believe we can do better“, Milne said. In one of the most dramatic moments of Compute Midwest, he opened a backpack and pulled out thousands of dollars in cash. Milne wanted to illustrate the real impact of interchange fees and get us to imagine just how different the economy might be if we didn’t have $40 billion removed from the equation. “….because I used Dwolla, this money didn’t die” Watch The Video Learn about Milne’s vision for the future of money: About Ben Ben Milne is the Founder & CEO of Dwolla, which boasts the nation’s cheapest payment platform of only 25 cents per transaction. In 2012, Milne was named in Inc’s 30 under 30 list, highlighting the most promising young entrepreneurs. In 2013, he was named to Forbes Disruptor List. About Dwolla Dwolla is a revolutionary mobile payments company that removes the need to use a credit card. Charging only .25 cents per transaction, you can use your mobile phone or computer, your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin) as well as physical locations to send and receive cash. Dwolla is a pioneer in the mobile payments space: in 2010 they introduced the first technology to empower seamless payments leveraging users’ social networks. In 2011, they launched the world’s first geo-location based mobile payments. About Compute Midwest Compute Midwest was a 2 day convergence of tech Nov 9-11th (2012) in Kansas City. Consisting of 1 conference, 8 amazing speakers, a hackathon and 2 parties, we connected over 400+ forward thinking tech minds to imagine & create a future, inspired. Image credits: Westside Studio Did you enjoy this article? Stay in touch! Get the latest KC tech news, exclusive event invites/discounts & more!
Lake Worth resident Telise Maquaire says she was asleep early Sunday morning when a strange noise woke her up, but when she emerged from her bedroom she never expected to see a stranger standing in front of her Christmas tree.MOBILE/TABLET USERS: Watch the ReportPhoto: See suspect composite sketch According to Maquaire, she watched from behind the branches as large man with dreadlocks lunged at her husband, knocking him out.She screamed and that's when she says the attacker came after her."I was just screaming and he left my husband and came here and got me right here onto the floor," said Maquaire."All I could see was the color of his hand as he's beating me."Most read: Police search for fatal hit-and-run driver in Boynton BeachShe said the incident happened around 2 a.m. at her home on south K Street, and her 13-year-old daughter was also home at the time.According to Maquaire nothing was stolen, but she and her husband suffered multiple injuries.No arrest has been made, but Palm Beach County Sheriffs officials say they are investigating the incident as a burglary.Deputies released a description of the suspect as an unknown black male, 5’10” to 6’0” tall, 25 – 33 years of age, stocky build with shoulder length dreadlocks. He was wearing a dark colored shirt and dark pants.If anyone can identify this suspect they are urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS. LIST: Florida's most violent counties Lake Worth resident Telise Maquaire says she was asleep early Sunday morning when a strange noise woke her up, but when she emerged from her bedroom she never expected to see a stranger standing in front of her Christmas tree. MOBILE/TABLET USERS: Watch the Report Photo: See suspect composite sketch Advertisement Related Content Man arrested in connection with Lake Worth home invasion According to Maquaire, she watched from behind the branches as large man with dreadlocks lunged at her husband, knocking him out. She screamed and that's when she says the attacker came after her. "I was just screaming and he left my husband and came here and got me right here onto the floor," said Maquaire. "All I could see was the color of his hand as he's beating me." Most read: Police search for fatal hit-and-run driver in Boynton Beach She said the incident happened around 2 a.m. at her home on south K Street, and her 13-year-old daughter was also home at the time. According to Maquaire nothing was stolen, but she and her husband suffered multiple injuries. No arrest has been made, but Palm Beach County Sheriffs officials say they are investigating the incident as a burglary. Deputies released a description of the suspect as an unknown black male, 5’10” to 6’0” tall, 25 – 33 years of age, stocky build with shoulder length dreadlocks. He was wearing a dark colored shirt and dark pants. If anyone can identify this suspect they are urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS. AlertMe
Between the Covers — Get Ready to Ignite! Ohio Wesleyan University senior Chase Smith guest hosts tonight's show as he and Tracy Lawson talk about Tracy's new release, Ignite: Book Three of the Resistance Series. Read Tracy's books here. Book Launch Party: Resist by Tracy Lawson Join author Tracy Lawson as we celebrate the release of her new dystopian sci-fi novel, Resist! Knowledge comes with a price. Tommy and Careen no longer believe the Office of Civilian Safety and Defense's miracle antidote can protect them from a terrorist's chemical weapons. After accidentally discovering the antidote's real purpose, they join the fight to undermine the OCSD's bid for total control of the population. Resist is the sequel to Counteract, which we celebrated on LIVE last year. Jeffrey Tucker – Liberty Classics: The Art of Being Free THE Jeffrey Tucker returns to a screen near you for another installment of Liberty Classics! The classic of the week is The Art of Being Free by Wendy McElroy. This is a book on the current state of freedom, by one of the great thinkers and essayists of our time: Wendy McElroy. But it is unlike any you have ever read. It deals with the current crisis in a way that no one else does. It has deep and fascinating research on all the main issues we face: the loss of security in the name of security, the state’s role in strangling economic opportunity, the petty central planning that has regimented every aspect of life, the loss of basic civil liberties. The Broken Throne Come join us for a celebration of Tom Liberman's book, The Broken Throne! This event is open to the public. Nonmembers can sign up here. Is it better to rule in Tyranny or live in Freedom? The great capital of the Empire fell a thousand years ago and all that is left is a broken city filled with monstrous creatures guarding an ancient symbol of power, The Broken Throne. The people of Stav’rol believe they are destined to retrieve the throne and rebuild the Empire. They believe the human race is superior but have thus far failed in every attempt to pierce the guardians of Das’von. Now a great Sea Giant is sailing north hoping to use the throne and the legitimacy it gives him, to rebuild the Old Empire in his name. The Guide of Stav’rol cannot allow this to happen and sends one of the finest young warriors in the nation to infiltrate the crew of the unstoppable warship and sail with them to Das’von. Once there Dietrich is to betray the Sea Giant and turn the throne over to the Guide. Things are not always as simple as they sound and a taste of freedom can turn a man against everything he has ever known, or can it? Drinking Game/Book Launch: Infinite Ending by Frank Marcopolos If you've ever been to a Liberty.me LIVE event, you might remember Frank Marcopolos. He's been to more LIVE events than anybody else, and more often than not he's the life of the party. And now Frank is having his own damn event. We're having a book launch party to celebrate Frank's new collection of funny, witty, sexy, creepy new stories — Infinite Ending. The get-together will be a lowbrow drinking game/highfalutin gab session/wild cyberspace bacchanal of libations and liberty. It's going to be a party. It's going to be fun. And you're going to like it. Any questions? Dress code not enforced, but fine hats recommended. BYOB. *** Join Frank and talk fiction, fun, and (of course) drinks with him and host Mike Reid on Thursday, December 11th at 8pm EST. Looking for more of Frank? Check out his website! David Friedman LIVE: Harald & Salamander Lovers of liberty know David Friedman as an incredible economist and legal theorist, especially as author of the anarcho-capitalist masterpiece The Machinery of Freedom. What many don't know is that Friedman is also a novelist, with two fantastic works of fiction under his belt (and hopefully more to come). His first novel, Harald, was released in 2006 (audiobook, Amazon), and the second, Salamander, in 2011 (Amazon). Both books, while intriguing on their own as works of fiction, also bear the clear markings of products of Friedman's careful genius, with precisely thought-out social systems that exhibit many themes libertarians will certainly find interesting. Join David Friedman on Liberty.me LIVE Tuesday, December 9th at 9pm EST as he discusses his fiction, his writing process, and his views on liberty in fantasy and reality! Sci-Fi Economics, Session #4 with Lucas Engelhardt Science Fiction has long been a favorite genre for liberty-lovers. But can it teach Economics? Enter "Sci-Fi Economics," a four-part original course from Liberty.me LIVE. Instead of assigned (suggested) readings, we'll have "assigned watchings" from your favorite sci-fi TV shows. Professor Lucas Engelhardt, himself a connoisseur of science fiction, will be your guide. This week, Professor Engelhardt will cover Sliders Season 3, Episode 12, "Seasons Greedings." What happens when science fiction just gets economic reality all wrong? We'll discuss the tropes of consumerism and uncaring capitalism, as well as the little things even bad sci-fi writers manage to get right Monday, November 3rd at 9pm ET! Sci-Fi Economics, Session #2 with Lucas Engelhardt Science Fiction has long been a favorite genre for liberty-lovers. But can it teach Economics? Enter "Sci-Fi Economics," a four-part original course from Liberty.me LIVE. Instead of assigned (suggested) readings, we'll have "assigned watchings" from your favorite sci-fi TV shows. Professor Lucas Engelhardt, himself a connoisseur of science fiction, will be your guide. This week will focus on with "Black Market," Season 2 Episode 14 of Battlestar Galactica, available free in standard definition on YouTube, and for digital purchase from Amazon Instant Video, Apple TV, and Vudu. Prof. Engelhardt will use this episode to discuss the follies of rationing programs, and will show why free markets are much more effective at allocating resources. What creates black markets? Are they a negative influence, or an expression of freedom under oppression? Join Lucas Engelhardt for some fun applying lessons from fiction to real-world facts Monday, October 20th at 9pm EDT, only on Liberty.me LIVE! Liberty Classics: The Art of Being Free by Wendy McElroy Can we live full, free, and prosperous lives in these times, starting now? McElroy says that we can and we must. She presents a new way of thinking about how to build civilization even when it is so under attack. In her view, the worst mistake we can make is to allow our lives to be consumed by politics and the awful realities that surround us. We must instead surround ourselves by people and things we truly love. The best way to fight back, she says, is to find and build freedom for ourselves. We must discover the art of being free. Join Jeffrey Tucker for a discussion of this book Sunday, November 2nd at 8pm ET and learn how you too can live a freer life! Author's Forum: Counteract by Tracy Lawson The Office of Civilian Safety and Defense has guarded the public against the rampant threat of terrorism for the last fifteen years with the full backing of the US government. Their carefully crafted list of Civilian Restrictions means no concerts or sporting events, no travel, no social media, no cash transactions, and no driver's licenses for eighteen-year-olds Tommy and Careen. The OCSD has even outlawed grocery stores, all in the name of safety. Now, there's a new threat-airborne chemical weapons that could be activated at any time. But the OCSD has an antidote: Just three drops a day is all it takes to stay safe. It's a small price to pay for safety. Or is it... Join author Tracy Lawson as we celebrate the release of Counteract Wednesday, October 8th at 9pm ET! Sci-Fi Economics with Lucas Engelhardt Science Fiction has long been a favorite genre for liberty-lovers. But can it teach Economics? Enter "Sci-Fi Economics," a four-part original course from Liberty.me LIVE. Instead of assigned (suggested) readings, we'll have "assigned watchings" from your favorite sci-fi TV shows. Professor Lucas Engelhardt, himself a connoisseur of science fiction, will be your guide. This week will begin with "Treachery, Faith, and the Great River," Season 7 Episode 6 of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, available free from CBS.com, by subscription through Hulu, Amazon Prime Instant Video, and Netflix, and for digital purchase from Apple TV and Vudu. Prof. Engelhart will use this episode to discuss the role of money and discuss the relationship between praxeology and fiction Monday, October 13th at 9pm EDT, only on Liberty.me LIVE! Update: Thanks to an epic glitch with the recording, we'll be reprising session #1 October 13th, so if you missed it, head on over! Author's Forum: House of Refuge by Mike DiBaggio Justin Agnarsson is stationkeeper and lone crewman of South Atlantic House of Refuge #49, a floating sanctuary for the thousands of mariners and seasteading families who live and work in the 350-mile long Plata Raft. Now, war threatens to bring an end to his lifesaving mission as an Argentine warship pursues a pair of refugees to the station. A house of refuge is supposed to be inviolable, but the Argentines are hell bent on their mission. Alone and virtually defenseless, Agnarsson faces an impossible choice between duty and survival. But when the brutality of war threatens to unravel the fabric of civilization, more than lives are at stake. Join Mike DiBaggio and his wife, Shell (the illustrator), for a discussion of House of Refuge Wednesday, September 24th at 9pm EDT only on Liberty.me LIVE!
Conversely, not being aware of one's own relative ignorance, or “meta‐ignorance”, is pronounced among the less knowledgeable and the unlearned. This phenomenon has become known as the Dunning‐Kruger effect 1 , 2 , especially when paired with over‐confidence. Why is this relevant for the peer‐review process? Do peer reviewers not know when their expertise does not suffice for the task entrusted to them, thus suffering from the Dunning‐Kruger effect? Does their display of unmerited confidence mislead editors? Yet the recognition that there exist unknowns beyond the realms of what one knows is possible and is referred to as “meta‐cognition” – an extraordinary intellectual accomplishment of human mind due to its capacity of self‐reflection. In a rare demonstration of meta‐cognition among politicians, the former defense secretary of the United States, D. Rumsfeld, warned of the “unknown unknowns” as opposed to the “known unknowns” in the war against global terrorism. Thus, while it appears first as an epistemological paradox, meta‐cognition can be achieved if one possesses a particular intellectual ability to think in more encompassing categories. Most of us have once felt the urge to blame unfavorable comments in the critique of a manuscript on the reviewers' lack of relevant expertise. But such complaints often remain fruitless because both reviewers and editors, without malevolence, don't know what they don't know in the first place. Such ignorance of one's own ignorance, as psychologists bluntly call it, can be excused on simple logical grounds, for how should one doubt one's own knowledge about subject matters whose very existence one does not know about? The Dunning‐Kruger effect and the peer‐review process First, attaching the label “Dunning‐Kruger effect” to peer‐reviewers makes a triple claim: reviewers (i) can be ignorant of the subject matter concerned; (ii) are not aware of it; and (iii) act as if they are experts when in fact they often are not, thereby misleading editorial boards. One job of editors is to find the most suited reviewers. Nevertheless, we increasingly encounter reviewers who evidently lack sufficient expertise to evaluate a submission. The idea of peer review is that one need not stand above whom one judges but that it suffices to be at the same level. However, in reality reviewers are often not “peers” with regard to the pertinent expertise; rather, they are less than equals. One reason is the fragmentation of modern science into subspecialties with their own terminological dialect. For instance, the term “gene network” can refer to entirely disjoint concepts, depending on who uses it 3. Failure to consider the “other” meanings of a term prevents the recognition of one's own ignorance of concepts used in other fields. Second, because of the parceling of science into small kingdoms, authors often are the sole authority in their province with no equal. Finally, the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research creates an asymmetry of knowledge: the reviewer as a single person faces the daunting combined knowledge of an entire team of coauthors. Thus, statistically, we can safely accept our first claim and assume that on average, reviewers nowadays are with high probability less knowledgeable about the subject matter of a manuscript than its authors. In a perfect world reviewers are wise and will not succumb to the Dunning‐Kruger effect. They may exert restraint and, with the awareness that their expertise lies in a different area, rather offer an outside perspective that improves the manuscript. However, such constructive criticism by the non‐expert peer will require the rare gift of meta‐recognition. Conversely, authors themselves are not immune to the Dunning‐Kruger effect. Research is unpredictable and may veer them into domains outside their expertise, in which case the rare wise reviewer with non‐matching expertise who is at home in the relevant neighboring territory may catch the flaws. On the second claim: Are people really not aware of the limits of their knowledge – and why? Possible reasons invoked range from pride and self‐deception to the aforementioned epistemological paradox of meta‐cognition. The anonymity of peer‐review may contribute to a subliminal relaxation of the ethical norms that otherwise commit us to concede obvious shortcomings. In any case, data obtained in a series of controlled experiments performed by Dunning, Kruger, and others over more than a decade firmly establish the human tendency to ignore one's own ignorance. Intriguingly, meta‐ignorance is associated with over‐confidence, that is, a tendency to rank one's own expertise higher than its effective level. Charles Darwin complained that “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge” 4. Bertrand Russell lamented about its consequences for society: “… in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt” 5. Quantitative analysis confirms that meta‐ignorance scales with primary ignorance: the least competent people display the most overestimation of their own knowledge 1. The latter symptom may explain the authoritative tone of unsuited reviewers that may captivate the editors. This substantiates our third claim. One mechanism that Dunning and Kruger propose to explain how ignorant people suppress awareness of their ignorance is the so‐called “reach‐around knowledge” 2: The uninformed take cues from the label (name) of a domain‐specific concept, the existence of which they are not aware of, and relate that label, based on the word used or sound it produces, to a familiar concept from their own field of specialization or even, from everyday life. This is all too frequent in peer‐review – for which author has not encountered a situation similar to the following: The term “chaos” has a specific meaning in the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. But the non‐experts, not knowing about the very existence of this theory, may, when asked for an opinion, simply fill the term “chaos” that they encounter in a manuscript with their familiar picture of “chaos” of inner city traffic and evaluate the manuscript based on such projected understanding. Similarly, too many reviewers see in the term “epigenetic” not the profound concepts that Conrad Waddington had in mind when he coined the term 3, 6 but resort to seeing only the concrete, little molecular modifications of DNA and chromatin that their lab is studying. Such compensatory use of “reach‐around knowledge” prevents any recognition of paradigm‐shifting novelty that emerges in unfamiliar territories because of the failure to understand the novel usage of an existing term and concept. But isn't it the duty of the editor to intercept such pathological psychodynamics in the critiques? Editors naturally may not have as much technical expertise in the area in question as the peer reviewers. While perhaps equipped with a more developed capacity of meta‐cognition than the practicing peer‐researcher, they have the same humanly reasons to fall victim to the Dunning‐Kruger effect. This leads to the second psychosocial phenomenon that I would like to discuss. Combined with the first it will have quite unpleasant consequences for the peer review process.
Signed for Getafe today the French midfielder Abdoul Karim Yoda did. And while the player’s famous namesake from George Lucas’ blockbuster once said “Always in motion is the future”, for Yoda, who signed from Romanian side Astra Giurgiu, his future is now clear - two seasons with Getafe, who finished last season in 13th place in the Liga. Whilst not quite 800 years of training, Yoda has played professionally for much of his career in Switzerland: first with Servette (2006-2009) and later with Sion (2009-2013), where he won the Cup. Last season he played for Romanian side Astra Giurgiu, where the strength of the force within him helped his team to win the Romanian Cup and take second place in the League. Yoda, who arrived on a free transfer, had his medical this morning wearing a very appropriate t-shirt. He planned to travel to Segovia, an hour north of Madrid, to join the squad for pre-season training. This is Getafe’s third signing this summer, after bringing in goalkeeper Jona and Colombian midfielder Fredy Hinestroza.
Two men caught on home surveillance video on Archglen Way in San Jose. A San Jose neighborhood is banding together, trying to find, shame and arrest a group of burglars who seem to be targeting their homes. San Jose police have a good look at two potential burglary suspects: On Facebook, neighbors and friends, and even strangers, are sharing a photo of two men, smiling and looking quite upbeat, as they allegedly burglarized a home near 101 and Hellyer Avenue on Oct. 18. According to neighbors, police had been in the neighborhood the day before, looking for prowlers who knocked on a front door and then took off in a getaway car. San Jose police are asking members of the public to call them if they recognize either of the men. Joe Lopez, a retired Santa Clara County Sheriff's deputy, said his neighbor two houses down was the one most recently burglarized, and he's glad his community is doing something -- by getting the word out themselves. "This is a working-class neighborhood, so many of us are out working during the day," Lopez said. "I know it's difficult. So we all need to work together."
Coventry City have made their fourth signing of the summer by bringing in French defender Kevin Malaga. The 6ft 2ins centre-half, 25, a free agent after his contract expired with Nice, has penned a three-year deal. Malaga, who played for Auxerre before joining Nice, will join the Sky Blues on their pre-season tour of Scotland. His arrival follows the signing of Scottish strikers Stephen Elliott and John Fleck, and veteran Republic of Ireland midfielder Kevin Kilbane. "We've done our homework on Kevin," said Coventry manager Andy Thorn. "We are really pleased to bring him to the club because I know that several other teams were keen to get him, including a Premier League side. "He's been with us for a couple of days and the other players have really taken to him. "His style will suit us because he is a good footballer but he's also strong too and will be a very good addition to the squad."
First of all, it’s worth knowing what Abkhazians really think. Georgia’s policy towards Abkhazians hasn’t been successful for a long time. By “for a long time”, I mean not only the last 25 years, but even earlier (at least since the 1970s), with the Abkhazian issue being aggravated more than once. The fact is that at least in recent decades, Georgia has pursued an erroneous policy towards Abkhazia, and failed to implement its political integration. We easily blame the entirety of the Russian Empire, but if we want a serious discussion about the problem, then we need to forget about this simple speculation. The Russian Empire was not happy with Abkhazia’s political integration into Georgia, that’s a fact, but we must admit that Russia could not have created these problems if we had acted properly. First of all, we need to recognize one fundamental problem: the fact that Abkhazians relate to Georgians like they do to enemies who have no place in Abkhazia. This problem gives rise to another, no less important one: some Georgians know almost nothing about this Abkhazian attitude. Some know, but don’t want to find out what caused this attitude that Abkhazians have towards Georgians. For 25 years, from the beginning days of the war in Abkhazia, no one has questioned this issue on a serious level. So, how is Georgia going to seek reconciliation with Abkhazia if we don’t even know why Abkhazians are so angry at us? Georgian authorities are trying to appeal to Abkhazians with free medical services and the achievements of Georgia as a whole. Does this policy justify itself? In my point of view, no. Since there are fundamental problems in the existing conditions mentioned above, such courting will not work. It’s wonderful when Abkhazians come to Tbilisi or Batumi, it lets them see who time is working for, and imagine themselves at what level we will be, and at what level they will remain in the next 25 years. But free treatment for Abkhazians in Georgia is reminiscent of reparations, something like the compensation citizens of Israel receive from Germany: the Georgian fascists must treat them for free. Gratitude from those treated, not to mention a call to return to Georgia, have yet to be heard. Effective policies should be based on accurate calculations, not on emotions. Free healthcare, free electricity and the “Mshibzia” (“Hello”) campaign are either fruits of an emotional approach, or a miscalculation. Thus, for things to work we should take directions that will be based on logically correct and indisputable assumptions. The First Assumption Abkhazians’ hostile attitude towards Georgians hampers reconciliation. Based on this, it’s necessary to start a serious study to identify the causes of this attitude. If it turns out that this is due to falsification of history and Russian propaganda, then it’s necessary to take solid countermeasures, narratives, messages, etc. Of course, this will only work when the issue has been studied at a serious level, and the truth is revealed – not just what Georgians will be happy to hear. In parallel, Georgia must try to break through the information blockade surrounding Abkhazians. Under the influence of Russian propaganda, Abkhazians have a distorted view, not just about Georgia, but also about the west. Without a Russian-speaking Georgian TV channel, this problem will be very difficult to resolve (especially when no Russian-speaking European channel has been established for the same purpose either). But after all, can’t Russian-language internet sources be developed? Ones that will offer the consumer not only a news digest, but also modern Georgian films and series dubbed in Russian, modern Georgian prose and poetry translated into Russian – what constitutes Georgia’s “soft power” that is. This way, Abkhazians can be shown that Georgians are normal people. The Second Assumption Time is working against Abkhazians, and if they realize this, they should open a dialogue. Therefore, Georgia must contribute to helping the Abkhaz people in the quickest and clearest realization of reality. From this point of view, Abkhazian visits to territories controlled by Georgia are really useful. However, at the same time, these visits should not be associated with any apologies or deceitful attempts to lure Abkhazians into a single Georgia. Abkhazians should just see for themselves that Georgia is developing, and again, that Georgians are also people, the same as them. The only difference is that they live better, because of state institutions and strong established contacts with the outside world (which Abkhazians do not have, and will not have without reconciliations with Georgia). The fact that the attempt to lure and apologize is counterproductive is well supported by recent history. Abkhazians perceive attempts to lure them as signs of desperation (free healthcare is likely be placed in this context), which makes them think that Georgia will die without a dialogue with them, and for the sake of it will go for any concessions, including recognition of independence. Apologies convince them that they were right in everything 25 years ago (international organizations that don’t know the history of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict may also think this too). The Third Assumption Abkhazians will want to live in Georgia if they see that Georgia treats its own citizens well. Therefore, it is wrong to grant privileges to Abkhazians that are not available to Georgian citizens (holding Georgian passports). At one time, even under the USSR, granting Abkhazians privileges for the sake of satisfying their desires only led to the fact that many Georgians living there registered themselves as Abkhazians. This would likely happen again now. And it is surely one more reason to stop positive discrimination (free electricity, or healthcare). Georgians greet guests respectfully, but money collected from our taxpayers should be spent on those who consider themselves citizens of Georgia. Tornike Sharashenidze is a professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA)
Many fans have reportedly demanded refund after comedian Dave Chapelle delivered a 'slurred-speech' at his stand-up routine at The Fillmore theater in Detroit on Thursday, April 24. According to TMZ, fans thought the 41-year-old comedian was drunk when he took to the stage an hour late for the 9:30 p.m. program. Dave allegedly rambled while on stage, told a very few jokes and 'sat quietly' as he blew up on cigarettes before his crowd. His rep confirmed the 'Half Baked' actor was 'definitely not his best set' and suffered with a show which was lost of ingredients. But that didn't stop many attendees from flooding the venue's Facebook page with requests for refunds, of which ticket costs are believed to range from $50 to $200. An upset ticket holder commented on Facebook: ''Horrible don't go. Second show last night was ridiculous. Walked out. Did not get what I paid for..... refunds please!'' And another wrote: ''Can we get a refund lol was at the 2nd show and he was wasted lol crowd wouldn't shut the f*** up.'' Dave responded: ''Well, sir, it's a little late for that. Right now I've gotta get off the stage because it's 2 o'clock in the morning.'' But several viewers corrected the TV personality, responding: ''It's only 1 (a.m.).'' Meanwhile the Detriot News reports that the 'Undercover Brother' actor's earlier sold-out performance of the night was described as 'cool and calm' with 'sharp' material. So, what then happened to Dave?
This just in. Here’s a potential bombshell for the Mann: Mann’s hockey stick disappears – and CRU’s Briffa helps make the MWP live again by pointing out bias in the data ======================================================== Popcorn futures* continue their unprecedented climb: UPDATE: Sunday 10/28 Mark Steyn writes an uproariously funny but at the same time stinging evisceration of Dr. Mann on his private website titled The fraudulent Nobel Laureate This part says it all, I’d make it “Quote of the Week”, but then I don’t want to fragment this thread: When a man sues for damage to his reputation and grossly inflates that reputation in the very court filings, that says something about his credibility. He also links to this thoughtful essay by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. Mann’s embellishment has placed him in a situation where his claims are being countered by the Nobel organization itself. *There are no popcorn futures markets, the graph is based on a corn future market graph, just for fun Read Steyn’s latest here: The fraudulent Nobel Laureate ============================================================ Mark Steyn takes note of the airbrushing going on in Mike’s Nobel Trick: A week ago, Michael Mann accused us of damaging his reputation – and seems to have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. A week ago, he was a “Nobel prize recipient”. Now he’s not. Great work, Mike! Dr. Judith Curry sends some advice in her week in review: “JC message to Michael Mann: Mark Steyn is [a] formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you.” Read more at JudithCurry.com ————————————————————– FLASH: 10/26 7:30AM The Nobel committee responds to Mann’s “certificate”, says he can’t claim he won it (the Nobel prize itself). See below. – ALSO National Review makes phone call to Nobel committee, audio and transcript below. NOTE: This is a top sticky post for awhile since the interest is high. New stories appear below this one. UPDATE – legal complaint added, plus a new opinion piece by Chris Horner regarding claims of exoneration has been added – see below the “continue reading” line. UPDATE2: Steyn responds, see below. UPDATE 3: Steyn responds even further, saying: “Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé.” Details (and a photo to back up Steyn) below. UPDATE4: CEI officially responds to the lawsuit, and Steyn mocks Mann even more with a priceless zinger, see below. In related news, popcorn futures explode go nuclear. More details to follow. From Michael Mann’s Facebook page. Lawsuit filed against The National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute 10/22/12 Today, the case of Dr. Michael E. Mann vs. The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Dr. Mann, a Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has instituted this lawsuit against the two organizations, along with two of their authors, based upon their false and defamatory statements accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Dr. Mann is being represented by John B. Williams of the law firm of Cozen O’Connor in Washington, D.C. (http://www.cozen.com/attorney_detail.asp?d=1&atid=1406). Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. In 2007, along with Vice President Al Gore and his colleagues of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having “created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.” Nevertheless, the defendants assert that global warming is a “hoax,” and have accused Dr. Mann of improperly manipulating the data to reach his conclusions. In response to these types of accusations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and seven other organizations have conducted investigations into Dr. Mann’s work, finding any and all allegations of academic fraud to be baseless. Every investigation—and every replication of Mann’s work—has concluded that his research and conclusions were properly conducted and fairly presented. Despite their knowledge of the results of these many investigations, the defendants have nevertheless accused Dr. Mann of academic fraud and have maliciously attacked his personal reputation with the knowingly false comparison to a child molester. The conduct of the defendants is outrageous, and Dr. Mann will be seeking judgment for both compensatory and punitive damages. Journalists interested in further information regarding the filing of this lawsuit may contact Dr. Mann’s attorney at 202-912-4848, or jbwilliams@cozen.com. ============================================================== I’m sure Mark Steyn is thrilled with the prospect of now being able to do additional commentary on this side show. I can’t wait for depositions and discovery. UPDATES: Here is the legal complaint: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/michael-mann-complaint.pdf Chris Horner has this opinion piece now which explains his opinion on why Dr. Michael Mann was never fully investigated and thus never exonerated. Mark Steyn responds with: I’ll have more to say about this when I’ve stopped laughing. Mark Steyn writes in a further update: Actually, it’s worse than that. I’ve just read the official indictment or whatever you call it against NR, and he makes the claim that he has been “awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in the complaint itself (page 2, paragraph 2). Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé. And I’ve got the photo of Dr. Mann’s award (shown from his office window) to back up what Steyn says here. Note it says “for contributing to” not awarded to. Be careful, don’t choke on your popcorn while laughing. UPDATE4: CEI has released it’s official statement on the lawsuit on their website here: http://cei.org/news-releases/climate-scientist-sues-cei The say: One of our attorneys, Bruce D. Brown of Baker Hostetler, expertly laid out the legal arguments against Mann’s defamation claim. In short, Dr. Mann is a public figure, and under libel law he would need to meet an exceedingly high standard to prevail. Given the support that Simberg’s criticisms rest on, that standard simply can’t be met. As for Simberg’s Sandusky metaphor, it was purely that—a metaphor. They are also inviting readers to comment on the CEI Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CompetitiveEnterpriseInstitute/posts/428205930566869 Meanwhile, Mark Steyn whips out an example of his rapier wit over Mann’s “Nobel Prize” claims (see photo above) writing: On the one hand, Michael Mann’s own web page: He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors in 2007. On the other, the Nobel committee: Only persons named explicitly in the citation may claim to share a Nobel Prize. So we’re being sued for loss of reputation by a fake Nobel laureate. Hilarious. ============================================================= FLASH The Nobel committee responds to Mann’s “certificate” From Tom Richard at Climate Change Dispatch and at The Examiner I contacted the The Norwegian Nobel Institute to find out if Mann was indeed a Nobel Laureate, winner, etc… …snip… Geir Lundestad, Director, Professor, or The Norwegian Nobel Institute emailed me back with the following: 1) Michael Mann has never been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. 2) He did not receive any personal certificate. He has taken the diploma awarded in 2007 to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and to Al Gore) and made his own text underneath this authentic-looking diploma. 3) The text underneath the diploma is entirely his own. We issued only the diploma to the IPCC as such. No individuals on the IPCC side received anything in 2007. (NOTE: on point 3, another example here (PDF) suggests that the IPCC added that text, not Mann – Anthony) Lundestad goes on to say that, “Unfortunately we often experience that members of organizations that have indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize issue various forms of personal diplomas to indicate that they personally have received the Nobel Peace Prize. They have not.” Full story at Climate Change Dispatch and at The Examiner ================================================================= ALSO: From NRO’s “The Corner” a call to the Nobel committee by Charles C. W. Cooke: TRANSCRIPT Cooke: Hello there, do you speak English? Nobel Committee: Yes, can I help you? Cooke: I’m a writer. I’m wondering if I could ask you about previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize? Nobel Committee: Oh, could you speak a little bit louder. It’s difficult for me to hear. Cooke: Sorry. I’m trying to look for some information about previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Nobel Committee: Which one? Cooke: I was wondering, has Dr. Michael Mann ever won the Nobel Peace Prize? Nobel Committee: No, no. He has never won the Nobel prize. Cooke: He’s never won it? Nobel Committee: No. Cooke: Oh, it says on his- Nobel Committee: The organization won it. It’s not a personal prize to people belonging to an organization. Cooke: Okay. So if I were to write that he’d won it, that would be incorrect? Nobel Committee: That is incorrect, yes. Is it you that sent me an email today? I got an e-mail from our Stockholm office regarding Michael Mann. Cooke: Oh. No, I didn’t send you an e-mail. Nobel Committee: Oh. So what’s your name? Cooke: My name is Charles Cooke. Nobel Committee: And you work for? Cooke: I write for National Review. Nobel Committee: Okay, because I’ve got something from Boston and NY Mental Examiner that asked about the same thing. Cooke: Oh, okay. Well maybe this is a big question. Okay, but he hasn’t won it. That is the answer. Nobel Committee: No, he has not won it at all. Cooke: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much. Nobel Committee: Thank you. You’re welcome. Bye bye. Advertisements Share this: Print Email Twitter Facebook Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit
Brand new TBS writer Harrison Jones points out that popularity is a fickle beast in politics, and in Turnbull and Trudeau’s case, the hard work now begins. I first heard the name Justin Trudeau after he won the Canadian election, following a remarkably large landslide victory. His party, which previously held 34 seats in Parliament, won 184. Since then, the youthful, energetic liberal has fascinated me to the extent that I have watched far too many hours of his interviews and his speeches. One theme reoccurred throughout the analysis of his election: that he is a man of the people, and feeds off the enthusiastic support of his constituents. He is the politician who tried to shake everyone’s adoring hand at campaign events and take a selfie with every swooning middle-aged woman. He even got a photo with a topless woman at a gay pride march. Australia’s own Malcolm Turnbull is remarkably similar. Since replacing Tony Abbott in September, the populist leader has been spotted shaking everyone’s hand at events and taking selfies with his adoring fans. Now we are just waiting for the topless woman to jump him on the street. Turnbull, like Trudeau, has been thriving off the support of his constituents with a Fairfax-Ipsos poll in October finding his support as preferred Prime Minister at 69 percent. The important question that needs to asked is how much of this popularity will they be able to keep? How will they function as they are forced to begin to make tough decisions on serious issues that could disappoint millions of people? In 2008, Barack Obama became the “leader of the free world” on a wave of enthusiasm. The charismatic African-American saw broad support from his democratic party base and many swing voters, beating his opponent John McCain by almost 10,000,000 votes. Following his poignant and memorable speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, which launched him into the forefront of the American political consciousness, swathes of pressure had been placed on Obama to be the political saviour the country craved. Eleven years later, the reality is starkly different. Today, Obama has been labelled the least popular living President by a CNN/ORC International poll. Despite what the grand promises of an election campaign allude to, the governance of a state does not simply involve ticking the boxes of the various commitments made and waiting for the next election cycle. As a head of government, all leaders, robustly popular or not, must face the unenviable task of addressing the issue of the day, whether politically beneficial or not. Obama was a sitting duck for political disappointment from the outset. His inauguration came just a few months after the historic October 2008 crash of the stock market, sparking the GFC. Just six days after he formally became President, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was introduced to the house and drew deep criticism from the Republican leadership who refused to co-operate. Almost immediately, Obama, who ran on the euphoric platform of “hope and change,” had his political honeymoon cut short. The suffering continued as the Republicans won the 2010 mid-term elections, thus deriding Obama’s hopes of removing the Bush-era tax cuts to the wealthy. His most promising policy, the Affordable Care Act, has been introduced and has dropped the number of uninsured Americans by almost 3 percent (8.8 million people). Even so, cruel attack ads, the media’s (okay, mainly Fox News’) peddling of the “death panels” and the initial crash of the website has stained what should have been Obama’s greatest success. If the first African-American President of the United States couldn’t maintain his popularity as a political messiah, what hope is there for Turnbull and Trudeau? With a bold mandate ranging from a price on carbon to legalising marijuana nationwide, Canada has enormously high expectations for Trudeau who has been elected with a majority government. The issue for the Canadian Prime Minister will be acting on his mandate; he has already been forced to compromise by delaying the intake of the promised 25,000 Syrian refugees, and will continue to face criticism from the conservative opposition. Crucially, the new leader has only been a member of Parliament since 2008, and a High School teacher prior to that. A key aspect of the campaign against Trudeau throughout the election was both his inexperience and the surmising that the only reason he had the opportunity was because of who his father was (Pierre Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister for over 15 years). As a result, his responses to emerging challenges, especially international ones, such as IS, and Russia’s increasing aggression, will be heavily scrutinised and the learning curve will surely be a steep one, if he is to avoid the same political fate as Obama. Turnbull faces far greater challenges. Winning power, not from the people in a democratic election but from a party room, means that Australia’s 29th Prime Minister has no real mandate with the Australian people. Instead, Turnbull’s mandate comes from the ministers who supported him – and also who opposed him – in the 54-44 spill on the 14th of September. Therefore, until the next election, likely late next year, Turnbull is largely tied to the actions and promises of his hard-line conservative predecessor Tony Abbott. Turnbull’s predicament has meant he has been forced to tow the party line on same-sex marriage, despite it being overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people. His position on climate change, although more palatable than Abbott’s near-denial, still leaves Australia ranked third-last among developed industrial countries in terms of its response to global warming. How long is too long before the Australian people become fed up with what could be perceived as a well spoken Abbott? It’s not that Turnbull has been strangled by existing policy; he has recently announced his $1 billion agenda for innovation. Designed to shift Australia’s economic dependence from a declining mining boom to an “ideas boom,” the policy is largely inoffensive and likely to be well received. The cuts to other areas which will be announced this week to fund this program, however, are not likely to be well received. As may Turnbull’s possible proposal to increase the GST from 10 percent to 15 percent, which has been described as political poison. The freshly minted Paris agreement on climate change places pressure on Turnbull to address Australia’s high-emission coal industry, with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank touting a carbon price as the best plan. The chances of that are slimmer than Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd becoming best friends. If the $20 million the mining industry spent on advertisements against the Rudd/Gillard Mining Tax are anything to go by, even low level regulation won’t be introduced easily. Expectation is a powerful, unifying force in politics. It has the power to make politicians and break them. Turnbull and Trudeau are two fresh faces who have been brought to power by large popularity, and with great expectations placed upon them. If the example of Obama has taught us anything, it is that large electoral success does not always translate into lasting popularity. Turnbull, more than Trudeau, is edging closer to this day as his honeymoon begins to end. Scandals surrounding Mal Borough and Ian McFarlane, as well pressure for him to differentiate himself from Abbott, have forced him closer to the flight back to political reality. Such is politics.
John Kasich spiked the football with a statement pointing out he never endorsed Donald Trump. \| AP Photo Kasich: I told you so The Republican who refused to endorse Trump says he's not surprised. As the wall of Republican support for Donald Trump crumbled Saturday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich took a victory lap. "Nothing that has happened in the last 48 hours is surprising to me or many others," said Kasich, referencing the video recording that became public Friday of Trump bragging to TV host Billy Bush about his ability to sexually assault attractive women with impunity because of his fame. Story Continued Below The statement from Kasich, a two-term swing state governor whose raised profile and anti-Trump stance position him as a top establishment contender for the GOP's 2020 nomination, was as much an explanation and a reminder as to why he's never been able to support Trump as it was a condemnation of the party's sinking nominee. "Many people were angry and questioned why I would not endorse Donald Trump or attend the Republican Convention," he continued. "I’ve long had concerns with Donald Trump that go beyond his temperament. We have substantive policy differences on conservative issues like trade, our relationship with Russia, and the importance of balancing the federal budget. "I’ve held out hope that he would change on those disqualifying policy positions, but he has not. I’ve also encouraged him to change his behavior for the better and offer a positive, inclusive vision for our country, but he has not. "It's clear that he hasn't changed and has no interest in doing so," Kasich continued. "As a result, Donald Trump is a man I cannot and should not support. The actions of the last day are disgusting, but that’s not why I reached this decision, it has been an accumulation of his words and actions that many have been warning about. I will not vote for a nominee who has behaved in a manner that reflects so poorly on our country." "Our country deserves better." Trump, who apologized in a video statement released around midnight Friday, vowed not to step aside in the final month of the campaign despite calls from several high-ranking Republicans that he do so for the good of the party. John Weaver, Kasich's strategist, said the Ohio governor "takes no delight" in seeing so many of his fellow Republicans join him on what had become a somewhat lonlier anti-Trump island in recent months. Nor did he dismiss the possibility that Kasich plans to be in the center of rebuilding the party after the 2016 cycle comes to an end. "There has been significant damage done to the party, long-term damage to the brand with women, Hispanics, all people of color," Weaver said in a phone interview Saturday. "And it's not going to be solved in the midterm. Solving it will begin with a new nominee in 2020 and it's not going to be easy. We know what we need to do, it's a question of do we have the willpower?"
The cast of Lucifer had their 2017 Comic-Con panel in the Indigo Ballroom. The panel included cast members Tom Ellis (Lucifer), Lauren German (Chloe), Rachael Harris (Linda), Kevin Alejandro (Detective Douche (Dan)), Aimee Garcia (Ella) and Tricia Helfer (Mom (Charlotte)) and Executive Producers Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich. Like many of you I wish I was there at SDCC but I am not. I’m going to try and fill you in as best as I can. The panel opened with Tricia Helfer talking about playing mom in the 2nd season and returning as Charlotte in the 3rd season. Kevin Alejandro spoke about improv, I’d certainly like to see a little more of Detective Dan’s improv. Afterwards they dropped the season 3 sizzle reel. Rachael Harris opened up about Dr. Linda and discussed how we will delve more into her character next season. Joe Henderson confirmed that we would. She also praised the producers: Up next is Aimee Garcia. It’s being hinted at that we may see some “biblical” guest stars in the future. Tricia Helfer back on her character said “Charlotte doesn’t know who she is, so she doesn’t know what she wants…” I wonder what the future holds for Charlotte. Fans asked for a soundtrack and more of Lucifer singing. I for one am on board with that. Tom Ellis had this to say “I want to see a hip-hop episode.” I also want to see that. Tom Ellis comes clean to all the fans and admits that he can’t actually play the piano. A let down to many. Now @tomellis17 breaks a million hearts admitting he doesn’t actually play piano… (ok, he can play Hey Jude.) #Lucifer — Lucifer Writers Room (@LUCIFERwriters) July 22, 2017 The panel closed off with some exciting news for next season. Tom Welling from Smallville will be joining the cast as Lieutenant Marcus Pierce. As a Smallville fan I find this super exciting. This is Tom Welling’s first TV role since Smallville. It’s being hinted at that our new Lt. may have an eye for Chloe Decker. That’s it for Lucifer’s panel at SDCC 2017. Lucifer returns Monday, October 2nd at 8pm. The title of #Lucifer Ep. 301 is: “They’re Back Again, Aren’t They?” Written by @Ildymojo and directed by Karen Gaviola. pic.twitter.com/uFiYK1g17N — Lucifer Writers Room (@LUCIFERwriters) July 10, 2017 Advertisements Like this: Like Loading...
What are daily fantasy sports, and how are they different from regular fantasy sports? If you haven’t yet tried out daily fantasy sports (maybe you don’t know how it works or aren’t sure about it), let us explain the differences between daily fantasy sports (DFS) and regular fantasy sports / leagues. In regular fantasy sports you’ll have a draft that usually requires rounding up your friends, a set draft position you may not be happy with, and lots of research. These games are still lots of fun, but I think anyone would agree that it stinks when your star quarterback gets hurt or your top picks end up being busts, leaving you left with a very long - and very painful - season. In daily fantasy sports each player is given a salary price, and you are given a salary cap you must stay under. Your goal is to create the best team possible that fits under the salary cap. You can draft anyone you want, there is no draft order or waiting for other people to make picks. Players can be on anyones team, or everyones team, your lineup is whatever you want it to be and not dependant on other people’s lineups. Daily fantasy sports takes the most fun part of fantasy sports - the draft - and lets you do it every day. Chances are if you like fantasy sports, you’ll like daily fantasy sports. Give it a try!
Over the course of my career, I’ve given and received a lot of advice. Much of it was wrong. Sometimes it lacked the perspective that comes with age and experience. So now, as an official "oldster" at 65 (proof: thanks to my age, I just got $25 off upon joining a botanical society), I offer the following advice, from someone who has thought and written about academic careers for 40 years. Put your family first. Academics often have trouble doing that. I know I did. Starting out in academe at age 25, I had so many career issues to worry about — getting hired, getting publications, getting grants, getting promoted, getting tenured, getting promoted again, getting (I hoped) awards. The crucial word there is "getting." Like many academics, I was more concerned about getting than about giving, and giving to my family always seemed as if it could wait another day. The trouble is, the family really can’t wait. Intimate relationships can grow rusty, and children just grow up. I’m lucky that my kids — so far! — have turned out well. But I’ve seen many academics wait too long to attend to their family relationships, only to discover there’s not much of their relationships left. You can’t count on your publications and awards to take care of you. You need your family now, and you’ll need them more later. More important, they need you now. Make your health a close second. When you are in your 20s and 30s, you often can get away with not eating well or exercising enough. In those years, your not-so-great health habits may not show themselves in any tangible way. But they will show, probably starting in your 40s, and certainly by your 50s. And then you’ll be well on your way to the "I should have taken care of myself sooner" phase. You can’t always control your health. Some people have to stop working when they get older, while others can work in only a limited way. But you can help nudge things in the right direction with a lifetime of eating smart and exercising regularly. Save as much money as you can. Years ago, I remember my faculty mentor retiring and blurting out to me, "I’m rich!" Chances are, you won’t be doing the same. If you think you will, that’s rich — and that’s about all the richness you are going to get. There was a fairly prolonged period in which stocks kept an upward trajectory and interest rates were high enough to make bonds an attractive investment. Today the stock market goes up and down in fits and starts, and interest rates on bonds are at historic lows. The upshot is that many people reach an age at which they might want to retire but can’t. Fewer and fewer academics are on defined-benefit plans, while more and more are on defined- contribution plans — if they have any retirement savings at all. The latter usually don’t cover the full cost of what today is a much longer and more expensive retirement than was true in the past. So start saving early, and save as much as you can. If you’re in the wrong place, get out. Most academics today have multiple jobs over the course of a career. At some point, there is a pretty good chance that you’ll land in a department (or even an entire institution) that feels dysfunctional. In your 20s and 30s, you might somehow convince yourself that "things will work out." As you get older, you realize that a bad match between an academic and an institution usually stays that way. If you really care about teaching and your university doesn’t, the university is probably not going to change. If you care about excellence and the people around you take pride in their mediocrity, chances are that will not change. Rather, they will perceive you as just a grand annoyance, or as a threat. So if you don’t fit, start looking before you’re told to start looking. Advertisement Stay away from jerks. Academe, like any other profession, attracts its fair share of creeps and dirtbags. You can waste a lot of time trying to figure out how to deal with them. The reason people are still trying to figure that out is because no one ever quite has. The best thing you can do is to stay away from them, to the extent possible. You’ve got better things to do. The time you spend trying to deal with them, or avenge yourself against them, is time lost to far more productive endeavors. If you’re not having fun, something’s wrong. Virtually no one goes into academe because the pay is so fantastic or the fringe benefits so marvelous. Academics just don’t get Wall Street-type bonuses. Rather, most of us go into academe because of intellectual passion for a subject or for teaching. It’s a place where we can enjoy our work and make a decent living doing it. (Yes, that’s true mainly for those on the tenure track, and yes, those positions are tougher to come by.) If you’re not having fun, then ask yourself: Why not? What can you do to make the job more enjoyable? Do you need a new course to teach, a new area of research, a new type of student, a new avenue of community outreach? And if you can’t make your work fun, consider the possibility that you are in the wrong job. Be true to yourself. Looking back, I find it hard to believe how much pressure I experienced to be someone I’m not — to do research in "hot" areas that didn’t actually interest me, to write grants I didn’t really want just to get the money, to give students grades they hadn’t actually earned, to serve on committees to which I had nothing substantive to contribute. Well, you get the picture. Once you start to sell out your integrity as a professional and even as a person, the slope becomes slippery. In the short run, you sometimes will pay for being true to yourself. In the long run, you will be glad you maintained your integrity. When you look back from age 65, you will only take pride in having lived up to your own expectations. Don’t tie up too much of your self-esteem in someone else’s evaluation of your work. Academe is not for the thin-skinned. In the course of a career, you get lots of flak thrown at you. If your self-esteem depends on other people’s evaluations of how good you are, you’re very likely going to spend a lot of time feeling badly about yourself. Moreover, sometimes you will be judged by people whose work is inferior to your own. Get used to it. But don’t let others, whose opinions often are not worth much, be the deciding factor in your self-assessment. Listen to critics but, in the end, find your value from inside yourself. And if you can’t value yourself from within, you never will find value from without. Because there will always be one more person to please, one more stone left unturned. Take stock periodically. You will probably reach a point in your life when you forget why you’re doing what you’re doing. You neglect to reflect on that as the years go by and suddenly realize that whatever your original purpose was has long since been lost. Advertisement You can maintain that sense of purpose — or recover it — but only if you periodically ask yourself whether you still have it and, if not, what you are going to do about that. Keep asking yourself what you want to be doing in five years, or 10. When I was starting out, I had an image of a linear career progression. My career has ended up, as is the case for most people, being very nonlinear. I moved up the faculty ranks but also got involved in professional organizations and in university administration. Neither of those things was part of my original career plan. On the contrary, at age 30, if anyone had told me that someday I would be doing administration, I might have thought they were nuts. But people’s interests change over time, and a passion you feel during one stage of your career may turn into a drag in the next. Keep asking: Where is my career going? What goals do I want to reach? Have a hobby. See the world. Or both. Academic work can be all-consuming. What with teaching, research, and service, there is always something, and usually too much, to do. It’s easy to lose perspective and let your career consume more and more of your personal life. That’s why it’s important to have a hobby. From time to time, you need to get away from your job, but you also need to have something to get away to. Having an outlet actually will make you a better academic, because after you take a break, you will be able to return to your work refreshed instead of burned out. And you will have something to do when you retire. The same goes for travel. Many academics think of seeing the world as something they’ll do after retirement. But a lot can happen between then and now. If you want to see the world, don’t wait until "someday." You may even find that the perspectives you gain from observing other cultures will help you in your teaching, research, and service. Help others. Academics can be quite selfish. Of course, you’re not. And it’s true, if you don’t look out for yourself, you may find that no one else is looking out for you, either. But if that’s pretty much all you’re doing, you’re in trouble. At the end of your career, you are likely to take the most pride in how you helped others, not in what you did to advance yourself. And others are likely to look at you the same way: Were you interested only in No. 1? Or did you have time to aid friends, family, and colleagues? Take some risks. In your 60s and 70s, your biggest regrets are likely to be not about something you did, but about all the things you didn’t do, the opportunities you passed up. Faced with a "sensible" career risk, go for it. Grow from it. Some risks will fail. Some of mine certainly have. But you’ll be a wiser and better person for those failures, rather than someone who got stuck in a small world and was afraid to leave it. Your most important legacy might not be your research. I was super-professionally oriented in my earlier days. I never thought I’d be 65 and saying that the most positive and meaningful difference I’ve made is through parenting my (five) children. I always thought that my research would be my legacy. But when I ask my students, none of them recognize the names of my famous advisers. Their work continues to matter, but often people have forgotten who did it. I hope my work continues to make a difference, in the sense that it gives way to the contributions of the future. Our students and their students are not here to perpetuate our ideas, but rather to incorporate — often without attribution — our ideas into the ideas of tomorrow. That’s it. I hope that by the time you reach my age, you’ll feel that your life and career have made the kind of difference you had hoped to make. Me? I’m not there yet, which is why I’m still trying — for example, by writing this article. Robert J. Sternberg is a professor of human development at Cornell University. He is a past president of the American Psychological Association and the Federation of Associations in Behavior and Brain Sciences, and is editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science.
An unseemly row has erupted over inadequate attribution of sources in the work of an American-Indian author and Hindu intellectual who has made it his life's work to challenge and confront western academicians who now dominate the narratives around Indic culture and religion, especially Hinduism. Rajiv Malhotra, a former businessman and author of several books that “reverse the gaze” from east to west, is at the centre of that storm, currently confined largely to blogosphere and internet publications. Malhotra's major works include Being Different, which takes a Indic view of Abrahamic faiths, Breaking India, which deals with subtle western efforts to use Indian fault caste lines to divide Indian from Indian, and Indra's Net, which seeks to combat western criticism that Indian religious philosophers and saints did not use empiricism and observation to inform their worldviews (among other things). I would urge all, both critics and supporters, to read his work before taking sides in the "plagiarism" controversy Malhotra is currently embroiled in. It would be easy to relate to the controversy purely as an issue of intellectual dishonesty and lack of publishing ethics, and I have no quarrel with those who are not interested in what Malhotra has to say or what he stands for and why he may be targeted. However, this is an extremely naïve view to take. You should then equally believe that the current legal travails of Teesta Setalvad have nothing to do with her blood feud with Narendra Modi and the BJP, or that her sudden essay today in The Indian Express on the National Judicial Appointments Commission - which she has blasted, no doubt warming many judicial hearts - is a mere coincidence, coming up just when the courts are about to decide whether or not she can be questioned in custody for her alleged infringement of the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act in her NGOs. She has alleged vendetta, but is this factor relevant when the issue, according to her critics, is wrongdoing by her NGOs? So, let's be clear. There are two issues here, one to do with alleged “plagiarism” by Malhotra, and the other with the exertions of the Indian "secular Left” and American Christian Right to demolish Malhotra’s reputation in some way or the other. You can believe the two issues are inter-linked, as I do, but if you choose not to think so, that is your right. But we can, and should, deal with them separately for the sake of clarity. Let me also state my own biases upfront. I have written often against giving too much importance to intellectual property rights (read here, here, and here), and believe that only extraordinary contribution to ideas, science and technologies ought to be given high protection. The other disclosure I want to make is that I am an admirer of Malhotra's work. So, I am not surprised where the attack on him has come from: the very people who feel threatened by his writings and work – the Christian Right and the Indian pseudo-Left. Let's first deal with the "plagiarism" issue. According to Richard Fox Young, an associate professor of the history of religions at the Princeton Theological Seminary, Malhotra is guilty of widespread plagiarism, and has been gleefully pointing these out on Twitter and other fora (read what he has had to say in summary here; also read Malhotra's counter here). The important point Young makes is that Malhotra has used many key parts of the work of Andrew J Nicholson from his book Unifying Hinduism. This attack is partially valid, but not fully so. Reason: the truth is not that Malhotra does not acknowledge Nicholson’s work, but that he does not do it enough. Malhotra himself does not deny he drew from Nicholson’s ideas in this piece. Specifically, he had this to say in an article in News Laundry: “The accusation is that in nine different instances in Indra’s Net, I should have cited a certain book by Andrew Nicholson, which I failed to do. However, the facts are different: I do cite Nicholson’s book about 10 times in the main text with an additional 20 references in the endnotes. Clearly, I am informing the reader that I utilise Nicholson’s ideas with a combination of his words and mine. I do not cite him after every single sentence where I use him, but it is unambiguously clear when reading entire passages of my book that I am discussing his works. Unfortunately, none of those attacking me have bothered to acknowledge this simple fact. Those passing judgment need to figure out why someone wanting to plagiarise a source would bother referencing it about 30 times.” This statement does not absolve Malhotra or his publishers completely, but it is not an unreasonable defence. In my view, a formal regret and a promise to correct this lapse in future versions of the book will address the criticism. However, that is not what Malhotra’s critics will be satisfied with. What the people condemning Malhotra are doing – and they all come from a contiguous ideological orientation - is precisely what they accused Dinanath Batra of doing to Wendy Doniger’s book on Hinduism, where the publishers agreed to pulp it when taken to court. Malhotra’s critics want to pulp his book in the name of non-attribution of sources. Here’s an online petition calling for precisely that. The petition has all of 200-and-odd supporters, when a rival petition to defend intellectual freedom, presumably created by Malhotra’s admirers, has notched up over 8,000 supporters. However, now we have to come to the main point: when you feel threatened by someone’s ideas, you must first attempt to rebut him; when that doesn’t work, you must trying to demonise him as a “crank” and/or avoid discussing him; or you must try and destroy his credentials by saying his work is not that of a true expert. All three have been tried by Malhotra’s critics – the last with the charge of plagiarism. Attempts to debunk Malhotra’s views have failed so far. Even though Malhotra is studiously avoided in mainstream Indian media’s “secular” debates, thanks to the same silent tactics of exclusion, he has effectively put American Christian academics and “experts on Hinduism” on the defensive through his books. From Wendy Doniger to Martha Nussbaum to almost every establishment academician in American universities, there has been a closing of ranks to rubbish Malhotra. The Indian “secular Left”, which has already been successful in excluding him from major mainstream media appearances, has now joined the western flight against an Indic scholar, as is apparent from the drumming up of the “plagiarism” debate on the internet (read here and here). To me it is crystal clear: the Indian “secular Left” and western academicians are feeling threatened by the apparent traction Malhotra is getting among the diaspora and, now, even back home. Hence the attempt to dismiss him as a rabid “Internet Hindutva” icon. The “secular Left” is good at name-calling and labelling when it is losing the argument. And that is what this is all about ultimately. Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.
This morning at 09:08 GMT Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched the Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan, the country’s first spacecraft destined for Mars. Over the next 300 days, it will slingshot around Earth and travel to Mars to begin its science mission. If all goes well, Mangalyann (Hindi for “Mars craft”) should arrive around September 24, 2014 and ISRO will become the fourth space program to reach the red planet; only the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union have achieved this so far. While orbiting Mars during its six month mission, Mangalyann will analyze the Martian atmosphere for methane, a critical chemical for life. Methane does not last very long in the atmosphere, meaning a continual source must come from the planet itself. While a large amount of methane on Earth is produced by microbes, it can also originate from volcanic activity which might be more likely for Mars. The orbiter will also seek to determine weather patterns and will hopefully find clues about where the once-abundant water on the planet’s surface has gone. As with many space endeavors, some Indian citizens are questioning the importance of the $72 million mission. Nearly 68% of citizens in India live on less than US$2 per day, so many feel poverty eradication should take precedence over space exploration. This is a legitimate concern, but the mission actually stands to alleviate financial concerns. A successful space program will advance India’s communication abilities though advanced satellites. Improved telemedicine will allow hospitals in remote areas to quickly connect with larger specialty hospitals, which can save lives. Advancing weather forecasting has the potential to save lives by better predicting storms coming in off the coast and can also be used to benefit agriculture. Improvements in technology could also create desperately-needed jobs, boosting per capita income. The space program is also remarkably efficient: the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) developed in India that launched Mangalyaan into space has successfully completed 23 out of 25 launches, which equates to a 92% success rate. The current Mars mission was developed and launched in a mere 15 months, making today’s launch all the more impressive. ISRO has 58 mission planned during the 2012-2017 time span, involving 33 satellites and 25 launch vehicles.
How to include R plots and diagrams in blog posts R plots in Markdown Using my R-pandoc tool, you will be able to embed nice R plots into blog posts, like the one below! It uses the fantastic pandoc document converter. require (stats) D = 150 T = 10 t = seq ( 0 , 80 , 0.01 ) x = -D* exp (-(t/T))+D v = (D/T)* exp (-(t/T)) plot (t, x, type= "l" , main= "Evolution of position through time" , xlab= "time (s)" , ylab= "position (m)" , xlim= c ( 0 , 80 ), ylim= c ( 0 , D +10 ), xaxs = "i" , yaxs = "i" ) The above code and diagram are produced by inserting this code block inside a markdown file: ``` {.Rplot echo=Above} require(stats) D = 150 T = 10 t = seq(0, 80, 0.01) x = -Dexp(-(t/T))+D v = (D/T)exp(-(t/T)) plot(t, x, type="l", main="Evolution of position through time", xlab="time (s)", ylab="position (m)", xlim=c(0,80), ylim=c(0, D+10), xaxs = "i", yaxs = "i") ``` The attribute echo can also get the value Below to get the code displayed below the graphic. Ignore echo if you want only the graphic. Now you can compile your markdown blog post: $ pandoc -t html demo.md --filter R-pandoc -o demo.html -s A HTML file should be generated containing a nice graph. Diagrams in Markdown Using diagrams-pandoc (available soon), you can also produce nice diagrams inserted in Markdown. The diagrams above was obtained from the following code: ``` {.diagram} example = square 1 # fc aqua ` atop ` circle 1 ``` It supports the same options than R-pandoc. Embed in a Hakyll blog To embed this in a Hakyll blog, you need to add R-pandoc in the dependencies of you project cabal file, and then define a special markdown compiler: import Text.Pandoc.R pandocCompilerR :: Compiler ( Item String ) pandocCompilerR = pandocCompilerWithTransformM defaultHakyllReaderOptions defaultHakyllWriterOptions rTransformer rTransformer :: Pandoc -> Compiler Pandoc rTransformer pandoc = unsafeCompiler $ renderRPandoc "images" True pandoc This compiler can be used instead the default one: buildRmd :: Rules () buildRmd = do match "*.md" $ do route idRoute compile $ pandocCompilerR Combining R-pandoc and diagrams-pandoc What is really great is that transformers can be composed. To render an article containing both R plots and diagrams in command line, you can do it like that: $ pandoc demo.md -t json \| R-pandoc \| diagrams-pandoc \| pandoc -f json -t html To do the same automatically with Hakyll, you can create a markdown compiler from R-pandoc and diagrams-pandoc with the famous fish >=> operator: myPandocCompiler :: Compiler ( Item String ) myPandocCompiler = pandocCompilerWithTransformM readerOptions writerOptions $ diagramsTransformer >=> rTransformer This blog post has of course been generated with Hakyll, R-pandoc and diagrams-pandoc. Check out the source code here. If you want to learn more about pandoc filters, check here. Comments
Open source software is at the heart of a European Commission initiative to allow European's a voice through Europe-wide petitions. At a conference in Brussels on 26 January, the European Commission officially launched its European Citizens' Initiative, due to come into effect on 1 April 2012. Under the terms of that initiative, if a petition gathers more than a million signatures across a minimum of seven member states, the European Commission will have to consider enacting relevant legislation. The petitioning system will use open source software for collecting and storing signatures. The OnLine Collection Software (OCS) has been developed by the Commission's Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations. The tool, created as a Java web server application, supports all 23 of the official EU languages and is reported to streamline both data collection and verification. According to a report on the EU's Joinup, officials involved in the development hope that other developers will get involved, not just in improving and extending OCS itself – such as by adding minority language support – but also by creating mobile apps that would interact with it and integrating the system with social networks. OCS is currently labelled as pre-alpha, and is available to download from the Joinup web site under the terms of the European Union Public Licence (EUPL). (ehe)
Terry Firma We learned today that the older of the two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston marathon was called Tamerlan Tsarnaev. That means he was named after the 14th-century Turkic ruler Tamerlane (also spelled Tamburlaine, but more commonly Temur or Timur) who called himself “the Sword of Islam.” Tamerlane/Timur, says Wikipedia, was known for his butchery and his “systematic use of terror.” His empire stretched thousands of miles, encompassing parts of (among other countries) Turkey, India, Iran, Afghanistan, and also Kyrgyzstan, where the Boston suspects were born. Timur was a devout Muslim who referred to himself as the Sword of Islam, converting nearly all the Borjigin leaders to Islam during his lifetime. His armies were inclusively multi-ethnic. During his lifetime Timur would emerge as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire and the declining Sultanate of Delhi. Timur had also decisively defeated the Christian Knights Hospitaller at Smyrna. … Timur’s armies were feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, sizable parts of which were laid to ruin by his campaigns. Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about five percent of the world population. Taking advantage of his Turco-Mongolia heritage, Timur frequently used either the Islamic religion or the law and traditions of the Mongol Empire to achieve his military goals or domestic political aims. He not only consolidated his rule at home by the subjugation of his foes, but sought extension of territory by encroachments upon the lands of foreign potentates. His conquests to the west and northwest led him to the lands near the Caspian Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga. Conquests in the south and south-West encompassed almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad, Karbala and Northern Iraq. His incursion into Persia was notable in part for what Tamerlane ordered his troops to do after the brief siege of the city of Isfahan. When Isfahan surrendered to Timur in 1387, he treated it with relative mercy as he normally did with cities that surrendered. However, after the city revolted against Timur’s taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur’s soldiers, Timur ordered the massacre of the city’s citizens with the death toll reckoned at between 100,000 and 200,000. An eye-witness counted more than 28 towers constructed of about 1,500 heads each. This has been described as a “systematic use of terror against towns…an integral element of Tamerlane’s strategic element” which he viewed as preventing bloodshed by discouraging resistance. … He justified his campaign towards Delhi as a religious war against the Hindu religion practiced in the city and also as a chance for to gain more riches in a city that was lacking control. By all accounts, Timur’s campaigns in India were marked by systematic slaughter and other atrocities on a truly massive scale inflicted mainly on the subcontinent’s Hindu population. He massacred 100,000 captives at Delhi, and at least 20,000 more at Baghdad. The Baghdad death toll came after Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at least two severed human heads to show him. (Many warriors were so scared they killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign just to ensure they had heads to present to Timur.) Then he turned his attention to Ankara and Anatolia (present-day Turkey). Timur’s army ravaged Western Anatolia, with Muslim writers complaining that the Timurid army acted more like a horde of savages than that of a civilized conqueror. But Timur did take the city of Smyrna, a stronghold of the Christian Knights Hospitalers, thus he referred to himself as ghazi or “Warrior of Islam”. In all, The conquests of Timur are claimed to have caused the deaths of up to 17 million people; an assertion impossible to verify. Timur’s campaigns sometimes caused large and permanent demographic changes. Northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian Christian until attacked, looted, plundered and destroyed by Timur, leaving its population decimated by systematic mass slaughter. Timur’s devotion to Islam, especially in his waning years, was never in question, but in his earlier adulthood he seems to have been more of a religious opportunist who just loved to subjugate and plunder. Notes one reviewer of Justin Marozzi’s biography Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World: Temur rationalised his conquests by appeal to Islam, but he rates as one of the greatest butchers of Muslims of all time. His forces were hired and kept loyal with generous shares of the spoils of conquest, and the cynical deal was, “No jewels, no jihad.” If a city were rich enough to merit plundering, it would qualify as a city of bad Muslims to be blessed with Temur’s corrections and a pretext found. If it happened to be filled with Crusaders or Hindus, all the better. The Ottomans themselves, fresh from annihilating the flower of Christian knighthood at Nicopolis, were swept aside almost without effort. Clearly, Temur’s blessings to his religion were equivocal. Campaigns against Delhi and Christian enclaves in Asia Minor allowed a slightly more convincing pretext of religious war, and in his later years he directed his energies more consistently against non-Muslims as he felt immortality approach, but his campaigning character seems to have been defined by the lust for conquest. Of course, that one of the apparent Boston bombers was named after the Sword of Islam may mean nothing. The Tsarnaev boys’ aunt claims they were unfailingly good and kind: My nephews cannot be part of this terrible, horrible act that was committed in the streets of Boston. I know these two nephews, smart boys, good boys, they have no motive for that, they have no ideas to be going to this kind of act. It’s just not the case, it cannot be true. We‘ll see. [top photo via Business Insider; middle photo via National Geographic; bottom image via Aapna Punjab]
Microsoft’s Imagine Cup 2013 student technology competition in St. Petersburg, Russia, just ended with a high-energy awards gala hosted by Dr. Who’s Matt Smith. This year, Microsoft awarded three main prizes of $50,000 each to the winners in the World Citizenship, Games and Innovation categories, which were won by teams from the U.K., Portugal and Austria. The second and third place winners in these categories won $10,000 and $5,000 respectively. The World Citizenship award went to Portugal’s Ana Ferraz who developed a system to quickly and cheaply determine a patient’s blood type. While Taiwan’s Omni-Hearing Solution was second and Confufish Royale from Australia came in third. In the Games category, Austria’s Zeppelin Studio won the top prize for Schein, a puzzle platformer. Indonesia’s Solite Studios came in second and France’s Banzai Lightning took third place. Colinked out of the U.K. took the top prize in the Innovations category for SoundSYNK, a mobile phone app designed to establish an “impromptu social network” by connecting phones through Bluetooth/Wi-Fi. DORA from Slovenia came in second, and Thailand’s MYRA came in third. Microsoft also sponsored three other minor awards that focus on its technologies. The Windows Phone Challenge award was won by vSoft Studio from Singapore, which built a voice-drive reminders app for Windows Phone. India’s Y-Nots won the Windows Azure challenge (as well as the Mail.ru award) and Italy’s TeamNameException won the Windows 8 App Challenge. Another award worth singling out here is the UN Women Award, which is meant to highlight projects that empower and protect women. The awards in this category went to Taiwan’s Omni-Hearing Solution and Uganda’s Code 8 malaria-testing solution. In total, Microsoft and a set of event sponsors like KFC, Samsung, Facebook and Mail.ru awarded over $1 million to the best projects in this year’s competition. Over 25,000 students competed in their local events and 87 teams with 309 students from 71 countries were invited to showcase their creations in Russia this week. This was the 11th year in a row Microsoft organized this event. Next year, the Imagine Cup will be hosted on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash. In previous years, the event mostly focused on the World Citizenship and Games categories as the keystone competitions. This year, however, Microsoft added the “Innovation” category to allow a wider range of students to participate with products and services that use very advanced technologies but that aren’t directly related to the “betterment of humanity.”
Insufflated vs. Oral, Caffeine Comparison Caffeine Citation: cowardsCoke. "Insufflated vs. Oral, Caffeine Comparison: An Experience with Caffeine (exp94854)". Erowid.org . Mar 7, 2012. erowid.org/exp/94854 DOSE: 25 mg insufflated Caffeine (capsule) BODY WEIGHT: 130 lb I would like to intimately detail my experiences with caffeine and Adderall and their different methods of ingestion.When I was 14, I started drinking coffee. I usually drank only a half cup (about 80-100 mg caffeine) because any more would cause jitters. I found it greatly helped my ADHD and improved my mood. I continued drinking only coffee for several years. I occasionally drink up to 3-4 cups a day. I also enjoy energy drinks such as Red Bull, Full Throttle, NOS, Amp, etc.Recently I've taken to caffeine pills because they are readily available and very cheap. I can get 200 mg pills forI was so ready. That's the best way to describe it. She said it was like smoking cocaine (not crack, just regular cocaine). You just feel ready, ready for anything. You feel stimulated, but calm at the same time. It makes me want to take a nap, but it doesn't, just like coke. It was so similar I thought to call it 'coward's coke' (It's clever because it's yellow). She disagreed saying it was close enough to just call 'coke'.It was surprisingly euphoric and powerful. The effects come in about 30 seconds. I felt lighter and lighter as the substance surged into my blood stream.Some interesting comparisons:--Insufflated caffeine pills---Pros-Quick, very noticeable onset; wonderful before doing work, gives a powerful 'signal' that it's time to get upSmaller dose needed, 100-200 mg is typical for me, 600 mg is too much and causes nausea and appetite suppressionLittle to no light-headedness; normal doses (200 mg or more) of oral caffeine cause light-headedness and sometimes faintingLittle to no stomach painGreatly increases motivation as compared to oral, likely due to sudden increase in energy; I want to get up and do something!Much more euphoric; the euphoria is secondary, not as a direct result of the drug, but rather as a result of increasing the pleasure of doing activities. Tasks become easy and therefore the joy in doing them isn't overpowered by the effort it requires. It also increases the activity of my mind's eye, making imagination much more vivid.Come down is mild or absent-Cons-Nausea can be overwhelming if too much is taken (600 mg is too much for me), I've only had it from oral use once. It was 600 mg taken with little tolerance.Nosebleeds happen after a few days of insufflationNose pain develops with too much useIncreases chances of getting sinus infection (I got one in two weeks because I didn't clean my sinuses out)Increases nasal congestion sometimes or causes runny nose.Bitter drip (but not nearly as bad as other pills or drugs and practically unnoticeable with less than 200 mg)-Notes-Likely to have shorter duration of action; I haven't noticed it because I continue to work even after it wears off.Pills should be very finely powdered, more drug is absorbed and pain is much less noticeable.Unlike other pills (such as lortabs or tramadol) the pain is almost unnoticeable and the drip is subtle and only mildly bitter.After 10 minutes or so, you should flush your sinuses with saline solution until you can't taste the bitterness anymore.Caffeine is mildly caustic and any pill will cause damage to your sinuses over time. Clean that stuff out!Benzedrex or Vick's inhalers are great for clearing the nose prior to insufflation.Some brands are better for insufflation than others; don't use No-Doz brand, it contains an acid to speed onset (ouch!) and is pricey, but it'll work in a pinch.Western Family brand is good, about $0.25 each when bought in 16-packs.Equate brand (from Walmart) is even better, less dye and about $0.05 in bottles of 80.My favorite brand so far is Jet-Alert double strength. It's about $0.04 in packs of 90, has even less dye, has less other ingredients, and is the most potent by weight (thus less fillers are inhaled) but contains lactose (which some might be allergic to). It also breaks into a finer powder than the above. It's silky smooth!--Oral caffeine---Pros-Easy and convenient; doesn't require anything but water.Easy to find; tea, coffee, energy drinks, caffeinated gums, shampoo, etc.Caffeinated beverages are delicous!-Cons-Causes light-headedness in small quantities (200 mg) and fainting in larger quantities (400 mg or more)Causes stomach pain (especially acidic coffee)Drinks can be expensive: Red Bull 80mg for $2, Pill 200 mg for $0.05Milder effect and slower onset are hardly noticable for me.Come down is very noticable, yawning, dizziness, and sleepiness are common.-Notes-More likely have laxative and diuretic properties, esp. coffee. This goes away quickly as tolerance increases.--Other caffeine notes--Caffeine works by blocking the action of adenosine, the substance that makes you sleepy.Caffeine tolerance builds rapidly withing a few days, for me, it stabilizes around 400-600 mg per day.Caffeine has laxative and diuretic properties, but the effect drops off rapidly with tolerance.Taking breaks to decrease tolerance does work, but it seems to be more effective overall if used every day, it also tempers the effect so overdose is less likely.I have ADHD, so caffeine tends to have an opposite effect on me, that is, it helps me calm down, focus, and actually promotes sleep. I often snort 2 pills (400 mg) and then take a 'caffeine nap'. I lay down with my eyes closed and just relax. I have a very light sleep for 10-15 minutes and them I'm REALLY ready to go. It doesn't prevent sleep, it just makes fatigue less noticeable.It has an effect mostly on the body, as compared to amphetamines (Adderall), which stimulate the mind more. When combined, they work to have a powerful effect on my motivation. I just want to do everything. Everything I do is enjoyable which is great because I've always had a low level of joy. Every task seemed like such a huge effort that I couldn't enjoy anything. Now the effort seems trivial. This combination has turned mountains into mere anthills. It increased my functioning to that of a normal person and even more!Amphetamines, however, have side effects. They can completely eliminate the desire for sleep, and they cause dry mouth, an unusual taste, dry skin, acne, weight loss, and over-stimulation. They can make me unable to slow down. I feel my legs getting tired, but I don't care and keep working until I'm exhausted.
Fiji goes air-cooled New Radeons are coming into Damage Labs at a rate and in a fashion I can barely handle. The first Radeon R9 Fury card, the air-cooled sibling to the R9 Fury X, arrived less than 24 hours ago, as I write. I'm mainlining an I.V. drip consisting of Brazilian coffee, vitamin B, and methamphetamine just to bring you these words. With luck, I'll polish off this review and get it posted before suffering a major medical event. Hallucinations are possible and may involve large, red tentacles reaching forth from a GPU cooler. GPU boost clock Shader processors Memory config PCIe aux power Peak power draw E-tail price Radeon R9 Fury 1000 MHz 3584 4 GB HBM 2 x 8-pin 275W $549.99* Radeon R9 Fury X 1050 MHz 4096 4 GB HBM 2 x 8-pin 275W $649.99 Despite my current state, the health of AMD's new R9 Fury graphics card appears to be quite good. The Fury is based on the same Fiji GPU as the Radeon R9 Fury X, and it has the same prodigious memory subsystem powered by HBM, the stacked DRAM solution that's likely the future of graphics memory. That means the Fury has the same ridiculous 512GB/s of memory bandwidth as its elder brother. The only real cut-downs come at the chip level. The Fiji GPU on Fury has had eight of its 64 GCN compute units deactivated, taking it down to "only" 3584 stream processors and 224 texels per clock of filtering power. The Fury's only other concession to being second in the lineup is a 1000MHz peak clock speed, 50MHz shy of the big dawg's. At the end of the day, the Fury still has the second most powerful shader array in a consumer GPU, with 7.2 teraflops of single-precision arithmetic power on tap, and it has about a third more memory bandwidth than a GeForce Titan X. The card we have on hand to test is Asus' Strix rendition of the R9 Fury. Although all Fury X cards are supposed to be the same, AMD has given board makers the go-ahead to customize the non-X Fury as they see fit. Asus has taken that ball and run with it, slapping on its brand-spanking-new DirectCU III cooler. This beast is huge and heavy, with a pair of extra-thick heatpipes snaking through its array of cooling fins. The cooler is also one of the tallest and longest we've seen; it protrudes about two inches above the top of the PCIe slot cover, and the card is about 11.75" long. Like a number of aftermarket cards from the best manufacturers these days, the Strix R9 Fury's fans do not spin until the GPU reaches a certain temperature. Generally, that means the fans stay completely still during everyday operation on the Windows desktop, which is excellent. The Strix is premium in other ways, too many for me to retain in my semi-medicated state. I do recall something about Asus including a year-long license for XSplit Premium, so you can stream your Fury-powered exploits to the world. There's also an "OC mode" that grants an extra 20MHz of GPU clock frequency at the flip of a switch. Oh, and I think those tentacle hallucinations may have been prompted in part by the throbbing light show under the Strix logo on the top of the cooler. Asus expects the Strix R9 Fury to cost $579.99 at online retailers, a little more than AMD's suggested base price for Fury cards. That sticker undercuts any GM200-based GeForce card, like the GTX 980 Ti and Titan X, and it's roughly 50 bucks more expensive than hot-clocked GTX 980 cards based on the smaller GM204 GPU. The Radeon R9 300 series, too The R9 Fury isn't the only new Radeon getting the treatment in Damage Labs. I've finally gotten my hands on a pair of R9 300-series cards and have a full set of results for you on the following pages. The R9 390 and 390X are refreshed versions of the R9 290 and 290X before them. They're based on the same Hawaii GPU, but AMD has juiced them up a bit with a series of tweaks. First, GPU clock speeds are up by 50MHz on both cards, yielding a bit more goodness. Memory clocks are up even more than that, from 5 GT/s to 6 GT/s, thanks to the availability of newer and better GDDR5 chips. As a result, memory bandwidth jumps from 320 to 384 GB/s, putting these cards also well ahead of the Titan X and anything else from the green team in terms of raw throughput. Furthermore, all R9 390 and 390X cards ship with a thunderous 8GB of GDDR5 memory onboard, just to remove any doubt. Finally, AMD says it has conducted a "complete re-write" of the PowerTune algorithm that manages power consumption on these cards. Absolute peak power draw doesn't change, but the company expects lower power use when running a game than on the older Hawaii-based cards. Nope, this isn't the Fury card I just showed you. It's the Strix R9 390X, and Asus has equipped it with the same incredibly beefy DirectCU III cooler. This card is presently selling for $450 at Newegg, so it undercuts the GeForce GTX 980 while offering substantially higher memory bandwidth and double the memory capacity. Meanwhile, at $330, this handsome XFX R9 390 card has the GeForce GTX 970 firmly in its sights. This puppy continues a long tradition of great-looking cards from XFX. Let's see how it stacks up.
Of the 30 states with beaches, Texas ranks a relatively good eighth in terms of the quality of its beach water. A report released Today by the National Resources Defense Council says 5 percent of the Texas beach water it sampled last year exceeded national standards for bacteria and fecal matter. Delaware and New Hampshire had the best water. Louisiana, where 29 percent of samples were contaminated, had the worst. Avalon Beach in California ranked as the dirtiest beach overall in terms of beach water. On the plus side, South Padre Island ranks among the environmental group’s five-star beaches for water quality. “The 2011 results confirm that our nation’s beaches continue to experience significant water pollution that puts swimmers and local economies at risk,” the report states. The largest source of pollution is stormwater runoff, which can trigger harmful sewage overflows.
You had to expect it to happen, right? Acacia Research – a patent troll (we refuse to describe them as anything more) – are suing Amazon for patents they allegedly infringe on. Here are the groundbreaking and innovative </sarcasm> features that they want Amazon to pay for: a touchscreen that responds when a user writes on that screen and a system for handling multiple calendars on a personal digital assistant. Seriously, these patent trolls should be banned, if not thrown to the bottom of river Styx or brutally maimed by killer rabbits. There should be some sort of clause for those who own patents that forces them to make an attempt to actually implement the technology into at least prototypical form. Maybe even that would be too nice – force them to make a B2B or a consumer-ready device with the features they “own.” This whole patent issue is beginning to get annoying not only for the OEMs and Google, but for consumers as well. We wish Amazon all the best in defending themselves here. [via, source]
TWA Flight 541 was a domestic passenger flight hijacked in the United States by Robin Oswald in an attempt to free Garrett Brock Trapnell, who was a prisoner at the United States Penitentiary, Marion (USP Marion).[1] The hijacking was successfully resolved when a Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) negotiating team had her release the passengers and then surrender. Background [ edit ] On January 29, 1972 Garrett B. Trapnell hijacked a TWA plane flying from Los Angeles to New York. He demanded $306,800 (equivalent to $1,837,627 in 2018), the release of the imprisoned Angela Davis and a conversation with President Nixon.[2] The hijacking was resolved when Trapnell was disarmed after being shot by an F.B.I. agent who pretended to be a negotiator.[2] On May 24, 1978 Trapnell's friend, 43-year-old Barbara Ann Oswald, a US Army staff sergeant on leave, hijacked a Saint Louis based charter helicopter and forced the pilot to land in the yard at United States Penitentiary, Marion. While landing the aircraft, the pilot, Vietnam War veteran Allen Barklage, struggled with Oswald and managed to wrestle the gun away from her. Barklage then shot and killed Oswald, thwarting the escape.[1] Incident [ edit ] On December 21, 1978 Robin Oswald, the 17-year-old daughter of Barbara Annette Oswald, hijacked TWA Flight 541 and demanded Trapnell be freed or she would detonate dynamite strapped to her body. She was remembered by the hostages aboard the flight as a "beautiful" but serious girl, never showing alarm at her actions.[3] FBI negotiators were able to free the hostages and have Oswald surrender with no injuries or deaths. The bomb that was strapped to her chest later emerged to be railroad flares wired to what appeared to be a doorbell.[4] Robin Oswald was charged as a juvenile with charges not being announced as is the law in Illinois.[5] Aftermath [ edit ] Garrett B. Trapnell died in prison, in 1993, of emphysema.[2] See also [ edit ]
Kangiten, late 18th- early 19th-century painting by Shorokuan Ekicho Kangi-ten (Japanese: 歓喜天, "God of Bliss"[1]) is a god (deva or ten) in Shingon and Tendai schools of Japanese Buddhism.[2] He is generally considered the Japanese Buddhist form of the Hindu elephant-headed god of wisdom, Ganesha and is sometimes also identified with the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.[2][3] He is also known as Kanki-ten, Shō-ten (聖天, "sacred god"[3] or "noble god"[4]), Daishō-ten ("great noble god"[4]), Daishō Kangi-ten (大聖歓喜天), Tenson (天尊, "venerable god"[4]), Kangi Jizai-ten (歓喜自在天), Shōden-sama, Vinayaka-ten, Binayaka-ten (毘那夜迦天), Ganapatei (誐那缽底) and Zōbi-ten (象鼻天). Kangiten has many aspects and names, associated with Vajrayana (Esoteric Buddhist, Tantric, mantrayana) schools,[2] Shingon being one of them. Although Kangiten is depicted with an elephant's head like Ganesha as a single male deity, his most popular aspect is the Dual(-bodied) Kangiten or the Embracing Kangiten depicted as an elephant-headed male-female human couple standing in an embrace. Names [ edit ] Kangiten inherits many names and characteristics from the Hindu god Ganesha. He is known as Bināyaka-ten, derived from the epithet Vinayaka; Gaṇabachi or Gaṇapati (Ganapati is a popular epithet of Ganesha) and Gaṇwha (Ganesha). Like Ganesha, Bināyaka is the remover of obstacles, but when propitiated, he bestows material fortunes, prosperity, success and health. In addition, Bināyaka is said to be of evil nature, creator of discord and dispute and leading people towards immoral ways.[5] Shō-ten or Āryadeva indicates his association with good luck and fortune.[5] The name "Kangi-ten", generally implied to the Tantric embracing deity icons, is venerated as giver of joy and prosperity.[5] The Dual Kangiten icon called Soshin Kangi-ten ("dual-bodied god of bliss") is a unique feature of Shingon Buddhism.[6] It is also called Soshin Binayaka in Japanese, Huanxitian in Chinese [7] and Nandikeshvara in Sanskrit.[1] Iconography and depictions [ edit ] Daishō Kangi-ten (c. 1832–52) by (c. 1832–52) by Philipp Franz von Siebold . Kangiten is depicted as a two-armed god holding a trident and a radish. Kangiten is often represented as an elephant-headed male and female pair, standing embracing each other in sexual union.[3] The genders of the pair is not explicit, but hinted in the iconography.[2][3][6] The female wears a crown, a patched monk's robe and a red surplice, while the male wears a black cloth over his shoulder. He has a long trunk and tusks, while she has short ones. He is reddish-brown in colour and she is white. She usually rests her feet on his, while he rests his head on her shoulder. A variant form called "Shoten Fondly Smiling" form, both of them gaze into each other's eyes, smiling intently. She wears loose garments, while he wears tight ones. Sometimes, they are cloaked in a single garment. In another variant, "Embracing Shoten Looking Over the Shoulder", as the name suggests, the couple look over each other's shoulders. The iconography represents unity of opposites (coniunctio oppositorum).[8] Though they are separate figures with contrasting iconographies and genders, however they share the common name "Kangiten" and are engrossed in an intimate embrace, indicating their nonduality. The non-dual is further stressed by sexual indicators like the feet-on-feet or the single garment.[8] Shoten may be also depicted as male alone. The deity figure(s) is/are portrayed as elephant-headed, with two, four, six, eight or twelve arms. However, his images are rarely displayed in public.[2] When depicted as a male, Shoten is generally four-armed, holding a radish and a sweet (modak). He may also hold a mace, a sword, a cup of ambrosia or have two of his front arms folded.[9] The six-armed aspect of Kangiten is described carrying a knife, a fruit bowl, a discus in his left hands and a club, a noose and his broken tusk in his right.[10] Vinayaka are also depicted in two most important Shingon mandalas, Vajra-dhatu and Garbhakosa-dhatu. The mandalas generally have more than 1 Vinayaka figures. The Vinayakas are elephant-headed, carry emblems such as radish and axe and are seated on lotus pedestals (padmasana), the sign of divinity. The Vinayakas are generally positioned as guardians of the directions and serve as protectors against demons and evil. The central figure of the mandalas is Vairocana, one of the Five Great Buddhas, whose incarnation the Vinayakas are considered in this configuration.[11] Kangiten may also be depicted symbolically by symbolic syllable called shuji or bija or by symbols such as an umbrella, garland or bow and arrow in mandalas.[6] Origins and texts [ edit ] Butsuzō-zu-i, “Collected Illustrations of Buddhist Images.” Published 1690 (Genroku). Shoten., “Collected Illustrations of Buddhist Images.” Published 1690 (Genroku). Kangiten first emerged as a minor deity in the Japanese Buddhist pantheon in the eighth-ninth centuries CE, possibly under the influence of Kukai (774–835), the founder of Shingon Buddhism. The Hindu Ganesha icon travelled to China, where it was incorporated in Buddhism, then journeyed further to Japan.[4][12] Kangiten's early role in Shingon, like most other Hindu deities assimilated in Buddhism, is of a minor guardian of the twin mandalas. Later on, Kangiten emerged as besson, an independent deity. Kangiten appears in numerous Japanese besson guides, compiled in Heian period (794–1185). While it includes rituals and iconographic forms like the early Chinese texts, it introduces origin myths of the deity to justify the Buddhist nature of the Hindu Ganesha.[13] Early images show him as with two or six arms. The paintings and gilt-bronze images of the Dual Kangiten with explicit sexual connotations emerged in the late Heian period, under the Tantric influence of Tibetan Buddhism where such sexual imagery (Yab-Yum) was common. The rare Japanese sexual iconography was hidden from public eye, to abide with Confucian ethics.[3] Kangiten has now become an important deity in Shingon.[4] The origins of the Dual Kangiten have perplexed scholars for years; there is no concrete evidence about the inception of this form. It is first found in Chinese texts, related to Chinese Tantric Buddhism, which was centred on the Buddha Vairocana and propagated by the three great masters Śubhakarasiṃha, Vajrabodhi, and Amoghavajra. The Dharanisamuccya translated to Chinese by the monk Atigupta (Atikuta) in 654 CE describes a ritual to worship the Dual Kangiten; the same ritual was replicated by Amoghavajra (705–774) in his ritual text Daishoten Kangi Soshin Binayaka ho. Amoghavajra describes Soshin Kangiten as a deva, who grants one's desires and a trayaka, the protector against evil and calamity. It details rituals and mantras to gain favour of the Dual Kangiten as well as the six-armed Shoten.[14][15] In another text by Amoghavajra, Soshin Kangiten is called a bodhisattva. This text categorizes the worshippers into three: the highest can learn inner secrets, the middle can read this text and the lowest should just accompany a higher worshipper in rituals. It describes rituals to gain four siddhis ("powers"), namely of "protection, of gain, of love and of subjugation". Rituals to appease Kangiten are described to gain three material things: kingship, prosperity and sufficient food and clothing. The text especially prescribes wine, the "water of bliss" as an offering to Kangiten.[14][16] A minor text "Ritual of Sho Kangiten" (861) by Poi-jo-je Chieh-lo describes the mandalas of Kangiten.[17] Bodhiruci (trad. 572–727) has written two texts (dated c. 693–713) that narrate about Vinayaka. In one of the texts, Vinayaka teaches a host of deities and demons a one-syllable mantra, followed by a description of a ritual dedicated to the Dual Kangiten, which is also found in Amoghavajra's Daishoten Kangi Soshin Binayaka ho. Vinayaka's demon followers promise the deity to grant of wishes of beings, who repeat the one-syllable mantra. In the longer version of the previous text, Bodhiruci elaborates of the Vinayaka story and enlists many rituals to propitiate the Dual Kangiten as well as the four-armed form of the deity. It also has rituals to entice, gain wisdom, destroy foes etc.[18] Besides the usual list of rituals, mantras and iconographical descriptions of the deity, Śubhakarasiṃha (early 8th century) in text, predating Amoghavajra but post-dating Atigupta composed in c. 723-36, equates Kangiten to Shiva and associates "the Hindu king" Vinayaka with Avalokiteshvara (Kannon).[14][19] The Dual Kangiten may also have been by the Hindu Tantric portrayal of Ganesha with consorts.[14] Legends [ edit ] From left to right, Benzaiten , Kangiten and Bishamonten in the Daishō-in temple. Numerous Japanese Buddhist canons narrate tales about the evil nature of Vināyaka. The Kangisoshinkuyoho[5] as well as Śubhakarasiṃha's early Chinese text[20] describes that King Vinayaka (Binayaka) was the son of Uma(hi) (identified with the Hindu Parvati, mother of Ganesha) and Maheshvara, the Buddhist equivalent of Shiva, father of Ganesha. Uma produces 1500 children from her either side; from her left a host of evil Vinayakas, headed by Vinayaka (Binayaka) and from her right, benevolent virtuous hosts headed by the manifestation of Avalokiteshvara – Senanayaka ("Lord of the army [of gods]", identified with the Hindu god of war Skanda, the brother of Ganesha), the antithesis of Vinayaka. Senanayaka would take many births as the elder brother (as in the Hindu tradition) or wife of Vinayaka to defeat him. Then Śubhakarasiṃha's text says that as wife, Senanayaka embraces Vinayaka leading to the icon of the Dual Kangiten.[5][20] In the Japanese pantheon, Kangiten is considered as the brother of Ida-ten, identified with Skanda.[2] Another legend narrates that the king of Marakeira only ate beef and radishes. When these became rare, he started feasting on human corpses and finally living beings, turning into the great demon-king Vinayaka, who commanded an army of vinayakas. The people prayed to the Avalokiteshvara, who took the form of a female vinayaka and seduced Vinayaka, filling him with joy (kangi). Thus, he, in union with her, became the Dual Kangiten.[21] The Kukozensho tells that Zaijizai, Maheshvara's consort, had a son named Shoten, who was banished from heaven, due to his evil and violent nature. A beautiful goddess named Gundari (Kundali), took the form of a terrible demoness and married Shoten, leading him to good ways. Another tale narrates that Kangiten was the evil daughter of Mahaeshvara, driven out from heaven. She took refuge at Mount Binayaka and married a fellow male-Binayaka, resulting in the Dual Kangiten icon.[5] Japanese variants of the legend of the Dual Kangiten emphasize that union of Vinayaka (the male) and Vainayaki (the female) transforms an evil obstacle creator into a reformed individual.[7] Worship [ edit ] Kangiten's most famous shrine, Hōzan-ji Kangiten is considered to be endowed with great power.[2] Kangiten is regarded as protector of temples and worshipped generally by gamblers, actors, geishas and people in the business of "pleasure".[2] Mantras are often prescribed in ritual texts to appease the deity and even to drive away this obstacle-maker.[22] Rice wine (sake), radishes (daikon) and "bliss-buns" (kangi-dan), a deep fried confection filled with red-bean paste which is based on the modak offered to Ganesha, are offered to the god.[1] While Kangiten is worshipped throughout Japan, Hōzan-ji on the summit of Mount Ikoma is his most important and active temple. Though the temple is believed to have been founded in the sixth century, it came in the limelight in the 17th century when the monk Tankai (1629–1716) made the temple's Gohonzon, a Heian period, gilt-bronze image of the Dual Kangiten, the centre of attraction. In the Genroku era (1688–1704), Osaka merchants, especially vegetable-oil sellers, joined Kangiten's cult, attributing their success to his worship.[3] Business people still continue to worship him at the sanctuary and figurines of the Dual Kangiten are found in shops around the temple. The central Dual Kangiten icon is kept under a phallic cover called the linga-kosa, when not being worshipped.[1] Besides Shingon worship, as of 1979, Kangiten's worship was recorded in at least 243 Japanese shrines.[4] Notes [ edit ] a b c d Buhnemann, Gudrun (2006). "Erotic forms of Ganesa in Hindu and Buddhist iconography". In Koskikallo, Petteri; Parpola, Asko. Papers of the th World Sanskrit Conference held in Helsinki, Finland, 13- July, 2003. Script and Image: Papers on Art and Epigraphy. 11.1. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. pp. 19–20. ISBN 81-208-2944-1. a b c d e f g h Frédéric, Louis (2002). "Kangi-ten". Japan Encyclopedia. Harvard University Press. p. 470. (originally published in 1996, translated by Rothe, Kathe) a b c d e f Hanan, Patrick, ed. (2003). Treasures of the Yenching: the Seventy-fifth Anniversary Exhibit Catalogue of the Harvard-Yenching Library. the Harvard-Yenching Library of the Harvard College Library. pp. 245–6. a b c d e f Krishan p. 163 a b c d e f Krishan p. 164 a b c Krishan p. 167 a b Krishan p. 168 a b Sanford pp. 289 ^ Krishan p. 166 ^ Sanford p. 293 ^ Krishan p. 165-6 ^ Sanford p. 287 ^ Sanford pp. 287–8, 296–7 a b c d Krishan pp. 167–9 ^ Sanford pp. 292–3 ^ Sanford pp. 295–6 ^ Sanford p. 296 ^ Sanford pp. 294–5 ^ Sanford p. 295 a b Sanford p. 297 ^ Sanford pp. 297–8 ^ Sanford pp. 293–4
905 Bracketeers voted in Batch 50, and 9.44m votes have now been cast. Visual results are here and today’s results are: Obzedat, Ghost Council defeats Wingrattle Scarecrow with 94.52% of the vote Nahiri, the Lithomancer defeats Scalding Devil with 92.97% of the vote Jeska, Warrior Adept defeats Gibbering Hyenas with 91.85% of the vote Liliana of the Dark Realms defeats Luminesce with 88.50% of the vote Mortify defeats Thunder Dragon with 88.13% of the vote Soul of Shandalar defeats Agent of Horizons with 86.53% of the vote Armageddon defeats Urbis Protector with 86.43% of the vote Relic of Progenitus defeats Nevermaker with 84.55% of the vote Platinum Emperion defeats Grip of Phyresis with 83.04% of the vote Mob Rule defeats Illuminated Wings with 82.96% of the vote Adarkar Wastes defeats Patrol Hound with 80.98% of the vote Nameless Inversion defeats Obelisk of Jund with 80.89% of the vote Hazezon Tamar defeats Watcher Sliver with 79.56% of the vote Twilight Shepherd defeats Keepsake Gorgon with 79.48% of the vote Prismatic Omen defeats Void Stalker with 75.74% of the vote Life’s Finale defeats Aspect of Wolf with 75.39% of the vote Narcolepsy defeats Karona’s Zealot with 74.70% of the vote Stromkirk Noble defeats Quickling with 71.46% of the vote Alloy Myr defeats Pulling Teeth with 70.64% of the vote Jugan, the Rising Star defeats Commune with Lava with 70.41% of the vote Languish defeats Orcish Lumberjack with 65.59% of the vote Empty the Warrens defeats Porphyry Nodes with 64.88% of the vote Marble Diamond defeats Volley of Boulders with 63.80% of the vote Rakdos Riteknife defeats Akki Coalflinger with 63.43% of the vote Dimir Keyrune defeats Lone Wolf with 62.28% of the vote Penumbra Spider defeats Kami of False Hope with 61.64% of the vote Sandsteppe Outcast defeats Wall of Junk with 61.50% of the vote Griffin Canyon defeats Champion’s Drake with 61.48% of the vote Blood Cultist defeats Ambition’s Cost with 54.60% of the vote Chain of Smog defeats Urborg Emissary with 53.71% of the vote Anticipate defeats Scrap Mastery with 50.78% of the vote Day of Judgment defeats Boseiju, Who Shelters All with 50.06% of the vote Full results to date can be seen here.
Hillary Clinton will be at Drake University on caucus night. \| Getty Where will the candidates be on caucus night? Iowa caucus results, which could reshape the 2016 presidential race, will roll in tonight just as a serious snow storm begins to hit the state. While some of the presidential contenders are getting out early so avoid getting stuck in Des Moines and losing valuable campaign time in New Hampshire, many of the front-runners are staying put. Here is where the candidates will settle down to wait for results on Monday night. (Locations are in Iowa unless otherwise specified.) Story Continued Below Republicans DONALD TRUMP: Caucus night watch party, Sheraton Hotel, West Des Moines, 8 p.m. TED CRUZ: Election night watch party at the Iowa State Fair Elwell Center at 7 p.m. MARCO RUBIO: Caucus Night Celebration at the Marriot Des Moines Downtown Ballroom, in Des Moines at 8 p.m. BEN CARSON: Caucus night party at the West Des Moines Marriott at 6 p.m. Central Time. CHRIS CHRISTIE: Town hall meeting in Hopkinton from 5:30 pm. to 7:30 p.m. then "Bus Tour Kickoff and Special Town Hall Meeting" in Nashua, N.H., 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. JEB BUSH: town hall in Manchester, N.H. at the Alpine Club at 6:30 pm Eastern Time after an event in Iowa earlier in the day. JOHN KASICH: Loudon Town Hall, in Loudon, N.H. starting at 6 p.m. CARLY FIORINA:' Caucus night party at the Hilton Garden Inn in West Des Moines from 7:30 to 11:00 pm. MIKE HUCKABEE: Caucus night party at NOAH'S Event Venue, at 7:30 p.m. in West Des Moines. RAND PAUL: Linn County Republican Caucus at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Cedar Rapids at 7 p.m. and then Stand With Rand Victory Party at Des Moines Scottish Rite Consistory at 9 p.m. RICK SANTORUM: Hilton Garden Inn, Johnston. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Democrats HILLARY CLINTON: Caucus night party at the Parents Hall in the Olmstead Center at Drake University. Doors open at 8:30 CT. BERNIE SANDERS: Bernie 2016 Iowa Caucus Celebration, Holiday Inn Airport, Des Moines, at 9 p.m. MARTIN O'MALLEY: Caucus night party at Wooly’s, Des Moines, starting at 8:30 p.m.
Sons of Thunder wasn’t planning on serving poke. The small restaurant in New York was supposed to be a burger and sandwich joint. But when the utilities company took forever to turn the gas on, Sons of Thunder decided: When life gives you a cold stove, you make poke. Shrimp tempura, tofu, seaweed, golden beets and ahi bring color and flavor to the poke creations at Sons of Thunder in New York City. Photo: Matt Dutile/HAWAIʻI Magazine So, in October 2015, faced with raw tuna that was originally destined for tuna steak sandwiches, it started serving poke, Hawaii’s beloved raw-fish dish. “We almost closed because no one knew what poke was,” says James Kim, a partner in Sons of Thunder. What a difference a New York Times article makes. Four months after Sons of Thunder opened, Ligaya Mishan, a Times restaurant critic originally from Honolulu, named the spot as the best place for poke in Manhattan. Kim went from correcting people’s pronunciation (it’s poh-kay) and explaining what it was (most commonly, chopped raw fish seasoned with shoyu and sesame oil) to serving more than 600 poke fans a day. Sons of Thunder’s blue-and-white logo is still a burger, but Kim has long given up on that idea. As much as he tries to push other items, the people just want poke. Since Sons of Thunder first opened, at least half-a-dozen new poke spots have sprung up in New York. But New York isn’t the only city now enamored with poke. It’s exploding in popularity around the world, proliferating in cities from Los Angeles to London to Sydney. Poke puns abound in Canada, where a shop near Toronto is named Pokeh, and poke is even trés chic in Paris. So how did Hawaii’s most popular pupu (appetizer) suddenly become one of the biggest food trends of the year? Poke has always existed where there are pockets of homesick Hawaii transplants. Take Takahashi Market in San Mateo, California. Originally a Japanese general store, it started catering to Hawaii transplants who came to work on the San Francisco airport in the late ’50s. Since then, Takahashi Market has sold Hawaii comfort foods such as poi, laulau, Zippy’s chili and poke, made with limu (seaweed) brought in from the Islands. But this new wave of poke on the mainland is something different. Sons of Thunder may have accidentally tapped into the zeitgeist, but for the poke chains really driving the trend, it was conscious capitalization from the start. Interior of the fast-casual restaurant in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City. Photo: Matt Dutile/HAWAIʻI Magazine For the entrepreneur, poke perfectly captures three of our current obsessions: Hawaii, fast-casual dining and healthy food. Hawaii is suddenly hot: witness the rise of Hawaii-themed restaurants, modern aloha prints and visitor arrivals to the Islands, which are at an all-time high. Then, there’s the swell of fast-casual dining, as restaurateurs apply the Chipotle model on concepts from salads to Indian cuisine, and now, poke bowls, where eaters can mix and match bases, sauces and toppings. The third obsession is nothing new, as old as McDonald’s, as pervasive as guilt: the striving for healthy foods … and few things taste as healthy, and yet satisfying, as poke. Nowhere does this perfect storm of trends come together as powerfully as in Los Angeles. The food website, Eater, recently polled food writers and experts for one word to describe LA’s dining scene—“poke” emerged as the common denominator. Places such as Sweetfin Poké are at the forefront of the trend; Sweetfin opened its first location in April 2015, its second in October 2016 and is planning three new locations in LA for 2017. “We fell in love with poke on trips to Hawaii and thought that it was so apt for the LA market, given how everyone loves sushi,” says Seth Cohen, one of Sweetfin’s partners. Cohen had sampled poke at Foodland and Da Poke Shack in Kona, the latter which may have also had a hand in the poke boom. In 2014, Yelp named Da Poke Shack as the best place to eat in the U.S., thrusting the tiny takeout counter hidden in a condo complex into the national spotlight, and taking poke along with it. With Sweetfin, “We are not trying to be traditional in any sense,” says Cohen. First, there’s the accent on the poke, which Cohen says makes it easier for customers to pronounce correctly. And while most poke in Hawaii is sold by weight and scooped into plastic deli containers for pupu, Sweetfin serves it in a bowl over rice or vegetables to turn it into a more filling meal. It enlisted “Top Chef” contestant Dakota Weiss to come up with the recipes, resulting in a mango albacore poke with ponzu-lime sauce, toppings that include wasabi toasted coconut and pickled shiitake mushrooms and bases like a kale salad and kelp noodle and cucumber slaw. Sweetfin calls its poke “California inspired,” which Cohen interprets as incorporating flavors “from all over the Pacific—predominantly Japan and Hawaii—and also the influence of Californian cuisine and the abundant local produce.” Los Angeles is, after all, where sushi was literally turned inside out and the California roll invented. The sunny dining room at the L.A. eatery on Broadway in Santa Monica; One of Sweetfin Poké's crowd-pleasing California inspired bowls: The salmon poke with avocado (of course). Photos courtesy: Sweetfin Poké Rapidly growing businesses, such as Sweetfin, are sending poke along the highway traveled by other popular fast foods like pizza and tacos—foods brought by immigrants, popularized in America by chains, and evolved away from their original inspiration, resulting in pizza from Domino’s that barely resembles pizza in Italy. But, in a way, the folding of new influences into poke is how the raw-fish preparation Native Hawaiians used to eat evolved into the poke we know now. Centuries before Western contact, Hawaiians seasoned chopped reef fish with salt and limu harvested from the sea, and sprinkled it with inamona, roasted and crushed kukui nut. In Hawaii, we still eat inamona- and limu-seasoned poke, usually called Hawaiian or limu poke, but it’s the ahi shoyu poke that’s the most popular, both in the Islands and abroad. This poke offers an abbreviated version of modern Hawaii history. Post-Western contact, chili peppers and onions made their way into the chopped dish. Following the rise of longline fleets plying the Pacific, the bony, nearshore reef fish gave way to deep-sea ahi, now made more accessible. Descendants from the Japanese, Chinese and Korean laborers—brought to work the sugar and pineapple plantations—influenced poke with their own raw-fish traditions and replaced the salt and inamona with shoyu and sesame oil. But it wasn’t until the ’70s that poke really became popular. Tamashiro Market, a seafood market in Kalihi that offered—and still does—one of the best selections of fish and shellfish in Honolulu was one of the first to offer different varieties of poke in its glass, refrigerated cases. What we now take for granted—poke in every supermarket and even Costco—has only been a thing in the past few decades. While newer places such as Ono Seafood on Kapahulu Avenue, which opened in 1995, began tossing poke to order and serving it over rice, most locals know poke as the marinated salad we buy by the pound for potlucks and parties. It’s this poke experience that Sweetcatch Poke in New York, which opened its first location in October 2016, and has two more in the works in Manhattan, is hoping to re-create. Sweetcatch tapped Lee Anne Wong, a chef who splits her time between Honolulu and New York, to design its menu. “I want to bring to New York something similar to what you get in Hawaii,” Wong says. Which means poke sold by weight and marinated poke, unlike other New York spots that season their poke to order. “When you marinate the fish, you’re changing the flavor and the texture,” she says. Sweetcatch is also like Hawaii seafood counters in that it offers a dozen poke varieties, from a classic Hawaiian shoyu with inamona and ogo to a Korean-style seasoning with sesame leaf, Asian pear and macadamia nuts. Fish include staples such as ahi, albacore and salmon, as well as a catch of the day from Hawaii, which might include opah, kajiki or nairagi. Wong also plans to offer a local seafood poke, envisioning a Long Island steamer clam or Maine lobster poke. And yes, there will be poke bowls. For Wong, it’s a balance between preserving Hawaii’s poke tradition and adapting it for modern times and new tastes. Kim from Sons of Thunder is mindful of this, too. Sons of Thunder serves only one poke sauce, the typical shoyu-sesame oil, but finds the sweet spot of marination time to be between 10 and 30 minutes. Past that, it takes on a texture that he finds New Yorkers don’t like. The fresh poke selection at Tamashiro Market in Honolulu includes: ahi, chile, green onions, Maui onions; madako with sesame oil, black sesame and green onion; ahi, limu, Hawaiian salt and dried chili pepper. Photo: Aaron Yoshino/HAWAIʻI Magazine “I know that [Hawaii locals] are not always excited about people doing poke,” Kim says. Some Islanders have vocalized their disapproval at how some new businesses have misspelled poke, by adding a diacritic on the ‘e.’ Mark Noguchi, a chef in Honolulu, has written about the poke trend as another example of the “commodification of Hawaiian culture, throwing an accent on poke was just another notch in the belt,” Noguchi says. “There are people out there opening poke shops because it’s a trend, but the dish itself is very unique to Hawaii. It has a very strong sense of place … It’s very important to understand Hawaii’s culture and history with food.” Kim gets that. “As a Korean, I know how it feels when the food is taken and bastardized,” he says. He is not from Hawaii, though his grandparents once lived in Honolulu and he grew up eating raw fish with Korean seasonings and has tasted poke in the Islands. “But, in general, I think I’m appreciative of people doing Korean,” Kim says. “I hope [Hawaii locals] overall think the same way. We’re trying to do the best we can with it.” Martha Cheng is a food writer based in Honolulu. Her new book, "The Poke Cookbook: The Freshest Way to Eat Fish," will be published in hardcover on January 24, 2017.
I have been writing about social mobility ever since I became socially mobile. Or published. Or bought off or changed class. Whatever you want to call it. The milieu I found myself in the late 80s was new to me then. It is often still new to me: the huge assumptions, the peculiar gradations, the tiny judgments, the painful self-imposed restraint of the middle classes make for a place that can never be my home. I squat there, on some temporary contract. For class as it is often lived can feel like an essence or even elixir, although this is denied. It is comforting to think that anyone can switch class, be mobile, that anyone can make themselves up. Not many do, though. These days, however, class can feel less fluid than gender. There is a stuckness and a maintenance of that stuckness. Alan Milburn tells us once more that this country has a deep problem with social mobility. For the young, this is getting worse not better. Social mobility: radical reform urged to repair divided Britain Read more The country is deeply divided geographically, economically and generationally. Where you end up is absolutely tied to where you start out. Grit and meritocracy are the lubricating myths that fuel the getaway cars. What’s new? The Institute for Fiscal Studies told us that most measures of income poverty and inequality had increased in the year of 2005/2006, after almost 10 years of Tony Blair. The gap between the rich and poor became obvious, but another gap opened up – the gap between the middle class and the super-rich. Not only did we stand by and watch it open, but the country let itself be governed by these people. The old money of the Camerons financed an arrogance whereby someone who wasn’t an economist could wreck the economy (George Osborne), someone who wasn’t a teacher who could ruin education (Michael Gove) and someone who wasn’t really anything could lead us accidentally out of Europe (David Cameron). The big money of a small man (Arron Banks) bankrolled the anti-immigrant campaign of a stockbroker (Nigel Farage) whose shtick was to refigure working-class authenticity purely as resentment. All these people pretend a concern about social mobility. As does Theresa May. This is fake. Key components of rightwing ideology are that anyone can make it, although the evidence is to the contrary. They also maintain that those born into privilege deserve what they have. So, isn’t equality rather like world peace? A vague goal? A win-win set up? But it can’t be, can it? The jobs and careers that are seen as the birthright of the middle classes could be taken by those brought up in lowlier circumstances. In my experience, middle-classness is not only about income. It is to do with the entitlement to a certain kind of life, and that life has to be defined as innately superior to that of the masses. This is why the middle class is perpetually anxious in its signalling. Underfloor heating is acceptable. A hot tub out the back isn’t. The accruing of cultural capital as well as education is part of social mobility. The accomplishments of the middle class are largely extracurricular, after all. A child is well-rounded if it has done something more than school. That something is privatised. Corbyn’s promise of ending tuition fees has been criticised as a bung to the middle classes, but it can be seen as a generational redistribution after the past few years of hurt. Every institution has blurbs about widening access and participation, yet we find ourselves in a situation where even after graduation, employment for disadvantaged students has barely improved. When education stalls as the engine of social mobility, then where do we go? The young, especially after the election, are seen as the new voting formation, one that has largely been failed, one that proudly identifies as citizens of nowhere. They have taken over from the preoccupation of last year: the left-behinds. I always found the left-behinds, that euphemism for the white working class, very odd, partly because the working class is not only white, but also because to become socially mobile, one deliberately leaves things behind. The valorisation of the worst parts of working-class culture by public-school leftists is the worst kind of of snobbery. It also ignores how gender and mobility intersect. If you want to know what makes someone socially mobile, ask them. Obviously, it will be education. I left school at 16, but went back to college as a mature student. But as important to me as education was both housing and childcare. As a single parent in my mid-20s, I could not have studied without the childcare that was provided. Today’s young working-class mothers do not have this. They and their kids may well find it hard however smart and driven they are. The question remains, though: do we actually want a more equal society? There is nothing mystical about all this. It is a matter of political will. The intervention required is not a single interventionist policy. It is way bigger. Those who have never had a playing field know these fields are not level. Those who play on them are happy enough with uneven ground. Otherwise, they would not continue to cultivate it.
Activision Blizzard has another $1 billion Call of Duty hit on its hands, if analyst forecasts are correct. Developer Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 generated over $550 million in worldwide sales in its first 72 hours. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement that Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the biggest entertainment premiere this year in any medium, and bigger than any theatrical opening weekend ever. While it’s not the biggest Call of Duty debut of all time (that honor goes to Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which broke the $500 million mark in just 24 hours in 2012), Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter says the game is on track to sell 22 million copies year. That is up 20% over sales last year of Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Black Ops 3 is on track to be the sixth consecutive Call of Duty game to break the $1 billion mark. During the three-day opening, worldwide sales rose significantly over the previous two years to a new franchise mark as digital downloads of the game nearly doubled from a year ago. On Sony’s PlayStation 4, Black Ops 3 set a new record as the best-selling digital full game by units sold in its first day of availability in PS4 history. According to John Taylor, video game analyst at AIC Research, over the past few years Call of Duty retail sales have declined during the initial release, partly because more gamers download the games directly these days rather than buying physical copies. Another factor is that because the audience has grown so large, sales have spread out more through the holidays as people wait to get the game as a gift. “This year’s launch, based on Activision’s press release, appears to be an uptick from recent years, although we really don’t know what the retail compare is,” Taylor says. “The fact that digital doubled suggests we could see a retail volume decline year-over-year, but that doesn’t really reflect the health of the franchise.” Joost van Dreunen, CEO of SuperData Research, says the Call of Duty franchise continues to perform well and shows growth on the digital side as total revenues within the first 12 months continue to increase with each edition. Digital sales have risen from $235 million in 2009 with Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to $554 million last year with Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. According to Activision (ATVI), fans played more than 75 million hours of Black Ops 3 online. Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in a statement that people are playing Black Ops 3 for more hours per player than any Call of Duty game on record. And yet Sartori Bernbeck, manager of the EEDAR Insights & Analytics team, says Treyarch has been adept at handling the huge number of users who flood into the game in the opening week. “In a market where other multiplayer-centric titles still struggle with having a smooth launch, Black Ops 3 is a great example to look at for proper execution,” Bernbeck says. In today’s age where more consumers watch people play video games than actually play, Black Ops 3 established new marks in viewership as the No. 1 most streamed and most viewed game of any game launch in 2015, as reported by Amazon-owned livestreaming network Twitch. Black Ops 3 introduces new features like an instant Live Event option that lets fans watch eSports competition from within the game. This will play a key role as Activision rolls out its new internal eSports tournament structure for 2016 and beyond with the expanded Call of Duty World League that will award teams over $3 million in cash prizes next year. Bernbeck says eSports will likely help better retain users year-round. More active users means more exposure across the gaming industry, which translates into more potential outreach to new audiences through livestreaming platforms like Twitch and shared YouTube videos. Bernbeck believes the changes to online multiplayer gameplay that Treyarch has made could give Activision an advantage in strengthening its reach in the PC gaming market. That market is currently dominated by another first-person shooter, Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Taylor says the eSports potential for Black Ops 3 is significant, as there is already a huge fan base that may be interested in seeing how the pros play it. For more about video games, watch this Fortune video:
The first conclusion I can draw from this experience is that CUDA can offer significantly higher performance for image processing than pixel shaders given the same hardware. Extrapolating, it looks like deinterlacing a 4:2:2 SD video frame with Yadif would take about 6-8ms/frame on this video card, which is much faster than I could do with D3D9 and more than good enough for 60 fps. The second conclusion is writing the kernel to achieve good performance takes a lot of work, definitely more than an equivalent pixel shader based solution. You definitely can't take an off-the-shelf routine and just compile it for the GPU and expect to get good performance, but if you spend a lot of time massaging the memory access patterns, you can indeed get good results. In general, optimizing a CUDA kernel unfortunately doesn't appear to be easier than optimizing a CPU kernel. As I just noted, avoiding uncoalesced global memory accesses is an absolute must, and the solution often involves ugly copies to and from the on-chip shared memory, which is limited in size (16K). Second, you have to manually tune the block size and register count until everything is juuuuust right. When I was writing an ELA deinterlacer, my initial attempt took ~12ms for a 640x480, 8-bit image. I eventually got it down to 3ms, but afterward the kernel was ugly as sin. It also doesn't help that you can easily lock up the entire system if you accidentally scribble over adjacent video memory with your kernel, an event which ate the first version of this blog posting. There's no memory protection to save you here. Another problem with using CUDA for image processing is that it isn't well suited for byte data. There are no byte operations other than conversions and load/store ops, so all byte values need to be widened to 32-bit ints or floats. You also don't get access to the raster-op (ROP) units, so you have to write bytes directly, and there you get bit by the conversion. The underlying PTX instruction set has a perfect instruction for doing this that does a float-to-uint8 conversion with saturation, but sadly the nvcc compiler doesn't seem to generate this. Memory access is also complicated: the obvious one-thread-per-byte setup leads to uncoalesced global accesses and lots of shared memory bank conflicts. Finally, the last insult to injury is that while there are vector types, no vector operations are defined by default and the underlying hardware is scalar anyway. The best way I've found so far is to manually unroll the kernel by four, which adds to the complexity. This version does an aligned move of 48 elements into shared memory before extracting 18 of them to do the filter operation, executing in 4.8ms (221Mpixel/sec) instead of 22.4ms. Notice the need for explicit synchronization -- this code is actually being run on a 16x16 block of threads and a barrier is needed since data is being trampolined between them through memory. If you think that tracking race conditions on a four-core CPU is bad, well, we have 256 threads here. The good news is that it's basically C; the bad news is that the memory performance is abysmal. It turns out that access to global memory is very tricky in CUDA due to alignment restrictions on most hardware. If all the threads access memory in just the right order and at just the right alignment, you really fast access. Get anything wrong and every single thread makes its own uncached transaction on the bus, leading to an order of magnitude drop in performance. One of the restrictions is that the set of accesses from a group of threads (half-warp) has to start at a 64 byte boundary, which doesn't work when you're trying to access a contiguous group of elements from the same thread. Therefore, the straightforward formulation above is actually a really bad way to write a CUDA kernel as it is completely bottlenecked on memory access. You can work around this with textures, which are cached, but the addressing is more annoying since only 1D textures can be addressed by integer index. The alternative is to copy data to temporary buffers with just the right block size and stride: Now, 22ms for a simple filter operation is slow enough to be fairly useless. Initially I was willing to write this off as another casualty of my wonderfully fast video card, but fortunately that's not the case. The CUDA kernel for the filter operation looked like this: With asynchronous copies, the CPU is no longer stalled at all and all API calls are fast. This bypasses the biggest problem with Direct3D 9, which is the synchronous GetRenderTargetData() call. The CUDA API gives a clue as to why GRTD() stalls, which is that asynchronous copies are only allowed if the host buffer is allocated as page-locked memory, which D3D9 probably does not support. This is a shame, given the much improved numbers above. This is for a 3-tap horizontal filter on a 1024x1024 monochrome image, with 32-bit integer samples. The first set of numbers is for the GPU and the ones in parentheses are for the CPU. 22ms for the blur kinda sucks as it's 47 Mpixels/sec, but the upload and readback numbers are more interesting. 1.6ms for the upload corresponds to 2.6GB/sec, which is good; 9.2ms for the download is a decent and workable 450MB/sec. Clearly there is some overhead to getting data on and off the GPU, but you don't have to go to extreme measures to crunch data. On the CPU side, the launch time for the kernel is a pleasing 0.03ms, but the upload and readback times are disappointing. The reason is that these are synchronous copies. Switching to the asynchronous APIs gives a different result: This special syntax looks just like a function call, with the added fields in angle brackets describing the grid and block dimensions for threading purposes. This is an asynchronous call, so it's easy to do the right thing of queuing up kernel calls on the device and only waiting when you need to do data transfers. Those are also easy, because CUDA has device analogs for malloc(), free(), memcpy(), and memset() operations. The API is also nicely partitioned, with the runtime API being suitable for writing CUDA applications directly, and the explicit driver API being better for integration into frameworks. You can even use PTX assembly language if you need to check the compiler's output or generate code for CUDA directly. The first thing I have to say about CUDA is that it's fairly easy to use. Kernels are written in C using a special nvcc pre-compiler that allows you to mix both host and device code; the precompiler automatically splits the two apart, compiling the host code using VC++ or GCC and compiling the device code separately, and then linking the two together. This means that you can compile a CUDA application from the command line as easily as a standard Hello World application. Invoking a kernel on the device is also easy: After experimenting with pixel shaders for video acceleration, I decided to give NVIDIA's CUDA a shot to see how it performed on the same hardware. As I've noted before, Direct3D 9 can be used for video acceleration, but has some performance problems in specific areas. CUDA uses a more general programming model and also provides more direct access to video driver, making it potentially more interesting for video acceleration. Comments Comments posted: > asynchronous copies are only allowed if the host buffer is allocated as page-unlocked memoryHmm. There are so many terms for it I'm not 100% sure, but I think you meant page-locked. Alternative names: pinned (more a Unix term) or nonpaged (Windows term). In this case the more accurate (but not equivalent) term probably would be DMA-capable though (depending on how you define it).That is a good idea anyway, since only then direct DMA from the GPU is possible. In the other case (for upload) data is first copied into a DMA-capable buffer in the driver and then transferred, i.e. it involves an extra memcpy of all data (though this might partially be done in parallel with the DMA transfer).Issues with that type of memory: on Vista, only a limited amount is available. Some people have claimed as low values as 100 MB (and now combine that with memory fragmentation...). Of course there's a registry hack for that, but that's not fun.Now on XP and on Linux the issue is: Linux has a "official" way to get such memory, limited by ulimit, which NVidia does not use (while I can understand that I don't have to like it).Both on Linux and XP you can allocate almost all memory as such page-locked memory, from the driver, outside all the OS's memory handling. A rather sure way to bring down any machine, regarless also of free swap space. (Conclusion: never ever allow NVidia drivers on a true multi-user system or you've lost)Also a minor comment on the last Filter kernel example you have: as far as I can tell you only have threadIdx.x 0 - 15 i.e. one warp. And every thread that reads t[tx+15], t[tx+16] and t[tx+17] then is in exactly the same warp as the one that wrote it. In conclusion, the __syncthreads(); should be pointless and possibly decreases speed a lot since it makes interleaving of memory access and calculation harder.Also while I haven't personally confirmed it, a few people have claimed that using the 2D-layout (i.e. threadIdx.y) generally decreases perfomance over doing the calculations explicitly in the kernel, particularly for small kernels.Oh, that makes me think of something else: you recalculate Ar/Dr etc. in each thread, that is definitely wasting a good deal of processing power with such a small kernel, ideally you would use a small array and calculate them once for each warp (so you do not need syncthreads()), though just declaring the __shared__ and adding a syncthreads can be just as good in some cases. As so often with optimizations, only testing really works.One last thing: are you aware of the measurement pitfalls of CUDA? I.e. you must call a synchronization function before readback, otherwise your readback timing will include part of the calculation? Your numbers look like it, but it's amazing how easy that is to forget, even by people who _should_ know better ;-) Reimar - 07 06 09 - 09:54 OpenGL does support async texture copies with PBOs, though it's a bit limited (no way to query completion other than to block until complete). Glenn Maynard - 07 06 09 - 14:53 @Reimar:Whoops, yes, that should be page-locked, the term that NVIDIA uses. I've corrected the post.I'm still learning the traps and tricks of CUDA, but what I've found is that there is more compute power and less memory bandwidth than expected. As such, I haven't bothered much with trying to optimize address computations as my major bottlenecks are usually in memory access. What I've found in practice is that by the time you add in the code to copy data in and out of shared memory efficiently and unrolled the loop as necessary (if processing bytes), the address calcs are a minor issue. Then again, most kernels are probably smaller than my ELA kernel (29 registers, 25% occupancy). The profiler output is hazy, but it looks like the instruction throughput is very high even with the syncs.As for the __syncthreads(), you're probably right, but I worry about trying to accommodate different warp sizes. Also, I'm not sure how you do this if you are targeting a full warp, as that means that you necessarily have fetch more than one warp's worth of data in order to do overlapping filters.I didn't see a need for syncing around the readback, as you wouldn't want to do that in production code, and that's where I'm interested in performance. The timings show what you'd actually get, which is the kernel launching quickly, and the readback stalling while waiting for it to finish. Besides, I'd exclusively use asynchronous calls in practice.@Glenn Maynard:What's wrong with NV_fence or ARB_fence? Phaeron - 07 06 09 - 15:24 > the bad news is that the memory performance is abysmal. It turns out that access to global memory is very tricky in CUDA due to alignment restrictions on most hardwareThe GT200 series don't have these restrictions anymore, although coalesced memory accesses are always going to be faster. When access patterns are hard to optimize it may make more sense to use texture memory instead. That also allows you to get the data type conversion for free.> The underlying PTX instruction set has a perfect instruction for doing this that does a float-to-uint8 conversion with saturation, but sadly the nvcc compiler doesn't seem to generate this.You can use the following trick to use inline PTX. The compiler front-end is Open64, so it uses the same syntax as GCC:__device__ uint float_to_u8(float value)uint result;asm("cvt.sat.rni.u8.f32 %0, %1;" : "=r" (result) : "f" (value));return result;Note that this is completely unsupported, so use at your risk. castano (link) - 08 06 09 - 01:27 The reason the address calculations have been relevant for performance for some is that when you let the compiler do it, it usually uses 32 x 32 bit multiplies which are quite slow. Some people IIRC have gained several % perfomance just by using mul24 (or what that special function for 24 bit x 24 bit multiplication is called). Of course it does depend as always.The problem with not syncing around readback is that your numbers are useless for perfomance tuning. You might then assume that optimizing readback might help improve perfomance while the actual problem is that e.g. you kernel actually is so slow it takes 30 ms, not just 22.Also if you have no other reason to use the async API, an explicit sync is exactly what you will want for larger problem, e.g. that is what I used before readback after queueing a lot of operations, don't know of any better way so far:> while (cudaStreamQuery(cuStream) == cudaErrorNotReady) usleep(1000);I wouldn't worry about different warp size, NVidia would break most code if they did that. At least I'd not care about smaller warp sizes, i.e. just something like#if WARP_SIZE < 16#error not supported#endifIt should not be too hard to keep the code correct for larger warp sizes, performance is a different question though, Reimar - 08 06 09 - 01:34 > The problem with not syncing around readback is that your numbers are useless for perfomance tuning.I'm using GPU events and sequencing async readbacks with kernels in the default stream, so I don't know why you would say this. As far as I can tell the kernel timings are not being polluted by readback. Phaeron - 08 06 09 - 02:38 Is OpenCL addressing these issues at all? Or is it just an additional abstraction on top of the already quite arcane CUDA details? sagacity - 08 06 09 - 07:56 > As I've noted before, Direct3D 9 can be used for video acceleration, but has some performance problems in specific areas.Could you elaborate? What performance problems are you talking about?I've done some GPGPU work in DirectX/OpenGL shaders and in CUDA, and in my experience CUDA is very difficult to optimize, and even when you do optimize it, it's only optimized for your particular graphics card.The only advantage of CUDA on this current generation hardware I can see is the support for shared memory in the kernels, which can be important in implementing some algorithms. Emil Dotchevski (link) - 08 06 09 - 13:50 I've never looked at NV_fence, since there seems to be no equivalent on ATI hardware.As far as I can tell, there's no ARB_fence... Glenn Maynard - 08 06 09 - 15:11 No idea on OpenCL. The only part I looked into about it was how programs are specified (source).Direct3D 9 does not allow you to do asynchronous readback on any hardware+driver combo that I know of. NVIDIA, ATI, Intel, you name it, all block in the driver until queued commands are executed. This makes it difficult to interleave readbacks with complex scene rendering, because you are forced to do an expensive stall whenever you do the readback no matter how much you try to space things out. This alone gives CUDA a significant advantage over Direct3D 9.Some OpenGL implementations do support async readback, however, when PBOs are supported. NVIDIA has very good performance here.Oops, I thought there was an ARB_fence. Guess not. Well, I guess the crazy hack to try would be to see if NV_occlusion_query could be used for the purpose, since apparently ATI does support that. Phaeron - 08 06 09 - 22:57 Is branching expensive? I know that when working with shaders branching is terrible, so I'm curious to know if it would be faster to just allocate enough memory to not need "if (x < width && y < height)" anymore. LeeN - 09 06 09 - 20:54 My problem with CUDA is exactly branching. If you are writing a shader there are macro defines that can select the most optimal path in a dynamically and client compiled code. With CUDA in pure c (not even templates are there) there is no way to write "über-shaders", as the dx11 documentation calls them. Gabest - 21 06 09 - 20:53 Hello,I'd like to have a CUDA driven transcoder plugin that allows VirtualDub to transcode any video file format to another format, e.g. MPEG2 to MP4 or WMV to MPEG2.That would make VirtualDub to one of the most useful tools ever since the PC was invented and blame some companies with expensive video editing applications, but unable to implement CUDA
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF As if the original version of Boston Dynamics' ATLAS robot wasn't unsettling enough, ahead of the upcoming DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals in June about 75 percent of the robot has been redesigned and rebuilt to make it stronger, faster, quieter, and less encumbered by cables thanks to a battery-filled backpack that will now keep it powered during the upcoming trials. The new and improved ATLAS looks considerably sleeker than the original version thanks to upgraded components used throughout like a smaller and more efficient onboard hydraulic pump that will also help the robot move a little faster. ATLAS' more svelte physique will also make make it easier for the robot to complete certain challenges requiring it to squeeze into spaces designed for humans, which is important because the bot is specifically designed to take over those tasks in places where it's unsafe for people to work. Advertisement Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF The new ATLAS was so completely re-engineered by Boston Dynamics that only the lower legs and feet were carried over from the original design. And while this new version was mostly certainly already being secretly tested while DARPA's last Robotics Challenge was being held, the upgrades still represent a tremendous leap forward in the humanoid's capabilities in just a small amount of time. And with Google helping fund its development, we'll certainly see ATLAS being improved further, and at an astonishing rate, in the coming years. [DARPA Robotics Challenge]
Rio's most wanted man, who allegedly presided over £35m cocaine racket, caught in boot of Toyota Corolla while fleeing Like many residents of Rio's largest favela, he was the son of economic migrants from Brazil's impoverished north-east who came to the city in search of a better life. He rose to become the "dono do morro" or "king of the hill"; and if police are to be believed, a powerful and feared drug lord with a penchant for Armani suits, heavy artillery and ultra-violence. But this week the four-year reign of Antônio Francisco Bonfim Lopes — Rio's most wanted man and the "boss" of the city's Rocinha shantytown — came to a bizarre end after the 35-year-old was arrested while attempting to flee the slum in the boot of a Toyota Corolla. Inside the car was Lopes's four-strong entourage who told police they were diplomats from the Democratic Republic of Congo and attempted, unsuccessfully, to invoke diplomatic immunity before offering a hefty bribe. "Why is the car boot shaking?" a suspicious arresting officer reportedly inquired, before Lopes was found curled up inside. Better known by his nom de guerre 'Nem', Lopes was born to migrants from the north-eastern state of Paraiba. According to reports in the crime tabloid O Povo, he once worked as a cleaner in an Ipanema beauty parlour, eventually being promoted to office boy. That changed in 2004. Fed up with the daily grind, Lopes allegedly accepted an invitation to become a security guard for Rocinha's then boss, Erismar Rodrigues Moreira. Moreira, or Bem-Ti-Vi, was known for the gold-plated arsenal of machine guns and rifles he used to control Rocinha, a sprawling hillside slum in southern Rio, flanked by some of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in town. When Moreira died in a hail of police bullets in 2005 Lopes allegedly saw his opportunity to move up the food chain. He hatched a plan to eliminate Moreira's immediate successor, a gangster known as Soul, and in 2007 took full control of the slum. As the alleged boss of Rocinha, Lopes presided over one of the most lucrative cocaine rackets in town. According to police the region was controlled by an army of around 200 rifle-toting soldiers who were responsible for selling some 200kg of Bolivian cocaine a month, bringing in an annual fortune of around R$100m (£35m). Lopes's transformation from cleaner to drug lord brought him riches unimaginable to most of Rocinha's residents, many of them porters, cleaners or construction workers who scrape a living working for the city's middle and upper classes. He ran his business from a luxurious three-storey mansion in Laboriaux, a neighbourhood at the crest of Rocinha, and earned a reputation for his ecstasy-fuelled raves at which a number of Brazilian celebrities put in appearances. In 2010 a group of local reporters gained access to Lopes's home during a police raid. Inside they found garish sofas, miniature palm trees, state-of-the-art televisions, Armani suits, and a swimming pool with a view over Rio's dramatic beachside scenery. The bar was stocked with 4.5lt bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey and champagne. But Lopes's growing media profile came at a price. His capture became a question of honour for authorities and a R$5,000 bounty was put on his head. Virtually confined to his hilltop fiefdom, Lopes knew it was only a matter of time before he was arrested or killed. Keen to stay under the radar, Lopes took action. He began working out and using steroids to alter his appearance; he reputedly underwent plastic surgery and dyed his hair. Enemies or informants, police claim, were eliminated, their bullet-riddled corpses burned in improvised crematoriums hidden in the rainforest around the slum. In 2010 Lopes even attempted to fake his own death, paying a local doctor R$150 to sign a bogus death certificate claiming the trafficker had died of kidney failure. On Wednesday night Lopes's final bid to elude authorities failed in spectacular fashion. With police preparing a massive operation to permanently occupy Rocinha, he was hauled out of the boot of a Toyota while trying to flee. Gabriela Moreira, a reporter from Rio's O Dia newspaper, was one of the few journalists to gain access to Lopes, squashed up against him in a lift as he was dragged into the federal police HQ for questioning. "It didn't scare me at all," Moreira recalled of her brief encounter with the elusive Nem. "All I could think was: here is the biggest criminal in Rio who is capable of killing and whatever else and he just doesn't seem like it. Where is that myth that has been constructed? I just thought, man, he seems like a normal guy."
It's not often we report on games in the Swedish seventh-division soccer league. But when a player scores 21 goals in a 30-0 romp, you have to make an exception. Yanick Djouzi Manzizila broke a 60-year-old Swedish scoring record with 21 goals in a game between Kongo United and Balrog Botkyrka Sodertaelje. Balrog was so distraught that they quit the league after the match. It meant that Manzizila's goals won't count towards his season stats. The 25-year-old forward and his teammates scored at will as Balrog had three players sent off in the 30-0 loss. "I'd scored 12 goals against them previously so I knew there was a chance to score a lot of goals," Manzizila told the Sportbladet newspaper, revealing his intention of padding his stats. With twin brother Alex as playmaker, and facing eight players by the end of the match, Manzizila had it all too easy against a team that had failed to earn a point all season. Manzizila is a bit of a ringer in the Stockholm league. He used to play professionally on a youth team in France, according to Swedish publication Aftonbladet. Swedish soccer historian and statistician Claes-Goran Bengtsson confirmed that 21 goals in a game was a Swedish record, but the gloss was taken off Manzizila's achievement when Balrog subsequently withdrew from the league. Their decision means the 21 goals will be erased — as will all the team's results for the season — although Manzizila's individual scoring record will stand. "There's not much that can be done about it," Manzizila said on receiving the news that his goals wouldn't count towards his season target. "I'll have to be happy with the fact that I broke [the record] and continue to focus on scoring a hundred goals instead."
Check VW's share price Hedge funds have lost £18bn in two days of trading in Volkswagen (VW) shares that briefly saw the carmaker become the world's most valuable company. VW shares rose 348% over Monday and Tuesday after it emerged that only about 5% of its shares were available. Funds that had bet on the shares falling desperately needed to buy the shares to close their positions. But VW shares fell 45% in trading on Wednesday as Porsche said it would help to solve the hedge funds' problems. "In order to avoid further market distortions and the resulting consequences for those involved, Porsche SE intends - depending on the state of the market - to settle hedging transactions in the amount of up to 5% of the Volkswagen ordinary shares," Porsche said in a statement. Inevitably some traders and investors are calling foul Robert Peston, BBC business editor Read Robert Peston's blog "This may result in an increase in the liquidity of the Volkswagen ordinary shares." Controlling stakes On Sunday, Porsche announced it controlled more than 74% of VW shares. VW's home state of Lower Saxony owns another 20%. The panic buying was caused by traders who had short-sold VW shares desperately trying to buy them back so they could close their positions. Before Porsche's announcement, many traders had been betting on VW's shares falling. They had borrowed VW shares and sold them in the market, planning to buy them back when the shares had fallen, return them to the lender and pocket the difference. But what actually happened was that the shares rose as a result of Porsche's effective takeover and the traders found themselves forced to buy the shares at any price. "Each and any short-seller in the world is trying to close up their position and there is no way they can do it, except for trying to buy like mad," said Heino Ruland, an analyst at FrankfurtFinanz. What is upsetting the hedge funds is that if between 10% and 15% of VW shares were on loan to be shorted and only just over 5% were available in the market, it is likely that many of the funds that shorted VW had borrowed the shares from Porsche. It meant that because Porsche had not declared the proportion of VW shares it controlled, traders may have been indirectly and inadvertently borrowing shares from Porsche, selling them to Porsche, buying them back from Porsche and then returning them to Porsche. None of this is currently outlawed by German authorities, but many commentators have described it as bringing German capital markets into disrepute. The affair shows reform is needed in the way stock markets operate, according to Chris Day, chief executive of the hedge fund infrastructure providers PCE Investors. "While there has been much talk that hedge funds should improve their transparency, perhaps the issue should be widened to include stock exchanges to help stop this sort of thing happening," he said. Bigger than Exxon VW's shares peaked on Tuesday at 1,005 euros, valuing the company at 296bn euros ($370bn; £237bn), which is well over the $343bn value of Exxon Mobil - previously the world's most valuable company. Last Friday, VW's shares closed below 200 euros. On Wednesday they closed down 430 euros, at 514 euros. As an indication of how extreme the market valuation is, last year Exxon made profits of $41bn on sales of $390bn while Volkswagen managed profits of about $8bn on sales of $136bn. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version
After six Nobel Prizes, the invention of the transistor, laser and countless contributions to computer science and technology, it is the end of the road for Bell Labs' fundamental physics research lab. Alcatel-Lucent, the parent company of Bell Labs, is pulling out of basic science, material physics and semiconductor research and will instead be focusing on more immediately marketable areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software. The idea is to align the research work in the Lab closer to areas that the parent company is focusing on, says Peter Benedict, spokesperson for Bell Labs and Alcatel-Lucent Ventures. "In the new innovation model, research needs to keep addressing the need of the mother company," he says. That view is shortsighted and may drastically curtail the Labs' ability to come up with truly innovative discoveries, respond critics. "Fundamental physics is absolutely crucial to computing," says Mike Lubell, director of public affairs for the American Physical Society. "Say in the case of integrated circuits, there were many, many small steps that occurred along the way resulting from decades worth of work in matters of physics." Bell Labs was one of the last bastions of basic research within the corporate world, which over the past several decades has largely focused its R&D efforts on applied research – areas of study with more immediate prospects of paying off. Without internally funded basic research, fundamental research has instead come to rely on academic and government-funded laboratories to do kind of long-term projects without immediate and obvious payback that Bell Labs used to historically do, says Lubell. Most of the scientists working in the company's fundamental physics department have been reassigned, says Benedict. Nature, which first reported the news, says just four scientists are left working the fundamental physics department in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Benedict wouldn't confirm or deny that. Computing and wireless technologies owe much to advancements in physics, though the connection may not always be immediately apparent. An example is the Global Positioning Systems or GPS. For instance, an integral element of GPS are atomic clocks, which stemmed from the creation of the hydrogen maser. The hydrogen maser, or hydrogen frequency standard, uses the properties of a hydrogen atom to serve as a precision frequency reference. "GPS is based on very accurate timing mechanisms," says Lubell. "So the measure of time and the frequency standards that are used to do it date back to research in optical pumping which led to the development of hydrogen maser." In the past Bell Labs was the place where such fundamental research that impacts the fields of both computing and physics could meet. Bell Labs was founded in 1925 by Walter Gifford, then president of AT&T. AT&T, a monopoly, established Bell Telephone Laboratories, popularly known as Bell Labs, as a joint venture with Western Electric, AT&T's manufacturing subsidiary. The Labs became the Mecca for researchers in science, computers and mathematics. Deregulation, however, forced AT&T in 1995 to spin off Bell and other parts of the company into Lucent Technologies. The move marked a shift in fortunes for the research arm as research budgets came to be trimmed and Alcatel-Lucent faced increasing pressure from stockholders. "Bell Labs could do the kind of fundamental research it did in the past because it was functioning as part of a monopoly," says Lubell. "With that gone the landscape changed dramatically." In recent years, Bell Labs' physics unit had its share of controversy when researcher J. Hendrik Schön was found to have published data in the area of molecular-scale transistors between 1998 and 2001 that had been manipulated and falsified. That's a long way from where the Labs once stood with its position as a Nobel Prize magnet. In 1937, Bell Labs researcher Clinton Davisson shared the Nobel Prize in physics for demonstrating the wave nature of matter. Nearly twenty years later, in 1956 came the Nobel prize for inventing the transistor and it was shared by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Bell scientist Walter Brattain. In the seventies, Bell Labs won two Nobel prizes in physics back-to-back in the years 1977 and 1978. Philip Anderson shared the Nobel for developing an improved understanding of the electronic structure of glass and magnetic materials. The next year Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were feted for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation. Former Bell Labs researcher Steven Chu shared the Nobel in 1997 for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. A year later Horst Stormer, Robert Laughlin, and Daniel Tsui were awarded a Nobel for the discovery and explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect. In the last few years, Lucent has sold its semiconductor business and that means research in areas connected to that had to be scaled back, especially in areas such as integrated circuits and Microelectromechanicals Systems (MEMS). Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent continues to hack away at its jewels. Though Murray Hill in New Jersey, the company's U.S. headquarters, and the site of many great scientific discoveries remains safe, Alcatel-Lucent has sold its Holmdel campus. Holmdel's technological contributions include contributions to Telstar, the first communications satellite and Chu's Nobel Prize-winning work. Still for fundamental physics research there will be life after Bell Labs, though it will be dependent on the whims of the federal government. Increasingly, long-term research is being carried out in universities and national laboratories with federal grants, says Lubell. For Bell Labs, yet another chapter in its storied history of comes to a close taking the once iconic institution closer to being just another research arm of a major corporation. Photo: William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invented the transistor in 1947. (Alcatel-Lucent/Bell Labs)
University police tore down tents at UC Davis yesterday afternoon, arresting 8 students in the process, Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing reports. At one point, to clear a path to reach students that they had already arrested, they pepper-sprayed a line of seated, quiet protesters. This video, which shows the pepper-spraying, is going viral. This comment, from venture capitalist Chris Sacca, sums up what lots of people who watch it are thinking: Seriously. Right now. Stop what you are doing, watch this video, and reflect on what it means to be American: Here's the video. The pepper-spraying happens right at the beginning. More context and photos below. Here are some other photographs of the confrontation, which were shot by The Davis Enterprise's Wayne Tilcock. The top one provides some important context. According to a reporter at the scene, it shows that the protesters were warned by the policeman who sprayed them, Lt. John Pike, that they were going to be sprayed if they didn't move. The pepper-spraying was still overkill, but the alternative appears to have been physically dragging the students out of the way, which also would have been ugly. (The other alternative, of course--and presumably the best one--would have been for the University to just let the students keep their camp. But for everyone at UC Davis who prefers the campus without the tents, this probably also wasn't an attractive solution.) Lieutenant John Pike, the pepper-sprayer, is being vilified on the Internet, as are the rest of the police involved here. And maybe they are indeed horrible people who want to turn America into a police state. But in the interests of fairness, put yourself in their shoes, and think about how you would have handled the situation. And also feel at least a moment of relief that the weapon used in this case was pepper spray, not bullets, as in the Kent State massacre of 1970 (in which the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed students). Here are some additional photos from The Davis Enterprise, starting with the one in which the protesters are warned that they might be pepper-sprayed. Click here for more > Wayne Tilcock, The Davis Enterprise Wayne Tilcock, The Davis Enterprise Wayne Tilcock, The Davis Enterprise
Solo Project A mockup of Solo Quarterly The last time George Gendron set out on a new media venture, it was the early 1980s, and print was still king. Now, the editor who led Inc. magazine through its formative years is launching a publication in the digital age, so naturally his focus is on — print again? In a bold rejection of conventional wisdom, Gendron and cofounders Michael Hopkins and Patrick Mitchell plan to launch a 200-page glossy magazine next fall, called Solo Quarterly. It would be aimed at a national audience of freelancers, consultants, and startups — basically anyone who works alone or in small teams and could be considered a business “soloist.” What’s more, their Boston company, Solo Project LLC, generally won’t republish magazine content online, reserving it for print subscribers. Advertisement A website would feature videos and podcasts between issues, and subscribers would have access to a digital replica of the magazine. Get Talking Points in your inbox: An afternoon recap of the day’s most important business news, delivered weekdays. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here “Print is not dead — just bad print,” Gendron said. “We think we’re in the early stages of a renaissance of more thoughtfully positioned print. This is not a romantic decision to create a print publication just because we love print.” The magazine would include profiles of successful entrepreneurs and tips to help others thrive outside a large corporate structure. It is designed to be a manual, guiding professionals who would rather work for themselves than for a big company. Gendron said he expects revenue to come from a mix of subscription fees, sponsored content and advertising, and tickets to networking events at which the Solo Project will organize panel discussions and speeches. For now, funding comes from the founding team’s savings and a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, worth about $250,000, that will pay for research and reporting on the growth of independent workers. Advertisement A kickoff event, dubbed Solo City and held at District Hall in South Boston Wednesday, served as a kind of focus group for the project. Tenants from the Workbar coworking spaces, members of the Fort Point Arts Community, and other independent contractors attended sessions dedicated to subjects like marketing and networking. They also participated in live polling, answering questions about their finances, sources of advice, and work-life balance. “I got interested in coming because a key question is, ‘What do we do about policy in cities to make it easier for entrepreneurs to get going?’ ” said Jen Faigel, executive director of CommonWealth Kitchen, an incubator for culinary startups with locations in Dorchester and Jamaica Plain. The results will be part of a report by the Solo Project and Knight Foundation, expected this fall, that’s meant to advise civic leaders and academics on ways to foster independent working. Despite Knight’s backing and the team’s experience — Hopkins was also an Inc. editor, and Mitchell was creative director of Fast Company — several industry trends are working against the Solo Project, said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. Starting a magazine from scratch can be difficult and expensive because building a subscriber base requires a lot of marketing. And sales on newsstands, where readers might pick up a new title for the first time, are declining rapidly. Single-copy sales of news magazines have dropped by at least 8 percent in each of the last seven years, according to the Pew Research Center. They fell by 14.2 percent last year alone. Advertisement Still, Edmonds said the Solo Project’s print-first strategy is “counterintuitive but not necessarily crazy,” noting that events and sponsored content are increasingly popular as supplemental revenue streams for legacy media companies, from The Atlantic to The New York Times. The Times on Wednesday announced an overhaul of its online real estate finder that includes sponsored content in the form of ads that appear with — and resemble — other search results. ‘Print is not dead . . . We think we’re in the early stages of a renaissance of more thoughtfully positioned print.’George Gendron, cofounder of Solo Quarterly Workbar chief executive Bill Jacobson, who attended Wednesday’s kickoff, said he might be drawn to a hard copy of Solo Quarterly, even though he gets much of his news online. “There are so many things for quick consuming and, hey, if this is really talking about my lifestyle I could see picking up a printed one, especially on a quarterly basis,” Jacobson said. Callum Borchers can be reached at callum.borchers@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @callumborchers
What is the best source of the inspiration? The nature! By living in this beautiful mother Earth, we could get so much inspiration from the sky, the trees, the grasses, and even the ground, your brain is the limit! Witnessing their very beauty, it’s a no-brainer for web designers to implement these elements of nature into what’s so-called eco-friendly web design. In this collection you will find 30 chosen examples of nature-inspired websites. Most of the websites use nature-related colors like green, brown and blue as well as the natural textures like leaves, floral and woods. Hope the showcase will inspire you to do an eco-friendly website, be ready to fill your eyes with the beauty of nature then! More beautiful web design showcases: Origen Creatives Green and brown, the two colors which are mostly associated with the nature are used in this website design, and they are combined nicely to create an eco-friendly website! Simple logo with leaf design makes the website look even more charming! Sunrise Design Really beautiful and refreshing watercolor illustration. Simple, yet impressive. Lipton Green Tea Lipton Green Tea website uses a lot of green colors to bring out the nature feel. Beautiful plant graphics and stylized floral help greatly to create the nature feel. Sera Tomate Outstanding and catchy picture of shiny tomatoes, definitely an attention grabber! Cookiesound The entire layout is dominated by brown color, cardboard and paper textures as well as subtle plant graphics which create nature feel throughout the site. Sproutlet Refreshing example of eco-friendly website with engaging green colors and plant illustrations. RxBalance Another website with brown color scheme and high quality plant graphics, it looks just awesome! iMyGarden Unique layout with green and brown color combination and subtle wood texture associated with nature. Purple Tree Farm Old wood texture and leaves with strong color are really great combination. I felt nature! Summer Activities Green and cartoonic landscape illustration makes the website look really eco-friendly, cute and charming! Hyderabad Shiny colors definitely make the site stand out from other nature-inspired site. Allure Graphic Design Florals are great when it comes to decorate the site, which make the site look like it’s in the wonderful nature! Priid Simple and beautiful nature landscape illustration makes visitors feel comfortable with the site. Bear Grylls Live Breathtaking typography and jungle texture, just wow! Stop The Vom Amusing nature-inspired illustration makes this site more interesting than others! Toasted Digital Toasted Digital website uses awesome and somehow cute illustration of countryside to impress visitors. Aussie BBQ Legends Your BBQ promotion won’t look delicious without a design like this. Wild and fun! Fran Boot Outstanding example of dark website with nature elements, and the water reflection at the bottom is just creative! Go Glamping Great example of the uses of simple and engaging nature-inspired vector graphics in the site. Tori’s Eye Origami for decorating a site? Creative! Eco Lecom Eco Lecom website uses beautiful and elegant watercolor paintings of plants and birds as decoration, creating a relaxing feel for the site. Kooba Lots of green stuff and textures in the site to help create an impressive eco-friendly website design. Meomi Cloud House Meomi Cloud House stands out by putting the cute nature-inspired illustration with fake 3D effect into the site. Komodo Media Pretty website with subtle wood textures and reasonable amount of plants. Ecoki Ecoki website uses mainly brown color to bring the nature feel into the site. Subtle recycled paper texture creates an image of eco-friendly organization. Ecoki iPhone App Beautiful example with landscape implemented as a background of the website. Tea leaves bring even more nature feel! Eco Vitta Residencial Eco Vitta website looks very clean and refreshing. Bright sky background with few clouds create positive mood, and the wood texture used on the navigation menu definitely makes the site look more eco-friendly! Ryan Scherf Landscape, floral graphics and some cool textures combined wisely into an inspiring web design. Eco Environments Eco-Environments website stands out with nature-inspired graphics which also promote renewable energy. CURE A convincing website with brown colors dominated the entire website! Subtle grunge textures add even more charm into the site.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK - MAY 01: A member of the Westboro Baptist Church protests gay rights and the NBA as police officers look on before Game Five of the Western Conference Quarterfinals of the 2013 NBA Playoffs between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Houston Rockets outside of Chesapeake Energy Arena on May 1, 2013 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images) Aw, poor Westboro Baptist Church! The vehemently anti-queer group, which infamously protests the funerals of American soldiers and the concerts of super stars like Cher because it believes those events promote pro-queer sentiment, found itself the butt of a Thanksgiving prank. The National Report, a satirical website, published a story earlier this month warning readers of a turkey recall due to avian flu. "...It appears that the virus has recently developed the ability to move from bird hosts into humans... The results could be disastrous," The National Report stated. "The handling, preparation, and eating of these turkeys could infect millions of people during the Thanksgiving holiday," a CDC epidemiologist supposedly told the site, which cheekily bills itself as "America's #1 Independent News Source." The site encouraged readers who were worried about their turkeys to contact the "Turkey Safety Hotline" in order to determine if their birds were affected by the recall. However, the phone number printed by The National Report didn't belong to a turkey hotline, it belonged to Westboro Baptist Church. Addicting Info notes that "this caused the 'church' to receive countless calls, jamming their phone lines, and causing 'consumers' to be frustrated." "While the turkey story certainly received a fair amount of attention, WBC has long been a target of ours and their number has appeared in several National Report stories," Allen Montgomery, Publisher of the National Report, told The Huffington Post in an email. "We have not heard from anyone at the 'church,' but assume that a religious/hate organization that flaunts themselves as defenders of the First Amendment would not be opposed." The Westboro Baptist Church did not immediately reply to a request from The Huffington Post for comment on the story. Though Westboro's antics have certainly caused their share of outrage over the years, recently more and more people have started to challenge the group with counter protests and other creative actions. When Westboro visited New York City in September to protest outside of major media outlets they believe promote and support "the gay agenda," The Huffington Post greeted members of the church with a celebration of love that included rainbow cupcakes and staff members dressed up as flamboyant characters like Spongebob Square Pants.
I spent the last two weeks in Boston at the NBER Summer Institute where I learned about a lot of interesting new economic research. Here I describe a new paper by Jae Song, David Price, Fatih Guvenen, Nicholas Bloom, and Till von Wachter on the role of firm-specific factors in rising income inequality. These researchers constructed from administrative records an amazing matched employer-employee data set covering all U.S. firms and individuals for which W-2 income statements were filed over a 30-year period. The data are summarized in terms of w t (s), which denotes the natural log of the real wage earnings in year t (measured in 2012 dollars) of the person who was in the sth income percentile in year t. For example, the median worker in 1982 received w 1982 (50) = ln($28,000)= 10.24 (in 2012 dollars), while the median worker in 2012 received w 2012 (50) = ln($33,600) = 10.42. The log difference is 10.42 – 10.24 = 0.18 implying a percent change of approximately 18%. Although the median worker in 1982 was of course not the same individual as the median worker in 2012, one way that rising inequality is often represented is with a plot of w 2012 (s) – w 1982 (s) as a function of s as is done in the blue line in the graph below. As just noted, the height of this line is 0.18 at s = 50, but it is much higher than this for people above the 95th percentile. Someone in the 95th percentile today is earning much more than a person who was in the 95th percentile in 1982, whereas someone in the 5th percentile is only earning a little more than their counterpart in 1982. The upward slope in the blue line as s increases, particularly for high values of s, is one indicator people sometimes look at to measure rising inequality. The authors then looked at how much of this change could be attributed to differences in earnings across people who all work for the same employer. They calculated the difference between w t (s) and the average log earnings of other people who worked for the same employer as did the individual who was in the sth percentile, and examined how those differences changed between 1982 and 2012. This number is represented by the height of the green line in the graph above. It actually slopes down over most of the range. There is a modest contribution to rising inequality of within-firm differences in pay at the very lowest and very highest percentiles, but for the most part differences in pay across individuals working for the same firm have very little to do with rising inequality. Yet another calculation we could make is look at the average wage of all the people who worked at the same firm in 1982 as did the individual who was in the sth percentile in 1982, and compare that with the average wage of all the people who worked at the same firm as did the individual who was in the sth percentile in 2012. This is plotted as the red line in the graph above. Note that the sum of the heights of the red and green lines equals the height of the blue line for every s by definition. The red line seems to be the whole story. The key question is not whether you’re one of the higher paid people within the establishment for which you’re currently working. The question is instead whether you’re fortunate to be working for one of the establishments that is paying a wage to its average worker that is higher than the average wage at other firms. The authors conclude:
In a post that’s generating some attention today, Josh Marshall pointed out that last night’s New York Times story detailing the Romney camp’s step-by-step thinking on the Embassy attacks was replaced with another version that was missing key reporting. The new version removed a quote from a top Romney adviser in which he was perhaps overly candid about what motivated the Romney camp to put out its statement claiming Obama “sympathized” with the attackers. I’ve determined what happened here. I’m not particularly interested in criticizing the Times over this; stories get rewritten all the time. What is more interesting to me is that it is now very clear who that adviser was. In short, it’s now clear that top Romney policy director Lanhee Chen basically confirmed to the Times — even though he was not quoted on record doing so — that the Romney camp attacked Obama in the way it did because it fit the campaign’s predetermined narrative. Here’s the key quote in the original version of the story (with the subsequently removed part in bold): “We’ve had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama’s foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique, that Obama really has been pretty weak in a number of ways on foreign policy, especially if you look at his dealings with the Arab Spring and its aftermath,” one of Mr. Romney’s senior advisers said on Wednesday. “I think the reality is that while there may be a difference of opinion regarding issues of timing, I think everyone stands behind the critique of the administration, which we believe has conducted its foreign policy in a feckless manner.” As Josh noted, this is akin to the Romney camp admitting: “we saw this thing happen. It fit with our campaign narrative. So we pounced.” That quote is missing from the current version of the story. But the second half of it is on the record from Chen: Mr. Romney’s camp was surprised by the blowback. “While there may be differences of opinion regarding issues of timing,” Mr. Chen said, “I think everyone stands behind the critique of the administration, which we believe has conducted its foreign policy in a feckless manner.” So, what plainly happened here is that Chen agreed to put the second half of the quote on the record, but not the first half. Yet it’s obvious that Chen is the one who said that the campaign pounced on the Libya situation because it fit the campaign’s “narrative.” In fairness, the quote is a bit ambiguous; it could mean that they thought the storming of the Embassies genuinely did fit their narrative in substantive terms. But the quote also provides a possible explanation for why the Romney camp jumped the gun, and what is clear about the quote is that Chen didn’t want to be on record saying it. Peter Baker, one of the authors of the story, told me: “I can’t comment about the origins of the quote that are in my story. But we do make a point in general of trying to get sources to be on the record as much as possible.” Again, my interest here is not really in the Times’ journalism. Rather, I believe it’s newsworthy that we now know the identity of the top adviser who made this candid admission about what happened here.
How I’m Learning ARKit Greg Cerveny Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jul 10, 2017 I’ve been investing my time researching augmented reality topics, game frameworks, and computer graphics fundamentals. Here’s the best stuff I’ve found so far. Why it Matters: Augmented Reality is Coming to iPhones Everywhere With ARKit, Apple is opening up a new platform for augmented reality. It’s simultaneously empowering developers with an easy to use toolkit and providing an audience of hundreds of millions ARKit ready phones when iOS 11 launches this fall. While there is healthy skepticism that AR is still years off, I think the Apple move here has the potential to be an inflection point for this new media. The Fundamentals For the cool bits, ARKit requires a bit more graphics programming than my music tech work usually involves. That’s ok, I love a challenge. Here’s what I’ve found most helpful: The Culture This is a new paradigm. So I’m also spending time living in the culture. Devices You can only develop ARKit on an iOS 11 device. I’m working off the latest iPad. It’s awesome. It was only $400. I’ve also got one of these $9 AmazonBasics tablet stands where it sits most of the day.. Want to Collaborate? I love working on things with other folks. If you are as excited about the possibilities of ARKit as I am, I’d love to work on some projects. I’ve even got a small budget I can put towards exploratory development of ARKit + Music Technology. So if you’re an experienced dev and want to moonlight with some cool new tech… Or you’re an entry level but super stoked about new immersive platforms… Let’s hangout. Just contact me.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Quarterback Trevor Siemian has no trouble remembering every in-game moment from his rookie season with the Denver Broncos. That's because with two seconds remaining in first half of what became the Broncos' Dec. 20 loss in Pittsburgh, with Brock Osweiler in the locker room, Siemian took his first, and only, regular-season snap: a kneel down, after which he flipped the ball to a nearby official. "He was ready if we needed him," Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said. "We like what Trevor did, how he prepared and I expect him to take that big jump … we're going to push some, he knows that." Siemian also doesn't get much play in the almost constant public discourse about the Broncos' depth chart at the position. Peyton Manning retired, Osweiler left and the Broncos made a trade to get Mark Sanchez. Kubiak and executive vice president of football operations/general manager John Elway have not handed Sanchez the starting job, but when they talk about their confidence in Sanchez, it's as if he will be the starter. The Broncos also selected Paxton Lynch in the first round of the draft. Kubiak and Elway have already said they are confident Lynch could be a future. He was the player they targeted in the first round and traded up five spots to select. Given all that, does Siemian, a seventh-round pick in the 2015 draft, believe he'll get a legitimate shot to compete for a job that seems to be another quarterback's now and another quarterback's later? "Absolutely," Siemian said. " … "I think I don't try and do anything crazy. I think if I play my best football, I've got a chance. I'm going to take it one day at a time and go from there." Siemian, whose senior season at Northwestern in 2014 ended with a torn ACL, carved out a spot on a Broncos' roster that already included Manning and Osweiler because of his arm strength -- "no doubt he has a pro arm," Kubiak has said. The Broncos saw enough in the preseason and training camp, that they did not risk putting him on the practice squad where any team could have signed him. And in a stretch run toward a Super Bowl last season, with Manning trying to return from a foot injury, Siemian was the team's No. 2 quarterback. "Absolutely, it was a great opportunity for me last year to learn a lot obviously from Brock and Peyton," Siemian said. "At this point, I'm kind of getting antsy to apply some of those things I picked up from those guys. It's a great opportunity for me and I'm ready to get to it." Siemian has the most experience in the Broncos' offense. And when Sanchez invited several of his teammates, including Siemian, to California earlier this year, it was Siemian who was the main resource for Sanchez. Kubiak and Elway don't plan, at least for now, to add a fourth quarterback before training camp because they don't want to limit any of the practice snaps available for Sanchez, Siemian and Lynch. "He's been just an impressive, young guy," Sanchez said. "For a young guy going into his second year and not playing as much like you said, he's got a good grip on the system and really helped out in California. He was almost like a player-coach kind of thing in helping me out with reads and footwork and things like that." "I knew in the offseason there were going to be some changes," Siemian said. " … I'm finding out pretty quickly that you have to be ready for anything in this business. It's a new room. It's a new group. I'm excited to get Paxton in here. I think we've got a great group of guys so far … I'll just give it my best shot and try to play my best ball."
Comic 1 - As the Moon Burned Bright Above 10th May 2014, 6:41 PM in in Prologue Average Rating: 5 (9 votes) Rate this comic << < As the Moon Burned Bright Above Chapter 1 Lady in Red What's in a Name Spielberg Would Be Proud Look Before You LEAP! Creepy Crawly Convenient Store Death Approaches Watch Your Step Arachnophobia Spider Squishing Shining in the Darkness Even Exchange Most Foul Gold Digger Chapter 2 Welcome to the Jungle Going Ape Monkey Swing Croaked High Dive Omnomnom Red-Handed Crime and Punishment Grand Opening Repeat Customer The Heist Death of a Salesman Restock and Run Dunk-a-Damsel Idol Chatter Small Pond Don't Even Need a Boat To Carry On The Hopping Dead Tastes Like Trouble Bat Cave Ivan to Suck Your Blood Dark Ritual The Dead Are Evil Grave Robber Into the Depths Chapter 3 Dark Descent Yetis Are Chill The Missing Lunk Yetis Are Too Chill Platforming at Its Worst One Night at Yeti's Spring Heels Superior Beings Giant Heads Slip Up What Are the Odds Don't Need No Man Accessorize Meet Again Death and Life Human in the Middle Shiny Slippy Icy Floor His Majesty Yeti King is Not Chill Cold Feet Enemy Intel Breaking the Ice Mandatory Thin Ice Pun Damsel in De-Stress Abduction Think Pink Flying Saucers Minions in the Meantime Out Cold Her Chapter 4 Temple of Doom Say Your Prayers Kali-sthenics Rock You Like a Hawkman Take a Load Off Trap Trippin' His Head is a Bird The Eye of the Slider Autopsy Inconclusive Magma Men Are Chill Pursuit Scepter Skeptic Firestorm Regifting Crisscross Plant Kingdom Oh Rally Crushed Wrath The Hamjet Shines Disturbingly Forgotten Fire Sea False Idol A Light in the Dark Eyes Aflame Last Stop Shop Bug Collecting Take a Shine Take a Pointer Vital Signs Legends of the Hidden Temple Nowhere to Run Nowhere to Hide Somewhere to Climb Pride Cometh Before the Fall Letting Go Desperate Despot Falling Action Nice to Meet You Here's the Score Character Ref Location Ref > >> Permalinks Copy this comic strip into LiveJournal, your blog or Myspace with this code: <a href="http://spelunkyingtcc.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/408252"><img src="http://spelunkyingtcc.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/140/353f19ed0bd15d02abda39ed65b785e71336647783.png" alt="Spelunkying: The Colossal Cave - As the Moon Burned Bright Above" border="0" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://spelunkyingtcc.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/408252">As the Moon Burned Bright Above</a> Or into forums with this code: [URL=http://spelunkyingtcc.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/408252] [IMG]http://spelunkyingtcc.thecomicseries.com/images/comics/140/353f19ed0bd15d02abda39ed65b785e71336647783.png[/IMG] [/URL] [URL=http://spelunkyingtcc.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/408252]As the Moon Burned Bright Above[/URL] User comments:
"Sons of Anarchy" actor Johnny Lewis is the sole suspect in the death of an 81-year-old woman in Los Feliz on Wednesday, law enforcement sources said. Los Angeles police found the 28-year-old actor — best known for his two-season role as Kip "Half-Sack" Epps on the FX show — dead in a driveway in the 3600 block of Lowry Road on Wednesday morning. Investigators believe he killed the woman, identified by coroner's officials as Catherine Davis, before somehow falling to his death. Police said they believe Davis died from blunt force trauma but coroner's officials said no official causes of death had been determined. Lewis' list of credits include appearances on "Boston Public," "The O.C.," "Criminal Minds" and "The Guardian." The Los Angeles native also had several film roles, including a part in "The Runaways" and "Raise Your Voice," starring Hilary Duff. He most recently played a prisoner in "186 Dollars to Freedom," released this month. The investigation continued Thursday. Los Angeles police officers went to the home about 10:40 a.m. Wednesday after receiving several calls reporting a "screaming woman" and three men fighting. Investigators believe Lewis climbed a wall and fought with a house painter at a neighboring residence before returning to Davis' home, police said. He then scaled the wall again to fight with the painter and the owner of the second house, Los Angeles police Sgt. Frank Preciado said. When officers arrived, they found Lewis' body in the driveway about six feet from the wall. The two men who fought with the suspect received minor injuries and were treated at the scene, Preciado said. ALSO: Jury deliberations continue in chef's murder trial "Zero tolerance" for pranksters during Carmageddon II, CHP says Remains found in Pacific Palisades those of missing UCLA student — Kate Mather and Andrew Blankstein
Modifying the Android Logcat Stream for Full-Color Debugging Wednesday April 22, 2009 I’ve been keeping busy writing all sorts of fun stuff lately, but a few weeks ago I was really fighting with Android’s logcat debugging stream. It dumps out tons of useful information, but it’s easy to get lost in the flood of text. So I whipped up a quick Python script that reformats the logcat output into a colorful stream that is much easier to visually follow. One feature I really like is that it allocates unique colors for each “tag” used. This makes it really easy to visually separate dozens of tags into their source apps, and makes it easy to pick your app out in the crowd. This was inspired by the irssi nickcolor script, and the best way to explain is using an example: There, isn’t that better? Just pipe your adb logcat output through the Python script to get started, or you can run the script directly to invoke adb: $ adb logcat \| ~/coloredlogcat.py $ ~/coloredlogcat.py To keep things simple, it assumes you’re using an ANSI-compatible terminal (most xterms are fine), and it uses a quick hack to detect your column width for wrapping. It only took about 30 minutes to write up, but it’s already saved me more than that in lost debugging time. Feel free to use it yourself, and improve on it–here’s the source code released under an Apache 2.0 license.
The monthly U.S. jobs report generated its usual plethora of data, much of it discouraging. Fewer jobs than expected were created in August, and the welcome decline in the unemployment rate has to be significantly tempered by its link to the 368,000 people who departed the counted work force. Leading the pack of the woeful were the numbers on the labor force participation rate. There are a couple of reasons for this view. One, you should pay attention when data are either at the lowest or the highest level in years. In this case, the lowest. More important, a declining percentage of people in the work force means long-term problems. Too many people discouraged, with atrophying skills. Bad news for them and their families, economically and psychologically. Bad news for the overall economy that loses productive capacity and willing and able consumers. Bad news for the overall spirit and optimism of pretty much everyone.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today welcomed the uptick in the Q2 GDP growth at 6.3 per cent but cautioned that it is too early to say there is a reversal in decline seen in the past five quarters.Singh also said at this rate it is not possible for the Narendra Modi government to equal UPA government's 10-year average growth rate."July-September quarter has registered a growth rate of 6.3 per cent. This is to be welcomed, but is too early to conclude that this represents a reversal of the declining trend seen in the previous five quarters," Singh, also a former finance minister, told a gathering of businessmen here."Some economists believe that the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has not adequately captured the impact of demonetisation and GST on the informal sector that accounts for about 30 per cent of the economy," he said.Further quoting economists M Govinda Rao and former chairman of National Statistical Commission Pranab Sen, the former prime minister said, "There is still considerable uncertainty about the growth of GDP. The RBI forecasts that growth in 2017-18 will pick up to 6.7 per cent. However, even if growth reaches 6.7 per cent in 2017-18, Modiji's four-year average growth rate will still be only 7.1 per cent."He claimed that the Modi government will not be able to equal the UPA government's 10-year average growth rate."To equal the UPA's 10-year average, the economy will have to grow at 10.6 per cent in the fifth year. I would be happy if this were to happen, but frankly, I don't think this will happen," Singh quipped.Reversing the five quarters of slowing GDP growth, Indian economy expanded by 6.3 per cent in July-September on the back of a pick-up in manufacturing.The senior Congress leader also said the GDP growth rate falling to 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2017-18 due to demonetisation was still a "gross underestimate" as the GDP did not capture the pain of the informal sector."Every one per cent loss of GDP annually costs our nation Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Think of the human impact from this lost growth -- the lost jobs, the youth whose opportunities have vanished, the businesses who had to shut down, and entrepreneurs whose drive to succeed has turned into discouraged disappointment," he signed off.
The Death Of John Kennedy Why Nixon resigned instead of facing impeachment. The answer to that question, never asked by politician, never asked by a servile media, was THE dark secret that could not be revealed; the secret that would have brought down the entire government! Years later, it did come out what had been the motive for the break-in. It was connected to what Nixon called "Hanky Panky", "That Cuban Thing", and "That Bay of Pigs Mess", on the White House tapes. The DNC had gotten copies of the photographs taken of the three tramps in Dealey Plaza, and identified two of them as long time Nixon henchmen E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. The Democrats were using the photos to blackmail Nixon into calling off his campaign of sabotage in the final weeks before the GOP convention. There was no real need to wiretap the phones that justified the risks of the break-ins as Nixon's re-election was already a foregone conclusion. This is why E. Howard Hunt lead the break-in; it was his own ass he was trying to save. The photos resurfaced as part of a news story, and E. Howard Hunt sued the publisher, Liberty Lobby. He lost. Attorney Mark Lane provided witnesses that placed E. Howard Hunt in Dealey Plaza at the time that John F. Kennedy was killed. The photos. The tramps in Dealey Plaza. The enlargements of E. Howard Hunt is from the third frame down. The enlargement of Frank Sturgis is from the bottom frame.
Guided by limits of technology Clunky Stop-Motion No Motion Blur AMAZING In Empire Strikes Back, when ILM wanted to animate AT-ATs, they didn’t have good enough CG to do it by computer. Instead, they used stop-motion. One issue inherent in stop-motion is the lack of motion blur - since each frame is posed and photographed still - which means it can have a very poor look when it comes to dinosaurs, people, etc. It turns out that for giant mechanical walkers, the hyperreal stuttering effect is AMAZING, since it makes them look even more robotic and terrifying. No one would have thought to disable motion-blur were it an option, and no one set out specifically to achieve that effect, but it happened because of the limitations they worked in.
Ángel Franco/The New York Times Downloading — quite often stealing, in the eyes of the law — music, movies, books and photos is easier than bobbing for apples in a bucket without water. It has kept legions of lawyers employed fighting copyright violations without a whole lot to show for their efforts in the past decade. You think that was bad? Just wait until we can copy physical things. It won’t be long before people have a 3-D printer sitting at home alongside its old inkjet counterpart. These 3-D printers, some already costing less than a computer did in 1999, can print objects by spraying layers of plastic, metal or ceramics into shapes. People can download plans for an object, hit print, and a few minutes later have it in their hands. Call it the Industrial Revolution 2.0. Not only will it change the nature of manufacturing, but it will further challenge our concept of ownership and copyright. Suppose you covet a lovely new mug at a friend’s house. So you snap a few pictures of it. Software renders those photos into designs that you use to print copies of the mug on your home 3-D printer. Did you break the law by doing this? You might think so, but surprisingly, you didn’t. What about a lamp, a vase, an iPhone protective cover, board game pieces, wall hooks, even large pieces of furniture? In each of these cases, if you copy them, it’s highly unlikely that you’re breaking any copyright laws. “Copyright doesn’t necessarily protect useful things,” said Michael Weinberg, a senior staff attorney with Public Knowledge, a Washington digital advocacy group. “If an object is purely aesthetic it will be protected by copyright, but if the object does something, it is not the kind of thing that can be protected.” When I posed my mug scenario to Mr. Weinberg, he responded: “If you took that mug and went to a pottery class and remade it, would you be asking me the same questions about breaking a copyright law? No.” Just because new tools arrive, like 3-D printers and digital files that make it easier to recreate an object, he said, it doesn’t mean people break the law when using them. But it could turn design and manufacturing into the Wild West. That’s already happening on Thingiverse, a free online site that offers schematics of more than 15,000 objects. Thomas Lombardi, a 3-D printer owner and regular contributor to Thingiverse, uploaded a free design for a “Lucky Charms Cereal Sifter.” This brilliant piece of American engineering is a cup with several holes in the bottom. When you pour Lucky Charms cereal into the sifter and shake it from side to side, the cereal falls through the holes and the marshmallow charms — clearly the most sought-after part of the product — stay in the sifter, leaving you with nothing but marshmallowy goodness to pour into a bowl. After Mr. Lombardi posted his invention on Thingiverse, someone else downloaded the design and began selling a finished Lucky Charms Cereal Sifter on a competing Web site for $30. Because the sifter is a useful object (although some might argue otherwise) and not simply decorative, there was nothing Mr. Lombardi could have done to stop them. A recent research paper published by the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., titled “The Future of Open Fabrication,” says 3-D printing will be “manufacturing’s Big Bang.” as jobs in manufacturing, many overseas, and jobs shipping products around the globe are replaced by companies setting up 3-D fabrication labs in stores to print objects rather than ship them. The disregard for copyright smoothes the way for this shift. Downloading music online prospered because it was quicker and easier to press a button than go to a store to buy a CD. Given the choice to download a mug, or deal with Ikea on a Saturday afternoon, which one do you think you would choose?
Lost Roles is a weekly column exploring “what might have been” in movie and TV comedy as we take a different actor, writer, or comedian each week and examine the parts they turned down, wanted but didn’t get, and the projects that fell apart altogether. This week, we turn our attention to Peter Sellers, regarded as one of the greatest comedic actors that ever was. Renowned for his chameleonic abilities, Sellers proved capable of disappearing into a wide array of characters, from bumbling French detectives to sinister German scientists. Let’s take a look at some of the parts Peter Sellers almost played but didn’t, including Charlie Chaplin, Willy Wonka, and two parts for Mel Brooks. Dr. Strangelove (1964) The role: Major T.J. Kong Who got it: Slim Pickens Peter Sellers played three roles in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove – British officer Lionel Mandrake, U.S. President Merkin Muffley, and ex-Nazi nuke expert Dr. Strangelove – but he was supposed to play a fourth role: Major T.J. Kong. Sellers was reluctant to portray a character with such a thick Texan accent, but writer Terry Southern, a Texan himself, coached Sellers through it. As soon as Sellers became comfortable with taking on the role, he ended up spraining his ankle, making it impossible for him to fit into the cramped cockpit sets that the role would require. Inspector Clousseau (1968) The role: Inspector Jacques Clousseau Who got it: Alan Arkin Peter Sellers and director Blake Edwards both refused to participate in this Pink Panther movie. They were both busy making The Party together, but the studio went ahead anyway and slid Alan Arkin into Sellers’s place. Sure, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal now, after Steve Martin played Inspector Clousseau twice and Robert Benigni played Clousseau’s son in his own movie, but replacing Sellers during the era in which he played the character was a total slap in the face. Sellers and Edwards didn’t return to the character until seven years later with The Return of the Pink Panther. The Producers (1968) The role: Max Bloom Who got it: Gene Wilder Peter Sellers expressed interest in the part of Max Bloom in Mel Brooks’s first movie but didn’t end up playing it. When the movie came out, Sellers took out a full-page ad in the paper endorsing the film. Here’s Mel Brooks talking about it: “Peter Sellers was a champion of The Producers and he nearly ruined it. It was about to open in England, and he took out a double-page ad in the Sunday Times that said, ‘This is the funniest and the best picture ever made.’ The critics said, ‘Hmm, we’ll be the judges of that, thank you.’ So I got good and bad reviews because they decided that they would judge it for themselves and not just take Peter Sellers’ word for it.” The Twelve Chairs (1970) The role: Father Fyodor Who got it: Dom DeLuise According to Dom DeLuise, Sellers was supposed to play his part in Mel Brooks’s second movie but dropped out. DeLuise took his place, leading to many future collaborations with Brooks. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) The role: Willy Wonka Who got it: Gene Wilder Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author Roald Dahl wanted Peter Sellers or his Goon Show cohort Spike Milligan to play eccentric candyman Willy Wonka in the big-screen adaptation of the story, according to the Dahl biography Storyteller. Sellers had called Dahl personally to beg the part and Milligan shaved off his beard to audition, but the producers went with Gene Wilder instead. Roald Dahl was so upset that he considered disassociating himself with the movie and “campaigning against it on TV and magazines in the US.” Tommy (1975) The role: The Specialist Who got it: Jack Nicholson According to the Jack Nicholson biography Five Easy Decades, director Ken Russell considered Peter Sellers for the part of the doctor in his movie version of The Who’s rock opera Tommy until he found out Jack Nicholson was in town and hired him instead. 10 (1979) The role: George Webber Who got it: Dudley Moore “I turned down the lead role many, many times. I just didn’t feel I was right for the part,” said Sellers about his frequent collaborator Blake Edwards’s movie 10. Fellow Brit Dudley Moore took the role as a songwriter having a mid-life crisis, which does seem like it’s a little outside of Sellers’s wheelhouse, what with it just being a regular guy and not being a broad character role. Tootsie (1982) The role: Michael Dorsey Who got it: Dustin Hoffman In the mid-70s, when Tootsie was originally called Would I Lie to You?, the lead part of a struggling male actor who disguises himself as a lady to win a soap opera part was offered to both Peter Sellers and Michael Caine before going to Dustin Hoffman years later. Chaplin (1992) The role: Charles Chaplin Who got it: Robert Downey Jr. Peter Sellers was supposed to, at one point, star in a biopic of silent era comedian Charlie Chaplin, according to Sellers’s biography The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Things never came together with the Sellers/Chaplin movie, and director Richard Attenborough ended up casting Robert Downey Jr. in the role decades later.
American Sewer Service employees - Facebook The city of Milwaukee is under pressure to fire a local contractor for employing at least one member of the Ku Klux Klan. According to Fox News 6, pictures posted on Facebook of an American Sewer System worker’s lunchbox featuring a Confederate flag and a sticker reading, “Invisible Empire Ku Klux Klan,” have riled up the community as well as local labor leaders. The report notes that the picture taken at the job-site is not the first controversy for the sewer contractor, explaining that earlier in the week company employees were photographed carrying weapons. According to the report, American Sewer System currently holds 11 contracts with the city valued at over $1 million — and that has locals furious. “We want American Sewer System, the company that this despicable worker is working for, we want them to immediately be ineligible for any city contracts,” said Jacob Flom, a member of the Young Workers Committee and the AFL-CIO. “American Sewer Systems, they got to — they’re done,” Flom continued. “They should not have any contracts with the city. Taxpayer money shouldn’t be going to Klan members working in our neighborhoods.” The report states that the company dismissed one worker after the gun photo, and that two others were laid off. However local labor leaders feel that is not enough and have scheduled a rally on Monday at City Hall. In response, the city has issued s statement, reading: “This afternoon, the City of Milwaukee became aware of this photograph posted on social media. The stickers are offensive to the Administration and DPW. If, in fact, the cooler with the stickers belongs to an individual working on a City contract, it would be best if the individual works someplace other than the City of Milwaukee. DPW continues to investigate this matter.” You can see the lunchbox photo below, via Facebook.
Norgerhaven prison in the Netherlands to relieve pressure on Norway, where more than 1,000 inmates are waiting to be allocated a cell Norway sends prisoners to Dutch jail because its own are too full Norway has sent a group of inmates to a jail in the Netherlands because its own prisons are too full. “The first prisoners have arrived,” Karl Hillesland, the Norwegian head of Norgerhaven prison in the Netherlands said on Tuesday. Due to lack of space, more than 1,000 inmates in Norway are waiting to be placed in prisons, where they are often assigned to individual cells. To solve the problem, Norway has leased Norgerhaven prison from the Netherlands. But the move has dismayed many Dutch inmates, who were transferred to another facility despite fighting to stay put in their “luxurious cells”, as Dutch media have described them. About 25 Norwegian inmates made up the first prisoner transfer on Tuesday, ahead of a formal handover ceremony between the two countries’ justice ministers on Wednesday. At Norgerhaven, inmates serving long sentences can plant vegetables in the garden, raise chickens, cook and enjoy the pastoral surroundings from their cells. “It’s a very cushy prison, a pleasant prison,” Kenneth Vimme, who is serving a 17-year sentence for murder and who volunteered for a transfer, told Norwegian public television NRK. But he complained that inmates transferring would get fewer TV channels, and was dismayed that not all prisoners were going of their own free will, which he feared could cause tensions. Of the 112 Norwegian prisoners being transferred in a first phase, 79 were volunteers. Norgerhaven will eventually host 242 prisoners from Norway. An association representing the families of inmates has protested against the transfer abroad and criticised the way in which it was done. “To serve your sentence so far from home hurts your chances of rehabilitation in society and the possibility of family visits,” Hanne Hamsund, the head of the association, told AFP. “With the trip and a night at a hotel, it will cost about 5,000 kroner (£390) per person to visit a family member,” she said, regretting the lack of financial assistance from the Norwegian state. The inmates will serve their sentences under the Norwegian penal system, which is known for being liberal. They will be under the supervision of a Norwegian prison director, but the rest of the staff will be Dutch. Prisoners will return to Norway before their release. The Netherlands has also rented out prison space to Belgium.
Four Newport residents face drug-related charges. Courtesy: Christopher Roy/The Newport Daily Express Witnesses say there was a large police response in downtown Newport Thursday afternoon. Authorities say they responded to a home on Colodny Terrace after receiving a report of a woman who appeared to have overdosed. Witnesses told police they saw two men dragging her out of a home and put her into a car. Police say after questioning the woman and searching around the car with a K-9, the suspects were arrested after a scuffle with officers. Police say they found heroin on the suspects, as well as the overdose reversal drug Narcan, which had allegedly been given to the woman. Police say a search of the home also turned up other "illicit" items. Jacob McDonald, 33, Rebecca Sweeney, 32, Juliana Graves, 47, and Jeremy Bathalon, 28, all of Newport, face various drug-related charges.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, as told by Thomas of Britain and Beroul in the 12th century and reworked by Gottfried of Strasbourg and others, including Wagner. Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, one of the most popular stories of the Middle Ages. From roots in Celtic myth, it passed into written form in Britain a century after the Norman Conquest and almost immediately spread throughout northern Europe. It tells of a Cornish knight and an Irish queen, Tristan and Iseult, who accidentally drink a love potion, at the same time, on the same boat, travelling to Cornwall. She is due to marry Tristan's king, Mark. Tristan and Iseult seemed ideally matched and their love was heroic, but could that excuse their adultery, in the minds of medieval listeners, particularly when the Church was so clear they were wrong? With Laura Ashe Associate Professor of English at Worcester College, University of Oxford Juliette Wood Associate Lecturer in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University And Mark Chinca Reader in Medieval German Literature at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Hilarious FIFA World Cup Advertising 2010 In 2010 South Africa has given chance of hosting unforgettable memories of FIFA Football World Cup. World is holding its breath to witness. The Striking FIFA Game creating thrilling on the biggest canvas of FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed and follow us on Twitter for recent updates. Recommeneded Post Hare are Fresh Collection of the most Creative and Hilarious Unforgettable FIFA World Cup Advertising campaigns from all over the world. THRILL AFRICA, THRILL FOOT ! KENAKO SOUTH AFRICA ! World Cup Kenako Africa Lady Skyscraper Advertisement BRASIL – World Cup 2010 Fifa world cup on IMAX ESPN: 2010 FIFA World Cup Murals World Cup Beer Ad FIFA World Cup 2010 Nike Italy Zambrotta World Cup Cars 2010 Human Rights Film Festival: Ball Virgin Atlantic World Cup Sponsorship Adidas: World Cup Bridge FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010: Mongoose World Cup Bus Stop
Smartphones and tablets have certainly impacted filmmaking in a large way, mostly making things run easier and smoother. With the success of many filmmaking/industry related apps, developers have taken notice and now the market is flooded. A lot of filmmakers are wondering which apps really are useful and we hope to shed some light on that in this post. Cinemek Storyboard Composer HD ($29.99) This app is a little on the expensive side, but I think it is worth the money, especially if you’re a director. Cinemek Storboard is billed as “the world’s first mobile story boarding application”. This app allows you to take photos of a set or shot that you’d like to see in your film. If you don’t have actors available, no problem! You can add digital stand-ins. Storyboard Composer HD also lets you add camera movements to your shot and see what it looks like. After your finished with all the photos, you can play them all together giving you a rough idea of what your project will look like. Action Log Pro ($32.99) Action Log Pro is a simple, but useful app that basically performs the role of a traditional paper log on set. You can add multiple cameras and easily add information for each take. It also has the ability to be imported in to Final Cut Pro or Avid. You can also sync timecode (time of day or free running) across multiple cameras. DSLR Slate ($9.99) DSLR is a great Slate app designed to use with DSLRs(if you didn’t guess by the name). It works as a traditional slate and also has the added features of being able to put in information such as shutter speed, ISO, aperture, lens, and frame rate. It also includes a color chart. Sunseeker: 3D Augmented Reality ($8.99) This is a must have app for Director’s of Photography. It provides a flat view compass that shows the path of the sun, its hour intervals, its winter and summer solstice paths, rise and set times, as well as a map view that shows solar direction for each daylight hour. This is great when shooting exteriors or timelapses. Easy Release ($9.99) Instead of having to carry around paper releases and get them signed, why not just use EasyRelease? This app allows you to collect all the data and signatures you need right on an iPad or iPhone’s touchscreen. It comes with standard releases, as well as ones for Getty Images, iStockPhoto, and Alamy. You can also load your own custom release file if you’d like. These are just a few of the hundreds of filmmaking apps out there. We’ll be regularly making posts with some of our favorites, so keep checking back! Advertisements
It should be no secret that the Caps have invested, quite heavily, in their Residency programs, most likely at the expense of a women’s team of some variety. For followers of all of the Caps teams, it should be no surprise that the U16 team, as compared to their older counterparts, have had a lot more success. While it’s great that the teams are doing well, and in the case of the U16 team, coming within minutes of an Academy Championship. Now, what happens to these kids after they age out? Well, this is where their paths diverge and often become hard to track down. Up until a few years ago, there was no Caps USL team. While it’s provided a place for some of the graduates with first team contracts to play, it is really helping them? All I know is that WFC2 has struggled mightily this year, and I’ll leave that for one of my cohorts here to muse over. Let’s start with one of the originals: Russell Teibert - Been with the MLS team since Day 1. I’m not sure if any of the Caps MLS head coaches have known how to use him properly, or what his best position is. I wonder if even Russell knows. All we know for sure is that he can run for days. His most notable contribution to date would be his 2 goal performance against LA in 2013. Sam Adekugbe - After being forced into action because of a suspension to Jordan Harvey, Caps fans got a rather tantalizing look at Sam. For a kid making his debut with the first team at 18, he looked like a veteran and got some Caps fans thinking that they may have their LB of the future. However, injuries would take their toll and Sam wasn’t able to keep a spot on the roster. After a few training stints in the UK, Sam went on loan to Brighton & Hove Albion for a year. Upon his return, he was then loaned out to Swedish outfit Goteborg for the rest of 2017. Time will tell what will happen to Sam. Kianz Froese - After making his MLS debut as a 2nd half substitution in Seattle, he would only make 15 MLS appearances in 3 seasons, spending most of his time with WFC2. He was sold to Fortuna Dusseldorf. Marco Bustos - After signing an MLS deal in September 2014, he would not make his first league appearance for a full year. His one start, a 4-0 drubbing at DC was definitely not one for the highlight reel, being played out of position. Fortunately, he wasn’t the worst thing on the pitch that night. Marco Carducci - As far as MLS appearances, there were none. Perhaps his most notable contribution was the 2014 Amway Semi-Final against TFC. Facing the big guns of TFC with a mix of Residency, PDL and marginal first teamers in front of him. He and his team took the mighty TFC to penalties, where Nakajima-Ferran buried the decisive penalty for TFC. He would be released by the Caps, trialling with Minnesota United before joining USL side Rio Grande Valley Toros. Ben McKendry - Another graduate to barely make an impact with the first team, pretty much spending his entire time with the Caps to date, with WFC2. He is currently on loan on NASL side FC Edmonton. Alphonso Davies - I’m not sure how much credit the Caps can legitimately claim to developing this teen phenom. Yes, they scouted him in Edmonton and managed to get him out to Vancouver. Spending the bare minimum (if that) with the Residency team to qualify as a homegrown player, he would make a pitstop with WFC2 before signing in July 2016 and making his MLS debut against Orlando City a few days later. To date, he has one assist, primarily coming off the bench to provide a spark. However, his biggest tangible contributions came in the 2016-2017 CONCACAF Champions League, scoring the goal that would put the Caps through to the Knockout Round against fellow MLS side New York Red Bulls. He would top that by scoring the goal that would put them through to the Semi-Final against Tigres UANL. Alphonso also looks poised to become one of the staple names for Canada’s Men’s National Team, once again, getting his citizenship and first senior call up at the same time. Outside of Davies and Teibert, it’s hard to say that the Residency Teams have pulled their weight as far as producing regular first teamers. However, that may not all be on the players as once they hit the first team, they face some pretty stiff competition from veterans, imports and in some cases Designated Players. The simplest answer: Maybe they’re just not good enough. A former coworker of mine, who coaches a U10 team and he showed me some of the drills that he was supposed to be working on with the team. I looked at that once, and almost had a stroke trying to understand it. I can understand if kids get to the point they’re actually allowed to play, try to incorporate the skills that these convoluted drills are trying to teach, and then they give up on the game. I highly doubt the massive Academy programs of the European giants and the MLS peons alike are teaching skills that these kids could possibly understand. Maybe it’s club philosophy that gets in the way of these kids. In that, I don’t mean that the club has to forego any potential success to do so, but they have to be able to endure the ups and downs of going down that route of player development over winning. Perhaps the best example of successful player development might be FC Dallas. in 2016, they won the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, the Supporters Shield, the U18 and U16 USSDA National Championships. They have 9 HGPs on their roster. On the flip side, Portland has one (Michael Farfan). Obviously, the number of Homegrown Players you have on your roster isn’t the only barometer for measuring the success or lack of, of your Residency teams, but it’s a good indicator of how much attention you are paying. I think the real measure is, how they ascended the ranks within the club to full time starter and, if applicable, national teamer. Kellyn Acosta (FC Dallas) just broke into the US Men’s Senior Team in his 3rd year as a defensive midfielder and he’s in his early 20s. One final conclusion: Dallas and Sporting Kansas City are proof that you don’t need to spend megabucks to acquire players.
Nicola Latorre, chairman of the defence commission of the Senate, said the move would ensure investigations into people traffickers begin at sea, where "crucial evidence can be lost." He was speaking at the presentation of a report based on a series of hearings which have seen NGOs accused of encouraging the mass influx of migrants to Italy by providing a 'taxi pick-up' service for packed rickety boats that traffickers effectively only need to get out of Libyan territorial waters. NGOs poured cold water on the idea of allowing police to travel with them. "We have a humanitarian mandate and we want to maintain a clear distinction between that and any military or police intervention," one organisation, SOS Mediterranee, said in a statement. "This is crucial for our independence." In its report, the commission also recommended a system of registering NGO's active in search and rescue operations in order to ensure full transparency about their financing. Charity boats have this year been responsible for rescuing around one third of the thousands of migrants picked up in waters off Libya. That is up from around a quarter last year. Italy has taken in more than half a million migrants rescued in this way since the start of 2014. The defence commission's recommendations follow a row over claims by a prosecutor based in Sicily that some NGO boats could be being financed by the traffickers themselves to make their job of getting mostly African migrants into Europe in return for payments. A more subtle version of the argument suggests the charity boats have helped to create a 'pull' factor by decreasing the risks involved in trying to make the Mediterranean crossing. Figures suggest however that the journey remains extremely dangerous with 1,229 people recorded as having died or disappeared at sea so far this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration. That is one death for every 37 people rescued. READ ALSO: The changing face of the Mediterranean migrant crisis Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP
Will Moore decided to punch out, as he put it. He left behind devastated friends, co-authors and students as well as family. I have been trying to put into words how I feel today. Will was upstaged by his suit I have known Will since I was a visiting assistant professor long ago. He and I were part of several workshops aimed at producing an edited volume–the finest one of my career. His feedback on my work then and his intense desire to produce excellent work were both very helpful as I was just getting going. Since then, we would chat at most conferences, and recently we started a project together with Johanna Birnir as we desperately needed his methods muscles. Over the years, I found Will to be quite funny, although he bombed when he tried to be funny at the recent ISA Online Media Caucus reception (Will preferred folks to be honest, so …). My favorite Will story is when he went to Burning Man, where he fit in politically, one year dressed up as a GOP pollster. He had guts when it came to stunts like that as he was curious about the reactions, and he got many reactions. Will was fierce in his pursuit of understanding. His focus was mostly on the denial of human rights, a topic that could be stressful to study. His passion for justice carried over into how he acted within the profession. Will was very protective as he mentored several generations of students. He would call out injustices in the profession, even if his friends were guilty of only the most mild of offenses. I felt his sting during the network mess of a couple of years ago, where Will pointed out that it was easy for me to say given my privilege. I was not too comfortable with that, but I respected Will’s honesty and dedication to improving the profession. Along with Christian Davenport, Will created a variety of efforts, including the conflict consortium to give students a chance to get feedback. He recently asked me to participate in one of these sessions, but I could not since I would be on the road at the time. Will was quite flawed, of course. His own suicide note reflects on the reality that his criticism could be withering. He was not someone that you would want to be writing tenure letters for you as he might love your work but say enough critical stuff that it would not help your case, and he was aware of that. He was not always an easy colleague to get along with, as he expected everyone to share the intensity of his passion and he was usually pretty convinced about the rightness of his cause even when perhaps things were not so clear. He had admitted a few years ago that he was on the autism spectrum, but only his suicide note reveals what that really meant in terms of disconnection. I could only see part of that–that he lacked filters that most of us have. And he paid a price for that, no doubt. I just didn’t realize how much of a price. I guess this is not that atypical in that most (all?) were surprised. Friends had interacted with Will the past few weeks and did not detect anything different (although some noticed changes over the past few years). He was clearly working on projects that indicated that he would be around longer than he was. It is not clear why it happened now as his note only indicates that his kids are now old enough for him to contemplate He was very Will in how he went about, not just setting up a blog post to be published after he killed himself but also setting up an email to go out to his co-authors describing very briefly and very bluntly what he was doing and that we could either keep his name or drop it from the publications that will eventually come out of our co-authorship with him. Of course, he will remain on our article, if it ever sees the light of day. I have known depressed people, but he is the first friend of mine to commit suicide. I am sure other folks are feeling this far more intensely than I am, as I didn’t see him often–just a couple of times a year. His students, current and former, must be in significant pain just as those he had longer co-authoring relationships as well as those with whom he went to grad school. I have been rambling here, as I find writing to be therapeutic. All I do know is that his friends and students should lean on each other. I am easily reached for those who want to chat. Perhaps we can learn from this and other similar stories of how difficult depression can be. For a series of tweets that explain it well, start with the one below and go from there. https://t.co/6tm8Y53fgq Like many other people (incl academics) I go through life with the black dog of depression. #thread — Cas Mudde (@CasMudde) April 19, 2017 Feel free to add your own thoughts about Will or your favorite Will stories in the comments.
When rapper George Moss posted a photo of himself cleaning his wife's breast pump on Facebook last week, he received thousands of positive messages praising his support for breastfeeding mothers. If you ever wonder what #rappers do when they get off stage, they clean breast pumps for their wives so their baby can eat. #thuglife Posted by George Moss on Monday, June 22, 2015 "Love this!! Awesome husbands support their wives and their pumping!!" Facebook user Deserae Coy wrote in the comments section. "Thank you so much for posting this picture normalizing the reality of pumping in public places," said Andrea Anderson. The post earned nearly 50,000 likes and became the subject of countless news pieces. Reacting to his newfound viral fame, Moss shared a follow-up photo and post two days after the original. While he expressed gratitude for all of the "love, likes, and kind words," the dad said there's another person who deserves all of the credit and support: his wife. So earlier yesterday I accidentally had a post “go viral” of me cleaning #breastpump bottles for my wife backstage after... Posted by George Moss on Tuesday, June 23, 2015 "This woman AMAZES me!" he wrote, celebrating how she works hard as a breastfeeding mom on the road with her touring husband and 5-month-old baby. "Through all the pain & soreness, frustrations, stress, etc. of trying to breast feed and pump, she gets up in the middle of the night to nurse a hungry baby." The dad went on to express his support for all breastfeeding moms. "They are making HUGE sacrifices to give our next generation the best possible start in life. And I get this much credit for washing a couple bottles?" he wrote. Moss even wrote a heartfelt response to commenters who said his words seemed indirectly disparaging to moms who aren't able to or choose not to breastfeed. "I didn’t realize that my words made it seem like mothers who don’t breast feed are some how 'less' of a mother, or don’t also make as great of a sacrifice for their children. It wasn’t my intention to do that, so I sincerely apologize if it came across that way," he wrote. "I salute ALL mothers, fathers, and anyone looking out for the best interest of children (and their fellow man/woman)." He said that while he and his wife chose to breastfeed their baby, "that in no way discounts the millions of women who either can’t or choose not to breastfeed" and added that "there are many more things that go into parenting then breastfeeding."
The head of the House science committee falsely claimed the National Science Foundation funds “more than twice as many graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences as in computer science, mathematics or material science.” In fact, 21.5 percent of the 22,821 graduate students funded by the NSF in 2015 were in math, computer science and material engineering, according to the latest data. That’s more than three times the number of psychology and social science students. Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, made his claim in a Nov. 30 op-ed, “Science That Leads,” published in the newspaper Roll Call. In his op-ed, Smith argues that, in order for U.S. scientists to “surpass their counterparts in China and other competing countries,” the NSF “needs to get its priorities straight” when it comes to what kind of research it funds. Smith claimed the NSF is funding too much “low priority” research in the social and behavioral sciences, including sociology and psychology, and not enough research in “fields most likely to yield scientific breakthroughs, technological innovation and economic growth,” such as computer science. To change this, he urged Congress to shift 10 percent to 20 percent of federal funding for social-behavioral research to “nonsocial research.” Smith has a right to view some scientific fields as more important than others, but he’s wrong about NSF funding for graduate students. The Hard Numbers on Grad Students When we emailed Smith’s office for support, spokesperson Thea McDonald told us that the chairman’s claim is supported by a “list of current and active Graduate Research Fellowships” that NSF provided to the committee in October. McDonald urged us to reach out to NSF for specific numbers, so we did. NSF spokesperson Aya Collins told us by email that Smith’s “statement is inaccurate as it only focuses on a single program at NSF: the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.” This “is only one of the means through which NSF funds graduate and undergraduate education,” Collins added. Let’s take a look at the numbers on NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program first. The program gives students $34,000 for living expenses and $12,000 for tuition, and provides them with other opportunities. Collins told us this program currently funds a total of 8,204 graduate fellows, with the life sciences and engineering making up the lion’s share at 2,310 and 1,972 students, respectively. The life sciences include fields such as genetics or neuroscience. When it comes to the fields Smith mentioned, this program currently funds 728 graduate students in the social sciences, 562 in psychology, 403 in computer science, 294 in the mathematical sciences and 187 in materials research. If psychology and the social sciences are grouped together, then the NSF does indeed fund more than twice as many students in the social and behavioral sciences compared with computer, materials or mathematical sciences — in this particular program. NSF Funding for Graduate Students in 2015 Field Number Percentage Sciences Life 2,561 11.2 Computer 3,227 14.1 Earth 1,507 6.6 Math 838 3.7 Physical 4,065 17.8 Social 804 3.5 Psychology 542 2.4 Other 678 3.0 Engineering Electrical 2,956 13.0 Chemical 1,019 4.5 Mechanical 1,392 6.1 Material 875 3.8 Civil 751 3.3 Biomedical 597 2.6 Other 1,009 4.4 Source: National Science Foundation But if we take a look at the NSF’s funding for graduate students across the agency, a different picture unfolds. Graduate students can get funding through multiple programs at NSF. For example, Collins highlighted the agency’s CyberCorps program, which provides scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students studying cybersecurity, an area of computer science. The most recent agencywide numbers on graduate students comes from 2015 (see chart on the left). In that year, the NSF funded a total of 22,821 graduate students. Of the fields that Smith highlighted in his op-ed, computer science had the most students – 3,227, or about 14.1 percent of the total students. Math and statistics students made up about 3.7 percent. The agencywide data doesn’t specifically delineate “material science” from other disciplines. But there is data on “metallurgical and materials engineering.” The NSF funded 875 graduate students in this field in 2015, or about 3.8 percent of the total. Psychology and social science students made up less than these fields in 2015 at about 2.4 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. Out of all fields, the NSF funded the most graduate students in the physical sciences, including physics and chemistry, at almost 18 percent of the total in 2015. Computer science came in second place. The NSF’s funding for all research, not just for graduate students, tells a similar story. Congress allocated about $6 billion to the NSF for “research and related activities” for fiscal year 2017, which ran from Oct. 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, 2017. Of that total amount, Collins told us the social, behavioral and economic sciences made up nearly $270 million. That’s compared with just over $935 million for computer and information science and engineering, and around $1.4 billion for the mathematical and physical sciences, she said. It’s worth mentioning, however, that Smith did correctly note in his op-ed that, according to TOP500, “China now has the world’s fastest supercomputer and has just passed the U.S. for the first time to lead the world in the number and total performance of supercomputers.” TOP500 is a project of the ISC Group based in Germany that ranks supercomputers across the world by their ability to solve linear equations, a simple example of which is 2x=1. The list is compiled by four computer science experts at the ISC Group, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and the University of Tennessee. In a November article, TOP500 notes that China overtook the U.S. in the total number of supercomputers “by a margin of 202 to 143.” That’s the most “supercomputers China has ever claimed on the TOP500 ranking, with the US presence shrinking to its lowest level since the list’s inception 25 years ago,” adds TOP500. So Smith’s argument that the U.S. is falling behind in computer science, at least in supercomputing, is backed by some evidence. But in supporting his argument, Smith falsely claimed that the NSF funds “more than twice as many graduate students in the social and behavioral sciences as in computer science, mathematics or material science.” Editor’s note: In the chart above, we grouped NSF’s data for “Biological sciences” and “Neuroscience and neurobiology” under “Life Sciences.” The number for “Other Sciences” comes from combining NSF’s data for “Agricultural sciences,” “Communication,” “Family and consumer sciences and human sciences,” “Multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies” and “Health.” The number for “Other Engineering” comes from adding “Aerospace engineering,” “Agricultural engineering,” “Architecture,” “Engineering science, mechanics, and physics,” “Industrial and manufacturing engineering,” “Mining engineering,” “Nuclear engineering,” “Petroleum engineering” and “Engineering nec.” SciCheck is made possible by a grant from the Stanton Foundation.
Given the wide variety of faith groups in the United States, it would seem natural that most Americans know someone of a religion different from their own. With that in mind, we recently asked members of the Pew Research Center’s new American Trends Panel whether they personally know members of other religious groups. We found that a big majority of Americans (87%) say they know someone who is Catholic – perhaps not surprising, given that as of 2012, 22% of U.S. adults were Catholic. Somewhat fewer Americans (70%) say they know an evangelical Christian, even though nearly a third of U.S. adults (32%) describe themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. The percentage of Americans who know members of smaller religious groups varies widely, with little apparent relation to the actual size of the group. For example, Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus each comprise about 1% or less of the U.S. population, but many more Americans say they know a Muslim (38%) than a Buddhist (23%) or a Hindu (22%). Atheists, Jews and Mormons each make up roughly 2% of the U.S. population, but a majority of Americans say they know someone who is Jewish (61%) or atheist (59%), while significantly fewer know a Mormon (44%). One possible explanation may be that the geographic distribution of a group matters as much as its size. A higher percentage of the population in the West – where Mormons and Buddhists are heavily concentrated – know a Mormon (68%) or a Buddhist (36%). Fully 70% of people in the Northeast know someone who is Jewish; not coincidentally, 43% of U.S. Jews live in the Northeast. All together, the average American personally knows members of at least four of the eight religious groups included in the survey. In general, whites tend to know people in more groups (four) than do blacks (three). And there is a gap between people with a college degree – who know, on average, members of five different religious groups – and those with only a high school diploma or less education, who know someone in an average of three groups. There is virtually no difference, however, between Republicans and Democrats on this measure (four groups each). We asked the same panel to rate each religious group on a “feeling thermometer” from 0 to 100, with a higher number indicating a warmer, more positive feeling toward that group. While it’s the first time we’ve asked such a question in that way, others – including professors David Campbell and Robert Putnam in their book “American Grace” – have conducted similar studies (with broadly similar results). In our panel’s answers, we noticed a pattern that holds across all religious groups: Americans who know a member of a group tend to rate that group more positively. For example, among those who know an atheist, the average rating of atheists is 50; among those who don’t know an atheist, it’s 29. And among those who know a Buddhist, the average rating of Buddhists is 70. The comparable rating by those who don’t know a Buddhist is 48. Overall, Americans express the warmest feelings toward Jews (average rating of 63), Catholics (62) and evangelical Christians (61). They are coolest toward atheists (41) and Muslims (40). Buddhists (53), Hindus (50) and Mormons (48) are in the middle. Topics: Catholics and Catholicism, Mormons and Mormonism, Jews and Judaism, Religiously Unaffiliated, Buddhists and Buddhism, Hindus and Hinduism, Religion and Society, Religious Beliefs and Practices
snuck.me is an open-source web service for querying an arbitrary site’s SSL certificate. A user can compare the results of this query with the certificate that her browser is reporting to help determine if there is a man in the middle: How it works snuck.me works by embedding a public key directly into the website’s source: < script src = "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jsencrypt/2.3.1/jsencrypt.min.js" integrity = "sha256-WgvkBqG9+UolqdFC1BJOPcy961WTzXj7C9I034ndc4k=" crossorigin = "anonymous" >< /script > const encrypt = new JSEncrypt (); encrypt . setPublicKey ( `-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- MIIBIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAsvcZU2It/Cjv12DcLUfE BXrm+DH2v4x+dyH45Rka95JIAMrmu4OdMjSQQbqhb2pYFVOpRfhUoCu50mOKrmGe f+ILjBnDtpyTpKf+9QsgmVSfeFnlf6Tew0qgKyUiO9E4cmm14BbqjJrYWGR/0Qas OSRAWX1SoVzho/sSMBwuadekdaC77Pfvk5uMJUkgck5BzQBLCuPXmLsDsNoAmGck cfTuEF+s2ae+PeHjhH6g2VaIgqVSaOTe3e2O8Dfukw8GQ5q03kmvA5N0sA+9kk07 ntve3xIBZOUpmB7xEHkG8hHjI6j3oVESo2/K764my0F3JZ9iVSH0jnVASQQ0nmAh HQIDAQAB -----END PUBLIC KEY-----` ); When the user wants to check a certificate, she generates a JSON payload to send to the snuck.me server. This payload contains the URL corresponding to the certificate that the user wants to retrieve, and a random 20 character password: const alphabet = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ' ; function randomString ( length ) { let result = '' ; for ( let i = length ; i > 0 ; -- i ) result += alphabet [ Math . floor ( Math . random () * alphabet . length )]; return result ; } let password = randomString ( 20 ); const optionsObj = { url : $ ( "#url" ). val (), password : password }; const options = JSON . stringify ( optionsObj ); All of this is done in the browser, i.e. on the user’s machine. The payload is encrypted using snuck.me’s public key: const options = JSON . stringify ( optionsObj ); const encryptedEncodedOptions = encrypt . encrypt ( options ). replace ( / \/ /g , "_" ). replace ( / \+ /g , "-" ); This payload is then sent to the remote snuck.me server for processing: // urlPrefix is set to a CORS-enabled Amazon API Gateway URL const url = urlPrefix + encryptedEncodedOptions ; $ . ajax ({ url : url , // ... ); snuck.me decrypts the payload using its (secret) private key. It queries the requested URL for certificate information, then uses the user provided password to encrypt the certificate using AES-256. This payload is sent back in the body of the HTTP response to the client. The client simply decrypts the results with the password it provided to snuck.me and displays the results: < script src = "https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/crypto-js/3.1.9-1/crypto-js.min.js" integrity = "sha256-u6BamZiW5tCemje2nrteKC2KoLIKX9lKPSpvCkOhamw=" crossorigin = "anonymous" >< /script > $ . ajax ({ url : url , success : function ( response ){ const plainbytes = CryptoJS . AES . decrypt ( response , password ); const plaintext = plainbytes . toString ( CryptoJS . enc . Utf8 ); const crt = JSON . parse ( plaintext ); // Render the certificate. }, error : function ( result ) { // Report issues to the user. } }); Server side You can set up your own snuck.me server very easily. Here’s a template for a node.js application: "use strict" ; const express = require ( "express" ); const app = express (); const NodeRSA = require ( "node-rsa" ); const sslCertificate = require ( 'get-ssl-certificate' ); const AES = require ( "crypto-js/aes" ); const cors = require ( 'cors' ); const corsOptions = { origin : 'https://your.domain.here' }; const rsa = new NodeRSA ( `-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- * YOUR_PRIVATE_KEY_HERE * -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----` , { encryptionScheme : 'pkcs1' }); app . get ( '/in/:opt' , cors ( corsOptions ), function ( req , res ){ try { const optionsJsonEncryptedEncoded = req . params . opt . replace ( / \_ /g , "/" ). replace ( / \- /g , "+" ); const optionsJsonEncoded = rsa . decrypt ( optionsJsonEncryptedEncoded , 'base64' ); const optionsJson = new Buffer ( optionsJsonEncoded , 'base64' ). toString (); const options = JSON . parse ( optionsJson ); const remoteUrl = options . url ; const password = options . password ; if ( ! password \|\| ! remoteUrl ) { throw new Error ( "Bad input" ); } sslCertificate . get ( remoteUrl ) . then ( function ( certificate ) { certificate . success = true ; certificate . message = `Found certificate for ${ remoteUrl } ` ; const plaintext = JSON . stringify ( certificate ); const ciphertext = AES . encrypt ( plaintext , password ). toString (); res . status ( 200 ). send ( ciphertext ); }). catch ( function ( reason ){ const plaintext = JSON . stringify ({ success : false , message : `Unable to find certificate for ${ remoteUrl } ` }); const ciphertext = AES . encrypt ( plaintext , password ). toString (); res . status ( 200 ). send ( ciphertext ); }); } catch ( ex ) { res . status ( 400 ). send (); } }); app . listen ( 8000 ); You’ll obviously want to copy the source from snuck.me and change urlPrefix to point to your server’s /in/ route: const urlPrefix = "https://my.domain.here/in/" const url = urlPrefix + encryptedEncodedOptions ; Then serve the snuck.me html from some route! Why does this work? This technique works because the man in the middle cannot modify your query. It is encrypted with snuck.me’s public key, and only snuck.me can decrypt it. Since the man in the middle cannot know the password you provided in your query, it cannot return bogus results to you by encrypting a spoofed response. If the man in the middle knows about snuck.me, he could modify snuck.me’s source. If you want to protect against this attack, you’ll need to verify the source out of band. One way to do this is to visit snuck.me from a known good location and hash the source. You can then hash the source of snuck.me in the at-risk setting and compare hashes. Of course, all bets are off if the man in the middle is also a man in your device. You should give up any expectations of privacy in this case. Example We’ll wrap this post up with an example where we inspect Google’s certificate with snuck.me using Firefox 51.0.1: Visit https://google.com. You should see the familiar SSL indicator: Click the lock: Click the right arrow to see additional information about the certificate: Click “More Information”: Click on the security tab, then “View Certificate”: Keep this open. Now visit snuck.me and query www.google.com : Compare the SHA1 Fingerprints of the results! If there’s a mismatch, you’ve probably got a man in the middle. Feedback Please email me (snuckme at lospi dot net) with any bugs!
Cognition for Autonomous Cars Using 6D Localization By Anuj Gupta, Product Mgt. — Sensor Fusion and Alexa Lee, Marketing Vehicle Cognition via 6D Localization To drive autonomously, vehicles need software which emulates the routines of natural human cognition (processes used to judge, plan, acquire knowledge, or otherwise — “think”). Autonomous vehicles must be able to understand the world that surrounds them, and this environmental context can be provided in the form of a machine-readable, high-definition “semantic map.” Detailed 3D semantic maps, also commonly known as “HD maps,” have become the industry-wide standard to enable higher cognition in self-driving cars and Civil Maps is trailblazing at the frontier of this emergent market. Even so, HD semantic maps are of little use to a vehicle without precise localization — the ability for an autonomous vehicle to accurately position itself within the reference map. Similar to yourself, while intending to go somewhere, an intelligent vehicle needs to know where it is currently located before it can design a route, and then follow its desired path. Moreover, while the new generation of highly-detailed 3D maps are far more comprehensive than traditional 2D mapping projections, they are not entirely sufficient for achieving Level Four (SAE) autonomous driving, wherein the human driver has no necessitated responsibilities towards vehicle control or route planning. Truly “self-driving cars” need much more, in the form of “cognitive tools” to aid in environmental awareness and decision-making. Civil Maps has addressed this knowledge gap by developing techniques for localizing a vehicle in six degrees of freedom: the movement axes (x, y, z) and also rotational axes (roll, pitch, yaw) that are more familiar to pilots than automotive enthusiasts. The above concept video shows the result of combining our highly detailed, 3D semantic map with localization in six degrees of freedom (“6DoF” also referred to as “6D”). Localization in 6D allows the 3D semantic map to be projected in the field of view of vision sensors such as LiDARs, cameras, and radars. By utilizing Civil Maps’ localization routines in this manner, the car is given an additional layer of assistive map information, enabling smarter decisions and safer driving. With both location and orientation in 6DoF, the vehicle can focus (foveate) its sensors towards a particular region in space, where a need-to-know action is occurring in the car’s local frame of reference and environment. Semantic Map being projected in the Field of View of Front Facing Camera using 6D Localization A natural question to ask: What happens when the car is not localized in 6DoF? Without 6DoF localization, the semantic map projections will not be accurately aligned with the physical objects that the car’s sensors are recording. A vehicle without six degree localization would be unable to accurately track its position, misjudging the precise location of expected signs, signals, and other roadway infrastructure. Additionally, the vehicle would only get a rough idea of its surroundings from the 3D map. Consequently, it would need to re-derive a semantic understanding of its surrounding and match that with the map for validation. This makes the ride less comfortable and reduces the safety envelope of the autonomous system. The results of faulty localization can range from disastrous consequences that may endanger human life to basic computational inefficiency, requiring a vehicle to do much more processing than necessary to assess its bearings and situational awareness. You may be wondering how well this all works in the real world at high speeds. In the video above, the team at Civil Maps is sharing footage of a recent localization and map usage demo shot in Plymouth, Michigan. Using sensor fusion and the Atlas DevKit, our demo vehicle is able to localize the car while driving at speeds approaching 70 mph on a major highway. The future is here and we all need to move fast to keep up! Follow our blog this summer as we release more about localization in 6DoF. P.S. We’re hiring! Don’t see your role there yet? Email: jobs@civilmaps.com.
Mark Perry is the author of Talking To Terrorists. His new book, The Pentagon Wars, will be published this coming year. For many of America’s senior military officers, retired Gen. John Allen’s speech endorsing Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention back in July 2016 was a kind of tipping point. Allen’s rousing address, coupled with one given by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for Donald Trump at the Republican convention, spread waves of discomfort through the U.S. officer corps, many of whose members thought Allen and Flynn had gone too far. “The military is not a political prize,” former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey wrote in a high-profile critique two days after Allen’s appearance. “Politicians should take the advice of military leaders but keep them off the stage.” The appearances by Allen and Flynn, and Dempsey’s letter, set off an under-the-radar debate about the proper role of retired military officers in American political life that has been deepened by President Donald Trump’s appointment of several former and current high-ranking officers to key policy positions in his administration. Far from being “off the stage,” the president has put the military front and center in his administration: retired Marine Gen. James Mattis heads up the Pentagon, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly is the White House chief of staff and Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (who is still in uniform) is Trump’s national security adviser, having replaced Flynn. Story Continued Below Richard Kohn, a respected expert on civilian-military relations at the University of North Carolina, points out that Trump’s critics have welcomed the appointments because Mattis, Kelly and McMaster are viewed as “the adults in the room” who can “can keep Trump on the right policy track, can kind of fence him in.” But, he warns, there’s a problem with that view. “We’re putting all three of them in an impossible squeeze,” he says. “By tradition and experience they are supposed to be subordinate, to follow orders, yet here we are hoping that they can somehow manipulate the president—to keep him from saying and doing things that he shouldn’t. Is that really what we want the military to do? It sets a bad precedent and it’s dangerous.” There’s one key constituency who agrees with that last thought: Former top military leaders, many of whom are deeply conflicted over the political role their colleagues are playing. Retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, who headed up the coalition fighting in Afghanistan, warns: “Civilians will now begin asking, ‘is the J.C.S. chairman a Democrat or Republican?’ and men and women in uniform will begin to wonder whether some day they can become the secretary of defense, or national security adviser.” But, like Kohn, Barno acknowledges the special expertise that people like Mattis bring to their job. “Given the nature of this president, we need people around him who know something about war and bloodshed,” he argues. “That’s nothing that Mr. Trump can get from his real estate or Wall Street friends. So that’s extremely valuable, especially now.” Barno’s recognition that our president needs the kind of guidance that can be provided by senior military officers who know war and bloodshed is repeated throughout the military—and on Capitol Hill. But it is balanced by growing worries that Mattis, Kelly and McMaster are most recently showing that military officers are ill-suited for positions that require years of nuanced political experience and a deft handling of public opinion. Each of the three were gifted combat officers: Mattis and Kelly were brilliant commanders during Operation Iraqi Freedom; McMaster is celebrated as a courageous tank commander during the first Gulf War. Now we are asking that these three show the same expertise they showed on the battlefields of Iraq in selling the budget of the largest institution of the U.S. government, defending a president who mishandled a phone call with a grieving wife and coordinating a complex and often balky national security bureaucracy. Perhaps we are expecting too much. Or perhaps Mattis, Kelly and McMaster are, to use a military phrase, “out of their lane.” Or perhaps they are in over their heads. The problem, it seems, is not Mattis, Kelly or McMaster—it’s Trump. “If the president were not such a polarizing figure these appointments wouldn’t be a problem,” Bryan McGrath, a naval war expert at the Hudson Institute, says. “I’ve never been a big fan of the ‘you’re always a soldier’ view of the world. No: You’re always a citizen. In many cases the generals and admirals have more experience on some issues than anyone else. Why would be deny ourselves the benefit of their wisdom?” But even for McGrath, there are nagging doubts. “It almost sounds like we expect these men to take on the role of the Turkish general staff—as guarantors of the secular constitution. I would hate to see that in the U.S., it would be absolutely deplorable, but you can see why such a thing might be possible, especially given a president who has only a passing familiarity with the First Amendment.” Not everyone in Washington feels this way. Kelly’s appearance last week in the White House briefing room, where he attacked a member of Congress for criticizing the president’s phone call with a Gold Star mother and suggested that the U.S. military was defending a morally bankrupt society that no longer deserved it, set off a round of criticism. “Kelly should be replaced by someone who actually understands democratic governance and can deliver bad news and honest criticism to the president,” the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote. “Congress should start by barring generals from acting in civilian capacities in the White House.” But the general consensus among D.C. elites seems to be that the generals are saving the republic from the president. Even Dempsey, who was so critical of Allen and Flynn for getting political, has begun taking careful shots at Trump on his Twitter account. We’ve been here before. Back in the 1960s, public fears were aroused by the widely accepted but misplaced view that the military might intervene to impose a more hard-line view on Cold War policies. Senior military officers were viewed as conservative, uncompromising and confrontational. The bestselling book and popular movie “Seven Days in May” posited a coup launched by a military establishment opposed to a president willing to negotiate an arms deal with the Soviets. Now, more than 50 years later, the shift is complete: Large segments of official Washington are convinced that the only thing that stands between “fire and fury” are two former and one currently serving senior military officer whose primary role is to provide adult counseling to a conservative, uncompromising and confrontational chief executive. Eliot Cohen, director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and a fierce critic of Trump, reflects these views. “I call it a ‘benign junta,’” he says. “In fact, we should be grateful that we have Mattis, McMaster and Kelly where they are.” But, like so many of his colleagues, he offers a cautionary note. “I suppose I am more conflicted than most,” he says, “because I know each of them and think highly of them. But this is a huge shift for them. They are now required to walk into the Oval Office and advise a president, which is a lot different than advising your commander in chief. And making that transition is not simply important. It’s crucial.” The deep discomfort with having generals in powerful policymaking positions roiled the military from the moment that retired Flynn and Allen took center stage at the Republican and Democratic conventions. It roils it still. Retired Admiral Michael Mullen, who remains one of the most respected Joint Chiefs chairmen in our history, dissected this controversy most recently during an address he gave on October 6 at the U.S. Naval Institute. “I have been in too many countries globally where the generals, if you will, gave great comfort to their citizens,” Mullen said. “That is not the United States of America.” Thankfully, very few in the military disagree with him, even if the positions that serving and retired military officers can and should fill has been stretched—perhaps to the breaking point. One thing seems certain: The long national debate touched off by Martin Dempsey’s warning back in July, is not only unresolved—it is only beginning. The final word comes from Cohen. “I don’t know how this ends, and I wouldn’t venture a prediction,” he says. “But I do know this. When Donald Trump calls Jim Mattis, John Kelly and H.R. McMaster ‘my generals,’ he’s dead wrong. They’re not his generals. They’re ours.”
From Katherine Heigl movies to the Great Potty Disparity, writer Jerry Mahoney calls out Mommification Nice try, New Yorker cover. Hey, can you tell me where to find that park where there are so many cool dads that moms feel left out, because I have a feeling you need to live in a cartoon in order to get there. I’ve been doing the stay-home dad thing for going on three years now, and I still feel like Marisa Tomei at Hillman College, if you know what I mean. According to the 2010 census, there are 154,000 stay-home dads in the U.S. 154,000? That’s not even a lot of people in Delaware. Isn’t that exactly the number of Wayans brothers? We couldn’t take over Lichtenstein with those numbers. You really think we’re taking over parks? Look, I’m not one to cry “oppression.” I’m a middle-class white male, after all. My kind have had it pretty good for the last few millennia or so. Yes, I’m also gay, but let’s put that aside for a minute. Other than that, I’m fairly demographically charmed. Still, I’m in a minority group because of what I do for a living, and as a result I face a particular kind of prejudice on a daily basis. That’s right. I’m talking about “Dadscrimination.” There may be more of us than there used to be, but in a lot of ways, the world still doesn’t get us. We’re second-class parents, a joke or an afterthought. Yo, it’s hard out here for a Daddy. From the serious to the semantic, here are just a few of the ways dads get the shaft: The Mommification of Everything Parent-Related You never see “Men at Work” signs anymore. It’s always “Crew Working In Trees”. We don’t call them “Policemen” or “Mailmen”, they’re “Officers” and “Postal workers.” But when it comes to parenting, everything’s “Mommy”. “Mommy movies”, “Mommy & Me” classes, “Mommy wars”, “Mommy Zumba”. It’s as if the M-word is synonymous with “parent”. No matter what barriers we break down in terms of gender inequality, inclusiveness goes out the window once you have kids. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free I’ll admit I’ve never been to a Mommy movie, mostly because neither my kids nor I are interested in a film whose title is preceded by the words “Katherine Heigl in…”. I did take a Mommy & Me class when my kids were young, although I think the kids and I all snuck in through the “Me” loophole. Some parenting groups won’t even allow men. I get it. Ladies want to talk about breastfeeding (and do it) in privacy. But until there are enough stay-home dads to sustain a decent-sized get-together, we don’t have a lot of places to turn for information. I’m going to vouch for straight dads, too. They’re not trying to look at your boobs. We’re all just doing it for our kids, so please let us crash your party. The Boob Tube If you’ve ever turned on TV between when school starts and the work day ends, you know it’s slim pickins for anyone with a moderate amount of testosterone in their system. Good thing we have Tivo, On Demand and Netflix Instant or we’d be stuck with nothing but endless infotainment featuring doctors, judges and chattering coffee-sippers sitting on stools. You Who says wiping poopy tushies is just a woman’s job? If dads aren’t changing their kids, they should be. know what I’m talking about: The “The” shows. “The View”, “The Talk”, “The Chew.” Yes, there’s really a show called “The Chew,” and if I didn’t love my kids so much, that alone would be reason enough to go back to work and throw them in day care. Of course, no one is blinder to the existence of stay-home dads than advertisers. Check the commercial breaks during those aforementioned shows, and you’ll see what I mean. Look, I buy the Lemon Pledge in my family. Would it kill you to show a dude dusting his fine wooden surfaces now and then? The Great Potty Disparity Nowhere is the disparity between dads and moms more obvious or extreme than in public restrooms. I’ve already written about one bad experience I had at a children’s play center, but it’s an ongoing concern. Too many businesses only put changing tables in the women’s bathrooms, which is not just dadscrimination but sexist, too. Who says wiping poopy tushies is just a woman’s job? If dads aren’t changing their kids, they should be. There’ve been times I’ve had to wait outside a women’s bathroom until the coast was clear so I could go in and change a diaper. Other times, I’ve had to lay my kid down on a scummy men’s room floor in the shadow of a urinal or take them back to my car just to get the job done. Perv stares at the park I don’t hover over my kids at the park, but I’m always watching them closely from afar, for two very important reasons: 1, so they don’t get seriously hurt and 2, so they’re not snatched up by a perv. We all know public recreation areas are pedophile smorgasbords, but here’s the irony: While I’m standing there by myself, eyes narrowly focused on a child who’s frolicking far off, then turning occasionally in a different direction to eyeball my other kid, what do I look like? That’s right… A LOUSY, STINKING PERV. Ask any dad, and he’ll tell you: In a Mommy’s world, you are assumed creepy until proven otherwise. Stay-home dads often fit the perv profile—middle-aged guys who look tired and unshaven, wearing yesterday’s Spaghetti-O-stained t-shirt and seeming as if they didn’t have time to take a shower that morning. We spend a lot of time at playgrounds and toy stores. And if you catch us in a moment when our kids aren’t eagerly tugging at our pant legs and begging us for some Dora the Explorer fruit snacks, we might look like we’re just there to case the joint. In researching this piece, I came across this post from Daddy Dialectic, who faced the ultimate indignity. Someone actually asked him to leave a park because she assumed he was a predator. He did a survey and found out it was more common than he thought. Having read that, I consider myself lucky that that’s never happened to me. When I get a perv stare, I’m always quick to establish contact with my kids, just to prove my credibility. Of course, that only works when your kids back you up. One time, while my daughter was throwing a tantrum at Target, she yelled out, “Where’s my Mommy?” That’s the only time that’s ever happened, but if the wrong person had been listening, I could’ve ended up in a one-on-one with store security. Thanks, kid. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free Mommy cliquishness I thought my days of feeling hopelessly uncool ended with high school, but that was before I tried striking up conversations with stay-home moms. Anywhere moms gather, dads are outcasts. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a Family Bathroom, because I know it’s well-equipped and Dad-friendly. I know a lot of small businesses don’t have the funds or the square footage to add a third bathroom, let alone one with curtain-shielded rocking chairs for discreet feeding. But at any public establishment that welcomes families, Koala Kares in the men’s room are a must, or personally, I’m going to find somewhere else to pump my kids full of chicken fingers. At least this is one area where gay dads have an edge. Once I out myself, moms tend to get friendlier. Maybe their real fear is that I’ll be some suave male homewrecker like Patrick Wilson in Little Children. I suspect it’s something deeper and darker. Most women just don’t respect men who stay home with their kids. They see other women raising kids and think, sure, she’s a traditionalist or a post-modern feminist proving she doesn’t need a career to be a strong woman. Go, sister! When they see a man raising kids, they think he’s lazy. They can’t help imagining his poor wife busting her ass trying to make partner while he stays home wearing flip-flops and eating Fritos on the couch. The presumption of cluelessness When Drew and I were exploring our parenting options, we saw a counselor to help us sort things out. She was smart, supportive and extremely helpful. She quickly became one of my favorite people I’ve ever met. Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free Then, after the kids were born, I lamented how hard it was sometimes to soothe them when they were crying. Our counselor just shrugged and said, “Well, you’re a dude.” I was stunned, but I’ve since realized that’s how a lot of people think. “That poor guy, alone with his kids. He must be in over his head.” Thanks, I’m doing fine, and you can spare me your advice, strangers. I prefer to screw my kids up my way, not yours. OK, fair enough. Moms get unsolicited advice, too, and they hate it just as much. Maybe this is one area where dads are catching up to moms faster than we’d like. I know dadscrimination isn’t the worst form of bias. Nobody’s making us sit in the back of any buses or denying us the right to vote. I won’t be leading any marches on Washington or trying to become daddyhood’s Malcolm X. Mostly, I just wanted a chance to vent. Aren’t dads allowed to complain once in a while, too? OK, gotta go. My kids are waking up. This article originally appeared on Mommy Man —Photo by rahuldlucca/Flickr
If you have suggestions for improvements in the R code, or you think you've found an error, please check the wiki and/or contact me The book is based on a class I taught several times at the University of Florida, covering the nitty-gritty of constructing and fitting simple (statistical) ecological models to real data sets. Here is the material for the labs I used in that class; more lab material can be found on the wiki, and I will be likely to update more of it there. (This material is slightly out of date; if you're teaching a course based on the book or otherwise interested, please bug me for updated versions!) Exercises: The PDF and HTML files are self-explanatory; XML may render math better in some browsers. The R files are raw R code (open them in a text editor), and the Rnw files are "Sweave files", a mixture of LaTeX and R code. You probably only want the Rnw files if you're planning on modifying the labs for your own use.
Callum Skinner has one gold in the team sprint and will win another medal in the individual event Scottish Olympians in Rio are celebrating the country's best ever medal haul from an overseas Games. Gold for cyclist Katie Archibald as part of Great Britain's women's team pursuit quartet and silver for swimmer Duncan Scott in the men's 4x100m medley relay on Saturday brought the Scots' medal tally to 10. That surpassed the previous best of eight from the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, and justified the pre-Games prediction of Mike Whittingham, performance director for national agency Sportscotland, that "we can get 10". Two more medals followed on Sunday when Andy Murray beat Juan Martin del Potro to retain his men's singles tennis title from 2012, and cyclist Callum Skinner took silver behind GB team-mate Jason Kenny in the men's sprint final. That brought the Scottish tally to 12, including four golds. One more medal in the final week of the Games would equal Scotland's best ever tally of 13 (including seven gold) that they contributed to Team GB's haul of 65 at London 2012. There are 50 Scots - the largest ever contingent in a Great Britain team for an overseas Olympics, surpassing the previous record of 31 in Beijing in 2008 - competing in 15 of the 42 sports in Rio. GOLD MEDALS Heather Stanning (Rowing, women's pair). Gordonstoun-educated Stanning, who lives in Lossiemouth, and partner Helen Glover were unbeaten in the women's pair since 2011, and led the final from start to finish to successfully defend their Olympic title. Media playback is not supported on this device Stanning and Glover win rowing gold Callum Skinner (Cycling, team sprint) Glasgow-born Skinner, 23, who started cycling at Meadowbank velodrome when his family moved to Edinburgh, was under pressure to justify his place in the men's sprint team but claimed a superb gold alongside Philip Hindes and Jason Kenny. Media playback is not supported on this device GB's men's team sprint wins gold for third successive Games Katie Archibald (Cycling, team pursuit) Archibald, 22, from Milngavie, near Glasgow, joined Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell-Shand and Elinor Barker to set a new world record as they beat the United States in the final. Media playback is not supported on this device GB smash world record (again) and win gold in women's team pursuit Andy Murray (Tennis, men's singles) The two-time Wimbledon champion, 29, completed another memorable double when he became the first tennis player to win two Olympic singles titles with a thrilling four-set victory over Argentine Juan Martin del Potro. Media playback is not supported on this device Magnificent Murray takes gold SILVER MEDALS Stephen Milne, Duncan Scott, Dan Wallace, Robbie Renwick (Swimming, 4 x 200m freestyle relay) Milne, 22, from the Perth City Swim Club, Edinburgh-born Wallace, 23, a member of the Warrender Baths Club, 19-year-old Scott and University of Stirling team-mate Renwick, 28 - who swam in the heat before James Guy took over for the final - finished strongly to claim silver behind the United States. Media playback is not supported on this device James Guy celebrates GB silver medal relay win David Florence (Canoeing - C2 double) Aberdonian Florence, 34, and partner Richard Hounslow had to settle for silver for the second successive Games in the canoe double, a third for Florence after a C1 silver in Beijing in 2008. Media playback is not supported on this device GB edged into Olympic canoe slalom silver Mark Bennett & Mark Robertson (Rugby sevens) Glasgow centre Bennett, 23, and Scotland sevens specialist Robertson, 31, both played key roles in a GB squad that squeezed past Japan and New Zealand in tense pool games before even tighter knock-out matches against Argentina and South Africa, only to be beaten 43-7 by favourites Fiji in the final. Media playback is not supported on this device Dominant Fiji crush GB to win sevens gold Katherine Grainger (Rowing, double sculls) Glasgow-born Grainger, 40, became Britain's most decorated female Olympian by winning a fourth Olympics silver medal with Victoria Thornley in the double sculls, four years after striking gold in London. Media playback is not supported on this device GB's Grainger and Thornley take double sculls silver Polly Swann & Karen Bennett (Rowing, women's eight) Edinburgh-born Bennett, 27, and 28-year-old Swann, raised and educated in the Scottish capital, helped Britain win a first Olympic medal in the women's eight, alongside Katie Greves, Melanie Wilson, Frances Houghton, Jessica Eddie, Olivia Carnegie-Brown and Zoe Lee. Media playback is not supported on this device GB's women's eight win historic silver Duncan Scott (Swimming, 4x100m medley relay) The Glasgow-born 19-year-old won his second silver of the Games, joining Adam Peaty, James Guy and Chris Walker-Hebborn in helping Britain to a sixth medal in the pool. Media playback is not supported on this device Gold for Phelps in Olympic swansong as Britain take silver Callum Skinner (Cycling, men's sprint) The 23-year-old, already dubbed 'the new Chris Hoy' in some quarters, cemented his burgeoning reputation by reaching the final of the individual sprint, having already won gold in the team event, but had to play second fiddle to more experienced GB team-mate Jason Kenny. Media playback is not supported on this device Kenny beats Skinner in Olympic final BRONZE MEDALS Sally Conway (Judo, women's -70kg) Conway, 29, who won bronze for Scotland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and trains at Judo Scotland's Edinburgh headquarters in Ratho, scored a single yuko to beat Austria's Bernadette Graf in the bronze medal match, after earlier beating world champion Gevrise Emane.
(Laurie McGinley/The Washington Post) This post has been updated. CHICAGO — With 38,000 oncologists converging on the sprawling McCormick Place for the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the halls in the convention center are as crowded as Manhattan sidewalks at Christmastime. Watch out or you'll get run over as attendees rush to the next meeting of the minds. The conference, which opened Friday and wraps up Tuesday, features hundreds of sessions and poster presentations ranging from the highly technical (“Predictive biomarkers of ipilimumab toxicity in metastatic melanoma”) to tips for everyday practice (“Patient communication: Balancing hope versus reality"). While most of the topics are as serious as, well, cancer, there are some lighter moments. Here's a look at a few things that have been getting play: Targeting the combinations: Efforts to harness the immune system to fight cancer have yielded some big successes, but only in a minority of patients. The way to get the therapies to work in more people, researchers now say, is to use them in combination with something else. That means putting two immunotherapy medications together, or trying them with targeted therapies or conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation. Those approaches have moved to center stage, though some researchers say they're a bit like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. 8-year-old Ava Christiansen has been battling cancer for half her life. Now a new specialized cancer treatment may be able to keep her in remission. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post) A new report by EP Vantage, a news service that covers the pharmaceuticals and biotech industries, counts 765 combination studies involving the most prominent kind of immunotherapy listed on the federal database ClinicalTrials.gov. That's more than triple the number 18 months ago. Merck's drug, Keytruda, leads the pack with a role in 268 combo studies. Roy Baynes, senior vice president and head of global clinical development at Merck Research Laboratories, is blunt about the state of knowledge: “We have no idea what the best combinations are,” he said. “Anyone who tells you that they do is fibbing.” Richard Pazdur, director of the Food and Drug Administration's Oncology Center of Excellence, said he's optimistic about the field. “They're trying everything under the sun, including chicken soup,” he said. A Windy City papered by drug ads: Pharmaceuticals ads decorate airport concourses, tucked between promotions for the Chicago Cubs and White Sox. They appear on huge downtown billboards, placards at bus stops and the little envelopes that hold hotel keys. And at hotels serving as “official” ASCO lodging, goody bags filled with drug-company pamphlets are delivered right to the doors of attendees who are checked in. The looming “new epidemic”: Partly because of the possibility of expensive combination therapies, many doctors are fretting about costs and whether their patients will be able to afford promising new drugs. Already, they say, "financial toxicity" is hitting some patients hard. “This is the new epidemic — people going under to pay for their drugs,” said Scott Ramsey, director of the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Ramsey supports a “pay-for-performance” model in which drug prices are reduced if the treatments aren't as effective as touted. Also, he said, “We've got to allow insurers to say no when the price is too high and the benefit is too small. Otherwise, I don't know how we'll put pressure on the drug companies.” Location, location, location — but maybe less for tumors: Recently, the FDA approved a Merck cancer drug for any type of malignancy, as long as the tumor tested positive for a specific genetic defect. At the meeting here, Loxo Oncology presented results that showed a drug called larotrectinib shrank tumors in 17 different cancers with a defect called a TRK fusion. The company plans to use the findings and other data to seek FDA approval for the therapy. If larotrectinib gets the nod, it will be another step toward basing treatments on genetic characteristics rather than the parts of the body where tumors originate. Hitting harder at advanced prostate cancer: The latest clinical trial results showed that adding a Johnson & Johnson drug called Zytiga, or abiraterone, to standard hormone therapy for men with newly diagnosed advanced prostate cancer reduced their chance of death by about 40 percent. “This will clearly result in the earlier use of abiraterone and should spur rapid FDA approval for this additional indication,” said Nancy Dawson, an oncologist at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center who was not involved in the research. The medication already is approved for men whose prostate cancer worsens during the standard hormone treatment. Lattes, cookies and pie pops: To lure doctors to their booths in the gigantic exhibit hall, pharmaceuticals companies have been offering free lattes and all kinds of snacks. Genentech hands out vanilla cookies with the company name emblazoned on the back in chocolate. Takeda Pharmaceuticals serves up Key lime pie pops, and AbbVie features “Madagascar vanilla bean mini cupcakes with vanilla butter cream icing,” according to the server there. A big splash out of China: The little-known Chinese company Nanjing Legend Biotech surprised conference attendees on Monday with eye-popping results involving an experimental immunotherapy for multiple myeloma. In an early-stage study by doctors at Xi’an Jiaotong University, all 35 patients responded to some extent to the CAR T-cell therapy. And of 19 patients who have been followed for more than four months, 14 are still in complete remission, and five have had at least a partial remission. "While it's still early, these data are a strong sign that CAR T-cell therapy can send multiple myeloma into remission," said Michael S. Sabel, a cancer surgeon at the University of Michigan who wasn’t involved in the study. “It's rare to see such high response rates, especially for a hard-to-treat cancer.” The treatment involves removing T cells from patients’ blood, genetically altering them to boost their cancer-fighting potential and infusing them back into the patients. About 30,000 people a year in the United States are diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells. Only half survive five years after being diagnosed. Encouragement from the “Emperor” author: In comments to reporters after his opening speech at the conference, Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of “The Emperor of All Maladies” and “The Gene,” struck an optimistic note. Cancer treatment is entering a promising, if challenging, adolescence, he said, and his fellow oncologists, after years of being hamstrung by a lack of technological tools and treatments, now have therapies to deploy in a “thoughtful, reasoned and compassionate way.” Always keep in mind, Mukherjee urged the physicians, “what it feels like to be a patient in this world.” Read more: 'This is not the end': Using immunotherapy and a genetic glitch to give patients hope Trump said he wanted miracle drugs. His budget might make funding them harder This cancer doctor is running for Congress. Here's why
Nvidia said Tuesday that it has hit a true milestone for portable gaming with its new GeForce GTX 980 laptop GPU—true 1:1 performance with its desktop counterpart. That’s right, there’s no ‘m.’ The new GPU is essentially the same as putting a desktop GeForce GTX 980 into a laptop. In fact, Nvidia said, the new laptop GPU is the exact same desktop chip. It has the same 2,048 CUDA cores, the same memory bandwidth, and the same 256-bit memory bus. With the laptop GeForce GTX 980, it says, a consumer can now buy a single-GPU laptop or desktop and get the same graphics performance. Why this matters: Never before has single-GPU performance ever been at parity between laptops and desktops. That meant consumers who needed to take their gaming on the go have always had to compromise. That era ends with the new GPU. Nvidia says it has essentially stuffed this GPU into a laptop. How Nvidia did it So how do you take a ginormous GPU like the desktop GeForce GTX 980 with its 165-watt thermals and power requirements and jam it into a laptop? Very carefully. Kaustubh Sanghani, a general manager with Nvidia, said to pull off such a feat, the chips are first sorted for power requirements. Known as “binning,” chips can be sorted like diamonds for certain characteristics. Sanghani said the chips with the best power characteristics make the GeForce GTX 980 what it is. You might think this approach means it’s a limited-edition vapor part that vanishes once the cream of the crop is exhausted, but Nvidia said it’s not. The company, in fact, is going out the gate with no fewer than six laptop models from partners including Aorus, Asus, Clevo, and MSI. Besides the binning, Sanghani said cramming a desktop GPU into a laptop also took an enormous amount of engineering to shrink down the board. One issue Nvidia said it had to solve was the trace routes, or the path of the wires that run between the GPU and the RAM. For the utmost in performance, graphics cards use very wide parallel memory buses, which means cramming identical-length wires into a tiny amount of space. This can lead lead to interference that can kill performance, but Sanghani said the new card can hit the same exact same memory bandwidth of the desktop card. When asked if the use of HBM memory would have been easier, Nvidia officials said this new GTX 980 hit the RAM speeds it needed to with what it has, and oh yeah, unlike HBM, you can actually get the GDDR5 used in the new GPU. AMD and its RAM partner SK Hynix have never commented on the yields of the new HBM memory, but there’s growing suspicion in the industry that the hard-to-get next-generation RAM could be holding back wider availability of AMD's new Fury lineup. It’s mostly an academic discussion anyway, as the GeForce GTX 980 was always designed for GDDR5. You want overclocking, you get overclocking Sanghani said the other engineering feat in the new GeForce GTX 980 is supplying enough power to run it. While the GeForce GTX 980m uses three-phase power, he said, the GeForce GTX 980 was designed to be built with four to eight phases. If you think of a phase as an individual channel, adding more phases generally means each channel has to work less, which in theory increases reliability and stability. With the new design, Sanghani said there's 50 percent more peak current available to the GPU than there is for the GeForce GTX 980m. Normally this wouldn’t matter that much, but Nvidia also intended for the new GPU to be very overclocker-friendly and overclocking usually requires access to a very clean, stable power source. Overclocking implementation can be decided by the notebook builder and will be dependent on the capabilities of the platform, but one demonstration showed the card running with about a 200MHz boost overclock. The same design flexibility goes for thermals. Nvidia didn’t release details of the thermal design profile of the new GPU, saying it’s dependent on the laptop design. Overclocking is unlocked on the new GeForce GTX 980 too. Well, except for voltage. VR capable, and surround gaming as well Nvidia said the new laptop GeForce GTX 980 is the first mobile GPU capable of running VR. The company demonstrated an Oculus Rift Crescent Bay running several games and demos. While you might think the tiny screen in a VR headset doesn’t require much graphics power, it actually needs more. Gaming on a standard two-megapixel, 1920x1080 monitor at 60 fps takes about 120 million pixels per second, Sanghani said. But gaming on, say, the HTC Vive requires the GPU to push 1680x1512 per eye and also run at 90 fps. That means the GPU now has to push about 450 million pixels per second. That’s something the GeForce GTX 980m can’t hack, but the new GeForce GX 980 can, the company says. For the record, the minimum GPU for the the Oculus Rift Crescent Bay is a GeForce GTX 970. (Correction: We originally misnamed the Oculus Rift version as DK2 rather than the Crescent Bay. PCWorld regrets the error.) Nvidia says the new laptop GeForce GTX 980 is the first GPU capable of supporting VR. While I can see someone hauling around a gaming laptop with a Crescent Bay, the second use case for all this power seems a little less likely. Surround gaming has been possible on a laptop for sometime, but Nvidia said the GeForce GTX 980 can now push it all in a single GPU. It showed off another Clevo unit running Project CARS on three 1920x1080 monitors in surround. A single laptop with a GeForce GTX 980 is shown here running Project CARS on three FHD monitors. This Clevo actually includes a desktop Skylake CPU. Read on to see the lineup of GeForce GTX 980 laptops and their performance.
A few weeks back in my "blow it up" piece I halfheartedly advocated for retaining Leslie Frazier. To be fair, I also wrote that piece after what I thought was going to be the worst loss I'd see this season- a squeaker against the Browns. Oh, those were the days. In that piece I did highlight that Frazier had some conditions to meet before he secured my invaluable support. One of them was to start using the talent he had rather than relegate stars to the second string while the ones who SHOULD be backups were starting. Well, to his credit he did do that. Of course some wonder if that was his call or Rick Spielman telling him "or else", but since we don't actually know I'll be generously optimistic and say it was Frazier. Caveat. I also said he needed to keep the locker room. I've always said that, to me, one of a head coach's top priorities should be keeping morale. And I thought he did a fine job of that in both 2012 and 2011. But what we saw on the field today, by a team that should have been uber-motivated to perform well in honor of Adrian Peterson's terrible loss, well... I just don't have the words. It was pointed out ad nauseum on the Twitter today that today's loss reeked of the spectacular failure that was the 2010 loss to Green Bay, which was also the straw on a very overloaded camel's back for Brad Childress. Even the score was hauntingly similar. Since it cost one bad HC his job, it went to figure that this loss would do the same for Frazier. And I'm for it, by the way. He's lost my support. For a guy who was a legit candidate for Coach of the Year last season, he has fallen FAR. Clearly, he benefitted as much from AD's super season as Childress had benefited from Favre's 2009 resurrection. Fortunately we didn't make the same mistake twice and extend a guy before he'd fully proven himself; unfortunately... we really can't fire him right now, either. See, who, exactly, are you going to get to replace him? Typically interim coaches are promoted within the staff. If the team would prefer to go with an "old hand" like John Gruden or Bill Cowher, or to turn to a college coach like, oh let's say Urban Meyers, then they do that in the offseason and return the interim guy to his original post. So... if we fire Frazier, who would our interim head coach be, exactly? Bill Musgrave is as useless as a wet rag. Alan Williams has successfully headed the worst defense I think I may have ever seen. Mike Priefer MAY be a halfway decent candidate, but I'm not fully sold on that. Maybe we could give Mike Singeltary another shot? Honestly, has anyone even seen that guy lately? And there's your conundrum. Frazier has absolutely coached his way out of his job at this point and should be fired by tomorrow morning. But... he won't, and he can't, because the ‘next guys up' are arguably even worse. So congrats Leslie Frazier, you've managed to keep your job by process of ‘being the least intolerable guy available'. Just make sure your office is ready to pack after Week 17.
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, opened the summit meeting with a speech calling for Arab leaders to reject the court’s action. “What is happening now with regards to Sudan is a new chapter in the chapters that consider the Arabs weak and disrespect the sovereignty of their countries,” he said. “As for their weak pretexts about fabricated crimes committed by Sudan, we can discuss it with them after they bring those who committed the atrocities and massacres in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq to the court implicated for the same crimes, but ones that are not fabricated, but rather proven with documents and incidents,” Mr. Assad added. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who also attended the conference, sharply criticized Mr. Bashir for expelling aid agencies in response to the court’s call for his arrest. “Relief efforts should not become politicized,” he said. “People in need must be helped, irrespective of political differences.” Photo There was also some criticism of the Arab League’s decision to welcome Mr. Bashir. Some critics said their leaders had embarrassed the Arab world and were supporting Mr. Bashir not on the strength of their convictions but from a sense of self-preservation. “The leaders’ position is their own self-defense, because they don’t want to open the door to an international tribunal of any kind that will open the file of any crimes they committed against humanity or against their own people,” said Saad al-Ajmi, a former Kuwaiti minister of information. “Most of those regimes are actually dictatorships, and most of them have their hands smeared with the blood of their own people.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story An independent group called the Doha Center for Media Freedom condemned Mr. Bashir’s participation in the summit meeting and said that it was hypocritical for Arabs to want Israel to be investigated for its actions in Gaza and then “complain about it if a friendly country is involved.” Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. When the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Mr. Bashir’s arrest, it charged that he played an “essential role” in the murder, rape, torture, pillage and displacement of large numbers of civilians in Darfur. The only Arab states to participate in the court are Jordan, Djibouti and the Comoros. The United States has also rejected participating in the court. The court’s action against Mr. Bashir came at a time of heightened tension among Arab states over how to respond to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and to relations with Iran. The defense of Mr. Bashir drew a rare consensus, even among those hostile to each other, like President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Qatar’s emir. Mr. Mubarak did not attend the summit meeting in Qatar, but he instead invited Mr. Bashir to visit Cairo before the conference. The Arab consensus on Mr. Bashir has partly been attributed to a feeling of resentment in a region that is still sensitive to what it views as Western colonial arrogance. “It is as if the court and those who support it think they have the power to appoint and fire presidents,” said Faisal Mekdad, the Syrian vice minister of foreign affairs, during a conversation on the side of the summit meeting in Doha, Qatar’s capital. Syria may have an additional motive for denouncing the arrest warrant, because its leadership is said to be concerned that the international investigation into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister may implicate or even indict high-ranking Syrian figures. Whatever the motives, the pro-Bashir stance is likely to play well with the Arab public, said Sarkis Naoum, a columnist for the Lebanese newspaper Al Nahar. “Arabs are happy to see their leaders facing up the Security Council or other international bodies,” Mr. Naoum said. “And this has become a tool for regimes to try to gain more legitimacy.” That certainly appeared to be the case for Mr. Bashir, who sat alongside other Arab leaders and delivered a rambling diatribe against the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council.
English translation of Gary Mickles article about the creation of the Esperanto workers movement and its guiding prinicples. The first remark many sceptics make about Esperanto is that it is not “useful” the way other, allegedly more “important” languages are. A politically left-leaning sceptic may wonder, if he or she learns of the existence of a worker’s Esperanto movement, what good it has ever been for workers, except possibly as a pastime. I will argue that Esperanto is more than that, and to that end I want to review a few of the reasons why progressive workers and others have chosen to learn and use Esperanto in the past and are still doing so. Workers have used Esperanto for practical reasons Esperanto – seen both as a language and a community of speakers – is basically a practical option for contacting people from other countries. It certainly isn’t the only one available, and the more options – languages and contacts – you have, the better. Despite its small number of users, Esperanto has some notable things going for it, one of them being that its speakers are to be found throughout the world and that they almost invariably enjoy having a wide variety of foreign contacts. Otherwise they wouldn’t have taken the trouble to learn it. Esperanto has been around since 1887, and it was in the first decade of the 20th century that increasing numbers of workers began to learn it and set up their own organizations that were independent of the bourgeois Esperanto movement that had coalesced a few years earlier. Around the same time Esperanto made its way to East Asia. The first to study it in China were anarchists who used it to contact European worker Esperantists. One of the motives for setting up a worldwide proletarian Esperanto organization in the 1920’s was that in the aftermath of the 1st World War, large numbers of mostly monolingual workers were actively seeking contact with fellow workers in other countries, and some of them found Esperanto to be the only language they could learn quickly and easily enough in their free time. The war had led them to conclude that the mutual isolation of the working classes of different countries had made it easier for the ruling class to manipulate them by means of nationalist ideology. It helped, of course, that there was at that time a large workers’ cultural movement associated with socialist, communist, anarchist and other leftist tendencies. It proved to be an ideal location for Esperanto activity. Communist parties, for example, promoted correspondence between workers in various countries, and Esperanto was used extensively for that purpose – before the era of Stalin, in which Esperantists were persecuted in the Soviet Union. The number of proletarian Esperantists grew quickly in the immediate aftermath of the war. Moreover, they were more loath than ever to organize within the established “politically neutral” (as it purported, and still purports, to be) Esperanto-movement. That movement had been deeply compromised in their eyes by the loyal support it had given to the war effort of various European nations. Some form of permanent workers’ Esperanto organization had become necessary. Globalisation from the bottom up The association they founded in 1921 was called Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda, or SAT (= World Anational Association). The name says something about its qualities. Though it was conceived as a proletarian class organization, it refused to narrow itself down politically. It therefore did not designate itself as “socialist” or anything of the kind. It was meant from the beginning to be a place where advocates of the widest range of left tendencies could engage in a free exchange of ideas. There was, however, a very pronounced ethos of antinationalism, which cut across tendencies. The founding group wanted to limit national influences so much that they went a step beyond internationalism by giving the association an “anational” structure and enshrining that principle in its name. Only Esperanto-speakers with sufficient linguistic proficiency were to be members – without the intermediary of national sections. SAT adopted the slogan: “Let members of SAT accustom themselves to extranational perception, thinking and activity”. In the same vein, the leading figure in SAT, Eŭgeno Lanti, said: “Intellectual contacts between proletarians of various countries in reality take place only through the medium of polyglot intellectuals. The activity of SAT, which aims to unite the working people of the world and bring them together directly, is revolutionary in its essence.” Quote: SAT was not meant to usurp the role of political parties by engaging in political struggles directly, but was to be a cultural association engaged in workers’ education – one that would help to break down national and ethnic barriers between workers by involving them in practical collective activity. The membership of SAT peaked in the late 1920’s at around 6000, and has since declined to a little over 700. The reasons for the decline are manifold and it would require a lengthy excursion into history to deal with them here. Suffice to say that most of them relate to the history of the community of Esperanto-speakers and the troubles of the political left in general, though some of them stem from SAT’s own difficulties in maintaining a left-wing and antinationalist profile that clearly sets it apart from the bourgeois Esperanto movement, whose increasingly culturalistic, identitarian and even nationalist discourses now pervade the whole Esperanto-speaking community and even crop up in SAT sometimes. One thing that has reduced public interest in Esperanto is the perception that English is now doing the trick and filling the role that was once foreseen for Esperanto. Although many leftists see it that way too, I think they would do well to take a closer look at the matter. Even in Western Europe, where English has long been the pre-eminent foreign language taught in schools, and where economic conditions and geography favour international contacts and travel, most people don’t leave school with enough English to use it effectively for political purposes or to become personally close to the people they use it with. Esperanto – regardless of whether it has any chance of being “introduced” worldwide – helps to make up for this. The bourgeois education system produces hordes of educational losers who have lost confidence in their own ability to learn foreign languages (among other things), and Esperanto helps some of them to regain the confidence that they actually can learn languages. Esperanto induces its users to cultivate a general interest in languages, since many of its speakers concern themselves with linguistics and the sociology and politics of language. The Esperanto-speaking community does more than any other group I know of to stimulate its members to learn other languages, including “exotic” or less frequently studied ones. It is a great place to acquire translation skills together with other people who are usually cooperative and friendly. It is also not a bad exercise for monolingual English speakers in particular to put themselves in the place of people who are not usually or ever able to use their native language for international communication. Using a language that belongs to all its users equally, while being the native language of only few, is a way to do that. Esperanto speakers promote an ethic of equitable linguistic communication, addressing an issue of worldwide social inequality that most people never think about. Esperantists have a tradition of providing hospitality to travelling Esperantists from other countries, something that a lot of people that don’t have wads of money to spend on vacation travel make abundant use of (both ways, as guest and host). For some people, this alone is sufficient reason to learn Esperanto. Undeniably, some Esperantists are zealots who would have people believe Esperanto to be a panacea for international strife, cultural imperialism or other ills, but the number of zealots is declining. Though it hasn’t reached the point of being a schism, Esperantists are presently tending to drift into two groups. One of them insists on maintaining the stance of a “movement” and will clutch at any straw in order to preserve the hope that Esperanto can one day become the international language. The “movement” tendency is, however, waning. Another group sees the language more as the basis for a “community” with a kind of alternative life-style. Seeing Esperanto described as a hobby still bothers some Esperantists, but I don’t think it should. On the contrary, hobbies and free-time activities should be looked at from a political angle. The anationalist current Hobby or not, Esperanto certainly has a political dimension. Worker Esperantists, especially those of the “anationalist” (antinationalist and universalistic) tendency in SAT, have long valued Esperanto for its capacity to inculcate in its working-class users a kind of practically oriented “proletarian cosmopolitanism” that takes them one step further away from the all-pervasive spirit of nationalism than internationalism does. What is objectionable about internationalism? Most of the time, nothing. For many people and in many places and circumstances, it is a step in the right direction – away from nationalism. From a consistently antinationalist perspective, however, one can have some legitimate reservations about the concept of internationalism: []Internationalism implies the existence of nations. Indeed, internationalists usually do not question the legitimacy of the national state as an institution. []Internationalism does not necessarily entail antinationalism. Internationalists often harbor nationalistic views on the naturalness and worthiness of nations and the permanence and primordiality of ethno-national identities. That is why nationalists can, and do sometimes, appear in the guise of “internationalists” when it suits their purposes to look a bit “progressive”. The traditional internationalism of the workers’ movement was in any case associated with a hierarchical form of organization that didn’t make much provision for transnational grass-roots contacts among workers, and that was what SAT sought to remedy by bringing workers from as many places as it could reach into direct contact with one another and freeing them from the mental shackles of nationalism. Its ideas, and especially the ideas of its anationalist faction, were an early statement of an idea that has more recently come to be known as “globalization from below”. Eŭgeno Lanti put it this way in one of his most well-known works, the Manifesto de la Sennaciistoj [Manifesto of the Anationalists]: “In a famous manifesto that appeared 83 years ago, the workers of all countries were called upon to unite. And to that end various Internationals have come into being, the leaders of which have more or less frequent dealings with one another, whether through correspondence or at congresses; most often through the agency of translators and interpreters. Generally speaking, the masses still are kept completely apart in national milieus and have no mutual contact – except on battlefields during terrible wars.” Quote: Anationalists – who, it must be stressed, constitute only one of several political platforms in SAT – called upon workers to refrain from any kind of national struggle and to devote themselves exclusively to class struggle. Although today the primacy of class struggle is held to question by some in SAT, the current relevance of Lanti’s warning against “national struggle” becomes apparent when one considers how often advocacy of identitarian and ethnicistic causes still hides behind a smokescreen of “antiimperialism” and “self-determination” in order to lure leftists. The bourgeois Esperanto movement is a prime example of what Lanti railed against. Large sections of it now recklessly support “ethnism”, pan-European nationalism, language purism and like causes. Using Esperanto today One of the ideas that has traditionally prevailed in SAT and that is now arguably obsolete is the idea of Esperanto becoming the universally recognized international language. Members of SAT originally shared with the bourgeois Esperanto movement the conviction that Esperanto had a good chance of “winning” the race to become the world’s main medium of communication. Today it would seem more prudent to treat Esperanto as a tool to promote bilingualism and multilingualism, as well as to encourage the underprivileged to adopt a more cosmopolitan outlook and life-style, than to make a dogma of the eventual triumph of Esperanto over other languages, with which it is perceived to be in competition. Opinions about this vary quite a bit both in SAT and in other parts of the Esperanto-speaking community. SAT was in any case not founded to directly promote the worldwide introduction of Esperanto. The fundamental aim of SAT, as formulated in its statute, is as pertinent today as it was in the 1920’s, when it was written: “In short, the long-term goal of SAT is to promote by means of worldwide use of a rationally planned language the development of rationally thinking intellects capable of comparing, understanding correctly and evaluating ideas, theses and tendencies, and which are therefore also capable of selecting independently the path that they consider to be the most direct or expedient, in order to free their class and conduct humanity to as high a stage of civilisation and culture as possible.” Quote: Article originally published in the Internet pages of the Free Esperanto League for German Language Regions
Engineer in train disaster was texting on duty: NTSB Agence France-Presse Published: Thursday September 18, 2008 Print This Email This The engineer of a train involved in a rail crash that left 25 people dead was sending text messages on his mobile phone during working hours, authorities said Thursday. Local television CBS2 earlier reported two 14-year-old boys reported having exchanged messages with the conductor in the moments leading up to the accident -- an allegation officials said they would probe. The National Transportation Safety Board in Washington said Thursday that "records ... indicate that the engineer had sent and received text messages on the day of the accident, including some while he was on duty. "The Safety Board will correlate those records with other investigative information to determine as precisely as possible the exact times of those messages in relation to the engineer's operation of his train," it added, pledging to provide updates on the investigation as it progresses. One of the victim's families lodged a civil suit against the conductor's employer, Metrolink, after the local television channel reported that the conductor may have been text messaging when he missed the stop signal. The deadly collision Friday in Chatsworth, north of Los Angeles, also injured 134 people and was the worst train accident in the United States in some 15 years. Saturday, a Metrolink spokeswoman admitted that the conductor's error had caused the crash. But on Monday, Metrolink board chairman Ron Roberts said that assertion was "premature," and the spokeswoman, Denise Tyrell, resigned. The commuter railway resumed service Monday in parts of the suburban line affected by the crash. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa rode the first train between Chatsworth and Los Angeles to reassure riders of its safety. (Note: Original AFP version confused engineer, conductor)
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Some of the passengers onboard took video footage of what it was like inside the Air India plane Passengers were stranded on a plane on the tarmac at Gatwick Airport for more than eight hours after fog caused their flight to be diverted. The Air India flight was on its way from Mumbai to Heathrow Airport when the weather conditions forced it to divert to Gatwick at about 08:00 BST. It resumed its journey at 17:00 BST, arriving at Heathrow 20 minutes later. A spokesman for the Sussex airport said the airline had to wait for a crew before it could complete its journey. Sussex Police were called to the flight to prevent a breach of the peace as tempers among passengers flared. 'No food' A BBC World Service reporter on board said the mood on the plane became heated. Rahul Joglekar said he did not know why the passengers were prevented from disembarking the aircraft. Air India was unavailable for comment. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Rahul Joglekar, on board the stranded plane, said "tempers are running high" One passenger, Mark Shorey, said passengers were given a note of apology by the airline when they got off the plane at Heathrow, but that he was not satisfied with the response. He said: "I'm angry at just being in the dark and we still are. I don't really understand what happened today." Mr Shorey said: "I don't understand why we were diverted then not allowed to leave. I felt I was already home, I was in London, I didn't mind the extra hassle of coming from Gatwick into London." Jas Johal, who was also on the plane, said: "There were promises of food and refreshments on board. Everyone was very hungry. There was no sign of any food. I myself asked them several times, then they brought out some more crisps and Coke." He added: "By this time, after almost eight hours without any food, people were willing to lose their calmness." 'Quite restless' Passenger Victoria Denham said she would be complaining to the airline and seeking compensation for the delay. Miss Denham, from Rotherham, said that when they landed at 0810 BST they were told they were just waiting for the fog to clear. More announcements followed saying the fog had not cleared to regulation levels, she said. "People started to get quite restless and talk to staff at the airplane door," she said. But Miss Denham added: "There were rumours flying around the whole cabin but I have to admit people were calm and anti-confrontational."
By now, it’s undeniable: America’s frustration with political elites is upending party loyalty. And now, this phenomenon is taking on global proportions. According to a recent poll, nearly half of Bernie Sanders’s supporters will not vote for Hillary Clinton, while 22 percent are backing Donald Trump. “I’m a registered Democrat,” one respondent explained, “but I cannot bring myself to vote for another establishment politician like Hillary.” Based on media coverage, it’s easy to label this distaste purely domestic. However, from the U.K.’s “Brexit” referendum to political movements in France, Italy, and the republic of Georgia, voters have been rising up against an out-of-touch, technocratic elite. In each of these cases, political insiders have responded with doomsday predictions. Voting against the establishment, they argue, will lead to a swift collapse of our most precious institutions. The anti-establishment movement is not devoid of risk, but when the status quo is failing, it must be challenged. Embracing these protest movements as opportunities to enact reform is the only way our institutions can endure. However distinct they may be, the Western world’s growing anti-establishment movements carry a remarkably consistent message. Namely, that our political institutions too often favor a small class of privileged elites, at the expense of average citizens. For Americans, this view is most evident in Trump’s unlikely rise to the GOP nomination. His signature proposals, after all, reject the establishment belief in increased trade and immigration as unalloyed economic goods. Similarly, Sanders’s electoral success was based mainly on his willingness to admit the inadequacies of our current economic model. Both campaigns tapped into the scathing anger of a U.S. middle class that hasn’t seen family income growth in 20 years. Look overseas, however, and you’ll see the same complaints being lodged by citizens throughout Europe. The U.K.’s decision to exit the European Union last month was the most pronounced expression of anti-establishment discontent to date. The so-called Brexit vote reflected festering economic frustrations. According to two leading labor economists, anti-EU sentiment reigned in areas that have recently lacked wage growth. As Nigel Farage, former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, put it, “Brexit” supporters, “rejected the multinationals, they rejected the merchant banks, they rejected big politics and they said actually, we want our country back, we want our fishing waters back, we want our borders back.” In the end, more than 53 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU. And they did so despite global pleas from everybody from President Obama, to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, to Prime Minister David Cameron that doing so would wreck the political establishment. In France, meanwhile, the steady rise of Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front party, reflects the same growing impatience with the political status quo. Capitalizing on an unemployment rate that’s hovered above 9 percent since the ’80s, Le Pen has long campaigned on a message of stricter immigration laws and Euroskepticism. She has emerged in recent weeks as the leader in France’s 2017 presidential polls. Italy’s anti-establishment party, the Five Star Movement, is also making enormous gains. Started by comedian Beppe Grillo, the party opposes both globalization and EU membership. According to three new polls [July 6], M5S is now Italy’s most popular political party. And in the distant Caucuses, the republic of Georgia, where nearly 70 percent of the population claims unemployment, famous opera singer Paata Burchuladze has embarked on a campaign to be the country’s next prime minister. With an endorsement from United States, the newly-established State for the People party aims to “completely change the paradigm of the relations between the people and the state.” As he sees it, Georgia’s political class, specifically the Georgian Dream party, has failed to serve the interests of average people. He’s tapped into something powerful by challenging leadership that has been accused of imprisoning political foes and attempting to free political prisoners involved in terror acts. While the policy proposals of each of these movements may vary significantly, the grievances animating these campaigns are broadly similar. Voters are making a deliberate decision to reject an elite ruling class in favor of political outsiders more attuned to the concerns of ordinary citizens. Far from a threat to the neo-liberal order, these insurgencies may be the key to retaining the integrity of our political systems. Yuri Vanetik is a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute and serves on the national board of Gen Next and the Gen Next Foundation.
Photo credit: Today's Video Another one bites the dust in the fake news media today as the BBC ‘Planet Earth’ series producer was filmed by innocent drivers being assaulted by his antics in what appears to be road rage. Apparently this wildlife producer and director for the popular BBC series, Fergus Beetle, thinks he's above the law as he goes on a trade against a family after he gets out of his car on the M27 near Portsmouth, Hampshire. The man can be seen forcing the victim's doors open and screaming profanities at the couple, in which he refuses to get out of their faces holding the driver's door open. Little did he know the passenger had a camera going the entire time. At one point he tells the couple after they say that they're calling police that ‘he is the police’, which is impersonating a police officer, a very serious criminal offense. The driver of the car while trying to call police gets out of the car as the man berates him, at one point slapping the phone out of the man's hand. Hopefully this will result in criminal charges as well as the producers termination from the BBC. BBC has yet to issue a statement on this breaking news. Source: http://breaking911.com/prepare-die-bbc-producer-shown-unhinged-road-rage-rant-nsfw/
Thinking about camping for your most awaited summer holidays but worried about the dog? Today, I will discuss 7 tips to enjoy camping with your dog. Some key things should be remembered to take your dog with you for camping. Mostly you need to think about your dog’s physical fitness, safety and security. 1. Before camping your pet needs a physical check-up Consulting a Specialist: Consult with your nearest veterinarian for both physical and behavioral checkup to determine if your dog completely fits to join with you. Let your veterinarian know about the camping location and make sure that your dog has all vaccinations up to date. Flea and tick preventive medicines can be applied during the physical checkup. You can also make a name tag for your dog. The tag should include: dog’s name, your name, home address and phone number. Grooming Your Dog : You also need to groom your dog properly before camping. For grooming you need to use: shampoo, towel, conditioner, scissors/ clippers, brush, etc. You need to learn about your dog’s behavior about grooming. Some dogs like to be brushed but not nail trimming. You need to do the thing last that your dog dislikes. Brushing can be done once in a week (for short haired dogs) or everyday (for long haired dogs). Make sure that grooming sessions are fun and enjoyable for your dog. At first, just take 5-10 minutes for grooming. Make it a regular basis to adjust it with your dog’s behavior. Use better tools for proper grooming of your dog. 2. Finding a suitable camping site It’s important to research a little before selecting a camping site. For example, you choose a site which doesn’t allow pets. After traveling a far distance, this can be really embarrassing!!! So you should do a little research about the campsite before starting your journey. Also, you need to find the environments and weather forecasts of the selected area. This research can save you a lot of problems that can come into your way. You need to check about leash laws because some campsites only allow restrained pets in their area. 3. Things to pack up You need to pack a lot of things for camping with your dog. Things that you can’t miss while packing: Durable collar with ID tag. Long leash for walking your dog Plenty of food and water (you need to carry some extra) Special food for special treat Brush and other grooming tools Collar with glowing lights for night walking Sweater for cold weather Smell proof poop container 4. Special training for camping At the campsite, there will be other campers. You need to train your dog good behavior not to disturb fellow camper’s peace. You need to train your dog for good campsite etiquette. You need to use voice command a lot for keeping your dog outside of your fellow campers. Pay attention to your dog closely so that it stays with you most of the time. Train your dog to follow you properly. Whoa, come, leave it- these basic training should be done properly to avoid further troubles 5. Security for your dog The most important tip is here!!! Security should be given as the top most priority during your whole trip. Security measures to follow: Strong collar with long leash Waterproof collar Don’t let your dog to roam freely Tie your dog when you are not around Boundary training is essential to keep your dog safe Collar with micro chip can be used for tracking For complete safety, you can use wireless portable dog fence 6. Watch out for potential dangers If your campsite is near to a forest or waterfall, you need to watch out for potential dangers. Nature is unpredictable so as the accidents. You may like to camp in cold weather. In that case, prepare for weather related health issues. Always bring regular medicines and consult a specialist for additional help. Take preventive measures according to your campsite location. 7. First aid box A good first aid box is an essential part of your camping. There are certain things for dogs especially and not for you!!! That’s why; you need to carry an additional first aid box for your dog. You can make a box yourself or you can buy online first aid boxes. An ideal first aid box for your dog should include medicines for pain and infections, bandages, foot balm and septic powder to stop bleeding. Conclusion Camping with your dog can be a lot of fun and a good trip to remember as well!!! Just follow all the points discussed here. Specially look for safety measures. Give your dog a good playtime within nature and have fun!!! About the Author: Jennifer Scott is a Blogger and writer from Florida. She Loves Pet very much and also writing. She also loves to travels a lot with her family. Now she is writing for Presidentpet. Check out her latest writing on dog fence.
some_array.any? { \|n\| n > 100 } !!some_array.detect { \|n\| n > 100 } The Ruby Way is the perfect second Ruby book for serious programmers. The Ruby Way contains more than four hundred examples explaining how to do everything from distribute Ruby with Rinda to functional programming techniques. do_something() if some_array.detect { \|n\| n > 100 } Compare and contrast:And:Which do you think is easier to read?Are classes and modules easier to read and understand when they have lots and lots of specific methods like #any? or are they easier to read and understand with a small number of axiomatic methods that can be composed and combined like #fold and #unfold? When you design a module or class, do you write lots of convenience methods in advance? Or do you refactor code by writing convenience methods when you find yourself repeating the same code?If you do refactor code to eliminate duplication, is there an amount of duplication that is too small to matter, like "!!"? Or is there an underlying principle of documenting intent that you wish to make explicit?Is:Misleading because it doesn’t actually use the element it detects? Or is it a reasonable idiom to test for an element’s existence without using a specific method like #any or #nil?Are applications easier to read and understand when they make use of lots and lots of specific methods like #any or are they easier to read and understand when they compose and combine a smaller number of axiomatic methods so that you aren’t constantly looking things up?Do you think applications should have large or small vocabularies?This example can be easily translated to the language du jour, the underlying principle applies to programming in general
The group Anonymous, known for staging web attacks on PayPal and MasterCard in support of Wikileaks, has called for volunteers to stage a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against web sites run by the Egyptian government. The group's Facebook page, called Operation Egypt carries messages about the Egyptian protests, and also a picture of a recruiting poster with an IRC channel as well as a care package to download. The rest of the page has news and updates from Egyptian and foreign sources. Clicking on the info page leads to a site that says it is AnonOps, a group that was formed from within the collective that launched the attacks on PayPal. However, they say they did not attack any web sites. Meanwhile the group has asked, via the IRC chat rooms, that users access a web-based version of a program called Low Orbit Ion Cannon or download it, according to reports from netcraft.com, which publishes news on online security. The software stages DDoS attacks and was originally written as a stress-testing application. The sites slated for attack, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the Ministry of the Interior appear to be up and running, so if a DDoS attack was staged it hasn't been effective. The Internet has been an arena for conflict during the protests, as Twitter reported that it has been blocked in that country.
Liz Phair Is Recording a Double Album with Ryan Adams Published Jan 13, 2017 Unreal. 5 songs in 1 day. All analog. Back to those sounds & that rawness I first heard on Exile. @PhizLair is an American treasure pic.twitter.com/TcY5Snu0Rv — Ryan Adams (@TheRyanAdams) January 13, 2017 The worlds of alt-rock and alt-country are colliding in a studio in Los Angeles right now. Ryan Adams and Liz Phair are currently holed up in the former's Pax-AM Studios in Los Angeles, working on the latter's new double album.Adams broke the news on Twitter, sharing photos of the recording sessions and giving a brief update on the impending album. Work on the double-LP began yesterday (January 12), and the pair laid down five tracks in a day. Producer Don Was was also present for the session.Adams noted that the five new songs were recorded "all analog," and he used Phair's 1993 debut Exile in Guyville to describe the sound multiple times. He tweeted that she was getting "back to those sounds & that rawness I first heard on Exile," and even used the hashtag #ExileInPaxAmVille.See some photographic evidence of the collaboration below, and stay tuned for full details on the project.Phair's last album was the independently released Funstyle back in 2010. Adams, meanwhile, is set to release his latest solo LP Prisoner on February 17.
The recent conversation surrounding the Confederate flag has inspired some anti-gay pundits to call for the removal of the rainbow flag, traditionally understood as a symbol for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. After photos emerged of Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who murdered nine black congregants in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, posing with the Confederate flag, many are calling for the removal of the flag due to its symbolism for white supremacy. Anti-gay pundits are now attempting to co-opt the important conversation in favor of hateful rhetoric, calling for the removal of LGBT flags. According to Right Wing Watch, Brian Fischer, the notoriously anti-gay radio host, broached the subject on his show Tuesday. “If we are going to remove symbols of oppression from our culture, if we come to the point where we say any flag that represents bigotry, any flag that represents hatred, any flag that represents slavery or oppression needs to be removed, then I want to suggest to you that the next flag to go ought to be the rainbow flag of the Gay Reich," Fischer stated. “The rainbow flag represents the gay lobby, it represents Big Gay, it represents what I’m calling for the first time today, I’m introducing a new term: the Gay Reich. They’ve got a flag just like the Nazis had their flag.” More from Fischer can be heard in the video above. Columnist John Nolte echoed Fischer's sentiments, writing a piece titled “Take Down The Fascist, Anti-Christian Gay-Pride Flag“ and later tweeting about his perspective. The Big Gay Hate Machine flies a Big Gay Hate Flag.#TakeDownTheFascistGayPrideFlag https://t.co/TdQWIyHG52 — 'Sources Say' is Greek for 'Fake News' (@NolteNC) June 24, 2015 A number of businesses have responded to public outrage over the Confederate flag debate. Six companies, including Walmat and Amazon, have banned the sale of Confederate flags as of Wednesday morning.
A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas, killed as many as 15 people and injured 160 others late Wednesday. Here are some relevant emergency resources: -to check on injured residents admitted to Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, call (254) 202-1100 -for family inquiries about patients at Scott & White, call (888) 394-4947 -family inquiries about patients at Providence Health Center should call (254) 761-7200 -Carter Blood Care Center will accept donations beginning at 9 a.m. Thursday in Waco. Find more locations here. -First Baptist Church of Lott ((254) 829-2321) has room for anyone needing a place to stay -American Red Cross crews from across Texas were sent to the site of an explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco where multiple injuries have been reported; To donate blood – find a location near you. Both Peas & Tots and Smarty Pants consignment stores in Waco are accepting clothing donations in all sizes for those in West Evacuation Locations - Valley Mills Nursing Home has rooms available for nursing home residents if placement is needed for any of the West Nursing home residents. Call (254) 932-6288. - Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish at 219 W. Magnolia Street, Penelope, TX 76676 can handle 100 families. - Ben's Boat Repair in Elm Mott has space avaliable for pets and a few people, 435 S. McLennan Loop, (254) 716-9593 - First Baptist Church of Lott has room for anyone needing a place to stay. Call (254) 829-2321. (KWTX News 10) - Blair's Cove Apts in Waco is offering housing to any resident affected by #Westexplosion 2425 S. 21 Street (254) 447-0810 - Evacuees were told to go to the Community Center in Abbott, Texas, about five miles north of West, Texas. - Church of the Open Door will be opened for survivors. They are located off of exit 339 in Bellmead. (News Channel 25) - Home Depot in Bellmead is open all night for assistance. (News Channel 25) - All Gholson ISD schools have been opened to be used as shelters. - Penelope High School has been opened for survivors. - Central United Methodist Church - Texas State Technical State College in Waco - Latham Springs Camp and Retreat Center (254) 694-3689 - Aquilla ISD - Alliance Auto Auction on I-35 - Sykora Family Ford in West - Gholson Baptist Church - La Vega Veterinary Clinic - taking in small animals for the night - Pharmacy at HEB Store on Woodway - Antioch Community church at 501 North 20th Street in Waco Click for more emergency information.

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